A Brief Winter Slumber for Our Marketing

Well, January was a blur. We started the year with a 4-day workweek coming out of the Christmas break, and we had a 4-day workweek two weeks later with MLK day. We've been operating out of a temporary office, as many of you know. A big thanks to Greg Blakemore and the Nehemiah Group for the home away from home. We rolled out a new cadence to the way we serve our Partner clients and just finished up The Squad Vitals, our monthly reporting package that was delivered to every one of them earlier this week. We did much of this while one of our most experienced team members, Joel Gerdis, released a worship album and went out a small music tour.

In the midst of the month that seemed to fly by, we had our best month in our 9-year history in January. God has a sense of humor. It was a busy few months with some transitions, a couple client departures, and a lot of new client arrivals. We brought on a new team member (you rock, Alea!) and we are in the midst of a move to a new home in Eastpoint Business Center.

So, as owners of The Marketing Squad, we've paused and reflected and decided to pull back on our own marketing for a period of time. Why you ask? Well, why not. It's the middle of winter, it's still dark and grey outside and a good slumber never hurt anyone. That's a pretty lame answer, I know. How about I hit you with the real reason?

The real reason is three-part:

1) Although we want to lead the way with our own marketing, business development, and lead generation, we want to be externally focused on our Partner clients. With everything we've put in place to serve our partners better, we really need to concentrate all our energy and effort on perfecting the new structure/system to delight our clients. Then we'll refocus on our marketing.

2) We really want to lead the way with our own marketing, but that's not what we've been doing. We paused to reflect on what we've been doing with our blog and on social media the past year. One thing is clear: the drone attacks and social hacks must stop! We want our voice and our expertise to add value and not just be part of the noise in the digital space. A brief hiatus is in order to re-tool and re-focus. You'll like the content better and we'll feel better about how we're representing ourselves online.

Even though our website has a nice new look from our rebranding in 2016, the sitemap, content, and user flow doesn't really reflect who we are and where we are going. We've been working with some outside consultants, and they helped us realize how our website doesn't tell our story very well.

So we're excited to give it a reboot in the next 45 to 60 days. Rather than spend time and energy creating content on our blog, sending email updates, and pumping out social media posts, we think it would be a little more strategic to put that energy into our alignment. After all, that's what we preach to our clients.

3) We want to set the example that it's okay to stop, pause, and turn off the hamster wheel. We have several clients that work in industries where scheduled shutdowns are common. Well, there is no reason why we can't stop the conveyor belts, blow out the lines, clean up the shop or take inventory. So if we can do it, hopefully, you'll feel comfortable doing it as well.

So although it will be dark for a while on our blog, social media, and email, we're still taking new partner clients and new projects. And before you know it the sun will come out tomorrow. Or if you prefer, Here Comes the Sun.....

Stay tuned as hibernation won't last long!