This month, I have been invited to speak at the Hill Market Club at the University of Regina on the topic of marketing. To me all things are about story telling. As the publisher of SKY Magazine, the focus was to help business owners market their businesses. My approach was to look at the business from their customer's point of view - who were they, what did they need to know to seek out this business in the first place, and if they did, what could we tell them that would be meaningful.
Once the stories were written and the magazines distributed, I began talking about the businesses on my social media networks. I would wear their clothes, attend their events, visit their restaurants - all at my cost - I guess I would have been considered an infuencer before that was a thing. My customers paid an advertising rate / page, but the post publication advertising that I did was free of charge, and most of the time, done at my personal cost - with the hope that I would earn their business and their trust once again.
In 2016, I opened a shoe store business, assuming an existing brand that had been in existence for about 29 years- Zoe's Boutique. Like all life cycles, Zoe's was reaching the end of its cycle and it needed renewal. A fresh perspective. A new pair of shoes, as it were.
In February we began the work of updating the environment, product plan and new logo and a modified name of ZÖE - to respect the legacy of its memory, but also to appeal to a broader international market and tell a new story.
This video was created to launch the new ZÖE Brand in 2016. Written and produced by Crushed Rockets, the video was literally produced in four days.
Three and a half years later, this video has even more meaning than it did at the launch. We adopted a blog headline and hashtag - The Walk Matters - to convey not only the fact that ZÖE is a shoe store that helps people through the steps of their lives, but also the importance of awareness in each step we take as we impact the world around us. What we do and how we do it is what we become known for.
Each step. Each interaction. Each decision. Launching a brand is just a first step in a long journey. But each step one takes is the true telling of the story.
These are some early thoughts on my presentation. Stay tuned.
Lynn