Neil Martin · Beats, Business & Life

Marketing

Illustration of a long wooden table set for a shared meal in a back garden at dusk, with mismatched chairs, bowls of food, bread, mugs and a teapot under glowing festoon lights

Build a community, not a list

In 2018 Facebook’s feed changes and new data protection rules were pushing the same way. Stop collecting names and start building relationships.

Illustration of a compact travel blender with bananas, blueberries and a bag of spinach on a hotel room desk beside a green smoothie, a suitcase on a luggage rack and city rooftops at sunrise outside

If you don’t know your customers, why should they care about you?

Business

A smoothie photo in a hotel room, a comment from a follower, and a brand that seemed to forget who was buying from it. Why knowing your customers matters.

The cover of Purple Cow by Seth Godin, centred in a thin gold frame on a midnight blue background under the words From my bookshelf, with the line “In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing.” beneath it

Seth Godin’s Purple Cow made me want to be the giraffe

Business

Why fitting in is the riskiest thing a business can do, what Seth Godin means by remarkable, and how to stop competing on price.

The cover of Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, centred in a thin gold frame on a midnight blue background under the words From my bookshelf, with the line “We are pawns in a game whose forces we largely fail to comprehend.” beneath it

Predictably Irrational and the milk that’s 96% fat-free

Business

Why your customers judge everything by what sits next to it, the milk that’s 96% fat-free, and how context shapes what people choose.

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About

Hi, I’m Neil

DJing since 1987, three decades in business, and the author of Done Beats Perfect. This is where I write it all down.

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