Just a lot of running around but as the man says, “It’s all good”. We made our own beer this weekend, did Cinqo de Mayo, I ran a ton of errands and have been trying to get iTunes to like the Marketing Over Coffee feed, but it’s just not happening yet.
Tons of news in the latest M Show, it ended up running 20 minutes, like an old Marvel “Double Size Spectacular!”, which is why I am out of time and going to bed. More serious stuff as the work week begins.
Ole!
This was a revelation I had this week. For small group of companies the brand name is more important than the people working there. The McDonald’s hamburg needs no human next to it, nor does a Firestone tire, Starbucks, or Neiman Marcus.
The majority of businesses do not have name brand recognition. As a result, blogging is more important for these organizations. The brand is not symbol for these companies, it is an unknown. For these companies their people do stand for something and do have name recognition. Notice how the organizations that make these transformations may still have a person buried in the core of the brand (or perhaps not so buried in the case of one “Big Bill” Gates). Ray Kroc, The Colonel, Berry Gordy. Many small organizations are afraid to give their employees a voice on a company blog – there’s unused potential there.
On an unrealated sidenote – in my teens I lived to find obscure 80’s dance remixes. If you share this affliction here’s a link to nirvana.
Ok, I said I was going to stop complaining about being sick and I am. But I still need more sleep than usual even though I’m feeling 100%.
I notice that many marketing blogs focus on the communications and PR side but this week I was thinking more about Product Marketing. This is the art of making sure that people want to buy your stuff BEFORE you design, build and advertise it. This is the most strategic element of marketing because it can make your job much simpler later on in the cycle, and more importantly – make life easier for the sales guys. And everyone knows life always seems better at a company with happy sales people.
Rather than reinvent the wheel though, I can just point you to Pragmatic Marketing if you want to learn more. Every product manager I know has a copy of their diagram printed up somewhere. I’ve never even been to one of there sessions but the diagram is so good that I’ve used it in presentations – just fill in the blanks with your own campaigns and you at least have some kind of plan.
Good news – Marketing Over Coffee is rolling another episode tomorrow!
addendum -Â sorry this is late, I wrote this last night and in my half sleep state forgot to post it.