On Saturday, January 12, the people of Seattle will gather for Snow Day, the world’s largest snowball fight. Dump trucks will deliver 162,000 lbs. of snow to more than 5,000 people attempting to set a new Guinness World Record. Plus it’s a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County. What on earth [...]

Marketing is what we do. Advertising is what we often make as a result. It sounds very fulfilling. Alas, the process usually looks something like this: The marketing team builds out brilliant messaging and brand story. They brainstorm some nifty ideas. Then, they pull together a completely incomprehensible collection of marketing platitudes creative brief around [...]

I curse whoever first wrote “Have an image at the top of your blog post.” Ever since then it’s been a barrage of crappy stock photos slapped at the top of every half-assed blog post across the internet. Take this example. Am I supposed to believe there’s an company in the world that has this [...]

You’re reading this post for one of two reasons: 1)      You’re thinking about starting a blog and wondering if it’s worth the time and energy, or 2)      You’ve already invested time and energy in blogging and are not seeing the return you imagined Let’s start at the beginning. Should I blog? Sometimes when you’re having [...]

This is the somewhat annotated version of a talk I gave at this fantastic incubator here in Seattle called SURF. My main point: Marketing isn’t about interruption, trickery, SEO spam, etc. Marketing is about communicating true value and significance to your audience. Period. Anything else is just annoying. A brief expository interlude In 1992, I [...]

You can learn to manage your time, or you can end each day curled up in a ball under your desk. At least, those were my choices. I never found a pre-conceived time management system that worked for me as an internet marketer. GTD, Pomodoro, etc. all have great elements but couldn’t quite fit the [...]

Stop the Madness! Thanksgiving weekend used to be the best of times for retailers. The official start of the holiday season had merchants seeing green in their registers and black on their balance sheets. But between store stampedes, parking lot violence and protests by over-scheduled workers, Black Friday has become bad news. It’s time to [...]

I’m prepping for my Vocus webinar (can’t wait!) today at 11 Pacific. These are the slides I put together, with annotations: I’ll be going into more detail, though, so make it to the webinar if you can!

Chances are you’re not the only retailer in your industry. And your business is being judged alongside other online businesses by potential customers and search engines. Getting great customer reviews on Google+ Local, Yelp and other review services can give your company a huge advantage. Why are online customer reviews so important? 70% of consumers [...]

Once again we’re in make-or-break Q4—the time of year businesses worldwide prep (and hope) for a flood of holiday business. The time of year that can determine the difference between a going concern and concern whether you can keep going. Be it crafting a quality, attention-grabbing email campaign or optimizing a mobile marketing strategy, this [...]