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Please, No Fake Words in My Sweet Sauce

Every industry has its proprietary terms. Those words that when spoken, make non-insiders feel especially like outsiders. Some industries have complete languages of their own. I have friends who speak legalese, medical, philosophy and more. Sometimes those inside the industry bubble don’t realize that they are speaking a language that others don’t understand.  This can make for terrible bedside manner — when a doctor thinks she is explaining, but the patient has no idea what is being said. It can make a consultation with an attorney confusing beyond belief. And, I have witnessed graduate students in university classes turn pale and feel ill listening to a professor who seems to be speaking English, yet is unintelligible to the students.

The Marketing field is no different.  It has more than its share of in-speak words. In fact, depending on the area in marketing, there are actually sub-categories and the digital sphere is a major culprit. I have had clients who confessed that they had paid others for digital marketing services without actually knowing what the alphabet soup meant, even though they were paying for SEO, CTR, CPA, CPM.  Because there is an element of the theatrical and artistic in marketing, there are sometimes marketing pitches full of dramatic and artistic license.  “These upmarketing efforts to your subgregated target” (subgregrated?!?) or “smart digital optimizationalism”—yes, I’ve heard that said as if it were something real. These were made up words!  Actual fake words used to intimidate the client and make them think they were witnessing some miraculous inaccessible marketing magic.

There is a history of large marketing companies with inflated overhead and huge operations budgets trying to quote clients and give pitches that impress and hide what is actually happening.  The idea of saying, “we will be billing you hundreds of thousands of dollars because our conference room is very swanky and we like to play air hockey while we think” isn’t appealing.  Here’s the thing…well, one of the things…There are some valid difficulties to billing and quoting in marketing.  Clients don’t always understand paying for creative or intellectual equity.  There is value in a great creative idea or an aha! genius moment.  Those don’t just get born immediately. They often take some ruminating, research, collaboration, brainstorming.  That is in large measure what a marketing client is paying for.  That incubation of ideas.  If a quote or bill could be totally honest, it might state that the client will pay for “as many hours as it takes for us to come up with an incredible idea and to creatively plan to execute said idea” as well as the number of actual hours for design, writing, media placement, etc.  But quotes and bills aren’t written that way.

We are big advocates of transparent quoting and billing. That is in part because we aren’t ashamed to say that our minds are the thing.  That creative development, the understanding of the importance of communication and relationships with the receivers of the marketing –those are the sweet sauce.  We’ve got plenty of it at K2M Creative Media and we’re ready to pour it on in 2019!

Filed Under: Feature, marketing practices Tagged With: fake words, Marketing, marketing and sales, marketing pitch, transparency in marketing

Color Me Beautiful and Make My Logo Gorgeous

We often talk about the content, concepts and methods of marketing. What about the look?  Something as simple as color has such an impact.  How do you choose the right colors for your product, event, logo or website?

Are you old enough to remember color wheels?  Or to remember your mom having makeup consultations based on the season?  “Color Me Beautiful” was a hit book about seasonal color analysis in the 1980’s.  The idea was a simplified version of a previous publication and was based in research and writing from the early half of the 18th century having to do with chemistry and dyeing fabrics–the idea of a color wheel was born then.

So, how do you navigate the color wheel?  It’s arguably more complicated now, with the addition of tones between colors, light and dark, the appeal of contrasting or opposite colors, the idea of monochromatic choices, and on and on.  There is way more than, “I have Autumn hair with a Spring undertone to my skin.”

People always want their logos and promotional material to stand out.  What is the perfect combination that will draw the eye of buyers?  My advice on how to choose important colors in your business is twofold.

1)       Use your gut.  Unless you are colorblind, and I do have some good friends in this category, you probably know what you like and what doesn’t speak to you.  Go with it.  There aren’t such hard fast rules today that you cannot veer from.  I mean, the first make up color wheels were in the 70’s….seriously?  Have you seen those pictures???

2)      My second piece of advice is to consult an expert.  Your gut instinct and your personal taste can take you far.  However, it’s possible that it can only take you “so” far.  Knowing what to pair with a pair of black pants isn’t the same as knowing what colors will draw attention from consumers, which will work well with the back-light of a computer monitor and which will be most visible and attractive on particular types of packaging. I have been amazed countless times at how my talented graphic designers have developed an idea that I thought was already fully formed! Graphic designers have a lot of time invested learning about color.  Not only about the color wheel, but about how colors translate digitally, in print and in different types of presentation.

When your foot hurts, you see a podiatrist.  Tooth ache?  Dentist.  Color choices? Color professional. Aka, graphic designer.  Personally, I think it works best when the designer is also working in consort with your marketing team and not in a bubble and…yes…that’s what we do.  Want to know if you’re a Summer, Fall, Winter or Spring?  Be in touch and we’ll do our best to figure it out with you.  Should be fun—I love makeup.

Filed Under: good marketing, marketing practices, News Tagged With: color and design, design, graphic design, logos, Marketing, website color themes

Slip and Catch

So often clients connect with me when they are in a skyrocket mode…shooting up and fast, everything is clicking/working and they need the tools to be ready for when the emails start coming in and the phone starts to ring.  It’s such an exciting time for them.

There are many times though when a client comes to me, either after that skyrocket moment and they feel the lull of regular business, which feels slow compared to the exciting and fast rocket time. I also meet with clients who begin their first conversation with apologies.  They know they don’t need to apologize to me, but they are really apologizing to themselves.

“I have let my blog slip.” – Guilty here.

“I have not emailed my client list enough.” – So guilty here.

“I haven’t redesigned anything on my social media in forever.” – Guilty.

“I don’t use all of the social media channels I could.” – Guilty too.

A favorite was when a new client said, “I haven’t cleaned my house in months.”  Not part of the business discussion…but she needed to unload.  And by the way — Guilty too.

Yes, there is a level of therapy that can be part of the client relationship. So much about business and marketing is about relationships and interactions after all. So, whey the guilt about her home? People hold themselves up to unrealistic standards about running a business and a home. They get intertwined in our self-assessments – I find this especially true for women vis-à-vis their homes.

It is not only women. A male client told me that since he started his business his personal life had suffered, and he was hoping that as I took over some of the marketing responsibility, it would help him and his family carve out more time together. That was a priority for him because he felt like he was missing out.

However – NO guilt necessary. No self-blaming. We are a Love Yourself business.  First of all, nobody succeeds and sells as well when they are depressed, self-loathing or negative. Secondly, when someone slips in their own business goals and knows it, they have likely caught themselves before too much damage has been done. So, a business that starts out with a healthy and regular blog schedule that slips and falls off the routine for a bit, but notices it and reaches out for my help before it’s gone on too long, can usually get back on the blog wagon and fix it.

Did they lose possible business during the down time?  Probably. Does it mean the business is not savable?  Unlikely.

When the guilt is about not taking all available opportunities, such as not using all available social media channels, or not using all possible sales channels, again – no guilt needed.  Not doing enough, but doing some or a lot is still doing.  It is a great platform from which to build. There are times when a client will tell me in a hushed voice about what they have not tried. That’s ok. In fact, it’s great. It means we have a starting point to assess and perhaps work from.

The bottom line is that we focus on the achievements of our clients and on their inroads towards success as much as possible. People catch themselves and we create support to help catch them.

Life is full of Slips and Catches. We all slip and then catch ourselves. Expecting perfection and no errors is unrealistic and doesn’t lead to much more than stress and disappointment.  I think a goal of near perfection and no errors is great, as long as we understand that as people we are inherently engineered to slip sometimes. It’s more than ok. It’s just great. It’s real life. It is what gives us opportunity to reinvent ourselves, to try again, to work harder next time, to train more, to build, to learn.

People are perfect, but not because they are not flawed or because they err. It’s our mistakes and nicks and dents that make us interesting and experienced and wise. You’ve slipped? Bring it on – we’ve got you!

Filed Under: Feature, Opportunity Tagged With: Marketing, marketing decisions, marketing effectively, marketing plans, social media

Party Etiquette: Does Your “Push Marketing” Need To Be Pulled?

shutterstock_273210299Until recently, most marketing was “push” marketing. Advertised sales and special promotions pushed consumers to act; telling us when, what, and where to buy. Products and services were pushed into the marketplace with the goal of an immediate boost in sales. Branding was based on product lines, not on the company culture. In the last few decades, the internet has fueled the rise of “pull” marketing; a subtler conversation with consumers that invites us in as friends, rather than demanding our attention.

Here’s why “pull marketing” should be a major part of your marketing strategy.

Be interesting…

Sit in a room full of puppies or children and shout, “come over here, come over here, come over here.”  Odds are, they will ignore you, or even run away.  But if you do something interesting, entertaining or otherwise engaging, those pups or kids will naturally gather around you – and they will stay as long as you continue to pique their interest.

Target is a prime example of a retailer committed to pull marketing.  Their commercials are bright and colorful – lots of movement and music and fun.  Target is promising just the sort of experience that room full of puppies or children would run toward.

Build a rapport…

With Millennials (now the largest generation) and Gen Z flooding the consumer market, “pull marketing” becomes even more important.  These digital natives can instantly learn everything about your product – and do a price/feature comparison between your brand and others in seconds.  They already know how to buy, where to buy and what it will cost.  You don’t need to tell them that.  All you can influence is “when” to buy, “why” to buy, and “what” to buy – and you do this by using your marketing to build a rapport that pulls them in and builds a relationship.

Be genuinely social…

One huge mistake business owners make is ignoring the “social” in social media.  They feel that the purpose of social media is strictly to get their own message out – to talk at people.  Who is the person you avoid at a party? Is it the one who seems interested in you, the one who entertains you and makes you laugh – or the one who talks only about herself all evening?

Case in point: Wendy’s sassy Twitter exchange with a consumer who accused them of using frozen meat – complete with a mic drop ending – went viral last January and instantly turned Wendy’s Twitter feed into a “must-read” experience.

If you blast out posts that are the equivalent of standing at a party yelling “look at ME, look at ME,” you’ve written yourself out of the conversation.

Social media marketers follow various ratio rules, such as the 80/20 rule.  Twenty percent of your posts can be persuasive call-to- action pitches for your services and products, but eighty percent should be informative, entertaining, and sharable content. That’s how you build your brand, extend your reach and keep the attention of your audience.  In Forbes.com, May 15, 2017 article “12 Of The Worst Social Media Mistakes And How To Avoid Them” the Forbes Communication Council wrote, “think of promoting your business as a “commercial break” among other content that provides value.” Yes, that’s a lot of work, but that’s how you get results.  If your audience wanders off to talk to someone else at the party, you’ve lost your ability to talk to them at all.

Marketing has generally become more conversational and personal.  Today’s consumers have high expectations and short attention spans.  That calls for a fresh approach to your marketing strategy.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: inbound marketing, Marketing, Outbound marketing, Pull markrting, Push marketing, social media, social media mix, social media posts

From Our Blog

  • Can I Just Do It Myself? Sometimes.
  • Please, No Fake Words in My Sweet Sauce
  • Color Me Beautiful and Make My Logo Gorgeous
  • Salmonella Social: Half Baked Social Media Isn’t Worth Serving
  • Slip and Catch

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WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

“We definitely saw a huge increase in leads and calls.  There was no question about it because there was proof in our CRM.” Small Law Firm
“I never had the time to do marketing before because I was always so busy doing what I considered my “real” work.  Working with K2M made a tremendous impact on our office.  Not only were we busier with patients but we knew how to represent ourselves because we had a better sense of who we were.” Dental Practice
“We had a really good time.  I was surprised at how much we enjoyed it.”  Physician

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