About Me

Laura Lake
Author, Teacher, Colum­nist, Con­sul­tant and Speaker

Laura is the author of Con­sumer Behav­ior for Dum­mies.  She entered the world of mar­ket­ing in the year of 1998 after work­ing as a Con­troller. Her pas­sion was found on the other side of the ROI cal­cu­la­tion and she knew she had the ana­lyt­i­cal mind as well as the cre­ative abil­ity to make mar­ket­ing cam­paigns a success.

In 1998 she became the editor/guide for Inter­net Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for The Min­ing Com­pany, now known as About.com, a New York Times Com­pany. In 2003 she advanced to editor/guide cov­er­ing the topic of Mar­ket­ing at About.com and still writes for them today.

She has helped com­pa­nies in the devel­op­ment of their mar­ket­ing plans, under­stand their con­sumers, cre­ate a brand iden­tity, assist in pub­lic rela­tions, help in the uti­liza­tion of inter­net mar­ket­ing, social media and more. Her spe­cialty is the devel­op­ment and cre­ation of suc­cess­ful cam­paigns and strate­gies that uti­lize the knowl­edge of con­sumer behav­ior and turns those poten­tial con­sumers into life­long cus­tomers that increase the bot­tom line of busi­nesses all over the world. She knows that effec­tive mar­ket­ing raises bot­tom line rev­enues, low­ers cus­tomer acqui­si­tion cost, increases cus­tomer reten­tion and profitability.

Laura Lake got her mar­ket­ing chops the old fash­ioned way. She earned them. Through years of expe­ri­ence in the mar­ket­ing indus­try, Lake has helped thou­sands of busi­ness own­ers and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als with her down-to-earth writ­ing, con­sult­ing and lec­tures. Her fresh per­spec­tive allows even small com­pa­nies to ben­e­fit from mar­ket­ing power with­out spend­ing thou­sands of dollars.

Laura has been involved in the inter­ac­tive and tra­di­tional mar­ket­ing indus­try since the begin­ning of her mar­ket­ing career and has seen e-commerce and social com­merce evolve into a viable and lucra­tive indus­try. She brings a user-centered per­spec­tive to mar­ket­ing that pro­motes mutual ben­e­fits for both adver­tis­ers and con­sumers. Mar­ket­ing is her passion.

Laura’s Def­i­n­i­tion of Marketing:

“Mar­ket­ing is the process of teach­ing con­sumers why they should choose your prod­uct or ser­vice over your com­peti­tors; if you are not doing that you are not mar­ket­ing. It’s really that sim­ple! The key is find­ing the right method and defin­ing the right mes­sage to use to edu­cate and influ­ence your consumers.

Com­pa­nies make the mis­take of think­ing that mar­ket­ing is just “one” thing, but mar­ket­ing is every­thing that the con­sumer encoun­ters when it comes to your busi­ness, from adver­tis­ing, to what they hear, to the cus­tomer ser­vice that they receive, to the follow-up care that you pro­vide. It’s all mar­ket­ing and cre­at­ing the deci­sion within the con­sumer whether or not to choose you ini­tially or for repeat business.”

- Laura Lake

She lives in Kansas City, Mis­souri  with her cat Mar­tini. When not work­ing you’ll find Laura dri­ving fast in her BMW Z4 with the top down to relieve stress, strolling through an art gallery, cov­ered in sweat in spin­ning class, or just sit­ting on the deck enjoy­ing the view of the lake and a nice glass of wine.  She enjoys being the mar­ket­ing colum­nist for About.com and con­sult­ing with busi­nesses on how to mar­ket and inte­grate social com­merce  into their mar­ket­ing plan.