Onward Creatives

Winning at Instagram isn't about numbers, it's about engagement. Enough with obsessing over the daily gain and loss of followers, enough with the gimmicks and hype, it's time to change the conversation.

Connections over following, this is where the magic is. Winning at Instagram is actually quite simple and old-school. It's about making connections. Whether you have an audience of 100 or 100,000 connect with your audience.

There are three ways to win at Instagram:

1. Facilitate online conversations. You have tools such as comments, likes and direct messages....use them.

2. Take the online...offline. Business is still human, so make the connections human. Grab a coffee, beer or even gather a handful from the IG in real time.

3. Give, give, give. Use your connections and influence to help others succeed. Make the introductions and watch as this human ecosystem begins to take shape.

Ready to build your Instagram Strategy Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

Word of mouth has always been the preferred way of doing business. The struggle has always been the absence of a way to scale word of mouth. Nano and micro influencers are the answer because they literally personify word of mouth marketing.

Social media is more than a variety of apps aimed at entertaining us. Social media has created an influencer marketing space worth over $10 billion dollars. This landscape has mostly been dominated by the mega influencers, but the tide is changing. Not only are the mega influencers seeing engagements rate decrease they're seeing trust decrease. People want more than a spokesperson. They want a human connection.

We're seeing the rise of the new influencer both the micro (5-25k followers) and the nano (1-5k followers.) This group is amazing because they more abundant, easier to connect with and most importantly they still have connections to their followers.

Regardless of the size of your business or the marketing budget you have it's vital to have a way to connect with nano and micro influencers.

Here's what I'm doing:

1. Connecting with nano/micro influencers in my local cities.

2. Setting up personal connects. Literally seeing the digital realized in real life.

3. Creating connections between this group in real life gatherings.

Are you ready for the new influencer? How will you connect with them?

Ready to connect with the new influencers? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

At the heart of selling is the customer experience. An ad may capture your attention, content may create interest but the customer experience is where the magic happens. This is the space where win or lose, this is the epicenter of the entire process.

How do we create an engaging customer experience? We have to think of every detail of the process from the customer's perspective. Here are a few questions to ask:

1. What is my brand's digital/physical curb appeal? 2. What does my website/store/point of sale look, smell, sound and feel like? 3. How do I make the experience as human as possible? 4. How easy is it to find what they want? 5. How easy is it to purchase/buy/donate/exchange? 6. How do I care for people post-sale?

These guys are doing it well

Hioscar.com

Amazon.com

Apple

Trader Joes

Dollar Shave Club

Ready to create the customer experience? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

Ready to earn your customer's trust? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

It's not enough to grab people's attention, a lot of brands do that. Trust is the currency of business, and earning it is vital to the customer journey. Customers care less about perception and more about experience. Every day well "branded" companies go out of business while "hole in the wall" places flourish....what's the difference? Consistency of experience.

Customers engage brands that they trust and this trust is earned when THEIR understanding of the brand matches THEIR experience. In the old world the brand proclaimed the greatness and established the trust. In this new world the customer proclaims the greatness and socializes the experience.

Money is always preceded by trust. When brands earn our trust, they earn our money. When they lose our trust, they lose our money. The key to trust is consistency in every part of the experience. Brands earn our trust when they create a consistent experience from start to finish.

Three brands that consistently earn our trust:

1. Apple: Helps people be inspired, confident and feel better about themselves.

2. Target: Combines creativity, low prices and unique design offerings in spaces that feel warm and human.

3. Lush: Believes that beauty can be human, happy and naturally indulgent.

Ready to earn your customer's trust? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

Regardless of size, we all face the same battle...the one for attention. Whether you're a brand of one or a brand of many attention is the first step in nudging customers on their journey. No matter what you make, if they don't know you exist they can't buy from you.

You probably feel the pain on a daily basis: you design the site, you publish the video, you open the store and the silence is deafening. There are great brands like Glossier, Everlane and Warby Parker that have captured our attention and turned us into fans. How did they do it? Here are the four things these brands have in common:

1. They know and understand their audience 2. They're defined the problem(s) their customers have 3. They know how they uniquely solve the problem 4. They actively communicate in unique and consistent ways

Ready to get your customer's attention? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

The Customer Journey is at the heart of an effective marketing strategy. Whether you're a company of one or one thousand your chances of success greatly improve when you understand the customer journey. Once you have this journey mapped out then it's time to overlay content.

The goal of the content is to move people through the four steps of the customer journey: awareness, reputation, exchange and advocacy.

Here are the key steps to developing this content strategy:

1. Identify your customers. Who are the key 2-3 people who will ultimately make an exchange with you?

2. Define their problem. You're selling more than a product, you're selling a solution. Dig into your customers worldview to discover their key problem.

3. Create content/strategy for each step of the journey.

• Where do you communicate?
• What do you communicate?
• How do you communicate?

Download the Customer Journey Worksheet here!

Ready to create content for the customer journey? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

Frustration finds all of us at times. Frustration isn't a sign that things aren't working, it's actually a sign that you're on the right path. Frustration exists because we have taste. When we see what can be in our business and we see where it is, we get frustrated. If we see the gap as a failure then we quit, and someone else fills in the space. But if we learn to live with frustration, and use it with a growth mindset incredible things can happen.

How do you turn frustration into momentum?

1. Remember that it's proof of your magic 2. Engage a growth mindset 3. Keep at it.

Feeling Frustrated? Let's Talk!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

Customer Experience is the new Battleground for Marketing! The key to great customer experience is understanding the customer journey. How do you build around the customer journey?

1. Acknowledge the journey.

2. Define the journey:

• Awareness
• Reputation
• Exchange
• Advocacy

3.Experience the journey: Learn from those who do it well. Southwest Airlines, Disney, Ritz-Carlton, Sephora, Carvana, Barkbox, Apple, Trader Joes, Zappos.

Ready to build your Customer Experience? Get Started Now!

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

How do you build reputation without becoming the hero of the story? Empathy! We all love brands that make us feel important, it's just the way it works. So when we focus on building reputation we face two choices: 1. Build our reputation around ourselves or 2. Build our reputation on the customer experience. If we want to be the guide and keep the customer as the hero then using empathy to build the customer experience is the best choice.

We must start with the customer journey, understanding every step from first contact to post-purchase. Once we've mapped it out we overlay with empathy. This question is key: What do I feel/think at this stage of the journey? Once we've answered, we leverage empathy to create an experience and this creates loyal fans and an amazing reputation.

1. Empathy makes things easier. Filter Easy does an amazing job of this by providing a service that removes the hassle around changing your air filters.

2. Empathy redefines the experience. Most of us hate flying but we LOVE Southwest Airlines. SWA plays on level playing field with other airlines but they use empathy to redefine the experience.

3. Empathy creates magic! Disney uses empathy to create magic. They turned the once seedy amusement park into a legendary experience. They utilize a wide array of elements to keep the customer engaged and excited throughout the entire experience.

How can you use empathy to build your brand reputation?

Let's build your brand reputation! Sign up here for a free consultation.

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook

Money isn't the goal, trust is! Trust is the actual currency of business and reputation is one of the key tools you have to earn this trust.

Everyone talks about marketing, do a search on YouTube, iTunes or Google and you'll be flooded with articles on how to market. Don't get me wrong it does matter what you do if people don't know you exist. But your reputation is WHY they buy from you.

How do you build a reputation like Disney, Nike or Chick-fil-a?

1. Define your desired reputation

2. Align EVERYTHING with this reputation

3. Listen and Pivot

Are you ready to earn trust? I can help. Sign up here for a free consultation.

Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business.

This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do.

Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.

Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST.

Don't do it alone! Join the community!

Onward Creatives

Facebook