actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

Happy Belated Father’s Day!

Even if you’re not a dad, chances are that you have one.

Regardless of how you felt about your dad, chances are you learned some pretty important things from him. It’s a good time to think about how your father influenced you.

My dad was 6’5”. He towered above me. When I was small, he seemed even bigger. I didn’t realize how much my dad’s sheer physical size had an impact on how I thought about him.

Added to this, he had a big voice. Everything he said had authority.

The combination made him a force to be reckoned with. 

This could be really helpful at times, especially if there was a problem with a teacher.

But, it took me years to figure out that, despite his big presence, my dad was a loving, kind man. The woman who grew up across the street from us called my dad “the gentle giant.”

You’re probably wondering what this means for your marketing, beyond making Father’s Day part of your promotional calendar.

Don’t worry.

There’s a marketing lesson here.

As a marketer, you can’t assume that you know your audience. Like my first memories of my dad, you may not have the full picture.

This is even truer if you’re also a buyer of your product. You’re only one customer. Your perspective isn’t representative. In fact, it may be an outlier.

Take the time to get to know your audience. Go beyond your customers. Include prospects, influencers and fans.  Where possible, engage with them directly.

Also talk to your former customers. Find out why they stopped buying from your organization.

At a minimum, get input from your frontline staff including sales and customer service.

Then create a marketing persona for each of your major audiences.

I’ve written about Professor Berger’s research on the Actionable Marketing Guide. If you'd like a taste, start with:

You’ll see why I’m a big fan!

We'll be giving away one copy of Invisible Influence to a new subscriber. So, tell all your friends and colleagues. The deadline is June 25^th , 2016 and the winner will be announced in next week's newsletter. (details).

• Heidi Cohen was featured in Tor Refsland’s email round up of 20 experts. It contains some very useful nuggets and is worth your time to read.
  

​​​​OptinMonster is the best lead-generation plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create WordPress popups, floating footer bars, slide-ins, sidebar forms, and after-post forms, while giving you the ability to A/B test, add page-level targeting, and do so much more.
​

Here, at the Actionable Marketing Guide, using OptinMonster has resulted in a dramatic increase in subscriptions for this newsletter and other marketing projects.