Aaron Templer, Author at Three Over Four

03Mar 2023 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Our Annual Fundraiser for Music Education: Meet Education Through Music – Colorado

Every year we're stoked for Three Over Four Month—3/4 through 4/3—where we take time to celebrate another year of our community of partners, clients, and friends (it’s been 15 of those years... can you believe it?). And also when we support music education. We’d love it if you could help! Over the years, your generosity has made a huge difference! In just the past two years, together we raised enough money to fund El Sistema’s kindergarten program for an entire year and enough to expand The Playground Ensemble’s education efforts into another community. This year, we’re juiced to raise $3,400 for Education Through Music-Colorado (ETM-CO). Our new non-profit partner strives to make music education equitable by collaborating with under-resourced schools to build sustainable music programs. ETM-CO focuses on Title I schools in low-income neighborhoods, where the…

29Jul 2022 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Rebranding is Change Leadership

Branding, Leadership, Three Over Four Approach

How many guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb? Two: One to do it, and another to tell everyone how they would have done it better. Marketers are like guitarists in this way. We just love to amp up our outrage anytime there's a high visibility rebrand (even if they work out just fine most of the time). It's a passtime of ours, really. In my first column for Inc.com (here's all three I've written for them) I use this as a vector for discussing one dimension of leadership's relationship with marketing: Branding and rebranding is mostly about leadership because leading an organization's identity change is actually a complex and sophisticated exercise in leadership, challenging for the most seasoned leaders let alone marketers without any leadership training. So without…

24May 2022 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Contributing Columnist with Inc.com

Random

I'm pleased to announce that Inc.com has accepted me as a contributing columnist. My column, Community and Conversion, explores the intersection of leadership and marketing. This is keen interest of mine, a differentiator for Three Over Four, and the main thrust of my book Leading in a Social World. The name of the column comes from Nichole Kelly, a marketing exec in the DC/Baltimore area. Nichole's work for a debt relief organization caught my eye as a strong example of building social capital in social media, and I interviewed her for my book. She sees her work as community building more than marketing, and told me that “recognizing opportunities for human connection is very different from opportunities for conversion." What a gem of a thought. Nichole is actually featured in…

28Dec 2021 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Agencies, Our Market Position, and Positive Marketing Agency Thinking

Three Over Four Approach

We'll get to these awesome pieces of art in a second. First, though, some thoughts on positive marketing agency thinking: What a year. We (gratefully) continue to be busy at 3o4, working with some wonderfully fulfilling clients and projects. We were also able to filter out a few clients that weren’t working for us these past months, clients we just weren’t able to add value to. This is something that every business deals with—letting go of paying customers or clients—but isn’t much talked about. It isn’t easy. This was on our minds when I came across a blog post from Trinity Management Consultants which explores why ad agencies seem so embarrassed about what they do. Not exactly positive marketing agency thinking, rather a sharp piece with veracious insights on how…

23Dec 2021 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Another Marketing Profs Published Piece

Social Capital, Three Over Four Approach

I was fortunate to be published again in Marketing Profs. This time, I co-authored with the brilliant Nicole Gravagna, a neuroscientist and behavioral design sage. What a thrill to reconnect with Nicole. I always learn so much from her mind. The piece excerpts some concepts from my book, Leading in a Social World. Social media marketers are in (literally) a different head space when engaging in social media, and this biases them to how social constructs actually generate value. It also contributes to strong biases when evaluating the data related to social media marketing's effectiveness, which when you really dig into it (which I have, in my book, the relevant chapter of which is also excerpted in this blog post), isn't much. It sometimes can even damaged brand value. Thanks to…

03Jul 2021 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Aaron Templer Published In Marketing Profs

Marketing, Three Over Four Approach

MarketingProfs was kind enough to publish a piece of mine, “Why Social Media Should Leave Your Marketing Department—And Where It Should Go Instead".” It's a distillation of a few chapters in my book, Leading in a Social World. In the piece I basically deconstruct social media marketing, and reconstructs it in a customer care space. TL;DR: Social constructs generate value by way of social capital. Leaders interested in generating this kind of value need to think about social groups very differently than marketing segments. It's about reciprocity and democratized relationships, very different than funnel-conversion thinking. Check it out! Aaron

15Feb 2021 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Part One: Marketers (Still) Don’t Do Data

A Triumph of Hope

Part One: Marketers (Still) Don’t Do Data This is the first in a five-part series that looks into social media marketing moving into 2021. Part One examines the marketing industry’s ongoing challenge with understanding and processing its data, and how this contributes to poor decision-making related to social media marketing. In Part Two we’ll take a look at some data demonstrating the ineffectiveness of social media marketing that all too many marketers seem to want to ignore. Part Three makes some suggestions on what exactly we should do about it. Part Four takes one of these suggestions and fleshes it out: move social out of marketing and into customer care. Part Five outlines the key to making this shift. Social media marketing effectiveness data is top-of-mind for me these days.…

15Feb 2021 by Aaron Templer No Comments

Part Two: Time to Come Clean About Social Media Marketing

A Triumph of Hope

Part Two: Time to Come Clean: Organic Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Work This is the second in a five-part series that looks into social media marketing moving into 2021. Part One examined the marketing industry’s ongoing challenge with understanding and processing its data, and how this contributes to poor decision-making related to social media marketing. In this part we take a look at some data demonstrating the ineffectiveness of social media marketing that all too many marketers seem to want to ignore. Part Three makes some suggestions on what exactly we should do about it. Part Four takes one of these suggestions and fleshes it out: move social out of marketing and into customer care. Part Five outlines the key to making this shift. Social media marketing effectiveness data is top-of-mind for…