Escaping The Competitive Marketing Herd
Last week marketing enthusiasts came together in Boston for the Inbound Marketing Summit 2011. One of the first speakers was Youngme Moon - I really loved this presentation she was both engaging and informative. Although her examples related to big business I felt there were some great takeaways for SMBs and so I wanted to share some of her talk with you.

Here are 6 tips SMBs need to apply to their inbound marketing efforts to be successful at standing out.

1.    Embrace negatives - The genius is often in the negatives  A good example is Twitter who limited characters to 140 at a time when people are communicating more than ever before. Or what about Google’s advertising platform that limits creativity, Ikea's furniture that is cheap and you have to build it yourself or the success of the Mini when big cars are popular.
2.    Double down on your strengths - Don’t do what your competitors are doing – which is working on their weaknesses so they are ‘well rounded’.
3.    Ignore your critics – your customers will tell you how to improve, but not how to be different. Eg: Google didn’t give in to what their advertisers might want.
4.    Be innovative - Come up with an idea on how you can be different – create a culture in your company that encourages crazy new ideas.
5.    Be passionate - Passion is magnetic, contagious and energy producing. Create a culture of passion in your company.
6.    Desire -  you really, really need to want to be different

If you want to learn more about Youngme Moon – visit her website.

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