Douglas Karr's Articles on Martech Zone
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Navigating the Currents of Business Leadership
Rivers, like businesses, are constantly changing. Yet we often struggle to perceive this ongoing change, instead focusing on snapshots or isolated periods. This limitation in our perception can lead to misunderstandings about the true nature of rivers and organizations. Imagine…
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Web Site Story
CollegeHumor’s Web Site Story takes something almost everyone in digital work has lived through—the slow-motion chaos of building a website—and turns it into a full-on musical. It’s funny right away because it’s familiar. The kickoff starts with big dreams and…
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The Timeless Truth of Marketing: Simplicity, Relevance, and Repetition
When Our Brand is Crisis was released, it peeled back the curtain on the strategy behind political campaigns—a world where words, emotions, and timing collide in the pursuit of influence. James Carville, the master strategist behind Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign,…
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SEO: Appearing in SERPS is Only Half the Battle
Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) has become an essential aspect of digital marketing, with businesses of all sizes vying for the coveted top spots in search engine results pages ( SERPs ). However, achieving a high ranking is only…
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The Garage Sale Mapper: My Killed Idea That Was Never Built… But Is Documented
Back when newspapers were fighting to stay relevant in a digital world, I had what I thought was a breakthrough idea. Working at a local paper, I noticed how garage sale ads consistently filled our shrinking classified section. They were…
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The Pink Secret: The Uncomfortable Strategy of Building and Marketing to Younger Demographics
There’s a moment in nearly every brand’s life cycle when it bumps up against the limits of its audience. Growth slows. Market share plateaus. The customers who were once newly acquired are now fully saturated. And rather than watching that…
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Outliers: The Story of Success
As I was waiting for my flight yesterday, I remembered the two things I forgot - my sport jacket and one of the books in my to-be-read pile. Luckily, the store by my gate had a reasonable book selection, and…
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Let’s Hope Your Brand Doesn’t Sound Like This on X
Before you read any further, take a moment to watch the short video below. It is comedy, but it is also an uncomfortably accurate mirror for how many brands show up online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTN9We8unmU I remember the first time I saw…
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Marketing to Intent, Not Eyeballs
Old school marketers always seem to get hung up on the number of eyeballs. I've always been a database and direct marketer, so I liked getting the right eyeballs rather than pushing advertisements in front of all of them. Businesses…
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Stop Bailing, Let’s Invest in the Opportunity of Social Media
Americans hate to lose a war, period. In one view, the dying automotive industry is a war we think we're losing. I don't believe we're losing anything; I believe we're progressing. Jobs moving overseas always sound ominous, but people ignore…
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Eye Have A Spelling Chequer
I just finished reading Righting the Mother Tongue: From Old English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling , by David Wolman. You may not know what orthography and etymology are, and that's okay. I know I'm a butcher…
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The Engagement Illusion: Why Comments Don’t (And May Never) Equal Conversions
I did some analysis of my blog this weekend to look for a correlation between my search engine results, my most popular blog posts, the posts with the most comments, and the posts that actually resulted in revenue due to…
