Marketing Conversations and Interview Crises

Hello readers and fellow Praxians! I am now officially signed up for Praxis weekend this fall and can't wait to see everyone. In the meantime, let's jump into work at OpenEd.

Is Marketing an Art or Science?

This was a topic of discussion recently between me and Ela Richmond during one of our work calls. There can be a lot of science behind marketing involving data and understanding your target market. If you know what kind of person you are targeting, then you can find or collect data on what sites they visit, what posts they interact with, and language they react to.

This is common practice for marketers and it's not surprising that we see technically good marketing everywhere. So how do you make yours stand out as really great?

This is where the art of marketing comes in. Having a creative approach can help you stand out from the crowd by being unexpected and grabbing people's attention. You have to know your market on a personal level to really connect with them.

While on our call, Ela explained the difference between technically effective language and intuitively feeling that a homeschool mother would resonate with the message. She can put herself in their shoes because she has tested what works AND personally connected with people in the market to understand their values.

So, is marketing an art or science? Ideally, you have both. They should work together to make your marketing work on several levels.

When Interviews Almost Fall Apart

There has been a lot going on with the book tour lately and even though we have booked 20+ events and podcasts, only a few are currently published.

One of the podcasts published was Matt Bowman on The Reason We Learn.

This is an interview I personally booked that nearly got canceled, hours before we were supposed to record. I got an email from Deb (host of The Reason We Learn) explaining that she just finished Matt's book and couldn't do the interview.

We were able to get on the phone and discuss the issue. She explained how, upon reading the chapter on funding, she found several points she deeply disagreed with.

Since she did not want to debate Matt, she wasn't sure she could proceed with the interview.

After asking several questions, I was able to conclude that her only concerns were with funding. From there, I suggested a conversation that focused on the philosophy of open education that Matt presents in the book. She and Matt could dive into detail on how families can customize education and avoid the topic of funding specifically.

She seemed open to the idea, and they recorded the episode. I wasn't sure how the episode would turn out, but the conversation went really well! After the recording, she even discussed offering her curriculum in the OpenEd Marketplace.

Check out the full episode here.

Art Piece of The Week

A very non-traditional henna tattoo. I was almost out of henna which means I had to get creative on how to use it.