Less is More—in Life and Design

Nov 8

If there is one thing I see again and again, over and over… amaetuer marketing that is ALL over the place. Scattered and inconsistent.

I’d meet with clients fully prepared to show them my secret weapons (Later and Canva) only to realize they were already using them! And had been using them for MONTHS if not YEARS.

Uh oh.

So what was the problem?

Maybe these people had hired a marketing specialist or original webmaster who provided them with clear cut brand guidelines… maybe these people had a great logo, obvious colors associated to their brand, and a gorgeous physical space to hold their awesome business…

But again and again I encountered wealthy, highly educated, totally competent people doing their own marketing and putting out some of the worst and most cluttered looking posts I’d ever seen.

Someone had given them the rulebook but in an effort to be “creative” these people ended up expressing some extremeley amateur rookie marketing mistakes and in my opinion, did a much bigger disservice to their brand than they would have posting nothing at all.

My grandmother always said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Until you know what you’re producing is high quality, I’d advise the same line of thinking for your digital marketing.

I’m quite intrigued by the concept of personality types in business, and know that many Driver personalities just want things DONE.

I’ve worked with many clients who would rather put SOMETHING out there than NOTHING, often putting out very amateur, cluttered, or even misspelled designs, just to have done it.

Maybe you’ll still attract your ideal clients.

But if water seeks its own level, you might not be attracting quality people.

Call me a snob, but when I see crappy marketing and horrific grammatical mistakes on someone’s advertisement… I assume real quick that their level of giving AF is far below my own standards.

Yes, we all make mistakes and should make room for our very human imperfections… but do what you can to make a first impression that says more than “I have never researched marketing and it shows” or “I can’t spell” or “I care so little that capitalizing is vastly above my abilities.”

Putting out crap is worse than putting out nothing at all, in my opinion at least.

Over and over I’d see people first: having no rules. I’m a free spirit. I feel you. But YOU need to create rules that YOU can get down with.

You are your own boss, right?