Okay, so it's not a HUGE mention, but I'm there: on page 80, in the article called In the Greener Good,, I'm one of the various experts (I guess I'm an expert, anyway) that author Roberta Cruger quotes on the topics of green design and building a greener studio. Not too shabby!
The only quick correction I should note is that I'm not in Northampton, I'm in Somerville, and soon to be in Watertown (August 1st, baby!). But that's okay - Northampton rocks.
There are a TON of marketing ideas out there. More of them crop up every single day, and every single one of them will work for somebody, somewhere. But should you hop on every last thing just because it's hot? Do you REALLY NEED a viral marketing campaign with some goofball doing something ridiculous in the name of your company? Do you really need a blog, or an e-zine, or a web forum, etc.?
I'll tell you a secret: you don't need ALL of it. What you NEED is to do some soul-searching and find out what will actually WORK for you. This is what I call holistic marketing; it's looking at the whole picture of your business, and of you as a business owner or marketing manager. By doing some of that internal work before jumping on the next hot marketing trend, you can save yourself some serious time and money.
When it comes down to it, there is no single marketing "magic bullet." In order to really get the marketing thing down, you have to come at it from different angles, and you need to spend time really looking at yourself, your business, and your capabilities to determine what those specific angles should be.
For example, when I started the zen kitchen, I knew certain things about myself, and about the business I wanted to create:
Given all these things, it was important to do as much of my marketing online and in-person as possible. So now my "marketing mix" (I actually prefer the word "toolkit" myself) includes regular mentions, listings and articles on various sites, networking with local businesses, being generally helpful on forums and listservs, this blog (of course!) and my newsletter, along with keeping thoughtful contact with folks in my network, and a yearly holiday card. And all of these have gotten me as much business as I can handle - and I never know where clients will come from. I now have an equal balance of people calling me based on my various online appearances and people that I connect with personally and keep in touch with.
Now, is this what you should do for your business? It could be. But if, for example, you're insanely busy with all that you're doing already and your hair is ready to fall out, you might not be ready to go as hard-core online as I have. And if you hate to write, you're not going to be motivated to keep up a blog. And in certain industries with certain businesses, other, more traditional marketing activities might work better - some businesses, for example, do actually really need printed brochures. Others (for example mine) really don't.
When I first started the zen kitchen back in January of last year, I was a networking FOOL. I went to every event I could get my hands on, from BNI to the Boston Women's Network, to various other events that landed in my e-mail box with rather obnoxious frequency.
Some events worked really well for me - for example, I love dinner events and discussion groups, partially because I love to eat and I love to talk (can ya tell?). Overly crowded events don't really work for me - especially when it's all drinks and no food (why would you give people alcohol and not FEED THEM?) and goodness help me - morning events just do not work for me. I don't know about you, but I didn't go into business for myself to wake up THAT early.
But the more events I went to, the more I found that I was giving away insane numbers of business cards with no results. My first box of 500 was gone within 3 months - some might call that normal, but I call it wasteful - especially when half of those cards were the result of the common practice of some events (no names will be given here) to make you pass around your business cards to as many people as you can without talking to them first.
After a while, it gets expensive - and wasteful. How many business cards that you get in this manner do you actually ever keep, or feel remotely comfortable contacting after the fact? For me, the point of networking is to get to know people, and determine whether you'd like to get to know them more. That first conversation is like a first date - you're feeling each other out to see if there's a good fit.
Now, before I give my business card to anyone, I chat with them for at least 5-10 minutes to make sure they're someone I even want to keep in touch with. During that first conversation, I'm looking for four key things:
As a followup to my recent e-mail marketing post, I wanted to share some more e-mail marketing goodness with you. In a recent discussion on the HOW Forum, one of my fellow HOWies, c55 from Saltline Studio (who's right on the Cape - yay!), was wondering how to get more folks signed up for their studio's e-newsletter.
Now, when I first started the zen kitchen's newsletter in March of last year, I had about 120 names on the list - mostly folks that I had culled from the insane business card collection I'd been amassing over the previous few months since opening my studio that January. Previous and current clients, select friends and industry contacts also got put onto the list. Since then the list has grown to about 280 names at last count; still pretty modest, but it grows every month, just in folks who sign up on the site directly, and I've been quite pleased with the growth. Personally, I think it's the recipes (tee!). And I'll also mention that, since the list is small and has grown organically, I have a pretty phenomenal open rate - 40-50% on average, with plenty of clickthroughs (especially with the new format!). The key, I find, is quality, NOT quantity.
Now, how do you start growing the list organically with a good balance of contacts who add themselves and contacts that you add from your networking adventures? There are a few ways that work for me.
In terms of getting folks to sign up, it's important to let folks know what they're getting and how often they're getting it. In networking events, after I've chatted with the person a bit and determined whether they're someone I want to keep in touch with, I say, "do you mind if I keep in touch with you through my monthly e-mail newsletter? It has a case study, some notes from my blog and a free recipe from my own kitchen!" It's incredibly rare that someone doesn't say "yes" (I tell you, it's the recipes!). If, by some chance, I forget to ask them if they'd like to be signed up, I ask in my follow-up e-mails, or if I've sent a newsletter recently, I'll actually forward it to them with an invitation to sign up. Most of the time, you'll find that this practice works just fine - especially if they're someone you got along well with.
In terms of getting them to sign up on the site, you should NEVER, I mean NEVER EVER, have just a little box that says "sign up for our newsletter!" They just don't work. If people don't know what they're getting, and can't figure out whether they WANT to receive it or not, they won't bother signing up. My signup box includes a brief description of the newsletter, and the newsletter signup page has a more detailed description of the newsletter and a call to sign up. Since making the change on the new site, I've seen a significant increase in signups.
Also, feel free to collect more information from the signups (I definitely recommend at least first/last name, company and title, as well as snail mail address for additional marketing if it's deemed appropriate), but don't make it all mandatory for signup. The only thing that you REALLY need is the name and e-mail address; the other stuff is just really good gravy.
Another key way to get more signups is to just be visible - go onto forums where your audience (or hey - your friends!) are hanging out. Make comments on blog posts. Upgrade your e-mail signature. And on all of it, make sure that folks are able to visit your site from your post/e-mail and sign up for the newsletter. I even invite folks to sign up for it in my e-mail signature. In time, you'll build a solid, well-qualified list (and yes, a fair share of folks who are just tagging along for the free info - but I don't mind them. Heck, it's not like it costs me extra if they get my e-mail too!).
Green Design Dialogues on Green Options
Recently, myself and a bunch of other designers got together for Green Design Dialogues, an article series that my fellow HOWie Megan Prusynski is putting together for the green blog Green Options.
Along with myself, Bryn Mooth from HOW magazine, Eric Benson from renourish. Eric Karjaluoto from smashLAB and Design Can Change, Jess Sand from Roughstock Studios, and Megan talked about our experiences with green design, as well as our thoughts on where design needs to go in order to really head in the right direction.
A quick excerpt from the article:
Each designer's journey to sustainability is unique, and we've all had our stumbling blocks along the way. We discussed that each person approaches green living and green design differently, making different tradeoffs and decisions. It was certainly apparent to all of us that our industry was changing, and the green design movement was certainly getting traction. Eric K suggested that the surge of interest in green design stems from An Inconvenient Truth. What began as a grassroots movement has become a mainstream dialogue that is leading to action and change.
