matt higgins

  • funnels, flywheels, & ecosystems

    Everybody’s heard of the conversion funnel concept. Lately, it’s had some company. The first new term in the customer acquisition conversation was flywheel. As you’d expect, it got a lot of buzz. Next came ecosystem. Here’s what they mean, in terms of definition, and what they mean to marketing, as…

  • brand equity vs brand affinity

    Whether you consider it a discipline, philosophy, or strategy, brand marketing simply isn’t an option. If you’re going to have a brand name, you absolutely have to decide what that brand means. This includes the obvious like logo, colors, fonts, taglines, but it also includes the persona of the brand.…

  • ai in marketing

    AI is one of the hottest topics, not just in marketing, but in business, government, and personal lives. It’s impacting everything, and at times AI is amazing and at times it’s undeniably controversial. So where does AI fit in with marketing? Is it the answer for everything or is marketing…

  • 5 ways to communicate like a leader

    Everybody wants to be the boss, to be in charge. But what ambition doesn’t tell you is leading is hard work. For some people it just doesn’t come naturally. Or maybe all they’ve been shown is bad examples. I usually say good leadership starts with leading by example, and while…

  • marketing disciplines

    There are some marketing disciplines or philosophies that are simply hot right now. Which one is right for your brand and product and what do these terms even mean? 360 Marketing: with the goal of creating the widest possible reach, a 360 approach uses every marketing channel. It’s all inclusive.…

  • marketing alphabet soup

    The business world has always been plagued with jargon. Marketing seems especially inundated with the buzzword of the week as old concepts get rebranded or terms get invented for the sake of naming everything. Some terms and acronyms make sense and are helpful, but unfortunately many of these buzzwords, which…

  • avoid gtm fails

    The big reveal. The unveiling. Go to Market, and specifically the launch, is probably one of the most exciting aspects of marketing. It’s a thrill. What makes the building anticipation so palpable is partly all the work that goes into the GTM process and partly the fun of watching the…

  • influencers as media

    Whether every self-identified social media influencer is actually influential is debatable. What’s undeniable is that influencers have become a significant part of modern digital marketing. In my experience, when marketing special interest products to enthusiast audiences, the right influencers can deliver a tremendous lift in awareness for new products. Awareness…

  • 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…