On average, we spend about one-third of our lives sleeping, and upwards of half our time on this big blue marble in bed sleeping, reading, and lounging, etc.
With numbers like that – to say nothing of sleep’s benefits to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing – you’d think we’d prioritize it. Most of us don’t, though.
Red tape and bureaucracy are requirements to adhere to certain rules or follow particular processes. While every organization has a bit of red tape, some have much more than others.
This can make life difficult for marketers.
“Businesses are, on average, far less adaptable, innovative, and inspiring than they could be and, increasingly, must be.
It is the unchallenged tenets of bureaucracy that disable our organizations—that make them inertial, incremental and uninspiring.” – Gary Hamel, writing for Harvard Business Review
As a general rule, the bigger the company, the more hoops you’ll need to jump through to get things signed off and complete. There may be multiple people who have to approve ideas or check through content. You might even need to get the green light from legal teams.
Does this sound familiar?
It doesn’t have to.
Continue reading Marketing With Two Hands Tied Behind Your Back
I first began working in internet marketing 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve taken on and grown more than 10 blogs to the 100K (and above) monthly visitors mark.
Doing this has played a critical role in the development of my own personal brand as well as the companies I’ve launched or been involved in growing. And it’s not just me.
Continue reading How to Grow Your Blog to 100K Monthly Visitors (From Scratch)Ongoing education is a must for digital marketers, whether you’ve been working in the industry for years or you’re just now trying to launch a marketing career.
But choosing the best events and courses out there is tough. Tons of options exist, but not all of them are up-to-date (or even reliable).
That’s why, in this article, I’ve pulled together my favorite education options for digital marketers. From Hubspot to Hootsuite, these globally-recognized names will help anchor your existing knowledge, so you’ll be a step ahead and prepared for all the changes to come.
Continue reading The 12 Best Events & Courses for Digital MarketersStress happens.
The sooner we come to terms with that, the sooner we can move on to actually acknowledging it instead of denying its existence. That’s the biggest takeaway for me over the past few years of dealing with both stress and anxiety.
Brainstorming has been in use since the 1950s, when Alex Osborn – an advertising executive who increasingly became fascinated by creative thinking – decided that the best way to generate ideas and find solutions to problems was to collaborate with your team. The general idea entailed a group of people sitting in a room together, sharing their ideas, and using one another as “springboards” for better ideas. His original four “rules” included:
1. No criticism
2. The more ideas, the better
3. Build upon and improve existing ideas
4. The more unusual the ideas, the better
Sound familiar?
“It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one.” ~Alex Osborn
Osborn truly believed in his method, saying that “brainstorming should enhance creative performance by almost 50% versus individuals working on their own.”
Unfortunately, that figure is unfounded, and there is actually very little proof that “traditional” brainstorming helps produce any more or any better ideas than the same people would produce if left to “brainstorm” alone.
Continue reading 11 Brainstorming Exercises to Generate 100 New Blog Post IdeasMost companies don’t talk to their customers. If you really think about it, that’s shocking. Your business lives and dies based on how it serves its customers. How can you expect to succeed if you don’t really know who these people are or what they want?
Hands down, customer development is the single most important thing every marketer needs to do. And you don’t have to go through the product team or the customer support team to do it. There are practical ways every marketer can get involved. At all of our Ramp Ventures companies, it’s something everyone on the team does, at least once a week.
Here’s how to do it yourself:
Continue reading 5 Tips for Doing Customer Development the Right Way
The first ever podcast premiered in 2003 as “Radio Open Source.”
In 2005, “podcast” was named word of the year.
By 2016, 21% of the U.S. population had reportedly listened to at least one podcast in the last month – up from 17% the year before and just 9% in 2008.
If it seems like you can’t open an industry site without hearing about “customer success” these days, you’re not imagining things.
Continue reading What is Customer Success?If you had the choice, would you rather work with a company that delivers mediocre services, or one that’s been labeled by reputable sources as an indisputable expert?
It’s an easy question, right?
Everyone wants to work with experts – the trick is getting yourself and your company recognized as such.
I’ve talked quite a bit on this blog about the importance of effective personal and professional brands. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Branding yourself as an authority in your field is difficult, which is why you’ve got to take some time to formulate a strategy.
Continue reading How to Build Authority Online
