Tag Archive for: Education

Distinction vs. Differentiation: It’s Time to Stop Asking for the Impossible

(This article previously appeared on LinkedIn.)

Last weekend, the American Quilter’s Society displayed hundreds of hand-made quilts at the Lancaster County Convention Center. The show was visually overwhelming, featuring craftsmen (actually, mostly craftswomen) from around the U.S. and abroad.

Each of these artists could rightfully claim their works were one-of-a-kind – yet, that distinction alone carries no financial value. All handmade items are unique. It is the level of craftsmanship that differentiates one quilt from another, and the details of that craftsmanship can raise the value of a quilt by thousands of dollars.

Though the words “hand-made” and “one-of-a-kind” will be spoken innumerable times at such an event, they do not constitute a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Read more

Colorful recycling bins floating in a promising sky

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Finding Fresh Material for Social Media

Customers sometimes ask, “How can organizations like mine keep coming up with fresh material to share on social media?”

Well, here’s a very short answer that might make it easier to find material. And the best part is you already know the mnemonic. Read more

Motocross racek doing extreme jump

Our Extreme Culture: Is There a Way Back?

The language of extremes has become commonplace.

How many times can we be told a movie is “the most poignant drama of our time” or an actor has given “the best performance of his life”? Is there any reason to believe people who tell us an event is “unprecedented,” or a tennis exhibition features the “perfect match-up,” or a piece of jewelry is “one-of-a-kind?” What turned frisbee into “extreme frisbee,” and what distinguishes kickboxing from “ultimate” kickboxing”?

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Your Ad Ignored Here

Your Ad Ignored Here – Tom Fishburne (Pasternak)

Who said learning can’t be fun? YOUR AD IGNORED HERE exploits the humor hidden in every corner of the Marketing world, while answering the questions that burn hottest in every businessperson’s mind. Want to learn the real secret behind “growth hacking” (p. 118) …how to overcome the fear of letting go? (p. 94) …why your branded content isn’t taking off? (p. 131) …where your next VP of Marketing is coming from? (p. 203) It’s all in here. Tom explains the promise of big data (p. 201) …why there’s a disconnect between marketing and sales (p. 196) …the folly of loyalty programs (pp. 62, 115) …which social media strategies will work and which won’t (p. 81) …and much more. In fact, you’d better buy two copies of this book – since it’s printed on both sides of the page, you’ll need a spare to hang the cartoons printed on the back of the ones you’ve already hung!

Your Ad Ignored Here

Your Ad Ignored Here – Tom Fishburne (Zimmerman)

Once in a genre, an artist comes along with a special gift for humanizing our world. In the world of business books, that artist is cartoonist Tom Fishburne. YOUR AD IGNORED HERE is a tome of delight – 200 pages of Marketing wisdom that will make you laugh, make you think, help you appreciate your world, and help you escape it. This is a self-help book for everyone who sells a product or service, a compass for entrepreneur, intrapreneurs and managers alike, a hard-to-put-down break from the daily grind, guaranteed to leave you yelling, “Sequel! Sequel!”

 

Cup of coffee beans sitting on a bed of whole coffee beans

Every Touchpoint Affects Your Brand, Starbucks®

We’re big fans of that down-home feeling you get when you visit the original Starbucks coffee shop in Seattle. And nothing helps carry that down-home feeling through the stores better than the hand-written signs that describe their products.

But which, we ask, is a greater risk to your brand: losing that folksy, homespun look, or losing your credibility among your customers, the vast majority of whom have at least graduated from high school? Read more

mergers and acquisitions graphic

Infographic – Mergers & Acquisitions – April 2017

This MarketPoint infographic explores the high-stakes world of mergers & acquisitions (M&As). Did you know 2015 was a record year for M&As? The total global M&A volume that year exceeded $4.25 trillion U.S. dollars. And a “trillion” is a lot! If you stacked just one trillion U.S. dollar bills on your kitchen table, the stack would reach 63,000 miles into space and would weigh more than the Golden Gate Bridge! But 80% of M&A deals fail. So if you’re thinking about playing this risky game, you’d better download our infographic and keep it handy. All sources cited.

© 2017 MarketPoint LLC, All Rights Reserved

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Snippet from Managing Generations in the Workplace Infographic

Infographic – Managing Generations in the Workforce – March 2017

This MarketPoint infographic draws from over a dozen published resources on the challenges associated with managing in a multi-generational workplace – and offers suggestions to help smooth the effect of those differences. All sources cited. For more information about Millennials in the Workplace, click here.

© 2017 MarketPoint LLC, All Rights Reserved

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Good, Fast, and Cheap

Just last month, a colleague shared an old saw commonly cited by manufacturers. “I like to tell customers,” she said, “we can make it good, we can make it fast, and we can make it cheap – pick any two.”

Aphorisms, like this one, are memorable partly because they are pithy, partly because they are delightfully clever, and partly because they are true – or in this case, they were true when they were coined. Read more

Promoting Facebook Posts

A client recently asked us, “Are there really any good reasons to consider a Facebook promotion?” (They had owned Facebook page for quite some time, but until now, hadn’t ever advertised there.) I explained that, when the circumstances are right, a Facebook promotion can be an organization’s least expensive way to engage with its followers. And that for most organizations, it’s not a particularly good place to sell.
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