Do What Makes You Money

Let’s start with this statement: You are in business to make money – to make a living. For most people in business, this is the main goal, or at least ONE of the main goals.

You have a passion for what you do – which is a great thing. But, does your passion actually make you money? Is your passion one of the key areas in your business that is bringing in dollars and enabling you to receive a weekly paycheck?

If you are finding yourself in the same boat that many are in right now with the economy, loosing money or just not making what you were a year ago, maybe it is time for you to take a look at your services or products and figure out exactly which ones are making money and which ones aren’t. For some, this can be a very difficult and eye-opening experience because you may find out that the one thing in your business that you truly love – your passion – may not be making you any money. Actually, it could be making you lose money.

Once you go through your products and services (and possibly even employees) and find what is making you money and what isn’t making you money, the next step is the hardest. You must take action and do something about the things that are not making you money. In times like these, for many, major adjustments must be made in order to stay in business.

Think about this example. Nancy had a card shop that she sold her homemade cards in. Making cards was her passion. Even though she never sold tons of her cards, she still loved doing it and was convinced that one day her cards would “catch on”. Because of this, she also had to sell other designer’s cards, small gift items, specialty paper for scrap-booking, and miscellaneous nick-knacks. Nancy had never really figured the exact time and cost that went in to each card that she made. She just priced them competitively with the other cards she sold. When Nancy’s business started struggling, and she had some extra time on her hands, she sat down and figured up her best and worst selling products and also figured the real cost of her own cards that she was making. The results were astounding to Nancy. She found that the price of cards she was making needed to be increased by nearly $2.00 each in order to make money off of them. However, if Nancy were to mark them up that much they would be the most expensive cards in the shop, and Nancy knew that her cards wouldn’t sell for those prices. Even though making cards was her passion, the other reason that she had the card shop in the first place, was to make money. If Nancy continued to dump money in to making her own cards, her business would not only continue to struggle, but would eventually fail. The hard decision was made and Nancy stopped making cards. The extra money that she was using on her own cards, she took and put in to advertising. Within three months, Nancy was able to hire Tarte Advertising, Inc to build a website and start running some ads/promotions in a few of the local publications, something she had never done before. It wasn’t an overnight, quick fix, but after 8-9 months, Nancy was definitely able to tell a difference. It was a tough decision, but she knew she had to do it if she wanted to stay in business. Nancy is still hoping that once things pick back up with the economy she will be able to start making and selling her cards again.

If your goal is to make money, do the things that make you money – or do something different.

A Well-designed logo should...

- Promote brand recognition and awareness

- Set the tone for your business (and its products)

- Look professional

- Last a lifetime to solidify your brand in the long-run

- Aimed at target consumers

- Reduce well -- a logo should hold its integrity, even when reduced to an inch

- Work well in black and white, as well as grayscale -- not just in color

- Establish an impact and the perception of a higher level of credibility


Need a logo for a new business venture? Do you want to update your current logo to make a lasting impression on customers? Browse the Tarte Advertising portfolio to see samples of our logo design.

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

This blog entry from Chris Brogan is a great list of ways to utilize social media to further your marketing and advertising efforts. Need help? Contact Tarte Advertising, and we'll get the ball rolling for you!

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Time for a makeover!

When you look at your marketing materials for your business, how do you feel about them? Are they tired and worn out? Do they represent who you are the best way they possibly could? Are you in need of an update – a fresh look?

Take a good hard look at what you are using to promote your business. Look at everything from your logo to your business cards to your ads and your website. Make sure they are the best representation of your brand and your business.

If they aren't then maybe it is time for a makeover – or even a full, face lift. What worked 10 years ago, might not work anymore. Don’t let your potential customers get the wrong impression of who you are, just because you haven’t kept your “looks” up-to-date.

Not sure if your materials are out of date? Take a look at your competition and see what they are doing. Ask people around you that you trust to give you honest opinions. Find a great agency (like Tarte Advertising, Inc) that will help you assess the situation and offer you suggestions of what direction to move in.

If you were looking tired and worn, wouldn't you want a makeover too?

Logo Design in a Nutshell...

Take A Look At Your Competition

When you’re in it – you’re in it deep. It is hard to see out of it – when you’re in it that deep. You are good at what you do – and you know it. What you are doing is great, if not brilliant. But sometimes we need to come up for air, and look around at what everyone else is doing and assess the situation.

We have all heard people say that they are “too deeply connected” or “too involved” or “too close to the situation” to see what everyone else is seeing. Truly, that is the case in so many small businesses. They are extremely busy, taking on every role they can in their small business, and they can’t, or don’t have the time, to look around and see what everyone else is looking at. This is a big problem that we have seen time and time again. You must, not only take a peek at your competition, but you need to study them. You need to know what their branding looks like, where they are advertising, what information they have on their website, what their showroom looks like, who are their customers, etc. The more you know about them, the better your chances of beating them to the punch.

You can start by doing a SWOT Analysis. This helps you look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It forces you to figure out what you are good at, what you aren’t good at and what your competition is doing that you aren’t. Don’t be discouraged by the results – or boastful if your analysis looks exceptionally positive. This is a learning experience that is meant to help you “see the light”. Once you complete the analysis, you will know what you need to work on and can set goals to get where you need to be, and that is a much better place to be than sitting in the dark not knowing what and who is going on around you.

Open your eyes. Look around. Be aware and adjust.

Too afraid to do this on your own, let Tarte Advertising assist. We will work through the SWOT Analysis with you and help you decide what your goals and priorities should be in taking your business to the next level.

"Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance"

Growing up, and even still today as I consider myself grown, my father loved to spit out quotes.

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.
“Remember, you are a Duren” (that is my maiden name).
“Bloom where you are planted”.
“Prior planning prevents poor performance.”

I have heard these, and many more of them, hundreds, if not thousands of times in my 30-something years. Now that I own my own business and have my own family, I find it very interesting and even touching, that I not only remember these quotes from my father, but I am putting them in to play.

In my business, planning ahead is crucial and poor performance is not accepted nor tolerated. If my father hadn’t taught me this a long time ago through a simple quote, I would have learned it by now. If you plan ahead and have all your ducks in a row, your performance will be greater than if you didn’t plan ahead.

I know this isn’t always the simplest thing to do. How many things do you have on your to-do list – 20? 50? More? There is always something immediate that needs to be done – bills to pay, emails to write, phone calls to make, etc. But when you take the time to sit down and make a plan, to plan ahead, you will be amazed at what will happen to that to-do list. Somehow, it seems to almost magically shorten itself – very quickly. You figure out your priorities and what items can wait to be dealt with. You look at the long term and what needs to be done now to ensure that your goals are met. You are able to delegate to others. You can breathe.

Marketing, advertising and PR require prior planning in order to assure the best ROI possible. It is something we work very hard at with our clients and we have seen it pay off many, many times. Planning ahead and knowing what is coming up before it is even here can be extremely effective in attracting new customers, increasing your sales, staying on budget and elevating your brand. One of the optimal ways that we do this with our clients is to create a full marketing plan that details all advertising, marketing and PR opportunities that will take place during a given time frame (usually a year) and how much each of those line items will cost. The benefits to having this in place are extraordinary and abundant.

I know you are busy, but time and time again we have seen what prior planning will do – help to prevent poor performance. Take the time. You are worth it. Your business is worth it. Your employees are worth it. And your bottom line will show it.

“Prior planning prevents poor performance”.