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The key decent marketing, and to being a marketing consultant, is in understanding the balance of Internal Relevance and External Relevance. External Relevance is your brand in relation to what's going on the world at large and what's going on with your target audience specifically. Internal Relevance is the heart of your brand and the value it creates for your target customers. I've made this observation before, but I'm continually amazed by how many people get this wrong. Here's what it looks like when they do:

Getting External Relevance wrong are brands jumping on to holidays and trending hashtags with commercials, posts, or promotions for products that have no relation to the topic of the day. Not every restaurant should be making posts about St Patrick's day. Some shit just doesn't need to be sold on the 4th of July, no more so than on any other day. Just stop it already.

Getting Internal Relevance wrong are business owners and consultants that fail to understand the meaning of their goods/services as perceived by customers. You can work to shape that meaning, particularly by adding context. Telling the story of a business's founder, the history of a recipe, the philanthropic work they do, etc., all add context about the business and can be done to great effect. It is very easy to get this wrong however, and consumers today can sniff a whiff of bullshit through an ornate tin can. Modern advertising has groomed consumers to be experts at perceiving authenticity; fakers beware.

The balance is the work. Too many people avoid the actual work part. We're all guilty of it from time to time. Jumping to ambitious goals, to planning out and mapping the creative elements of design, video, content - all of that feels like the work we're being paid to do. It's not, not entirely. The real work is in doing your research in advance, in knowing your limitations and the limitations of the brand. The hard part is asking yourself and your team, "Do we have evidence that this is the best way to turn marketing dollars into sales?" Harder still is, "Are we the right team for this project?"



I've been meaning to write a new post for months... thanks for reading.

I teach to business students at a local university and start my strategy courses with some version of the following mantra:

We study the frameworks and methodologies of business strategy in order to be structured and systematic in our decision making; to increase our chances of reaching the best available course of action; and as a way to communicate our thought process as leaders so that our ideas might be fully understood, implemented with their aims and constraints in mind, and be openly scrutinized for errors and omissions.

Hardly a class goes by that I do not bring it up in some form. Partly to continue to convey the usefulness of the material. Partly because it may well be the only thing they remember after 5 years. Honestly though, that is probably enough. If you can remember that there are a number of foundational rules by which most successful decision-makers conduct themselves you will know to seek out a refresher when the need arises.

This week was the last of the semester. For the final, student groups presented business plans to the leaders of 4 local organizations. The presentations marked the end of 5 weeks of moderately strenuous group work, the end of a semester full of jargon and case studies, and for most - one of last graded activities of their undergraduate career. I sort of botched it last year by missing an opportunity to say something meaningful to a room full of students and the business and creative leaders to whom they were to present.

Last night I fleshed out the mantra a bit for the occasion:

Be Systematic

Being systematic helps you avoid blind spots. Structure and sound assumptions form the foundation of good decisions. They free the creative mind to innovate, and open a world of nearly limitless possibilities for the left-brained.

Better the Odds

None of us see the full future and not enough of us even see the present. When assessing where we are in life or business, if we forget to also look at the assumptions that got us here, we are at a disadvantage in creating the future we want. Goals require vision and action - this is the vision part.

Method Communicates

Being a leader does not mean having the right answers so much as it means knowing the right answers when you see them. The system of thinking that derives these answers is also the best way to communicate them to your subordinates and superiors. Strategies without context often have a short shelf life. This is just a process. It is all process. There is only one destination, after all.

Some computer science over lunch. Tom and I don't get to work in the same room very often, so we snapped a quick selfie as evidence that it's possible. Some fine app building going on.

We published a brief video explaining our Business Boost retainer packages. This is an all in one retainer package that includes a combination of web development, SEO analysis, business strategy, and mixed media projects. The Business Boost is the ideal package for new and growing businesses looking to stand out in the crowd.

See More Here

Shout out to Brandon and Beeline Media for the "helping hand" illustration!