Marketing Archives - Three Over Four

03Jul 2021 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Aaron Templer Published In Marketing Profs

MarketingProfs was kind enough to publish a piece of mine, “Why Social Media Should Leave Your Marketing Department—And Where It Should Go Instead".” It's a distillation of a few chapters in my book, Leading in a Social World. In the piece I basically deconstruct social media marketing, and reconstructs it in a customer care space. TL;DR: Social constructs generate value by way of social capital. Leaders interested in generating this kind of value need to think about social groups very differently than marketing segments. It's about reciprocity and democratized relationships, very different than funnel-conversion thinking. Check it out! Aaron

16Apr 2020 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Marketing in the time of COVID-19

Random

The American Marketing Association reached out to several branding and marketing people and firms (including yours truly) and asked what we're seeing and how we're adjusting our approach to our work amidst the pandemic. You can see the quotes here. It's an interesting time. Like all of you, I'm sure, I'm hearing stories from agencies whose business has fallen off a cliff, and some with an increase in activity. Three Over Four is feeling incredibly fortunate and grateful to be in the latter category. I'm not sure what to attribute it to, but client work has increased since COVID-19 really heated up in the U.S. Personally I'm wary of anyone predicting the future. Augie Ray, as he so often does, seems to have it about right: Marketers need to consider…

24May 2019 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Three Over Four on the Innovative Agency Podcast

Leadership, Three Over Four Approach

Had the pleasure of having a dialog with the Innovative Agency podcast last week. We talked about leadership, marketing, and the Three Over Four approach to building trust with clients and within the marketing industry in general. Check it out here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/32-why-trust-is-important-in-marketing-how-leadership/id1419747902?i=1000439001014

10Aug 2018 by Aaron Templer No Comments

A Professional Services Marketing Approach That Might Surprise You

Leadership, Professional Services Marketing, Three Over Four Approach

It was a privilege to deliver a Professional Services Marketing course at the Chicago headquarters of the American Marketing Association recently, and I’m really stoked to boil it down for a presentation at a Michiana American Marketing Association event next week. Professional services continues to be an important market segment for Three Over Four, and as we all know: if you truly want to solidify a concept or area of expertise, understanding it well enough to convey it to others is great way to get there. These engagements are great opportunities to share value and also return it to our clients. A funny thing happened along the way. I’ve come to realize that what drives effective professional services marketing isn’t marketing at all. It’s leadership. That’s a weird claim. There…

09Aug 2013 by Aaron Templer

Digital Marketing. Or, Marketing.

Marketing, Social web, Three Over Four Approach

A friend, mentor, and professor of mine was a leading voice in southern poetry. He wrote profoundly about many things, most notably about the martyrs of the civil rights movement and white privilege. So it made more than a little sense when the chair of his department asked him to teach a class about multiculturalism in American literature. He refused. And his reason why will stick with me forever. He told me “I told them that the history of American literature is multicultural. The entire damn American narrative is about our multiple cultures. I can’t see how we can teach any American literature course without it dealing with multiculturalism at its core.” At the risk of inflating my self importance (let’s be honest: what I do is to his work…

12Apr 2013 by Aaron Templer

Not the viral you were hoping for

Social Capital, Social web, Three Over Four Approach

Don't you love the surveys like this one that pit congress approval ratings against things like lice and (worse) replacement refs? (Congress looses in a landslide in case you were wondering. You may now thank me for not using the phrase "Spoiler alert.") They're funny because they use the device of surprise. When you say something unexpected or place an element outside its usual context it makes us uncomfortable or jarred, and we laugh. The other response to an unexpected element is revulsion. Like the way a body works to expel a virus. It’s working against the system. It doesn’t fit. Kick up the heat to try to kill it, ‘cause it’s gotta go. This is what's happening to marketing across the social web. So-called social marketing doesn't work. Marketing…