design that sells
Between Crowdsourcing and Craigslist, cheap logo design is beating thoughtful logo design and it’s getting sad.
If you have big plans for your business then I would spend less time looking on Craigslist and more time with a real logo design professional.
Regardless of your choice of designer, here are five questions you must ask when planning a new logo. This is not an exhaustive list but it will help you put some thought in to your new brand.
Productivity and project efficiency are high priorities at our marketing firm. We are always looking to do something faster and better every time.
While today’s tip may not be 100% about project management, it is very helpful if you want to be even quicker with your iPhone.
The other day I was texting someone and tripped up on a word/phrase. It slowed me down for a second. This happens more than you would think (especially if you’re texting while driving…which you shouldn’t do…and I never do 
)
Organized project management is essential to successful business marketing. But ‘organized’ often gets mistaken for over planning. We build massive time tables to get way too many things done and the result is usually underwhelming.
So we’re trying something new. We are working on one week “growth projects.” That’s right, one week.
This isn’t new. Many tech companies have been doing it for years. They’ve even built some really cool products with “hackathons” that last only 24 hours. Even successful businesses like Mint were developed in just a week.
For many reasons, I’ve never been a fan of lotteries. One of these reasons is that I’ve never liked the idea of getting a lump sum of money. I’d much rather receive money each month than have to budget my lump sum and spread it out. Now, we can poke holes in that way of thinking all day long but it leads me to an important point about growing your business.
I’ve been meaning to share this link with everyone for awhile now. Online Marketing Trends posted an article on the top five reasons brands fear social media. It’s really interesting and it makes a lot of sense to me.
I’ve talked to a lot of my clients over the last couple of years and all of them have some reason why they are NOT online. When it all boils down, the main reason I’m finding, other than lack of time, is that they just don’t understand it. They don’t get how it works for their business and they just can’t see the point in spending energy on it. At times I see where they are coming from.
Dan Zarrella is always full of in depth studies. His website danzarrella.com is like a living text book on social media. I was digging through the archives today and came across his study on the click through rates (CTR) of links posted on Twitter. I’ll let Dan explain…
Tweet Much? Don’t Expect a High CTR. New data I’ve been working on seems to indicate that the more frequently you Tweet links, the fewer clicks you’ll get.
His post really goes into the details of why this is. I’ve often said, with no real data to back me up, that people posting endless links for their products won’t get them a valid ROI. This seems to back me up a little.
In the previous post of this series we discussed narrowing our marketing plan down to a few small and manageable tasks that we can complete daily. I know, it’s not as sexy as a huge marketing plan. But get this through your head; a huge marketing plan that sits on your shelf is not a plan. It’s a book. You need to execute something in order to get your business moving. A couple small things that are actually completed will move you much farther than that thick document you just spill coffee on. Get it?
Let’s come out with it right at the beginning here – the biggest excuse people have for not marketing effectively is not that they don’t have the money. It’s not that they don’t know what they’re doing. For small business owners, it can be boiled down to this.
“there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it so we just don’t do it at all.”
Think about it. When you boil down all of the excuses, the reason why it hurts so much to market our businesses is because that list of things that “we should be doing” is overwhelming.
Stop by a blog, follow a marketer on Twitter or pick up a business magazine and you’re going to get hit with a long list of things you need to be doing to market your business successfully. Soon after that, you’re going to be hit with the depression or hopelessness that comes from not being able to see that new idea become a completed task.
Marketing sucks. No…wait…it bloooooows. There’s a chauvinist saying that goes something like “show me a really hot woman and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of *dating* her.” I’m not a chauvinist and I can see the offensive nature of that statement. However it does, crudely, illustrate my point here. The only people who think marketing a business is “cool” are the people who aren’t marketing a business.
Outsiders see marketing as Super Bowl ad spots and Budweiser Frogs. The reality is that marketing is a data-driven, uphill marathon that you never stop running. I had lunch with a friend the other week who said “SEO (search engine optimization) sucks because you’re never done with it.” “You have to keep doing it. There’s no end.” The same goes for all marketing. If you want to keep making money there sport then you better keep marketing.
Awhile back I decided to run a marathon. Now, if you’ve seen pictures of me (though I’m skinnier now) or knew me personally at the time you would have thought that this was another ridiculous dream that would never come true. In fact, going from 0 to 26.2 miles at 100lbs overweight seemed a little ridiculous to me too.
So I didn’t set out to run 26.2 miles. I set out to run five minutes a day. For the first week or so that was tough enough and some days I couldn’t do much more than tow minutes. However, I achieved that sooner than expected and moved on to round two: 2-5 minute runs a day (appox 10 minutes apart but that’s not the point here). After that I moved on to 3-5 minute runs a day. About three months ahead of schedule I hit my first mile run. The next day I ran two miles and the other day, on Super Bowl Sunday, I completed my first 5K about a year ahead of schedule.
So what does this have to do with making $1 Million? Keep reading, it’s coming Kitten…
Running a marathon seemed too tough, even more, it seemed too far away. My goal, no matter how bad I wanted it, was not enough for me to get out of bed in the morning. With that in mind I made it so I didn’t have to achieve my goal when I woke up. I just had to get my non-marathoner ass to the gym and run a lousy five minutes.
