The Analytive Blog
Marketing that's inputs and outcomes.
Practical, no-fluff thinking on SEO, paid ads, and building marketing that drives revenue.
The #1 Secret to Persuasive Copy
After having observed excellent writers, speakers, and communicators for years, I discovered a little secret that almost all great communicators have in common. I’ve never seen it mentioned in a book or by a speaker. But it’s a pattern that is easy to recognize (and once you see it) impossible to ignore. We live in […]
🚲🚲 What Riding a Bike Taught Me About Marketing (and Life)
I was about five years old when I got my first bike. It was a Christmas present. Like all good Christmas presents, it required a bit of assembly. I remember my dad putting it together and putting on the training wheels. I loved that bike. There were three houses on our block, and I used […]
How Not To Be Boring 😴😴
I currently hold in my hands a piece of marketing collateral created by another marketing agency. It’s a small print piece designed to promote the product to prospective customers. This marketing booklet would easily get the stamp of approval from any marketing department. It’s filled with the following: Appropriate use of stock photography Benign text […]
How Not To Be Boring 😴😴 – Episode 5 Podcast
I hold in my hand a corporate marketers dream piece. It’s a check in the box. It’s enough for someone to say “Look what we created!” and then forget about it the next moment. In a word, it’s boring. But here’s the truth: boring doesn’t attract attention. Boring doesn’t sell. Boring doesn’t make a difference. […]
Why Content Matters – Episode 4 – The Analytive Podcast
We all consume content. We listen to podcasts. We watch YouTube. We watch TV. Content marketing isn’t just a fad. It is the way you’ll get discovered online. In this podcast we talk about why content matters and whether this strategy will change over the next 5-10 years. Listen on itunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/analytive-podcast/ Listen on our […]
😱😱 I Downloaded My Own Facebook Data
With all the articles coming out about Facebook and privacy, I decided to download my own Facebook data and see how accurate it was. (If you’d like to listen to a more in-depth breakdown of my assessment, check out the most recent episode of our the Analytive Podcast.) When you download Facebook’s data on you, you […]
😱 The Episode Where I Download and Analyze My Own Facebook Data – Episode 3
In this episode, I download all the data Facebook has collected on me over the past 10-15 years. Here’s what we discuss: How much data was correct? How much data was incorrect? What data was missing? Do I trust Facebook’s marketing data? If you’d like to download your own data, you can click the link […]
Intro to Blockchain ⛓ and How It Might Impact Marketing💸
Welcome to Episode 2 of the Analytive Podcast! In this episode, we talk about bitcoin, blockchain, and the impact that it could have on the marketing industry. Will blockchain fundamentally change the way we do marketing? Or is it just a bunch of hype? In this episode, we do our best to give answers to […]
Podcast Episode 1 – The Analytive Podcast
A New Roof 🏠 and a Flat Tire 🚗 Taught Me Branding
A couple weeks ago a local roofing company began installing new shingles on my house. I didn’t know exactly when they were going to start, so it was a bit of a surprise when I rolled up and they were already started. No big deal. I just pulled into the garage and began to go […]
Repetition, Repetition, and Repetition
This weekend I spent two days skiing in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The snow was amazing and watching the sunset over the mountains is one of my favorite pastimes. It helps clear the mind. On the way up to the mountains, we drove through Cameron pass. Driving through Cameron pass, you’ll notice signs for a local […]
🤦 Why did I waste $2,000 updating Analytive’s Twitter? 🤦
Over the past few months, we’ve brought on several new clients with Analytive. Many of these companies work with (or have worked with) other agencies. All of them have marketing efforts pushed in various directions throughout the digital sphere. But as we onboard them and see what the marketing team is working on, there’s one […]
Content-Free Content 😳
There’s a problem in marketing today. It’s a problem that I see everywhere and with nearly every company. It’s the phenomenon of content-free content. It’s the ability to say anything without saying anything. Highly educated humans are good at it. Politicians are some of the best. Executives are pretty good too. But it’s hard to […]
🌈🌈 What Does This Mean!?
If there’s a single question I get asked about Analytics the most, it’s “What does this mean?” *If your meme knowledge is a little sparse, check out the classic video here. Every time I sit in a room with a good marketer or executive and we start running through numbers, that’s the question I get. And […]
Why Elon Musk is a Genius 🚀🚀 🚘🚘
Last week, Elon Musk and SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket – currently the largest rocket in the world. If you’ve been living under a rock, I should tell you that Elon also runs several other companies: the largest one being Tesla. Popular culture portrays Elon as a hero. And rightly so, he’s built multiple […]
💸There are just two types of marketing….💸
The first is Demand Capture. The second is Demand Generation. Every Facebook ad, print ad, sales pitch, and event sponsorship fall into one of these two buckets. Demand Capture is about getting in front of people who are already looking for you. The demand is there. People are searching. You just simply need to get […]
This actually hurts me physically….😢
This past week I received one of those marketing catalogs in the mail. You know, the ones that have about 250 ads and that’s it. No useful content or writing. As a marketer, I always thumb through them trying to see the ads. This ad caught my eye: I blacked out the business info because […]
🤷♂️ We Missed The Point…..
In our work with clients, I get exposed to the reports, documents, and strategies generated by a variety of marketing teams. There’s a theme that started to bug me. When we’re not careful, I can even see this theme in our own client reporting. It’s a fear that haunts me in every client meeting. What […]