2009
-
Using Psychographics
Apr 17
Demographics are easy to collect: ask a question and count the answers. Psychographic data lives in everything else (tone, posture, hesitation), and gathering it means doing less talking and taking more notes.
-
The Importance of Psychographics
Apr 15
Marketers tell clients to gather psychographic data without telling them why. A case study (a widget maker stuck at break-even until an intern starts profiling how customers actually live) shows how psychographics find your perfect customers.
-
Pyschographics Redefined
Apr 13
Demographics tell you who your customer is; psychographics tell you why they buy. The four stages of a customer-centric marketing plan (identification, demographics, psychographics, communication) and why the third is the secret sauce.
-
It’s a Pink Gorilla
Feb 18
A serious conversation with my mom was derailed for a week by a giant pink gorilla on the corner. Seth Godin calls it a purple cow; marketing too often follows templates instead of standing out.
-
Domain Names
Jan 30
A startup whose dotcom was bought out from under it before launch. An established business whose registration quietly expired. Two true stories about why your domain name is part of your brand.
-
Brandology
Jan 23
Branding is managing the whole experience of everyone who touches your company. Brandology is studying it — the clever dance between intellectual finesse and gut-level confidence, from Starbucks to New Coke.
-
Outlets
Jan 16
Outlet stores are a horrible idea for name-brand retailers. I’ve loved Columbia Sportswear since I was a kid — until I found the same gear at half price in Lincoln City, and my fancy ski coats stopped feeling quite so fancy.
2008
-
Branding Habits
Dec 24
Neale Martin argues we have two minds, executive and habitual. Branding speaks to both: the story wins the first purchase, consistency turns it into habit. That’s why Starbucks sued a Japanese look-alike, Excelsior Coffee.
-
Habits
Dec 19
I load three web comics every morning, even on days I know they won’t update. Neale Martin’s book Habit explains why, and turns traditional marketing strategy on its head.
-
Consistency
Dec 12
When should you focus on brand building: in hard times or flush ones? Always. When you invest in your brand says as much to customers as what you invest in.
-
Branding a phenomenon
Oct 20
I found the global warming “brand” somewhere I never expected: on the box of a cheap Halloween haunted mirror. One line of copy turned a commodity into an appeal to bargain shoppers’ values.
-
Tradition
Sept 24
Traditions define a brand, but they drift as they pass from one generation to the next. The summer-sausage trail lunch my friend and I started in Boy Scouts is now remembered as someone else’s tradition.