Marketing Pilgrim

So, a few days ago I was on Twitter and a friend of mine asked her followers how much she should pay a designer for a new logo. My response was, “well, pay them what ever they invoice you for.” She then explained that this designer didn’t know how to price his logos and needed help. I remember when I first started my business I had no idea how to price products. I used to spend days analyzing the market, comparing other products and thinking of different marketing options. And then one day I realized how simple pricing really is.

So the other day, I was talking to a client about a new project they want to begin in the next couple of months. From their mindset this project is going to be huge and may redefine their organization in the coming years. As part of this new project they want a sophisticated web presence. They read off a list of different social networks and services that they want their new site to engage. My first thought was Wow I am going to bill them out the ying yang for all this! But, then my conscience kicked in (yes, I have one), and I had to ask, “do you think all of this is necessary?” They were kind of surprised with my question and responded, “well yes, why wouldn’t it be?”. I then asked them, “well. what are your goals with each service?” They didn’t really say much after that.

As I write this post, it is my birthday, and there is a White Russian with my name on it, after this post is done. So you will have to excuse me if today’s column is a bit short, but I have a party to go to!

Even though all of the data says something different it is clear that the life span for most small businesses is incredibly short. Yep that’s right, people fail all the time.

In college I got a minor in Art History, a topic that I wish I could study more. At the time I had no idea that I would one day work in the marketing industry. Now, I see tons of overlapping concepts of art and marketing. I think I will discuss some of these ideas every now and then in this weekly column. In marketing we use artists and designers every day to create ads and materials. What I am going to talk about is artistic concepts that drive the way we view and talk about the world around us. So if you are looking for design tips, this isn’t the right column!

So the other day I logged into LinkedIn and went to my Inbox to view some messages. There I saw a connection request that I had obviously rejected back in November. I don’t like accepting request on LinkedIn unless I have met the said person face to face. So it’s not unusual that I would have rejected someone’s request. However, when I actually read this one request something was different. This person apparently met me while in Las Vegas at PubCon. Why did I refuse his request? Well, to be honest, I don’t remember the guy at all. I mean, I met a lot of cool folks at PubCon and apparently I met some non-memorable ones as well. Being non-memorable is a problem, especially for people at networking events.

I have to admit that I spend way to much time at this site. Some may think that I have some sick, twisted obsession with complete losers. But I like to think that it’s my way of appreciating humanity’s potential, by witnessing their lack of success. You see, whenever we fail, we are given a golden opportunity to then rebound and succeed. The clip above is from a great movie called, “Meet the Robinsons”. In this movie a young inventor finds encouragement to follow his dreams by learning how to learn from his failures.

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So we all know how incredibly awesome I am, right? Well, even though it’s painfully obvious to me and you, I still like to remind myself from time to time. I do this by re-reading my favorite tweets, taking really good pictures of myself at my new favorite social media site, and sometimes late at night, I call my cell phone and leave a message on my voicemail just so I can listen to how awesome I sound!

Last week I talked a bit about experience marketing. At the end of the post I linked to a video of a talk given by economist Joseph Pine. In Pine’s talk he briefly articulates a transformation from an agrarian economy to what we now know as an “experience economy”. Pine tells us that goods and services have become commodities, and experiences have become the growing consumer demand. It’s the same reason that so many people will pay $4.00 for a cup of coffee – the experience of connecting with a trusted brand is important to them.