Monthly Archives: October 2019

New Zealand: A Short Survey of New Zealand Penguins

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Penguins are funny creatures. As my wife says they often look like they are running to hug you. My second favorite penguins are from the movie “Mary Poppins, and that’s where I got the idea as a penguin for my creativity mascot. Those penguins deliver fun, service and a dance-off with Dick Van Dyke before it was a thing. (Who would win in a dance off: the Mary Poppins penguins or Starlord?) From there, it was a short step to our stuffed penguins.

There is only a small group of penguins in the Galapagos Islands that live north of the equator in the wild. All of the other wild penguins in the world live south of the equator. Of the 18 or 19 species penguins in the world, New Zealand is home to three: the korora, the hoiho, and the tawaki. Knowing that, we, of course, are going to schedule some time to try to find some penguins in the wild. (We hear they are smelly, but we don’t care. They just look like fun to hang around near!)

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New Zealand: A Short Survey of New Zealand Foods

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On “Gordon Ramsey: Uncharted,” Chef Ramsey visits Chef Monique Fiso in New Zealand to see how Maori cuisine gets combined with fine dining. He chops his way through the forest to get to “bush asparagus.” His mouth burns with the flavor of horopito, a bush pepper tree. He scales a Fuschia tree to get to the bright purple berries.

I don’t think we’ll have to go to those extremes if we get to New Zealand. The country is full of food delights and local cuisine.

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New Zealand: A Short Survey of New Zealand’s Creativity

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The Arts Council of New Zealand is dedicated to opening the world to the arts of New Zealand. It facilitates creative exchanges and helps fund everyday artists and their works. Called “Creative New Zealand,” the organization is funded by the government and confirms New Zealand’s dedication to the arts and their proliferation.

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The Journey to Better Marketing: Identity

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Identity is a strong motivator. When people identify themselves with a company, a religion, a personality trait, a band… whatever it is, they protect that identifier and do their best to make it a part of who they are, even if it’s to their detriment. Disney fans still take a trip to the movies or an annual pilgrimage to one of the Disney properties, even when it hurts financially. Homeless people refuse help because they don’t any handouts. Identity allows people to believe what they want to believe even when the evidence says they shouldn’t. Batman uses it to justify everything he does.

https://youtu.be/r9f6tbi61Zo

For a company, your identity should permeate and is made up from everything, including your logo, tagline, the way your business looks, your radio jingle, and everything else you and your employees do and say. Identity is everything your clients hear about you and everything they remember, even when that memory is false.

In order to avoid a negative identity, it should be created from a place of honesty and truth. In reality, people have complicated identities that are situationally influenced. For your business, your identity needs to be clear and consistent. Do not confuse your customers with constantly changing identity markers. A consistent identity is a successful one. You may need to reevaluate your identity periodical to make sure that it aligns with new products and services.

Information adapted from “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days.”

The Journey to Better Marketing: Creative Planning

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Your creative plan is the one that will direct your marketing communication at the right target audience. It will use a benefits approach that looks and feels like your company and provide you with the instructions that allow for continuous evaluation and improvements to the marketing plan. Your creative plan reminds you to think about marketing results and not how much you’ve spent. It will also regulate how often you communicate, avoiding communicating too often or not often enough.

Your creative plan is related only to your marketing materials and communication, and each type of communication requires its own creative plan. In the creative plan, you need to state the purpose of the communication, how you intend to achieve the purpose and the tone of the communication.

For example, “The email list will provide a continuing connection to readers and Penguinators. We will send out a weekly email which lists what’s been posted on the blog, and a separate email every month that will inspire creativity and joy. Our happy emails will be a light in the darkness.”

Your communication should get attention, be believable, and motivate for action.

Information adapted from “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days.”

Stories from an Alaskan Cabin: Chapter Seven

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John was a gourmet camping cook. He had everything measured out and out into plastic jars that wouldn’t break or leak if they got frozen. He put together a meal that was fit for kings, and they dined well that evening. When Gerald added a freeze-dried dessert to the menu, the men took great delight in enjoying the end of the meal.

George set his drink down, “So I guess it’s my turn…” He leaned back a little on the bench. “Let’s go outside.”

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The Journey to Better Marketing: Marketing Communication

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You can have the greatest products and services in the world, but if no one knows about you, you’re not going to sell much. Advertising is a smaller part of marketing communication, which encompasses everything you do to communicate about what you offer.

According to “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days,” “Communication is the key factor in determining whether a customer is retained, whether the customer spends more with you, and whether you outsell the competition.” It can be verbal or visual.

Your marketing communication should be clear, be focused on the benefits of your products and services to the customer, grab attention, and provide enough information to persuade the customer to buy. It should be easy to read without a lot of clutter. Oftentimes, too much text is off-putting. Look at the Google search bar when you start, there’s the word Google (or the Google doodle), a search bar and a choice between two buttons to push. The rest is white space.

You can build your credibility in your marketing materials through testimonials, case studies, correct grammar and typo-free content. Hire an editor to read through it for you at least once.

This information is adapted from “Guerrilla marketing in 30 Days.”

Satori School Oct 2019: Accents

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Rules:

Chip and Dale Rescues Rangers:

The “Th” sound:

https://youtu.be/xL2_4rnlnvQ

American Accents:

Texas Accent:

Boston Accent:

English Accents:

Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady”:

Your accent: Imitate someone you like. Really imitate them. Overdo it.

John Wayne:

https://youtu.be/eBPY1W2UjC8

Matthew McConaughey:

Christopher Walken:

A Beginner’s Guide to Getting More from Your Website

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If you have a website and run a small business, you have a lot on your plate. If all you can do is put pages on your website and leave it alone, you’re at least ahead of the game in many respects. You’ve already recognized the importance of having a website where people can find basic information about your business. Updating this information shouldn’t necessarily be dramatic, as long as it was written well the first time. You’ve invested time and money, and you probably want to be getting more from your website.

The Web Pages You Need

Your website should consist of a home page that contains some general information that makes the user want to find out more, an about page that focuses on the benefits you offer to your clients, an online store if appropriate, a blog and your contact information should be in the footer. These pages should have at least 100 words each and focus on keywords necessary to finding your website. Many small businesses are often best served by focusing on geo-related keywords, so that local people can find them. It’s okay for your web pages to be static, but your blog is another story.

Getting More from Your Website

Your blog needs to be updated regularly. Once a month is too few for your customers, and once a day is probably too much for you. Once every two weeks is okay, once a week is good and twice a week is better. A blog serves five purposes:

  1. It keeps your website current in the eyes of search engine algorithms and those new to your site.
  2. It provides value to your regular clients.
  3. It establishes you as an expert in your field.
  4. It gives you something of value to share on your social media.
  5. It allows you to improve your search engine rankings for keywords related to your site and business.

Finding the Right Keywords

Don’t be fooled. You are going to need high quality content on your blog to rank with the biggest search engines. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also incorporate the keywords that people are searching for on the Internet related to your business. If you write a great blog about “snow peas on the vine” but everyone searches for “vine snow peas,” you’re blog post will be harder to find than someone else’s who made use of the correct keywords.

You can find the right keywords using Google Ads keyword tool, or just by going to the search engine bar and typing in a query. It’ll give you suggestions and some more ideas about keywords. Once you know about which keywords people are searching for, you can start to make your blogging schedule around those keywords.

A Blogging Schedule

The second thing you need to do before you establish a blog is to come up with a schedule or calendar to plan your blog posts around. This plan should include important dates to you and important dates in general. If you happen to know which hashtags trend on which days, like the general #TravelTuesday, which happens almost every Tuesday, or the more specific #TalkLikeaPirateDay, which happens on Sep. 19, you can take advantage of the natural marketing that can come with these, especially if your business is somehow related to them. If you’re in the business of selling stuffed penguins, then knowing the date of #WorldPenguinDay could be a boon to your business. (It’s April 25.)

The Umbrella Content Theory

If you want your website to stand out with search engines and clients alike, you could use the umbrella content theory to build your blog. Basically, you find a large topic to build an “ultimate guide” on, and you find smaller topics based on that ultimate guide to go more into depth. When everything is written, it is all interconnected and linked to the larger subject at hand. The nice thing about building content this way is that you already have eight to 10 post built into the idea. The “ultimate guide” may take longer to compile than the smaller posts, but you can blog those smaller items and connect them to the larger one later.

Ultimate guides make you look like a leader in your field to both consumers and search engines. They provide an amazing value to the people you’re trying to attract, and you can use them as incentives to get people to sign up for your email list. Done correctly, this umbrella content can drive traffic to your website through organic search engine optimization, and it can keep your potential clients on your website to turn into paying clients.

Set It and Retread It

A blog is not something that you can do once or for a month and then forget about it. A blog is a long-term commitment to creating content that people want that will also help your website get seen by search engines. If your blog has been around long enough, you may be able to take some of your older posts and update them. As long as you’re able to change the date to the “updated” rather than the “posted” date, you’ll be fine. People won’t click away because the post looks old, and that will benefit your SEO. It will also save you some time when you need to get something “new” posted but don’t have time to complete a post.

The Write Stuff

If all of this seems like a lot of work for your website and your business, especially in context of what you’re already doing, it is. If writing isn’t your thing or your grammar skills are unintentionally lacking, hiring a writer to get the words down on the page might be one of the best things you can do. When looking for a writer, you should find one that has experience in search engine optimization. You should also find one whose writing style you like.

A good writer will be able to present you with new, exclusive copy for your blog on a topic of your choice. If he or she knows SEO techniques, the writer can even place the keywords in the right positions for you. You’ll save the time that it would have taken you to research the topic, and you can order blog posts ahead of time. That way if something goes wrong, you’ll still be able to stick to your publishing schedule. A writer can also bring a fresh perspective to your blog.

You should expect to pay about six cents a word, which is a professional rate for writers, and be allowed one revision. Generally, writers will require half the payment up front (non-refundable) and half when you’re satisfied with the work. If for some reason, you aren’t satisfied, you should express that to the writer in specific terms.

Writing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. If you don’t like to write or don’t have time, hiring a writer will help you improve your website and your business. Just be sure to read and edit any new copy sent to you before posting it online. You’ll be getting more from your website in almost no time.