New Year, New Website

Well, hello there! Welcome to The Cultivated Word’s new website: It’s new, improved and 100% awesome.

Almost three years ago (our birthday is at the end of May), I launched The Cultivated Word with two clients and a desire to help small and medium sized businesses with their overall communication strategy. With a tiny pool of clients, things weren’t easy at first, but it taught me to be resourceful and tenacious about making my business successful. This is not unlike the experience of many of the start-ups we now work with, and I think that’s what makes The Cultivated Word uniquely capable of understanding your needs.

Now that we’ve got this brand-spanking-new website and an enormous amount of enthusiasm to go with it, we’re ready to begin a new chapter in The Cultivated Word’s story. But what milestone would be complete without a little pageantry? Indulge us for a moment!

Tenacity Pays Off
After the wild success of the Grasshopper 5000 Campaign, for which The Cultivated Word produced the viral  video, Entrepreneurs Can Change the World, we had work coming in from around the globe–website copywriting, video, and more. It was kind of insane. The video was about entrepreneurs, and clearly much of its success was due to the hyper-engagement of that specific audience. However, it also resonated with many other groups including would be entrepreneurs looking for motivation that their crazy idea was worth a shot, and non-entrepreneurs who understood that if we could harness that child-like excitement that we have as kids, we could do just about anything in life. The multiple levels of engagement and the authenticity of the message is what made the video go viral, and that’s what The Cultivated Word is all about.

Moving Forward
Since our initial viral video success, we’ve been fortunate to have been a part of a lot of exciting video projects such as oDesk’s The Future of Work, the Thank A Teacher campaign, Ride the Entrepreneur Rollercoaster, as well as A New Day, produced for TED Fellow Nitin Grant’s Equal India Alliance, and released December 2010. While we have some amazing new videos in the works for 2011, we’ve also produced some really fun and fresh copy for start-ups like PackageFox, Chargify, Spreadable, Little Duck Organics, SkillTesting, Grasshopper, and Mudpies & Butterflies (new website design and copy provided by yours truly launching in 2011), as well as some smaller projects for The Sinclair Institute and Standard Register. It’s hard to believe we’ve done all of this in just two and a half years, and we’re looking forward to what the next few years have in store for us!

Conviction + Action = Brand Idea
Regardless of whether it’s a video project or copy for a website, we always keep this little equation in mind because it serves as a beacon in the sometimes stormy seas of messaging. When you know what greater purpose your product serves, and you articulate clearly what that is, you’re on the right track for building a strong brand. Unfortunately, in the midst of determining your identity, it can be extremely difficult to remember this, which is where The Cultivated Word comes in. Utilizing our wealth of experience (and, of course, this handy little equation) we look forward to nurturing and growing brands with powerful creative in 2011, and beyond.