"October's poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter."
- Nova Bair
Most of this October has been what my husband likes to call "Octoaster". Although the trees are changing color and the nights are drawing in, you can almost fool yourself into thinking it's still summer. This is the payoff for still having snow into May... Accordingly, we were in a weird in-between season, until this weekend when my house got 8 inches of snow! Winter has come.
October was a busy month for me as I spoke at two conferences, Good Business Colorado's Level Up Academy and Second Act Women's Biz+LifeCon. Both were really fun and the feedback from the audience was positive so you may see me on another stage soon! I'm going to be writing up those talks so stay tuned for more more.
From a business perspective, we're soundly in Q4 of 2023 now. How on earth did that happen? And, it's time to start thinking about 2024. What planning do you need to do? Is your marketing strategy as robust as it needs to be? What are your plans for growing your business next year?
Read on for the rest!
Brand strategy
Remind yourself why
Mid-COVID I put together a seven-step process for creating/updating a marketing plan, which is a great Q4 project. As the first step, I like to make sure that you really understand your business and its purpose. So it makes sense to start any planning activity by rooting yourself in your business's identity - your WHY. Do you need to remind yourself of it?
5 signs you might need help with your marketing strategy
Sometimes clients ask explicitly for help with their marketing strategy, but other times they come to me with a marketing or business problem, that reveals they actually have a marketing strategy problem. Here are five triggers for you to consider whether you need help with your marketing strategy.
This article focuses on SEO but what it's actually helping with is building up your overall reputation. As a brand, you want to uphold your reputation at all costs and the dos and don'ts of guest blogging are part of that.
I really enjoy solar eclipses. This month we had a "ring of fire" eclipse that was at 80% here in Colorado. We went up into the foothills and watched the moon move over the sun. I didn't get any good photos of it, but I did get some nice shadow effects of the pine trees on the ground while only the crescent of the sun was showing.
The last full solar eclipse to go over the US was in 2017 and we went to Oregon to get totality. Next year, we might go to Pennsylvania, where my husband is from, to see the next one.
