Digital Part of Most B2B Strategies
A Dummy's Puppet's Ramblings - from Chip Martin, Mannequin American
Most B2B Marketing Strategies Now Include Digital
According to recent B2B research, digital marketing is a crucial part of most company marketing strategies, and e-mail marketing still carries a lot of weight. The majority of marketing tools are aimed at driving prospects to Web sites and blogs, which have become the "faces" of successful B2B companies. The more relevant and "personalized" the messages, the higher the response rates.
Yet it's pretty easy to look around and find B2B companies marketing "the same old way," primarily because they don't want to change and they don't see their competitors doing anything different. But it's the companies that are willing to "break away" from the norm that will take the leads in their industries.
Take Steve Jobs as an example. To him, focus groups make no sense. Why? Because he doesn't care what other people think. He's driven by a passion to be the best and he does it his way. It's not rational ... but it's the key to his success. Sometimes it's prudent to go with your gut.
Is your Web site "rationally designed"? Should it be? What about the processes you use to engage your customers or create marketing tools? Not following the crowd sometimes means taking risks ... thinking irrationally. But it's often the best way to leap-frog your competitors who are slow to change the way they do business.
More Monitors = More Productivity?
Apparently, more is more. Multi-monitor set ups are all the rage these days with the goal of significantly improving productivity. According to a study from the University of Utah: People using a 24-inch screen completed tasks 52% faster than people who used an 18-inch monitor. People who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. More usable computer desktop space seems to reduce the amount of time spent on window management. Instead of incessantly dragging, sizing, minimizing and maximizing windows, you can do actual productive work. With a larger desktop, you spend less time mindlessly arranging information, and more time interacting with and acting on that information.
How much that matters to you will depend on your job and working style. Personally, more screens would do little to improve my skills at solitaire; but I could watch YouTube and play solitaire at the same time! Okay, I'm sold. I'm taking a monitor from another cubicle.
If You're Cheap ... You'll Love This
From AdRants: fiverr is a Web site on which people promise to do things for $5. And it's as simple as that.
"I will come up with a slogan for your Web site or product for $5. I will hold up a message on time square for $5. I will submit your site to all major search engines for $5. I will print screen your company logo on a t-shirt and wear it for a week for $5. I will consult your business on search marketing for 30 minutes for $5. I will design a custom web banner for your business for $5. I will write a memorable tagline for your business for $5. I will do a voiceover for your podcast/website/business for $5. I will design your Business Card for $5."
If you need some simple, marketing-related tasks done, check out this site. I'm not recommending it ... I'm just saying, "If you're cheap, this could be your heaven." Don't worry, "You get what you pay for," is just a saying ... it's not reality. Yea, right.
Puppet Talks for Baby
The "talking baby" commercial has been done to death ... and I hope they continue because I like most of them.
But here's a cute twist on the genre ... a baby who can't talk ... until he has a puppet on his hand. Then the puppet lets the baby's parents know what he's really thinking. Clever and funny. But Huggies shouldn't have mentioned a competitor because I had to go back to see which company actually sponsored the ad. Still, I hope they keep this plot going for awhile.
Nutrition Myths
I was thumbing through a book (one of those things you used to carry around while going to school) about nutrition and ran across a list of "nutritional myths." I jotted down a few that caught my eye ... and I think many of you will find the following two facts of particular interest.
Myth: You should always remove chicken skin before eating.
Half the pleasure of eating roast chicken comes from the crisp, brown skin that melts in your mouth. Yet the skinless, boneless chicken breast ... one of the most boring protein sources on Earth ... somehow became the health-conscious cook's gold standard. Fortunately, the long-standing command to strip poultry of its skin before eating doesn't hold up under a nutritional microscope. A 12-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken breast half contains just 2.5 grams of saturated fat and 50 calories more than its similarly portioned skinless counterpart. A chicken breast will always be lean ... skinned or not. What's more, 55 percent of the fat in the chicken skin is monounsaturated ... the heart-healthy kind you want more of, says Amy Myrdal Miller, MS, RD, Program Director for Strategic Initiatives at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.
Myth: The only heart-friendly alcohol is red wine.
You're going to thank me for this.
Red wine was raised to health-food status when researchers thought it was the antioxidants in the drink that protected the cheese-loving French from heart disease. But recent research has shown that antioxidants aren't the answer after all. Alcohol ... the ethanol itself ... raises levels of protective HDL, or good cholesterol, which help protect against plaque buildup in the arteries and reduce clotting factors that contribute to heart attack and stroke, according to Eric Rimm, ScD, associate professor of nutrition at the School of Public Health at Harvard University. Beer, wine, and liquors all confer the same health benefits. Any kind of beverage that contains alcohol, when consumed in moderation, (that means one to two drinks a day), helps reduce heart disease risk.
So go have some chicken skin and a martini and feel good about your health conscious choices. You're welcome.
Super Hero for Health
Speaking of "health," this anti-smoking ad doesn't mention that Superman's indiscriminate X-Raying would probably contribute to lung cancer in those poor souls he was scanning. Just a thought.
Audition for Playboy From Home
For the first time any woman, wherever she is, can take part in an online photo session and be considered for the cover of Playboy Magazine. How does it work?
"Our photographer takes your pictures with your own webcam. When you finish you make your online book with the best pictures and invite your friends to score you. The next Playboy Girl will be chosen from the favorites."
Click here to see Playboy's video which shows how the online photo sessions work.
While on the Topic of ***
As a follow up to a January post on this blog, Markus, the first legal male prostitute in the U.S., hung his "shingle" at the Shady Lady Ranch in Nevada in January. Since then he's had "fewer than 10 paying customers" according to the Associated Press. So he's quitting and going back into porn. In other words, there's a new opening at the Shady Lady.
Wait. That totally didn't sound right.
