thinking/critical

Of all the companies that use the Internet for business intelligence, those who have a talent for finding the meaning and patterns behind the noise will benefit the most.

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Distilling customer relationship publishing into one simple blog post
 
 

I read dozens of business books and articles every month, and I look for common threads between them. Not surprisingly, I find more common thought than innovative or divergent thought in business theory. In general that’s good, because it means that ideas are being tested for practical [...]

People are getting all wrapped up in social media, thinking social media is the point. Social media is just a delivery device – a delivery device that any junior high school student can master. Marketing is the point, and content is the requirement.

The biggest danger to a business owner is lack of originality – generally demonstrated by virtue of getting trapped in his or her industry’s trends. Industry trend following simply turns your business into a commodity business. Avoid the trap, and maintain your margins.

Websites, social media, blogging, and other forms of interactive marketing have greatly enhanced the marketing potential of most organizations. But beware the temptation to believe that these are all you need, or that any of them are actually “free!”

In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan – the modern media world’s most prescient cultural forecaster – said “we are always living way ahead of our thinking.” This article examines how that truth influences most business failure to successfully market products to customers.

Without the support of wild growth based on expansion, we must return to offering things of inherent, comparative value. Relationships are once again essential to business success. Relationships within the business, and relationships with the customers, vendors, and communities the business depends on. But has our understanding of relationship become superficial?

Worried about wasting advertising dollars on substandard promotional efforts? Don’t lose sleep over designing your next advertisement or marketing campaign. These eight simple steps will make the process of writing effective copy and creating strong graphic design much easier.

What you are measuring is whether or not your cost trend mirrors the industry pricing trend. In the example shown, the trendlines for the baby doll category are roughly equivalent, suggesting that costs are not decreasing at a slower rate than competitive pricing. However, the trendline for the dollhouse category indicates that costs are decreasing disproportionately to competitor selling prices, indicating a need for deeper analysis.

Remember the book – and the saying – the medium is the message? Marshall McLuhan, author of the saying and of the 1964 book of the same name, theorized that every message is not only influenced, but defined, by the medium by which the message is delivered. McLuhan died in 1980, before any of these new digital marketing mediums were possible, let alone conceived of. Yet his work is as relevant today as it was back when he was worried about the ultimate social impact of the television. McLuhan argued that at the intelligent, rational levels of perception, human beings take a message and consider its content carefully. However, at the empirical – experiential – level of consciousness, the medium itself is the message.