Smarter Marketing for Smaller B2Bs

Smarter Marketing for Smaller B2Bs
Background: Earlier this month, I met with Mark, the founder of $100K B2B cabinet hardware company. His five product lines consist of colorful knobs and handles, and he’s just about to launch two new lines in neutral colors. Like most companies in this space, the bulk of Mark’s business comes from showroom sales to interior...

The Difference Between Strategies and Tactics

The Difference Between Strategies and Tactics
Many people seem to have a hard time differentiating between strategies and tactics. Here’s a video from one of our Marketing Strategy workshops that lays out our handy rule of thumb and some real world examples.  

Have I Got an Opportunity For You! Evaluating an Unsolicited Tactical Opportunity

Have I Got an Opportunity For You! Evaluating an Unsolicited Tactical Opportunity
If you’re like me and the companies I work with, you probably get unsolicited emails pitching goods and services every day. Some are worthy of your consideration, but most aren’t. I’ve seen clients asked to sponsor Bears radio because they’re headquartered in Chicago or to pay to participate in a holiday promotion on an obscure culinary cable...

The Care and Feeding of Your Brand Ambassadors

The Care and Feeding of Your Brand Ambassadors
One of the Techstars companies I mentored this summer, Pak’d, delivers healthy custom lunches to your door. Targeted at moms, Pak’d has had a lot of success using a “Mombassador” program in the Chicago area as part of its launch. I was recently having lunch with Rebecca, one of the co-founders, when she asked me for advice about managing and...

Hiring an Agency

Hiring an Agency
Because Argentum’s niche is marketing strategy, we do not provide creative services like ad design, logo creation or web site development. But we gladly help our clients identify and hire the creative and digital talent they need. As a result, we have been fortunate to work with lots of great creative agencies, not only on behalf of our...

Give Your Sales Force Marketing Flexibility

Give Your Sales Force Marketing Flexibility
Many of our clients come to us to help them become more strategic in the way they approach their marketing spending. One of our middle market clients was in the midst of  a major geographic expansion when we first began working together to build a comprehensive marketing plan. The plan we developed together included two key tools to facilitate...

Netflix: Building a World Class Brand

Netflix: Building a World Class Brand
Earlier this month I facilitated a two-day marketing team offsite for a technology client that went public about a year and a half ago. The company is in the midst of building their 2016 marketing plan so the CMO wanted to bring together her large, geographically diverse leadership team in one location for team building and brand...

The Making of a New Logo

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

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

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...