2015 Year in Review at Strategy Lab || ep 42 #inthelab

Growth, experiments, and a whole lot of page views! The 2015 wrap up of Strategy Lab Marketing, the little marketing engine that could do the impossible!

4 new @stratlab t-shirt designs

6 new posters

7 new postcards

11 new stickers

42 #inthelab episodes filmed and published

48 presentations given

56 websites Built

85 websites monitored in Google Analytics

1,205 likes on Instagram

1,242 lottery tickets given away

1,575 keywords tracked weekly in Moz

89,983 website page views on strategylab.ca

1,161,000 pages crawled weekly in Moz 

 

Growth 

The team grew this year by a few. Braedon’s been around for a couple years now and runs the website division. Eddy joined the team early in the year as our design god and VP of body rolls. Conrad‘s been in the social media world for a few years now, I met him when he was working with the Kilted Broker. He started a few months back and has bad jokes in the office, so he fits in perfectly! Miranda started a couple months ago as well and as the first female in the office, I feel bad for her some days. She’s a little bottle of positive energy, she gets marketing and understands customer service innately, she’s a great addition to the Strat Lab family.

Experiments

Big Idea Camp

A big thanks to Jordan McFarlen who teaches at Campbell Collegiate here in Regina. He was a major part in getting Big Idea Camp off the group. If you want to learn more about what happened on that day check out the #inthelab episode where we talk about the Big Idea Camp Aftermath.

Uplifting T-Shirt Dot See Eh

I had the opportunity to teach an entrepreneurship class this fall at Saskatchewan Polytechnic. In true entrepreneurial fashion (with inspiration from Mr. McFarlen) we started our own company during the semester. “A business disguised as an experiment disguised as a class.” Welcome Upliftingtshirts.ca, the most fun I’ve ever had in the class.

On the first day when the students found out they’d be starting a company from scratch the response wasn’t what I thought. Some flat out did not think it was possible. One student kept pushing and asking how we are actually going to start a company, design t-shirts, print t-shirts and sell t-shirts. She was skeptical at best.

As the semester when on and the class worked on the various steps of ideation, creation, take to market, and measure, they proved to themselves that anything is possible. They ended up creating a t-shirt that read, “Kindness is contagious, pass it on”, we ordered 60 t-shirts and sold them all within 7 days, raising $1,000 for Carmichael Outreach. A remarkable feat I must say. I was blown away by the comments after when I asked what they had learned in the class. The best comment was, that anything is possible, we’re very good at assuming we can’t do most things. Instead, think the opposite, that you can do anything as long as you have the right team.

It taught me a very important lesson about teaching, always have a hands on real world project, the learning will be much more real and memorable. If the students are inspired to learn more about the subject at hand, you’ve done your job. Read more about the Upliftingtshirts project here.

The 4to40 Initiative 

4to40 the inclusive employment initiative started last year with the help of Creative Options Regina, Sasktel, and the University of Regina. 4 to 40 signifies the amount of hours a person with a disability has to work per week at your company to be classified as an “inclusive employer”. The dream is to go across Canada creating the top 50 most inclusive companies in Canada. We think that could be pretty amazing! We’re up to double digits of people get jobs through the 4 to 40 initiative, that’s something to get excited about!!

Here’s a video that Brandon did of the Honorable Ralph Goodale talking about the importance of inclusive employment. I think this is one of the best videos I’ve seen Strategy Lab put together.

The Business Case for Inclusive Employment: Hon. Ralph Goodale, Inclusive Employment Advocate from Creative Options Regina (COR) on Vimeo.

What does the future hold?

We want to keep spreading the love. We’re growing, we want to help companies and organizations that aren’t afraid of change but embrace change. We want to work with the innovators, the game-changers, the people who believe in what they do and build up others around them while doing it. We want to work with more organizations that care about people, caring is a great place to start for your marketing initiatives. Out caring your competition really makes a lot of sense now. To build a loyal tribe you must work with passion and care about what you do. Beyond that you must care relentlessly about getting results for your customers while telling your story along the way.

It’s a simple as that; have a passion, focus on results, tell your story. 

What’s your plan for 2016? Any big ideas you’re going to tackle? Anything impossible you’re going to try? Oh do share please!!