Sir John, Eh? (my starting point)

So, today I'm officially beginning a new adventure in my freelancing career: Marketing Director for the Macdonald Festival (www.macdonaldfestival.ca). This is a fun festival that celebrates Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald (no capital 'd'). With lots of free activities to occur outside the venue of St. Andrew's (attended by Sir John, back in the day) and an amazing musical theatre performance inside (Sir John, Eh?), there will be lots to talk about!

So, the daunting task of overseeing marketing for this second year festival is exciting and scary at the same time. There are many things to consider. We have someone very competent looking after the website and social media, so that's a relief.

At the moment, I'm concentrating on developing local marketing partnerships. Cross-promotion can be quite powerful and certainly valuable to a charitable organization such as this one. I'm proud to say that in my very first meeting today, I've come up with a tentative agreement that will give us great exposure to the tourism crowd. Since it's tentative, I can't talk about it, but look forward to doing so later.

I also have a lot of other local ideas that I look forward to implementing.

But...how do I grab the attention of those outside of the immediate region??? With a limited budget, I find this a tad scary.

I'll let you know how I do as I progress through this new task!

Long time, no blog

Oh, those good intentions! I decided to jump on the blog bandwagon and then proceeded to fall off it rather quickly. I felt lost. I felt a bit down - what could I contribute of real value? Really, does it matter? Do people blog for themselves or for others? A combination, perhaps.

All I know, is that I want to try this again. I enjoy marketing and as per the title, that should be what I stick to--so, here I go again. Keep in mind, that my focus may switch around and frankly, that should be okay. Maybe I'll develop a groove eventually and fine tune things, but for now, I'm telling myself to follow Nike's lead and "Just Do It."