Blog

Start Small – with One Channel – for Expert Results

Bring your expertise to the forefront by focusing on what you know when you take your first marketing steps. You can’t do it all,...

Inclusion in Marketing Is More than Just a Performance

Diversity and inclusion often starts in marketing – in efforts to look diverse and look inclusive – but if you want to prioritise diversity...

How Do You Know If a Marketing Channel Is Worth It?

Investing in marketing is a cost for your business, so it makes sense to evaluate whether it is a worthwhile investment by measuring each...

When You’re Under Financial Pressure, Should You Focus on Profit?

In times of financial pressure, it’s tempting to focus your energy on profit rather than the wider concerns that underpin your business, such as...

What Are Your Real Success KPIs?

The marketing funnel provides businesses with a solid model for creating a marketing strategy, but it is worth questioning whether it is helping you...

We Are Hardwired to Favour the Good and Punish the Bad

Storytelling can be incredibly powerful in marketing. I’ve been reading a book that shares some interesting insights into the science behind storytelling – how...

The List, Offer, Creative Framework

Creating marketing content can seem like a daunting task, but you can simplify the process by using a few helpful tools and strategies. Here’s...

The Cycle of Marketing Channels: Turning Old Tools into New Tricks

Staying on top of marketing technology trends can be exhausting – but not all marketing has to take place online. By turning the marketing...

Are You Only Meeting the Minimum Levels of Deception in Your Industry?

In every industry, it’s easy to fall into the ‘minimum level of acceptable deception’ trap in your marketing, where you look around at your...

Real Estate Signs Are a Waste of Marketing Real Estate

When a real estate agent is selling a house, they emblazon their logo over the signs outside, which tells you who is selling the...

Great Minds Don’t Think Alike

“Great minds think alike” isn’t as helpful a saying as it may at first seem. But how about “Great minds don’t think alike” –...

Are You More Cup or Knife Mind?

The way you approach your marketing may be rooted in an intriguing piece of occult wisdom, which asks you to consider whether you are...

Do You Need All Those Instagram Followers?

Spending time building your Instagram followers may seem a worthwhile marketing investment, but is Instagram the right channel for you to be focusing on...

Communication Is About More Than Words

If you only listen to the words your clients say when you talk to them, you may be missing what’s really being said –...

When Do You Sacrifice Kindness for Productivity and Profit?

Most of the business advice you’ll find out there can become very obsessed with enhancing productivity, profit, and growth. This does make sense –...

What Kind of Marketing Help Do You Need?

Especially when you’re still growing, you need to be wise about how you spend your budget. Marketing help is one of those things you...

Should I Care About SEO?

When you’re a small business or solo business owner, tackling all the complicated Search Engine Optimisation language can feel like learning how to do...

Business is Always Personal

Is your customer “businesses” (i.e. do you work in “B2B”)? Even if you’re B2C, have you been talking about who you target as your...

Marketing Ethically 1 (12 August 2021)

I haven’t had a chance to transcript this yet, but here’s the recording of the very first Marketing Ethically discussion we had. It was...

Interruption vs Search Advertising

Most business owners want to start using paid advertising on digital platforms to reach their audience and can even be reasonably familiar with the...

Ethical Fading in Marketing

Simon Sinek’s “A Little Bit of Optimism” podcast episode on Ethical Fading got me thinking about how this applies more specifically in marketing… If...

Should I Use Snail Mail?

Sometimes the old classics of marketing come back around for another hit on the marketing wheel. Sending marketing in the post might seem like...

Should You Give Away Content for Free?

One of my principles is “Pay for Work and Not for Talk”. That sounds like I should probably advocate for giving away lots of...

What’s The Transformation?

When people start thinking about their marketing messages they often talk about the pains and the benefits, and about what their customers get from...

Write to Fascinate

I remember coming across this very old marketing technique called “fascinations”. Let me tell you about why I think it’s a great concept to...

Business Owners Should Be Masters of None

The term jack of all trades is sometimes seen as positive, but the full idiom actually goes “jack of all trades, master of none”...

Enthusiastic Consent in Sales Strategy

There are some irrefutable concepts in consent in the context of personal relationships – especially when it comes to sex and romance. I was...

Are You Over-Egging The Pudding?

One of my clients (and friend @andthebeatgoesonvtg on Instagram!) was getting a little stressed out because she was writing up a post that was...

Target Your Existing Customers!

Most people turn to marketing for “lead generation” – and they forget that it’s as important (if not more so) to focus on the...

Marketing is Easy When You Preach What You Practice

This was a really simple mindset thing that came up during a client session and I just had to share it. It’s such a...

How to Write Good Email Subject Lines

Writing email subject lines is the bane of most people’s existence. Honestly, it’s not just you – even experienced marketers stress out about how...

Don’t Learn Marketing Tactics

When you’re starting to learn marketing, it can get super overwhelming – there are so many tricks and tips on what to do on...

The Ethics of Targeting Oppressed Communities

When you’re trying to figure out your target person (or niche), you may find that you’re targeting a community that has historically faced oppression....

A Goldmine of Selling Points

There’s a much-overlooked source for finding your strongest selling points that could be a game-changer for small businesses looking to improve the quality of...

When Do I Automate?

In one of my mentoring sessions, one of the major goals they wanted to achieve was to figure out where and how to automate...

Is Cheap Outsourcing Ethical?

It’s become pretty normalised for businesses in higher GDP economies to outsource work to less developed countries. It’s often considered an almost primary option...

Your Most Important Business Decision-Making Tool

I ran a workshop a few weeks ago on marketing for hospitality businesses. One of the participants was telling the restaurants on the call...

Just Sell the Next Click

A big mistake that many business owners make when writing their marketing is that they are trying to sell their product. Here’s the thing,...

You Don’t Want High Paying Clients

A reality of doing business is that it has to be profitable in order to survive – profit is the fuel that runs your...

Is Social Media a Good Marketing Channel?

At first, social media seems like the obvious choice for marketing for a small business – it doesn’t cost you any money and there’s...

The 3P Copywriting Tip

Even the best writers cannot look at a blank page and produce fantastic copywriting. The framework I explain in this video is something that...

ROI is a Tool of Oppression

A big job of making marketing more ethical is about becoming aware of how some of our actions have unconsciously reinforced systems of oppression....

3 Ways to Choose Your Niche

Step 1 in the content-led marketing strategy I’m constantly touting is “Understanding Your Target Person”. Well, there’s another layer ABOVE Target Person that’s just...

Is Google Ads Worth It?

This is such a common question that I’m always asked. Google is so ubiquitous it just seems ridiculously obvious that all businesses should jump...

Is Pushing Pain Points Ethical Marketing?

It’s very established in marketing that when you’re trying to sell something, you need to focus more on how the product solves a problem...

Should You Send Customers Free Gifts?

I was sent some gifts from a zero-waste organisation I was ordering from. When I posted about this on my Facebook group, there were...

Your Customer May Not Be Your Target Person

This concept may be one that you’ve already realised for yourself, but I’ve found that sometimes businesses with more complex target persons haven’t quite...

Behavioural Resistance May Change Your USP

There’s a phenomenon called “behavioural resistance” which may be the real reason your marketing may not be as successful as you think it should...

What Marketing KPIs are Important for Small Businesses?

We are living in an age of data. It’s fairly established that when we are able to measure something, we are most likely to...

Delegate by DUSTing

When leaders get overloaded, they learn to delegate. But delegation isn’t just about passing over the task to someone else and then dusting your...

Marketing is Too Important to Outsource to Marketers

Marketing is probably one of the most important parts of your business, and most entrepreneurs do realise this. But the big mistake many of...

Is Guerrilla Marketing Ethical?

Have you heard about this type of marketing called ‘guerrilla marketing’? In many modern references, they’re using this to refer to a form of...

Newton Didn’t Discover Gravity

In school, you might have been taught that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell upon his head. But the truth is,...

Growth Hacking is Not Ethical Marketing

It’s super pervasive to consider ‘growth hacking’ as synonymous with marketing. However, I care to disagree – and I would go so far as...

Can I Have More Than 1 Target Person?

When planning your marketing strategy, it important to understand your target PERSON – and not a target AUDIENCE or MARKET – so that you...

What Entrepreneurs Sometimes Forget When Defining Their USP

When you talk to marketers, entrepreneurs often get caught up in defining their USP by focusing entirely on what the customer wants. This happens...

2 Factors to Ethically Cold Email A Bought List

Most of us really hate spam (I’m not sure what to say about anyone who actually likes the stuff – either in the tin...

How to Set Your Marketing Strategy Timeline

Once you’ve worked through the other steps of creating your marketing strategy – once you’re clear on your target person, your message, your channels...

Give Yourself Freedom to Think Up Content Marketing Ideas

When you’re crafting your content marketing strategy, step 4 involves coming up with the actual content ideas first. Every entrepreneur has that practical part...

Choosing Marketing Channels is NOT the First Step

Most entrepreneurs start thinking about their marketing in terms of choosing the marketing channels – “How do I start using Instagram to market my...

What is a Marketing Strategy Led By Content?

I thought before I go on recording videos within each of the 5 steps of the content-led marketing strategy – I thought it might...

What is a USP?

The term “USP” has become quite standard in the world of digital marketing. And many entrepreneurs often believe they already know what their “unique...

How Do You Choose A Target Person?

A lot of people know about defining their ‘target audience’. And usually it’s all about demographics and looking at the market’s behaviour, buying patterns...