By Francis Moran
Canada lost one of its most populist and colourful political characters last week when former Alberta premier and Calgary mayor Ralph Klein died. There are a number of marketing lessons, both salutary and otherwise, to be drawn from the exploits of this seemingly simple man whose shoot-from-the-lip approach and unrivalled common touch made him an object of both admiration and scorn.
However, today I’m going to riff on just one of his more quotable quotes because it applies so very well to the doomed approach too many technology companies take with their belief that market traction and sustainable revenue growth can be achieved through a series of low-cost incremental steps.
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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 July 2008. We welcome your feedback.
By Leo Valiquette
In my years as a journalist I endured my fair share of embarrassing gaffes, both my own and those of my staff (which I was often on the hook to explain, apologize for and redress.)
Despite the emphasis on clean, factual and reliable content, the occasional mistake is made in the newspaper business. Nobody’s perfect and the strain of rushing to meet a deadline can easily lead one to skip out on taking the time to check the facts through a second time.
Of course, it’s difficult to feel all that sympathetic about the plight of harried reporters when it’s your good name that’s attached to the error. Maybe they called your CEO Rob when his name is Rod. Or said your flagship product is still in trials when it has been commercially available for six months. There are the little things that don’t matter so much, such as whether your company was founded in 1989 or 1990, or the big whammies that can land you in a lawsuit — like that defamatory off-the-cuff remark that was never intended to be on the record.
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By Leo Valiquette
March break aside, we kept up the pace last month with a great lineup of content that featured some excellent posts from our guest bloggers. Hot topics included opportunities in the global smart TV market, criteria for hiring a worthy writer and the risks and rewards of having a product that is truly unique in the marketplace.
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
March 20: Calling Canada’s startups: There’s a $200B TV market ripe for the taking, by Jason Flick
March 19: Is that writer worth the cost of the ink?, by Leo Valiquette
March 26: The ballad of the undifferentiated product, by Francis Moran
March 27: The ‘Accelerator Bubble’ will pop, but not for the reason you think it will, by Jesse Rodgers
March 25: Three (not so) simple strategies to avoid ‘losing the plot’ in marketing, by Rob Woyzbun
March 07: Oracles, shamans and storytellers, by Bob Bailly
March 13: It’s still rock and roll to me, by Francis Moran
March 21: Best of: My three buckets of customer segmentation, by Francis Moran
March 06: You can’t rely on the channel to grow sales in new markets, by Jeff Campbell
March 11: Drafting your own patent disclosure document, by David French
March 12: Don’t give your customers reasons to ask for apologies, by Leo Valiquette
March 18: Some dos and don’ts of governance, by Denzil Doyle
March 14: Before you jump on the content-marketing bandwagon …, by Leo Valiquette
March 05: From courting Hollywood’s A-list to navigating the Chinese New Year, by Leo Valiquette and John Hill
Image: March2013CalendarPrintable.com
By Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Marketing Tech Blog, Duct Tape Marketing, Ventureburn and StartupNorth.
Better ingredients. Better pizza. Better social strategy
Pizza Hut misses an opportunity to address its customer complaints using social media and as a result, puts a bad taste in Douglas Karr’s mouth. This short case study compares two companies, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s, and illustrates why one succeeds over the other.
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By Jesse Rodgers
The incubator/accelerator market has a growing number of people watching and waiting for its bubble to pop. The reasons cited for this looming pop should be obvious: most accelerators aren’t going to perform as well as some TechStars programs and not even close to Y Combinator. Poor performance (measured in the number of short-term wins) along with the short-term nature of the funding behind most of the accelerator programs will cause them to run out of money and simply fade into startup history.
But that won’t pop the bubble.
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The ballad of the undifferentiated product
March 26, 2013 by Francis Moran
I’ve been doing a lot of work with clients lately on refining their messaging and marketplace differentiation. It has always been clear to me that this is not a trivial thing […]
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Three (not so) simple strategies to avoid ‘losing the plot’ in marketing
March 25, 2013 by Rob Woyzbun
In today’s hyper-paced marketing and advertising world, it’s easy for marketing management to “lose the plot” related to the purpose of the firm, the understanding of the customers it serves, and finally the profitable creation, production and delivery of products and services […]
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Great articles roundup: The mission question, content marketing, motivation, innovation, Starbucks’ epic fail
March 22, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are copyblogger and Read Write Web and three great articles from Fast Company […]
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Best of: My three buckets of customer segmentation
March 21, 2013 by Francis Moran
Marketers are well familiar with the concept of segmenting their marketplace. Segmentation is the process of dividing a broad and undifferentiated set of consumers into ever-smaller segments until you have identified that group of potential customers that is the best match possible for your product or service […]
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Calling Canada’s startups: There’s a $200B TV market ripe for the taking
March 20, 2013 by Jason Flick
We made a very happy discovery this year at Mobile World Congress (MCW) and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES): There’s a $200-billion market out there for the taking. A market in which almost every customer is unhappy with dated products and overall experience, but expected to tolerate regular price increases […]
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Is that writer worth the cost of the ink?
March 19, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
When I worked in the newspaper business, there was a screening practice for job applicants that I wholeheartedly embraced – giving the strongest prospects freelance assignments on tight deadlines. There is no better way to gauge someone’s abilities […]
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Some dos and don’ts of governance
March 18, 2013 by Denzil Doyle
In my last article I wrote about the role that a board of directors can play in the success or failure of a company and how to go about recruiting one. In this article, I will give an example of a board model that shareholders […]
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Great articles roundup: Product-Market Fit, fundraising, content marketing, mentorship and social media
March 15, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Version One Ventures, Ventureburn, MarketingProfs, Techvibes and SmartBlog on Social Media […]
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The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]