Download the PDF file .

Download the PDF file .

Download the PDF file .

Download the PDF file .

The point is marketing doesn’t have to be intimidating.  At it’s most elemental, marketing is nothing more than knowing how to tell a story.  It may be a simple story like, “We sell great hammers” or it can be more abstract like associating your company/product with positive feelings or emotions.  Whatever your story is, it’s important to make sure that it conveys a positive message about who you are and what you can do for a client. The difference between marketing and advertising is that marketing is the overall plan and message and advertising is concerned with the media used to get the message out.  Advertising would include print ads, web ads or even social media. Marketing includes everyway you interact with your clientele. This can be through Advertising, Public Relations, Sales or even Customer service.

Sometimes stories can be inappropriate for the people with whom you want to share your message.  For instance if you are selling aluminum siding, you may not want to sell it to teenagers.  Figure out who your average customer is, what interests them and what problems they may have.  It will be easier to fashion the appropriate message.

Be conscious of the venues that open up for your advertising.  Not every placement is a good placement.  For instance you may not want to place an ad on a cobranded airsickness bag – unless you’re Pepto Bismol.  This might form an unwanted connection between your brand and illness.  Ads in Penny Savers might be fine if your average customer relies on them, but they may also give the unintentional impression that your brand is cheap and disposable.

A good example of the type of story you may want to tell is the “Problem/Solution” style of story.  In this type of marketing you present a problem and then tell how your service/product provides the solution.  Going back to the hammers.  You may want a headline like, “Screwdrivers not able to hit the nail on the head?” Then you can provide the solution with the subhead, “MC Hammers will drive them home every time!”  And yes, you could add the tagline “It’s Hammer Time!” Following that marketing gold, if you had the space you could add a paragraph touting the benefits of your unique brand of toolbox equipment.  Barring the fact that you may be sued by an old 80’s pop star for using his name, this marketing “story” clearly conveys what the product is and how it can positively affect the life of the reader.

What is your brand’s story?  What is the one thought or feeling you want people to walk away with while thinking of your brand?  Just some points to consider before gather everyone around the campfire.

Now where’s my drink?

Jim Wright
WrightBrain Design, LLC

A simple rule of thumb concerning copyright–if you didn’t create it you don’t own it and you need to obtain permission from the creator before you can, say, use a photo on your website.  There have been many cases in which a business or publisher has used some piece of photography or artwork without the artist’s permission and have been sued for damages.

For example there is the case of the microphotographer, Andrew Paul, who makes a living taking photos of subjects the human eye can’t see.  His photos of  bone marrow stem cells were misappropriated by a medical research company and used on their website and marketing materials as clipart.  Paul sued and was awarded $1.6 million in damages.

A more typical case involved Soul Temple Records and the photographer Lyle Owerko. Owerko had produced a photographic series of vintage boomboxes, two of which were used illegally by Soul Temple in artwork for rapper, U-God’s 2013 solo album. That Google search and subsequent “right clicking” ended up costing Soul Temple Records $200,000 in damages.

Other than hiring a professional photographer, a recommended source for art and photography would be a stock photography website.  A few notable and reliable websites you can visit are:

iStockphoto.com: Royalty-free photography, illustration and video clips.

Shutterstock.com: Subscription based source for stock art. Various licenses available.

Gettyimages.com: Great source for celebrity photos.

Be careful of the licensing agreement when you purchase a photo.  Buying artwork is not like buying an item of clothing that you can use as you want.  Unless specifically stated in a written agreement you never fully own artwork, and you may be limited to how long you can use it and what you can use it on.  On royalty-free images you usually only have to pay once for use and you can continue to use it within limits. While on rights-managed images you may have to continue to pay a fee or you’d only be able to use the photo once.

Now to make things even more confusing there is such a thing as a “creative commons license”.  In such an agreement an author may allow ANYONE to use their images to share and create other artworks.  Such agreements may limit the images to non-commercial use and may require attribution in the form of a copyright notice.

The moral of the story is that “finders-keepers” just isn’t a viable code of conduct in the digital era, where anything can be found with a few keystrokes in an internet search engine.  Beware of the images you are using to market and advertise your business. Where are they from? Do you have permission to use them? Will it cost you more money in the long run to grab something off of Google or to hire a professional to take photos for you?

As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  And if you are mindful of copyrights and permissions, those one thousand words won’t be in the form of  a cease and desist letter from a lawyer.