Tag Archives: content marketing

Solving Problems vs. Problem-solving

Marketers, let’s return to school and talk about the difference between solving problems and problem-solving. Afterwards we’ll go back to work.

Marchetti SP and P-S

Some time in 2008 or earlier, Carolyn Marchetti heard this:

“Problem-solving is what you do when you don’t know how to solve a problem.”

She contrasts this with solving problems, where you apply known techniques to a problem that has already been solved.

Marchetti approaches this from an education perspective, where students ideally learn solving problems AND problem-solving.

Shah SP and P-S

This distinction is not unique to Marchetti’s anonymous speaker. Sam J. Shah, also dealing with students, notes the need for problem-solving in certain scientific disciplines:

“[M]ost of the work done in fields as sterile as combinatorics or as messy as molecular biology involves navigating corridors of inquiry, trying (and often failing) to draw connections, and coming up with new lenses with which to look at problems. Frustration and dead ends are part and parcel of working in these fields.”

Bredemarket SP and P-S

We encounter these issues outside of school when we go to work.

  • For businesses, Bredemarket usually solves problems: your prospects don’t know about you, your prospects don’t know why they should care about you, your prospects lack information. There are known solutions.
  • Occasionally, Bredemarket engages in problem-solving, where there are questions without clear answers, and you and I work together to determine how to move forward.

Your company probably needs to both solve tactical problems and perform strategic problem-solving.

How?

I’ve worked on both the strategic and tactical levels. Let’s talk. https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

(Imagen 4)

What’s Your Opinion of My Performance?

A lot of U.S. identity, biometric, and technology marketers like baseball. But some of you don’t know about the time that Paul Olden asked losing Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda a now-infamous question, “What’s your opinion of [Dave] Kingman’s performance?” (Lasorda’s response—edited—can be heard here.)

(Incidentally, while the picture of Lasorda looks realistic, it is not. Imagen 4 generated it.)

But any of us who write online worry about our own performance, whether we publicly admit it or not.

Why do the wrong things enjoy stellar performance?

Take Becca Chambers, who like the rest of us wants to perform well, but observed:

“There’s a direct inverse relationship between how much time I spend on a post and how well it performs.”

It’s happened to Becca, it’s happened to me, and it’s probably happened to you. Chances are that this post and its social reshares will NOT reach tens of thousands of views, but my trivial observations about silly stuff will. 

For me, these random posts delivered big numbers.

The performance that matters

But in the end, do impressions matter? I constantly remind myself not to chase impressions, and to that end offered this comment on Chambers’ post:

“Depends upon how you measure “performance.”

“If you measure performance based solely on impressions, then you can realize great performance by random succinct thoughts on ghosting or the em dash or whatever.

“But if you measure performance by your paying consulting client saying that they liked your post on an obscure topic that only you and the client care about…then say what you need to say to your hungry people (target audience) and don’t worry about getting 20,000 impressions or 500 likes.”

And if we need any confirmation about the temporary nature of impressions, let’s look at Dave Kingman’s performance for the Chicago Cubs on May 14, 1978. “Three homers, 8 RBI,  3 runs, 4 hits, 1 walk, 13 Total bases.” Plus an uncountable number of expletives from manager Lasorda.

By 1981 Kingman was a New York Met.

What about your performance?

So how do you create content that truly matters to people who will buy from you? By asking yourself some important questions and then developing the content.

And if you’re an identity, biometric, or technology firm that needs help to get content out now (rather than never), talk to Bredemarket. Not about bridges, but about your prospects. Book a free meeting: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

Escape from Spiderweb Mountain

In a recent Instagram post, Maxwell Finn wrote:

“People don’t buy solutions…they buy escape routes.”

If you apply the “people buy escape routes” thinking, what does Bredemarket offer?

I guess in Bredemarket’s case, I sell an escape from nothingness.

Not insightful.

My current clients realize the importance of a consistent presence, even without my help. They’re always reminding prospects of the benefits of their solutions.

Some of my former clients and non-clients never grasped that importance.

That’s NOT breaking news.

That’s why they are former clients and non-clients; they didn’t need me, or anyone else. One last blogged in February…February 2024. Wonder how many new prospects found THAT company today?

If you don’t want to escape the fate of anonymity, save time and stop reading here. If you want to escape this, read here…and better still, act by booking a meeting at https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

This is a real book: https://bredemarket.com/7qs/

(Imagen 4)

Stealing and Awareness

The reason that I redirected the purpose of my Substack posts is because much of my audience there isn’t familiar with the…um…minutiae of biometrics and identity. (For example, my reference to minutiae would probably go right past all but two of my Substack subscribers.)

My Substack audience is best served with awareness content.

But awareness content is not only informative and educational.

Awareness of you

It also makes prospects aware of your company…which is critically important.

Last month I said the following about awareness:

“Technology marketers, do your prospects know who you are?

“If they don’t, then your competitors are taking your rightful revenue.

“Don’t let your competitors steal your money.”

Perhaps steal is a harsh word, but it’s accurate. 

Or perhaps a better word is indifference: your actions indicate that you don’t care whether customers buy from you or not. If you cared, you’d actually market your products.

Who needs marketing?

“Nonsense, John! We have a sales staff. Who needs marketers?”

Especially when content marketing may take up to 17 months to convert. That doesn’t help the current quarter.

But your sales staff cannot be everywhere. If your prospects don’t know about you and aren’t reaching out to you, then you have to reach out to them.

And the calls? “Hi, I’m Tom with WidgetCorp.” “With who?”

So how is that current quarter looking now?

You need marketing, now

Your current quarter and future quarters would look better if your secret salesperson were working for you. As Rhonda Salvestrini said:

“Content for your business is one of the best ways to drive organic traffic. It’s your secret salesperson because it’s out there working for you 24/7.”

But the secret salesperson won’t engage your prospects until you act to create that content.

Talk to Bredemarket about your content, proposal, and analysis needs: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

Before your competitors steal more from you.

The Wildebeest Obviously Needs a Snack

It’s time for my (usually) once-a-month edition of Bredemarket’s LinkedIn newsletter, “The Wildebeest Speaks.”

And I revisited a topic that I originally visited in December 2023, but hopefully with a new perspective.

Go to LinkedIn and read the latest edition of my newsletter, “Who Are Your Hungry People?” It is at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-your-hungry-people-bredemarket-xiafc/

Hungry wildebeest buffet images via Imagen 3.
Cheap Trick targets the audience, who responds in a Pavlovian way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qgpewMCVjs.

Frictionless Friction Ridges and Other Biometric Modalities

I wanted to write a list of the biometric modalities for which I provide experience.

So I started my usual list from memory: fingerprint, face, iris, voice, and DNA.

Then I stopped myself.

My experience with skin goes way beyond fingerprints, since I’ve spent over two decades working with palm prints.

(Can you say “Cambridgeshire method”? I knew you could. It was a 1990s method to use the 10 standard rolled fingerprint boxes to input palm prints into an automated fingerprint identification system. Because Cambridgeshire had a bias to action and didn’t want to wait for the standards folks to figure out how to enter palm prints. But I digress.)

So instead of saying fingerprints, I thought about saying friction ridges.

But there are two problems with this.

First, many people don’t know what “friction ridges” are. They’re the ridges that form on a person’s fingers, palms, toes, and feet, all of which can conceivably identify individuals.

But there’s a second problem. The word “friction” has two meanings: the one mentioned above, and a meaning that describes how biometric data is captured.

No, there is not a friction method to capture faces.
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XhWFHKWCSE.

No, there is not a friction method to capture faces. Squishing 

  • If you have to do something to provide your biometric data, such as press your fingers against a platen, that’s friction.
  • If you don’t have to do anything other than wave your fingers, hold your fingers in the air, or show your face as you stand near or walk by a camera, that’s frictionless.

More and more people capture friction ridges with frictionless methods. I did this years ago using MorphoWAVE at MorphoTrak facilities, and I did it today at Whole Foods Market.

So I could list my biometric modalities as friction ridge (fingerprint and palm print via both friction and frictionless capture methods), face, iris, voice, and DNA.

But I won’t.

Anyway, if you need content, proposal, or analysis assistance with any of these modalities, Bredemarket can help you. Book a meeting at https://bredemarket.com/cpa/