Category: Marketing Tips

I looked at 200+ artist portfolios. Here’s what I learned

I looked at 200+ artist portfolios. Here's what I learned
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As some of you may know, I recently started up HireHumanArtists.com, a directory spreadsheet of artists who have pledged to never use gen AI while creating their works. This comes with a small caveat: someone has to review all of the submissions to see if any immediately identifiable gen AI is present in the artist portfolios. Thankfully, I have help. There’s a small group of us going through the “slush pile” of artist portfolios submitted. Still, to keep confidence in artists on the list high, we ask for a voting consensus of four people to approve each applicant at the least. Currently, there are 344 artists on the list (and growing). I’ve looked at the vast majority of the portfolios sent in, and I thought I’d note what I’ve learned, what I’ve seen, and what you may want to take away from all of these portfolios I saw.

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Decluttering your marketing to make better sales

Decluttering your marketing to make better sales
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As a creative myself, I tend to work with a lot of creatives. They’re some of the best people – big ideas, great thoughts, unique offerings. Yet, there is an issue I see cropping up with creatives again and again, and we really need to talk about it.

I don’t have a term for it, but I think for the purpose of this article, I’m going to call it service and marketing cannibalization.

Oh, that sounds dreary. Horrible, frankly. But it’s accurate! The short form is: when you put out so much marketing efforts that actually conflict with your other marketing efforts, that you confuse your audience and leave with no money/sales/what-have-you when you could be landing those sales.

Let’s take a look at what I mean and how you can avoid falling victim to this.

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Accessible Marketing: Avoiding Mystery Meat in your Marketing Efforts

A loaf of questionable meat product cut into slices laid on a plate.
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You may be familiar with the concept of “mystery meat”: A “meat” product, usually some sort of salisbury steak or meatloaf type deal, usually served in American cafeterias. People usually don’t really know what’s inside this meal: they know it’s some sort of meat, but they can’t pinpoint what exactly just by looking at it. I’ve been referring to vague navigational beacons as “mystery meat navigation” for many years, thanks to a coining from an ancient website I believe was YourWebsiteSucks.com (I can’t seem to unearth it now; it could have been WebpagesThatSuck.com but I was pretty sure at the time it was more pointed than that). The same concept can be used to describe nebulous marketing concepts.

So, what is a piece of mystery meat in the marketing sphere, and how do we avoid it?

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In website design, is there such a thing as too much contrast?

Smpte Color Bars with "too much contrast?" overlaid the top.
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By now, you likely have an idea about contrast ratios in web design and when a contrast ratio is too low, it might be difficult for people to read. A contrast ratio is a mathematical way of figuring out whether or not something is readable based on a few different factors, like text size and text color, as well as background color. Generally speaking, WCAG AAA contrast ratio for text is minimum of 7:1. You can use an online contrast checker if you’re unsure; WebAim has a good one! But what happens when the contrast is too high? Does such a thing exist? The short answer is: yes.

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What should you look for in a social media marketing company?

What should you look for in a social media marketing company?
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When it comes to marketing yourself on the internet, it’s a lot to do for one person, especially if you’re responsible for updating your website, updating your social media, and doing everything else to run your business smoothly and effectively. When it starts becoming too much for you to handle social media on your own, you may be looking to hire someone to help you with your social media marketing and presence. How do you determine if the person you pick is right for you? Let’s look at some different social media marketing programs and ways you can tell if a social media marketer is for you! I’ll compare marketing agencies and virtual assistants, and give you some eagle-eye tips for things to look out for when making your decision.

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Improve your page speed optimization now with these 5 tips

Improve your page speed optimization now with these 5 tips
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In the new year, you may be looking to set some goals for yourself, and one of those goals might be taking care of your languishing website. Updating your website is a great goal, and identifying barriers for customers in regards to your digital presence is another goal you should make, and page speed might be it.

One barrier I come across often is a site’s page speed. Is your site a slow loading beast? How can that affect your customers and your potential to do business? What can you do to fix it?

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