Category: Contentions
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The power of proof assets
Every so often, you send an important professional document to someone. The most universal experience is applying to a job, which you do by sending HR your resume. Your resume is a proof asset; it describes your experiences, accomplishments, and expertise. If you lead a business, you send many documents like this. For example, you…
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Figure out what’s working, and do more of it
When you start a new project, it’s useful to figure out what has worked for the team or company already. Most of this is a form of manual labor: setting meetings, asking questions, reading reports, proposing actual deliverables and completing them. It’s also a humbling exercise, to restrain the impulse to come up with answers…
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Simple questions to sense content marketing ROI
If you’re need a sense of how much ROI you’re getting on the writing and editing activities in your company, ask these simple questions: Does the content communicate how we see the world? What impact does it make if other people also buy into our perspective? Does the content add leverage to a launch moment?…
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Marketing readiness
A product’s features may be complete, but that doesn’t mean it’s ready for customers yet. Before they use the product, customers want to know: What does the product do? Who’s it for? What’s a good reason I should care? There are more questions you need to ask yourself: how can you get the customer’s interest?…
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Get your customer’s name right, or don’t ask at all
In 2012, Starbucks baristas started writing down their customers’ names on their cups. This convention spread around to other businesses. Since then, I’ve been asked my name a lot. Here is what I often seen on labels in response: Harper Harbor Harvard Trevor Herburger While most customers probably won’t mind, as long as the product’s…
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World building, observations, and names
A couple of years ago, I wrote about how one way to see branding was to build a world. I currently work as the director of marketing at FGX. One of the aspects that continues to energize me is the depth of thought the leaders put into defining the world of global IT logistics. They’ve…
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Don’t just talk about it, write it out
There is a lot of jargon in the business world. That’s because it’s easy to give something a name and talk about it. It’s much more difficult to give meaning to the name and define it. Writing the new definition out forces you to get clear on the specifics of what it means. It also…
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AI and living tutorials
A couple of years ago, I published a post on how I thought AI would disrupt writing, editing, and marketing. I wrote, “The notion that people won’t get replaced with A.I., but people who work with A.I., rings true in each of these fields.” One reason this happens is because AI simply makes an individual…
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Contentions: Apple TV’s billion dollar loss
There’s a possibility that Apple is losing over $1 billion per year on Apple TV. The so-called “loss” is plausible, it’s also a rather ordinarily-sized expense considering Apple’s relatively high scale other marketing expenses. Consider this: Another report suggests that Apple spent $775 million per year on ads in 2023, with $512 million of that…