Information can stimulate the imagination, suggest fresh strategies, or help you recognize great business opportunities. Always keep one ear open for interesting, surprising, or inspiring facts. Subscribe to a diverse range of publications, read interesting blogs, and make a point of talking to people of all sorts, both in your industry and beyond it, to [...]
Multiple scenario forecasts
If you liked what-if stories as a child, you’ll love multiple-scenario forecasts.
They start with a straight-line forecast in which you assume that your sales will grow by the same percentage next year as they did last year. Then you make up what-if stories and project their impact on your plan to create a variety of [...]
Observing your customers
Consumers are all around you, and they’re shopping for, buying, and using products. Observing consumers, and finding something new and of value from doing so, isn’t hard. And even business-to-business marketers (who sell to other businesses rather than end-consumers) can find plenty of evidence about their customers at a glance. For instance, the number and [...]
Writing a creative brief
Any and all marketing materials, from advertisements and brochures to Web sites and packages, benefit from the use of a creative brief, a document that lays out the basic purpose and focus of a specific marketing piece and provides some supporting information that gives you grist for your creative mill.
