Category Archives: Marketing

Survey says?

If you ever watched Family Feud, you are familiar with the phrase “survey says?”. Contestants guessed the most popular answers to surveys taken of a relevant group and won prizes for the most accurate answers. Vistage surveys its Members with less than $20mm in annual sales and you can find the August report here. >

Managing your speed

Skiing down a wide intermediate run at June Mountain. our friend Denis was topping 46 mph on a beautiful bluebird day. I didn’t try to keep up but was not far behind. Non-skiers would ask if that was safe, and if we were wearing helmets. Yes and yes. It is all about managing your speed. >

Get granular

If you want to brand your organization in a way that sets you apart from the crowd, if you want to attract new customers, get more business from existing customers and be one of the top 3 in organic SEO search, you must get granular. Vistage Speaker Stacey Crowley explained how to do this to my 3 groups this week. >

How do you make your product/service stand out?

Hot and sweaty after a lovely hike around Plitvice Lakes, Croatia, I bought a bottle of nice cold water. The bottle had moisture on the outside and just holding it felt good. We had downed a lot of bottles of this brand for the last several days, yet this is the first time I noticed that there was a saying on the back of the bottle about happiness.

I went around and checked everyone else’s bottles and found each one had a different quote from this wise sage: Hana Soljan Galic’. I’m guessing it is the marketing department for Jana water company, but more on that later when I have internet and can google it.
How would you get me to buy your water rather than getting it from the tap or buying someone else’s brand? After all, we are talking about H2O here.  20 years ago, almost no one bought a bottle of water.  Now, many people would never think of drinking tap water. With all the brands of bottled water available, do you choose by taste, by price, by who carries it at the market you visit?
Fiji water made a great brand based on the water coming right from a source, not touched by human hands. When I was able to get on the internet, I found that Jana is also sourced 2500 feet in the earth and goes directly into the bottle without being touched.
So, like many products in Croatia, the taste is really fresh and clean. It is a great product. Jana has been successful because of a carefully crafted marketing plan that inspires and delights customers with its messages.
The folks at Jana started their “Water with a Message ” Campaign in 2103. For the following 3 years they have been rated number one in brand strength in Croatia. This is not a mom and pop operation. Jana is owned by Agrokor which is publicly traded on the Zagreb stock exchange. Not only have they hit on a delightful branding technique, they donate a small amount of each bottle sold to humanitarian causes.
Well, tomorrow I will buy another bottle to see what message it will share.  How can you motivate your customers to search to buy your product or service?

Are you creating partnerships for leverage?

Last week I received a copy of Inc. magazine with a letter from Vistage CEO Sam Reese explaining the new partnership between Vistage and Inc. He wrote an article for the magazine that shows up on P92, about his many take-aways from being a CEO >

Who is telling your story?

With all the opportunities to tell your story in person as well as on social media – to comment on current events, to talk about movies, the Olympics, your friends’ behavior or anything else you would like to say, do you >

Pull marketing? It’s about survival, baby.

In many companies the roles of sales and marketing are all mushed together. Early entrepreneurs wear many hats, so it happens- just as Finance and HR can be under or be just one person. (Not a long term fit in my mind). As companies grow, it is helpful to define and separate out the roles to create better performance and real accountability for results. >