I grew up in a family of teachers…my dad, grandfather, sister and many aunts and uncles all chose teaching as their profession (and my Dad eventually became an elementary school Principal to boot).I guess that is why teaching is in my blood despite not making it my ultimate career choice. But maybe I did ...
I just returned from a week in Cleveland and before you say, “why would you do a thing like that?,” I will simply say to you that Cleveland gets a bad rap. It’s a beautiful city. And having a Titans Master Class mastermind meeting there with special guest Dan Kennedy certainly made the city more brilliant ...
Please don’t take the subject line above or the short video below too literally…and I hope you will watch it since the concept is so important. Simply put, the words we use matter. I promised myself and all of you a long time ago that I would never use this blog to rant (and ...
As I approach my 60th birthday next month, I’ve been thinking a lot about the life journey we are all on, one that seems to go in three stages: Youth Middle age “You look good!” (I read that in an article shared by a friend in our online family after my post last week and ...
Or better yet, “when death comes knocking, be busy.” I heard this quote this past week and it resonated with me on a number of levels. I have to admit that when I heard it, I couldn’t help but think about the last scene in Woody Allen’s Love and Death, when Boris (the lead character Woody plays) ...
In the early 1980s, baseball writer Thomas Boswell wrote a book called How Life Imitates the World Series. As a lifelong, diehard baseball fan, I loved this title and I will tell you why in a moment. And if you don’t like baseball or if you are unaware baseball is even a sport, I promise ...
I recently had conversations with both the editor and the publisher of my new book…and we decided to change the working title because I was nervous that my “marketing book” might be perceived as a “personal development book.” Not that there is anything wrong with personal development…we all need it!…but I feel strongly that ...
I’ve got a 10 minute video to share with you this week…and here’s a little background: If you are not familiar with the TV series “Mad Men,” I definitely recommend a binge watch at some point in your future…especially the first few seasons. The show centers around the advertising industry of the 1960’s, which was as ...
As I was preparing today to head out to one of my favorite masterminds–and seeing my latest flight getting cancelled due to today’s “Nor’easter,” “Bomb Cyclone” or whatever this Connecticut snowstorm is being called– I should have been relieved. What a great excuse to stay home, watch a good movie and avoid all the ...
“Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist” I use this quote from Pablo Picasso a lot…most recently two weeks ago when talking about Steven Spielberg’s career in “Sharks, aliens and dinosaurs.” And I was reminded of it again this past week as I completed the chapter in ...
Advertising opportunities are now infinite -A wise investment banker, circa 2012 If there is a number called “more infinite,” that would be more appropriate for 2018. There are just so many media opportunities out there, making this the best time (ever!) to be a marketer. But it’s a dangerous time too. ...
When the most prolific filmmaker of a generation came on the scene in 1975 with his first film that had major distribution—it was about a shark—he broke all box office records at the time, which caused many to ask, “Who is this flash in the pan named Steven Spielberg?” Side note to the copywriters ...
Of all the “Hallmark holidays” I love Valentine’s Day the best. We eat much better chocolate than we eat at Halloween…it reminds us of the gratefulness we all celebrate at Thanksgiving…the generosity (and love) that surrounds the Christmas season…and then we can add hearts anywhere we like…and of course we all have an excuse ...
I remember many years ago there was an award given for winning direct mail packages that remained a control for at least 5 years. I always thought this was curious…was it a control for 5 years because it was so invincible or because the marketer just wasn’t testing enough? Hopefully you are convinced from ...
After spending the last week at Titans Mastermind with some of the best copywriters I know (including John Carlton, Mark Ford, David Deutsch, Marcella Allison, Caleb O’Dowd, Lori Haller, Jon Benson, Traian Sava, various folks from Agora), I am more convinced than ever that being a great copywriter is not just reserved for those ...
With copywriting legend John Carlton coming to my Titans Mastermind meeting next week as a guest speaker, I was reminded of a conversation I had with him a few years ago that is as relevant today as it was then. John and I were ranting about all sorts of things…John is the most “constructive ...
If it doesn’t lose an order or cause a rejection, it doesn’t matter This is a marketing rule of thumb that has been pinned on the bulletin board next to my desk for the past 25 years, always in my line of vision. I believe it prevented me from obsessing about stuff that ...
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…and keep them all well fed” I remember many years ago getting an award from the Direct Marketing Club of New York…one of those awards that felt like a “lifetime achievement award”…and one of those awards that felt like someone was trying to tell me to just ...
During the “go-go 1980’s” in direct marketing, everyone seemed to have the answer (i.e. the hot new technology or methodology), especially in the areas of database building, regression modeling and advanced list segmentation techniques through cooperative databases. And if any of the terms above don’t ring a bell, shame on me for trying to ...
Here is today’s shocker: Using bonuses and premiums is an idea that was not invented by an online marketer. Believe it or not, bonuses and premiums have been part of the best direct response offers since the beginning of time. In his “31 Rules of Thumb,” direct mail guru Dick Benson devoted two of ...
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