What is the biggest lie of all time? There are a lot of jokes about this. But I’ve often wondered whether the big lie might be a statement that’s usually not on the list:
“Build it and they will come.”
It made for a great movie. But in marketing and selling your company’s products, not so much—especially if you fail to emphasize the user benefits within your digital marketing assets.
Read more >
School’s in at DeLaune & Associates. Every few days, we’re called on to learn something new. Blockchain? Check. Robotic process automation? For sure. How about the banking, insurance, food and automotive industries? Or the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation? Of course.
We read up on the topic and interview experts in the field. Then we write and design marketing collateral. It feels a lot like writing term papers in college—especially the part about footnoting white papers.
Read more >
An acquisition is hard. And here at DeLaune and Associates, we often see the result when a client is acquired—or when a client acquires another firm.
I know a little about this. Three times, I’ve been on staff of companies that were acquired. Now, the DeLaune team and I often work with others in the same situation.
Read more >
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the “buyer’s journey.” But in B2B marketing, the journey is not entirely about buyers. It’s also about the company reaching them. And about the communications vehicles for the trip.
The concept of buyer’s journey describes the path from awareness of a need, to consideration of options, to the decision to make a purchase. Some companies add steps specific to their industry, but awareness, consideration and decision are the basic three.
Read more >
In our work for IBM Security, it’s not unusual to draw attention to data breaches that have been in the news. So it’s especially gratifying when the other side of the story—data protection—makes news.
Whether DeLaune and Associates is writing a white paper or solution brief from scratch, updating an existing document, or editing text written by the security experts at IBM, stories of data breaches are common. Target. Sony. Anthem. Unfortunately, the list goes on and on.
Read more >
It’s a basic, but important, lesson: In telling your story, know your audience.
When I taught “Introduction to Mass Communications,” the 101-level survey course at a college, I’d open the class for the first few weeks by writing large on the blackboard: “Who is your audience?”
This is important in any communication. If you don’t match the message to the audience, there’s not much point in even beginning.
Read more >
It’s about the marketing—and the timing. So the popular wisdom goes. But this time it was true. Really, really true.
No innovative product. No superior service. Simply a rock. It just sat there. And it made money.
Gary Dahl, the inventor of the Pet Rock®, died earlier this week. He trademarked the term, so I’ll give him a ® out of respect. It was probably the silliest idea ever to make its inventor rich,
Read more >
Years ago, when I started in this writing game, I heard a story I couldn’t believe. It seems there was a newspaper copy editor who kept two typewriters (years ago, remember?). One, he used for his newspaper work. The other, he placed on the floor by his desk. And when breaks came between editions, he’d push his work to one side, pick his typewriter up from the floor, and pound away at his novel. And it worked!
Read more >
You’ll sometimes hear a poorly functioning tablet computer criticized as nothing more than a “glorified Etch A Sketch.” But that does a disservice to the classic toy. With more than 100 million of the silver-screen drawing devices sold since its introduction in 1960, it must be doing something right. I owned an Etch A Sketch as a child, and if I were to pick one up right now, I’d happily resume exactly where I left off— with a lot of hilarious squiggles and an occasional shape that sort of looks like something.
Read more >
I’ve been reading One Summer: America 1927, the new book by Bill Bryson with a wonderful message. A lot of big things happened that year, from Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight to Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs to the first dynamite blasts carving Mount Rushmore. People went crazy for these feats. Lindbergh could barely go out in public for the adoring crowds.
Then, as now, media was also one of the big things.
Read more >