This week, we’re on step three of modern marketing. It’s our short series on the basics of marketing that can help any business or brand assure they’re on track instead of following shiny new objects in the marketing world.  This week?  We’re on to defining key messages, the very core things you want people to know about you, your product or your service.

Your goal here is message transference: what would you want a happy customer to say when people say, well, “who/what’s that?” Now a lot of folks fail at this point because they A) want to convey too much b) use technical language or jargon and 3) they write them as long as the Gettysburg Address. So think of it this way, if one of your customers shared what you do and what the value is, how might they say it?  Or what would you put on the back of your business card? Think short sentences that convey a single point. E.g Let There Be Light, Just Do It, Quality is Job 1.  Now these aren’t all supposed to be taglines, but many of them could be.  But for you, focus on simple, short and action-verb centered on benefits. 

And here’s why simple matters, the goal is message transference. You want your customers to start to use the messages you develop to talk about your business.  And if you can’t remember them, all bets are on that your audience won’t either.

When describing the thing you’ve built for the last five years, you’d be amazed at how tricky it can be.  When I started CloudSpark in 2005, I was determined to work with clients I believed in and to create work that was focused on building our clients’ brands and bottom lines. Nearly as important to me, I struck out to create a new kind of agency.

I started as a solo practioner – taking on clients and work, partnering with other talented solo practioners or freelancers when the work required it.  With hard work, clients I called partners, and a few well-placed risks that earned us accolades, I found more work than I could handle. I leaped over the hurdle and made a hire.  Now a couple of years later, we’re rockin’ it as a small team, and I’m focused on creating a better agency experience for my team of Sparks and for our clients.

But I kept running into the same barrier – how do I characterize my agency in an industry that loves to categorize (and rank) itself around size and affiliation?  I’m no longer a true solo practioner. We’re not a boutique PR agency, that label is typically used when an agency specializes in one industry. We’re not an independent agency which has a huge variance in team size, but really could be any agency that’s not part of the eight largest agencies in our industry.  And well, the term agency, just seemed too generic…like a bad sweater some relative sent you that’s a size too big. And scratchy. 

So what are we?

We’re a microagency.  We’re a small core team of experienced, deeply talented, and hard-working communications professionals.  We scale up by bringing in freelancers or experts as needed to serve our clients.  We’re not tethered to a single address, instead choosing to work virtually.  When we need to, we meet on a regular basis at a beautiful office in an upscale  glass and steel building in a nice part of town.

I’ve spent the past month testing out the label with my team, but also with people I meet. It seemed to intrigue them and just as importantly, it seemed ‘right’ to me. So today, I’m putting ink to paper, pixels to screen, and declaring it for the world to know: we’re a microagency.

Have you ever been to a moderated panel presentation only to be let down by panelists who seem to be paralyzed?  Has that panelist ever been you?

Fear no more – we’ve created 12 tips to help you be a successful, confident and memorable panelist, rockin’ it with your very own name tent.  Look below and takeaway tips that allow you to bring value and expertise without being “sales-y,” repetitive or, quite honestly, predictable. (And if you’re the moderator, check out these great tips here and here.) Now panelist, read on:
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We’re big advocates of finding ways to visually tell people your stories. Why? Because most of us learn and retain information better when it’s presented visually (and reinforced with spoken word). Kelsey Ruger at Moleskin (@moleskin) has a great way of sharing the importance of visual story-telling.  To help those of us who might be art-challenged, Kelsey offers this terrific presentation on how to reconnect to the creative, drawing parts of your brain. Knowing their audience, they’ve laid it out in easy-to-understand, step-by-step process.  You know, for those of us who are more linear and left-brained. Or for any of us who ever got a “D” in art class.  Ahem.
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I’ll admit it, we tend to like the technical, complicated, and nerdy parts of our world. It’s a great communication challenge to take something incredibly complex and be able to explain it simply and concisely. We keep a regular mantra of simplicity behind all of our communication efforts – it’s even the subject of the first book we recommend to all of our clients. 

But even the best communicators can get “lost in the details” or get caught ”over-explaining” a particular idea. So when we came across this quote from @eskimon on Twitter, well, we just had to put it on our team’s whiteboard and share it here:

So take this quote and keep it where you need it most.  And if you have a great tip for keeping it simple, feel free to share it here. We may just put in up on the team’s whiteboard.

The importance of the visual story can never be underestimated and some might say, it’s more important than ever in today’s 24/7 world. 

Photographs do more than document history — they make it. At TED University, Jonathan Klein of Getty Images shows some of the most iconic, and talks about what happens when a generation sees an image so powerful it can’t look away — or back.