For most successful businesses, the impact and importance of creative marketing efforts has been understood and accepted for the majority of their years. Executives and small business owners have always winced a little bit every month when writing that retainer check to their marketing agency, but they do it because they know it pays off. There have always been heated internal discussions between a marketing director and a CEO or CFO about the realities of investing fully into creative design, custom web development, content creation, and so-on. The proof has long been in the pudding though- the investment, if made with the right agency, and managed well, can show incredible fruit.

There have also been those companies that have made it just fine with lacking web design, poor social media presence, no content marketing, and so-on. They have managed to get by with building personal relationships, getting out and shaking hands and knocking on doors, and cold-calling prospects. That’s wonderful. Good old-fashioned hard work and gusto has been what has made America such a great and mighty country. You don’t have to be the smartest or richest to get out there to snag your share of the market, you can simply out-hustle everyone else. We hope and pray that those traits and that spirit are what always drives this economy. Unfortunately, the reality is that people are simply not responding the same to most traditional marketing and sales efforts, and it’s going to get worse...fast.

Yes, the top-level execs and CEO’s of most SMBs are still primarily “baby-boomers,” maybe some old-school leaning “gen-x’ers,” but we are entering into a time that the guard is beginning to shift, and even growing members of the “old guard” are starting to shift their approaches and their thinking. They are being heavily influenced by the new workforce, the media, and their children. Their eyes are being opened to the new reality of how people want to be engaged with, and how people want to served in the marketplace. They are finding out that whether they like it or not, folks are living on their phones, over 90% of their service and product research is done online, and people are super busy and getting tired of being “interrupted” by ads and pop-up boxes. Whether you’re in the B2C or B2B space, it doesn’t matter, people want value, they want something that speaks to them, they want to see/hear/read something they actually care about, they want to be moved.

We live in a world now that is full of constant flashing lights, constant noise, constant news feeds, constant selfies, constant pictures of people’s dogs, and constant spam emails. It’s not possible to get any sort of attention from our prospects in this modern age if we continue to simply play our part in the noise, if we continue to only focus all of our marketing on our product or service’s features and benefits- if we continue to pump out designs, images and words that sound like all the stuff they get pummeled with on a daily basis. We MUST say something, create something, that actually makes an impact on their life- something that excites them emotionally, intellectually, or comedically. It’s time to swing for the fences. It’s time to stop being scared to death to try something new. It’s time to stop saying “my customers don’t care about any of that stuff.” News flash- the world and the marketplace are dramatically changing and show no signs of slowing down. People do “care about that stuff” -whether they even know it or not. They pass over such an abundance of collateral, websites, social posts, and emails, because it doesn’t prick them, it doesn’t challenge them, it doesn’t excite them.

It’s time to stop wasting your company’s precious investment dollars on efforts and assets that don’t engage anyone, that offers no value, that is simply forgettable. Keep being forgettable in your engagement with the marketplace, and rest assured, it may not be tomorrow, next year, or in the next five years, but before you know it, you and your amazing product or service that has such potential to improve consumers’ lives, provide a ton of jobs, and bring in a ton of money, will be forgotten. Please don’t allow that to happen. Let us help you make an impact with creative marketing efforts in the modern marketplace. We’ve been doing it for a lot great companies for a long time, and we’d be thrilled to do it with you.


Travis McElroy MANAGING PARTNER