In organizations just like yours, there are a variety of personnel, and each of them –– for better or worse –– is your brand evangelist. And each employee has the same potential to be a star for your brand. I’m Mark Stephen Ware.The new movie, “A Star Is Born,” staring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, is not the first time this story has been put to f…

Some people really struggle with change. That struggle, in part, can be due to too many options and a lack of data to make an informed decision. "Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right,” said the renowned management guru Peter DruckerApple, Chick-Fil-A, FedEx and Southwest Airlines are examples of brands that have evolve…

Sometimes it’s just time to sunset the brand. And in those cases, it’s the best call to make. And other times, it may be best to just update the brand and drive it into the future. These are the times when brands need to be rejuvenated, updated, and aligned due to new strategic directions of the company, or customer perceptions about the firm. Rece…

The #1 best way for sales enablement and marketing leaders to score points with the senior team is to speak the CEO’s love language. A recent Deloitte study reported in the Wall Street Journal encouraged marketers and sales enablement leaders to establish and embrace business metric in order to gain a more solid footing with senior leadership. This…

When it comes to talking sales enablement or marketing with the CEO, it’s a mixed bag. Some CEOs are super savvy when it comes to lead gen, bid production, social platforms, PR, media buy and publishing. They get it. Other CEOs understand parts and pieces; they all have varying degrees of interest, and of skepticism. So, the sales and marketing lea…

One of the most overlooked areas of Sales Enablement and Brand Management is revenue leakage. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Stop the leakage and save your brand from getting damaged. As business leaders, we instinctively look at revenue results, costs, margins and the drivers behind each. We may look at employee churn and even CSAT or VOC sco…

All organizations will be challenged by the unexpected. In today’s social-hungry media culture, it won’t stay a secret for long. Better to have a pre-planned action plan and communication response plan and stick to it. Last year, Forbes listed the Biggest PR Crises of 2017 –– from Adidas and Pepsi to FoxNews and United Airlines. Now is the time to …

Many marketers rightly focus on analytics. But failure to immediately move the analytics needle isn’t in itself an admission of marketing’s failure. It just takes time. I don’t know about you, but my experience with marketing tells me that very little happens over night. Or over a week. Or over a month in some cases. Even the best GTM strategy, pro…

There is tremendous value in market research. But that value is premised on the idea that the audience is correctly identified and approached. There are many types of market research –– about competitors, the ideal prospect, current customers and of course industry trends. And it’s super easy and fast to push out a, for example, SurveyMonkey questi…

Sometimes marketing is a compromise. That’s okay— marketing needs good feedback from the team and trusted third-parties, but the responsibility for marketing is with the marketing team to ensure messaging is clear, simple and appropriately compelling to motivate the target audience and drive sales.It’s easy for some parts of the organization to dis…

Marketing should not be considered a cost center; it is really a company’s best revenue enabler. It’s true that marketing must make specific and measurable impacts on the company’s ability to generate sales. However, many marketers are so covered up in production work, that they barely have time to actually pause and consider the bigger picture: re…

A central part of any marketing function is creative — in brochures, web and more. But creative is best when it helps achieve the primary business objective and not just a great design. I’ve known a number of truly talented creative people — artists and designers –– each with tremendous skill to accomplish what would otherwise be the impossible for…

With so many platform options for marketing, it can be difficult to choose –– nearly everyone has a favorite for this or for that. But if we zoom out and look at the big marketing picture, ultimately, the right platform for CRM, hosting/publishing content or ABM is the one that best allows you, your team and your budget to regularly get the best co…

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, has been, and continues to be a HOT TOPIC for marketers and people who don’t work in marketing. But is SEO really worthy of so much attention? Maybe not. One of the most well-known opponents of “chasing” SEO is Guy Kawasaki. Guy is rightly a tech-silicon-valley celebrity and expert in social media and all things …

Marketing owns the brand, but there are other parts of the organization that influence branding. That’s Sales Enablement and the Sales Support team. Perhaps the single most important piece of collateral is the proposal, or RFP response. The template may come from the marketing team, but it is the sales support team that customizes each bid offering…

Saying that Marketing is a cost center is so ‘old school’. And yet, that may be how traditional leaders think of Marketing. Instead, be the evangelist and tell them that Marketing is an omni-functional enabler to any organization’s culture and morale. With the very best go-to-market strategy and vision, a product, service or perhaps entire company …

Sometimes marketers feel all alone because they think no one else really gets marketing. In fact, if they are honest, many leaders really don’t get marketing. These leaders just don’t understand it because it’s media, it’s content, video, digital platforms and many other things the typical non-marketing leader may not have had much if any experienc…

It’s vital that sales and marketing partner on all go-to-market activities. Essentially two sides of the same coin, marketing cannot exist in a vacuum and sales cannot pitch and close deals without support. Silos do little good in the organization that has major interdependencies like sales and marketing. A few key ideas on creating a more synergis…

I love to know what the market is thinking about the brand. Understanding how the brand is experienced, helps marketers determine the vetting of value, the likelihood of referrals and the retention of revenue. As brand stewards, all marketers should be concerned about how the brand is delivered and experienced on an ongoing basis. That’s part of th…

THE CXO LOVE LANGUAGE – We can’t read minds and we shouldn’t try to, but there are a few well know or certainly presumable objectives that will bring smiles to the C-suite. Typically, those smiles will occur if the company grows its revenue, improves the team’s morale, or enhances long-term client loyalty. Why? Well, all companies need to continual…

You’ve probably heard me talk about the only three KPIs any business function needs, including marketing: 1. contribute to revenue growth in a meaningful way, 2. enhance employee morale and 3. improve long-term customer loyalty. To influence these three KPIs, just like everyone else, marketers have the same three things to work with: people, produc…

Marketing and Marketers are always vulnerable. No matter what we do, it’s ultimately going to be seen by our peers, employees, clients, and likely the competition. In other words, marketing is unique in all business functions in that it is always at risk. Finance may create spreadsheets and reports that go to the CFO, but these reports are not nece…

As Marketers we have so much going on –– websites, collateral development, copywriting, editing, proofing, events, webinars, social media and more. But with all that activity, what’s the goal? I’ve learned over the years to keep a detailed eye on two things: 1. What is the #1 thing that must be accomplished this week. By having a singular goal, lik…