HELLO to a new Chinese year – the year of the Ox, a year of repairing and consolidating, our collective fortune is about to change for the better. Hurray for that!

2020, in the year of the year Rat we were forced into disruption, and to ‘look at the wrong we do to each other and our world, so we could have the opportunity to correct it and imagine a different society’. (I’d say that was true). If you think horoscopes are tosh, read this from last year.

Marketing & horoscopes – Chinese or otherwise, archetypes, avatars, personas, tribes…

When you are in business ‘pigeon-holing’ – grouping and naming potential customers – is a big deal. To try and find a way to talk to someone that; you don’t know, haven’t met yet (interacting on social platforms counts) – to give them the thing that you have, that they want – is a big deal. ‘Knowing’ your customer is the cornerstone of marketing. You need to be playing to the right crowd. And if you know, or can predict, which gig they want to go to next – you have sight of the Holy Grail.

Marketing is an art, and it’s a job. When you start out, you have a clear idea who your ideal customer is, you can work with your gut. As your business grows, and your customers grow, it gets more complicated. You need to know why and how and the what-fors. I’m not a marketeer, I’m a designer, but I do like to know how it’s done and try to do it for myself.

So for anyone wanting to know a bit more, who doesn’t understand a funnel (or want to), I’d like to recommend Bryony Thomas and her book, she talks about marketing in plain English, and plain fun. I wouldn’t have heard of her if not for The Marketing Meetup, who Zoom on Tuesday mornings, or can catch-up with on YouTube. There are lots of gems there, including one from Bryony.

Happy 60th year to this herd of ‘Ox’ – my friend Tricia, Barack Obama, George Clooney, Ricky Gervias, and the dearly departed Lady Di.


Seth Godin on luck

Luck on demand, alas, [is] not an option. Luck over time is inevitable, though. If you show up with good work and generous action, again and again, sooner or later something that appears to others to be luck will appear.


“I will not be afflicted at men’s not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men.” Confucius