Author Archives: Ethan Lyon

Fire Your Worst Customers

How valuable are your customers? Maybe a better question is how valuable are your best customers? The quest for the most valuable customers started in the 19th Century with Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto found that 20% of your effort will generate 80% of your results, called the 80/20 rule. Continue reading →

Posted in Social Impact by Ethan Lyon | Monday, January 30th, 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Entrepreneur Tips: How to Stay Motivated

Entrepreneurs are fueled by high octane ambition, but sometimes the entrepreneur fuel tank can get low. To realize their vision, they need to keep-up their ambition. Continue reading →

Posted in Featured, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Thursday, July 21st, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Health & Wellness in the Food & Beverage Industry

John Oliver, the British comedian, during his Terrifying Times tour detailed at what point the Chinese will become a threat to the United States. It didn’t have to do with GDP, debt or urban development. The point at which the US seeds its #1 status to China is when a grill that can float in a pool sells like hot cakes. In other words, the US will lose when the Chinese buy dumber crap. Continue reading →

Posted in Featured by Ethan Lyon | Thursday, July 7th, 2011 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Best Practices for Putting on a Successful Event

Imagine buying sweets from the “Honeydukes Sweet Shop” in Harry Potter or hula hooping for some Ben & Jerry’s or receiving free spa treatments. These are just a few memorable events companies have hosted to raise awareness of their new products and services. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Marketing, Featured by Ethan Lyon | Monday, June 27th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

How Amazon is Trying to Be the Center of the E-Commerce Universe

When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994, could he have imagined how the company’s gravitational pull would make it the center of the e-commerce universe? The company conquered the online sales of goods from CDs to groceries, is partnering with social media giant, Facebook, essentially created the e-book market and most recently has its sights on the video rental space — the next chapter in its quest to be the center of the online retail space. Continue reading →

Posted in Featured, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Monday, May 23rd, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

In-Store Experiences for Luxury Brands

Imagine drilling down into the guts of a product without ever opening the package or avoiding the painfully long wait times while a sales person checks the inventory to see if an item is in stock. These are just two ways luxury brands are enhancing the in-store customer experience. Sparxoo has spotted new tech trends in luxury, which often involve e-commerce. But, the bread and butter of the luxury industry has been the superior in-store experience. So what drives an exceptional in-store experience? Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Featured by Ethan Lyon | Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

How to Network at Networking Events

Some business professionals use networking events as a last resort for new business — sometimes attending 3-5 events in a given week. Could you imagine meeting someone one week, then giving them your business or referring them to a friend the next? Probably not. Making connections that lead to new business doesn’t happen overnight. Developing meaningful relationships takes time, and shouldn’t be a last ditch effort for new business. Continue reading →

Posted in Featured, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Monday, April 11th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Tips to Manage Your Manager

Most people, whether they like it or not, are managed at some point in their career. To create a productive relationship with your manager takes a keen understanding of their management style. Continue reading →

Posted in Featured, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Top 7 Brand Advertising Mistakes

It seems like in order to find one great ad, you have to watch 20 “for the low low price of $19.95″ commercials. Many brand advertisements fall short of the mark because of common mistakes that can be easily avoided. For instance, perform adequate customer research and testing before signing on a spokesperson. Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Featured by Ethan Lyon | Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Brand Positioning & Differentiation

What makes Madonna, Coca-Cola and Apple iconic cultural leaders? Why do Apple fans spend hours standing in line to buy the next innovation? It is a brand’s ability to creatively, uniquely and strategically position itself in the market that makes it successful. In essence, they learned to think outside of the box and be different. Continue reading →

Posted in Branding by Ethan Lyon | Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Top 5 Innovative Package Designs

“Today, to break through the clutter of the hundreds of other competing products out there it pays to be different,” writes Peter Drucker. One way of breaking through the clutter is to follow through on the concept or mission of the company selling the product to create an immersive, engaging brand experience.
Continue reading →

Posted in Branding by Ethan Lyon | Friday, March 25th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Easy Ways to Gain Visibility for Competitive Search Terms

Wouldn’t it be great to land on the first page on Google for highly competitive terms, such as entertainment, plays, etc.? However, ranking well for competitive terms usually takes blood, sweat and tears to build thousands of inbound links from authoritative sites. Now that Google and other search engines are accounting for videos, social media and local results, it could be much easier than you expected. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Marketing by Ethan Lyon | Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Consumer Stats in Digital Shopping

The internet and mobile devices have undoubtedly changed the how consumers learn about new products and inform buying decisions. Mobile devices, in particular, are merging the in-store shopping experience with the digital world through internet connectivity, coupon apps, social networking sites and numerous other ways being cooked-up in entrepreneur tech labs. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Marketing, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Monday, March 21st, 2011 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Branding in a Keyword-Driven World

Google has so indoctrinated keywords into webmasters, sometimes branding can be put on the back burner. However, Google’s keyword-centric view of the world could be changing. Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Digital Marketing by Ethan Lyon | Friday, March 18th, 2011 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Brands and Social Networks Dominate Google Trends

We performed an analysis of Google web trends via Search Insights to see where the greatest growth existed for each year beginning with 2004 and all time. Then we zeroed in on those categories with the greatest uptick within a given year. Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Blue Is the New Green for Brands

Once considered the ecological movement in the 1960s and 70s, the concept of consumer environmentalism evolved into the green movement in the 2000s. The impact of the green movement had a profound effect on consumerism, with organic, eco-friendly, locally sourced, permeating the consumer lexicon. Now, is the time for the next evolution of the green movement: blue. Continue reading →

Posted in Branding by Ethan Lyon | Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Consumer Targeting for Location-Based Services

The location-based social network niche is one of the hottest new markets, with its most recent member, Facebook. There is a lot of buzz about how geo-networks could be the next frontier for marketers seeking hyper-targeted advertising and user-engagement. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Marketing by Ethan Lyon | Friday, March 11th, 2011 | Leave a comment

Top 5 Free Eco-Friendly Buying Guides

According to the 2009 GMA / Deloitte Green Shopper Study, 95 percent of consumers would purchase more sustainable products and 54 percent consider sustainability to be one of their decision making factors.

As the demand and number of green products on the market grows, there is an increased need to sort through products and services to determine the greatest value. Here are five free resources that can help you incorporate more green in your life: Continue reading →

Posted in Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Thursday, March 10th, 2011 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Crowdsourcing Corporate Responsibility Efforts

We have explored how Target is using Facebook to push its corporate social responsibility (CSR) mission forward and how Pepsi is supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs. PR agency Weber Shandwick and KRC Research has released a report that examines the effectiveness of how crowdsourcing has played a role in CSR initiatives in Fortune 200 companies. According to the study, CSR crowdsourcing is an effective way to offer a different perspective and build relationships with community members. Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Marketing, Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Monday, March 7th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Charitable Giving Stats (2008 – 2011)

In 2009, we saw charitable donations fall by 6 percent from the year before to $228.5 billion. Analysts attribute this fall to the recession, but as we continue to emerge from it, experts agree charitable donations will rebound in 2010 by up to 4.5 percent. Continue reading →

Posted in Strategy & Trends by Ethan Lyon | Friday, March 4th, 2011 | Tagged , | Leave a comment