How to know what’s about to happen slightly before it does. There is a moment in every marketing meeting where someone says: “We need to be more on trend.” This is usually followed by nodding, a brief silence, and the quiet realisation that no one is entirely sure what that means. Because trends, much like…
How to exist loudly enough that people realise you exist at all. There is a persistent and deeply unhelpful myth that if you start a small business and are very good at what you do, people will simply find you. This is a charming idea. It is also, in most cases, spectacularly wrong. Because the…
How to spend money without immediately regretting it. Marketing budgets are fascinating things. They often begin life as a number someone feels comfortable saying out loud, evolve into a spreadsheet that no one fully understands, and eventually become a source of mild anxiety when results don’t immediately appear. At no point in this process is…
Book Review : Building a StoryBrand 2.0 by Donald Miller. There’s a particular kind of confidence that creeps into marketing after a few strategy sessions, the belief that if we just explain things thoroughly enough, people will understand. Add a bit more context. Refine the messaging. Maybe a diagram. Building a StoryBrand 2.0 arrives as…
How to avoid spending money on something no one understands. There is a moment, just before launching an advertising campaign, when everything feels impressively official. There are slides. There are budgets. At least one person is saying, “This will perform well,” and yet, somewhere in the background, a small voice whispers: “Are we absolutely sure…
In this episode of The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing podcast, Sean Makin unpacks a deceptively simple idea: a brand isn’t what people see, it’s what they experience. Moving beyond logos and visual identity, this episode explores how real brands are built from the inside out, shaped by culture, everyday conversations, and the language people…
There is a widely held belief in marketing that if only one had a slightly larger budget, say, another few thousand pounds, a better camera, or a suspiciously expensive brand activation experience, then everything would work beautifully. Campaigns would perform. Leads would flow, and somewhere, deep within the algorithm, a small green light would blink…
Ah yes. The ancient and deeply confusing question: Should your marketing be digital-first or print-backed? A question which, much like “tea or coffee?” or “is this meeting necessary?”, appears simple but quickly spirals into philosophical chaos. Let’s fix that by overthinking it completely, which is really the only sensible response. After all, no simple question…
There comes a moment in every marketer’s life when they stare into the abyss of “brand visibility”, and the abyss stares back… before asking if you’ve tried posting more on LinkedIn. This is deeply unhelpful. Because modern marketing, much like assembling flat-pack furniture or understanding cryptocurrency, is theoretically simple and practically absurd. Everyone agrees you…
Book Review : The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert W. Bly. The Copywriter’s Handbook has long been considered one of the foundational texts of modern copywriting. First published decades before the rise of social media marketing, programmatic advertising, or AI-driven content tools, the book might easily be mistaken for a relic of another marketing era. But…