One of the first questions new clients ask about marketing is ‘Where should I start?’.

There are so many marketing tools, it can be a daunting challenge. Once the brand is established, do you:

• build your website?
• create a trade show booth?
• send direct mail?
• refine your presentation materials?
• produce a series of print ads?
• rely on social media?

The answer is…whatever will bring you cash in the door fastest.

Clients sometimes forget that marketing shouldn’t cost them money, it should make them money. There will always be some low hanging fruit, and that should be picked first, it will:

• help with cash-flow
• have the highest immediate ROI
• have ‘legs’…and can be re-used again
• set the foundation for future marketing efforts

The old saying about eating an elephant one bite at a time is true with marketing, too. We just like to start with the tastiest bite first.

1. They are easy to write
   We don’t need to worry about things like facts, paragraphs or writing style. Just bang out a point and a sentence or two to convince the reader.
2. Content is king
   Or so I’ve been told. In the interactive world, impressions to your site matter. An easy way to do that is through blog post or articles. When you lack inspiration, just come up with another top 10 list.
3. They don’t require tricky things… like facts
   Research is tough, why bother, just make broad generalizations and people will believe them anyway (e.g. “Impressions to your site matter”). Besides, they are reading your post, you are the expert.
4. You are busy
   We are all busy, so why waste your time reading something that requires concentration. If you wanted to do that you’d buy a book or a magazine.
5. Twitter only allows 140 characters
   So people must not like to read anymore. One of the great things about not having editors and facts is that logical failures (like the one in previous sentence) go unnoticed.
6. People search for them on the internet
   See the chart below. I’ll leave the interpretation of the data to your imagination. But believe me search engines are important.
   
7. People retweet top 10 lists
   They really do. Honest. Heck here is a picture of a top 10 search results on twitter. Some of these have been retweeted.



8. It makes the reader feel smart
   Readers may think to themselves, “This is easy, I could have written this” (note, they are probably correct). So instead of a smug journalist, you come off as smart, but not-too-smart-for-his/her-own-good blogger.
9. Counting is fun
   We learned to do it as children, and unlike Calculus and Algebra, it’s something we actually use every day. People usually put a weak point in #9, to reinforce the strength of their 10th point. For proof, watch David Letterman’s top 10 countdown.
10. Top 10 lists can drive comments to your site
    People can think of one you forgot to include and say “Hey Brian, great list, but you forgot to talk about engagement. Social media is all about engagement these days”.
    If I missed any reasons, please do this below and prove me right. If there are no comments, I’ll just assume my list was perfect and you found no flaws in it.

Summer is in full swing and so is our Sprockets program!  Three interns were chosen in early June; Jay, Andrea and myself, and we have been working at the Spoke office since June 14th.  We have chosen the Sprockets winners from over 40 worthy applicants and although the decision process was not easy, we are very excited to be working with five amazing non-profit organizations.

After a week of reading and sorting through applications, and another of phone interviews and meetings, the five organizations we will be offering free marketing services to are Habitat For Humanity, The Wellness Community of Saint Louis, The Mission Continues, Aim High Saint Louis and Partners for Pets.  These final five organizations have strong missions and support five very worthy causes.  We look forward to fulfilling each organization’s marketing needs while also getting a feel for the agency world.

Habitat for Humanity’s Sprockets application was one that the team was eager to read.  We were familiar with the name and wanted to learn more about this nationwide organization whose local dedication is focused on eliminating substandard housing in Saint Louis.  Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis’ mission is accomplished through a comprehensive program that helps families who are determined to proactively better their lives by investing their time and effort into actually building a home, owning a home, and becoming a contributing member of our community.  The organization is asking for our help in creating general presentation materials, such as a presentation book and brochure which will be used when the CEO, Development Director or Major Gifts Manager meet with companies or individuals to solicit financial gifts.

The Wellness Community of Saint Louis is a non-for-profit offering professionally led support groups, educational workshops, nutrition and exercise programs, and stress reduction classes to empower and educate individuals affected by cancer.  All programs are free of charge to cancer patients, survivors and their family members and caregivers.  Spoke will be helping launch a new awareness campaign for the organization as well as producing advertisements and a general marketing plan in an effort to make The Wellness Community Saint Louis a more well-known support center for cancer patients and their loved ones.

The Mission Continues really intrigued us because of their unique mission.  The organization’s Fellowship Program empowers wounded and disabled veterans by challenging them to serve once again in their communities through volunteer projects.  It rewards the soldiers by allowing them to leverage the strength and leadership skills they’ve gained while serving our country and apply them to the traditional workforce.  The program also has a profound benefit on communities throughout the United States who are improved because of these projects.  The organization also has the Warriors in Service Initiative, which encourages all veterans and other citizens of all backgrounds to perform service projects in their communities.  Jay, Andrea and I, along with the guidance of the partners of Spoke, plan to help The Mission Continues by creating a cohesive look for all or the organizations marketing materials, including a new logo, brochure and design templates.

Aim High Saint Louis is a great organization that not many people in the Saint Louis area are familiar with.  Aim High offers a four year, tuition free program to 300 rising 6^th-9^th grade public school students from economically disadvantaged communities who show academic potential.  The program includes an intensive five-week enrichment summer session along with monthly meetings on Saturdays throughout the school year with a goal of inspiring the kids desire to learn, stay in school and become responsible members of their communities.  We are eager to get started on our project for Aim High, in which we will provide them with a new marketing plan, updates for their current website, a new brochure and a possible advertisement.

Partners for Pets is an organization that pulled on the heartstrings of all of the interns, including myself.  This non-for-profit goes into animal shelters and rescues animals who have used up their maximum allotted stay and are on the verge of being euthanized.  Whether the animals have health or behavioral issues, or they have simply “used up all their time,” at the shelter, Partners for Pets comes to the rescue and helps the animals become ready for adoption.  We cannot wait to spread the word about this organization through new merchandise designs, a new logo and new marketing materials.

We are itching to get going on all of these fantastic projects.  We have held preliminary meetings with all of the organizations and are just getting started on each individual project.  We look forward to the experience and will keep you updated as the summer progresses.

Emily Steinhauser-Project Manager for Sprockets 2010.

Summer is here and so is the last SpokeFriday at our current office. It has served us well the last two years, but it is now time for Spoke to move on to bigger digs (a block down the street).

If you haven’t been to one before – SpokeFriday is our monthly happy hour to gather friends of the agency and to make new ones. As a virtual agency, the majority of our creatives work off-site so we use these happy hours as an opportunity to gather our creative teams, clients, friends of the agency and anyone else who is in St. Louis who would like to attend. Come for networking, drinks, appetizers or just to meet some friendly people in St. Louis.

• RSVP on Facebook
• Tweet about this using #SpokeFriday tag

As Spoke gears up for year two of our Sprockets program, people have asked us why we do it…what’s it all about.

The answer is pretty simple. We saw a couple of things that sucked, and tried to fix them.

The first one is probably obvious to most people; nonprofits and early stage start ups generally don’t have the time or resources to execute effective marketing programs. They end up either going without, or asking for pro bono work.

While we love doing free work for worthy causes, it doesn’t pay the bills. As our accountant likes to remind us, Spoke is NOT a nonprofit.

The other problem is probably obvious only to someone who’s interned at a marketing agency; most marketing internships are worthless. At agencies across the US this summer you will find interns spending an inordinate amount of time doing grunt work (getting coffee, making copies, filing, running errands, etc.). These interns won’t get a feel for the agency world, except for the view from the bottom.

When I did it, my bosses told me that I had to ‘pay my dues’.

Pay my dues??? I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to join the club! By the end of the summer all I knew for sure was:

• I didn’t like doing mindless work
• I knew the alphabet and was pretty good at working a copy machine
• I would never treat interns like that

The goal of Sprockets is to solve these two problems by letting our interns work on pro bono projects for nonprofits, and early stage start-ups. The clients get free marketing help, and the interns get a meaningful experience, a portfolio, and case studies to show future employers.

Don’t worry…we don’t just throw our interns to the wolves. We work with them on each of the projects, point them in the right direction, ask the right questions, and help them make the right decisions. But, at the end of the day (summer), the decisions are theirs, the work is theirs, and the success is theirs.

They might learn that they hate marketing, and that they should go to dental school. But at least they won’t learn it basking in the glow of a copy machine.
–
Here’s a sampling of the work our Sprockets interns did last year:

Blessing Basket: Refreshed the logo, and designed point-of-sale elements that helped increase same-store-sales by more than 300%.

The Mission Center: Created their logo and brand collateral, and provided ‘visual storytelling graphics’ that enabled them to explain their unique business offering, and innovative corporate structure to prospective clients and investors.

The Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club: Developed an annual marketing plan, and outlined several innovative, low-cost marketing tactics that enabled them to communicate key messages with their stakeholders.

Connections to Success: Created an annual report that was used to reinforce their accomplishments with existing donors, and to solicit new ones.

StudioSTL & STLArtworks: Developed a corporate gift pack program, including a sell sheet and unique, low-cost packaging that reinforced their commitment to artists and the arts.