The economy is improving. Consumer spending was up more than expected this holiday season. People are buying technology products and services. Things will continue to improve. Now is the time to innovate your marketing as aggressively as you’re innovating your products and services. Some areas to think about as we move towards the new year and CES:
- Is your marketing language simple, understandable and emotional?
- Is your messaging compelling to consumers, or to you, the marketer?
- Similarly, are your press releases compelling to the media, or to you, the sender?
- Are you taking advantage of all the marketing platforms available to you, including your packaging, product manual and direct-to-consumer communications?
- Is your public relations department lazy or proactive? Are your PR people blasting journalists anonymously or building relationships and helping?
- Are you talking to your customers? Are you having qualitative, in-depth conversations? (Usually, 20 minutes per customer is enough to gain deep, incredibly valuable insights.) Focus groups and Web surveys don’t count here…
Some End-of-Year Notes:
- My new book, Evangelist Marketing, officially launches next week but is already in stock at Amazon. It’s 288 pages on topics like the bullet points above.
- If you’re reading this, you can still take advantage of my entire 2012 teleconference education series, monthly from March to December, for free. Just reply to this email and tell me you’d like to participate. (You get the recordings too if you can’t attend live.)
- Wishing you a happy, healthy, prosperous and successful 2012!