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Archive | January, 2013

Newsletter #922: The “Lessons from KIND” Issue

[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.] The basics for amazing word of mouth stay the same no matter who you are: give people a reason to talk […]

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Newsletter #921: The “Lessons from Three Floyds Brewing” Issue

[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.] People who live in Chicago — where there are tons of great breweries — actually make field trips to Munster, Indiana, […]

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When launching in social media, make sure you don’t screw up your website

Ivory Soap recently set up a great Facebook page and is redirecting most of the traffic from Ivory.com over to Facebook. The problem: They used to have a ton of wonderful content at Ivory.com, including timeless things like patterns and guides for soap carving for artists and little kids: (Image from Long Island Wood Carvers […]

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Make it easier for me to be nice to you

When you send an Amazon gift card to someone, they get an email with the card and a link that says, “Would you like to send a thank you?” And guess what? Lots of people do. The recipient feels good about the experience, and the sender feels even better. And all of this positive reinforcement […]

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It’s the wrapping, not the gift

On the TOMS shoes website, there’s a whole section for wedding shoes: The interesting part: They didn’t come up with a new line of products, they just put all the black and white shoes on one web page. By creating a new grouping of products, they appealed to a whole new category of customer without […]

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The Girl Scouts should pay me $200

Our local chain of shopping malls asked our local Girl Scouts for $200 rent for each table they wanted to set up to sell cookies. Some well-meaning doofus probably thought it made sense based on risk-management expenses (or some other perfectly logical accounting). What do you think happened? Dozens of Scout troops x hundreds of […]

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Newsletter #920: The “Just Have Fun” Issue

[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.] One of the best ways to get someone’s attention, to make your product worth sharing, or to get people to know […]

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Jerry Garcia on Great Branding

“Our audience is like people who like licorice,” Jerry Garcia said. “Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” This is the secret to all great brands. If you try to make everyone happy, you end up with bland paste. If you THRILL a core group of people and earn […]

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You can’t win over a consumer by misleading a consumer

“You can’t win over a consumer by misleading a consumer,” she said. “You’re going to lose by negative word of mouth.” — The truth, from NYU marketing professor Vicki Morwitz in the NY Times. “People who feel duped are more angry and less likely to return to the offending company.” Travel companies charged $1.85 BILLION in surprise fees last […]

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