5 things Santa can teach you about marketing

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | December 21st, 2009

As the year winds down for most of us, one man is busily preparing for a monumental event – flying all around the world to deliver toys to all the good boys and girls on Christmas Eve. In the spirit of the season, we’re going to look at what Santa Claus can teach us about marketing, so kick back and enjoy a nice glass of egg nog while you learn from a Christmas icon known throughout the world.

Thorough planning and preparation can produce amazing results

To most kids, a large part of the excitement of Christmas is getting up early to find stacks of presents sitting under the tree and tucked in their stockings. While they all know the story about Santa and his reindeer flying around the world to deliver toys to boys and girls everywhere, few give a second…

Cyber Monday, the holiday season and what you need to be doing right now!

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | November 30th, 2009

Ahh…the holidays are upon us yet again. Thanksgiving has already come and gone, and many of us (fortunately, not me) have endured the unending lines and frenzied crowds to be a part of the insane Black Friday tradition. Now, as we jump knee-deep into Cyber Monday, many businesses are beginning to wind down for the year. But instead of a relaxing (or stressing out over holiday preparations), you should be using the next thirty days to build up a competitive advantage and set the stage for a record year in 2010!

While your competitors are content to simply wait for Santa Clause to climb down their chimneys, you can leverage your reduced workload to develop your own products to sell. You may have already thought about this a long time ago, but gave in to your own excuses. Stop that and get started! Each product…

When the truth hurts…

Posted by Wildfire Marketing Group | November 18th, 2009

There’s a map for that, and now, there’s a lawsuit too.

AT&T has recently filed a lawsuit against Verizon for their ‘There’s a Map for That’ ad campaign. AT&T is claiming that the ads are “misleading” customers and causing the loss of “incalculable market share.” AT&T isn’t claiming that the information related to 3G coverage is wrong. Instead, they imply that customers who view the ads aren’t smart enough to understand that it’s only referring to 3G coverage, and not coverage in general.

The lawsuit will most likely backfire though, because it’s drawing more attention to the ad campaign and the weaknesses of AT&T’s 3G network. Exactly the opposite effect AT&T was looking for.

In a world where a phone is expected to do much more than just make calls, a significant difference in 3G coverage can be a…

Sell what scales

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | November 11th, 2009

Selling a service can be great because it doesn’t require you to produce anything up-front, but the downside is that it doesn’t scale. There are only 24 hours in the day and your revenue is limited by how many of them you can work.

Selling a product, on the other hand, means that once you’ve produced it, you can continue selling it forever. The advantage here is that you can sell your product online 24/7 while you focus on developing new products to sell. Over time, you will start to see exponential growth because each new product creates a new revenue stream.

You may think that you just don’t have the time to create your own products. You’re wrong. Even if you only spend 30 minutes each day creating your own products, that adds up to 10 hours each month. That’s plenty of time to package your…

You’ll never convince everyone!

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | October 27th, 2009

At least once each week, I talk to someone who tells me that their company produces something that everyone needs. Men, women, young, old, it doesn’t matter, everyone in the world is their ideal customer.

The thing is, they are wrong. There is no one thing that everyone needs.

Worse than being wrong, they are setting themselves up for failure. By convincing themselves that everyone needs what they’re offering, they end up burning out because it takes significantly more effort to convert their prospects into customers. It can be tempting to look at larger segments of the population as your target market, but it all comes down to one thing; conversions. Would you rather spend your time trying to convince 1,000 people who are slightly interested in what you have and converting 50 of them, or trying to convince 100 people who are…