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Essence, Emotion and Your Brand
When developing messaging for your business it is critical to identify and consistently communicate the essential nature of your company. This goes much deeper than the tread-worn talk about products, features, pricing, service etc. It gets to the core of what makes you special and should illustrate the benefit one [...]
Millennials and Direct Mail Marketing
Do young people pay attention to direct mail marketing? You bet your Caramel Macchiatos they do. Even though many believe this digitally-driven generation eschews all things print, tons of recent research indicate that they actually value, trust and respond to direct mail marketing (DM). Recent Gallup Polling reports that 95% [...]
Use These 5 C’s to Combat “Commodity”
The financial services industry is changing fast and community banks are finding their place within that change. While they don’t have the large marketing budgets larger banks do, they have attractive attributes people look for in a bank. Many community banks struggle to find words for their marketing communications that [...]
Travel UX
I just returned from some business travel and once again was struck by the lack of “User Experience” that is applied within the airline industry. Boarding process. This is just barely managed chaos (except for Southwest Airlines, which may have it figured out). Just a jammed-up cattle call and a [...]
My first day – Fred Driver – microblog
Spent my first day at d.trio partly under a desk in Megan’s house, plugging and unplugging the fax and phone lines on a shared outlet.
How to win friends and influence people? Improve your storytelling skills.
That’s right. Storytelling is a skill (just ask anyone who can’t tell a joke worth a damn). And like any other skill it can be improved and polished with practice. Why work to improve this skill? Because it’ll serve you well in innumerable situations, both personally and professionally. It’ll help [...]
Be Direct
In the rush to embrace rapidly emerging and evolving digital marketing channels it can be easy to ignore tried-and-true tactics like direct mail in your marketing mix. Direct has evolved as well, with much more sophisticated list/targeting methods, postal efficiencies and tracking tools and innovative print and format options. Direct, [...]
Don’t Confuse Discounts with Customer Service
I heard from a banker friend of mine the other day about his frustration with his commercial bankers’ habit of waiving fees for “good” customers. This practice is often viewed by the “donator” as providing good customer service, but in fact has the opposite effect of commoditizing service overall. Service [...]
Top Ten Bike Path Chaos-Causers
Note: Fred spends a lot of time on his bike during the summer. We are often treated to tales of his encounters along the way and he's been good enough to provide us all with the following taxonomy. Wrong Way Wabbits Proud, serious, usually speedy runners who believe their considerable [...]
The ABC’s of Problem Solving
When you really boil it all down, life (and business), is really just an endless stream of problem solving. Some problems are simple, but others are big, hairy, complex beasts that can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. So, what to do? SIMPLIFY! That’s right. It has been said, [...]
