"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." So the famous Serenity Prayer begins. Most of us acknowledge the wisdom of accepting the things that are out of our control, that life throws us curve balls and we must learn to accept them. However, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche takes this a step further (as do other stoic philosophers), and claims that we would do our...
You don’t have to hire an expensive firm to have a Public Relations (PR) strategy as a startup. The beauty of today’s internet is that anybody has the power to reach tens of thousands, even millions, with a properly timed tweet, hacker news mention, or mention on an influential blog. You don’t have to make it onto a cover story in Inc. or Entrepreneur in order to achieve your PR goals, in fact...
The first step in developing a marketing plan is to become obsessed with knowing your audience. That’s right, obsessed. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on Google Adwords, or how many conference booths you rent out if you are off-course with knowing who your audience is.
Last week I wrote about the importance of knowing your audience, and tools for getting to know more about your target demographic. This week I’ll be diving into ways to get to know their biggest pain points. We’ll go through the tools available to seek out some potentially unsolved pains that they have, as well as pitfalls to avoid, like why asking them to identify their pain points is a...
We all know that our companies need to have a brand identity, this is Marketing 101. What about personal brands of the folks behind the company? Do the founders need a personal brand? Those are actually trick questions, because everyone already has a personal brand, whether they are strategic about it or not. What I have found is that a strong personal brand can actually be a huge asset to your...
Product positioning is a technique used in marketing that seeks to bring a specific idea to mind when presented to an audience. For example, when I think of Apple laptops, I think “high-end laptop geared towards creatives.” When I think of HP laptops, I think of “affordable laptops geared towards the masses.” These are product positions, and they are re-iterated by the marketing, the pricing, and...
Startups spend a great deal of time and money getting people to visit their marketing site (aka, their website). A startup’s marketing site typically exists to establish brand awareness, promote a sense of reliability, generate leads, and sell products or services.
Analytics helps your business determine what is working well, and what needs to be improved. We can always go off of a hunch, but the real power comes when we know the hard data behind our marketing efforts, and can make informed decisions that improve our business over and over.
Nothing does a better job promoting your brand than fanatical customers. We’re more likely to buy from someone that we know or trust who enjoys a product than just believing the company themselves behind the product. Customers who make a purchase must first be satisfied with their purchase, then they become loyal customers, and hopefully turn into brand advocates.
Recently one of my business partners suggested that I pick up a bestselling book titled The One Thing. With 4.5 stars and over 500 reviews on Amazon, I figured I’d give the book a try. After reading two chapters, I was struck by an idea that they put forth, and it is via an analogy of dominoes.
HI, I'M RYAN. I believe the best way to learn and remember is by writing things down and sharing them with others. This blog exists to help me synthesize and process my journey towards self-improvement.