How to differentiate your brand when you’re number 2

If your kids dream of being a master builder when they grow up, they don’t have to move to Denmark. They can do it in Montreal. I met yesterday with members of the team responsible for the design, the production and the branding of Mega Bloks.

I went to the media tour at Mega Bloks for two reasons. I was curious to see how they make their building blocks. But the main reason why I attended this event was to know more about their branding and product development process. What I noticed through the tour was people who enjoy what they are doing.

An overlooked benefit of doing content marketing

Two weeks ago I participated in a #Hootchat about content marketing. The Twitter chat started by asking us how we define content marketing. The majority rallies along the lines of educating, informing, helping and engaging a targeted audience with your brand story and relevant content.

What surprised me is that nobody defined content marketing in terms of better understanding your audience and their aspirations. This is where many brands are missing out. They are missing out on the biggest opportunity that content marketing and social platforms are offering them.

How to pitch a journalist or a blogger to get press

Several business owners asked lately how to get press. I’m glad that they asked me because I want entrepreneurs to avoid costly mistakes that I see businesses and their PR agencies do over and over. To be fair to PR agencies, some agencies know better but they have failed to convince their clients that the old way doesn’t work anymore. I hope that my article will reiterate that spamming our inbox with press releases is not the way to get press coverage.

What I’m sharing here is how to pitch established bloggers, freelance writers and journalists. But I need to warm you: it takes time, patience and work. This is why most businesses don’t do it.  You’ll yield a definite advantage if you do it the right way.

Where to eat well in Gatineau and Ottawa with kids

We went for a weekend getaway last weekend with our 4 years old boy. I didn’t plan for anything except for meeting friends on Sunday and visiting the Canadian Children’s museum. Whenever I’m in vacation, I rely on Yelp to find restaurants. Once again, I was reminded of how practical Yelp is.

The filtering options make it easy to cut down on the number of reviewed restaurants. As a rule of thumb, I focus on restaurants with 40 reviews or more. I also take the time to read the most recent reviews to get a feel of the place, to see if it fits our criteria, what we’re craving for at that moment. Then, I check the food pictures and visit their web site. Frankly, I rarely made bad choices with this technique.