26 Aug Rolling around a new idea

Posted at 18:20h in Advokate, Marketing by

I’d love your honest input on a service Advokate is thinking to offer.

So I do plenty of projects, like websites, or logos, or brochures, and so on. I have a good system for that, with an initial conversation, proposal, checkpoints during the process for revisions and so on. It works well.

But there are folks out there who need Advokate’s services and might have more time than they have funds to throw at it, or who would like to learn how to do something rather than hire someone.

And this, especially: It’s incredibly useful to SCHEDULE time to work on your business’ marketing.

It helps cut down on all the anxiety you have about what you “should” be doing when you know there’s a day that you’re going to DO it, and it’s marked on the calendar!

Further, it removes the frustration of feeling you should be able to do this yourself if only you had slightly sharper skills to do it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone right there whose pointy-sharp marketing skills were at your beck and call?

There’s one person I have been doing this with from the beginning. Advokate client Carol Law Conklin of Amity Farm Batik comes every single week for an hour and a half to work on her MailChimp e-newsletter, update her website, make a few social media posts, do any design work we might need to do together, ask me questions about Square or Pinterest or Etsy, format images for gallery submissions, and so on.

When I met Carol, she was coming to a seminar I gave on how to use Etsy and she was just getting started with selling online. Today she has 720 Etsy sales and 3,358 admirers on Etsy. I’d say she’s done well for herself! She’s my shining star example of “teach a man to fish” — she takes what I teach her and runs with it, and stays current on everything by scheduling our regular meetings. She knows it’s a smart investment to stay on top of your marketing, and it’s really Carol who invented this service for herself.

So I’m formulating an idea wherein clients come to the Advokate office and we sit side-by-side at the computer while we work together on whatever it is needs doing. It would be scheduled on a regular basis, whether weekly, every other week, or monthly.

I have an inkling that I’d go the route of the Stewart’s milk club card — after 10 visits, enjoy one free as a thank-you for your loyalty and business.

I might call it the Amity card, after Carol’s business and what I’ve learned from working with her.

And because Amity means friendship, and if we’re hanging out that often, we may as well be buddies.

What do you think?

Kate Austin-Avon
kate@advokate.net

Kate E. Austin is known for her creative advocacy. She is a regular speaker on branding and social media with educational institutions and Chambers of Commerce. She owns and operates Advokate, LLC. Currently she serves on the boards of the Glens Falls Business Improvement District, is on the World Awareness Children’s Museum’s Advisory Council, and is involved in the Jackson Heights PTA. Originally from Killington, Vermont, she studied art at Hartwick College and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Art from Empire State College. She is a mother of three.