Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

I suppose there’s a reason that “time flies” became a cliché.

It does.

I think 2015 saw a better product from Ishmael’s Corner. It certainly looks better, finally bulldozing the original design and bringing the “look and feel’ into the 21stcentury.

And with Ron Howard resurrecting the “Moby Dick” narrative, a new audience learns to associate Ishmael with storytelling. OK, that’s a stretch.

Back to the product, this year’s 100+ posts covered a lot of ground.

Which brings me to what I consider to be the top 10 posts from the lot with five coming at you today. I’ll share the second half of Monday....

The sale of the first GoPro camera didn’t begin when the customer walked through the retailer’s door. It didn’t even begin with the huddle of engineers in the tiny innovation department at the factory. The first sale began in the lineup, as the surfers waited to catch a wave.

A marketer’s story typically starts with her idea—with the thing she has to sell. But if you look at any business that has taken off, you will notice that there is a step before the creation of a remarkable product, which lies at the intersection of what the potential customer really wants and what the market doesn’t offer.

Sales and marketing are less about persuasion and more about understanding. The trick is to know who is in your lineup and what they care about.It’s far easier to succeed at making things people want, than it is to make people want things....