AI + Marketing: A Practical Guide

As a marketing strategy consultant, I get a front-row seat to the same struggle across companies – from scrappy startups to nonprofit organizations to legacy brands: Smart people buried in tactical work. I’ve been in plenty of strategy sessions where leadership teams dream big – market expansion, deeper personalization, faster content cycles. But those ambitions often peter out, because teams are too busy cranking out blog posts, updating decks, and pulling reports. That’s where AI…

09

Sep 2025

By Laura SheridanBlog

2025 Marketing Planning: Strategy comes first.

This blog is the second in a series to help with your marketing planning for 2025. The first piece, “9 Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing Program”, can be found here. (It’s a 4-minute read.) We work with companies and non–profit organizations that span industries and size. What they have in common is the need for brand strategy. Strategy is difficult to see and not easy to talk about. The world is shifting faster than…

16

Oct 2024

By Laura SheridanBlog

Words matter. What are yours?

Words matter. People connect with a brand when it demonstrates empathy and offers a solution that meets their lifestyle. Brands use words and visuals to communicate. My crude stick figures preclude me from preaching about visuals! My love for and experience writing does enable me to provide tips for effective written communication :). Before I share fun examples of savvy marketing messages, here are tips to create effective messaging: 1. Write for a specific target audience. 2….

01

Nov 2023

By Laura SheridanBlog

Using ChatGPT for Your Marketing

ChatGPT has come up in conversations with clients who aren’t sure how to use the tool in their marketing. Here are tips on how to take advantage of this emerging technology that you can try for free. Not familiar with ChatGPT? ChatGPT is the hot artificial intelligence (AI) tool that’s attracting a lot of attention from investors, software companies, gamers, marketers, and pretty much everyone. Why? The technology allows you to have human-like conversations with…

16

May 2023

By Laura SheridanBlog

Your Super Bowl Ad Cheat Sheet

It’s 5 days until the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams faceoff in Los Angeles for Super Bowl LVI. This year, the NFL is giving Super Bowl attendees free NFTs that commemorate their tickets and serve as digital keepsakes. Also for the first time, there are five headliners for the Super Bowl halftime show – Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige, and Kendrick Lamar. 37 total advertisers will go for the ring Thirty-seven advertisers…

08

Feb 2022

By Laura SheridanBlog

Viva’s Blog: How’s your personal brand?

You manage your finances. You manage your business. What about your personal brand? What do Oprah, Richard Branson, Sheryl Sandburg and Ellen DeGeneres have in common? It’s not just wealth, millions of Twitter and Instagram followers, and countless endorsement deals, it’s also a mastery of personal branding. Personal branding isn’t just for the rich and famous. Everyone has a personal brand. As Tom Peters, management consulting guru and the inventor of the phrase “Personal Brand”…

03

May 2018

By Laura SheridanBlog

Viva’s Blog: March Madness: Marketers Tune In

The NCAA dominates the month of March with the college basketball tournament. The highly promoted event isn’t just huge for sports fans. Marketers from all industries use this cult-like attraction as an avenue to catapult their brand visibility. March Madness offers brands a center-stage platform for integrating themselves into the tournament through paid ads in online and offline media outlets, social media conversations, branded placements, and experiential events. March Madness is a business – a…

26

Mar 2018

By Laura SheridanBlog

Viva’s Blog: Why you?

That’s right. Why you? Why should anyone fork over their hard earned cash for what you have to offer when it’s pretty likely they can find a similar thing elsewhere for less. That’s the million dollar question savvy marketers answer early on in their business. A category of one. It’s all about creating a category of one. When you differentiate your brand in a manner that’s meaningful and relevant to your target audience, then you’re…

18

Jun 2012

By Laura SheridanBlog

Viva’s Blog: Measure twice, cut once

Most of us are familiar with the English proverb, “Measure twice, cut once,” which applied to double checking measurements before cutting something to prevent wasting material. Once you’ve cut a piece of wood and you find that it’s too short, it’s pretty hard to fix. The same principle applies to hiring marketing resources. In the past year, we’ve worked with three companies that have hired marketing resources that they later discovered were “professionals” incapable of…

14

May 2012

By Laura SheridanBlog