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Creating Your Marketing Budget Using Industry Benchmarks

Here at Rare Bird, we’ve been privileged to sit across from hundreds of folks in a huge variety of industries to help them forge the connection between their products and services and their customers. We love meeting with potential clients and diving into the details of their particular business, finding ways to maximize their reach […]

Feed Your Creativity

Marketing, like many other endeavors, requires the willingness to think from different angles and a healthy dose of creativity. But sometimes we—like you, perhaps—get stuck in comfortable ruts and thought patterns. So how are we all supposed to keep our creativity alive and buzzing? Feed it what it wants. We’ve put together our top tried-and-true […]

“I am smat.”

On her second day of second grade, my daughter was given a worksheet with a variety of prompts for her to complete. They were personality-related, designed to encourage her think about her own traits and how she might like to be known to the rest of the class. It included things like: My favorite colors […]

5 Ways to Increase Your Happiness, Starting Right Now

We need more happiness. All ages, all races, all income levels. All of us, pretty much across the board. In our world of abundance, there’s an overwhelming sense of burden, distress, and anxiety. I have a bunch of statistics and information to back this up, but I’m going to spare bumming you out by sharing […]

20 Years of Modern Marketing

Twenty years ago last week, walking through the door into Rare Bird would have been a decidedly different experience. First, there were only three of us to greet you (not 15 as there are today) and you’d have been entering a recently converted garage. (Yes, we were a classic garage start-up.) Back then, we spent […]

We flew the coop.

We’ve moved, and the word that comes to mind to best describe the event is “disruptive.” Not in the positive way that you might say “HomeAway has been disruptive to the hotel industry.” More like, “Holy $#*&, what else can go wrong?” I think you know what I mean. Regardless, the time had come to […]

Help us make a difference in childhood cancer research

Everyone knows that cancer sucks. All of us have been affected by its terrible reach, often very close to home. It seems even more tragic when kids get sick. Hardly a week goes by that doesn’t bring news of a child falling victim. The numbers are frightening: Worldwide, a child is diagnosed with cancer every […]

Tell a human.

I’m sitting in Cafe Patachou’s flagship, the first location opened by local celebrity restaurateur Martha Hoover, when I see this notice posted in the middle of the menu: I think (and remark to my tablemates) that this simple message is a stroke of genius, from both a marketing perspective and simple, common sense. Too often […]

Confessions of a pumpkin junkie.

I confess: I am a fall junkie, and I’m guessing a lot of you are, too. For us football fans, when the college and NFL seasons start, it’s like we’ve been sitting in the dark since February and somebody finally turned the lights back on. For baseball fans, it’s the beginning of post-season play and, […]

Let’s Take a Moment to Smile

Welcome to Friday, wherever you are. Here in Indianapolis, the sun is shining and it’s going to be a beautiful evening. As you know, it’s been an unbelievably unbelievable week. Three tragic incidents in Orlando, Florida. Our hearts, as do the world’s, go out to everyone affected. While we’ve all had our individual moments of […]

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Ingenuity

Unless you live under a rock (and who doesn’t want to sometimes?) you know this past Memorial Day weekend was the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. I’m about to use a word that I use sparingly and judiciously, because when you use it, it should really imply something monumental: epic. This event, and weekend, […]

How the Panama Papers Leak Affects You

So this might seem a little esoteric, but bear with me. I think you’re going to find it interesting. Maybe even useful. Possibly even job-saving. You may have heard about the Panama Papers. If not, here’s a brief recap: A Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, recently had more than 11 million documents leaked to the […]