Tag: Marketing

Fascinate F-score test

After watching How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead I was fascinated and curious about the seven fascination triggers.

I found the F-score brand personality test which gives you your primary, secondary and dormant triggers out of the seven fascination triggers.

  • Passion
  • Rebellion
  • Alarm
  • Mystique
  • Power
  • Prestige
  • Trust

The test was free and gives you interesting information which is valuable when you work on creating and maintaining your brand, whether it’s your personal brand or your business brand.

How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead

The newsletter “Outside the Lines” from Michael Bungay Stanier listed “8 Brilliant Videos You Should Watch”. The video that really caught my attention is TEDxAtlanta – Sally Hogshead – How to Fascinate (Video is below).

In today’s world of 9-second attention spans, our introductions mean more-than-ever before. Sally Hogshead reveals the seven triggers of fascination and how to get others to fall in love with your ideas, instantly.

Sally Hogshead starts with “All markets are like online dating markets” and talks about our short attention spans of 9 seconds (the same as a goldfish). Her main message is the seven fascination triggers.

Every day, intentionally or not, you’re using fascination triggers to persuade people at work and home. Whether you’re pitching a new client, or inviting a friend to lunch, or lulling a cranky toddler to sleep, you’re using triggers to elicit a certain response.

At YouTube there’s also Sally Hogshead: Keynote Speaker on Innovation | Marketing | How to Fascinate. It’s a promotional video but it includes interesting pieces from some of her presentations.

Video: How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees

Jim’s Marketing Blog is a new favourite of mine. Jim’s posts are often short but his posts make me think about the topic in question. That’s a good way to move your business forward.

Today I found his series about How to attract the best clients and the highest fees, a topic that is highly relevant to many of us (me included).

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees: Part 1 is about developing a uniquely valuable service.

I’m sure you have heard the saying; everyone in business is a problem solver!
The suggestion is sound. It confirms the fact that every business exists, to solve at least 1 problem. The bigger the problem, the fewer people there are who can solve it, and the more money they can charge for providing the answer.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees: Part 2 is about the difference between what people pay for and what people buy.

Smart business owners understand that people pay for the product or service you offer, but they buy the experience.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees: Part 3 is about the commercial value of originality.

If you want to attract the best clients and the highest fees, you need to understand the commercial value of originality.

Read more in Jim’s posts and while there, subscribe to his blog.

What are they buying?

I saw this on Twitter yesterday, a condensed lesson in business.

People are not buying what you are selling.
They are buying the result of what you are selling.

This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.

Leo Babauta writes about the Tao of Marketing

Over at Micro Persuasion was an interesting guest post, “Leo Babauta on the Tao of Marketing”. Leao wrote about his own marketing experiences connected to his site Zen Habits and his book “The Power of Less”>. He wrote about the old way of marketing before getting into the new way.

Marketers must adopt an entirely new strategy — more than that, an entirely new mindset. They must get away from trying to create new desires in people, trying to push and force themselves on people, trying to control people.

Instead, find a more natural way. Find out what people want, and then give it to them. Offer them value, and they will appreciate that. Be a resource. Give things away. Don’t force — let them come to you, because of all the value you offer.

Leo lists these points, each explained more in his blog post:
• Accept things as they are.
• Don’t control.
• Don’t force.
• Do less.
• Do small things.
• Be valuable.
• Attract, don’t smother.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

How Word-of-Mouse Spreads Your Ideas for Free

Over at ChangeThis is a free eBook about The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How Word-of-Mouse Spreads Your Ideas for Free.

For decades, the only way to spread our ideas was to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write (or broadcast) about our products and services. But now our organizations have a tremendous opportunity to publish great content online—content that people want to consume and that they are eager to share with their friends, family, and colleagues.

It is a great read about viral marketing or word-of-mouse, how it can help you promote yourself or your company for free. There are examples of viral marketing such as eBooks and videos at YouTube. There is also a word of warning:

The power of the Internet makes it easier for people to fall in love with you faster. But beware—it also makes it easier for them to fall out of love with you faster.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

Guy Kawasaki has a very interesting post about The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. The rule says that a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

Guy writes that this rule is applicable for any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc. But I think few slides and large font is a rule that goes for any presentation. The slides are supposed to support your presentation, they are not intended to contain your presentation.

Suggested reading: How to Present and Pitch – A Guide to the Perfect Pitch

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

Your Business Card Says a Lot About You

“Your Business Card Says a Lot About You – How Does Yours Rate?” was a useful page. There were ten criteria to help you rate your own (as well as others) business card and see how the card score.

The ten criteria were:

  • The weight of the card stock feels substantial and isn’t flimsy.
  • The company name or logo is clear and easy to read and is the largest item on the card.
  • The logo is unique and doesn’t look like it came from the clip art of a desktop publishing program.
  • The font size and style make the information easy to read.
  • The person’s name is the second most prominent item on the card.
  • There’s a telephone number, fax number, e-mail address and Web site – all clearly marked.
  • If the card is in color, there isn’t an overuse of colors and there’s a sense of a company color scheme.
  • The back of the card is used for additional information.
  • The card is well designed and professional in appearance.
  • There isn’t an overload of copy and there’s some white (empty) space.

Score two points for each of the criteria above. If a card meets only part of a criterion, give it one point.

Update
The fax number is hardly relevant anymore. Phone and email takes care of communication.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

© 2024

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑