Start the Conversation

Tag: marketing strategy

How to Build an Annual Marketing Plan You’ll Actually Use

December 1, 2025
Cohesive Branding is the Goal: A Case Study
Updated: Oct 18, 2024

These days, great leadership is hard to find. Many companies struggle with high employee turnover because of poor leaders and high stress environments.

Amber Waugaman, Executive Leadership Coach, is learning from her experience in environments like these. She’s made it her mission to collaborate with company leaders and entrepreneurs in a group setting or one-on-one to create healthy work environments, resulting in better organizational and financial outcomes for her clients. Whether it’s through coaching, strategic advising, leadership training workshops, or public speaking, Amber has a ton of ways she helps companies make the most out of their leadership teams.

Amber found me via a Facebook post and after exploring my website. When we met, she knew she needed help with branding, but wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for. After a discovery call and a successful first project, one turned into many growth opportunities and collaborative efforts, and the end result is now one of my favorites. Amber’s personality, drive, achievements, professional experience, and now branding, shine through in nearly all of her documents and platforms, including social media, stationery and marketing.

Together, we worked on:
- Social Media Templates
- A Strategic Business Audit & Branded Asset Update
- A Biography Flyer
- Branded Company Stationery
- A Website Overhaul
Social Media Templates

Amber’s most important initiative was making the process faster and easier for her to continue to post on social media, and achieving a level of polish, poise, and professionalism that matched what she was offering to her clients; something she didn’t feel capable of doing on her own. She shared that she was very active and involved on her platforms, but that she struggled with the “making it look good.” She wanted consistency and simplicity, something that was branded, and something that she didn’t have to think too much about how to make it look awesome.

We worked together to create Canva templates that were very much an “easy button” for her – replace this photo and change this text, and you’re off to the races! We’ve now created nearly 20 different templates that she can pull from for both Instagram and LinkedIn (a difference in size), and each one is cohesive with the rest of her brand identity.

Strategic Business Audit for Cohesive Branding

After finishing our social media template project, I took the liberty of doing an audit on Amber’s digital presence. While she didn’t ask for this, I felt like it would be a disservice to her not to share my perspective and to give her some action items that would immediately improve the look and feel of what she was projecting on the web.

Ultimately, I found that she had great content and direction, but each place she showed up online seemed disconnected visually. There were key missing pieces of her brand in odd places, and it was clear that it was all “good enough,” but not great.

Amber took this feedback amazingly well, and we came up with a plan to fine tune many of her branded assets. This included a tweak of her logo, creating social media headers that were consistent, looking at the visual aspect of buttons on her LinkedIn, and as minute as how she was phrasing certain CTAs. We even drilled down to her future plans of a photoshoot, and how she could make that even more representative of her brand, too. (I’m excited to say she’s bought a stunning orange blazer that’s going to look killer in her new photos!)

This kind of audit – while powerful – doesn’t have much that can be shown off in one fell swoop. It’s a lot of little things that add up to a more cohesive and streamlined presence online, so that if a prospect is vetting Amber, they’re confident that she’s got it all together.

Biography Flyer

One of the things Amber shared and was excited about was an opportunity she was pursuing (and eventually secured!) to be an executive leadership coach with her alumni, Penn State. They requested a document from her that they could pass on to her new potential coaching clients, highlighting her expertise and everything she could offer.

Amber secured the content, and I created a custom biography flyer for her, which is similar to a compact resume. This document allows her to highlight her work experience and expertise, and show readers and potential clients why it’s a great idea to work with her. By incorporating her brand colors and updated logo, it visually tied in to the rest of the work we were doing. Now, not only is she able to use this for her Penn State position, she’s also able to use it at any event she speaks at, or whenever someone needs an “at a glance” reference that goes over why she’s a good fit for them or their company.

Cohesive Branded Stationery

On our initial discovery call, Amber had shown me a document she created in Canva – it was something she was using as a contract, and every time it needed updating, she had to move a bunch of text boxes around. I asked her if it needed to stay in Canva, or if we could create a Word template for her. She told me that the only reason it was in Canva was because she didn’t know how to apply the styles that she wanted in Word, and she wanted it to look good.

Now, Amber has a Word document template (dotx) that she can leverage that does three key things for her:
1. Makes it really difficult to save over accidentally
2. Saves her time if she needs to edit an older document to make it current
3. Creates a cohesive look within her client experience
As a way to show her how to use it, I created a screen-recorded video applying some of the basics from the template she had in Canva – ultimately getting her started recreating it into this new Word document. It’s all one-click style applications, and she’s reported it works great for her! She now uses it for debriefs, pricing pages, presentation resources, and more, saying “it definitely helped elevate my presence and keep things consistent.”

Website Overhaul

The biggest project Amber and I worked on together (and my favorite in this case!) was her website. We started by reviewing it; going over the elements she liked, what needed to be updated, and what she wanted to add. Although it had a great deal of information, like many of the other assets we worked on together, it was inconsistently branded.

Some of the things that made the biggest difference in the redesign included:
- Making the layers light and intentional, which made her pages clean and easy to skim through
- Adding some of her awesome branded photos and videos, and leveraging lots of opportunities to highlight the testimonials she had that raved about her process and results
- Adding an FAQ page, updating her professional speaking page, including a section to display all her certifications and the organizations she’s involved in, and adding candid photos to show more of her personality
- Including her updated logo and fine-tuning the colors and design elements for a consistent look
Ultimately, we ended up with an exquisite testament to her coaching abilities and expertise, and a powerful sales tool that Amber is excited to use and share.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Jenn, my go-to marketing designer and strategist, for several months, and she has truly elevated my professional presence across all platforms. From stunning social media graphics to a polished website and bio flyers, Jenn has ensured everything looks exactly as I envisioned—highly professional and polished, which is crucial for my organizational clients. I am continuously impressed by her creativity, attention to detail, and her ability to bring my ideas to life. Not only is she incredibly talented, but she’s also a joy to work with, always offering fresh ideas and insightful advice. I can’t recommend Jenn enough and look forward to continuing to work with her as I further build my brand and online presence.
AMBER WAUGAMAN

This project was a fun labor of love! Amber had a strong foundation for her marketing and visuals but lacked a cohesive look and feel, so it was fun to partner with her in bringing her ideas to life and giving her a brand she can be proud of and excited about. We’ve continued to tackle other small initiatives, often bouncing ideas off one another as Amber’s company grows and changes; she told me that she’s building a list of projects aligned with her goals that she wants me to weigh in on and help her achieve!

If you’re interested in exploring how we might collaborate on creating a cohesive brand identity for your business, book a free Idea to Execution consultation!
September 24, 2024
Booklets & Brochures: What’s the Difference?
As a business owner, getting your business in front of the right people is crucial. And even though we live in a digital world, sometimes the best way to do that is on paper. Brochures have been around for a long time, and are a common way for businesses to share what they do, often being used as a leave behind with prospective clients. But when you want to do something more in-depth, expansive, and useful, a booklet might be the right answer. So, what’s the difference?

In my line of work, the terms “booklet” and “brochure” are often thrown around interchangeably. But the fact is, while they have similarities, the big, key differences come down to two things: page count and folding options.

Brochures

In its most traditional and recognized form, a brochure is a trifolded single sheet of paper. It’s the kind of thing you would likely see if you’re staying in a touristy area and the hotel has a rack full of attractions in the area.

For example, I live near Kartchner Caverns. A brochure for Kartchner would likely include pictures of their most stunning formations, the national parks logo, opening hours, prices, and a brief history of the park, as well as a brief overview of why you should visit.

For a more traditional B2C or B2B business, a brochure might cover things like a value or mission statement, a bio for their founder, their services, and links to their online presence.

The beauty of a brochure is that you have the opportunity to guide the reader through an experience. For a trifold, here’s how that might go:

The Brochure Experience

Looking at the first panel of the trifold, the cover, it will typically have an eye-catching, interesting design, a powerful headline, and clear branding.

Once they open the brochure, they’re presented with two panels. Since people typically read from left to right, you’ll want to plan on them seeing the left panel first. That’s where you can put things like stats about the business, mission and vision statement, or maybe a bio. Then, on the right panel, maybe you have services, or maybe a continuation of more of that ‘high level’ information from the left panel.

Then, they can open the brochure one more time, and they’re presented with two more panels. A lot of times, those panels can be even melded together a little creatively, because they’re going to be the core offering that you’re excited about sharing. This is a good place to really sell the reader on your offer. However, you have to balance what you’re putting here with everything else in the brochure, because there is a chance your reader may not make it all the way into the brochure. They may open the cover, not find something they’re excited about, and move on. So decide on your non-negotiables, the things you absolutely want them to see, and put those earlier in the experience.

Finally, because humans are curious by nature, most people will close up the brochure and flip it over to see what’s on the back. That’s where you should have all of your contact information, website link, social media, maybe a QR code, and even a testimonial. The other benefit of having this information on the back is that if someone never even cracks open the brochure, they can still flip it over and find out how to contact you.

Brochures also differ from booklets in how they’re finished, by being folded. There are 10 common ways that a brochure can be folded, and since it’s a single sheet of paper, there’s no additional finishing needed. (Check out my blog, The Business Owner’s Crash Course to Printed Materials, for more on this)

Booklets

The biggest difference between a brochure and a booklet is that a booklet is often going to be 4+ pages.

A 4-page piece, which is typically a single sheet of paper folded in half, is a weird gray area. Sometimes it’s considered a half-fold brochure, and sometimes it’s considered a booklet because it tends to be bigger. But it’s not stapled in the middle, so a brochure is the better candidate.

More often than not, booklets also tend to be ‘full size’ – meaning they have a finished size of 8.5×11, which is a standard piece of paper (like what gets loaded in your printer). That’s not always the case, like in the case of event programs. Those tend to be a little smaller, but they’re still little books with lots of information included about the event you’re attending.

A booklet can still guide someone through an experience of information, but the difference being that someone could flip to any page to jump ahead in the story. It’s like a “choose your own adventure” book.

Finally, let’s look at how booklets are finished. Booklets are stitched in the middle – often using a couple of staples, but sometimes even with actual needle and thread. Since brochures are a single page, there’s no need for them to be finished in this way.

How Do You Decide Which One to Use?

There are three things to consider when you’re deciding between a booklet and a brochure for your next project.
1. What and is it for?
2. Who is it for?
3. What’s your budget?
What and who is it for?

Booklets are great for more robust projects. Things like a welcome guide for new clients, event programs, or even gated content on a website. They’re often something that you want people to hold onto, to reference. Also, if you’re creating something primarily for digital use with the option to print a few copies, booklets display a lot better online than something that’s intended to be folded multiple times.

Brochures are better for leave-behind pieces. They’re almost like a teaser to your business or to the thing that you’re offering. They’re not nearly big enough to provide all the details, but they can get someone interested enough to look to your website, for example.

What’s Your Budget?

Because of the size and the additional cost of finishing, booklets are more expensive. If you’re going to be going meet with a prospective client, do you want to leave them with something that cost you $5-$10+ to complete (when you break down the per-item cost) or something that cost you $1 to complete, knowing you may not ever hear from that person again?

In conclusion, the difference between a booklet and a brochure really comes down to page count and folding options. If you’re having trouble determining the best path forward for the thing you’re looking to create, let’s chat, and I’ll likely be able to point you in the right direction.
July 26, 2024
3 Reasons Why You Should be Templatizing Your Business
When it comes to running a small business, your greatest asset is your time. If you’re feeling like there’s never enough hours in the day to get things done, maybe it’s time to see what’s really eating up your focus and energy.

One of my favorite hacks is the use of templates. Creating and leveraging reusable assets (aka templates) can eliminate redundancies in your business, saving you precious time and contributing to brand consistency and professionalism; ultimately boosting your business and attracting more clients. Here are three reasons why templatizing your business is a game-changer:

1. Maximize Efficiency

Having templates is a sure-fire way to save you time. Consider the use of Canva templates for social media, for example. By creating (or hiring a graphic designer to create!) Canva templates, you can just “plug-and-play” when it comes to getting your beautiful ideas and knowledge out to your audience.

Having ready-made templates eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel every time it comes to creating content.

Not only does it conserve your valuable time, but it also guarantees uniformity across all your deliverables. By utilizing templates decked out in your brand assets, (colors, logos, and fonts) you ensure a consistent and professional presentation across every touchpoint with clients and prospects. They’ll appreciate the professionalism and attention to detail, which contributes to having a brand people trust.

2. Scale with Ease

Scaling your business shouldn’t mean sacrificing quality or spending hours on admin tasks. Take, for instance, the use of standardized forms (like intake forms). By templatizing your intake process, you streamline client onboarding, ensuring that vital information is captured efficiently without unnecessary back-and-forth. This not only contributes to the professionalism of your operation, but also frees up valuable time and resources that can be redirected toward nurturing client relationships or pursuing new opportunities. Standardized forms also minimize the risk of errors or oversights, leading to smoother transactions and a more positive overall experience for both you and your clients.

3. Personal Growth

You may be thinking that templatization could stifle your creativity, but when you have the basics covered, it frees up mental capacity and time to allow you to focus more energy on innovation and value-adding activities.

By freeing yourself from the burden of repetitive tasks, templatization empowers you to explore new avenues, develop new offerings, and stay ahead of the competition.

Ready to start implementing templates in your business?

Here are some additional templatizing projects to consider:
- Email Templates: Standardized email templates can streamline communication with clients, leads, or team members. Whether it’s for initial outreach, follow-ups, or project updates, having pre-written templates can save time and ensure consistency in your messaging. (Just make sure you read them before sending to make sure your canned language is still relevant!)
- Proposal Templates: Creating proposals for clients can be time-consuming, but using templatized proposal formats can make the process much smoother. Preparing a template with sections for project scope, deliverables, timeline, and pricing can help you quickly customize proposals for different clients while maintaining a professional look. (And it’s been my experience that sending a proposal faster, while the client is still excited and thinking about the project, can help you close more deals!)
- Tailored Business Resources (e.g. Training & Onboarding, Sales Presentations and Prospect Engagement): When bringing new employees or clients onboard, having templatized materials can ensure that everyone receives consistent information and guidance. This could include training manuals, onboarding checklists, or presentation templates for orientation sessions.
- Invoice and Billing Templates: Simplify your billing process by using template invoice formats. Whether you use accounting software or create your own templates in Word or Excel, having a standardized format for invoices can help you get paid faster and keep track of financial transactions more efficiently.
The key here is to identify repetitive tasks or processes in your business and create templates that can streamline those activities, saving time and improving consistency and efficiency. It’s all about working smarter, not harder, and giving your business the boost it deserves. So, whether it’s branding your social media with Canva or simplifying with forms, templatizing your business is the way forward when it comes to growing your business.

If you need help with identifying template opportunities or creating some for your business, schedule your (absolutely free and zero commitment) Idea to Execution Consult!
May 14, 2024
What Are the Best Ways to Market Your Small Business on a Budget? Nine Key Tasks to Get You Started
If you’ve made the leap into being a small business owner, you know that clients aren’t just going to fall from the sky and pay you hundreds of dollars. (You do know that, right?)

So what are the best ways to promote your business when you’re just getting started and don’t have a huge budget?

The following nine tasks can help you be more visible to your ideal prospect and can help you convert them to an ideal client, faster.

START HERE!

1. Make a Plan for Your Small Business and Figure Out Your Offer

You’ve started a business, yay!

Now what? Where do you go from here? Start by making a plan!

Your plan should have a couple of key things in it:

What you offer
- Whom you’re offering it to
- How you’re going to spend your limited marketing dollars
- A timeframe
- Goals to guide your progress
This may seem like a waste of your time, because doing this right now isn’t making you any money. But the reality is that if you’re just doing work with no real rhyme or reason, you’re going to get burnt out and not know if your efforts have been worthwhile.

Getting into the weeds figuring out details like your key offerings and ideal clients will allow you to measure future business decisions easier. You’ll be able to decide if your ideal client will benefit from you investing in something or offering something new or more niche. You’ll also know if you’re spending time on the right things because you’ll be able to judge them against these two metrics.

Once you’ve made those decisions, you can set aside a dedicated marketing budget (remember, you have to spend money to make money!) and figure out how it’s going to be spent. When I go through this exercise with my clients, I like building out the framework for 12 months. This allows us to look at things like sending holiday cards, upcoming conferences you want to go to, and big networking opportunities.

Defining a timeline and setting up measurable goals along the way will help you to know if the marketing efforts you’ve got in place are working, and if they’re not, you can dive into why not. Once you have your plan in place, add a block to your calendar once a month (I would recommend at the end of the month) to review and assess your progress.

Want to know more about what this looks like? Tell me in the comments below, or book a call with me and we can go through this exercise for your business together.

PAID OPPORTUNITIES

2. Partner With an Expert

No, this isn’t just in here because marketing is part of what I do.

It’s here and number two on the list because you should be looking for and trusting people who are smarter than you!

Doing this early in your business development can give you more time to work on income-producing activities, and can give you the confidence to show up because you know things are getting done well.

Consider this: if you’re a lawyer, you’re really good at contracts and serving your clients’ best interests, right? People come to you because you’ve been to school, spent time studying complex legal cases, and the state says you know your stuff. So why wouldn’t you do the exact same thing and trust someone who does what you need (CPA, Bookkeeper, Graphic Designer, Web Developer)?

The largest benefit in finding a trusted partner that does what you need? You can get back to focusing on what YOU do best, and leave what THEY do best, to them.*

This doesn’t just go for marketing professionals (but that is what I’m talking about in this blog). It can also mean hiring someone to take care of your books regularly, or hiring someone to write up your contract template one-time.

*Yes, I know there are plenty of options out there for the DIY approach. But just because they exist doesn’t mean that you’re going to a) know how to use them, b) enjoy spending your time on them, or c) be able to use them to create an output that’s as good as hiring a pro and being done with it. Stop settling for good enough!

3. Tackle Low Hanging Fruit First

As a new business owner, what are the best first uses for your marketing dollars?

I would argue it would be setting up your brand. That means figuring out what your business name is, what your logo looks like, and how you will present yourself to clients.

That can go further into making sure you have branded documents, business cards, social media profiles, a branded email address, getting started on your website, and building a functional and beautiful email signature.

If you know that you don’t want your business name to be your legal name (e.g. Susie Smith, doing business as Susie Smith), you should allocate some marketing dollars to this first. Otherwise, you risk confusing clients down the road when you “all of a sudden” introduce a brand name and identity. And confused minds don’t buy.

4. Make Yourself Discoverable Online

So you’re out there doing good work and working with good people, but what if one of them wants to refer you to a friend? Where can that friend go to learn more about you?

Let’s be real, if someone refers a friend to you, the friend isn’t going to just call you up (typically). They’re going to check you out online. They’re going to see if what you have to offer is actually what they need.

And if they can’t find you, they’re going to have a hard time deciding on if they should call you. If they DO end up calling you even after they can’t find you… you’re starting that relationship off sans trust.

Don’t do that to yourself!

At the very minimum of minimums, have ONE really well-defined and active social media profile. Yes, even if you don’t like social media and don’t use it personally. You would be silly to believe that in this day and age, social media isn’t a search tool.

What’s better? Having a website that has all the things!

Your website is usually the one place online where someone can go to learn everything about your business. It showcases your brand, shares what you do, talks about who you do it for, and should include social proof (testimonials, portfolio items, links to social media, etc.) that says you know your stuff.

FREE OPPORTUNITIES

5. Focus on Service

Despite anything else you could be doing as a new small business owner trying to market themselves, you should be focusing on offering amazing customer service.

Fantastic customer service is going to be the ONE thing that can wipe out any irregularities in your branding, and it is the most likely reason people will send you referrals.

Folks just want to know that you “got this for them” and that you’re going to make sure it’s done right and done well. They want to know they can get in touch with you and ask questions. That you’re going to be their ‘go-to’.

If you think about going to a store or restaurant where it felt like a breath of fresh air when interacting with the team members there, what did that look like? If you’re a Disney Adult like me, just think of the interactions with the cast members at any park. What do they do differently than most other retail establishments?

They make you feel like the most important person in the world.

Do that for your clients – the referrals will follow.

If you want to read a book on how to create that experience, I highly recommend Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard! (That’s NOT an affiliate link.) It’s a quick read, I promise, and worth your time!

6. Leverage Freebies

For most people, a free marketing opportunity is social media. Getting online and creating content, interacting with content, and promoting your services is the best freebie there out there.

Here’s my recommendation for which platform to use for your business – choose one and get really good at it before jumping to another:
- Instagram: B2C creative businesses that have a process or product they can showcase.
- LinkedIn: B2B professionals, showcasing thought leadership.
- Facebook: B2B and B2C businesses. Setup a business page, but focus on building relationship in and promoting your business in relevant groups. Otherwise, you’re paying to play, and it’s not cheap.
There’s an entire strategy behind how to create stellar content and promote it to the right people on social media. That’s not what we’re here to talk about. Just know that social media can be your best free marketing tool.

If you’re a local business operating locally, especially as a brick and mortar, look for opportunities to:
- Post on a community bulletin board
- Host or sponsor events
- Network with other businesses in the area
- Place strategic and low-cost ads in relevant local places / publications
- Tap into new, unusual, or unique markets in your area
7. Don’t Be Afraid of The Hustle

As a new business owner, you’re going to have to work for what you want.

The internet revolution means that there are (probably) lots of other people out there doing what you do – but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it.

You’re going to be able to bring a whole new flavor and perspective to the business, and you should lean into what makes you different and better.

But you’ve still got to want it, go after it, and hustle for it. (Not ‘hustle’ in the bad way, like stealing people’s money.) You’ll have to lean into the bad days, work through them, and figure out what’s not working when the clients and revenue aren’t coming in.

You know how they say that an animal can sense your emotions – good or bad? Clients are the same way. If you’ve got a bad attitude about your business and you’re feeling righteous and annoyed that it’s not making you a millionaire overnight, they’re going to pick up on that.

Trust the process, do the things, and don’t be afraid of the work it’s going to take to achieve your version of success.

8. Gather Social Proof

Along the way of building your business, there are going to be things that say, “I know what I’m talking about.”

Generally, those will be testimonials. For creatives, that might be a portfolio of projects. In other situations, it might be contest entries/wins, or mentions in a publication, or guest spots on a podcast.

Regardless of what social proof looks like for you and your business, you should be gathering it all the time!

Social proof is going to help convert people from a maybe to a yes.

Put that ish everywhere. Make a highlight on your Instagram. Put it on your website. Post a blog about it. Send out an email blast that includes it.

Just make sure you’re always gathering it.

AND FINALLY…

DON’T GIVE UP

Look, I kind of already touched on this in the hustle tip above, but being a business owner is HARD.

You’re going to have good days and bad days. Hell, you’re going to have good months and bad months!

Things are going to throw you off course. Clients are going to fire you. People aren’t going to like you.

The trolls are everywhere.

That doesn’t mean you should give up on your daydream. If you felt strongly enough about building this business to get started, there is a reason for that! Lean into it, trust the process, and enjoy the ride.

There are going to be businesses that don’t work out, and every situation is unique. But don’t be the business that didn’t work out just because things got a little hard. Give it everything you’ve got and look for new tactics and opportunities so that you can know that you tried everything before throwing in the towel.

If this blog was helpful for you as business owner, tell me about it in the comments! If there is something you want to know more about, feel free to book a complimentary Idea to Execution call.
March 15, 2024
What exactly do you do?: A graphic designer job description

In catching up with an old friend recently, she asked me, “So what is it that you do again?”

She knew that I owned my own business and I did something with design, but wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. And she’s not the first person to ask me that!

Being a graphic designer and marketing strategist (< that’s what I do!) can be a very encompassing, fluid, and currently, trendy job description. But like… what does it mean?! Let me do my best to explain!

I like to think of my role as having two facets, or silos, if you will.

What I do as a Graphic Designer

In the first silo, as a graphic designer, I work with clients to help bring their visual identity ideas to life. So, the representation of their business that people see, and sometimes see without their involvement. This translates into assets like logos, business cards, social media graphics, presentations, letterhead, signage, etc.

As a graphic designer, I take the vision they have, the thing they daydream about when building a business, and I make it a reality in the digital space, and then work with a third-party vendor to get things printed (as needed). Sometimes, that vision is incredibly abstract, and I’ve even had folks describe it as a feeling: “I want my business to feel like…”

What I do as a Marketing Strategist

The other facet of what I do is the marketing strategy.

While I didn’t go to school for marketing, I’ve been working in a marketing setting doing something that wasn’t graphic design since 2010! I would design when I could, but I was basically learning about how to apply design, and how to make it something effective that would meet the clients’ goal.

This comes into play when a client says something like, “I want a PowerPoint deck that I can use after I meet with a prospective client that they can continue to mull over. It should have an overview of what we talked about and what I can offer.”

What this tells me is how the thing I’m going to design will be used, so that I can create it appropriately and effectively. It also opens up an opportunity for me to make suggestions to the client about how else they can leverage the same piece, or how a slight adjustment might create a second version for a different application. Hence, strategy!

But wait, there’s more!

There’s a third layer of what I do that kind of falls into both silos but in a weird way, and could technically be its own job description.

I build and manage websites!

Some would refer to that as a web developer or a programmer or a coder, but I’m not building from scratch here. I’m leveraging ready-made tools to make something that is both effective (strategy) and beautiful (design). It serves a need, it functions well, but also maintains a consistent visual representation of the business.

Hopefully that helps to answer the question of what I do! There are a lot of different projects that can fall into my job description, and when I’m working with new clients, there isn’t a lot that I don’t do in the marketing and design space.

If you’d like to get some of those ideas out of your head and see if we’d be a good fit, schedule your free Idea to Execution consult with me!

January 24, 2024