Most marketing budgets are backwards. When companies think about growth, they imagine it comes from strangers. So they spend on ads, awareness campaigns, cold emails, and trade shows. The assumption is that growth = new customers. You re trying to win new business, right? However, your most valuable customers (or clients, users, patients, readers, etc.) may already ... Read more
When your product or service doesn t naturally attract attention, you can buy it instead. You can pay for advertising. Maybe that’s the right move. Maybe you re just starting out. Maybe you re entering a new market. Maybe you re working in a regulated industry like banking, healthcare, or pharmaceuticals, and you can’t do anything too unorthodox to ... Read more
Your logo, your colors, your font choices, your core values? They’re not your brand. At least not the entirety of it. Not to your customers. Your brand is the package that arrives on time and intact, or shows up late, busted, and at the wrong address. Your brand is the headache you caused someone, or ... Read more
For the first two companies I led marketing for, I also served as the designer. Not a great designer — more like an I’m too frugal to hire someone, so I’ll do it myself kind of designer. I got by. But compared to Real Life Designers, I was blowing a kazoo at the symphony. Like ... Read more
If your business is operationally sound but struggling with marketing, congrats! That s one of those good problems to have. It means you re growing or prepping for growth. But traditional marketing solutions present risky, expensive choices: Hire an agency and watch overhead eat your budget. Hire in-house and take on full-time salary risk. Hire a consultant ... Read more
If you’re ever worried about brand fatigue, it’s probably just your own boredom. If you’ve got a good brand, keep your colors, keep your logo, keep your message. Tinkering with your look probably won’t fix your product. The insurance companies with the duck, the emu, and the gecko have paid for the right to worry ... Read more
You’re holding a Swiss Army knife with 39 different tools. It’ll open boxes, drive screws, trim fingernails… But when it’s time to open a bottle of wine, is that really what you reach for if a proper corkscrew is nearby? And if you needed surgery, would you want your doctor using a multitool, or something ... Read more
Even if you don t do marketing, there are small things that can make a massive difference right now. Small moves that build credibility and ensure you re findable when someone needs you. Here are 10 things to start with: Set up a Google Business Profile that shows up in local searches. List your business on relevant ... Read more
It s deceptively easy to start a digital ad campaign. Enter your credit card info, pick a few targeting options, and let the leads roll in, yeah? But netting a return is the hard part. I learned this lesson by torching $12,000 when a dead, untargeted test campaign was somehow activated. There wasn t any evidence of ... Read more
In the backroom of The Creative Teacher, Deb Jones clamps a phone between her cheek and shoulder. A red granite paperweight shaped like an apple sits on her desk. OMNI DEB is painted on it. It was a gift from employees who recognize her as a local titan in the world of classroom supply merchandising. ... Read more