Argentum Blog

Argentum's blog, Marketing Op-Ed, highlights interesting, real-world examples of marketing with a little bit (okay, a lot) of opinion thrown in. It's written by Susan Silver, President of Argentum Strategy Group, with the occasional guest blogger added to the mix.

The Making of a New Logo

Argentum will be launching its new website and logo later this month. In the interim, I thought it’d be fun to give a sneak peek at our new logo and the logic behind it.My hypothesis has always been that the Argentum Strategy Group logo was derived from the atomic structure of silver. There are a few reasons I suspect this:1. The...

Startups: 5 Easy Creative Partner Hiring Tips

Reaching out to friends and colleagues for creative resource recommendations is a great starting point for any agency search, whether you’re a start up or not. But unlike larger, more established companies, startups don’t often have the resources to hire an agency, so a friend’s positive recommendation might very well be the only assessment...

Top Five Agency Pitch Mistakes

Many of my clients ask me to help them identify and hire agency partners like creative agencies, digital firms, media buying agencies and web design companies. I’ve developed a process that makes efficient use of my clients’ and the contending agencies’ time, and it typically culminates in individual 60-minute meetings between...

Dentist’s Ad Needs More Teeth

A lot of times we’re just too close to our own marketing to objectively assess it. If Lincoln Park Smiles, a dentistry practice in my neighborhood, had asked someone else to look at their ad before it was turned into a finished billboard, then maybe their ad would’ve shown some teeth! If you’re a dentist selling smiles, then you...

Dollar Shave Club’s Viral Video: Behind the Scenes

Google recently told one of the startups I advise, ZipFit, that they should consider adding a YouTube video ad to their online mix to increase their overall click through rate. That’s easy for Google to say, but ZipFit has almost no budget for marketing of any kind. However the ZipFit team figured that if Dollar Shave Club could throw...

Great Creative Takes Time

My clients who are new to marketing (and even some who are not) often want to dramatically accelerate their agencies’ timelines for producing creative whether it’s something like a banner ad, a website or even packaging. This simple but brilliant video was created by the Hungarian marketing communications magazine, Kreatív. It’s...

Three Research Pointers for Beginners

Earlier this year I wrote a three-part series on the Top Ten Entrepreneurial Research Mistakes. One of my favorite market research professionals, wrote to me and suggested adding three additional points: 1) Don’t assume you know how to ask the right questions. Get a book on research questioning or find a friend in the field. That is the...

Favorite Tools: Breakthrough Marketing Plans

While I have little patience for business books, I frequently refer to Breakthrough Marketing Plans, by Kellogg Professor Tim Calkins, and I often suggest that my clients purchase a copy (or two). Both Tim and I spent 10 years at Kraft Foods in brand management, and Tim’s book essentially teaches the Kraft methodology that we learned there for...

Defining Your Target

A lot of the companies we meet have not clearly defined their target customer. Some make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone in the hopes of not leaving any potential revenue on the table. Other companies have a general sense of their target, but have never taken the time as a team to sit down, define, and gain consensus on the common...

Maximizing Your Brand’s Word of Mouth Potential

A few months ago, we went to hear Professor Jonah Berger talk about his book, Contagious. The book is a useful primer on how to make your product/service more likely to receive word of mouth (WOM) advocacy from your customers. Having spent time consulting for Procter & Gamble’s groundbreaking WOM group, Vocalpoint, we know the importance of...

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