Good day to you, friends, colleagues and cherished clients!

It’s a very special time here at Front Porch Marketing, as the month of March marks our five year anniversary.

Once upon a time, I gathered the “Porter Posse,” some of my trusted friends, brightest business and marketing minds and family, plied them with delicious food and drink, and shared my dream of opening a boutique branding and marketing company. That evening spent brainstorming would form the early framework of life on the Porch, and the love and support received provided the momentum needed to make it happen.

And so, in honor of our anniversary, here is a samplin’ of five rockin’ things we’ve loved about branding and marketing businesses along the way:

1. The Porch grew! It started with one fearless leader, but along the way we added diversity, depth and experience—one person at a time. Today, we are eight core team members strong!
2. Two words: Dream. Clients. Again, we started with one. One Dallas-based luxury brand. Today, we partner with an amazing cross-section of independent-thinking entrepreneurs who are passionate about their businesses. They have challenged us and fortified us and we are thankful to have each and every one of them.
3. We picked up a prestigious certification: WBENC. And we are darn proud of it. The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council is a national 501(c)(3) non-profit that provides a world class standard of certification to women-owned businesses throughout the country. No small feat, we are honored to have risen to the challenge and make the cut for two consecutive years.
4. Every day, we get to do what we love. Yes, branding and marketing! We are mad about it—branding, strategy, research and competitive analysis are at the core of everything we do. But we also rock the other pieces of the puzzle—advertising, communications, planning and mapping, email marketing, public relations, sustainability initiatives and social media strategy and implementation.
5. Our Clients’ success stories became our success stories. When our clients rock, so do we! Nothing is more gratifying than starting from chicken scratch, forming a plan, implementing a shared vision and watching it come to fruition. We recently highlighted two successful case studies on our website: PeopleResults and Empire Baking Company.

Thanks to all of you, the Porch is rockin’ after five great years!

Julie Porter is the chief rocker at Front Porch Marketing. You can follow her, julie_porter, or her company, itsfrontporch, on Instagram and Twitter, juliedporter01 or ItsFrontPorch.

Photo courtesy of @thegemjuicebar

On the porch, we LOVE social media. We are OBSESSED with leveraging and analyzing it to benefit our clients.

Although … I am the mother of a 14-year-old teenager, and I should probably be writing this post about how to lock down your child’s devices … but that is for another day.

Instagram is one of my favorite social media networks at the moment. Not only is it a rockin’ sales driver for our clients, it is also not riddled with advertising and other noise that some social media networks have evolved into.

Here are some of my favorite Instagram accounts today:

• crazysexykris – Inspirational and uplifting.
• liveinthedetails – Emotive.
• the_luxury_list – Luxurious.
• mommasgonecity – Darling dogs and children.

And, of course, a few of our rockin’ clients’ accounts:

1. ellenhoffmandesigns
2. feizyrugs
3. thegemjuicebar
4. suzandavidsondesigns

I would love to hear what you are lovin’ on Instagram and with whom I can refresh my feed. So share!

Julie Porter is chief rocker at Front Porch Marketing. You can follow her, julie_porter, or her company, itsfrontporch, on Instagram.

We were excited to meet with a prospective client partner and learn more about their branding and marketing needs. The company is in the B2B space.

Well into the conversation, my pulse began to race, my leg started to shake and my voice rose an octave.

You see, they have been meeting with several potential marketing partners and being very thorough about their due diligence in selecting the right one. One agency told them that they could … wait for it … manage and execute all their email marketing for the entire year for an annual fee if they handed over all the email content in one meeting.

Whoa! Really?!?!

It sounded good to the prospective client. This was:

• Very cost effective
• Low effort on their part
• Efficient with their time
• Worry-free. They wouldn’t have to think about their email marketing for an entire year.

Yes, friends, but this is wrong in so. many. ways. Hence, me physically reacting to this idea.

Effective email marketing campaigns are, among other things:

• Useful. If you are sending content to your audience that is several months old, you are missing the boat. “We try to include something useful in every email,” says Ben Chestnut of MailChimp. “If the announcement was totally useless, let’s at least give the recipient a case study, or something educational (even if it points to some other resource).”
• Fresh. Our world is changing daily. What is relevant or newsworthy today is not going to be tonight or tomorrow, never mind months from now.
• Personal and relevant. Your current and potential customers’ needs and businesses are constantly evolving. What they want and is the crisis du jour changes hourly. You may learn something in a meeting or on a call with them that you have never thought of before that could be a new product or service offering for your company or a nugget of wisdom for your next company email. Sorry, too late, you can only submit your content once a year … Ugh …

The reality is email marketing takes experience, work and expertise. The good news is we’re here to make it easy, effective and right for your brand.