The goal of consumer research is to mine as much data as possible so you can use it to psychologically manipulate your customers into buying more of your products or services. Right?

Start your marketing and communications plan for the year with goals designed for results. 

I’m the queen of list making.

Every day I make a list of the things I need to accomplish, then rank them from highest priority to lowest. As I accomplish things throughout the day, I cross them off my list, and if priorities change, I reorganize.

Part of this list making comes from habit, and part of it comes from my unending need for organization. But no matter the reason, my list gives me focus. It helps me to prioritize the things that are most important and critical for a successful day, and it helps me avoid wasting time and energy on unimportant tasks. In its most basic form, my daily list is my strategy.

Your customers know almost everything about what you offer before they "walk in" the door. Whether you sell items off shelves, provide a service, are a museum or tourism attraction, a library or even an entire community, hardly anyone walks in without background information. They've stalked your company—and your competitors—online well before they make contact. 

Here's how to treat the informed consumer:

Content—every company wants to put out more of it. But if you’re like most businesses, you’re confined by a limited amount of resources: your staff doesn’t have experience writing blogs or preparing case studies; no one has the time to monitor your results; and even if they did, the budget for these activities doesn’t exist.

In a perfect world, your company would have a robust content marketing plan with the ability to deploy, track and analyze all of your content from a single platform. But the reality is not every business has the budget for an in-depth content management system (CMS) like Hubspot, let alone the resources needed to manage it. But that doesn’t mean you’re up the creek without a paddle.

If you’re struggling to get your content marketing strategy off the ground, writing a case study every month or putting out a new video every quarter probably isn’t feasible—but sending out a regular (or at least occasional) email to your customers is. And a free or low-cost email platform with even the most basic functions can still be an effective way to start connecting—and stay connected—to your customers.

So, what do you need to get started?

Snapchat has long been overlooked by marketers who view the toddler social network as "just for selfies." Through its recent updates, Snapchat has started to make itself more of a behemoth for digital marketers at companies large and small. 

"If you build it, they will come."

Other than a baseball field in Iowa, that statement really isn't true. You can create the perfect environment for your community or region to grow and expand new and existing business, but if you don't actively market it - in ways that cut through the clamor of all the other competing sites/cities/states, then you are leaving a lot to chance. 

On April 22, 2017, news broke that another video surfaced on social media of an airline passenger being mistreated by staff - this time on an American Airlines flight. 

The airline immediately took responsibility and is investigating the incident. Officials say that the video does not reflect their values of "patience and empathy."

A tone deaf ad from Pepsi. A hacked attempt to integrate Burger King into your Amazon Echo or Google Home device. A Nivea ad that only lacked a pointy white hat in its inadvertently (we hope!) white supremacist messaging. And most notably, a PR nightmare that United Airlines brought on themselves.

Research in psychological and behavioral sciences has shown the relationship between message recall and emotional response. It's not a new concept, but research continues to evolve around the how and why, which methods are most effective AND which parts of the brain are affected and how.