Startups
Not knowing the future is a way to invent what’s next
And then there was COVID… It’s March 2020: suddenly restaurants, bars, and schools are closed. When COVID hit and began to have global impacts, everyone was forced, location by location, nation by nation, to face a new reality. How and what we purchased changed overnight. Remember the toilet paper shortages (I still wonder why that…
Read MoreDo you really know me?
Personas: They are customers and individuals with their own motivations. What’s my biggest problem? What do I need to deal with to make my job easier? Does someone understand what I need to get done? Can you say one thing to me that lets me know you’ll solve my problems? In the B2B world, the…
Read MoreStaying Connected – Eight Ways to Improve B2B Email Marketing
1- Know your recipients. Why are you sending emails to your core group? This is the biggest and most important question to ask yourself and your digital marketing team. Who’s on our list, for what reason and why do we know them? The “they” is all about people with titles and decision-making power, or at…
Read MoreListening 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 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 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 MoreRadiant Insights July
Big Data May Be Great, but Interviews Give You Hidden Insights. Easily accessible analytics for digital campaigns, website traffic, and ad responses give many marketers the false impression that they know who their customers are and what they want. Well, these kinds of results do show trends and provide much-needed insights into what’s working but…
Read MoreAn inventor walked into a bar one day….
How innovation and ideas thrive where people mix and connect informally. Bars, taverns, pubs, and saloons have long acted as social hubs that stimulate ideas, conversations, and innovation. English taverns were the primary social gathering place for both the high and low classes into the late 17th century. The innovative ideas of the American Revolution…
Read MoreYou’re everywhere and nowhere and nobody’s listening
Lost in the Digital World. Brands for the most part now exist only online. As we deal with the continued pandemic we’re all disconnected and have little physical interaction with places, people, companies, and experiences. With the exception of that occasional grocery store visit, it’s impossible to have in-person contact for just about any connected…
Read MoreHow 2020 Disrupted Our World, Redefined Brands and How We Connect.
From presidential elections to a global pandemic the world we were so familiar with has dramatically changed to a virtual and isolated world. But there is a silver lining. Although we’re not exactly connecting the way we did in the past our completely disrupted world is creating whole new possibilities. When normal ways of doing…
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