When they ask in years to come…what did you do during the 2020 pandemic…I get to answer by telling them I started a new company venture. I know, crazy right? It was not that I started the venture prior to the world shutting down, I started it after it shut down…I know…crazy…I agree.

But here is the thing, I did not decide to start my new venture during a pandemic, I decided to start this venture nearly 8 years ago, while I was still caring for my parents. During those years, I decided on a what my strategy was going to accomplish, aside from paying my bills and sustaining a decent living for myself and my family. I started with family and friends, basically foisting myself upon them with grassroots’ campaigns that I had used in my previous Silicon Valley Corporate career as an accessory manufacturer. That knowledge fueled my passion and I got a degree in Website Administration. Funny with those of us with 25 plus years in the digital media world, we have been shaping Website Administration since the internet was a bundle of subject based bulletin boards you logged into with an external 300 baud modem.

I have also been around digital marketing since that inception. When I say its inception, I mean when websites were a mass of static pages with backlinks to other static pages that were updated monthly, quarterly or yearly depending on the subject matter. That may have been your grandfather’s digital marketing process, but it is not yours. Today’s digital marketing process involves much more than links and copy. Your compelling information or products should lead your customers to your websites and to revenue, right…..maybe not so much. It is the world of advertising banners, affiliate links and videomercials (using short videos to enhance website advertising and participation). Besides a web designer, you need a SMM specialist, a graphic designer, marketing team and analytics interpreter. But now you have to be a marketing psychologist and computer programmers. As marketing progresses more into the digital realm, marketing and computer programming will become synonymous with algorithms and artificial intelligence monitoring. If you are like most nonprofits and SBEs, people in your organization wear many hats. You need to grow your business and marketing dollars are scarce. I get it.

So, how does a nonprofit or small business entrepreneur (SBE) compete with the larger chains to get business or increase revenue without a substantial marketing budget? Unless you sign a contract for thousands of dollars, you are pretty much on your own. When you do have some spare revenue, do you spend it on an ad program, google or with some agency? How do you get the biggest bang for your buck? That is where Symbiotic Cooperative Marketing (SCM) and Spoon River Designs & Marketing come into play.

SCM is a directive that combines the SBEs and symbiotic nonprofits into a marketing relationship where they build brand awareness together for less than a dollar a day in some cases. The result for both is boosting brand awareness and creating positive customer experiences via their updated digital footprint and overlapping client demographics. This allows an increase in business/revenue based on cooperative marketing referrals from businesses and customers in their demographic categories. Depending on your product or service, a Symbiotic Cooperative Marketing Strategy can be customized for your business and revenue goals. Contact us today to see if we can help your company.

Spoon River Designs & Marketing helps accomplish those goals with more than your standard marketing. We start with free website makeovers review opportunities for SBEs through a regional college digital media internship program. We combine that with a symbiotic marriage of a local nonprofit for cooperative marketing strategies. In some cases, an association already working in a community philanthropic manner. Most industries have some form of a nonprofit foundation that supports growing that industry. Our experience and insight help SBEs and Nonprofits benefit from the SCM relationship we design using those industry insights and contacts.

There are several types of small business entrepreneurs (SBE). We concentrate on those online entities that need branding and awareness. Driving business to their site for sales opportunities or using their site to get calls for the local services provided by their business. We give more than designs and marketing, we give your company access to a variety of marketing knowledge and years of frontline experience to find the right pathway for your company revenue goals. At Spoon River Designs & Marketing we work on the belief of ‘paying it forward’ one consultation at a time.