The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community: Marketing Mix Series: Anatomy of a tagline

What we're about

The Marketing Mix is the official blog of Marketing Mentor and the community that's sprung up around it.
We're devoted to helping small business owners, freelancers and independent professionals grow their businesses into thriving enterprises.
Feel free to join in the conversation: leave a comment, send us an email. Or, if you're an MM client, past or present, with the blogging bug and/or great stories to share, let us know—we're always on the lookout for guest bloggers!

The Mix Masters

ILISE BENUN is the founder of Marketing Mentor, and has been teaching people to promote themselves and their services since 1988. Author of 4 books and many, many more articles, Ilise has been self-employed for all but three years of her working life.
More about Ilise here.
PELEG TOP is a partner in Marketing Mentor and the founder of Top Design, an L.A.-based industry leader in branding and cause marketing.
More about Peleg here.

The Mix Mistress

COLLEEN WAINWRIGHT, a.k.a. "the communicatrix," is a Los Angeles-based writer/designer/consultant who helps entrepreneurs define and market themselves. She is a devoted adherent of the Marketing Mentor program as well as living proof that by gum, the stuff actually works.
More about Colleen here.

In July of 2007, Ilise and Peleg began the process of examining the tagline for their business, Marketing Mentor.

After batting around ideas themselves, they opened up the exercise to include some people who could really help give them perspective on what was working: the Marketing Mentor community. Ilise sent out a newsletter explaining where she and Peleg were at with their process. She included the tags under consideration, and asked for feedback—which poured in, to the tune of over 250 responses!

It was such a remarkable example of the power of community, Ilise felt compelled to continue the conversation on the blog, and devoted an entire week to the discussion of taglines, what makes them work (or not) and how the process of exploration was affecting her and Peleg.

To make it easier to track, we've gathered the posts here in chronological order. And of course, we'd love your feedback on whether this was an interesting and helpful series, so let us know in the comments!

The newsletter that started it all (Tuesday, July 17)

It Takes a Village to Write a Tagline (Monday, July 23)

Includes the results of the Great Tagline Poll, along with a list of taglines under consideration.

Why Our Current Tagline Doesn't Work (Tuesday, July 24)

An exploration of what both Marketing Mentor is looking for in a tagline; also, what all businesses should consider when testing a tagline.

Expanding Market, Changing Headline (Wednesday, July 25)

A little background and context for the search itself; how growth and a changing marketplace impacts marketing.

Taking the Mystery Out of Your Business (Thursday, July 26)

Learning more about your business can be a side benefit of being transparent about your process; also, some more taglines!

And the Winner Is... (Friday, July 27)

Results of the Great Tagline Search, along with some thoughts on the experience of making it public.