Thank you to Gaia Cornwall for creating the illustrations for our monthly themes!
We are celebrating the grand opening of the new OMHG website and community forums with a fun Marketing Madness theme. After months of building the new site, marketing our community campaign and launching first the new blog then marketplace I know I’m needing an injection of enthusiasm and energy to keep up the momentum. I can’t believe we’ve never run a purely marketing focused theme before since self-promotion is the number one thing many creatives struggle with. So we are going to spend a month learning and sharing about marketing our work! We are kicking off this theme at our #OMHG chat today from 1-2PM EST with a marketing madness chat so mark your calendars!
Learning how to market ourselves is like learning a new language-press releases, collateral materials, printing terms, mailing lists, wholesale catalogs, editorial calendars…there is so very much to know! This is a fun theme but it isn’t all light-hearted or only about the facts. For most creatives (including myself) marketing our work raises fears and inner critics. Marketing also brings up ethical questions about how to promote without being sleazy, to use or not use affiliate programs, sponsorship disclosure, what makes good marketing and more. We’ll be sharing lots of great ideas for marketing our businesses along with posts that address these fears, questions, and concerns. Let’s work together to make marketing fun and heartfelt instead of maddening!
I’m also getting creative with some OMHG sponsors to share ways of collaborating with brands that support our community and mission. Come back later today for the first CREATIVEstyle post from sponsors Poppy Barley. We’ve teamed up to create a new type of fashion series that focuses on finding confidence and creativity (let’s not forget comfort!) in our every day style that I am super excited about (handmade shoes and launches, this week is almost too good to be true!).
Your input helps make our monthly themes so fun and diverse! Please share your questions, fears, ideas, guest post pitches or suggestions for #OMHG chat co-hosts in the comments. What parts of marketing make you maddest? Who are your marketing role models? Where do you struggle most with your own marketing? Bring on the madness!
