Sometimes I struggle with trying to stay present and relevant. There are so many thought leaders and personalities with exceptional marketing behind them. All I can do is share my work and hope it finds and helps you in your work. Every now and then, I open my door to personal interviews. I did just that for Kimberly McSweeney. I wanted to share that discussion with you here… Why do you study technology and its impact on society? What first sparked your…
Build Platforms, Not Just Products
Guest post by David Rogers (@david_rogers), faculty at Columbia Business School and author of The Digital Transformation Playbook: Rethink Your Business for the Digital Age. This excerpt is from Chapter 3, on how businesses need to transform their strategy for competition. Download a full chapter at www.DigitalTransformationPlaybook.com In 2007, two recent graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, were struggling to pay the rent on their apartment in San Francisco. When they heard that…
Why Mobile First is No Longer Enough; It’s Time To Think About Mobile Only Design
For the last few years, “mobile first!” has become the mantra among savvy digital marketers. But a mobile first approach seems to be more of an ideology than it is a standard in digital design. Recent research shows that marketers still invest in mobile as an afterthought or as a bolt on to more mainstream digital programs. For some reason, executives still need more convincing to properly fund and support mobile initiatives that span the entire customer journey not just…
The A.R.T. of Engagement and the Gift of Attention
After I presented at the ClickZ Live event in Chicago, I went back stage to share highlights of my talk with those who couldn’t be there. Among the many different topics I speak about at conferences, ClickZ asked me to focus on the future of marketing. At the time, I was still writing X and wanted to share complete concepts that served as its foundation. In this short 2 minute video, I share my ideas around experience architecture, the A.R.T. of…
Creating Truly Personal Omni-Channel Customer Experiences
During a recent trip to London, I spent time with the Smart Focus team to discuss the promise and shortcomings of omni-channel strategies. It was a pretty productive collaboration resulting in a video that explores the new digital customer, an ebook focused on omni-channel experiences and a webinar on the future of marketing. Customers are more connected and more informed than ever. Digital marketers now need an entirely fresh perspective to succeed in a world where customers and prospects experience their brand in multiple ways…
The New Marketing Contract and Why Context is the Future of Marketing
We live in a time of great technology evolution and revolution. Innovation is not only upon us; it affects, even disrupts, us as marketers and as consumers of other businesses. Your customers are more connected than ever before and they’re always on. The number of touchpoints between businesses and customers has exploded. Technology is everywhere and something new is always on the horizon. Wearables. Smart watches. The Internet of Things. Everything is changing. Indeed, today’s consumers are more empowered than…
Completely Rethinking Marketing Is Essential in Today’s Customer-Centric World
Guest post by Fred Studer (@fredstuder), Chief Marketing Officer at NetSuite As my friend Brian Solis says, “This is a time to question everything.” Let’s start with marketing, because it’s overdue for a revolution. Today’s customers are in the driver’s seat – it’s a buyer’s market and the buyers are better informed than ever. Prior to making a purchase today, customers research and compare products assiduously while tapping into both the opinions of people they know directly and reviews from…
Embracing the Audience: 5 Tips on Customer-Based Marketing
After I presented at the Digital Media Summit in Toronto, Sylvia Ng, VP of Growth and Analytics at ScribbleLive, asked for an interview to discuss challenges and opportunities ahead for digital marketers. Following is her summary of our conversation. I wanted to share it with you here… In the midst of endless blogs, podcasts, tweets, instagrams, and snapchats, how does a brand or business get noticed? Creating a truly effective marketing campaign is about understanding your brand, and more importantly,…
How Marketers Can Thrive in an Era of Digital Darwinism
While in London promoting What’s the Future of Business (WTF): Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences, I spent some time with the folks who produce The Digital Marketing Show. In this short video, I share the rise of Generation C and how an era of connected consumerism created the perfect storm for digital Darwinism to accelerate. We also discuss how the future of marketing takes more than technology, it takes a philosophical shift to create meaningful and shareable experiences. It’s…
Report: Some Brands Go All In on Mobile; Others Suffer from Mobile Mediocrity
Consumers aren’t just going digital, they’re also becoming increasingly mobile. To them, mobile isn’t the second screen, it’s the first screen. Brands however, struggle to keep up with them and as a result, mobile strategies are off target or underwhelming. This finding among many others is the result of new research conducted by my colleague Jaimy Szymanski and me. I’m proud to announce that the report, The Inevitability of a Mobile-Only Customer Experience, is available today for immediate download. Mobile…
