Why I Love Marketing

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I had a conversation with my brother over the weekend about why we love marketing.  He graduated with a degree in marketing and we talked about some of the reasons why he wanted to get into the field.  As a designer, I was instantly thrust into the field the minute I landed my first job out of college and it lead to me later pursuing a MBA in Marketing.  Marketing fascinates us.  It is truly fascinating to see how wording a message slightly differently or changing a color scheme can have a significant impact on sales or any other measured result.  Marketing, plain and simple, is manipulation and can be used in any aspect of life.  It is manipulation to get a desired result.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not in love with marketing because I like manipulating people, but because I am fascinated by human behavior.  When I was a kid I used to people watch while I quietly waited for my mom to finish running her errands.  I liked to watch the way people interacted, the different tones in voices, facial expressions and body language cues to spin stories in my head about those people and their lives.  As an adult, I am curious as to what makes people respond and act in certain ways to various stimuli.  I analyze myself all of the time to figure out why I am upset about something, or enamored by it.

Marketing takes all of this information and combines the necessary stimuli to get the needed result.  It is a powerful tool that like a superhero with special powers, can be used for good or for evil.  Evil would be selling you a knowingly defective or harmful product for the pure sake of making money.  It can be used for benevolent good by helping a charity create awareness and the means to enact change.  It can be used to help you land a job or a significant other – both of those could be for bad or for good.

Once I entered the world of marketing, I never looked at anything the same.  Sometimes I feel a bit paranoid because I feel that I can see the marketing behind almost everything that is presented to me.  I follow the marketing trends of different brands almost in the same way a stock analyst follows stocks or a groupie follows a band.  Well, maybe not quite that bad.  I am constantly saying, “Oh, I see what they are doing and where they are going with that.  Pretty smart!”  I guess in some ways the people watching I did as a kid, morphed into brand marketing watching.

Marketing is like a secret super power that in the wrong hands can be a weapon of destruction.  In the right hands, it can be a powerful tool for good or just keep a roof over your head.  That juxtaposition fascinates me!

why-i-love-marketing

Learning to Appreciate Feedback & Negative Criticisms

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While I pride myself on being thick skinned enough to not allow negative criticism or feedback to get me down, sometimes it does.  As a designer, I learned way back in art school that art is subjective.  Not everyone will like it, especially professors.  My design professors were very hard on us during critique.  They often told us of their own art school critique horror stories and told us that they were being hard on us out of love.  It would prepare us for the real world, and it did.  In the beginning of my career and before I learned how to read client’s, some of my artwork was rejected by managers, creative directors and clients.  I learned to brush it off and get back to work to create something that would appeal to them.  I learned that it was not about what I liked, but what the end-client or consumer liked.

In a lot of ways, negative critiques made me a better designer because it made me think beyond myself.

As a full-time freelancing creative, I have had to learn how to do the same thing with negative feedback or critiques that were not related directly to design.  At first, someone being negative about the way I ran my business, my marketing strategies or the business processes I had, would rub me the wrong way.  It made me bristle on the inside, while I smiled on the outside.  I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and say, “la, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you!”

Because it is for the most part, just me as the business owner; the designer; the marketer; and the project manager, a lot of my processes, marketing strategies and the way I run the business are based around my own needs.  The majority of the negative feedback I have received related to the business, has been unsolicited and from people not very qualified to give advice.  However, I have received some feedback that I really needed to listen to in order to find a balance between what my own needs were and that of my audience/clients.  The world does not revolve around me and neither does my business.

Listening to negative feedback and knowing how to filter out what is noise and what is something that truly needs to be addressed can be a challenge.  However, I think it is necessary to learn and achieve growth.  If you visit here frequently, you may notice that I often pose questions and solicit feedback.  It is because I really want to know, learn and grow from the knowledge and feedback I receive from others.  I think it makes me a better business person.

It is not always easy to hear, but you can’t grow if you don’t listen.

feedback-negative-criticism

Almost Wordless Wednesday…

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…because I’m writing this short paragraph.  My brain is on the fritz and too full of project details, strategies and creative design ideas.  Yesterday I put my rain boots on the wrong feet and couldn’t figure out why they “didn’t feel right” for a good 15 minutes.  I actually thought it was because my pants were tucked into them, which I don’t normally do.  So today I am out of words (except for this paragraph).

I leave you with this meme/photo as I go off to find more coffee…

from Hilarious Pics on Pinterest

Monday Morning Pick Me Up

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As you can see if you frequent this blog space, I have an unhealthy preoccupation with Mondays.  In my past life (corporate America) I hated and dreaded them and as a freelancer, they hold a new perspective and viewpoint.  However, the last couple of Mondays in my current location have been rainy, gray, dark and gloomy.  I am a lover of the sun and the energy it gives me, so these dark Monday’s have felt like an ominous premonition of the week to come.  That is not how I like to start the week, so I am going to try to laugh it off.

I present to you funnies or “humorous to me” for a Monday morning pick me up:

Last Living California Raisin Dies Of Prostate Cancer
http://onion.com/1hqz8mJ via @TheOnion

 

If you do this in an email, I hate you
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email via @Oatmeal

 

Why I love and hate having a Smartphone
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/smartphone via @Oatmeal

 

Grumpy Cat 99 Little Bugs in the Code
http://imgur.com/gallery/bfHvGkj via @imgur

 

Enjoy!

 

Image Diversity in Advertising

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I recently received an email from a stock photography site that I use with the title, “Real Imagery of Modern Moms and Dads.”  The email highlighted a collection of images they had pulled together that showed diversity in what today’s families look like.  Visuals have always been an important part of marketing, but even more so today within the digital marketing landscape.  I was glad to see a stock photography company catering to the need for more diverse images.

Sometimes I find it difficult to find imagery that is representative of my clients and their audience.  It’s good to see not just a stock photography company recognizing the need, but also photographers recognizing the need and setting up more diverse photoshoots.  Kudos to them both and in case you were wondering, this particular email and below screenshot, came from istochphoto.com.

 

diverse stock photography