Top Five Blog Posts of 2016 (Plus, a Video!)

Top Five Blog Posts of 2016 (Plus, a Video!)

As the year winds down, let’s take a look back at some of the blog posts that caught your attention in 2016.

To Lead Your Industry, Look Outside of It

Try as you might, you can’t innovate in an echo chamber. When direct competitors copy each other, making incremental improvements to their brand experiences, they aren’t really bringing value to clients or customers. In this post, Jazzy discusses methods of cross-industry exploration to help marketers uncover fresh perspectives.

Pushing and Pulling

In I Am Almost Always Hungry by Cahan & Associates, Bill Cahan, the principal and creative director of the firm,  says that his primary role at the company is “to add tension.” In this post, Mike discusses everyday patterns that impact the creative process. After all, creating the right amount of tension is a delicate balance that designers face everyday. If the elements of design are a balance between order and chaos, pulling too hard either way is a recipe for failure. But not pulling at all will only result in unremarkable work.

Look Outside the Inbox: The New Rules of Effective Direct Mail

Some marketers will tell you that in this digital era, direct mail is dead. It’s a waste. It’s all junk mail. In recent years, we’ve all instead gravitated to email because it’s cheap, measurable and (seemingly) effective. But with full inboxes, it’s getting more and more difficult to stand out in the digital arena.

Today, there is more opportunity than ever before to make an impact with beautiful, memorable direct mail. In this post, Danielle shares three new rules for effective direct mail.

Rebranding After a Merger

It’s natural to feel apprehensive about a brand in transition. When companies merge, cultures collide. One-time rivals are told to act like best friends. Sales departments feel disjointed, and marketing managers struggle to fold existing products and services into a cohesive brand story.

After guiding clients through similar situations, we’ve learned a thing or two. In this post, Mike shares tips to make one unified brand from two conflicting company cultures and along the way, build a brand that’s strong enough to gain preference in your customers’ eyes.

The Role of a Marketing Firm

One of our oldest and most popular blog posts – it’s from 2010 – this post has stood the test of time, and still resonates with us (and with readers, apparently).

In it, Mike discusses what we believe the role of a marketing firm to be, and it isn’t to sell you a website, produce a bunch of brochures, or push the latest social media channel. We believe that the greatest role a marketing firm can play is that of inspiration. Inspiration for clients to see their business in a new light. To discover their strengths (and weaknesses). To find new ways to communicate.

How to Build a Brand Worth Falling in Love With

Late in 2016, we started building up our own Atomicdust video library, sharing marketing insights with a new video (almost) every week. In our most popular video to date, Jazzy discusses consumers’ close relationships with brands, why brand love matters and how businesses can achieve the highest levels of customer loyalty.

Thanks for reading (and watching) in 2016! We look forward to sharing even more insights on marketing, design and social media in the coming year.