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Finding Your Target Audience: It’s Not a Speed Date

Finding Your Target Audience: It’s Not a Speed Date

by | Nov 11, 2021 | Relationship Marketing

Maddie Grey

Content Lead

Finding Your Target Audience: It’s Not a Speed Date

Finding a partner can make or break your life. Marketing is like that too. Understanding your target audience can make your marketing campaign. Misunderstanding your target audience can break it. How can you ensure that you make a meaningful connection with the right people?

Well.

It’s no speed date.

I’ll admit, my experience with speed dating only goes as far as what I’ve seen on TV. A bunch of well-dressed single people meet up in a hotel conference room and take turns sitting across from each other. Each pairing spends maybe five minutes together. At the end of the night and a long string of brief meetings, everyone decides who they found interesting. Maybe they exchange numbers or set up a second date.

That first meeting though, it’s short. There’s hardly enough time to ask about the other person’s family, let alone decide if they’re a good fit. I doubt that five minutes of small talk with a stranger is enough to unveil your compatibility level—who knows, maybe your soulmate was sitting across from you in that conference room, but they stumbled over their words or had a stained tie or made some otherwise inconsequential mistake that led you to deem them “the wrong fit.”.

It’s Best to Take Your Time

You need longer than five minutes to get to know someone, to pick someone who compliments you.
Picking your target audience is no different.

If you lean on shallow, surface-level traits to define your target audience, your product or service will never find the people who will appreciate it and advocate for it. Not to mention the increased likelihood that you’ll perpetuate harmful stereotypes or make excluded demographics feel discriminated against.

When it comes to dating and choosing the ideal customer—it’s best to take your time.

Falling for the Wrong Audience

We all have preferences in dating, certain things we find attractive. I, for example, have always had a thing for redheads. Unfortunately for me, redheads only make up 1-2 percent of the population. Let’s say I was a part of that speed dating event I mentioned earlier, and for the sake of easy math, let’s say there were 100 other singles in that conference room. If I went into that event refusing to date anyone that didn’t have red hair, my options would fall from 100 people to just one or two. I’d be missing out on a lot of opportunities to make a meaningful connection.

And when it comes right down to it, hair color probably isn’t the best indicator of a successful relationship. There have been many studies on what makes a successful relationship, and all of them boil down to compatible personality traits, not physical features.

Choosing the right target audience for your marketing campaign is the same. Relying on surface level characteristics like gender, age, race, or class is not the way to make a meaningful connection with your audience.

Let’s say you’re selling an eyeshadow palette with the following features:

• Each shade is made with natural pigment and other organic materials
• Never tested on animals
• Gentle on sensitive skin

If your target audience is young, middle-class women, you’ll build your marketing campaign to match. Your 5-minute profile might give it a youthful feel: bright colors and blocky font. You’ll make it feminine, maybe with shimmer or a floral pattern. You’ll use decent materials, not too cheap, not too expensive. There, packaging and collateral that will appeal to your target audience, right? 

Speed Date Blog SideImage GLAM

Maybe.

Certainly, there is a group of young, middle class women who the campaign will appeal to, and maybe they’ll buy the product, but the product hardly seems to fit the campaign built around it. The consumers drawn in by this marketing campaign probably won’t appreciate the actual product. They’ll expect flashier colors, pigment mixed with glitter. See, choosing your target audience based on demographics alone leads to overgeneralization and often marketing campaigns that lean into harmful stereotypes. Women like pink. Men like sports. Don’t get me wrong, there are women who like pink and men who like sports, but if every product that is “for women” is marketed in the same way: pink, cursive fonts, sparkles, fashion—we, as marketers, are completely isolating a huge portion of the women we claim to be targeting with our marketing campaigns.

And in the case of the eyeshadow palette I described before, you’ll be targeting the wrong audience, drawing in the wrong people, leading to dissatisfaction with a product that would have been completely satisfactory in the right hands. 

 

It’s a Match!

To find the right target audience for your product or service, you have to look deeper. Just as finding the right partner has more to do with personality than looks, finding the right audience has more to do with who people are than the boxes they fit into.

 

“Finding the right audience has more to do with
who people are than the boxes they fit into”

 

Let’s look at our eyeshadow palette from before again:

• Each shade is made with natural pigment and other organic materials
• Never tested on animals
• Gentle on sensitive skin

The target audience for this product isn’t the generic woman of stereotype acclaim. The ideal customer for this makeup palette won’t buy in to artificial-looking colors or glittery hyper-femininity.

Your ideal customer is a minimalist. This might be the only eyeshadow palette they’ll ever need. They care about sustainability and safety. These are the kinds of things you need to understand about your customer. Their values and their pain points. If you find yourself tripping into one stereotype after another, chances are, you haven’t dug deep enough yet. 

 

A Meaningful Connection

Start with your product. Get to know the features that make it special, the things that set it aside from similar products on the market. Those are the traits that will point you to your target audience, to the people who will value your product, recommend it to their friends, increase your reputation and your revenue.

Finding the people who will love everything your product has to offer is the first step. Once you build a marketing campaign that will show them what your product has to offer, it’ll only be a matter of time before you make a meaningful connection with your target audience—the right target audience for you.

 

Jason’s Take

To Maddie’s point, you need more than 5 minutes to define your target audience. Yet the 5-minute audience profile is too often the norm. We often decide that there’s just too broad of a demographic to get specific, and therefore we’re okay with hit-and-miss messaging. I’ve found that the 5-minute audience profile doesn’t actually target anybody. Even that sliver of a group that we’ve decided to “talk to” finds such a broad-stroke message to be disingenuous, vague, and confusing. On the other hand, a message that sounds like a 1-on-1 conversation not only hits home with that slice of our audience, but also allows others with differing interests to find meaning and sincerity in the message. Talking about values and pain points is something we can all relate to..

The Ugly Stage: Part of the Creative Master Plan

The Ugly Stage: Part of the Creative Master Plan

by | Sep 8, 2020 | Content Advice

Maddie Gray

Content Lead

The Ugly Stage: Part of the Creative Master Plan

It happens with every project. Every drawing, every painting, every story, every book—every blog post:

THE UGLY STAGE

You know, that period of time when you can’t even stand to look at your creation, let alone work on it?

We’ve talked about the benefits that come from finishing the projects you start (check out my blog post on that here,) but I thought I’d tell you a little more about how you can push through the ugly stage and finish what you start.

The Making of a Masterpiece

My sister, Kaylie, paints beautiful cityscapes.

She paints buildings and cars and people in just the right number of strokes. She gives you enough to see the life thrumming through the streets. Enough to capture the essence of the place without copying it inch for inch, and line for line.

It’s always amazed me. How she knows just which details to keep and which to leave out.

In my drawings, paintings, writings, and other projects, I always feel lost somewhere in the middle. When my drawing doesn’t line up with the reference photo, or my story isn’t conveying the mood I wanted—when it doesn’t come out the way it looks or feels in my head.

How does Kaylie know, from beginning to end, just where to put each shape, just where to touch paint to canvas?

Well, long story short, she doesn’t.

It’s not as if when she starts painting, she has an itemized list of exactly what she will do and in what order. She doesn’t have the hex code of each color mapped out, and the precise ratio of yellow and blue she will mix to achieve that particular shade of green.

It starts out scribbly. She fills in some of the shadows. Blocks out the basic shapes. She paints in layers. Adding color here. Another shape there. More shapes painted on top of that one. She follows her eyes, adding more value where things look flat. More color where they look dull. More detail where they feel empty.

But that’s the point. Along the way, parts of the painting did feel flat, dull, and empty. They didn’t look how she envisioned them.

Kaylie hits the ugly stage, too. But she’s painted enough to know something that the rest of us probably don’t.

Products on the shelf

Can’t Go Over It. Can’t Go Around It.

You’ve got to go through it.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve found the shortcut—the way around the ugly stage—but I can’t. The truth is, the ugly stage is a part of the process. The only way to make it out, is to slog through. Keep going even though you hate what you’re seeing. Keep going even if it seems like there’s no hope left for your project.

I can’t tell you how many drafts of essays and short stories I’ve pushed through, hating every word of them, only to turn it around with some merciless editing (eight drafts later.) You can bet that I wasn’t satisfied until I read back that eighth and final draft.

For me, it all comes down to self-doubt. I don’t trust myself to pull it off. I get so worried that the half-finished project before me is the best I can do that I want to give up. I’m working on building up confidence in my work, but that’s easier some days than others.

On the days when you don’t feel like you can trust in yourself, in your talents, in your experience, in the projects you’ve completed in the past—trust the process instead.

Trust that the ugly stage will happen in every. single. project. Instead of dreading it, let it guide you. Find the things that don’t look quite right and the places that don’t match up with your vision. Tweak them until they do.

Maybe we shouldn’t dread the ugly stage or curse it when it rears its ugly head—maybe we should thank it for showing us the weak spots in our projects. Or, you know, something a little less cheesy.

Jason’s Take

My own experiences of “going through the creative process” take me all the way back to my High School days when I couldn’t decide whether to enroll in a Fine Art or Commercial Art elective course. At the time, I wasn’t even sure of the difference. For years I was satisfied with the answer: Fine Art is telling your story, and Commercial Art is telling somebody else’s story. Commercial Art felt to me like taking a safe high road where I didn’t have to invest my heart and soul into a “commercial” piece of art that was meant to tell somebody else’s story. Yes, for many years I was very content not to expose my personal thoughts and feelings on a canvas that would certainly be scrutinized. Turns out that I had it all wrong. Commercial Art was just as much about my personal experiences, beliefs, convictions and vulnerabilities as any fine art project would be. As I began “going through” every project instead of over or around, and began embracing the human experience of artistic expression, my “commercial art” projects began to truly resonate with my commercial audiences. Turns out that people are attracted to people and not products, proposals, pitches or promotions. I then extended my new-found discoveries out to my clients, encouraging them to also put their products and passions onto their own “ugly stage.” They in turn told a more personal and genuine story, became more vulnerable, and ultimately created emotional connections with their audiences.

Stop Expanding Your Creative Graveyard

Stop Expanding Your Creative Graveyard

by | Jun 16, 2020 | Relationship Marketing

Maddie Gray

Content Lead

Stop Expanding Your Creative Graveyard

I see you out there, the moonlight outlining your figure while you dig. While you throw dirt on canvas and still-wet paint six feet underground. I see you giving up on another painting, another story, another blog post, another project. Maybe because someone pointed out the messiness of the lines, or because you can’t figure out that plot hole on page three, or because it just isn’t good enough. Well stop it. Stop expanding your cemetery of abandoned, half-finished works, and finish. Because once you do—you might be surprised at just how well your project turns out.

The Life and Death of a Project

I’ve done my fair share of gravedigging. Heck, I have a mass grave of never-finished stories and digital art files on my hard drive. By now, I’m pretty much a pro at tossing my unfinished works underground and making sure they never see the light of day again. But why do I do it? Why do any of us give up on our projects?

I think to fully understand, we have to start at the beginning. First, there’s an idea. In a recent example from my life, that idea was a short story in the form of a web comic for an online competition. I got really excited about the combination of drawing and writing and plotted out all three episodes in an hour or two. I drew up my character designs, and I dove in.

Blocking out panels, adding dialogue and thought bubbles and writing witty banter that probably only I find amusing—I made it all the way through the first episode before I lost steam.

I looked back over my 42 full-color panels… and I hated it. The line art looked sloppy and less-than-professional. One character’s face had 8 different facial structures throughout the episode, the other character had 12—it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t everything I wanted it to be.

I wanted to get my shovel, make the hike out to my creative graveyard and ditch the thing. Instead I posted it to the competition site and watched as (very few) comments and likes trickled in. The very first comment was critical and rude, and not in a constructive way.

I really, really wanted to bury the web comic.

It all comes down to discouragement. Internal, like my own dissatisfaction for the way my comic was turning out, and external, like that nasty commenter. It’s really hard to keep going when you feel like all the time and effort you put into your project won’t amount to something you’re proud of in the end.

Products on the shelf

Put the Shovel Down

I didn’t bury the web comic. I’m still working on it, and I won’t stop until I’m finished. I’ve said about projects that I later abandoned before, but this time it rings true. To be completely honest, I’m not sure what magic ingredient is allowing me to plow forward instead of digging another grave and moving on to something else. Maybe it’s the contest deadline. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve already posted the first episode and failing to post the next two would be a more public kind of failure.

Maybe this time it’s finally clicked that finished is better than perfect. That even if every person on this planet hates my web comic (myself included) I will still have gotten something out of it. Experimentation in a new medium. Sharpened drawing and writing skills. Experience with the vulnerability of putting my work in the hands of others. Last, but certainly not least, satisfaction in knowing that I finished.

Set It Aside, Don’t Give Up on It

Sometimes setting a project aside, is beneficial. This is especially true with writing, because it provides editing distance. You’ll be able to look at your work with fresh eyes and see mistakes and awkward wording that you couldn’t before.

If you’re just getting frustrated with a project, maybe it’s better to set it aside for a day and try again when you’re in a better headspace.

But giving up on your project permanently? That’s never productive. If nothing else, you will always get more practice by following through.

Abandoners Anonymous

I think all artists have abandonment issues, and no, I don’t mean we’ve all got tragic backstories fit for a Disney movie or a Young Adult novel. I mean we give up on the ideas that once kept our fingers to the keyboard and our pencils to the page, certain that we’re not talented enough to finish the job.

Let’s finish the job anyway. Let’s embrace the mistakes, and the messy lines, and the plot holes. Because if we do, if we can finally get past the idea that everything we make has to be perfect, we’ll make a lot more and have a lot more fun doing it.

At least, that’s what I’ll aim for.

Jason’s Take

True, I have plenty of creative pursuits and half-baked ideas that I’ve buried. I realized from Maddie’s post that my own challenge comes from the creative ideas I’ve kept on life support. Sometimes it’s liberating to “pull the plug” and pay forward what I’ve learned into a future project. I recently listened to a podcast by life coaches and psychologists Monica Reinagel and Brock Armstrong. Though their message was more around unmet goals, this concept of “mental baggage in limbo” applies really well to my creative and marketing endeavors. To adapt their main takeaways for us marketers and business owners:

  • Sidelined creative projects get heavier and heavier the longer you carry them around
  • An unfinished project can be a barrier (or an excuse) to new creative ideas and marketing campaigns
  • Sometimes, it’s wiser to let a project go—to bury it—than to continue to pay the “interest.”

Just think about that concept of “compounding mental interest” as it relates to your own creative workload. Not a fun or productive thing to carry around. I for one will try harder to either bury or revive projects in creative limbo.

Working from Home: How the Targa Team Takes Care of Business Remotely

Working from Home: How the Targa Team Takes Care of Business Remotely

by | Jun 11, 2020 | Targa Team

Maddie Gray

Content Lead

Working from Home: How the Targa Team Takes Care of Business Remotely

Working from home looks different for everyone. Different distractions, different setups, and frankly, different productivity levels. At Targa Media, working from home has always been one of our default settings. We love collaborating in the office and bouncing ideas off of one another, but we usually set aside a day or two to work remotely. In other words, we were really lucky heading into this quarantine, because we already had experience working from home.

Now we could offer you tips and tricks to make working from home more productive, but since everyone’s environment is completely different—some people have pets, some have children, some have a designated office space, some don’t. So instead, we’ll offer a window into our work from home spaces. Maybe you’ll gain a little insight, or maybe you’ll just satisfy a little curiosity you didn’t know you had.

Jason, CEO

As a lifelong musician, it seems fitting that I’ve set up my work-from-home shop in the piano room. Until we finish the basement, it’s really the best option. Our family moved in just a few weeks before the COVID-19 quarantine, and for the most part we’re unpacked from the move. The thing is, as furnishings find their way to the piano room, my home-office real estate is quickly diminishing. So here I am, at my stand-up desk (no room to sit down), loving my Logitech Webcam and Macbook Pro, taunted by the Young Chang grand piano daring me to take a music break to accompany my constantly-singing 17-year-old daughter (Theater major.) Fortunately, there’s room to sit at the piano.

Products on the shelf

Taleen, Project Manager

I have turned one of our home’s extra rooms into my work haven. I live with a day-sleeper which comes with its own set of challenges. I wear headphones most of the day, so I don’t disturb him while I take meetings, listen to music, or tune in for my favorite spooky podcast, Lore. Surrounding my desk are things that make me happy: my lava lamp, my Mackie speakers (once the day-sleeper is awake things get LOUD around here,) old ticket stubs for events I never want to forget, and pictures from all the theatre productions I have been a part of over the years. My two miniature dachshunds (Otis and Ginger) have a bed under my desk and are always close by. They help remind me when it’s time to take breaks. They love to get snacks from the kitchen or take a lap around the house to stretch our legs.

Products on the shelf

Maddie, Copywriter

I’m lucky enough to have a home office with four walls and a door. I’ve loaded it up with Harry Potter merchandise, concert memorabilia, and other geekery. It’s one of my happy places. My puppy (who is actually a full-grown dog at this point,) Xena, lays under my desk—often on top of my feet—all day. She is the true winner of this work-from-home situation. I don’t know how she’ll cope when all this is over.

I need background music at all times when I’m working. At home, that means rewatching TV shows I’ve seen a million times (currently Monk,) listening to true crime podcasts, or playing Airborne Toxic Event’s new album on repeat.

Oh. And I definitely wear pajamas. ALL. DAY.

Products on the shelf

Rachel, Art Director

My apartment is in a busy neighborhood downtown, and my significant other works odd hours, so my WFH approach attempts to keep distractions at a minimum. Luckily, we have a spare room that is my dedicated office space. I keep it pretty sparse since it also serves as my home gym, laundry room, and auxiliary closet. Typical apartment dwelling! With my desk next to a huge west-facing window, I have a lot of natural light and a view over the city. That goes a long way to keeping me sane and focused. Music helps drown out most of the city and boyfriend noise, but when that isn’t enough, I can take my laptop, earbuds, and wireless mouse to one of the nearby cafes. Of course, that would mean I’d have to get dressed, which is not in the cards on most work-from-home days.

Products on the shelf

Even within our small team, work from home conditions are very different. What has working from home been like for you? Do you dread the day you have to go back to the office, or are you chomping at the bit to get back to that familiar cubicle?

Whatever the case may be, we wish you the smoothest quarantine possible. Let us know if you need any help with marketing, or if you have any work-from-home tips to share.

Jason’s Take

If you’re in the marketing space, you’re seeing how many of the familiar marketing rules are up in the air right now. I’ve been asked if I think marketing is “on hold” during worldwide quarantine. I feel the best approach is “re-toned marketing” rather than “revised marketing.” Fortunately all the same rules apply, but the circumstances for many of your clients are much different now. So the order of the rules are a bit shuffled. I’ll have more to say on this in a follow-on post, but I feel it’s a good time to go back to marketing basics.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask the important questions, “Where are my customers looking for valuable, non-biased information?” Or, “Where do my customers draw the line between empathetic messaging and exploitative messaging?” It’s eerily a fine line right now. How do you say, “Hey, we’re still here for you during these difficult times” without actually saying those thoroughly exhausted words? Most of all, think of your fine-tuned marketing messages as a “lane change” rather than an “offramp.” Be true to core brand values, and your customers will be true to you.

Tips for Writing Every Day… from Someone Who Hasn’t Figured It Out

Tips for Writing Every Day… from Someone Who Hasn’t Figured It Out

by | Jan 16, 2020 | Content Advice

Maddie Gray

Content Lead

Tips for Writing Every Day… from Someone Who Hasn’t Figured It Out

Let me kick this off by saying: I don’t write every day.

Every year for at least the last three years (and probably longer) my New Year’s resolution has been to write every day, and this year is no different. One of these years, I’ll figure out just the right combination of stressors to follow through all year long. Then one year will turn into two, two into three, and on and on until I’ve collected my 10,000 hours and Malcom Gladwell classifies me as a writing master. Marketers, here are a few ideas for putting a writing structure together that feels very doable, and might even get you excited about creating consistent and meaningful content.

Why Write Every Day?

The truth is, writing every single day probably isn’t really necessary. That being said, there are only two ways to get better at writing: writing and reading. As a copywriter and aspiring author, improving my writing skill is important to me. When I set the goal of writing every day, at the very least I will write some. I’ll improve my writing. I’ll get better at my chosen craft.

For me, setting goals like this one helps me measure my progress in life. I won’t notice that I’m moving forward if I don’t have a to-do list filled with checked boxes. I know that for many people, goal-setting and resolutions aren’t necessary. They can feel the wind in their hair as they move through life, and they’re satisfied moving in whatever direction it blows them—they can feel themselves making progress without setting explicit benchmarks. That’s great! I wish I were a little more like you guys—but the rest of this post probably isn’t for you.

To my fellow goal-oriented folks—read on!

The new year has just begun, so it’s time to start brainstorming new strategies to keep the words flowing in 2020. If you guys are looking for ideas to keep yourselves writing new content, stories, poems, or the next big novel in 2020, here are some strategies to (hopefully) help you (and me) get there.

Outline

My biggest project right now is a novel that I’m trying to finish. I’m about half-way through my second draft, so I outline in a couple of different ways. First, I assign each chapter a different time frame. December 15-28, I will finish Chapter 10. Then, I make sure I know exactly what needs to go into each chapter: Character A needs to do X. Z needs to happen, and so on. This ensures that when I sit down to write, I can get right to it. So long writer’s block!

If you’re looking to create content for a marketing message, floor event flyer, or landing page, outlining is going to look a little different. Whether you commit to daily comments on social media posts, daily reviews in a social interest group, or just a tweet asking for your followers’ feedback. You can still plan out a time frame, but this time assign a different topic or blog idea to each date range. January 13-17, I will write the “My Writing Process” blog post.

Handwritten note setting outlines

Then outline what exactly you want to cover in that blog post. I don’t go quite as in-depth with blog posts as I do novel chapters—usually I’ll plan out my title and plot out my main points (often in the form of sub-heads) before I start writing. The hardest part of the task is coming up with a bunch of topics you feel excited about writing. So start today by eeking out 10 topics for your marketing campaign, landing page teaser, or social marketing strategy. You get the idea. Outline your timeline then outline your ideas. Don’t give the juices time to stop flowing.

Hold Yourself Accountable

I think this one is where I’ve fallen flat in the past. Last year, I tried calendaring my process. On the days I wrote, I sharpied a check-mark on the calendar. When I didn’t write, I drew an “X” instead. That worked fairly well for the first month or two, but then I stopped keeping track. I’d try to fill in the successes and failures two weeks later, and I ended up fudging the numbers more than I’d like.

Here’s my new (and not so revolutionary) idea that I’m considering for this year. Social media. The thought is that maybe if I can trick myself into thinking that other people depend on me writing every day, I’ll do it. For those of you looking to create more content for the purpose of increasing your social media or website presence, this is an easy box to check.

I think the trick with this one is balance. You have to find a way to motivate yourself to write, not to distract from it. If you get too hung up on checking each post for likes and comments, this might not be the way to go.

Here’s a good example: a little while ago I thought it might be a good idea to start a personal blog all about writing. I came up with a title, and I got all excited to share my writing journey with the world—and then I thought about it a little harder. Would adding an entirely new writing project to my plate really help me to finish my other projects? Probably not. It’s all about balance and what works best for you.

Maybe the best strategy is having a friend or loved one text you once a day to see if you’ve written yet. Maybe you just need to set an alarm on your phone, add a mark to your calendar, or cross an item off of your to-do list. Do whatever works for you (and experiment until you find out what that is.)

Picture Your Desired Outcome

This one is for those days when you have no motivation to write. It’s the last thing you want to do, you would rather go scrub the floor in the bathroom than so much as look at a keyboard. We all have those days.

The only thing that helps me get past those inevitable humps is a little bit of imagination. Think back to the reason you want to write every day in the first place. For me it boils down to this: I want to be a published author. I want the working from home in my pajamas, I want the book tours, I want the supplemental income.

When I’m feeling less than enthused about writing, I imagine what my life will be like after I am a published author. After I have all of those things I’ve been dreaming about. It usually does the trick.

Other things that work for me: force yourself to think about whatever you’re writing. You don’t have to go sit at your desk and start writing. Just make yourself think about it for a while. More often than not, I stumble across a solution to a problem or a cool sentence that I need to write down right away, before I forget. Guess what? You just wrote something. It counts!

Don’t be Too Hard on Yourself

Here’s the last and most important piece of advice I can offer you. Don’t take it too hard if you miss a day here or there. Don’t take it too hard if you totally blow it and don’t write for a month. If you are too hard on yourself, it will be almost impossible to get back in the writing groove. I already broke my streak. What difference does it make if I don’t write today? I’ve fallen into this trap many times. Try to remember this: the goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to write more.

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s write more this year than last year. Create more content. Make more progress. Improve ourselves. Cheers to 2020—may it bring you writing success.

Jason’s Take

I think Maddie helped me crack the code. I discovered that my quick outlines for my blog posts doubled nicely as social posts, or contributions to conversation strings. Moreover, outlining helped me feel much less overwhelmed about writing. I love a blank canvas…that is, when I’m holding a sketching pencil, not a writer’s pen. I’m working on feeling more confident about creating words, like I currently am with doodles, diagrams and rough sketches. It will take some time, but a lot less time if I can commit to a little bit every day. This article has helpe me do that. Watch out, 2020!