Creativity

If the economic news has you holding your head in your hands, you’re not alone. For some businesses, the gloom and doom headlines of the past two weeks are translating into cancelled projects, uncertain contracts, slower consumer spending, clients getting gun-shy about their expansion plans, you name it. It may even mean real cutbacks in your business as a result of what’s happening in your key markets.

What happens all too often, though, is that marketing efforts are the first area sent to the chopping block. This can be a colossal mistake.

Just finished up my contribution to CreateAThon 2008, an event that my good friends over at smith&jones in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, look forward to every year. It's a 24-hour marathon of creative work for deserving not-for-profits, fueled by caffeine, food, cameraderie, talent and a community spirit.

I was interested this week to participate in a B-2-B webinar with David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of PR & Marketing. And, as usual, David said something interesting.

This time, it was the idea that an e-book is essentially a glorified white paper. 

Have you ever bought something because of a mission statement?

Recently, an older post on The Essential Message blog caught my attention. In it, Michel Neray points out that no one has ever bought anything because of a mission statement. And as someone who has massaged and crafted mission statements, messages and taglines (and who has sat through more visioning meetings than I care to remember), I relate to what he's saying.

Seth Godin, one of my favorite writers on business topics, writes today about money and motivation. And he really gets to the heart of the matter on messaging and marketing.

He writes:

Marketing independence, you say? What does that mean? I'm talking about letting go of the ideas that keep you stuck in the same unsatisfying definitions of what your marketing message "has to be".

In honor of the July 4th holiday, this week I want to share four tips for leaving your old rules behind and freeing yourself to think differently about your business' marketing message.

Creating marketing messages that have personality, that communicate authentically who we are usually requires us to step out of the box of traditional marketing communications speak. After all, marketing your business is about having a conversation. And what do people do in conversations? They tell stories.

Here are five ideas to get your juices flowing in finding and telling your own stories. Start by thinking about something that you want to communicate to your audience. Something you might be a little stuck with is good. Or something that feels dull. Then, let's play.