All Marketers Feel the Ups and Downs at JC Penney

JC Penney has been going through a lot of changes lately, and that is an understatement. After changing their logo, leadership, strategy, and pricing model, they have been losing both their identity and their customers.

But, they may have a plan to turn it all around. Check out this great article by Lisa Arthur about the renovation of the JC Penney brand. I really enjoyed her analysis of the different and creative ways that JC Penney is re-branding themselves moving forward.

Do you think that they can create a clear identity that their customers can connect to, and turn around their sales numbers as well?

Starbucks: Refreshers

The right packaging can make or break a customer’s decision to purchase a product. If the packaging is unappealing, a customer will not give the product a second thought. Instead, they will move right on to a competitor product, and a sale, as well as a potential customer relationship is lost.

Continue reading

Marketing Explained Using the Laws and Principles of Physics

Dan Cobley, a marketing director at Google, gave a presentation at the TED Global 2010 conference titled “What Physics Taught Me About Marketing”. When I first saw the title of this presentation I was hooked, I had to know how can marketing and branding principles be explained using physics. Well, Dan Cobley explains just that using Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics. Continue reading

The Brand Spiral of Death

The term branding is thrown around a lot in relation to every facet of marketing and advertising, and as such its’ true meaning has become lost in the shuffle. A company brand is not its’ logo, slogan, or website, these are a product of a brand just like the services or products that a company sells. A brand is the external, and internal, perception of a company and/or products/services it sells. In comparison, branding is a process of defining how a company wants to be perceived by their customers and internal team, as well as how they will go about achieving this goal.

I recently read a very interesting article by Jesse McGowan at Atomicdust titled The Brand Spiral of Death (and other thoughts on branding). Continue reading

Jenna Langer: 5 Ways to Humanize Your Brand

I recently read a great article by Jenna Langer, on how brands can better connect with their customers by creating a brand that is “human”. As we all know, humanizing a brand is not a small request; Humanizing Brand ImageasĀ  medias (i.e. social media) and customer expectations continue to change, this challenge becomes more difficult.

In the article, Jenna breaks down 5 humanizing tips, why they are important, and ways in which companies can implement them. These tips can help companies not only connect with their customers, but also turn them into brand advocates. Continue reading

social media editorial calendar

How to Bring Life to a Social Media Strategy

With many factors influencing the success of the real-time online conversations surrounding your company, social media can seem overwhelming at the beginning. These influencing factors include

  • Learning multiple platforms (ie. Facebook, Twitter, Blogs)
  • Maintaining a constant conversation with followers
  • Writing & posting on a schedule

By having a strategy in place and investing time each week to maintain and grow each profile, you will be better prepared to create a successful and fun social media marketing experience. Continue reading

The Mobile Purchase Path

Mobile usage by consumers has been on the rise, and it isn’t slowing down. Because of this trend, it is becoming more important than ever for companies to understand how consumers are using mobile devices to learn about products and complete purchases.

Moosylvania, an independent advertising agency in St. Louis, conducted a study to analyze how mobile usage has altered the consumer path to purchase. The study focused specifically on smart phone and tablet usage, and how purchase behavior differed by device, including: Continue reading

Components of High Quality Content Marketing

As search engines continue to alter their algorithms , so they can provide users with the best and most relevant content on the internet, the importance of content marketing is being pushed to the forefront. However, content marketing can be quite overwhelming when first diving in, so it is important to understand the influence that content has on customers and the core components.

Content+, a online marketing agency in the UK, created a captivating infographic to explain the importance and structure of content marketing.

Below are my favorite take-aways from the The Anatomy of Content Marketing – The Heart of Online Success infographic: Continue reading

16 Tip for Marketing on a Budget

For a company to thrive, it is important that they always make sure that they get the most for their money. This is especially true for small businesses who can’t afford the large advertising campaigns that larger companies can. But don’t fret, there are many things that all you small business owners can do to market your brand, find new customers, and increase sales. Check out these 16 great tips on how to market on a budget from Transition Marketing.

Do you have any tips for marketing on a budget?