The other day I was surfing LinkedIn when I was presented with an ad. It was for an ebook that was extremely relevant to a topic (hiring) that I was looking into at the moment. The company sponsoring the ad is a major player in the Enterprise software market. It’s a name that you would […]
Lately, I’ve been digging deep into the past century of advertising. When you research some of the best ads from the past 100+ years, you quickly find some common themes. And perhaps the most impactful one is this: Ads don’t have to look like ads. Have you ever noticed that people spend hours every day […]
In the age of digital, where we can (supposedly) track everything, does brand still matter? Do exposure, impressions, eyeballs, and visibility matter? Or should we just focus on conversion? This is a question that I face internally, and I face with all my clients. Five years ago, I would’ve said that brand was less relevant […]
I grew up in the country in Indiana. Our neighbor had a large open field behind his house. It was in this field I learned trap shooting. For those of you unfamiliar with this Olympic sport, you are given a shotgun and clay frisbees (known as “clay pigeons”) are tossed up on the air by […]
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been on a deep dive into print advertising. Although print ads are far less sexy than social media or Facebook Ads, they were an anchor of the advertising industry for many years. And good print ads are RARE. If you pick up a magazine at your local supermarket, […]
Over the past few months I’ve been planning a wedding and a honeymoon (I just got married last month!) As such, I’ve been doing a ton of Google searches. I searched for everything from wedding venues, to florists, to DJs, to honeymoon locations. In the process, I’ve clicked on a LOT of ads. Way more […]
I’ve read dozens of books on copywriting over the years. In fact, I’m in the middle of reading through 2-3 of them right now. And there are a million copywriting formulas. If you work in sales, you may have heard of the A.I.D.A. (attention, interest, desire, action) formula. That’s a good one. Or perhaps you’ve […]
There’s a story of an old grocery store proprietor who made a calculation about the lifetime value of his customers. He estimated that people shopped at his store once a week and on average spent about $100 each time they came in. If you take $100 a week, and multiply it by 52 weeks, you’re […]
There’s a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad that has probably done more to change my thinking about money than any other book. The premise is pretty simple: instead of buying liabilities (TVs, clothes, cars) you should instead spend your money on assets – things that make you money over time. This includes stocks, bonds, businesses, real […]
Here’s a fun project for you: Open up a new tab in your browser. Type in “Top Google Advertisers in 2016”. Or you can pick 2017. Or 2011. In fact, if you pick virtually any year in the past two decades or so, you’ll find that Amazon was one of the top Google spenders. Most […]