The words “Strategic Marketing” evokes grand ideas and concepts. But as with many phrases, there is more than a little bit of ambiguity in the perception of those who hear it. Different groups within the organization will likely have quite different interpretations of “Strategic Marketing” Sales When Sales hears the term “Strategic Marketing,” they think that means helping them sell more to what...
Sales, marketing, what do these words bring to mind? It depends on your proximity, and susceptibility, but to many they bring about as much loathing as the dreaded “lawyer”. However dreadful the concept of sales and marketing are to the common person, it is clear that they core concepts work. While this is hardly a “fun” introduction, it is an important framing device for...
As a Performance Bike “member“, I get a free subscription to Bicycling Magazine. I find that every month, I almost (barely) enjoy thumbing through this rag because it is chock full of hilarity. I have written on it before, and this may be my last installment. Like most print magazines, their once vaunted position of the monthly dissemination of information, learning, and relevance has...
Once in a while, I will stumble across something that is unique, and memorable. Being in marketing, I have a finely tuned eye for clever messaging. Recently, my spidey sense went all tingly. NanoSensors, part of the NanoWorld group, was exhibiting in our distributor’s booth at the JASIS conference in Japan. They had some cool swag, nifty pens, and the like. However, as my hair had become...
Somewhere, I coughed up my email address. It could have been to access a report, or a datasheet, or something. I used to be naive and think that they wouldn’t spam the shit out of me. But I was wrong. I get a constant stream. People looking to sell me mailing lists for “decision makers in IT software”, “SAP users”, “Oracle Users”, etc. I get 2 to 3 a day...
I have been a premium subscriber of Evernote for a few years. At first, I paid to get the larger amount of storage, and to toss them a bone. It is the premier cross platform notebook. I have written in the past that Microsoft’s OneNote is a better app, but being Windows only means that I am not going to adopt it. At first, the disparity in features between OneNote and Evernote were pretty...
I got an email in my inbox today that seemed to imply that I ‘missed’ a big announcement last week. Well, I certainly didn’t remember any big announcement, but if I had I probably would have ignored it. This startup has called themselves “Alpha Software”. Really? ‘Alpha’? Now I love playing with new and edgy things on my ‘puter, and have installed...
Warning: I am going to write about extremely boring shit for a few posts. When we moved to Arizona in 2003, we were moving to Tucson. A great place, lots of charm, but truly a no plan sort of place for how they let growth happen. Consequently, you had lots of little communities scattered all over without rhyme or reason. We lived on the far east side of town, in a fairly low density neighborhood...
I have been using Survey Monkey for a few years. Great product, and for simple surveys, it really can’t be beat. But I stopped using it at my last job (we had a high buck license of Eloqua which pretty much kicks all asses). Flash forward to today. The non-profit that I work with (Southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption) needs to replace a couple of board members who decided to resign...