MATT HIGGINS · I build brands that lead

  • how i increased a subscriber list by 482%

    Used correctly, email subscriber lists are, at the risk of being cliché, worth their weight in gold. This is old news, yet in this highly digital world almost every brand is behind in data acquisition. Emailing isn’t just about making a new sale. Emailing existing customers is one of the…

  • storytelling

    At its simplest, storytelling marketing is the use of a narrative approach in branding as opposed to focusing on features. Getting more specific, storytelling marketing is an effort to humanize that’s meant to facilitate an emotional connection. While product can’t be ignored by marketing, storytelling makes sure the messaging isn’t…

  • content is still king

    We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king.” Bill Gates made the phrase buzzworthy when he authored an essay titled “Content is King” back in 1996. Before Gates penned his piece, the phrase was the mantra of Viacom’s Sumner Redstone. Same phrase. Two different meanings. Redstone was talking about the…

  • how i increased website visitors 4,544%

    To drive a large lift in unique visitors, the lever most marketing teams instinctively look to pull is a SEM spend. Paid search certainly buys visibility, but eyeballs don’t matter if the website they land on doesn’t match what they’re looking for. I proved that point dramatically for a B2B…

  • b2c vs b2b vs dtc

    In marketing, audience is everything. I’m a strong proponent of persona-based targeting, but before you pick up the fine brush for the details, you need to take on the broad strokes. That’s where your business model comes in. B2C, B2B, DTC are, at their core, really just a way of…

  • marketing samples

    It goes without saying that effective social media marketing is more than just posting cool photos of products. Each post has to serve a purpose. Social media marketing should be purposeful right down to each and every post. Sometimes a post is clearly meant to drive traffic and the top…

  • what is marketing?

    The first thing most people think of when asked to define or explain marketing is advertising, and advertising is, indeed, marketing. But it’s only one aspect. One of many. Marketing is the business of building brand and product awareness and relevance. Advertising, whether it’s a billboard, TV spot, radio or…

  • excuse or explanation. it’s a fine line and does it really matter?

    Things go wrong. If you haven’t heard, how we react to adversity is a strong reflection of character. Managers, like everyone, want success. When success isn’t achieved and we think about those previously mentioned things that went wrong, we naturally want to know why. We have questions, and by the…

  • are you a pusher or a leader?

    Here’s the five-second leadership demonstration: put your hand up against someone else’s—palm to palm. Push on their hand with yours without saying a word. Give a little, gentle push. What did they do? What did you feel? They pushed back. You felt resistance. As a manager, are you a pusher…

  • lead like a racecar driver

    Imagine, if you will, a racecar driver taking high-speed turns, side by side with his competition, with his attention fixated on the tires, head half out the window, looking for wobbles, feeling for vibrations, listening for odd noises; then focused on the engine via the gauges and any interruptions in…

  • the 3-year-old vs the ceo

    How is a 3-year-old child smarter than a CEO? The 3-year-old drives towards root cause. I’ll explain. If there was ever a worthwhile obsession to have, an obsession with root cause is it. Think about that stereotypical 3-year-old and that word he or she keeps asking—why? Every answer is followed…

  • entertain, inspire, inform–in that order

    We are, as I’m very sure you’re well aware, in a digital age. Just about every one of us receives media digitally and does so every day. For those of us on the content creation side, this has changed the paradigm for how media needs to be put together. Not…

  • people and peanut butter

    People and peanut butter have a lot in common. Just like people, there are all sorts of peanut butter varieties. Not only is there the classic distinction of creamy versus chunky, but there are all sorts of brands. Like people, there’s plain and there’s salty, but I’m still talking about…

  • audience engagement

    Do you like being lectured? How about being pitched something over the phone? What about a conversation with a trusted, good friend that you can readily relate to and who has something interesting to say? That last one sounds like the desirable option, of course. That’s how you should approach…

  • writers on writing

    If you read enough of the writers that are considered to be the greats, you’ll quickly realize that the rules, as far as grammar goes, are made to be broken. Writers such as Hemingway and Twain took certain liberties, but they also knew good writing was no accident. Below are…