MMG Design

MMG Design Online branding that actually returns on your investment.

05/02/2025

Columbus Site review of the week: Branch

(Mostly) good things to say here.. 😅

"Must-haves" for an effective insurance provider site:

⭐️ Trustworthiness (Usually established though social proof and branding)

⭐️ Clear Differentiators (There are a million insurance companies. Why are you better? Why shouldn't I go see Jake, The Gecko, or Flo!?)

⭐️ Intuitive User-Friendly Design (If you can’t cater to site visitor, you’re setting a bad precedent)

Objectively…

This one is a 9/10 on branding, but struggles a little with differentiating itself and speaking to the needs of their target customer.

Design aside, Branch also does a great job validating social proof.

I would argue that of all the industries we've reviewed so far, finance + insurance is the most important to have strong credibility, trustworthiness, and social proof.

Insurance is a sensitive topic, and you want to be associated with SAFETY and COMFORT at all touchpoints.

Rating: 8.1/10

What do you guys think? Anything you might change?

04/30/2025

This episode took us exactly 6.5 hours.

Luckily, I am a huge nerd for data in marketing.

If you have a background in design, being data-driven in terms of justifying the ROI of your work is the easiest way to set yourselves apart.

Thomas McKinlay 🎓 has an incredible newsletter called ‘Science Says’

If you’re in marketing, this is a must-read.

This weekend I dove into some archives and sourced NINE of his studies.

The topics?

The tactics marketing teams are building higher converting websites.

All backed by peer-reviewed studies and data to show the results.

On this week's podcast powered by American Marketing Association Columbus Chapter, we're gonna learn:

✅ why you should to list FEWER benefits on your site

✅ why showing IMPERFECT ratings is actually... better?

+ 7 other peer reviewed studies that answer the questions marketers are asking about how to make their websites drive more ROI for their teams.

04/28/2025

There’s beauty in routine.

For better or worse...

I’ve conditioned myself to not be able to be productive until I’ve ran.

I’ve ran >30 miles per week for almost 3 years now,

and I still don’t consider myself a “runner.”

To me, the exercise is:

✅ A cheap form of therapy.

✅ A way to solve problems that my mind cannot.

I am indebted to what the morning run has done for my life.

As I build mmg and dive further into doing things that are uncomfortable…

I know that I’ve put myself through more discomfort in the past.

Remember:

you’re one run away from a positive change in your mindset 👊🏻

04/23/2025

If you think investing in "brand" means disregarding marketing ROI...

Then this is the podcast for you. 🔊

It always seems to be a debate between "performance" and "brand" when teams are investing in marketing spend.

Job roles, budgets, campaigns, and messaging are all tailored towards majorly one of these two.

Creative roles tend to fall in brand marketing, and outbound roles, such as sales, tend to fall more into the performance side.

But what if there was a way to calculate the "performance" ROI of branding?

Jeremy Mumpower of Conspire is an expert on this topic.

And here are his three measurables for calculating brand-related ROI:

1) Marketing Efficiency (Overall ROAS)

2) Community Engagement (leveraging BDO's such as the Columbus Chamber of Commerce)

3) Team Retention (Employee satisfaction and tenure)

Be sure to check out the full interview for specific use cases of each.

Link to everything Marketing By Design in the Caption!

Jeremy Mumpower
Columbus Chamber of Commerce
American Marketing Association Columbus Chapter

04/18/2025

Transform Labs: Innovation Roundtable 🐕‍🦺

An event series I will be returning to in the future.

If you are in Tech in Columbus, Bailey Hanley and Transform do a great job of curating an environment that invites conversation and new ideas.

Being new to the scene, I'm always trying to be a bug on the wall and learn what high performers like these are thinking, saying, and acting upon.

(And if there are dogs there, count on me coming back regardless 😉)

Great meeting Kristin M., Tobias Roediger, Jerry Valentine of Renter Mentor, James G., and a few others I'm missing!

04/16/2025

I’ve interviewed a LOT of creative leaders.

This time a lesson struck hard. It’s about giving feedback.

This year, I had my first experience with delegating tasks as a business owner.

Through my local chamber listing, MMG Design had a priority listing to an educational internship program (yet another benefit of the amazing Columbus Chamber of Commerce 🫶🏻)

These kids- Brooklyn and Liam- were awesome.

I’m not joking when I tell you they are smarter than me. Not sure how I got so lucky 🤣

But the lessons I learned from being a “boss” (which I definitely am not) for even a short time were worth even more than the work they did for me.

I really sucked at giving tasks.

Every night I would create a list of tasks in Notion for us to cover the next day, and I felt a huge obligation to make these tasks creatively fulfilling, fun, and force some learning through curiosity.

I met Samuel Ballinger this week and we talked a lot about giving creative feedback- specifically, to a team of people you are responsible for.

He taught me a lot, but what really struck me from this chat was his point around communication styles.

Everyone takes feedback a little differently, and it takes (sometimes) guaging it totally wrong at first and making a situation beyond uncomfortable before reaching what an ideal approach to this specific person is.

I’m one of those people with the mindset that work is work.

Call me thick-skinned, arrogant, insensetive, but i would prefer that people just (as I often say) tell me what sucks so we can reach a creative resolution.

But not everyone is this way.

This is stuff I think you can only learn through experience- BUT, a lot of it I have been able to shortcut by asking all these creative leaders about their own experience.

Feedback is tough.

But asking others about their approach makes it easier.

04/14/2025

YouTube for business marketing is going crazy.

Here's Bruno's kit for using it to get actual results:

(These will work even if you're just getting started.)

⭐️ Learn Packaging.

Getting the click is more than half the battle. Invest the majority of the time into coming up with a title, thumbnail, and hook that creates it's own niche and speaks to the person you're trying to work with.

⭐️ Dangle the Carrot (In a good way).

There's a difference between teasing with content and using it to tell an engaging story.

I promise you that the viewers of your content will want to know the story behind the value of your video. Whether it's a tutorial, vlog, etc, we all want more than

⭐️ Know Who You're Speaking to.

You're not making the video for you. You're making it for the person you're trying to help.

Personally, this is my biggest sticking point, and the one I see with most other business owners as well when getting into content.

Script videos ahead of time and try to keep that person in mind as you speak. It may seem minor.. but these details come through a lot.

Cheers to Bruno Pozo for dropping his knowledge, as always. For more YouTube and videography strategy, be sure to follow his content and get in touch with him ASAP.

Dude knows his stuff.

04/09/2025

Columbus Site review of the week: Loop

Oh, so many good things to say here.

"Must-haves" for an effective software site:

✅ Clear, not clever, product demos and copy.

✅ Modern and clean design (appealing to digital product users)

✅ Engaging Interactions that encourage scroll.

This one accomplishes all those and isn’t too "in-your-face" with its colors and branding elements.

I would argue that of all the industries we've reviewed so far, an intuitive interface likely plays the biggest role in software sites. If the presentation of your own platform is confusing and janky, that doesn't set a great precedent for a user to build what you're selling into their own workflow.

Rating: 9.6/10

What do you guys think? Anything you might change?

04/07/2025

Network. Build. Share. Rest...

Repeat. 🔁

Day in the life building a design business.

One of the biggest things I had to accept when I started building was that so much less of my time is spent doing actual design.

☀️ Average day for me lately:

20% technical work (design & dev, wireframing, ideation)

40% managerial work (project updates, communication)

40% entrepreneurial work (networking, travel, outbound)

About a year ago, I read the E-Myth by Michael Ge**er, and a lot of the concepts changed my perspective on work.

I would encourage anyone who's in love with the technical work of their craft (baking pies, designing, writing) to read this book before choosing to make a business around that.

Luckily, I find travel, networking, and building systems to be very fulfilling.

It's an energy-builder, and tells me I'm cut out for this.

04/04/2025

Only newbs build (just) beautiful websites.

The data proves this:

If you look at the most visited (and thus effective) websites...

they are not works of art. They are functional beasts.

Semrush proves this.

🛜 Indian Railways: 35.4 million monthly visitors

🛜 Fragrantica: 50 million visit in a month

🛜 Mercari US: 152 million monthly visitors

🛜 Amazon: 3.4 billion monthly visitors.

In every sense of the word, these are very… un-gorgeous websites.

The designs you see on Pinterest, Behance and Dribbble are works of art, not interfaces designed to return on a companie's marketing budget.

However, I still believe design is important.

Good design tells a story. It’s possible to check both boxes in terms of effectiveness, UX standards, and captivating design.

Dont design (just) a beautiful website.

Design a website that accomplishes your goals, and tells your story in the process.

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