Very surprised and happy to learn that Northwest Indiana Business Quarterly noted in their news items that Insight Garden was covered in the National Association of the Self Employed’s monthly e-magazine. Thanks to NWIBQ for extending the coverage! Read the article here.
I’m grateful to the National Association of the Self Employed for the opportunity to be featured in their monthly magazine. It is a great forum for the self-employed, helping provide information and advice to those looking to energize their businesses. I had a good bit of fun going through the process of contributing to the article’s creation as well. What a wonderful chance to reflect on eleven years of being self employed and thinking about the people, organizations and effort that has kept Insight Garden growing and vital!
See the article HERE
Very pleased today about the announcement of Insight Garden’s strategic partnership with Shapiro-Raj! We’ve had a long relationship with Zain, creating many pieces of meaningful intellectual capital for many clients over the years. I’m very much looking forward to diving in and helping to uncover powerful insights that can help create marketplace impact for Shapiro-Raj’s clients in the future. Great news to warm up a chilly January.
Well, it has been a long time in the making, but I have finally scrounged some time, thanks to a rainy weekend, to bring the Insight Garden web site up to speed. I’m sure those that have visited have wondered about the oxymoron of a strategic media partner that offers fresh ideas not having updated the web site for a number of years.
Fair question I guess, but on the devil’s advocate side, it’s hard to find the time to invest in keeping a web site fresh when the team is up to their eyebrows in serving client needs, which is just what we’ve been doing. So if it comes to creating valuable solutions for clients, but having a little egg on the face, I am happy in the trade off.
In the lengthy site hibernation, I have made a few observations that might be worthwhile for any visitors who happen to stop by. First, across the wealth of agency partners that we serve, I’m not yet seeing the level of optimism and investment among clients that would tell me concerns about the economy are behind us, at least from an advertising perspective. Secondly, many of our clients are nervous enough to create business momentum that they are falling into the trap of discussing tactics first and forgetting about the need for strategic foundation. As you might expect, digital is a common desire for most clients.
I of course admire and value digital media, but it is not the solution for everything. I would much rather have media plans utilize it as part of a well integrated, holistic media plan. Nonetheless, clients have liked using it recently, because they can watch results in real time, from customer action to potentially sales. Again, nice to have, but thinking about the entire consumer journey and purchase process should come first.
Finally, I get the sense from many broadcast seller conversations that the scatter market at least may be softer than normally heading into fourth quarter. While that may be good news, I would suggest not necessarily promote taking advantage of low cost deals, but looking for nicely crafted multi-media packages that can touch customers at many contact points, on multiple levels.
Thanks for perusing this initial post on the new IG site. Given the ebb and flow (mostly flow as of late) of client business needs, I have no idea when I will have the bandwidth to chime in with new thoughts from the peanut gallery. But in the interim, may your business be well, your ROI high and your scores under par.