Video is such an important element of any marketing strategy because it gives marketers the power to show, instead of tell. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? Here are 4 Tips to Successful Video Marketing: 1. Create Great Content The first step in successful video marketing… More »
New FDA Social Media Guidance Means Marketers Must Skip Twitter
The FDA recently released two draft guidance documents on the use of social media platforms by drug and device manufacturers. Guidance on the inclusion of risk and benefit information is one of the most important pieces to come out of the documents. The draft states that the character limitation on certain social media platforms does… More »
The Tale of Two Products: Why Knowing Your Customers is Job #1
During my recent family summer vacation, I ran across two very different consumer packaged goods (CPG) summer promotions, one a very effective marketing strategy and execution and one I’m quite sure will not drive significant results. As a tech marketer, I have deep respect for my CPG colleagues because they have access to huge amounts of… More »
Gray Hat SEO: 4 Ways to Bend the Rules
As the color suggests, gray hat SEO is defined as white hat tactics plus a few tactics that bend the search engines’ rules a bit. Some SEO professionals believe that there is actually no such thing as 100% pure white hat SEO, but instead only gray and black hat. Gray hat SEO’s main benefit is… More »
White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO: 6 Ways to Keep Your Site from Being Blacklisted
First of all, SEO professionals do not wear colored hats. The term’s origins come from the Westerns, in which the hero wears a white hat and the villain wears a black hat. The term “hat” is used in both the SEO industry and hacker community. In the SEO industry hat refers to the types of… More »
April Fool’s Day Fun: A Spoof on Advertising Videos
Happy April Fool’s Day! In honor of today’s silliness, we’ll share a fantastic spoof on the now classic advertising video. Oh, it hurts to say that we’ve been guilty of pulling many of these stock images to represent certain ideas, concepts or evoke certain feelings. But we have, and I know every marketer has at… More »
The Journey Is the Destination: A Case Study of a “Typical” Design Process
The design process is capricious. One of our latest projects is a classic example of this. Here’s how it’s gone so far: We promise the client two designs for the project. Round 1: We bring three designs to the client (after about seven went through internal review and four failed …). Client can’t decide between… More »
Are Tradeshows Still Valid? 22 Ways to Make Sure Your Next One Is
A client recently asked me a great question: “Are tradeshows still valid anymore?” When clients ask questions like this, it shows me they are open to the possibility that marketing tactics have changed (yes) and that some of the oldies still work (yes). Despite the general mood, tradeshows and other event marketing tactics are still… More »
Using Logo Design as a Strategic Communication Tool to Drive Results
Logo design needs to drive results. The logo is an integral part of the brand. It is the public face of the brand every minute of every day. It needs to be working hard every minute to support your overall communication objectives and support the message you want in the marketplace. There are tons of… More »
Top 5 Web Design Trends for 2014
It’s that time of year. Prediction articles abound. Saw one set of web design predictions recently that I really liked because I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how web design is changing. Again. Here are my top five predictions for what I think are the most important web design trends, and how I see… More »
Six Essential Questions to Ask When Naming a New Initiative
One of the first steps toward launching a new initiative is to figure out a name. This can be a daunting task as there are many horror stories of naming or renaming initiatives gone wrong. In June 2011, for example, Overstock.com renamed itself as O.co. According to www.ragan.com, “Only three months later the company returned… More »
How to Launch a Logo Design Right: Take a Cue from Cadillac
Cadillac launched its new logo design at the 2014 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), the first new logo in 14 years. They dropped the “crest” as it had “become dated.” The new logo is describe by Cadillac as having a “jewel-like” quality to it and a sleeker, more modern edge to it. Not only… More »
Google Acquisition of Nest: Stepping into the Smart Home Revolution
Google has just acquired Nest for $3.2B. That’s a lot of cash for a smart thermostat company, even if it may be an entry into the growing smart home market. I first heard about Nest, when I talked with Trae Vasallo earlier this year. They have been doing an absolutely fantastic job with their design… More »
Twelve Days of Social Media: The ThinkResults Cheat Sheet
In the spirit of the upcoming holidays, we offer this gift to you. This is the cheat sheet we use when posting social media material to make sure we’ve covered everything in those 140-character to 2000-character posts. We thought it might be helpful for you as well. Also be sure to check out the social… More »
Seven Tips and Tools to Make Corporate Blogging Easy and Effective
Everyone knows how important blogging is these days and if you have a corporate blog, you know it’s a hungry bird that needs a lot of filling. You also know how important it is to have that content be optimized so search engines will find your great content. So what’s your corporate blogging plan? Here… More »
Why Content Marketing Is Like an Oatmeal Cookie Recipe, Part II
The Silicon Valley Brand Forum (led by our very own Kevin Heney) was held October 22, 2013 at the Google campus in Mountain View, CA. The theme of this Forum was Aligning Content Strategy with Brand Strategy, a very hot topic right now. In the prior post, I talked about how Quaker oats and other consumer… More »
Why Content Marketing Is Like an Oatmeal Cookie Recipe, Part I
As I was emptying out the end of the massive Costco package of oatmeal into our oatmeal container (yes, honey – we did use it all!), I noticed the famous Quaker Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe on the bottom of the box. My next thought was that I should make some of those cookies soon…. More »
Tips from the Trenches: Trae Vasallo on Launching Well
Last week I shared some of the details of my interview Trae Vasallo, General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). As I mentioned, I wanted to get her perspective both on coaching women (and btw, the tips are applicable to men as well!) and launching great technology companies. We talked for a while… More »