You don’t have competitors when you’re the best marketing podcast B-)
To succeed in business, you have to know and understand your competitors! Let’s talk about how to do that!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
Sources:
Adapted from this list: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/basic-marketing-questions
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-taxi-drivers.html
(more…)Can I persuade you to listen to all of our episodes?
Part 3 is here! So we’ve figured out your target market, now how do we get them to buy your product? Let’s talk about a couple methods you can use!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
SOURCES
Adapted from this list: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/basic-marketing-questions
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMarketingGateway
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Today, we’re going to continue a series of 10 episodes exploring some of the fundamental topics in marketing today, based on a list I found on Indeed with the 10 most common questions people ask about marketing.
Yesterday, we talked about how to reach a target market, so if you need a refresher on that, give it a listen.
Because in this episode, we’re going to tackle an issue that a lot of people struggle with – convincing people to actually buy that product or service they’ve got to offer. It sounds easy, but it’s really not, and today I’m going to walk you through the tried and true techniques for boosting sales as well as the research behind persuasive messaging.
I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this is the Marketing Gateway.
So, look, here’s a disclaimer before we get started – I’m not naïve enough to think that I can equip you with all the secrets to persuading people to do what you want, because the truth is, that’s impossible to predict what individual people will do in any given situation because they have agency – the ability to say, “nope, nuh-uh, I’m not going to do that!” Sometimes, they have really good reasons for it, and sometimes, they just don’t want to do what you want.
Here’s an example. Years ago, I worked at a store called Meijer and there was this guy who’d come in and insist we run his transaction on the old by hand kerchunk machine using carbon paper and taking an imprint of his credit card. If we didn’t do that, he’d rant and rave that he was legally allowed to do that and that using our point of sale system to run his card meant thieves could get access to his account and he didn’t trust the electronic system.
Now, to me, security through obscurity seems like a far smarter tactic, and aggravating store employees and having them make a physical impression of your card seems like a great way to put a target on your back to have your card details stolen. But any of us who had any sense did what he wanted and got him out of there because he was not persuadable that his point of view was probably wrong and that none of our thousands of customers who came through the store each day ever had their credit cards stolen from our point of sale system.
The research goes even deeper. Decades ago, the CIA was involved in a truly terrifying program called MK-ULTRA where they were trying to devise all sorts of ways to brainwash and control people with drugs, hypnosis, hidden suggestions and programming. None of it worked, and what they tended to do was shatter peoples’ psyches or put them into very volatile states rather than to gain any sort of mind control over them. Everything you’ve ever seen in movies or on TV about the topic is pure fiction. Short of drugging people, coercing them through threats or manipulating them through deceptive practices – all of which are illegal, and rightly so – there is just no way to get people to do what they don’t want to do unless they allow themselves to be persuaded.
And so let’s focus on that key word – persuaded. Because marketing is often about persuading people that they are going to give you something in order to get something. Often it’s money, but maybe it’s attention. Maybe it’s clicks or shares or engagement. Maybe it’s just a referral to someone who might be interested. But whatever the case may be, persuasion is at the heart of marketing messaging.
I generally like to begin with the psychologist Dr. Robert Cialdini, who wrote a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion in 1984 that’s still widely used today. In this book, Cialdini proposes that there are six factors that influence persuasion, and in 2016, he added a seventh. They are:
Authority, which means having unquestioned knowledge or expertise about a topic, like being a medical doctor or a highly sought-after expert
Commitment and consistency, which means tying a request to something already is committed to or which is consistent with their normal behaviors, like giving to a fundraising campaign because they have already given before
Liking, which means ensuring the requester and the request itself are likeable enough that the person being asked will feel an affinity for what’s being asked
Reciprocity, which means feeling that someone asking something of you is giving you something of value in return.
Social proof, which means demonstrating that a request is in line with accepted social norms or that a request will provide a social benefit like gaining the admiration of others or providing a stronger sense of community
Scarcity, which means communicating that those who agree to a request will be part of a rare group who can have something that is limited in availability or which will make them part of an elite group
And Unity of principle, which means establishing that a request fits the values of the person being asked, perhaps providing a sense of social benefit or authenticity, like buying a Made in the USA product or supporting an organization that donates some of its proceeds to a favored charity
Persuasive messaging doesn’t necessarily need to have all of these characteristics, but it needs to tap at least some of them pretty strongly in order to resonate with the person receiving the message.
And I want you to note how subjective this all is.
Scarcity, for example, is only effective if someone really cares about being part of a group that is participating in preserving something that’s limited.
To some people, buying pack after pack of Pokémon trading cards is hugely important because they’re looking for cards that are rare or which have special characteristics like being shiny or being produced on foil.
But to most of us, we wouldn’t know how to identify a rare card or what to do with it if we even had it, and so we’re not going to be persuaded we need to buy Pokémon trading cards. Scarcity is not itself a persuasive attribute when it’s not paired with other attributes such as liking, consistency, social proof and reciprocity.
Speaking of which, I also want to talk about reciprocity for a moment, because it’s tremendously important in a sales context. Reciprocity means exchanging value. It’s transactional and really sits at the heart of any sort of marketing interaction. I don’t want to say it’s the most important, because sometimes it isn’t. But it’s the foundation of what the exchange is about. When in doubt, reciprocity’s the starting point for a marketing exchange.
So now that we’ve uncovered the elements of persuasive messaging, let’s take a moment to explore how they fit together.
If we want to persuade people that they need something they don’t presently have, like a new product or new service, we’re generally going to focus on reciprocity, which establishes the value of the exchange, and maybe attempt to bolster that argument with arguments invoking authority, social proof and liking.
If we’re trying to get a customer to switch from an existing product or service to ours, we’re going to focus on liking to get them to warm up to our new option, reciprocity to get them to see the value of switching and commitment and consistency to try to appeal to the idea that changing their behavior a little bit isn’t out of line with their norms. We might also use supporting arguments invoking authority, social proof or unity of principle if they are relevant.
If we’re trying to keep a customer or grow them, we’ll probably focus on commitment and consistency and perhaps offer some social proof like free branded items to show they’re valued or attempt to build further reciprocity if they invest in more of our products and services.
All of these situations require a careful understanding of what the customer wants and needs from an interaction with us and what barriers we need to overcome to ensure they are willing to go along with us on a transaction or request.
Probably the most common argument you see in marketing is an appeal to insecurity – “you aren’t as happy now as you will be if you use our product or service!” And this can be taken in a lot of different directions, whether it’s obtaining peace of mind, feeling more accepted by others, feeling less frustrated by current options or simply feeling like you’re getting good value for your money.
Sometimes, marketers will reference Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to determine what sort of need a product or service is fulfilling and attempt to fit the persuasive argument within those boundaries.
Consumable products like food or drinks and self-care products like cold remedies tend to fit within the realm of physiological needs – the most basic.
Insurance products and financial services tend to fit within the realm of safety and security.
Many consumer products centered around lifestyles, home goods and activities such as cooking and cleaning are focused on love and belonging, often because they’re rising above a basic need and offering something that may be appreciated by others.
Expensive purchases that still fulfill an everyday need like cars and electronics and designer clothing tend to fit within the realm of self-esteem.
And appeals for charity or supporting causes or improving oneself through education tend to focus on self-actualization.
Of course, Maslow’s Hierarchy isn’t a set of rules about how people prefer to be talked to; it’s simply a guideline for understanding their psychological state based on the needs they have that are waiting to be fulfilled. And there’s always the chance people just want to buy something for the novelty of it and they’re not meeting a specific need per se.
But if you take the time to understand how your product or service fills specific needs and then pair that understanding with a messaging strategy built around the elements of persuasion, you can have a powerful ability to convince people to make purchases.
Let’s consider one of the most frivolous products I can think of: greeting cards! These paper cards cost several dollars apiece and contain messages that often don’t feel very personal or meaningful. At best, they give you a quick burst of emotion like laughter or a feeling of being appreciated, but they’re not items people tend to hold onto. I know I tend to only keep the ones that have meaningful handwritten notes inside and throw the rest in the trash. And I know a lot of people just open them to see if there’s any money inside.
But the people who produce greeting cards know that a lot of people don’t feel that the product itself is that important but the sentiment – well, that matters a lot! Wishing someone a happy birthday or happy anniversary without a card feels crass, like you forgot something. The need of love and belonging is met by showing that you cared enough to include a card, and it also gives you credit for giving the gift. And if you’re celebrating someone’s milestone or good news, it may also contribute to their self-esteem.
So you can bet that greeting cards are positioned to be near gift items, have displays reminding people about important gift-giving holidays and are colored appropriately for the occasion. Mother’s Day displays and cards are pinks and purples and yellows, like flowers. Dads and Grads displays and cards tend to be grays and blues and greens and golds. Birthday card displays are bursting with color and balloons; Christmas and Halloween cards are restricted to their holiday colors and associated imagery.
Consumers are persuaded to buy them not just for the need to express a sentiment of love and belonging, but also because the greeting cards are also designed to fit the occasion properly. And that’s far better than disappointing someone, isn’t it?
Let’s think about another very frivolous purchase – single serving candy bars, which tend to be offered only around the point of sale. Some stores even have candy available elsewhere in the store – often in multipacks where you get a lot more for your money – but that’s not why the single serving candy bars are offered at the point of sale.
They’re what you call an “impulse item,” serving the need of adding a small treat onto a shopping experience to restore energy and happiness after the transaction is completed.
Placing them anywhere else but at the point of sale wouldn’t result in very strong sales – they work best when customers are standing in line, waiting to check out, and questioning if they forgot anything or need a little indulgence for themselves.
Likewise, gift cards, batteries, eyeglass repair kits, entertainment news magazines, small toys, junky gadgets and other low-priced items that people would only look at while they’re waiting in line make a lot of sense at the point of sale because they are designed to meet those lower needs and feed into the insecurity of “did you forget anything?” by offering some reciprocity – for a low price – but not too low! – you can get some value out of grabbing stuff impulsively off the rack before you check out.
Of course, that’s retail sales. What if you’re offering something that’s a little more sophisticated like a subscription service or an insurance policy? Believe it or not, the same basic frameworks apply. The first step is to understand what needs are being addressed and then to match an appropriate mixture of persuasion strategies to those needs. But more sophisticated needs may not always follow Maslow’s hierarchy. They may be guided by other motivations and factors such as institutional buying, supplier sourcing, risk management or even legal compliance.
In these situations, persuasion is often less about identifying a psychological need and instead understanding how a product or service can be positioned to best fit into the key drivers behind the purchase. Much of the time, this means matching what’s being offered to key criteria and establishing a feeling of goodness of fit. Many products and services aren’t a perfect solution and thus service contracts or customizations are required to make them fit. Persuasion then comes from establishing reciprocity and unity of principle more than any of the other attributes.
I hope this quick guide to persuasion has helped you think a little differently about how to get customers to buy your products. But remember, when in doubt, start with reciprocity and talk to your customers to find out more about what needs you’re fulfilling and how you can position your product or service to better fill them. Chances are good the reason they’ll buy is not because you have the best product or service, but because you’re working the hardest to ensure it gives them a great fit and real value.
I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this has been The Marketing Gateway. See ya next time!
We hope The Marketing gateway reaches you! 🙂
Part 2 of our 10 part series! We know who our market is, but now how to we reach those people? It may not be as easy as just using a megaphone, or putting up some posters!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit*https://amasaintlouis.org/.
SOURCES
Adapted from this list: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/basic-marketing-questions
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMarketingGateway
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Today, we’re going to continue a series of 10 episodes exploring some of the fundamental topics in marketing today, based on a list I found on Indeed with the 10 most common questions people ask about marketing.
Yesterday, we talked about what a target market is, and I used the example of standard mass-market scissors versus left-handed scissors to show how we might take something that seems very standard and develop a more precise understanding of who our actual customers are by applying research and narrowing our field of focus. If you’re unclear on what a target market is or just need a refresher, you should listen to that episode first.
Because in this episode, we’re going to start with the second question a lot of marketers really want to know: How do I reach my target market?
I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this is the Marketing Gateway.
So as I introduce this topic, let me first acknowledge that marketing is a field of ever-changing tactics, and what works today in March of 2026 may not work a few years from now if you happening to be listening at some point in the future. Reaching your target audience is a constant arms race of overcoming barriers to attention and the general noise that everyone else is trying to make about their products and services, and if you’re hoping I’ll be able to tell you some magical mix of approaches that’s guaranteed to work, I’m sorry to say I don’t have a good answer for you.
If marketing were easy, everyone would be doing what works.
Instead, we have to think of reaching a target market as more of an art that’s informed by science rather than a proscriptive set of techniques and technologies that always work. The science comes in defining our target market and then in evaluating the effectiveness of the tactics we deploy.
But the results aren’t exactly cause and effect because it’s pretty much impossible to prove the effectiveness of a marketing campaign in every situation except direct response marketing like a TV informercial where the only context in which you’re selling is when people are watching.
So instead of focusing on specific tactics, let’s instead focus on the true best practice, which is developing a comprehensive marketing strategy which includes planning out how we’re going to reach our target market once we identify it. In the MBA program where I teach, we use a framework called G-STIC – Goals, Strategy, Implementation, Tactics, Controls. These plans are dozens of pages long and put a lot of effort into identifying how key personnel, tactics and budgets all align with the intention of achieving a stated, measurable goal. They can also take weeks or months to put together.
And the portion about reaching a target market is often informed by a significant amount of research into the target market’s demographic, perceptual, behavioral and psychographic profile. This can lead to the development of what are commonly known as “segments” or “personas,” which we’ll get to in just a moment.
But let’s talk more broadly about what it means to profile a target market. You see, most target markets start by being defined demographically because it’s pretty easy to slice and dice data by basic demographic criteria – age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, size of household, ZIP code, and so forth.
But these criteria are often not tremendously useful. In my neighborhood, for example, we have a lot of diversity in terms of not just ethnicity, but also age groups. We have retirees as well as young parents; we have people born and bred in the community as well as transplants from other parts of the nation or even the world; we have people who work in St. Louis but also people who work on the military base or for the many services that support the suburbs; we have people who can afford to have pools and lawn services and also people who are struggling to make ends meet.
And so a demographic analysis of my neighborhood is going to give a misleading impression of who we are as a group of people. It’s going to favor the folks who are most common in the neighborhood but ignore the considerable diversity that’s present.
And while we could segment and break the neighborhood into a few different groups of people who have common characteristics, we’d still be off-target because just because people look alike demographically doesn’t mean they think alike or consume products in the same way.
So that’s where we move on to other criteria such as behavior, perceptions and psychographics. A common framework for this is called VALs – Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles. Now, we often use this term generally in marketing, but it’s originally based on a proprietary method developed in the 1970s by the social scientist Arnold Mitchell and SRI International. The original survey used a combination of attitudinal and demographic questions to segment people into several different lifestyle groups.
After some refinement, the VALS framework now includes eight different groups:
What’s interesting about this framework is that it can sort of be mapped to other common marketing tools like the product life cycle and the diffusion of innovations model.
If you’re selling a product or service that’s new and exciting, you want to target groups like innovators, thinkers, achievers and experiencers because they’re high-resource and motivated to be in the early majority who will buy your product or service at higher prices.
If you’re in a mature and very competitive category, you want to target groups like believers, strivers, makers and survivors because they tend to be more resource-constrained and focused on serving basic, traditional needs rather than innovative ones.
Of course, you can also point out, as some academics have, that this is all potentially a bunch of baloney, because there’s very little evidence that psychographics actually map to purchase intent. This is, again, where we have a difficulty in measuring the actual effectiveness of marketing.
Do psychographics like VALs work? Yes, in the sense that they help marketers to narrow their focus in how they reach people who are likely to buy their products. But are they are a surefire way of making sales? Of course not.
What they are useful for, however, is setting your marketing mix, and that includes determining how you’re going to reach potential customers with your promotional strategy.
Now, before we begin talking about reach, I want to mention that there are a ton of concepts we’re just not going to get to today.
For example, you might have an omnichannel strategy like Amazon where you’re trying to drive people to a single place and experience to make all their purchases, or you might have a multichannel strategy like Under Armour where you’re offering multiple ways for consumers to interact with your brand and make purchases, all of which have different interfaces.
I’m also not going to get into the idea of concepts like a brand funnel today, first of all because I hate the analogy for reasons I’ll explain another time, but secondly because we’ll be here all day if I start getting into those topics.
What I want to focus on is how you, as a marketer, put a message out into the world and reach a potential customer. That’s the heart of any promotional strategy, and there are some tried and true techniques for ensuring your reach is as effective as possible.
So let’s use a metaphor. Let’s say that I want to sell ice cream in my neighborhood, so I set up a stand on my driveway and offer it to anyone in my neighborhood who passes by shouting, “Ice cream! I’ve got ice cream!”.
That’s going to bring in a few neighbors and passers-by, but most of the business I’m going to get is going to be from people who can see me, hear me or who’ve heard about me from others.
I can make some improvements to boost my effectiveness through repetition and enhancing the stickiness of my message. Maybe I write a fun little song about ice cream I perform to get people to remember me.
Maybe I train my dog to dance while I sing the song. Maybe I get my family to sing backup.
Or maybe I come up with a script touting all of ice cream’s amazing benefits that I can recite while I’m trying to get people to come by and make a purchase. All of these things will help promote my business, but they still rely on people discovering me first.
So I take my meager profits and I invest in a megaphone so I can extend the radius in which my voice can carry.
This is a strategy called amplification, and it will definitely have an immediate effect on my neighborhood, but for every few feet I add to the amplification of my voice, I’m going to need a bigger megaphone.
Eventually, there’s only so far I can amplify my voice without it violating the laws of physics, let alone the laws of my town that are there to prevent me from annoying my neighbors.
And so perhaps I decide to pay a kid in free ice cream to go and put a flyer on the door of every house in the neighborhood. I can also put up signs at various intersections. This strategy will definitely increase my reach, and it’s part of a multi-modal approach for messaging where I’m using different approaches to get the word out there.
But there’s going to be a lot of wasted effort in there, both from the people who’ve already heard and responded to my original message and also to those who don’t want to buy ice cream from me.
There are a few other ways I can expand my business, like investing in an ice cream truck or bringing in a celebrity for an appearance or hiring a skywriter or something like that, but eventually, the only way I’m going to be able to grow is to go beyond my neighborhood.
And this is where I have to be careful because making my message go beyond my neighborhood is going to significantly add to my costs. I’m going to need to reach people who meet three criteria:
I do some research and figure out that the people most likely to meet those criteria are families with children. But I can’t just start walking up to children and handing them flyers or chase them down with my ice cream truck.
People will think that’s creepy, and besides, kids usually don’t have any money. It’s the parents I really need to persuade.
But how do I reach those parents? Here’s where I have to start thinking about what might drive these parents to patronize my stand. Ice cream is generally the sort of product you buy when you’re looking for a treat, not an everyday product you consume because you need to.
So my messaging definitely needs to appeal to people who are looking for that key benefit. And what might be some contexts where people are looking for a way to buy a treat when they’re near my neighborhood?
Actually, there are three of them. The first has to do with the fact that there are two schools in my neighborhood, and they attract parents from miles away.
Now, I can’t just go to the school and start handing out flyers, but I might be able to work out a sponsorship with the schools to provide fundraising dollars in exchange for advertising my business. I might also be able to work out a deal to supply ice cream for school events. I might even be able to offer to piggyback off of report cards and offer a promotion for kids who get good grades.
Sponsoring a community organization or event that pertains to my target market gets my name out there and it connects me to something the target market cares about.
My neighborhood also has a rather busy park that draws people from all over the area. I’m not allowed to set up an ice cream stand at the park or put up signs – they don’t allow vendors or posting there – but I could get a permit to send my ice cream truck there and to use its presence to build awareness of my driveway business.
The park also has a lot of birthday parties, so I could promote my services of delivering ice cream to birthday parties. My expansion to reach this target market is going to be more about changing my distribution method and then using it as a foothold to build stronger awareness about my main one.
This sales strategy is commonly used to set up booths or run a pop-up location. It’s still largely about being present and visible at a point of sale, but with the added goal of promoting your primary business.
Of course with so many people looking for things to do with their kids, my neighborhood shows up in a lot of online searches for schools and parks. I can take advantage of that behavior by building a website and positioning it to show up alongside those searches.
That method of reaching the target market is known as SEO, or search engine optimization. The problem with SEO is that it’s a passive method that requires the target market to find me, so I could also pay for additional search terms to make my brand more visible when they’re searching for broader topics.
So I can also boost awareness online by using a social media strategy that defines my target market and then serves content to them. I can generate free content and spread it via standard social media channels to draw people in, but I can also pay for added exposure and either promote my posts or run actual ads designed to draw people in.
In both cases, I’m going to focus my brand on my target market and try to ensure the content I’m posting will appeal to people with kids who are seeking a treat.
This strategy is more active because I’m attempting to start a search for information rather than be discovered at the end of one, but it helps to ensure that I’m reaching those who might not find me through search.
One other strategy might be to have a public relations approach where I attempt to gain coverage on local media to boost my profile among people who have not yet heard about my driveway ice cream business.
I can always pursue paid media by sponsoring programming, of course, but much of the time, I’m going to be more interested in getting earned media by pitching my story to local news shows, blogs, newsletters, radio stations and the like and getting them to cover me because they are looking for news to share with their audience.
I again want to be careful here to ensure that their target market aligns with mine – if I’m featured on a radio show that’s popular with retirees, that’s not going to be nearly as helpful as being featured on a mommy blog or a travel guide – but raising my profile will also help raise local interest and awareness in my business.
So, those strategies – sponsorship, direct sales and distribution, SEO, search term purchasing, content creation for social media, targeted online advertising and earned media – are very reliable tools for reaching a specific target market.
Are there other ways to do it? Sure. There are lots of sophisticated strategies out there for building engagement and awareness among target markets, and they can range from simple things like stimulating word of mouth through referrals to more complex or expensive things like hosting promotional events or setting up alternate reality games.
But I would suggest that it’s better to focus on the basics before going to these other methods because they are more variable in their effectiveness and often require a lot of time, planning and, potentially, money to be able to pull off effectively.
And a word of caution – the very worst thing you can do is to try to use an expansion strategy where you add additional locations to your business without first laying the groundwork with a good target marketing strategy. Expansion is costly and pulls focus but often sees slow growth unless the word of mouth is there to provide strong support for it.
Many businesses attempt to grow without maximizing their target market potential first so that growth is necessary, and it tends to result in not just the expansions shutting down, but also often the original business because too much debt is accrued in the process. Don’t let that be you!
And by the way, we’re going to talk more in our next episode about how you can persuade customers to buy a product and service once they’re aware of it, because just making people aware is only part of the battle. And yes, there are some tried and true strategies for persuasion as well!
I’m Sean in St. Louis, and this has been The Marketing Gateway. See ya next time!
You know, my brother is left handed. – Holly
In the first of 10 episodes, let’s talk about common marketing questions!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
SOURCES
Adapted from this list: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/basic-marketing-questions
https://business.sparklight.com/the-wire/leadership/management/military-analogies-business-management
(more…)I’m more of a sweetened almond gal – Holly
The secret is that they made it a good alternative, not a replacement!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
SOURCES
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/482758/what-a-massive-blind-taste-test-of-vegan-milk-cheese-and-ice-cream-found-explained-in-one-chart https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/409175/meat-plant-based-blind-taste-test https://abcnews.com/Health/WellnessNews/story?id=8450036 https://www.nahrungsmittel-intoleranz.com/en/lactose-intolerance-worldwide-distribution/ https://minimalistbaker.com/make-oat-milk/ https://thebananadiaries.com/how-to-make-oat-milk-non-slimy/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0733521024002157 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10877596/ https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/393919/beyond-meat-decreasing-marketing-budget-for-2024-a.html https://stockdividendscreener.com/packaged-foods/beyond-meat-versus-peers-in-advertising-spending/
(more…)There are so many good local places in the St. louis area, so please consider supporting your local restaurant!
Spoiler alert! It is a lack of marketing!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
SOURCES
https://stlouisrestaurantreview.com/why-restaurants-fail-cause-closures/ Why Restaurants Fail by H.G. Parsa et al
Part I – https://daniels.du.edu/assets/research-hg-parsa-part-1-2015.pdf
Part II – https://daniels.du.edu/assets/research-hg-parsa-part-2-2015.pdf
Part III – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293107223_Why_do_restaurants_fail_Part_III_An_analysis_of_macro_and_micro_factors
Part IV – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269990249_Why_Restaurants_Fail_Part_IV_The_Relationship_between_Restaurant_Failures_and_Demographic_Factors
Part V – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326881411_Why_Restaurants_Fail_Part_V_Role_of_Economic_Factors_Risk_Density_Location_Cuisine_Health_Code_Violations_and_GIS_Factors (Full text not available)
(more…)Guys, I think Sean might be an alien…
Picture this. You are an alien, and you have no idea what a cell phone is. Some one explains, but you have more questions. That is what we are talking about in today’s episode!
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
SOURCES https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/219472
(more…)We love telling stories here at The Marketing Gateway!
How is story telling a marketing tool? Find out that, and more, in today’s interview with Tom Ruwitch!
About Tom:
Tom Ruwitch is a business advisor, storytelling standout, and content marketing pioneer who helps business leaders create, deliver, and track client-attracting content and cure tech headaches. In 2001, Tom founded the email marketing software and services company MarketVolt. This was before most business people had even heard of email marketing, much less tried it. MarketVolt licensed its groundbreaking software to businesses around the globe, and it operated as a full-service agency – helping businesses of all sizes attract prospects and land clients with online and offline marketing strategies and tactics. After selling MarketVolt in 2019, Tom founded Story Power Marketing. Authors, coaches, and other experts hire Tom to transform their content from boring to brilliant – without writer’s block – so prospects tune in, turn on and buy. In 2021, Tom launched Implementum — an all-in-one marketing, operations, and analytics platform that includes customized, done-for-you campaigns, strategy, and hands-on-training. Implementum helps business leaders build automated marketing machines so they can grow and profit without tech headaches.
Tom’s Plugs:
https://yourgiftfromtom.com/
Home
https://implementum.net/
Contact Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomruwitch/
(more…)We provide The Marketing Gateway for the low price of free.99 🙂
Pricing is very important when it comes to marketing. It has a lot of factors that you have to consider when determining it, just for consumers to shrug and say they won’t pay it! That is why you have to get it right, or things may fall through.
This month I am plugging the St. Louis chapter of the AMA. To become a member, you can visit https://amasaintlouis.org/.
Sources: https://pen.org/what-the-dog-saw-and-other-adventures/
Chop-O-Matic Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGo7W_mbWCE
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/pricing-strategy
https://sawtoothsoftware.com/resources/blog/posts/van-westendorp-pricing-sensitivity-meter
Vintage Popeil Chop-o-Matic New Giant Food Chopper No. 30 Original Box.(more…)
Poker actually translates to marketing pretty well!
How can poker skills translate over to marketing? Find out today when we talk to Ryan Green!
About Ryan:
Ryan brings over 15 years of experience in marketing and analytics. In 2014, Ryan became the first employee of Coegi, launching the day-to-day operations of the company. He later assumed the role of Operations Director, overseeing the implementation of Coegi’s tech stack on The Trade Desk, DV360, White Ops, 4C, and Abode. After three years as the Senior Vice President of Marketing & Innovation, Ryan has recently launched The Last Splash, a media consultancy which aims to help brands navigate the complex world of the modern media ecosystem.
Contact Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryangreen83?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app
Ryan’s plugs: https://amasaintlouis.org/ https://bestmarketingconference.com/
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