Marketing

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5 Reasons Your Not-for-Profit Marketing May Be Failing

Marketing of not-for-profit causes and organisations is the challenge of a lifetime. Many people expect that, because they’re promoting something incredibly worthwhile and rewarding, they simply need to get the message out and tens of thousands of supporters will materialise overnight. But as anybody who’s actually tried it can attest, that’s very rarely the case. Why? In an…

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July 31, 2011
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Are your ideas ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

I was recently re-reading another great book from Edward de Bono, “New Thinking for the New Millennium”, which was published in 1999 and is clearly as just as applicable today as it was 12 years ago. Human nature being what it is, we have a tendency to get lazy in our thinking and, for expediency, process many of…

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May 17, 2011
Read more about the article Too Much of a Good Thing?
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Too Much of a Good Thing?

Have you been inadvertently seduced into the ‘we need more of this good thing’ mindset? Whether in marketing, business more broadly, family life, friendships, or business, corporate, and national finances, it’s common place (and entirely natural) for us to think that if something is ‘good’ and it’s been beneficial for us thus far, then we want more of…

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May 3, 2011
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Should we have a Facebook page for our business?

The owner of a groovy café near our office asked me this week whether it’s possible to delete posts on a Facebook page. I explained that it is, and then he went on to explain that this was a significant consideration for him in deciding whether or not to set up a Facebook page for his café. His…

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April 27, 2011
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Computer glitch leads to supermarket free-for-all

Supermarket owner Glenn Miller is feeling a bit foolish at the moment. His Pak ‘N Save supermarket in Hamilton, NZ, unlocked itself at 8am on Good Friday with not a staff member in sight! I found this news report to be a fascinating case study in human nature. But whilst chuckling from a safe distance about such a…

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April 26, 2011
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Designing a Way Forward

The human brain and our society are programmed to build upon our pre-established building blocks. This is very helpful, because we don’t have time to reinvent the wheel for every action or task we’re required to undertake. But it also means we tend not to think creatively and look at the bigger picture. We map out where we…

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April 25, 2011
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How to avoid a public relations disaster on Twitter

Anybody been following the recent tirade by a Marc Jacobs intern who somehow was given the keys to drive Daddy’s Twitter account? I can’t imagine CEO Robert Duffy would have been too impressed! Any exposure is not necessarily good exposure, and if Marc Jacobs have a “social media policy”, I suspect this fell well outside the policy guidelines.…

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March 30, 2011
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Myer is not my store anymore

Myer may consider themselves to be positioned as an upmarket department store, but the customers they are trying so hard to appeal to are starting to disagree. Myer staff would only need to spend a few minutes on the floor of one of their suburban locations to sense the sentiment, but the problem is precisely that — there are no…

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March 17, 2011
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Fit n Fast Gyms employs creative social marketing

I like it! Fit n Fast Gyms are a new player serious about making a huge impact in the fitness/gyms marketplace — and I reckon they could have a winning marketing formula. Using a combination of Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter, they’re spreading the word through the power of personal social networks on what I imagine is a shoestring budget. Arrive…

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August 5, 2010
Read more about the article Offshoring — the pros and cons from a social and commercial perspective
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Offshoring — the pros and cons from a social and commercial perspective

A couple of years ago I wrote a draft article about off-shoring and the reasons why, ethically, it makes perfect sense and should not be condemned. However, it languished in the recesses of my hard disk until a couple of weeks ago, when a phone call I made to Telstra was directed to a call centre in Philippines…

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January 13, 2010