It was a big year for Fox Corporation who sold out the 77 coveted Super Bowl 54 commercial slots by Thanksgiving 2019. The cost of a 30-second commercial spot was about $5.6 million, according to AdAge. That’s over $400 million in ad spend alone.

Is this a wise investment for companies? According to Gary Vaynerchuk, who appeared on the Fox and Friends show Saturday morning, the $5.6 million is a bargain for those who can afford it since the Super Bowl still regularly draws an audience surpassing 100 million people. And, the hype around the ads before, during, and after the Super Bowl game guarantees your ad will get seen many more times than just during the game. 

So, here is my question. How can you get the biggest bang for your advertising investment?

My answer. Tell a story and not just any story. Tell your customer’s Story, and here’s why. 

What does Story do to our customer’s brain? When people lose themselves in a story, their...

What do you think is the most important marketing item that you need to have"?

Let's see a website? Ah, no!

A brochure? No!

Business Cards?

Nope.

Let's see, oh, I need a logo? That's the most important thing!

Absolutely not.

That is not the essential first marketing item that you need.

The most important marketing item that you need is a One-Liner which comes from the movie industry. The One-Liner is used by screenwriters and producers to sell their idea for a movie and get funding. Often, the One-Liner is used to advertise the movie when it comes out.

It's also known as an elevator pitch, but elevator pitches tend to have a bad rap. One reason is most times people follow bad advice, and most recommendations on how to create an elevator pitch are often wrong.

You need to create a One-Liner, and it's a straight forward formula.

• The first part is the problem. Not your problem but the problem your customer has that you solve.
• The second part of your One-Liner is the...

You read the book “Building a StoryBrand” by Donald Miller and loved it. Now you want to implement his recommendations to up your marketing game but don’t know where to start.

I will be leading a live Webinar session which will provide a roadmap for implementing recommendations from the great book, “Building a StoryBrand”. 

I will describe the One-Liner which is what you use to answer the question “What do you do?”, provide a formula for creating a One-Liner, and provide live feedback to attendees. I also will discuss how to create an effective tagline for your business.

The Webinar will be held on July 23, 2019, at 2:00 PM EDT and you can sign up here:

http://bit.ly/readbasb

I hope to see you there. Make sure you register early. This session will fill up quick.

I watched an excellent documentary about the making of Peter Gabriel’s Album “So” on Amazon Prime Video the other day. The film is called “Peter Gabriel: So” which included interviews of Peter, the artists who performed on the album, and the engineers and producers about their experiences making one of the great albums of our time (in my opinion).

What struck me as I watched, was Peter Gabriel’s almost obsessive attention to detail and the desire to create the perfect recording. It took over a year to record, mix, and produce the Album.

Here are examples of how Peter strived for excellence:

• He searched and assembled a world-class team who he trusted and relied on for input
• He was obsessed with achieving what he termed “sonic innovation”
• He made sure that the songs told stories that moved the audience and made them feel
• Some portions of the Album were recorded over and over to achieve his vision of perfection
• For example, the single...

Last Friday at the Information Governance Conference 2018, I conducted a Vendor Workshop titled “Stop Wasting Money on Marketing”.

One of the questions that came up and that I hear often was “Since you were an IT Executive Buyer, what would get you to take a meeting? Would it be an email or a webinar?” 

Well, here’s the answer I gave.

Unless I knew the person sending the email or if the subject happened to match the big problem I was trying to solve, then that “cold” email was instantly deleted. As for webinars, if your potential buyer is relatively senior at all, they rarely will invest the time for a webinar. Sometimes they will, but it is rare.

So, what can you do?

My recommendation is to contact the influencers on your buyers’ team who he/she listens to. While I was leading the strategy and the teams to manage the information and data for BP from the Gulf Oil Spill I would only meet with potential suppliers and solutions...