The Hub and Spoke Model for Marketing: The Wheel is Still King

No need to reinvent the wheel. It’s still awesome.

Digital footprints, driving traffic – we’re all on a mission to make our mark and constantly improve our online presences. A marketing strategy based on the Hub & Spoke model can help spread your top notch content across the web and around the (real) world. Luckily, the concept is simple. By making some simple tweaks to your advertising, marketing, PR and social media strategies, you’ll be better much equipped to manage your brand, build up its equity and expand your audience. The execution may require a little work, but the payoff is worth it in the end. Continue Reading

Interview with a Stock Photograph

I have no problem with the occasional, tactical use of high quality stock photography. But when stock photos become the default choice of imagery – especially those go-to clichés that have a built-in groan factor – I get really worked up. So much so that I can only find relief by imagining conversations like the following…

Interviewer: We’re talking today with “Businessmen Shaking Hands,” ostensibly the most famous stock photograph in the civilized world. How did you become so popular?

Businessmen Shaking Hands (BSH): Well, doesn’t everyone know that? I make a universally appealing visual statement in all languages.

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Taking No for an Answer

No. It’s a word that so many fear, yet we hear it all the time. To be completely honest, often times we downright expect it. It is how you take it and use it to your advantage that can set you apart. To me, no means: revise, reimagine, dig deeper, go higher, be bold.

 

Finding Your Communications Sweet Spot

Finding Your Communications Sweet Spot – Saying the right thing to the right person in the right place at the right time. Need help with that? Let’s get together soon and do the right thing.

Got it!

In our business, we live and die by email.   We click “send” and hope that our estimate/proof/etc. makes it to our client’s inbox. When we get the confirmation email, the mystery is gone, and we can keep working.

Two words, two seconds … that’s all it takes to send a “Got It!” – and then everyone can move on. (And after this post, I must never, ever forget to do this again.)

Are you showing the most important thing in your ad?

Are you showing the most important thing in your ad? Readers are really only ever looking for one thing: themselves. 

Read it Backwards

When we read forward – left to right – we tend to perceive the words in groups or phrases. Because of that, it’s easy to miss errors. An old proofreader’s tip: Read your print or web text from end to beginning. Why? It forces you to focus on one word at a time, and it’s a lot easier to catch and correct typos, spacing errors, etc.

“You don’t need a big idea for your name. You need a name for your big idea.”

Naming or re-naming your company, organization or startup? Heed the sage advice from Gary Backaus, Chief Creative Officer at Memphis-based ad agency archer>malmo. It means your name should be a natural outgrowth of your core purpose, essence or mission – not some disconnected, confusing contrivance that requires justification or explanation.

David Ogilvy

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.

Your Ad is a Love Note

Your ad is a love note on the kitchen counter.  And your website is the bedroom overflowing with all the passionate things you are. If you try to put too much of the bedroom in the love note, you may look over-anxious, or worse yet – desperate. Naturally, the object of your desire will sense this and find a more confident, alluring lover.