I’m reading To Sell is Human:  The Surprising Truth about Moving Others by Daniel Pink. I must admit that I’m not finished yet, but I’ve gotten some great insights already.   I’ve always been pretty empathetic and good at taking the other person’s perspective....

by Lisa Cain What makes a game good? What makes a game good for marketing? You might remember that I’m taking a course called Gamification offered by Coursera and provided by my very own alma mater, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  I just started...

I just signed up for a class on Coursera.org called Gamification. Let me talk about the class briefly before I talk about how companies are using gamification for marketing. You may have heard about massive open online courses (aka MOOC). These are free college-level...

There is a concept that I teach called the ‘perishability’ of services.   Can you provide services at 9am today if it’s now noon?   Nope. The ‘inventory’ has perished- just like food might perish (be spoiled and tossed out) if it stays in inventory too long.    On the...

One of the first questions I ask potential clients is ‘what is your capacity?’    Are you half-full?  Close to full?  Closer to empty?While this might not seem like a typical marketing question, it does give a lot of insight intohow to move forward with the marketing...

One of the most fascinating aspects of marketing to me is the way thathuman psychology changes how we respond to marketing tactics.   Pricing is particularly interesting because economists tell us that we’re all supposed to beprofit-maximizing automatons and want...

Try the pen in the other hand…   Last week I wrote about the book that I read on the way to Philadelphia… today, it’s about the book I read on the way back! It was a quick read.. “Thought Revolution” by William A. Donius. The main premise is that you can access your...

My BNI Chapter I’m writing this from my hotel room in the Steinberg Conference Center at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m here helping with a Wharton Executive Education class this week. On the flight over these great United States, I read “Networking is a Contact...

Did you know that I was a chemical engineering major as an undergrad?     While I don’t mess with test tubes in a lab anymore, I do believe in continually testing marketing efforts.   For example,  you are receiving this newsletter on a Wednesday and last week’s was...

Last week I gave a concrete example of when you might want to bundle your services to net more profits. Today, I’m going to talk about when you might want to unbundle. First, what do I mean by unbundling? It’s charging a base price and then offering additional options...