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Are You a Marketer Who is Contributing to Identity Theft?

I still receive “snail mail” at home. And every time I look at it I get enraged.

In fact, I’m this close to opening most of the pieces of mail, removing the postage-free reply envelope, and returning it to the originator with the following message:

Thank you for contributing to rampant identity theft.

How do companies, possibly including YOUR company, contribute to identity theft? Read on.

Snail mail, a treasure trove of PII

Let me provide an example, heavily redacted, of something that I received in the (snail) mail this week. I won’t reveal the name of the company that sent this to me, other than to say that it is an automobile association that does business in America.

John Bredehoft

[HOME ADDRESS REDACTED]

John Bredehoft…

You and your spouse/partner are each eligible to apply for up to $300,000.00 of Term Life Insurance reserved for members – and with Lower Group Rates ROLLED BACK to 2018!

… SCAN THIS [QR CODE REDACTED] Takes you right to your personalized application

OR GO TO [URL REDACTED] and use this Invitation Code: [CODE REDACTED]

So that’s the first page. The second page includes a Group Term Life Insurance Application with much of the same information.

And there’s the aforementioned return envelope…with my name and address helpfully preprinted on the envelope.

What could go wrong?

Dumpster divers

Now obviously the sender hopes that I fill out the form and return it. But there is a very good chance that I will NOT respond to this request, in which case I have to do something with all these papers with personally identifiable information (PII).

Obviously I should shred it.

But what if I don’t?

And some dumpster diver rifles through my trash?

Perhaps the dumpster diver will just capture my name, address, and other PII and be done with it.
Or perhaps the dumpster diver will apply for term life insurance in my name and do who knows what.

Thanks, sender, you just exposed me to identity theft.

But there’s another possible point at which my identity can be stolen.

Mailbox diverters

What if this piece of snail mail never makes it to me?

Maybe someone breaks into my mailbox, steals the mail, and then steals my identity.
Or maybe someone breaks into a mail truck, or anywhere on the path from the sender to the recipient.

Again, I’ve been exposed to identity theft.

All because several pieces of paper are floating around with my PII on it.

Multiply that by every piece of mail sent to every person, and the PII exposure problem is enormous.

Email marketers, you’re not off the hook

Now I’m sure some of you are in a self-congratulatory mood right now.

John, don’t tarnish us with the same brush as junk mailers. We are ecologically responsible and don’t send snail mails any more. We use email, eliminating the chance of pieces of PII-laden paper floating around.

Perhaps I should break the news to you.

Emails are often laden with the same PII that you find in traditional snail mail, via printed text or “easy to use” web links.
Emails can be stolen also.

So you’re just as bad as the snail mailers.

What to do?

If you’re a marketer sending PII to your prospects and customers…

Stop it.

Don’t distribute PII all over the place.

Assume that any PII you distribute WILL be stolen.

Because it probably will.

And if you didn’t know this, it won’t make your prospects and customers happy.

How Much Does the Product Cost?

It’s a simple question. “How much does the product cost?”

How much does the product cost?

But some salespeople treat this like a nuclear secret and will only release the information after you sit through a 90 minute timeshare presentation.

No, you’re not listening to me!

Well, my rates haven’t changed since May.

Work with me on an hourly basis at the $100/hour rate.
For text between 400 and 600 words (short writing service), I can bill a flat rate of $500.
For text between 2800 and 3200 words (medium writing service), I can bill a flat rate of $2000.
We can work out a flat rate for different lengths if needed.

Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service. Price as of November 7, 2025.Download

Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service. Price as of November 7, 2025.Download

Let’s talk.

And yes, I even provide my prices in video form.

Some Deals Will Never Close

After years of silence

and indifference

I gave up

and stopped chasing

Google Gemini.

Bias For Action? Prove It.

(Imagen 4)

The next time I send something to a company that claims a “bias for action” as one of its Key Super Duper Principles, I plan to call the company five minutes later and say, “Hey, it’s 9:53. I submitted a request at 9:48. Why aren’t you talking to me yet?”

The same goes for all Key Super Duper Principles. If a company says something is critically important…then its customers, prospects, partners, employees, and competitors will all be watching to see if the company is serious.

On Evaporating Prospects

(Imagen 4)

Have you friends frequently and warmly connected with you…until they didn’t? Becoming former friends, ignoring and abandoning you, becoming silent and indifferent?

Sales prospecting can be similar. Someone eagerly wants your product or service immediately. But they delay in getting back to you, plead that other critically important issues have arisen, then go silent entirely, their former desire evaporated.

I’m sure some hard-boiled salespeople believe EVERY prospect can convert, but it ain’t so. And my earlier advice applies to business prospects as well as to personal relationships:

“If my former friends’ focus is elsewhere, my focus won’t impede on theirs.”

Why Your Attempted Webinar Registration Wasn’t Confirmed

(Imagen 4)

Companies ask you to register for webinars with your corporate email address and job title.

But how many companies NEVER confirm your registration?

There are at least three reasons why you may never get that confirmation email:

It was marked as spam by your email provider, which reflects poorly on the webinar host. Has the host earned a bad reputation?
The company’s confirmation system is messed up, which reflects poorly on the webinar host. If it takes forever to respond to a simple registration, how long will it take the company to deliver its product or service to paying customers?

And of course there’s a third reason: the company evaluated your registration and determined you’re not a qualified prospect. Maybe you work for a competitor. Maybe you won’t buy and will instead try to sell—which the company will deduce by my job title of “Product Marketing Consultant.”

Disqualification can be legitimate. The purpose of an awareness webinar, like an awareness blog post, is to identify prospects who will become buyers.

But over-disqualification has its price. If my registration for your webinar is never confirmed because of my “Product Marketing Consultant” job title…well, I guess I can’t talk about your webinar, can I?

A farmhouse being attacked by iguanas with machine guns, representing third-party risk management threats. — TPRM on the farm.

Mitratech allowed me to attend its TPRM-focused “frame, assess, respond, and monitor” webinar…and I talked about it.

Just a thought.

Easing the Pain of Case Study Creation and Approval

Case studies are powerful marketing collateral for companies.

Why?

Because if you select your subjects carefully, your prospects will say, “That subject is just like me. And the company’s solution solved the subject’s problem. Perhaps the solution will solve my problem also.”

Ideally a company would want to publish dozens of case studies, so their prospects could find one case study—or perhaps two or three—that describe the exact same problem the prospect is encountering.

It’s hard to create case studies

But case studies are by definition more difficult for a company to create.

For other types of content, the approval process resides completely within the company itself.
But case studies by definition require approval by two companies…even if the end customers in the case studies remain anonymous.

Perhaps that’s why there are so few published, recent case studies.

On Tuesday I had the occasion to visit four technology websites.

One had 5 case studies, all written in 2024.
One had 4 case studies, all written in 2023 and all anonymous.
One had 8 case studies, all written in 2021.
One had no case studies at all, even though the company had clients who could be referenced.

And the approvals don’t just involve the end customer.

A former friend interviewed many customers but was only able to complete one case study; the approvals from company legal, other company executives, and the end customers were overwhelming, delaying the other case studies.

So how do you expedite case study creation and approval?

Three tips for creating case studies

Here are three tips to expedite the creation of case studies.

Creation tip 1: Get the facts first

If the sales rep, program manager, or the subject itself can provide the basic facts beforehand, then the interview can simply consist of confirming facts and filling gaps.

Creation tip 2: Outline the case study and tell your story

Whether you use the STAR method (situation, task, action, result) or some other method (I prefer the simpler problem, solution, result), take the facts you gathered above. Then fit them into the outline and into the story you want to tell. Then see what pieces of the story are missing.

Creation tip 3: Obtain a meeting transcript

Since the subject has already consented to the case study, they should consent to the meeting being recorded.

The most efficient way to do this is with one of the popular AI note takers, which lets the case study writer review the actual words from the interview without going back and forth through a video recording.

And AI note takers are more efficient than the way I used to transcribe case study interviews.

Three tips for approving case studies

Here are three tips to expedite the approval of case studies.

Approval tip 1: Read the contract

The language of the contract with the subject may have clauses regarding publicity.

If the subject wrote the contract, then it may prohibit any promotional publicity whatsoever, or it may dictate that any publicity must be approved by a high-level governing board in a foreign country.

If the provisions are onerous or impossible, don’t use that subject and find another.

Approval tip 2: Get pre-approvals, or at least grease the wheels

Let your approvers know what’s coming, and when you think it will come.

Once I submitted a case study for pre-approval even before the results were available. This subject had a lengthy approval process, so I wanted the approvers to see the first part of the case study as soon as possible.

Approval tip 3: Use every ethical method to get those approvals

While the case study may be critically important to you, it may be merely important (or even inconsequential) to the lawyer with 50 other tasks.

From the lawyer’s perspective, it may be better if the company does NOT publish the case study. Fewer potential lawsuits that way.

Do everything you can to expedite the approval. If the CEO is demanding a published case study in three days, say so.

If not…well, that’s why you’re a salesperson. Oh, you’re NOT a salesperson? You are now.

One final tip

You don’t have to go it alone. If your staff is stretched, or if your staff has never written a case study before, Bredemarket can help. Visit my content for tech marketers page.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

Expanding Internal Content

(Imagen 4)

This week I’ve been expanding an internal document for a Bredemarket client.

I guess I could call it a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document for salespeople, although it contains more than just the FAQs.

Jack Webb (Joe “Just the Facts” Friday). Public Domain.

Why expand it? Because we added new FAQ categories.

Easy enough to expand if your document is designed for expansion from the start.
And if you include a regular checkpoint (say, quarterly or monthly) to revisit your internal and external content.
It’s a lot of maintenance, but it’s worth it in the long run. Do you really want to head into 2026 with Windows 10 installation instructions?

(Right now a lot of you are making notes to scrub Windows 10 from your marketing collateral. Good for you.)

Of course, FAQs aren’t the only content that product marketers create. There are others.

If you need help creating or maintaining your content, Bredemarket can help.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

Content for tech marketers.

How (and Why) to Avoid Unreliable Business Partners

(Imagen 4)

Is there an easy way to detect potential business partners to avoid?

There are reliable business partners, and unreliable ones.

I’d like to share my thoughts on how to gravitate toward the former and away from the latter, and why this is critically important to your business.

What is a reliable business partner?

We all work with a variety of business partners: clients, prospects, vendors, agents, evangelists, and the like.

Some business partners are really good at:

Paying you. On time, or even early; Bredemarket has enjoyed working with 2 clients with “net 0” terms.
Setting expectations. While Bredemarket has its own system for kicking off a project, things work even more smoothly when a client answers your questions before you ask them.
Communicating with you. Outside of a project in work, partners who take the time to communicate with you are valuable. Maybe the communication is “check back in a few months.” Or perhaps the communication is “Sorry, but we have no need for Bredemarket’s services.” Even the latter is valuable.
Keeping in touch with you. Some partners go above and beyond the minimum. For example, an executive at one of my clients would check in with me and ask, is everything OK? Are we paying you on time?

When business partners pay you, set expectations, communicate with you, and keep in touch with you, you know that you can rely on them.

What is an unreliable business partner?

On the other hand, some business partners are really “good” at:

Not paying you. This one’s obvious.
Not setting expectations. Have you ever had a client who was vague about what they wanted, saying, “I’ll know it when I see it?” And then…they don’t see it.
Ghosting you. In the consulting world, you often get a prospect’s urgent and seemingly important request for services. When you respond to the prospect’s questions, you never hear from them again. Apparently that urgent request was not that important after all.

After you pull these shenanigans on me, I quietly brand you as unprofessional…and unreliable.

How to avoid unreliable business partners

So how do you avoid the unreliable business partners? Here are three tips:

Communicate your expectations. Take the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service as an example. I clearly communicate that I only offer 2 review cycles, you respond with comments in 3 calendar days, and you pay me $500 (as of June 2025) within 15 calendar days. (And some consultants insist that I should collect money up front.) And if you don’t meet my expectations, I gently let you know.
Expect communications. If someone says they will get back with you by a certain date, follow up. Maybe not on the exact date, but remind them what they said. But after a couple of these reminders with no response…
Don’t pursue lost causes. Many of us hold out hope for too long, reliving the movie quote “so you’re telling me there’s a chance.” Bredemarket has hundreds of contacts in its CRM, but the majority are flagged as inactive because there’s no longer a chance. If they subsequently reach out to me…we’ll see.

Why to avoid unreliable business partners

Obviously you don’t want to deal with unreliable people, but why should you be so proactive that the unreliable people avoid you altogether?

At Bredemarket, I continuously return to the topic of focus (ubiquity or docking or whatever). And if I focus on attracting reliable business partners, and convey that the unreliable ones should stay away, then Bredemarket’s reputation as a quality provider will be enhanced.

And the people that want me to halve my prices can go to Fiverr…or ChatGPT.

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.