Insights

You know how your business works. You know what your services are called, which person handles what, what all the acronyms mean, and what someone needs to do to get started. Your customers don’t. And sometimes, without realizing it, we make them learn all of that before they can work with us. We make customers do homework. It happens all the time. A website lists five services, but doesn’t explain which one is right for you. A nonprofit talks about programs using names that m

"We need to do more marketing." It's one of the most common things an organization can say, and it sounds reasonable. But it's not actually a strategy. Before you decide what marketing you need, you need to know what you're trying to accomplish. Because "more marketing" could mean almost anything. More social media More email More advertising More website traffic More events More content More followers And doing more of any of those things doesn't necessarily move you closer

There is a part of your marketing you can't completely control. What people say about you when you're not in the room. A customer recommends you to a friend. A client mentions your name in a meeting. Someone shares your event with a coworker. A former customer tells someone, "You should call them." You didn't write that message. You didn't schedule it. You didn't approve the wording. And that's exactly what makes it powerful. People Trust People We can spend hours creating th

One of the hardest things to do in marketing is leave something out. You know how much work goes into your organization. You know the programs you offer, the people you've helped, the experience you bring, and all the reasons someone should choose you. Of course you want people to know about it. So you put it all on the website. You mention it in the newsletter. You squeeze it into the social media post. And eventually, something strange happens. Everything starts to feel equ

What if your next great marketing idea is already sitting in your inbox? Not in your analytics. Not in a trend report. Not in a social media calendar. In an email someone sent you last Tuesday. We tend to think of marketing strategy as something that happens separately from the day-to-day work of an organization. We schedule content, review metrics, brainstorm campaigns, and try to figure out what people want to hear from us. But your audience is already telling you. You just

You've probably spent a lot of time on your website. You've chosen the photos, refined the wording, organized the navigation, and made sure everything reflects your organization. It's easy to assume visitors will experience it the same way. But they don't. Most people don't read websites from top to bottom. They don't carefully absorb every paragraph or click through every page in order. They're looking for answers, and they're trying to find them quickly. Understanding that

One of the easiest ways to improve your marketing is to stop asking, “What do we want people to know?” and start asking, “What do they need to know?” Most organizations have no shortage of information they want to share. They know their history. They know their programs. They know their process. They know what makes their work meaningful. And all of that matters. But the people you’re trying to reach are often starting somewhere else. They have questions. Can you help me? Is

One of the biggest misconceptions in marketing is that your audience is a crowd. It isn't ... . Your marketing may reach hundreds of people or even thousands of people, but each person experiences it alone. They're reading your website on their lunch break, scrolling through social media while waiting in line, or opening your email between meetings. In those moments, it's just you and one other person. That's why the strongest marketing rarely sounds like it was written for e

One of the easiest mistakes to make in marketing is assuming your audience has the same context you do, which is completely understandable. You spend every day immersed in your organization. You know the programs, the terminology, the history, and the reasons behind every decision. After a while, it's hard to imagine not knowing those things. Your audience doesn't have that advantage. They're meeting you for the first time. They're deciding in a matter of seconds whether to k

One of the most common marketing questions is: "What should we post this week?" It's a reasonable question, but it's also the wrong place to start. When marketing begins with a content calendar, it often becomes reactive. We search for something to say instead of thinking about what people actually need to hear. A better question is: "What does our audience need from us right now." They don't always need an announcement. Sometimes they need reassurance. Sometimes they need in

Most organizations don't wake up one day and realize their marketing is broken. It usually feels more subtle than that. Things are still happening: posts are going out, emails are being sent, events are being promoted. But, there's a growing sense that it's not quite landing in the way it should. Nothing is so urgent that you should panic, but it is also not effective enough to ignore. That in-between space is usually where a reset becomes helpful. You can't explain your mess

When marketing feels unclear, the instinct is often to start over. New website, new messaging, new strategy, new content plan, butin most organizations, nothing actually needs to be rebuilt from scratch. It needs to be re-centered. Unclear marketing rarely comes from a lack of effort. It generally comes from too many layers on top of something that was once simple. The good news is that clarity can be rebuilt without tearing everything down. It just requires stepping back int

People talk about marketing like it's inherently complicated. Like there is some secret formula most people understand, and you're just trying to keep up. More posts. More platforms. More noise. But most organizations don't need more marketing. They need clarity in three things: Whom they are speaking to What that person is looking for Where that person is looking for information When those three things are clear, marketing becomes much simpler. Clear Marketing Sounds Like a

I don't think people hate businesses or marketing itself. At its core, marketing is really just letting people know what you have to offer. And that, in and of itself, is not bad. However, I DO think people are exhausted by communication that feels constant, forced, and disconnected from real life. So many organizations feel the pressure to post more, stay visible, follow trends, and constantly compete for attention. And after a while, it all becomes white noise. And I don't

I didn't set out to work in marketing. I wound up there completely by accident. Starting at a local agency in an administrative role, I quickly found myself in charge of half the company. I spent years inside nonprofits and agencies around Tulsa, helping organizations keep things moving behind the scenes. Over time, those responsibilities grew into strategy, communication, operations, client management, and skills I had never dreamt I would possess. The problem is, I've never