I have a contract with Professional Surveyor magazine and I draw a strip each month. In addition I have a little online store with calendars, shirts, etc. It is a lot of fun and recently (and with the help of Clint) I have moved to doing the strips in color.

I get my ideas from my experience of marketing to Surveyors over the past three years. A lot of the people I work with at Hayes are surveyors as well, so of course I use them a lot for resources.

Anyways, a competing magazine (P.O.B.) has a very popular message board for surveyors. They can come and post all of their problems, solutions, ideas, or general thoughts on the board. I just finished a full year of doing the site and cartoon before the board noticed my work. A couple of days ago however, someone made a post on the board about my cartoon.

Saturday's post | Monday's post

Within an hour more than 200 visitors flooded my website, Out-of-Plumb.com, which is more visitors than I have seen in over three months. Nobody bought anything, but that is my fault. I have to do a new calendar, Christmas cards, etc. before people will want to buy anything. And on all of the posts the feedback was always positive.

The point that I am not making very well here is this: the outcome to this scenario could have been completely different, seeing how I am not a surveyor, have never surveyed, and have only affiliated with the industry for a couple of years. After so many surveyors witnessed my brand of humor applied to their profession they could have ripped me a new one. They could have said things like, "He obviously has never surveyed a day in his life." But they did not. They found the humor relatable and appreciated and supported the continuation of my work.

Whew!

I found this in my desk recently, it is an etching I did while I was in college.

This was done on clay board. It works like this: they take a piece of masonite board and paint it white; then cover the masonite in a thin layer of clay and paint that India ink black; then you use these little tools to scrape off the black clay, revealing the white board underneath.

Very cool stuff. It makes you draw in reverse. Normally you draw shadows, with this technique you draw the highlights.

This logo was designed for The Hope Organization. The are an organization that the helps the hispanic community in the northern part of middle TN. The do a lot of good work for the community and help get a lot of people on the right track that wouldn't be able to do it on their own. We were very happy and proud to design this logo for an organization that does this kind of work.

We recently designed the logo for Toadily Fun, a play center for children and adults similar to a Chuck E. Cheese and located in South Carolina. I had drew the logo, then scanned it in to add the colorful textures:

Originally they wanted to name the place, Monkee Bizness, but they were unable to due to copyrights on a similar business. That was of course, after we designed this:


Awe... I like our little monkey. Too bad he has no home.

Identity: Any materials whose sole aim is to promote brand awareness. There are two critical questions to ask: "Who am I?" and "Who is my customer?"
examples: logos, static web pages, business cards, signage.

At the base of every marketing strategy should be an identity. This identity is one that should correctly portray a company's set of values, goals, or mood. So before jumping right into what everyone sees as the first step of defining an identity - the logo - we challenge you to first think about what do you want your company to be like. It could involve cutting edge technology, or be a local small business, or it could be simply that you like to have fun, or maybe that you take matters seriously. Take a moment to jot down what your company is.

More importantly, who is your company for. Who is your customer? Address who it is that is either inclined to by your product, or that you want to buy your product. Everything after that point should stem from asking these two simple questions: "Who am I?" and "Who is my customer?"

Infiltration: Any materials whose main purpose is to produce sales of a product to new and/or existing customers via indirect means.
examples: ads in magazines, web banners, e-blasts, postcards.

Indeed this category is intended to sound aggressive. Infiltration means sending creative pieces driven by your identity out into the world to smoke out from the bushes any potential customers. Magazine ads are a great representation of this. Indirectly your customer comes into contact with your brand. He buys a magazine. That magazine has your ad in it. That consumer flips through said magazine and stumbles upon your ad.

The important thing to remember about infiltration is that it is the most competitive form of marketing you can do. What are you competing for? Attention. On an average day we are bombarded by all kinds of images. It is for this reason that it is so hard to grab people's attention. A good campaign takes not only its competitor's ads in the magazine into account when devising a plan, but also all other visual forms of entertainment that surround us daily.

Another thing to remember is if you pay a lot of money to get an ad in a magazine, newsletter, or website, just because you've paid money for placement doesn't mean anyone is going to see it. It is better to assume that they are not going to see it, and that you should give the ad itself more focus. Advertising is one of the most expensive forms of marketing you'll do based on placement price alone. If you are spending that much money upfront, the message and stopping power of the ad better get people's attention.