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branding

How Authentic is Your Marketing?

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Happy Halloween, the day we can pretend to be someone we’re not. But every other day? Nope, not a good thing, especially when it comes to marketing your business.

Authentic marketing means you promote your business according to its core values and mission. You don’t copy someone else. You don’t automatically follow trends. Authentic marketing means you know who you are. You know your target market. And you know your brand.

Need help figuring out your authentic you? Here’s a marketing worksheet to help.

Authenticity also means a touch of personal. Here’s some personal from my world today—Halloween with snow!

What I’m Working On This Month

Grey Crowned Crane, International Crane Foundation, Baraboo, WI

Meeting with potential clients is an interesting part of my job. Sometimes they materialize into projects, sometimes not, but either way I always learn something new. Like my recent get together with the International Crane Foundation—I can’t wait to be part of this mission!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  • Fire Cider: Ward off colds, spice up a vinaigrette, share with a friend.
  • Earlier this month Claudia Golden was award Noble economics prize for her research on the workplace gender gap. So many facets to the issue. Here’s one take on it, based on following Penelope Trunk.
  • Ever feel like you don’t know how to pray? Here’s help.
  • Secrets of the Sprakkar, by Eliza Reid. I just returned from Iceland and besides its stunning beauty, I was fascinated by its social culture.

Let’s Work Together

Think Adunate might be a good fit for your next project? Give me a holler and we’ll discuss ideas.

CONTACT ME

New and Updated!

It looks sorta the same, but it’s not. It’s better! Hot off the press, Adunate’s new map will keep you trekking on the Ice Age Trail’s up-to-date route. Complete with added segments and trail communities, it’s a great way to showcase your hiking adventures!

Check it out here!

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Should You Rebrand Your Business? Pros and Cons

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Last weekend Elon Musk announced he was rebranding Twitter. Gone is the iconic blue birdie and in its place is a generic “X.” Our tweets, both nouns and verbs, have now become X’s. Needless to say, the response for this new identity has been, well, interesting.

If we consider that a business brand is much more than a logo, what does it mean when one undergoes a rebrand? Sometimes it’s as simple as updating your visual identity. Other times it’s a complete makeover—name, visuals, target market, ethics.

Have you ever considered rebranding your business? According to those in the know, there are pros and cons.

PROS

CONS

  • Expensive: Rebranding requires you to update every element of your visual identity— logo, website, signage, packaging, print collateral, content, and on and on. It’s estimated Dunkin’ Donuts spent $100 million to shorten its name to Dunkin’. Interestingly, the ROI has proven worthwhile.
  • Time Consuming: It takes time and effort to promote a new brand, build its reputation, and allow customers to accept it. After a 2-year attempt at branding itself simply as Fridays, the restaurant TGI Friday has gone back to its original name.
  • Change Can Be Confusing: Many people can’t deal with change. Others use it as an opportunity to shop around. Weight Watchers’ name change to WW caused alienation and a 34% plummet in stocks.

Considering a rebrand for your organization? Let’s sit down and brainstorm.

LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

July is still summer, which in my calendar means a lightened load. But big things are on the horizon. I’m super excited about an upcoming project for Fermentation Fest and working together with amazing artists!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

Let’s Work Together

Think Adunate might be a good fit for your next project? Give me a holler and we’ll discuss ideas.

CONTACT ME

Making Room for an Update

I need to clean out before my next printing. Buy these at 40% Sale Price!

Shop Here
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What’s Your Niche? Who’s Your Target?

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Happy Halloween! Can you imagine exploring this Shining-esque hotel for spooks and spirits?! 

This happens to be the Red Rock Inn in Ontario, Canada. We stayed here recently while on our Lake Superior Circle Tour and the local landmark was everything that excites us—historic architecture, eclectic decor, and friendly owners with fascinating stories. On top of that, our room was spotlessly clean and cozy.

Here’s the thing, not everyone would share our opinion. Not everyone is comfortable with the unpredictability of non-chain hotels. Not everyone is enamored with history. Not everyone has a desire to meander off the beaten path. And that’s okay because there’s something out there for each of us. 

What it does say to business owners—small business owners especially—is that you can’t be all things to all people. You need to have a niche. You need to target a specific audience. And both have to match who you are as a business. 

Red Rock Inn regularly hosts Ontario bands and local events.

5 Hints for Choosing Your Niche and Target Market

This article by Entrepreneur magazine is spot on. However, I’m going to reword it based on my own opinion, which is based on my own experience. Take it or leave it.

  1. Identify Your Passion and Skills
    Choosing a niche within your passion and skillset makes work more enjoyable. You’ll have greater credibility, communication, and problem-solving.
     
  2. Like Your Target Market
    Your target market are people you work with every day. Make sure you enjoy them and their demographics. 
     
  3. Research Your Competition
    Knowing your competition helps you brainstorm ways to be unique. It also reveals the profitability of a market—no competition equals no profit.
     
  4. Determine Profitability
    You have to make a living. If your niche or target market have no profit, expand one or the other, or both.
     
  5. Be Flexible
    Remember the Pandemic Pivot? When innovative change was necessary for survival? Always practice that open-minded living.

Want To Learn More of Who You Are?

What I’m Working On This Month

Each year I design a poster to commemorate our Octoberfest Brewery Tour. It’s good exercise for my creative brain and I’m accumulating quite the collection! 

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. Politics of School Food: My granddaughter’s school served pizza every day in September (thankfully, she packs her own lunch).
  2. Must-reads from Milkweed Editions. Earlier this month we celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day. Here’s a list of Native authors.
  3. How Fermented Foods Shaped the World, a new book by Julia Skinner. Food history is fascinating.
  4. The Barred Owl Who Came To Visit, beautifully told by Heather Swan. God sends us what we need.

Does Your Bandwagon Promote Your Brand?

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June has been a busy month. In my world alone, June is Trails Day, Dairy Month, Pollinator Week, Make Music Day and Yoga Day. I say “my world” because these are my interests, they’re the things I care about. And because I’ve branded my business according to who I am, these are also the interests of my target market. 

Yep, my customers and I are on the same bandwagon.

What’s Your Bandwagon? Does It Promote Who You Are?

A bandwagon is a cause or movement based on a shared passion. We often jump on a bandwagon simply because it’s the current trend, but ideally we should be supporting causes that speak specifically to our brand.

Supporting a cause is a first step. Talking about it is the second. Our customers want to know who we are as a business. They want to know that our ideals match theirs and we are a business they want to patronize. Speak up and let them know what you care about!

If you need help with this, let me know. I’d love to give you a hand.

How 3 Brands Showcase Their Bandwagons

  • Adunate’s target audience are women-owned businesses, sustainable agriculture and more. I’m proud to serve on the board for Women, Food & Agriculture Network (WFAN). 
  • My client Forward Mutual Insurance Company carries a longstanding heritage in Wisconsin agriculture. It regularly supports June dairy breakfasts, tractor pulls and county fairs. 
  • Hope Lake Country targets the unchurched with a goal of changing lives and eternities. Its members regularly show love by donating towards community help organizations.
LET’s WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

My Wisconsin State Park poster is hot off the press and it turned out beautifully! Get yours today!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. Grow Our Community Resilience: Save the dates for “Together We Rise, Exploring Intersectional Feminism in Agriculture”
  2. Imagine being a survivor of a school mass shooting. Let’s not set this aside. Listen to the message these survivors share.
  3. A Rare Alignment: See all the major planets bunched together in June.
  4. The Art of Fermentation. It’s that time of year when I revisit Sandor Katz and talk fermentation with Wormfarm Institute. Neither ever get old.

Perfection Not Required

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By August, my garden is a mess. You’ll find pigweed amongst the leeks and purslane in the tomatoes. I used to feel embarrassed by this—apologetic even —until a CSA farmer mentioned an interesting observation. Behind every perfect garden, she said, is a large roster of volunteers or many gallons of Roundup. In other words, a perfect garden isn’t real. 

How often do we demand perfection in our business? We can’t take that first daring leap because we don’t have our startup ducks all in a row? We can’t put up a website because we don’t have our content just right? We can’t do social media marketing because our pictures aren’t Pinterest Perfect?  

Perfection Holds Us Back

Since football is upon us, here are words of wisdom from Vince Lombardi. “There’s no such thing as perfection,” said this highly disciplined man, “but in striving for perfection, we can achieve excellence.” 

Yeah, that’s pretty good.

But perhaps Harriet Braiker said it even better: “Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.”

(Seriously, I needed to make excuses for my garden?)

When it comes to your marketing your business, perfection is not required. Have the confidence to be your natural you. Get out there and go for the gusto! 

LET’S WORK TOGETHER

What I’m Working On This Month

I’m super proud to serve on the board of directors for the Women, Food & Ag Network. We’ve started our membership appeal and will be sending out these postcards. Do join us!

What I’m Tuned In To This Month

  1. Why Perfectionism Isn’t Nature’s Way: Nature has many lessons to teach us about life, leadership and creating environements.
  2. Elderberries Don’t Boost Your Immune System, and Other Coronavirus Myths Debunked: Sadly, a year later, this is worth revisiting. “Preprint or peer-reviewed journal?” and other ways to determine legitimacy of claims.
  3. Big Difference for Small Business Owners: Ten insights into a rock-solid belief in yourself.  
  4. Brené Brown Summer Sister Series on The Gifts of Imperfection: Wrapping up my summer listening, a 6-episode series with lots of sisterly love.
First Step In Marketing Plans: Branding Your Business!