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Based on experience, your search for a marketing resource should begin with questions like “How does this person think?”; “What does he know?”; “What is my investment if we work together?” …in other words, how do we become a team that benefits from each other’s strengths?
Let’s start with a free marketing lesson I call Monthly Marketing Morsels. Since 2013, I have been sharing advice on a broad range of marketing topics, and many of them are posted on this website for your review and evaluation. The latest lessons can be seen below.
Contact me if you want to sample a free personal consultation – phone, video chat, or face-to-face. Call Jack Cantwell 717-269-0288, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. At the very least, get into the database and start receiving Morsels each month.
Tag. You're It - Mar. 2021
It is March. I am Irish. So, I get to talk about something I really enjoy focusing on – The Tag Line. No business worth its salt should be without one.
The tag line is short sentence or phrase that captures the reader’s (or listener or viewer’s) attention, and it is immediately clear what your company means to the audience it seeks love from. You don’t have a tagline? Now’s the time, as Nike would say, to Just do it. This great line has nothing to do with shoes, and everything to do with why they connect with their audience.
Go ahead. Start with some brainstorm questions – How do you help people? Who are they? Why are you different from your competition?
Keep it short and simple. If you go over 8 words, trash It, and start over. Like a good neighbor State Farm is there, just made it under the gun.
I was proud to work on Mayor Capello’s marketing and vision committee a few years ago and develop the line Lebanon the Place to Grow (i.e., grow your family, your business, your education, etc.). It is still in use.
Big Game Decisions Loom - Feb. 2021
It is that time of year Morsel readers.
While the old GOAT and the young GUN and their teams figure out how to score more points than the other guy on February 7th, marketers are deciding if this this the right year to plunk down $5.5 million to communicate to 100 million or so viewers to endear themselves to the world for a full thirty seconds. What is the right tone this time in a pandemic filled world? Does levity work in this atmosphere? And what about a message about Unity?
It is a marketing dilemma expressed succinctly by a top ad agency professional, Bill Oblerlander, (quoted in the NY Post) “For the Super Bowl, you generally go big or go home. I think brands are going home, I think brans are going home rather than spending millions of dollars and not getting it right. They are saying, “Let’s wait until the s--- storm clears.”
What are your goals for 2021? - Jan. 2021
Let me begin with an observation we all share. The sooner we put 2020 in the rearview mirror, the better! We all spent less time being “out and about” this year. No complaints here. I spend a lot of time writing for a living, so the change in my life was not as drastic as others. I feel blessed in that regard.
But here comes 2021, vaccine and all. It still feels like a year of transition, as we feel safe enough to emerge from hibernation, and cautiously test the waters to see if a “return to normal” is still possible.
What have you learned in 2020 that can make you better prepared for the immediate future? And what will you do next? (pause while you think about it). I like to think that my best days as a writer are ahead of me. And if I want that statement to hold up, I need to do things that can actually make it possible.