Funnel Reboot

Up to the end of the twentieth century, the only ads that appeared on a screen were the ones arranged by a handful of TV networks. They were the only ones who could sell commercials, and only the biggest companies could afford what they charged for 30 seconds of airtime.

Then, about 25 years ago, some digital marketing innovations started to make a new ad model possible.

In 2000, Google launched a self-serve ad platform, and it was...

Some of us are lucky enough to work in a place with analysts who can help us make sense of our data. But there are added challenges in making this  collaboration work. 

Analysts may struggle with the questions marketers ask, finding them too vague for analyzing. 
Marketers may get data back that they find irrrelevant; they may assume the analyst misunderstood their request. I'll grant that we can speak the same l...

When I ask how someone forms their perception of a brand, what comes to mind? It might be they hear about it by word of mouth, or on an email thread or private message. In a nutshell, what's said about our company when we're not in the room, when we're not in control of the message. 

Now try the same experiment with our personal brand. Is our immediate thought how to look as good as possible? Is it ho...

"Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb says "understanding how to act under conditions of incomplete information is the highest and most urgent human pursuit" 

He might have been referring to B2B marketing. Think of it. Internal teams have internal data that give insight into customer accounts and lifetime value. Their agencies are close to different data: media auction signals, campaign trends. B...

Talk of Content marketing started appearing online around 2007. One of the few people who  started talking about it was former Funnel Reboot guest Joe Pulizzi. It wasn't until 2014 I became aware of marketers who were staking their career on the profession of creating content. I found the idea of giving-away-expertise a bit unsettling.  Maybe it was because for a dozen years prior to that, I'd mainly communicated with aud...

Small businesses run on lean marketing teams and tight budgets, but don't count them out. They're the overwhelming majority of businesses on earth.
Small companies have one function that's poised to figure out AI through experimentation, analysis and strategic changes in direction. It's marketing, and it may very well determine the winner of the AI race.
After graduating from Laurentian University, our guest worked in corpo...

Everyone makes content now. But having content doesn't automatically mean anyone will actually consume it. There are brands with long-running programs and audiences that carve out time for their content, while other brands' programs fade because it became a thankless chore. What's different between content that's adored and content that dies in obscurity?  

The brands that win make content that a...

I can't prove it, but I think many marketers wish they could improve how they're perceived by corporate leadership. 

I have felt this way in more than one role, and racked my brain on how to fix it. I've entertained everything including coming to board meetings with a dozen custom-branded donuts.  

Thankfully, the a solution I have come up with isn't extreme and it doesn't require donuts.

I was recently given the chance b...

We humans like conversations that keep moving forward.  Every time we share some detail about ourselves, we expect the other person to remember it. 

If they bring that detail back up in our next interaction, we feel pleased and want to keep that relationship going. Conversely, we get annoyed when they blast us with messages we had already said didn't interest us.  

This is severely problematic for us sales and market...

Episode 233

In the 2009 movie "Up" there's a golden retriever whose collar can translate his thoughts to speech. When Dug the dog first  starts speaking, the main characters marvel at how smart he is, but expectations drop a moment later when he snaps his head around and halts mid-sentence when he hears a squirrel.  

We marketers are prone to Squirrel-chasing. Let's be honest and admit that ...

Episode 232

There is a quiet, enduring power in wisdom that resists the urge to conform. Wise people refuse to abandon their convictions. It's not obvious who will be the Wise character in These Stories, the role often casts them as having lowly beginnings or in the shadow of others who are more powerful. But they speak out anyway, even if they are mocked or sidelined. Take:

Don Quixote's sidekick Sancho P...

It goes without saying that the purpose of sales and marketing is to help a company grow. We create forecasts where revenue grows a hundred-thousand, a million, or 10 million dollars.  But we expect to achieve that with incremental changes to our resources and tech-stacks. 

When Base 10 Math is used to express numbers that differ by orders of magnitude, we use exponents, noted with the letter N p...

Social media platforms can serve as both vibrant marketplaces and spaces for genuine social interaction, where consumers feel valued, while businesses boost engagement and sales.

This picture may not look anything like the reality of social media that you see, but our guest will remind you that things haven't always been this way.  

A short glance back of the Internet shows that in the year 2000 the Internet's governing body a...

Episode 229

We need to talk about what's been happening with the use of AI on Google and Meta's ad platforms. 

A few years ago, we were surgeons. We had the scalpel. We chose the exact keywords, the specific bid modifiers, the precise placements. Now? Google and Meta are basically telling us, "Hey, don't worry your pretty little human head about it. Just give us your credit card, a few grainy images, ...

How do you amplify a message when you can't lean on traditional justifications like "because we'll make a profit out of this"?

In the for-profit world, the justification for marketing spend is straightforward: you put money in to get more money out. But how do you amplify a message when you can't lean on traditional bottom-line justifications? For non-profits, associations, and social enterprises, the "pr...

Episode 226

Positioning is an element that's so foundational to  Marketing, it's taught in every introductory class alongside the "Four Ps" of marketing. Positioning is meant to describe the choices a brand makes to maximize how the market sees it. Positioning is very powerful because it can set perceptions that drive customer loyalty, strong demand, and the willingness to pay a premium price.

But if...

Episode 225

At the time I'm recording this it's a new year. This is a typical time when people plan what they're going to achieve fitness-wise, financially and professionally. If you're working on that last one and wonder about what marketing reads you should try, I have some marketing books that could do just the thing. There are Five in all. - Let's dive right in.

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