Posts by Steven Donaldson
Listening to Customers, Fake Friends, and Consumer Behavior
Listen and Learn: What Are Your Customers Thinking? If you don’t listen to your customers — really know them and understand them — you can’t build a valued relationship. Many brands wrongly believe that selling consists mostly of pitching a product, a solution, or an idea. In fact, the most important part of selling is listening to…
Read MoreThe Challenges of Email Marketing – And Why It’s Important
Email marketing, as we all know, is often perceived as an obnoxious intrusion of useless and repetitive sales pitches. However, when it’s done right it has value and is a fantastic way to build trust and connection with clients, potential customers, and valued partners. The key is continually providing value and meaning. The overwhelming experience of…
Read MoreConnections
Building Brand Value is Really About What Sticks. How do you stay connected? How do you really break through the noise? The associations we have and how we make them come to us emotionally and personally through binding experiences that connect us. In this overwhelming world of social media from all corners of the universe,…
Read MoreUber experience, Cirque Du Soleil’s comeback, how GM invents targeted advertising in 1922
Using behavioral science to remove friction from the Uber customer experience. Can behavioral science powered by insights into the customer journey improve the brand experience? Uber thinks so. They focused their efforts on removing friction from the customer journey — you know, those places in the transaction process that confuse, don’t go right, and…
Read MoreA Different Kind of Brand Guide For Startups
Having advised early-stage startups at the UC Berkeley SkyDeck and worked with mid-stage series C round funded companies, I’ve seen a wide range of business models with amazing ideas. Some take off others do not. The challenges are many and they really test your focus and commitment. Here are some thoughts that might be helpful…
Read MoreTraction
The value of engagement is in staying connected. No, traction is not the treads on your tires or the treads on the bottom of your hiking boots. In the start-up, world traction means the success you’ve seen so far or the proof you have that demonstrates to customers the value and unique solution you have that solves…
Read MoreRadiant Insights: Millennial Housing, Experience-Retail and B2B Marketing
Marketing Apartments to Millennials — Social Media, Fitness Centers and A Dog Wash. Lifestyle and Housing for Millennials is Online, Social and Connected As one of the largest living generations in America, millennials have come of age and officially proven themselves a force to be dealt with just about everything. Born sometime in the early…
Read MorePermits, Approvals? Forget it! Give Me Chaos!
The lawless and creative world of restaurant owners and retail rogues. An amazing and positive change that the pandemic gave us was innovative outdoor retail. Communities across the country found that the best way to support struggling restaurants, bars, and experience-based retailers was to let the business owners do what they wanted. Yes, forget the…
Read MoreDoing Things vs. Knowing Things
Orchestrating many specialists is always possible, but what’s your strategy? Where Are You Going? Expertise in doing things should not be underestimated in the creative/marketing world. Having the best “doers” is very useful and often essential: the expert WordPress person, that excellent Photoshop editor who can make all the photos look great, copywriters who grind out…
Read MoreHumans need stories. Good brand marketing gives them meaning.
We all remember stories. We invent stories. We have to explain why. Some scientists say that humans are different from all other primates because we need explanations, reasons — the why?— to understand the meaning of what happens in our world. We primates live in a way of seeing our past and future; the stories…
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