Reading Time: 2 minI get a lot of spam in my inbox every day, and I’m sure you do too. Most of it is just blatant spam, but there is still a subset of it that thinks that it’s just “cold marketing” — which I still categorize as spam. I think a lot of that comes from folks […]
Marketing
Humility can help you seem real
Reading Time: 3 minStarting back in 2006, Dos Equis ran a series of commercials featuring “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. If you’ve not seem any of then before, here is an example: When reading Robert Carnes’ book “The Story Cycle“, he made an interesting note about these videos and the bit of humility they always showed […]
Cold outreach is the domain of spammers
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve frequently shared my distain for any company that pushes cold outreach. Blair Enns recently wrote an excellent post where he breaks down the three tiers of lead generation: Tier I: Inbound leadsPeople that find you via your content or referrals from others, with no specific action on your part. Tier II: Warm OutreachThese are […]
More content leads to shorter sales cycles
Reading Time: 2 minIf the sales cycle with your company seems to be getting longer and longer, that may indicate a lack of content production on your part. Without solid, regular content, people can’t get to know and trust you until they’ve had direct conversations with you. While those conversations are essential in every case, if you can […]
You need less data, not more
Reading Time: < 1 minMany agencies will produce monthly or quarterly reports for their clients that are 20 pages long, full of charts and graphs and data. Everything in there is useful, but very few clients will take the time to read through a 20 page report. Over the years at GreenMellen, we’ve worked to reduce the quantity of […]
We all have accessibility needs
Reading Time: < 1 minWebsite accessibility is something I’ve shared a lot about. We’ve written about it on the GreenMellen blog, devoted a podcast episode to it, and there are a handful of posts on here as well. Polishing up the accessibility of your website is a great thing, and makes it so all users can consume the content […]
Seeking social status gives others power over you
Reading Time: < 1 minThere are a lot of people with millions of followers on social media. Many call themselves “influencers” because they feel they have influence over their followers, but in most cases they really don’t. William Irvine’s excellent book “A Guide to the Good Life” says it perfectly: “If we seek social status, we give other people […]
Don’t make a bigger mistake
Reading Time: 2 minSometimes you will execute something perfectly, yet another person might think you’ve made a mistake. Depending on who that is, it might be worth owning up to your “mistake” rather than making a bigger one by trying to correct them. In his pursuit of excellence, Danny Meyer shares these thoughts in the book “Unreasonable Hospitality“, […]
Make the complicated simple
Reading Time: < 1 minMaking something simple can be a very tricky thing to do. Historically, Apple has been fantastic at this, with hugely complex products that have a very simple and intuitive UI. As I shared a few years ago, many things start out simple, gradually become more complex, and then need to put in some work to […]
Boast or fact?
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen marketing your company, there’s a fine line between boasting and sharing facts. Boasting can be fine is certain cases, but facts should always win. A recent post from Jonathan Stark laid this out perfectly, and he compared it to the movie “Elf” where Buddy tries the “World’s Best Cup Of Coffee”. If you’ve not […]