It's a dance every year—create a budget out of hazy projections and then try to justify it. Ugh. 

Sometimes you just need somewhere to start from. Every industry has different averages that they can or should spend on marketing endeavors, but ultimately it boils down to balancing your available resources with the growth you are seeking to achieve.

We've created a simple Marketing Budget Template to help you determine a range, from conservative to aggressive, and then a simple breakdown of percentages on how you should spend your budget.

Call me a huge nerd, but I’ve always loved to learn. Whether it stems from wanting to better myself or rise to a new challenge, the desire to expand my knowledge continues to be at the core of who I am and has extended into my career as a graphic designer and art director.

So you want to promote your newly launched brand, boost your lead pipeline and improve your customer experience. Great! But is your digital strategy in line with these goals?

Last week at de Novo, we received a Halloween card from a company that shall remain nameless. At first I thought, "Great idea! We aren't into the holiday season yet, way to get out there with this now!"

As I wrap up my last week at de Novo before retiring and starting a new chapter, I am feeling nostalgic.

Thirteen years ago, I had an idea for a marketing firm that took a slightly alternative approach to marketing on behalf of our (then nonexistent) clients. I wanted to bring big ideas, experiential marketing and an approach that focused on the clients' needs, not our own.

Thinking back on those first few years—working in a closet-sized office with one desk, painting the wall in our office six times until we got the exact right shade of red, growing our team from just one person to eighteen, and meeting with hundreds of potential clients, listening to their challenges and bringing them creative, strategic solutions—reminds me why all this seemed like a good idea in the first place.

While I'm excited for my next adventure, it's impossible not to reflect on all I'm going to miss.

In our summer series on nostalgia in marketing, we’ve written a lot about what people are interested in. As our official amateur/armchair behavioral economist, I want to dig into the “why” of this trend.

If you would have offered me a beer five or so years ago, I wouldn’t have touched it with a 10-foot pole. But thanks to recommendations from friends, I slowly began to broaden my horizons and discover all the diversity and creativity that exists in this industry. Fast forward 885 beers, numerous craft brewery visits and countless beer festivals later—you could say that craft beer has grown on me. (Sorry domestics, still not a fan.)

What was my first day at de Novo like, you may ask? Well for starters we made stress relief slime for team meeting and I was greeted with a “Welcome Hayden” potluck. Moments like these gave me reassurance that this place would soon feel like a second home. Since I am obsessed with formulating my thoughts into lists, I have listed some key takeaways as well as some of my favorite memories from my summer interning at de Novo: 

The Golden Age of the Arcade

Video game technology has been quickly advancing since the first console, the Magnavox Odyssey, came out in 1972. When it was first brought to market, the Odyssey was a total novelty—the term “video game” didn’t exist yet. Marketed as “the new electronic game of the future,” it featured many familiar components that would come to dominate home consoles, including detachable controllers and interchangeable game cartridges.