How about a Marketing Leap Day? February 29th, 2008

Happy Leap Day! February 29 is a date that occurs only every four years. If you haven’t checked your calendar today, today is that day. Leap day is added to the calendar in leap years (ever four year) as a corrective measure, because the earth doesn’t orbit around the sun in exactly 365 days. It’s kind of a “catch-up” day to get everything synchronized again.
So, I’d like to propose a “Marketing [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Misc. No Comments »

What does Integrated Marketing mean for mid-sized organizations? February 28th, 2008

Integrated Marketing. It’s somewhat turned into a buzzword these days, and marketers definitely like to throw the term around a lot (Agencies like to use the term even more.) But, Integrated Marketing needs to go much deeper and be more “integrated” than I see at almost every organization. In fact, “integration” is one of the core traits or beliefs of a MidMarketer (as I outlined in the recent article Why? Why MidMarketer?)
It seems that [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Marketing Creative, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, Misc. No Comments »

The Content De-Crapifier February 26th, 2008

Last year, MidMarketer developed a fun little tool we called the Content De-Crapifier. You’ve most likely heard of “bullshit bingo” or some of the other games that you can play at work to identify the crap words people always seem to throw around. It so easy though, to quickly add or throw in a quick “solution,” “global” or “synergy” into our marketing copy. It makes the content more valuable, right? No. [ read more… ]

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We’ve all dreamed of a place… February 25th, 2008

We’ve all dreamed of a place… We produced this video for the launch of MidMarketer back in November and it was a lot of fun to make. I wanted the script to connect to marketing people and have them say “Yes! That’s totally my situation.” Hopefully it’s a good, fresh, funny start to the week.

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Asking “So What?” to uncover great marketing messages February 22nd, 2008

It’s always interesting to see how people will respond to certain unexpected things.  The “So what” exercise always seems to get people a bit defensive, but it also does some great marketing work.   Here’s the idea…
Next time you’re in a marketing meeting (or really any business meeting) and there’s a statement about the marketing message, simply ask “So What?” Before you do this today, a few warnings:

Don’t do this to your spouse or significant other- [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Marketing Strategy No Comments »

Why? Why MidMarketer? February 20th, 2008

People often ask me “why?” Why do you think the topic of marketing specifically in mid-sized companies is that important. Doesn’t marketing in general relate to every company- big or small? And, what about the thousands of conferences, Webinars and white papers about every marketing topic?
Here’s the answer- or at least part of the answer…
Too little is being done today to educate the marketing professional about HOW to act and HOW to [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Marketing Strategy, Misc. 3 Comments »

Back Off- the key to a solid position and personality February 19th, 2008

Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of mid-sized organizations. One out of five could quickly and clearly state the personality and position of their organization,… the other four would recite a long list of services or industry buzzwords, accompanied by a rundown of their clients and accomplishments. It’s always interesting to see which organizations really have a grasp on who they are and not what they are.
One of the keys of really [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Marketing Strategy No Comments »

The Wallpaper Exercise February 15th, 2008

A while ago, a client I had got so focused on what color they wanted the cover of their new corporate brochure that the president went out to the paint store and presented me with the “exact” color that the print piece should be. Even though the message and content was still not perfected, more emphasis was placed on Benjamin Moore “Sierra Mountain Sun” than on the message. – This is what I [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Marketing Creative 1 Comment »

Am I a MidMarketer? February 15th, 2008

Many people ask me “So who is a MidMarketer? What’s the criteria?”
The answer is not black and white. Being a MidMarketer is not about fitting into a specific demographic or company size, but rather characteristics of your position and responsibility.
Generally, though… a mid-sized company may be

1-2,000 employees (depending upon the makeup of workforce)
$2 million- $500 million in annual revenue (the big swing here is services vs. manufacturing)
1-25 marketing staff

so, if your job is to [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Misc. No Comments »

I am not over 50 February 15th, 2008

Today I got an email from a recruitment Web site. Forget how they got my address, or that it was spam. What struck me was that the subject was “Over 50? Get the job you want!” So, if I’m not over 50 (I’m not) I immediately disregard the message and have a bad impression of the company- they don’t even have a clue if I’m in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s or 50’s! [ read more… ]

Posted by Dan Swartz in: Marketing Strategy No Comments »

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