The first snow

According to weather.com, it was 80 degrees here yesterday. The leaves haven’t changed color on any of my trees and yet we are getting the first snow of the season at my house as I am typing this (pic below to prove it). I may be wrong about this, but I could have sworn that there used to be some sort of time period between summer and winter.

But, when it comes down to it, that is just how we roll here in Utah. While other states might take the time for a break between outdoor activities, we go straight from summer hikes to backcountry skiing. We are always outdoors and on advil.

-jeremy

Small business vs. large business

Whether you are a small business or a large business there are ways to approach marketing that should be standard. Here are a few of the basics.

1. Actually do marketing. A surprising amount of business folk out there still see marketing as a waste of money. These same doubters often rely on their own larger-than-life personality to sell and have not given marketing a chance to increase their business potential beyond what they can accomplish by themselves.

2. Look at the long-term (strategic approach). Marketing is not just about immediate sales but it can create the framework for a client/customer base for years to come.

3. Look at the short-term (immediate sales). Whether this is promoting a sale or it is the day-to-day sales, this cannot be overlooked so that both existing customers are not forgotten and potential customers can be added to the customer base.

4. The brand is sacred. Treat your brand with as much consistency and reverence as possible. It is not something to change on a whim or something that should be degraded visually or verbally for the sake of any immediate sales.

The ultimate goal of marketing should be growth for the business. No matter what size business you are, if you are not growing then one reason could be ineffectual marketing.

Market well,
-jeremy

Emphasize quality

If your product or service is not quite solid is it possible to make some sales? Absolutely. The problem will be with sustaining those sales throughout time. Marketing effectively is not about trying to cover up the lack of a solid product or service, rather, marketing effectively is about letting the audience know about your quality product or service and then get them excited about learning more about you or to purchase the product.

TIP: As tempting as it is to want to sell to a vast audience immediately after concepting a product or service, try to work out some initial kinks to hone down what you are selling prior to bringing it to the greater audience. Marketing can help increase sales and exposure, but a quality product/service will exponentially sell itself throughout time.

-jeremy

Wold Creative AD example

simplicity is complex

As an undergrad art student, I remember being introduced to the minimalist art movement for the first time. These artists were made famous for such things as putting just a few squares on the canvas or leaving the canvas entirely blank. My first thought, like most artists who see them for the first time, was that I could have done that. Now, I’m not so sure.

For simplicity to work in art, there has to be a conscious decision to leave out elements. When faced with a blank canvas, it feels good to put all of your thoughts, energy and passion into making that canvas not blank anymore.

TIP: The goal of art is to express while the goal of marketing is to sell. Therefore, with marketing and design, simplicity is crucial for the viewer to focus on the message at hand. To do this, there needs to be a conscious decision to focus on a couple, or one, key element(s) and to leave out the extraneous information.

EXAMPLE: Let’s say you have a tee-shirt company in Oregon and you want to establish yourself in the market. You sell slim-fit shirts with age-old sayings on them. You only use organic cotton. You are a woman-owned business. You manufacture over 10,000 shirts a year. You sell to the western US. So, with that situation, what do you say in your marketing materials?

There are a few ways to slice this one, but you could say “Oregon Shirts, Organic Wisdom”. In other words, focus on one or a couple of items to put in the forefront of the marketing and put the other information as the secondary line of marketing (further within a brochure/website). The idea is to draw in the audience by the first marketing piece, thus, getting the audience onto further information to fully gain their trust in your product/company.

-jeremy