What kind of marketing is the most effective?

sneezr.ca Have you ever asked yourself that question? I did. In fact, many years ago I spent countless hours trying to figure it out.
The answer turned out to be quite simple: word of mouth marketing. Or as I call it: the art of cultivating recommendations.

Surprised? Probably not. With recommendations, there is no sales pressure and no credibility issues. When your friends, family members or trusted co-workers recommend something or someone to you, they are genuinely trying to help you. That means a lot, which is why you usually remember it for a long time. But here is the catch: recommendations must be earned. How do you do that? Where do you start? How do you give people a reason to talk about your products/services? How do you nudge your story into every day conversations? I launched sneezr.ca to help you answer those questions.

A word on your currency

Facebook, Instagram, etc. — sure, pictures are part of the appeal of those services. But you can only say so much without words, no? Words continue reading

Can a great offer be summed up into a single sentence?

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You bet. Case in point, Western Union. Here’s how I would likely position Western Union’s offer:
Your money flies first class with Western Union.

Why? With Western Union, you can literally send money to over 100 countries around the globe in minutes. Right now, someone in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan can go to a Western Union agent and within minutes have money literarily in the hands of a friend or family member in the Philippines, Italy, India, etc. The alternatives? Bank transfers, PayPal, etc. — all taking usually a lot longer, from one or two days to up to two weeks. (Image via i.stack.imgur.com/EOsm1.png) The takeaway:

More continue reading

The quickening art

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Your favourite songs are one of those rare things that can encompass you completely, and that make you exist solely in the moment. A good continue reading

Quick question

Have you ever noticed how stores such as Walmart, Gap, Future Shop, etc. take so much care in making sure that they have enough cans (or whatever continue reading

The opposite of courage

In his wonderful book “Man’s Search for Himself,” Rollo May, the distinguished psychiatrist, says that “The opposite continue reading

Why new ideas have lonely childhoods

New ideas, despite everything good one can say about them, have a great weakness: they are dependent on a certain passage of time for effect. Everything continue reading

Want big results? Think small.

As celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay asserts in his autobiography Humble Pie, if you care about the product, you have to care about the whole experience:

It doesn’t matter how amazing continue reading

It’s all about just one thing, no?

People are deciding which brands to trust, what advice to follow, and who to forge personal or business relationships with based on one simple metric: Likeability.

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What people truly want from your brand…

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… is for it to make life better.

Unwrapping digital

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“Unwrapping Digital is an easy introduction to thinking about going digital. It appeals to the business person that hasn’t yet adopted continue reading