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We think agencies are the best. But sometimes they need a little help.30 EOS Scorecard Examples for Marketing Agencies
In the dynamic world of marketing, tracking the right metrics is crucial for agency growth and success. The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) provides a powerful framework that empowers marketing agencies to thrive, and a key component of that framework is the...
Your Feedback Sucks: 5 Ways To Improve Your Feedback and Get More Out of Your Creative Team
Marketers work in a world that thrives on feedback. We are constantly working through feedback cycles, both with our clients and our own internal creative teams. Creative teams invest countless hours executing on feedback. And a lot of that feedback sucks. Here’s why your feedback is falling short, and how you can make it better.
Improving Productivity By Letting Things Go
I’ve been thinking a lot about quitting. The idea of quitting. When people first hear the word “quitting,” they think of acquiescence, of giving up. They think of quitting jobs, and sports teams, and relationships. But, what about quitting in terms of focus? In terms of how much energy and mind space is taken up […]
Thrashing: Why Your Project Slipped
If you manage projects of any type, you know what thrashing is. Thrashing is changing things on a project. It’s to beat on a design (or concept) via criticism and feedback. With thrashing, timing is everything. There’s an appropriate time for edits and then there’s a terrible (and expensive) time for edits. If thrashing happens early […]
Are We Solving For the Wrong Problems?
We tackle problems every day. Different people solve problems differently. Some tackle them head on, some take a step back and ponder, and some simply react with the first solution that pops into their head. None of these approaches are always right and none of these are always wrong. Different problems call for different approaches.
We Want Less: How The Number of Choices Affects Happiness
We all want choices. In general more choices represents more freedom, specifically more freedom of decision making. And in this day and age, the internet has provided us with seemingly endless choices for everything. There are over 13,044 different men’s shoes choices on Zappos. Netflix offers over 100,000 titles. And somehow this makes us unhappy. […]
Social Proof and the Netflix Binge Watching Survey
Are you watching closely? Netflix recently contracted Harris Interactive to conduct an online survey about how its users view TV shows. The survey found that a majority of streaming television viewers in the United States enjoy binge-viewing (watching TV episodes back-to-back) and feel that it makes shows more enjoyable. So we all love marathoning Breaking Bad, who […]
Scarcity, Marketing and Black Friday: Why We’re All Getting Cheap Towels for Christmas
The season of giving is upon us. It’s time for Eggnog Lattes, Peppermint Mochas, Red Velvet Drizzle Donuts, and the coveted/dreaded Black Friday deals. But why do we care really? Let’s learn about artificial scarcity.
The Sociology Behind The Walking Dead
“We bury the ones we love and burn the rest,” says Andrea, a survivor, after she impales a zombie’s skull with a scythe and then nonchalantly picks up a severed arm and tosses it to the side.
The Fear of Being Found Out
We keep quiet. In meetings. Around the dinner table. At the bar. We keep quiet. We talk, of course we talk, but we hold back. We don’t venture to offer those visceral responses or truest of true feelings we hold dear. Instead we filter them out and suppress them down in hopes to remain in the […]
I Worked For a Start Up. And It Failed.
When I first left the agency world, I wanted to do something different, something better, more fulfilling, and more meaningful. After a brief stint as a substitute teacher (don’t ask), I joined a promising young startup company with a vision of making the internet a safer place for kids. Sounded like an adventure, and maybe, […]
Decisions. Decisions. How To Move Forward.
We have an endless world of data and research resources at our finger tips. And sometimes we’re paralyzed by it. Unable to move forward until all available information has been thoroughly considered. We delay decisions, telling ourselves we need to more thoroughly vet all possible alternatives. Sometimes this is called due diligence, but sometimes this […]
Three Things I (Don’t) Know By Now
Some posts don’t come out easy. I start and stop them. Over and over again. I may have more posts in draft than are published. I came across a prompt that said “what are three things you should know by now?” and this is what came out.
Cover-Your-Ass Marketing
Have you ever seen an ad with too many bullet points? Or a powerpoint? Or web page? Who decided to throw every possible brand attribute onto one page? What happened during the creative process that left the customer with so much reading to do?
Complexity Is Easy
We often think of complex systems as something to be admired. And in some cases, they should be (like Google’s algorithms or The Wire). But too often we make our lives and work unnecessarily complex.
Increasing Conversion With Dressing Rooms
Why are dressing rooms always in the back of stores? They can be hard to find (looking at you J.C. Penny), usually on the periphery. In past posts we’ve looked at how in-store sampling increases sales (free samples in grocery stores). So aren’t dressing rooms essentially a vehicle for in-store sampling…of clothes?