There are certain essentials that are necessary at every Thanksgiving table, or that is the way things are in my family. Each and every year I am able to count on dishes being on the table, these dishes are the staples of Thanksgiving so to speak. Preparing for the feast this year got me thinking about how the Thanksgiving essentials can be translated to the essentials of your website.
There seems to be some debate around the turkey being the most important piece to a Thanksgiving meal, but for the purpose of this exercise let's say that it is.
Just as the turkey is the most important staple to the big meal, the overall feel of your website is the most important aspect of the website design process. Do your visitors know within a few seconds what it is that your business does? If not, then you might be losing valuable leads because of user frustration.
If the turkey is the most important dish on the table, then the stuffing/dressing (depending on what you call it) is the largest supporting role.
The stuffing is your content, it is the glue that binds everything together. Without good content, that is clear and easy to understand the beauty of any website becomes worthless.
There are many of my family members who would riot if the mashed potatoes and gravy were missing.
Which brings me to my next website point, your website should always have clear call-to-actions throughout. When these CTAs convert into a quality lead or even better, a sale, that's all gravy!
No meal is complete without a sweet treat, just like no website is totally complete without stunning images. No matter the industry, beautiful images can be captured with the right photographer. The better the visuals the more likely a sale will happen!
So, if after reading this you think that it is time to revamp your website (while eating leftover turkey and potatoes), we would love to start a conversation with you!
When I am having a conversation with someone about our marketing initiatives at The Marketing Squad, I can't tell you how many times I hear, "Oh, I do my own marketing."
*cue subconscious eye roll*
All by yourself?! Well, that's adorable. Truth be told, unless you are a one man show, you shouldn't be doing your own marketing. That's why God invented marketing agencies. We let you focus on running the business while we continue to push marketing efforts and GROW your business.
Here's another bit of truth: If you ain’t growin’, you ain’t goin’. If your business has kept the same marketing mantra since the introduction of sliced bread, you need an update.
The Marketing Squad has a special skill in getting the word out there about our clients. And there's a lot more thought behind our work than just the tangible initiatives, such as social media or blogging, that we present in our Client Strategic Meetings. Our skill sets include analyzing data, determining which strategies work and which do not, and how we can continue to improve YOUR growth as a company.
Seriously folks, quit drinking the skeptic’s Kool-Aid and get real. Like it or not, if you are trying to grow your brand and tell your story, your business needs a marketing agency. So, if you are wondering how employing an agency can save other things besides just your butt, here are just a few examples...
When you employ a marketing agency (*cough, cough* The Marketing Squad), you are essentially gaining a friend, so it's important to select the right agency for your business and working style. They should be honest, reputable and reliable. And what do friends do best? They protect you from those big bad scammers that promise immediate results. We never promise immediate results. Hard work and the right methods take time. But we do a few things that can help save you in the long run...
We can save your time. This is a big one since your focus should be on running your business - not marketing it. Each person is equipped with a special skill: you run a business and we market said business. It's really simple. So, quit your worrying over social media, blogging, or your web content and leave that stuff to us. We can do this.
We can save your money. Can I get an Amen?!? Yes, we like to make the dollars too, but not at the undue expense of our customers. You keep us in business, so you have to stay in business. - #fullcircle - We have several tools we use to leverage your business or measure initiatives that we will gladly review with you, but we will never push a product or software that doesn't work for your business. Unfortunately, there are some scammy folks out there claiming to increase your business with a few clicks - please, don't fall into that trap. Those people are not marketers and give the honest ones a bad name. Rest easy knowing we will never scam you into purchasing anything just to enhance our bottom line.
We can save your sanity. After someone tells me they are marketing their own business solo, I follow up with, "How are you measuring your data?" The response is generally a deer in the headlights kind of look. - #facepalm - So, really what they are doing is spinning their wheels with the same old strategy and getting nowhere, because they are not measuring their initiatives or recording any results. Without a set of measurable initiatives, or goals, your business isn't growing. Let us save you the headache and use our tools to measure your success and growth for each strategy.
The Marketing Squad has a unique skill set in that we listen and hear how you, the business owner, wish to tell your story. Then, we take your narrative and tell the story in a way the target audience best receives it.
We are writers, website developers, graphic designers, strategists and more. We can save you money, time, sanity and you may make a few good friends along the way. Ready to talk? Give us a call today.
It’s hard to believe I have been a partner at The Squad for almost a full year now. We have come a long way over the past 11 months and I am excited to see how the journey unfolds in 2017 and beyond for our team.
One of the things I began working on when I joined The Squad was upgrading our reporting and analytics capabilities. It is impossible to do high-level marketing for a sustained period of time without the right data set to measure performance and make decisions on the next steps. Our goal is to provide all of our clients with actionable marketing metrics that accurately measure marketing performance and ROI. In short, we want our clients to feel good about writing us a check each month.
Over the past few months, we have evaluated multiple web-based marketing dashboard platforms that have built-in integrations with a variety of analytics sources and marketing software that we use. Our hope was that we could leverage one of these platforms to create high-level marketing reports for our clients.
Most of the applications we tried were very good and would do about 90% of what we wanted them to do, but they couldn’t give us exactly what we want.
Transparency is a big part of our core values and we have to have a mechanism to report data to our clients in a way that is meaningful to them and accurately portrays the work we are doing.
After much thought, we have decided to develop our own reporting system that will pull in data from multiple sources and provide each partner client with meaningful marketing data that is both relevant and actionable.
I would love to tell you that we are in the process of developing a fancy software package with advanced APIs that aggregates all of the data and creates magical data visuals, but that is not the case.
We are using a customized Excel platform integrated with a graphics-driven PowerPoint presentation.
Old school, yes. But it works, and that is what we are most concerned with.
We will be completing the marketing dashboard over the next few weeks and revealing it to our partner clients in 2017.
You can get a sneak peak of the basis of our reporting by downloading a free version of our Marketing Performance Report template.
Occasionally, I am asked where I go for inspiration in order to stay on top of current design trends. In those moments, I tend to feel like Sarah Palin being grilled by Katie Couric.
C: "I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read ... to stay informed and to understand the world?"
P: "I’ve read most of them ... um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years."
In addition to being able to recall political bloopers from eight years ago, I try to stay alert and perceptive in all areas of my life.
As a designer, the only thing you really need to do in order to stay on top of ‘trends’ is to keep your eyes open. Because, well... design is everywhere.
Below are some tips on how to keep your eyes open for design in your daily life without needing to bookmark hip design blogs on your browser.
Unless of course, you are looking to score some cool points at your local espresso bar. In that case, order a cortado, sit with your back to the patrons, and thoughtfully scroll through a minimalist design blog. For extra bonus points: take notes in a weathered moleskin notebook.
The next time you pick up your iPhone and mindlessly scroll through Twitter, actually look at the images your magical device is displaying. Even if you are woefully behind the times, like me, and possess the humble iPhone 6, you are holding one of the most beautifully crafted machines of all time. The color, the resolution, and the ergonomics are breathtaking if you recall the flip-phones of the last decade. Every application icon on your phone screen has been crafted by a designer. Iteration after meeting after iteration went into the gradient and logo of the Instagram icon your thumb mashes twenty times a day. Every time Apple updates the OS on your phone, endless hours of design time went into every font variation and color.
The next time you are shopping on Amazon, or any other popular e-commerce website, pay attention to the look and feel. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of design work went into making you feel the undeniable urge to spend your paycheck. Make a reservation at the new hip cafe in town. Odds are, their website and marketing are going to be cutting edge. Have a favorite clothing designer or car manufacturer? Go to their website and pay attention to why you are drawn to their brand.
The next time you are in your car, driving from point A to B, do more than fumble with your radio and look at the billboards, the yard signs, and the vehicle wraps around you. Can you tell the difference between a national brand and the local small business design elements? Most people won’t be able to articulate why a brand feels ‘big’ or ‘trustworthy’, but they can certainly tell when it doesn’t feel that way. The typical used car lot or pawn shop won’t be leading the way in typography or website UX - and the organization usually will be a continuation of that first impression.
The next time you are grabbing a perfectly crafted burrito from Chipotle, notice the simplicity of their branding and menu. Notice the way the photography and colors make you feel as you eat in their dining room. What does the simplicity of the paper bags or brown napkins communicate? Walk across the food court in the mall and into an Apple store and you’ll immediately feel smarter, cleaner, and inexplicably ashamed of the outdated phone in your pocket and the dingy iMac on your desk at home.
To be mindful of design must be an intentional act; it’s designed to be that way. Great design doesn’t scream for your attention; rather, it produces a feeling that is subconscious. A well-executed collection of fonts, images, and colors can make you feel ‘safe’, ‘beautiful’, or ‘stylish’ just by being arranged effectively.
Practice ‘design mindfulness’ this week. You may be surprised by what you notice all around you.
Who are you? What do you do? Why should I care? Those are the three questions that your brand should always answer. These questions define you, your products/services, and capabilities.
It doesn't matter if you're publishing a blog, posting on Facebook, launching a new product, or redesigning your website, one thing should always consistent - your branding. From your color scheme to your verbiage, it should remain consistent and properly represent the company. (more…)
Last weekend, the partners of The Marketing Squad went on our annual retreat to reflect on the past year and focus on the upcoming year. One of the central themes of this retreat was developing the core operating values/principles to help us guide The Squad going forward. In this podcast, I share some insights about the importance of defining core operating values/principles for your organization and share a couple of ours. In the coming weeks, we will be sharing all 7 of them and prominently displaying them on our website.
We are also thrilled to announce our new partnership with Louisville Dream Funders. Dream Funders is a Louisville-based version of "Shark Tank" that connects dreamers with funders. The Squad will be working with Dream Funders to promote their brand and develop a new website for them. I will also be appearing as one of the funders during the second half of the season. We are very excited about this opportunity and supporting our local small business community. More details soon.
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