Marketing Graffiti

Like all professionals, I’ve read a gazillion business and marketing books, magazines, websites and blogs; attended conferences, trade shows, professional meetings and listened to podcasts. I’ve looked far and wide for marketing books that were practical, rooted in common sense, and without a lot of self-serving platitudes or academic spin.

Teaching marketing to graduate students at UCLA School of Public Health—and my consulting experience—has shown me that making marketing simple for people to understand is critical to changing mindsets. Since the target audience of this book is busy, most likely opinionated, is perhaps suspicious of marketing and definitely in need of this book—we need to tell stories that inspire, motivate, educate and most of all have a positive impact on how people view marketing as a vital building block for a successful business.

Let’s Get Moving!
To get things jump-started, I offer some mini-chapter and vignette titles to spur your muse to action. Use them if you like. I am looking forward to seeing how you pack a lot of value into very short marketing tales that make a genuine difference.

• The death of a great campaign
• Monday morning quarterbacking
• Why monkey see-monkey do marketing doesn’t work
• Why marketing during downturns is as important as during the good times
• Death by committee
• How to develop your playbook
• Why best practices may not be
• Why marketing is operational
• Check your assumptions at the door
• The Zen of marketing
• The WOW element of service and why it matters
• Ideas are free by tapping into your staff’s marketing skills
• Harnessing your staff’s marketing power
• Finding the hidden talent in your business
• You are what you say
• Sell your value not your product
• Make every customer contact like a wedding reception
• Why you may have MDD: Marketing Deficit Disorder
• Don’t sign out of the Brand Hospital AMA (Against Marketing Advice)
• The Internet Liberation Front & your company
• Consumer vigilantes now call the shots
• What marketing can’t solve: people problems
• Why hiring right is a marketing decision
• Googleize your organization
• Marketing is not a brochure, an ad or a website
• Deliver the promise
• Your staff owns your image
• Your business is owned by your customers
• Closing the barn door after the horse has run away
• The spin of branding
• It’s all about getting things done!
• Marketing is about marketplace leadership
• Why marketers must solve consumer problems
• Data, data, data and more data
• Marketing is about innovation
• Metrics? What metrics?
• Create a circle of competence
• What waiters know about marketing
• Why logos are hard to do
• Why most taglines don’t mean anything
• Welcome to the Age of Message Overload
• Why mission statements are usually substitutes for action
• Your marketing is only as good as your leader’s commitment
• A marketing mindset is better than an afterthought
• The Yo-Yo Effect of Stop-n-Go marketing
• Marketing is about story-telling
• Marketing has left the building
• Why a marketing plan anchors action
• Champagne taste with a beer budget
• Buzzword du jour
• The Law of Inevitability
• From commodity to brand: why you have to chose
• Marketing is about asking the right questions
• Through the customers’ eyes
• Why and how marketing is communications-driven
• Spam is something they eat in Hawaii
• Marketing is about courage
• Why a plan isn’t action
• Marketing is an Army of Many
• Marketing is and is not a team sport
• The power of language
• Marketing is a way of thinking
• A marketing plan is a contract
• In marketing life happens
• What your marketing team does not know will hurt you
• Everyone seems to know marketing and surprisingly so does your marketer
• Manage your relationships before your competition does
• Manage your image before your competitors do
• Marketing is a voyage not a destination
• How to overcome information triage
• Content is king & context is queen: let the royals rule your marketing!
• Why marketing is about emotions
• Why reliability and accountability are not optional
• Simple is hard
• Relevance is vital
• Why reputation matters

Get Started…The world awaits you!