What happens when you gather a bunch of nerdy voice actors and one badass Dungeon Master, then have them all roll a natural 20 in showmanship? You get Critical Role, the show that has made Read more…
The machines are taking over! AI is going to replace us all! If I only had a dollar for every time I heard some version of that. Even in its early stages, artificial intelligence, or Read more…
Have Google searches felt…off to you lately? A lot of people think so, and you likely know someone who adds the word “Reddit” to the end of Google searches to get better results. Just look Read more…
Gam·ers | ˈgā-mərs (noun): a subcategory of the species Homo sapiens that sits upon gaming chairs of varying colors and sizes. They are known for playing games for hours on end, often into the dead of night. Read more…
“It’s not the heat that’ll get you, it’s the humidity.” Such are the words of wisdom spoken by Rand, an American suburban white man in his 50s, and a recurring character on the Middle Class Read more…
Reasons for hope seem to be in short supply these days. Politics are a mess, everything is getting expensive, and the modern internet built on social media seems to only inflame these tensions. Yet there Read more…
In 1977, Dungeons & Dragons created the alignment chart – a simple two-axis where characters could be classified as good or evil, lawful or chaotic. Sometime in the 2010s, the idea of the alignment chart Read more…
In 1999, Scottish video game developer, Chris Sawyer, chased a pipe dream. He was fascinated by amusement parks, and he wanted to create a game that captured the joy of being in one. Despite the Read more…
Do you dream of being a massive jerk to people around you? Well, of course, you do. We have all had moments where you want to speak your mind or simply get stuff off your Read more…
If you spend any amount of time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Reddit, odds are, you’re going to run into at least one of these SpongeBob memes. These memes along with the fact that search Read more…
Ever try to get away to a quiet cabin in the country, only to have to fight with your demon-possessed hand as the house itself laughs at you? Well, I hope you brought along a Read more…
What do ancient military tactics and social media marketing have in common? Apparently a lot, according to anime Ya Boy Kongming. You might be surprised to know how much, in fact, as both have been Read more…
Imagine building one of the most culturally significant bands of the 21st century. Now imagine doing that while experimenting radically in a genre where copying others is a proven path to success. While never showing Read more…
Fancy vacationing on a cartoon island dressed as John Wick? What if I told you that you’d have to fight with Spiderman with a lightsaber and Ariana Grande with a grenade launcher? Well, you are Read more…
Every nation has its great past-time. For the USA, it’s baseball. For the UK, it’s football (soccer). Getting people to pay attention to a new sport is a tall order – and that’s why Formula Read more…
A few years ago I was filling out some paperwork and it asked for my job title. I remember asking, “do you want my actual job title? Or just my field of work?” At the Read more…
Released in 2003, The Room is widely considered to be one of the worst films ever made. It holds a score of 3.7 out of 10 on IMDb and an astounding 9 out of 100 Read more…
Of all the meetings, I have, my morning meeting with Mr. Cup Of Joe is the one I never miss. It’s a warm welcome to the morning and has always been a delicious and dopamine-inducing Read more…
In a logical world, Costco would suck. Low prices, spartan settings, and immense crowds. That’s an unholy trinity that should ruin just about any shopping experience. But it doesn’t, and I think that’s remarkable. Costco Read more…
Have you seen the images of empty store shelves lately? They’re all over social media and the news. You might think that it’s the result of people panic buying, but the problems run deeper than Read more…
You have probably heard of the popular video game, League of Legends. At a minimum, you’ve heard the distant screams of someone losing a match. It’s unavoidable because League It is an insanely popular game Read more…
Metaverse. Web3. NFT. The year 2021 introduced the world to a lot of really complicated new technological ideas. In February and March 2021, people started talking about NFTs. Then chatter about the “metaverse” started to Read more…
Ron’s Gone Wrong is a film about the friendship between socially awkward middle-schooler, Barney, and his friend Ron. But there’s a twist: Ron is a Bubble Bot, produced by the Bubble Company, which is basically Read more…
Wrestlers put their life on the line in the ring, day in, day out to make their audiences happy. They live larger-than-life lifestyles because they want to make captivating TV with their stunning wrestling moves. Read more…
Few movie characters are as iconic, controversial, contradictory, and enduring as James Bond. It doesn’t matter who’s playing him because you recognize the character immediately. Handsome man, sharp suit, smoking gun, vodka martini in hand, Read more…
Taylor Swift might not have a college degree, but she has been working on her Master’s in Marketing since she was nine. And when I say “you could argue” I mean “that is what I’m Read more…
Redheads only make up 2% of the world’s population. And the recessive gene jackpot of a redhead with blue eyes is even smaller, at 0.17%. So what would you call someone with red hair, blue Read more…
John Cena. The Rock. Hulk Hogan. The world of wrestling has cemented these names into the minds of kids and adults alike. Their names are known worldwide as are their spider webs of wrestling moments, Read more…
What do Christmas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and action figures have in common? If you guessed Star-Lord (or even The Terminator for us older peeps), you are only half wrong. The real answer is the “classic” Christmas Read more…
Hello, ladies. Look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Read more…
We all have fond memories of playing with toys when we were young. Whether it’s trading Pokemon cards or snuggling a favorite stuffed animal, it’s hard not to have at least one happy childhood toy Read more…
Did you know every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized? Well, at least that’s the theory. It’s said that even back in 1996, Nintendo was able to create an AI that adapted to a Read more…
“If you know you know.” So said the billboard in yellow block capitals on a stark black background as I was passing through my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was advertising Buc-ee’s, a gas station Read more…
Do you have a favorite movie that not many people have heard of? Or do you go to a coffee shop that you wouldn’t substitute for anything else? Or, perhaps, do you have a favorite Read more…
Facing a $140 million legal judgment, the leaders of Gawker had to face their sins. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to out billionaire Peter Thiel as gay in 2007. And maybe the world would Read more…
Anime. You know it in one form or another. Maybe you watched it when you were young, or your kids watch it, or you’re watching it now. It’s a universal and ageless media that caters Read more…
It was 21 years ago when I got my first American Girl Doll. As any typical 10 year old does on a July summer day, I was curled up behind my bed doing some summer Read more…
Drawing attention to your business is tough! Or at least it can seem that way if you’re not well-versed in the art of outreach. We talk a lot about customer retention, customer experience, and consumer Read more…
Imagine you walk into the bar and you order a beer. Something brushes up against your leg. You hear a meow. No, it’s not Mardi Gras and you’re not in New Orleans. You are in Read more…
The airline industry is an unspeakably difficult one. As of 2021, there are 18 major passenger airlines in the United States. The list of airlines that have died is so long that it takes up Read more…
The marketing world is full of strange jargon and acronyms. One of the most common acronyms you’ll see people use is SEO. The internet is full of articles telling you that you should improve your Read more…
Minecraft was created by a solo developer with a day job in 2009. The graphics are 8-bit and servers will boot you for no reason sometimes. By all accounts, Minecraft should have crashed and burned Read more…
I was shopping with my wife at the gardening store, looking – in true millennial fashion – for plants we can’t kill. Suddenly, apropos of nothing, I wondered “what the hell happened to Aeropostale?” Aeropostale Read more…
If you build it, they won’t just come. Your small business needs a product distribution strategy if you want to make sales. This is so important, in fact, that one of the 4 P’s of Read more…
Public relations! The phrase conjures up images of spin doctors working for evil megacorporations or politicians conspicuously pretending to be folksy in an effort to win voters. That first impression is definitely not wrong, but Read more…
“We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.” Originally spoken by Francis Ford Coppola about the filming of Apocalypse Now, I think this statement applies just Read more…
Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you Read more…
Influencer marketing is a relatively new way for companies of all sizes to market their products. Today, we are going to dive into all things influencer marketing. We’ll answer questions like: What is influencer marketing? Read more…
How do people find your business? Vague question, I know. But take a moment and really ask yourself the question. Is it through outbound marketing? Do you have a steady stream of organic traffic coming Read more…
Tattoos are just about everywhere you look these days. Whether you are in a hospital, library, or even on a college campus, odds are, you can find someone who has a tattoo. A recent Ipsos Read more…
When you’re marketing your small business for the first time, advertising is just plain intimidating. Effective advertising requires you to understand both complex marketing ideas and the ins and outs of software like Facebook and Read more…
I’m glad 2020 is over, and I’m not alone. We’ve all been tested in every aspect of life in the last year, right down to the cancellation of sports. There was only one shining exception: Read more…
Relationships matter. There are a million ways to say this simple fact, and a million ways to prove it too. Good relationships lead to customer retention, partnerships, referrals, and – ultimately – a big payday. Read more…
Have you ever walked into a restaurant and waited forever to be seated, only to be treated rudely and have your food served cold? If so, it’s safe to say that you’ve had a bad Read more…
Up until June of 2017, I had always used iTunes / Apple Music. It was all I knew. I went through various iPod models, transferring music from my laptop to my iPod, making new playlists Read more…
As technology continues to improve, people will spend more and more time with products, systems, and services. This can be very good, too, since technology removes irritation and inconvenience from day-to-day life. But ultimately, systems Read more…
Hundreds of millions of businesses exist. At any given moment, hundreds are vying for your attention in subtle ways. Yet as we’ve adjusted to the ubiquity of logos and branding in our everyday life, it’s Read more…
The title of this post may seem contradictory at a first glance. How can product returns become a source of revenue? The very act of handling returns means not only giving up revenue, but also Read more…
Think about the companies you most admire. Odds are, when you do that, you don’t just think about the products or services themselves, though they may be very good. You probably think of all the Read more…
The world is a big and noisy place. As a small business, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of megacorporations, left unable to make a real impression. Many businesses need help looking professional Read more…
Products come and products go, but businesses stay around for much longer. That’s because most businesses that succeed in the long-run don’t sell a single product or service. Indeed, successful businesses often rely on a Read more…
People judge books by their covers. They judge products by their covers, too. It’s no secret that packaging affects whether people will purchase your small business’s products. That’s why we’ll be talking about how to Read more…
When asked to define marketing, many people think of advertising. They talk about how marketers use different tools to make money. Yet the job doesn’t stop there – marketing isn’t just about making money. It’s Read more…
To succeed in business is the dream of many people around the world. Becoming competent and making a lot of money is deeply satisfying on a number of different levels, so it’s no wonder that Read more…
Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you don’t want to do anything. It happens to everyone. If you wake up every morning and don’t want to do anything, then something more sinister could Read more…
Fifty percent of small businesses fail. Or maybe it’s 66% or 70% – depends on who you ask. Failure – on a small scale or a grand scale – is a part of doing business. Read more…
When creating the perfect product for your customers, you have to ask yourself a lot of questions. What do they need the most? How can you best meet those needs? For whom is this product Read more…
It’s difficult to find your place in a noisy world. This is even truer for small business, where competition abounds. As if crafting the perfect product or service wasn’t hard enough, you have to craft Read more…
For a small business owner, wise use of marketing can tremendously improve the odds of meeting big goals. After all, the main goals of marketing are to improve customer satisfaction, generate profit, find or create Read more…
When you walk into a store, you are surrounded by different products. As you traipse down the aisle, you make thousands of tiny decisions. You purchase some items and pass on others. Sometimes you stick Read more…
If you want to make money, you need to sell something with good product-market fit. There is no way around this. It is an essential truth of business. If you searched through our entire blog Read more…
Last week, we took a closer look at the importance of finding your target market. This is the first step in being able to execute marketing plans effectively. Now we are going to take this Read more…
Finding a target market is critical to success in business. Focusing on a specific group of people helps you pursue clear goals and make excellent products or services. This week, we are going to talk Read more…
Every small business owner asks themselves the same question at some point. “Should I sell services or should I sell products?” The battle of services vs. products has no clear victor. In this article, we Read more…
Pet Rocks. Tamagotchis. Fidget spinners. Some products become very successful very quickly, only to fade in prominence after a short period of time. Fads are remarkable because of how quickly this happens, but the simple Read more…
Businesses develop new products to grow and thrive. That means developing new products well is one of the most important things a business can do. Fortunately, no matter what business you’re in, the process of Read more…
Ah, the bliss of creating new products. Many small businesses live and die on their ability to make new products and services to delight their customers and meet unmet needs. Yet when we see other Read more…
“What is a product?” This question can be found in every business or economics book from elementary school onward. The answer seems obvious, but the truth, as often happens, is a good deal more complex. Read more…
Researching your competitors is one of the most valuable things a small business can do. To succeed in business, you must be able to create products that fit market needs. This is borderline impossible to Read more…
For businesses big and small, customers expect businesses to have a social media presence. In fact, 63% of customers expect customer service through social media. An online presence has gone from being the frontier to Read more…
Email is one of the most effective marketing tools you have at your disposal. Many find this to be surprising at first, but the value of building a mailing list to grow your small business Read more…
Many businesses are beginning to understand the power of creating online communities. The Holy Grail of all marketing is to make it where customers really like and trust your business and they buy everything that Read more…
We’ve had market research on the brain lately! A few weeks ago, we wrote about what market research is. Shortly thereafter, we wrote about how you can do market research cheaply and made a long Read more…
Want to know what your customers really think of you? Sometimes, the easiest way to find out is to just ask! In many cases, market research is really that simple, though it helps to go Read more…
Conducting quality market research is one of the best ways to ensure the long-term growth of your business. Just last week we talked about exactly what market research is and how it can help your Read more…
Building a small business for the first time is really difficult! You have to create a product or a service that’s perfect for your audience. Then you have to tell people you exist. These two Read more…
Ethical marketing may seem like a paradox. The whole reason for marketing, after all, is to sell more products. It’s easy to cast aside the very real problems that marketing can create. Marketing deals with Read more…
Every small business wants to sell big. The desire to earn a lot of customers is deeply ingrained into business culture. However, to do so, you need to create products and services that people are Read more…
On this blog, we’ve talked almost exclusively about business-to-consumer marketing so far, also known as B2C marketing. This doesn’t reflect the whole truth, though, because business-to-business (B2B) is a significantly bigger market than B2C. As Read more…
The 4 Cs of Marketing are a newer marketing model that helps us to understand the “set of marketing tools that a firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target.” You may also Read more…
The 7 Ps of Marketing is a classic marketing model that helps us understand the “set of marketing tools that a firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target.” You may also hear Read more…
Crafting a small business marketing strategy can seem awfully complicated. Many business owners have to be convinced that marketing is worthwhile in the first place. Among the converts, many more struggle to choose a coherent Read more…
No business is an island. Competitive analysis is vital to the success of your small business. If you’re not able to read the competition, a lot of doors start closing. How can you find a Read more…
For many small business owners, finding a niche is a daunting task. For many of us, our small businesses are a form of self-expression, and focusing on small business marketing forces us to answer two Read more…
Globalization is one of the defining forces of our era. As the world becomes more connected, we find our small businesses competing in a bigger arena than ten or twenty years ago. In some ways, Read more…
Marketing philosophies change how we approach marketing as a whole. No matter which one you subscribe to, marketing is all about crafting the right experiences for the right people. This objective is deceptive in its Read more…
As small business owners, we like to imagine ourselves immune to market forces. After all, we have the willpower to run the show. Why should we have to answer to anyone else? The truth, as Read more…
Decision-making styles are different for every customer. Understanding why customers arrive at their decisions is crucial for your small business’s success. To know why someone makes a choice empowers you to create beautiful experiences for Read more…
Consumer decisions can seem mysterious. Last week, I wrote at length about consumer behavior. How do we understand why consumers do what they do? Nowhere is consumer behavior more important than the decision-making process itself. Read more…
Consumer behavior is the study of why and how people buy things. It’s a mix of psychology and economics, blown up on a massive scale. To understand it is the dream of prophets, wisemen, and Read more…
Learning small business marketing is hard. In fact, running a small business, in general, is hard. Oftentimes it takes years of hard work and dedication before you even seen a dime in profit. You’re constantly Read more…