Anyone who owns an older BMW knows buying the best quality car parts at the best price can be confusing. In this era of global consolidation and cost cutting, it’s never been harder to know how to balance quality and value. The Truth About Cars ran an excellent piece today about how car manufacturers exploit […]
My latest WashingtonExec Wine and Dine column published today. It features my review of the Curious Grape, in the Shirlington area of Arlington, VA. The Curious Grape is a combination wine shop and restaurant. The wine discussed in the review is the Andrew Murray 2011 Esperance, a nice Rhone style blend from central California. While […]
Last week Brad Flora, co-founder and ceo of startup Perfect Audience reached out to me to offer a guided demo. He had seen my recent article on retargeting, and wanted to show me how Perfect Audience was making retargeting easy for companies of any size. It was an impressive demo. Working with Facebook’s FBX Ad […]
Joe Roberts has a good story this week at 1WineDude that mixes wine, economics, demographics and a failure to adopt social media marketing. Add these elements up, and he predicts hard times for the U.S. wine business as Boomers continue to age, retire and pass on. He cites a report put out by the Silicon […]
Both of my BMWs were made before integrated Bluetooth phone connectivity became the norm for new cars. That’s never been a big deal for me, since I much prefer to not take calls behind the wheel. However, working in professional services means that occasionally a call can’t be avoided. I needed a hands-free option, especially […]
Have you ever researched a product online, and then noticed ads for that product following you around on the Internet? It was really obvious to me this holiday season, when a jacket my wife got me for Christmas was popping up on every site I visited for weeks afterwards. This is called retargeting, and done […]
Friday I had lunch with an old colleague of mine who is now running a well known federal trade magazine. In addition to catching up in general, he shared with me how he’s trying to adapt the traditional trade magazine business model to an online and mobile world. This is a theme I’ve covered a […]
Last week Google released its latest Transparency Report. (Official Google post here and New York Times piece here.) It documents a steady rise in government requests to Google for personally identifiable information on its users. The report also highlighted how the majority of these requests are not sanctioned by a search warrant. When I last […]
2012 was BMW of North America’s best year ever in this country. All told the company sold 347,583 vehicles, including the Mini brand. BMW model sales totaled 281,460, an increase of 13.5 percent from 2011. The company finished the year with a huge surge, selling almost 40 percent more BMW vehicles in December 2012 than […]
In almost all my client engagements, success requires coordination with the sales team. This is necessary to quantify prospect movement through the sales process and establish the program’s ROI. It’s also important to get feedback from sales on the type of content we should be producing, addressing issues prospects care about and using their language. […]
This weekend Gabriele leased a new Infiniti FX37. Two years ago we purchased a 2011 Toyota Highlander, and it was a good vehicle with loads of room and zero issues. But Gabriele wanted something sportier, and was willing to give up interior space for a more engaging ride. Just like two years ago, the aim […]
My latest Wine and Dine column published today in WashingtonExec magazine. It’s a review of Virtue Feed and Grain, the latest Cathal and Mechelle Armstrong restaurant in Old Town, Alexandria. Virtue Feed and Grain is another strong addition to the local culinary scene. Here’s a video from Cathal Armstrong that describes the thinking behind the […]