GarthBox

Just One Thing I Love About The Web

August 24, 2014Garth Beyer

Anything is possible.

From backpacking in an inhabited (by humans) jungle for two weeks to breaking a world record, we can find blogs and YouTube videos to prove they’re possible. Didn’t think a certain web design or mouse contraption could be developed? The Internet tells us otherwise.

It’s a brilliant, but scary thing.

While it shows us the endless possibilities of anything and everything, it also pulls the curtain from which we so often hide behind.

We can’t use “it’s never been done” as an excuse anymore. In fact, we can’t really believe in impossible anymore either. As cliché as it is, the web is proving that if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. Scarily, it reminds us that if we don’t make it happen, someone will.

The world and the web is a scary place. I guess that’s what I love about it.

Stay Positive & Run At Fear, Not Away

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Keep It Short

August 23, 2014Garth Beyer

People connect on vulnerable terms. Progress is most effectively made in short bursts. Keeping it short is taking away the fluff, the cushion, the safety net. Short is hard work. Hard work is valuable work. And valuable work is always the result of people becoming vulnerable.

Stay Positive & Worth Watching… don’t worry, it’s short.

Where The Real Analysis Needs To Take Place

August 22, 2014Garth Beyer

After someone makes a transaction, makes their purchase, opens the book, follows through with your call to action, it’s all tweaking at that point for you.

If you see most people don’t read blog posts longer than 2,000 words, that’s easy to tweak. If few people opened up your press release, the title is easy to tweak. If no one is sharing your YouTube video, making the share button more visible is easy to tweak.

The place analysis is most important is in the conversations leading up to the transaction. How did they get to your blog in the first place? How is their email on your list to begin with? Why would people want to share the video anyway?

No transaction is as simple as “this for that” anymore. There are conversations going on before every transaction. Conversations customers have with themselves. Conversations they have with you. Conversations they have with their friends.

Maybe the focus needs to be less on tweaking and more on reaching the right people to begin with.

If you don’t analyze the conversations before a transaction, you’ll be at the mercy of always tweaking, always making adjustments.

Stay Positive & Hard To Move In The Right Direction When You’re Moving In All Directions

Photo credit to my awesome friend Krista Ledbetter

“Put Dog Shit In A Tube And I’ll Try It”

August 22, 2014Garth Beyer

Words from a work colleague after my boss brought back tubed meat and tuna from Switzerland. (Yes, we joked about using it as toothpaste.)

Everything about the tubed food seemed and looked disgusting. I use past tense because they finished the tubes. Nothing new to talk about or cringe from now.

However, a bit of wisdom that managed to squeeze itself out of the tubed food talk is this: why is book cover design so lucrative if we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover?

Answer: Because we do anyway.

Apparently if you put dog shit in a tube and make it look presentable by design, my coworker will try it. It’s the truth, really. To some people canned tuna doesn’t make sense, but tubed tuna does. Consider yogurt and gogurt. Consider toothpaste in bottle verses in a container you dip your brush in. Design matters.

The first step in design (or for any effort to impact people) is to know your audience.

The first thing to know about your audience is they will judge a book by its cover; that’s how you get people to try something, consider a service, open a book, read your blog.

My one defense to this truth and favorite aspect of design is you often get more than one chance to make a good first impression. If the book cover doesn’t engage readers to open it up, then redesign the cover. That simple and most people won’t notice.

And my last design tip. Don’t forget the weird. Because there are weird people who will eat tuna out of a tube, and, yes, as disgusting as it is, there are people who could be persuaded to purchase dog shit in a tube. Maybe not eat it, but at least purchase it.

Stay Positive & It’s Actually Sounding Like A Pretty Good Gag Gift To Me

HT to Chip Kidd for being an idol.

Consider The Wildest Ideas

August 21, 2014Garth Beyer

Are you open to it? Thinking about it? Considering the wildest idea others may have?

I tested a new interface of EatStreet‘s website earlier today with Rob, VP of marketing there. His last question for me was what my wildest idea is that could make the experience better, more remarkable? No boundaries, no wrong answers, no restrictions. It could be anything.

Really, though, he didn’t need to ask. He could have ended the trial without ever asking. The feedback up to that point was safe, it was logical, it was feedback that would benefit the mass number of users. But he didn’t stop there. He asked.

It’s great to think of where the wild ideas are. They represent forward thinking, they represent risk and potential failure, but also potentially wild success too.

Stay Positive & So, What’s Your Wildest Idea? Can It Work?

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The Big Sort And What It Means For Marketing

August 20, 2014Garth Beyer

Funny how things come up again, but have a different meaning the second time around.

A tad over a year ago I wrote a short essay on the big sort. The big sort, according to Bill Bishop, is a political, geographical theory. Actually, theory might be too weak. It’s the truth. Americans are sorting themselves out. Moving to places where like-minded people live. Thing is, Bishop (author of the big sort) focuses on such a small part of the big sort and is far too pessimistic. The big sort couldn’t be better for marketers.

In terms of marketing, there’s no need to push anything down anyone’s throat, no need to shove a product into customers’ hands of which are already full, no need to create an ad that appeals to the masses anymore. We finally have a new (dare I say, better) way of reaching people, because that’s what they are now, people, not eyeballs, and they are gathering around other like-minded people, creating tribes.

Marketing is marvelous when the message is received by the right people at the right time. Now people are sorting themselves and as a result making each individual and each tribe more reachable. Best of all, the walls people had to put up from years of brute advertising are becoming more transparent.

When you look at it this way, marketing seems pretty easy. Then again, while it is easier to market, it’s ever more difficult to create a message that’s remarkable. Yin and yang. Ebb and flow. So it goes.

Stay Positive & Rainbow Chasers, In One Neat Place For You

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GarthBox

Just One Thing I Love About The Web

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Keep It Short

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Where The Real Analysis Needs To Take Place

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“Put Dog Shit In A Tube And I’ll Try It”

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Consider The Wildest Ideas

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The Big Sort And What It Means For Marketing

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Enlighten Others

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