Archives for June 2009

Marketing Lessons From The Demise Of General Motors

You’re most probably aware that on June 1, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors, triggering “the biggest industrial bankruptcy in history”.

(There’s a good briefing in “The Economist” – “The Bankruptcy Of General Motors”.)

Hard to believe now, but GM was once seen as a paragon of managerial and business excellence.

Alfred Sloan’s “My Years With General Motors” is rightly seen a classic business book.

The marketing lessons it contains were reviewed by Jack Trout in chapter 2 of his book “Big Brands, Big Trouble”…

…and many of GM’s problems were the result of forgetting what had made them successful in the first place.

It’s a fascinating story…

[Read more…]

Shock Headline! Boy Hit By Meteorite…

…but survives! Read all about it!

Headlines are one of the most important elements of any piece of copywriting or advertising.

Their purpose is, of course, to catch the attention of the prospect and get them to start reading the ad.

So you can never spend too much time honing your headline skills…

…and one way to do that is to look out for arresting headlines in popular media.

Back to the meteorite story. In today’s UK “Daily Telegraph”…

…“14-year old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite”…

[Read more…]

June 12 – Birthday Of Copywriting Legend Gary Halbert…

June 12 is the birthday of the late, great “Sir” Gary Halbert…

…copywriting and direct response marketing genius and one of the giants of the business in the last 50 years.

(And yes, I know it’s June 13 as I write this here in Australia…it’s that “dateline” thing…)

To mark the occasion, Gary’s sons (Kevin and Bond) have dug into the vaults and pulled out one of his classic letters for you.

It’s one of his most famous…

…but it’s not a regular sales letter.

It’s…

[Read more…]

Urgent! Facebook Marketing Land Rush…

Hey…I know I don’t comment too much about social marketing…

…but there’s something happening that you need to know about.

As at Midnight Eastern Time (US time, that is) on June 12, Facebook are going to let you use a proper name to identify your home or profile page.

So instead of something weird and hard to remember, you can have…

http://www.Facebook.com/YourName

So, of course, you can use your own name or your business name.

BUT…in this virtual “land grab” it’s first come, first served.

So, if you haven’t already done so…

…might be a good idea to head on over to Facebook at…

http://www.facebook.com/username

…and “claim” your name or your business name.

UPDATE:

And this sort of thing is what you want to avoid with your name or business…

“Cybersquatters Move In On Facebook”

“Thousands of people have registered the names of celebrities, well-known companies, the royal family and politicians on the social networking website Facebook.”

Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar July 2009

Time to look ahead to July at events and holidays that can be used to build a marketing promotion around.

From now on, I’ll have two parts to these posts. The first will look specifically at Australia. The second will be primarily North America with some other major events included if they broadly of interest.

July is a month where calendar linked events are thin on the ground in Australia…

[Read more…]

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