A Practical Guide to Curbside & Buy-Online-Pickup Commerce
Curbside pickup started as an emergency workaround in 2020 and stuck around because it solved a real problem. How the model works and how to market it well.
The Archive
2020
Marketing in a Crisis: What Every Business Needs to Know
A decision framework from 2020: when to pause a campaign, when to keep running it and how businesses decided what to say once the playbook stopped working.
Local Business Pivots Trends Shaping 2020
A year-end look at how local businesses adapted in 2020: curbside pickup, delivery app growth, Google's listing changes and platforms opened to small merchants.
Email Marketing Trends Shaping 2020
Five real developments that shaped email marketing in 2020, from the COVID-19 tone reset in March to the compressed, mostly-online holiday season in November.
TikTok Marketing Trends Shaping 2020
The year TikTok exploded in the US: lockdown-driven growth, the self-serve ad launch, the Oracle deal, ban threat and viral moments that pulled brands in.
Common Customer Empathy Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
The empathy-messaging mistakes that piled up through 2020, from the overused unprecedented-times opener to guilt-driven upsells, and the simple fixes for each.
How First-Party Data Changed Digital Marketing in 2020
The year Google put a deadline on third-party cookies, and how that single announcement reshaped first-party data strategy for the rest of 2020.
A Practical Guide to Virtual Events
How virtual events worked in 2020, from platform choice through registration and engagement to follow-up, once Zoom and rivals became default infrastructure.
A Practical Guide to Live Shopping
Live shopping is already a massive channel in China and it's now landing on Western platforms. Here's how the format works and what running one requires.
A Practical Guide to Leading Remote Marketing Teams
Marketing teams went remote overnight in 2020, and replicating office habits over video calls didn't work. What did: async by default and output over hours.
A Practical Guide to E-Commerce Acceleration
2020 forced years of e-commerce growth into months for many businesses. How to scale online sales fast without a foundation that collapses once demand fades.
Common Content Marketing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
Five content marketing mistakes that got more costly in 2020, as brands rushed online and content output spiked but strategy often didn't keep up.
Case Study: Winning With Webinar Marketing
An illustrative 2020 case study: how one small B2B firm replaced a canceled conference calendar with a webinar funnel during the shift to remote work.
Why Digital Transformation Matters for Your Bottom Line
The 2020 business case for digital transformation: what closing storefronts and shifting demand cost businesses that had put cloud and online ordering off.
How Curbside Commerce Changed Digital Marketing in 2020
How curbside pickup went from a niche convenience to standard infrastructure in 2020, and what it meant for local SEO, inventory visibility and text marketing.
A Practical Guide to Marketing in a Crisis
What happens inside a marketing budget during a downturn, why cutting everything is usually wrong and how to reallocate spend and tone in a crisis.
Mastering Local Business Pivots: A Marketer's Playbook
A step-by-step playbook for pivoting a local business online in 2020: online ordering, Google Business Profile setup, curbside logistics and a tight budget.
Mastering Email Marketing: A 2020 Inbox Surge Playbook
An operational playbook for email marketing built around what worked in 2020, when a surge in online buying and homebound subscribers rewrote inbox rules.
Mastering TikTok Marketing: A Marketer's Playbook
How brands built a presence on TikTok in 2020: organic content that fits the format, working with creators and what the platform's ad tools could do yet.
Case Study: Winning With Customer Empathy
An illustrative scenario from March 2020: a small retailer facing lockdown uncertainty, and the gap between a generic crisis email and one that listened first.
The Rise of First-Party Data: A History Since 1994
The real history behind first-party data, from Netscape's 1994 cookie invention through CRM and permission marketing to the 2020 news that made it urgent.
How Virtual Events Changed Digital Marketing in 2020
What happened to event marketing budgets and lead-gen strategy once SXSW, trade shows and conferences cancelled in 2020 and webinars became the default option.
How Live Shopping Changed Digital Marketing in 2020
2020 was the year US retailers seriously tried livestream shopping, borrowing a model that was already huge in China, with mixed results.
The State of Remote Marketing Teams in 2020
A snapshot of how marketing teams operated once offices closed in 2020: which tools filled the gap, what broke down and what turned out to work better remote.
How Ecommerce Acceleration Changed Digital Marketing in 2020
Categories that resisted online buying for years, groceries, pharmacy, furniture, moved online in months during 2020, and what that meant for marketers.