mike brewer

A truly memorable ad

The essence of any business

In sales, the chief aim is to make a friend. People are more apt to make a purchase from a friend or someone they trust as opposed to a stranger or someone one who presses their own agenda.

I'll be rethinking my marketing material this week asking the question, "Would a prospect want to be friends with me?" "Am I compelling?"

Seth Godin speaks to this point with a short and powerful graphic. Click Here

 

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The finer art of fine print

Seth's post about The fine print is a good read and I post it more for the solution it provided me than the bigger point he makes about style and design.

I recently had the same problem Seth did but I gave up in a fit of frustration. Thanks Seth for pointing out where those crucial pieces of information are.

Purpose mistakes

Seth writes about a marketer's worst nightmare. I wonder if the mistake was made on purpose. I mean look at all the free publicity being created because of the mistake.

The Number 1 thing to sell

Seth Godin has written a great post asking what you would sell to a prospect if you had one hour to do it.

My answer is (ideally) not one thing. I would want to spend that hour focused on building a relationship. If I were forced to answer this question by providing one thing, I would say selling myself as I think all sales are predicated on a person liking and trusting you.

Plan B

“The most successful people are those who are good at  ‘plan B’.”

—James Yorke, mathematician, on chaos
theory in The New Scientist

Creativity: Wide Open

“The Creative Age is a wide-open game.” 

—Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class

Embrace the Weird

Business Week: Jon's article on Advertising in 07' is on point. The three keys to approaching it are listed below but the article is great...Enjoy!

ONE: BIG MARKETERS HAVE TO RELAX about getting weird. Video ads that get the biggest online bang are those that elicit a simple three-word reaction: "What the hell?" I do not posit this approach as the be-all and end-all of Web creativity.

TWO: MARKETERS MUST BE PUT AT EASE in places where consumers run a little more free than they do in, say, a car showroom. Volvo has sponsored a kind of best-of feature called "What's Your Story?" on Microsoft's (MSFT )x MSN Spaces blog network since 2005.

THREE: MORE AND BETTER TARGETING. A marketer's fantasy about a site like MySpace isn't reaching its massive audience but identifying and targeting a few thousand highly influential or relevant members.

Would you buy it?

Seth Godin post's "The T-shirt Rule" suggesting you would buy it if you had an remarkable experience. The T-shirt, the snow-globe or the hat! It doesn't really matter if you loved the experience you want something to remember it by.

I would argue that it really depends on the price of the shirt. hehe

Creativity; you either have it or you have access to it!

Human creativity is the ultimate economic resource.”   —Richard Florida,
The Rise of the Creative Class