Month: October 2017

In our recent blog post, we argued that good marketing brings clarity to your business. However, it’s impossible to gain clarity if your business’ vision is murky—or only exists within your mind. Before you can gain momentum, you have to put your business’ vision into concrete language. And for this to happen, all the leaders of your business have to be brought on board. Vision is something built; this means both the owner and leadership need to contribute and be heard.
Continue reading “On Vision”

All of Hatchet’s partnerships begin with a kickoff meeting. We use this meeting to poke holes in the new partner’s existing sales and marketing processes. This helps us locate the root problem that marketing needs to solve. It’s standard, and it’s indispensable. However, business owners often feel responsible for limited growth and hide the real problems with bullshit responses. If you say your business’ problem is simply the fact that you aren’t making more money, then you’re concealing the truth. Falling behind a major competitor is a problem. Generating new business in a fluctuating market is a problem. Marketing to the wrong level of clients is a problem. Asking an array of directive questions helps these real issues rise to the surface.
Continue reading “Your business’ problem isn’t its website, SEO, or social media strategy. It’s a clarity issue.”

We begin with a portrait of Francis, a copywriter. He doesn’t wear pants to work. No, those are trousers. There’s a full inch of exposed sock above his worn oxfords. That’s the difference. Francis doesn’t talk much. He chews gum instead. If he does amble into a conversation, he spouts apothegms and wild anecdotes. He sure can craft a compelling story. That one about his best friend, the vibraphone mechanic? Phew. You learn something new each day. Francis brings his MacBook to work in a weathered typewriter case. Smith Corona. So, he’s the literary type. He’s married, or isn’t married, or is. It doesn’t matter.
Continue reading “Your content matters. That’s why you shouldn’t write it.”

Marketers are humans, too. Their personal inboxes aren’t immune to an onslaught of daily, automated emails. They also spend their mornings combing through the irksome pack, deleting, unsubscribing and bemoaning the voluminous load over coffee. In our culture, this daily waste of time has become a ritual. Yet we continue to enlist in the process: subscribe, purge, repeat. Why? Because sometimes these emails are actually good. So how can marketers rise above the pack of digital gadflies and avoid the evil unsubscribe button?
Continue reading “We’re tired of lazy email marketing.”

Indianapolis is pharmaceuticals and sinus-cleansing shrimp cocktail. Brick kissing, milk chugging, and Vonnegut’s sardonic verse. The blue fog of industry and blue-collar politics. It’s basketball courtesy of the state’s countryside and football courtesy of Baltimore.

One thing Indy hasn’t historically been: a tech hub.
Continue reading “Indy’s so-called tech boom doesn’t matter.”