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.

What do you notice?

What do you notice about the homepages of the fastest growing companies in the world?

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LinkedIn_Homepage-1024x715

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My 2¢: Have a simple homepage.
Jan 10, 2014

Why do you need to focus on building your brand?

The short answer:

1. Consumers choose brand-name products over anonymous products. And not by a small margin.

2. Products/services have life cycles. Brands outlive products.

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Common Thinking = Common Results = Common Life.

Let’s say you own a dry cleaning business.
Question: What business are you in? The common answer is the dry cleaning business.

Yet in this case continue reading

What is it?

What’s your unfair advantage?

An authentic brand is…

An authentic brand is a doer.

The important part of breakthrough is…

Have you seen this Smart ForTwo commercial?

The message: taking this car into the wilderness makes as much sense as city folks who drive hulking SUVs. continue reading

Why do people park ten blocks away from a hot nightclub?

Question: why do people park ten blocks away from a hot nightclub, step over puddles of you-know-what in its bathrooms, pay three times more for a drink continue reading

What’s so great about being typical?

My 2¢:
Taste Younique. People will talk.

Why is Hyundai’s premium sedan, the Equus, a tough sell?

The folks at cars.com recently reported that, “Hyundai’s premium sedan, the Equus, continue reading

Sharing beats “keywords.”

Instead of trying to trick machines, why not tell better stories? You know that sharing beats “keywords,” right?