Ever sit down at the computer to start a new promotion, ad, or campaign and feel like you have no new ideas?  Here are 5 ways to jump start your creativity for headlines: Ask a question…”What’s your back to school game plan?” Offer something special…”Open the door to your dreams!” Give a warning… “Get smart – refinance before rates go up.” Start telling a story… “Grandma started teaching me about money when I was a kid…” Lead with a strong …

What should marketers do about the opportunities and challenges presented by competitors, changing demographics, and technologies that make getting marketing messages to customers/members more fragmented? The answer is to simply embrace it all. Instead of getting overwhelmed, flustered or paralyzed, which can easily happen in the complicated marketplace today, treat it like a game! Have some fun and get customer/members engaging with your brand!  Here are some ideas: Photo Contest – The easiest contest to put together is asking customers/members …

When is the last time your marketing machine was analyzed? Does your marketing “engine” need a tune-up? If you are counting on growing your bottom line, make sure you have a well-oiled marketing machine. Having conducted Strategic Marketing Audits for many clients over the years, reviewing every aspect of marketing is important for all organizations to make strategic changes for next year’s plan. Here are a few questions from the areas we analyze: Situational Analysis – What major developments or …

Every summer, the same thing is heard around the C-Suite: no one is around in the summer, so how can we make our numbers?  Interesting, that when I was an acting CMO for a $450 million credit union, I was able to dispel the summer doldrums with a simple signature loan promotion. The concept was to increase the number of signature loans by 50% during the summer months with a special rebate for larger dollar personal loans.  While this isn’t …

Every organization is faced with many opportunities and challenges in navigating the crowded, competitive and changing marketplace. In fact, success is now being defined as how well your organization can position and differentiate itself in this marketplace. While accounting firms conduct financial audits to ensure financial stability, rarely have we heard of clients performing Strategic Marketing Audits to determine their marketing effectiveness and opportunities. The value of marketing audits was something I discovered in a textbook by Phillip Kotler while teaching graduate …

As a marketer, the hardest thing to craft is the layout with a grabber headline or offer that will attract your target person’s attention. With so much clutter of brands battling for eyeballs, what will work for the message you want to have your target customer/member see? Here are some tips to help you be more effective: Use Color – The target person’s eyes are drawn to contrasts, so using contrasting colors within your marketing materials will get their attention! …

Many of us attracted to marketing brought the love of using creativity to get people interested in a product or service.  We loved the idea of creating an amazing advertising campaign that caused the sales needle to go way up!  A large group of marketing and advertising professionals have talent and skill in writing, others have the visual design skills, and others are great at project management of campaigns with lots of moving pieces! At the core, the ability to …

Who exactly are you writing your marketing messages for? Who is the customer/member in your mind that you believe the message will resonate with? Consider that for so many years, advertising was blasted out to many in the hopes that the “right” people would hear it and become a lead.  The media that was used offered limited audiences and required different formats whether TV/radio commercials or newspaper/magazine ads to get reach as many consumers as possible. Today, a marketer has …

“If you sell a pound of sugar, do it with the thought that the purchaser’s trade is valuable because he will soon be able to buy in barrel lots; if a child buys a penny’s worth of candy, put into the sale the thought that he will one day buy a five-pound box; and in each case see that the customer gets the thought. Put into every sale the thought of advance for the customer as well as for yourself; …

For over two years, I was the Interim CMO for a $450 million credit union while the CEO was looking for the right fit for the position. It gave me a new perspective on C-level executives in Credit Union Land trying to move their organizations forward in a sputtering economy. Here are just a few insights: Maintain focus on the ways marketing supports the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Monitoring the achievement of annual goals enables you to make shifts in the …