The excellent speakers at PM Forum’s recent annual conference, Marketing matters in the “new normal”, provided many great learning points, as usual. Here are just a few of my key takeaways that are hopefully useful reminders for marketers in both professional services firms and B2B companies: Firm leaders want marketers to be the trusted advisors that we advise them to … Read More
Planning for success the British & Irish Lions way
There’s a lot to be learned from the military and the world of sport when it comes to good marketing strategy and planning. The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s The Art of War should probably be textbook reading for all marketers. I remember wondering why my boss at Sony gave me a book about the masterminding of the logistics … Read More
Diddo: one to watch at EIE
Next week at Engage, Invest, Exploit (EIE) in Edinburgh 60 Scottish technology companies with high growth potential will pitch to investors for seed to Series A funding. Established by Informatics Ventures in 2008 and now the largest event of its kind in the UK outside London, EIE is Scotland’s premier technology investor showcase connecting technology companies with potential investors, partners … Read More
Pricing for value
Looking forward to presenting on Pricing for Value at the Polish Business Link event in Edinburgh in October. The short talk will cover: – How to put customers at the centre of pricing strategy; – Different pricing options available; – How to price products and services to capture their perceived value to customers; – The pros and cons of value-based … Read More
Aged 50 to 85?
Do 50 year-olds have the same needs, wants, preferences, attitudes, and behaviours as 85 year-olds? Some might, but most don’t. So why do some businesses group everyone over 50 into one segment and market to them as if they are one homogenous mass? Would they adopt a similar approach to marketing to 15 year olds as to 50 year olds? … Read More
Walk more to boost your marketing thinking
Gavin Brown, a director of the communications skills specialists Speak with Impact, a Wallace Marketing client, shares some useful advice on creative marketing thinking and problem solving. “Do you want to Speak With Impact, get more creative or solve thorny problems? Then learn a lesson from the great poet Robert Burns. As a junior lawyer I remember being faced with … Read More
German market opportunities for Scottish business
Working on a Scottish-German marketing initiative over the last few months with David Scrimgeour MBE, a Scots lawyer now working as a strategy and business adviser in Germany for more than 25 years, has reminded me of the still untapped opportunities that the largest economy in Europe could present to many Scottish companies. David is the founder of the British-German … Read More
Is print dead in the digital age?
The Royal Mail’s recent research, ‘The Private Life of Mail’, investigated whether printed materials are still relevant in the ‘digital age’ of marketing. Flock Creative, with whom I’ve worked on several projects, and I jotted down our own thoughts. Me: “Print is able to meet some of our senses that online can’t.” Too often these days people go for … Read More
Bumper sticker vs. marketing philosophy
As the late US cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, of Peanuts (Snoopy, Charlie Brown and co) fame, once commented: “there’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.” No matter which shiny bumper sticker featuring a slick slogan is stuck onto a business to attempt to position it in the marketplace and differentiate it from its competitors, it is the … Read More
Mind the brand gap
These days the term brand is possibly even more misunderstood and misused than the word marketing. For many, it simply means logo. If you’re lucky, they might even think it’s about colour palette and fonts. As Rita Clifton, the doyenne of branding, has said: “to equate brand with such superficial cosmetics is the equivalent of saying that people are really … Read More