By Rex Hammock

In a few weeks, Hammock Inc. will be 25 years old. While only a small percentage of businesses last a quarter century, our tenure isn’t as impressive as that of some of our clients. Indeed, one client just celebrated an anniversary a full century longer than ours.

On the 50th anniversary of the magazine McKinsey Quarterly, Ian Davis, former managing partner of McKinsey & Company and now Rolls Royce Holdings chairman, outlined some of the keys to business longevity.

 

Chances are, your grade school teacher once said, “You must learn the rules before you break them.” Apparently, learning that maxim is part of the curriculum when majoring in education.

During the last two decades of the commercial web, those of us who use the internet as a marketing platform have experienced wave after wave of new rules that, within a few months of their creation, are treated like commandments handed down on chiseled stone tablets.

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Idea: Help Your Customers Become Insiders

By Rex Hammock

It will take decades for historians to fully understand the presidential election of 2016. One thing is sure, however. A majority of voters don’t like either candidate or party. In the most recent Gallup survey, 42 percent identified themselves as independents, while only 23 percent identified themselves as Republicans and 23 percent identified themselves as Democrats.

This year, the term “independent” may not be so accurate. In many ways, those 46 percent of partisans together can be called “insiders,” and the 42 percent of independents can be called “outsiders.” In this political year, how the outsiders vote will determine the next president.

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Idea: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

These are tough times for grammarians who police punctuation. Where they once felt the need to defend the Oxford comma, now they must defend punctuation itself.

Take the period. Please. 


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Idea: What the 2016 Election Is Revealing About Direct-to-Customer Media

By Rex Hammock

My interest in the role social media plays in presidential campaigns started February 19, 2004. That was the day I became the first person to blog a private White House meeting with a sitting U.S. president—George W. Bush.* One of the behind-the-scenes dramas of that event was how the White House press office was initially upset with what they viewed as my end-run around the official White House press corps. However, it didn’t take long for the Bush reelection team to recognize that my up-close-and-personal blog post was something worth promoting on their website.

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Idea: Directions ARE Your Product

By Rex Hammock

Recently, I asked a tech-savvy friend for advice on purchasing a TV. “Get one that has a Netflix button on the remote control.” Perplexed, all I could think to ask in response was, “Huh?”

“I got tired of turning on a TV and seeing a control panel more complicated than the cockpit of a 747,” my friend said. “I just wanted a simple way for anyone in the family to get to Netflix. When I said that to the salesperson, she responded, ‘This one has a Netflix button on its remote.’ So I said, ‘Sold!’”

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Idea: Why Social Video Matters

There’s nothing new about a company using video to help tell its corporate story. Henry Ford mastered it a century ago. During the 1910s, weekly newsreels created by Ford’s 24-person film crew were viewed in 7,000 movie theaters across the country. 

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Idea: How to Answer the Question “What Does Your Company Do?”

In a previous Idea Email, we explained why a more important question to answer than “What does your company do?” is “Why does your company exist?” While the answer to that question will help you distinguish how your company is unique among your competitors, the “what do you do?” question is the one that gets asked daily by everyone from potential customers reading your website to your Uncle Bob at a family reunion.

June 2, 2016





Page Redirection


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Idea: Press Releases Are From Venus, Blog Posts Are From Mars

By Rex Hammock

Occasionally, I run across something labeled a “company blog.” But instead of blog posts, the content is an archive of the company’s press releases. While it’s important for a company to publish press releases on its website at the same time it releases them to the world, the company blog should not be used as a press release archive. Having a clear point of view on the difference between press releases and blog posts can help communicate more precisely the topic of the message and for whom the message is intended.