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.

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.
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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.

Good marketing is a lot like that.

Too often companies make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. The most obvious example of this is when companies try to list everything they do in their ads, emails, and conversations with prospects.

Guess what? They don’t care.

Potential customers don’t have the time, interest, or energy to learn your life story. They’re just interested in that ‘one thing’. It could be innovation, customer service, or even price. But, it’s just one thing.

Good marketing isn’t about ‘you’, it’s about your prospect.

The next time you’re tempted to rattle off a laundry list of every possible reason someone might want to do business with you, take a minute and try to determine what you do that is most important to them.

Then, be that ‘one thing’.

image source

You’ve no doubt seen disclaimers in marketing efforts:

• not a real doctor

• past performance does not guarantee future results

• results not typical

Because social media, blogging, and word-of-mouth marketing make it especially difficult for consumers to identify paid endorsements, the new regulation requires that these relationships be made clear to the intended audience. If a company is providing free product or cash to someone to promote their product, the marketer must disclose it.

This is a good thing.

The FTC exists to (among other things) protect consumers and prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices. By holding ‘mommy bloggers’ to the same standards as traditional sources of advertising, the FTC hopes to make consumers less susceptible to unsubstantiated or false claims (looks like the acai berry diet’s days are numbered).

In full disclosure: as a writer I love to use purple, extra fine point Sharpie pens. The Sanford corporation does not pay me to say this…but if they’d like to, I’m available (Wait!?! Is that Mont Blanc on the other line…?).

I’m not exactly sure what the problem is, but something is leaking somewhere. Honestly, I didn’t even try to figure out what the problem was before I left the house. All I know is – there is water where it shouldn’t be, and somebody needs to set my pipes straight.

I had just the man for the job (and it wasn’t me). For the record, I’m not the least bit handy. If you give me a screwdriver, I hope it has a swizzle stick in it (and perhaps a nice orange wedge garnish).

That said, I could try to fix it myself, it doesn’t seem entirely impossible. With a few hours work, I could probably dig around in the house, look up things on the Internet, and even ask the folks at the hardware store…heck…

I might even fix the problem.

But. I could also:

• waste valuable time, and not fix the problem

• do more harm than good

In this case, outsourcing was my best solution. In the time my handyman fixes the leak, I will have written (and edited) this post, written copy for one client, sketched out ideas for a new campaign for another, and outlined two statements of work for new business.

By outsourcing to a trusted expert, I was able to do what I do best, and empower somebody else to do what they do best.

Anything else seems like flushing common sense down the drain.