Thanks Laurel Papworth for this insightful blog & article in the Australian which inspired this blog.
Myer received a thrashing on social media in early May over the CEO’s negative comments regarding the introduction of the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) to better fund services for those in the community with disabilities. Bernie Brooks believed that it would impact discretionary spending, which would be bad for Myer’s business / profits.
We’ve been encouraging clients to develop and create quality content for all brand touch-points for many years. Despite the lure of the SEO / Search Industry, it just didn’t feel right to try to ‘game the system’. If one of your brand values is honesty, integrity or authenticity how could you then spend energy and time stuffing keywords into low quality content to try to get search engines to rank your site better – you’ll be undermining the brand experience through the inferior content. Gihan Perera has published a great post on this and we are delighted to have permission to share it with you as a guest blog.
We’ve worked with many companies over the past five years to implement effective content marketing strategies – the biggest barrier to implementing this powerful marketing strategy is often something like – oh yes, but I haven’t got time for creating all that content. The truth is you’re creating content in your business every day – every time you answer a customer’s question, respond to an email enquiry, put together a proposal or quote you are drawing on your knowledge of your industry and what works best for a customer in a specific situation.
You know the moment; you’ve been dreading it. The client or customer says “I really like your product / concept / program, but it’s more than I intended to spend”. What happens in that moment when you feel you’re heading into the unchartered waters of a negotiation that will see you reduce your price? For most people their sense of choice starts to reduce – I need the work, or the sale so I’ll have to put up with them paying less, even though it will mean a reduction in the margin I require to create a sustainable business.
My son recently broke a toe, not a major event unless you’re a serious dancer – which he is. In the rehabilitation process we’ve been supported by some fantastic mainstream and complementary medical practitioners, including the ballet physio.
How’s this for a perfect example of a brand connecting with and celebrating a bigger story.
Down under, we celebrate Australia Day on January 26 with a national holiday. This year, I was eating breakfast and doing a bit of lazy jar reading (as you do!) when I noticed this message on the Vegemite label. (For the uninitiated, Vegemite is an iconic Australian breakfast spread).
December 2011 was the opening of the first Topshop premises in Melbourne. Hundreds of people waited in line, in the unpredictable Melbourne weather – some for over 17 hours, just to be first into the new Chapel Street store. For their trouble the first 20 die-hard shoppers were awarded with a $100 voucher to be spent in Topshop.
