By Bob Bailly
As a self professed science nerd my study of choice over the last decade has been neuroscience, so much so that I’ve built a consulting practice centered on a notion that we can improve our selling success by incorporating its scientific findings.
This field of study has been called neuromarketing, but others, like Robert Schiller, have also linked these concepts to their own fields of interest. He writes:
“Neuroscience – the science of how the brain, that physical organ inside one’s head, really works – is beginning to change the way we think about how people make decisions. These findings will inevitably change the way we think about how economies function. In short, we are at the dawn of ‘neuroeconomics.’
“Efforts to link neuroscience to economics have occurred mostly in just the last few years, and the growth of neuroeconomics is still in its early stages. But its nascence follows a pattern: revolutions in science tend to come from completely unexpected places. A field of science can turn barren if no fundamentally new approaches to research are on the horizon. Scholars can become so trapped in their methods – in the language and assumptions of the accepted approach to their discipline – that their research becomes repetitive or trivial.”
Whether you feel neuromarketing, neuroeconomic or even neuropolitical thought is appropriate, here are some ideas you might want consider if you’re in the business of selling technological products or services.
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By Hailley Griffis
The great article roundup this week focuses on excellent content marketing posts, as well as a hint of what the future will bring. Forbes, ClickThrough and Search Engine Watch touch on content marketing, some intriguing case studies, the importance of storytelling, and the quantity vs. quality debate. Finally, a futuristic piece on SocialMediaExaminer looks at six of the biggest marketing trends to watch for in 2013 and why they are so important.
Content marketing: A playbook
Christa Carone offers takeaways from big brands that are really succeeding with content marketing. Some of the key elements she writes about are knowing the purpose of your content marketing, as well as making sure that the content is relevant. She stresses the importance of setting expectations and changing your angle if you aren’t reaching them.
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By Francis Moran
If “new and improved” is supposed to be the most potent statement in marketing, then I have high hopes for the newly designed website you are now reading.
If you are a long-time reader, you will know that this blog had its origins almost six years ago, when the bulk of my time was spent managing the technology PR agency, inmedia Public Relations, that I had founded a decade earlier. A few years ago, I started a transition away from an agency model and back to my roots as a marketing strategist. Although inmedia persists and continues to have some great clients, I now spend most of time working hands on with smaller and startup B2B technology companies that know they need the marketing strategy piece but don’t have either the resources or the requirement for a full-time VP of marketing.
The model I set out to develop was a virtual one wherein we are able to bring to the table exactly the marketing resources a young company requires in exactly the right amount and at exactly the right time. In support of that, we re-striped the inmedia blog about two years ago under the name of the new venture, Francis Moran and Associates, and widened our scope of our writing to cover the whole spectrum of bringing technology to market, from hard-core marketing issues like positioning and social media to adjacent issues like financing, government support programs and the health of the whole commercialization ecosystem in our three key operating areas of Canada, the United States and Britain.
You really seem to like what we have done. Traffic levels have seen consistent growth. We have attracted contributors of a calibre far higher than anything we anticipated at the outset. And the blog has created an international footprint for my personal brand that could not have been achieved any other way.
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from May 2009. We welcome your feedback.
By Francis Moran
I was interviewed a few weeks back by the Ottawa Business Journal for a piece on marketing through a downturn. While a good bit of what I had to say did make it into the article, I thought it would be useful to expand on my thinking here. So, here are my 10 tips for marketing through a downturn.
1. Do as much marketing as you can afford
We’ve written a lot about the merit of maintaining your marketing spend through an economic downturn. There is still business to be written, markets to be taken and customers to be won. And a downturn, when many of your competitors may well be going quiet, often represents an unprecedented opportunity to grab a much larger share of voice.
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By Hailley Griffis
This week’s great article roundup is all about our bread and butter — marketing. From LinkedIn marketing and marketing strategy, to email marketing and content creation. Business Insider, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com and Social Media Today all give excellent tips and tricks. Enjoy.
How to use LinkedIn to boost marketing and increase sales
Business Insider explains just how powerful LinkedIn can be. With more than 225 million professionals worldwide using it, it is the hub for professionals to network and share online. Business Insider states that 24 per cent of salespeople increase their sales when they start using social media. Organizations can show off their expertise on LinkedIn and use company profiles and groups to build an influential presence.
Creating a successful marketing strategy
Andrew Klausner talks about the importance of a robust marketing strategy. Although many companies operate off of referrals, if ever the referrals slow down, they need to have a strategy in place to pick up sales. But you cannot simply decide to market one day, and stop the next. Klausner points out some key elements to a successful strategy, including being realistic and consistent over time.
10 questions to ask when choosing an email marketing service
Email marketing is still in full swing, having grown exponentially since 2009. It is now responsible for 7.5 per cent of new customers, according to recent stats. There are so many email marketing services out there, Kim Lachance Shandrow outlines some important things to first look over before deciding on one. She highlights setting goals, determining costs, picking a design and deciding on platforms, among others.
5 key elements of viral content
Mark Smiciklas knows that every marketer dreams of having their content shared like wildfire. He shares an infographic that reveals the secret sauce for making content viral. The infographic looks at elements like scarcity, share buttons, skim-ability, practical utility and consistency. One interesting fact is that the average user consumes only about 20 per cent of the content on a web page.
By Bob Bailly
