Buffaloe Marketing

08/12/2026

As passionate as I am about digital marketing, I do also dabble in a little fiction writing from time to time.

I wrote this short story 100 years ago. I finally put it on the internet so you can read it. Here is an excerpt:

--
"Hey, officer. You know what time it is?"

"Yeah, buddy. Ha! It's half past one."

"PM?" I can't even remember the last time I slept past 6:00 AM.

"Yeah, PM. Obviously. You got money? Place to stay?" Instinctively, I reach into my pocket. I find my wallet. Inside it, I can feel cash and some credit cards. There's also something that feels cold and metallic attached to the ring. I pull it out of my pocket.

"Ah, that explains it. Gets pretty wild over at the Nickajack. That's a rough crowd. Where ya from?"

"How you know I ain't from here?" I fire back. Now that I'm awake and on my feet, I'm getting tired of answering the cop's questions and fielding his insinuations.

"Well, first, you sound like you're from out west or something. Second, ain't many people around here wearing boots like that. Third, it's my business to know who's here." I'm not from ‘here,’ wherever ‘here’ is. I really don’t need to make a scene in an alley with one of the few cops in town.

"You're right. I'm not from here. Thank you for your help this morn…uh, afternoon. Could you tell me how to get to the Nickajack?"

"Ha! Don't even remember where the motel is? Go on up to the end of the alley. Hang a left. Go another two blocks, and you'll see it 'cross the street," he says, chuckling, "You carrying?"

I was caught off-guard by the questions, "What, uh, what do you mean?"

"Carrying? You got a gun on you?" he clarifies. "If not, you better find somewhere else to sleep. And I don't mean behind the bar."

"Got it. Yessir. Thanks, officer."

"Take it easy. Don't let me catch you back here tomorrow night."

--
If you'd like to read more, here's a link: buffaloemarketing.com/blacktop

07/22/2026

"Blacktop" is my favorite short story that I've written. I would love your feedback!

Here's a short excerpt:

Hey, get up, man. I don't want to put you in cuffs," says the voice. I blink once, twice, and then realize I'm outside. There's newspaper draped over me like a blanket. I try to move it, but it peels and sticks to my damp clothes. There's a leak in the awning over the door and a light mist blowing in with the light falling rain, explaining how I got so wet. My back is up against a metal door, and my right arm is fast asleep on the blacktop beneath me...

I don't know when I left or when I decided to sleep on the street. I guess my splitting headache could be the result of a hangover. Maybe it’s the weather, but I feel like my head is swirling with fog. Maybe I had been dreaming about the bar. The static on the T.V. could have been the rain on the awning. I wish I could find a way to separate my dreams from my memories.

buffaloemarketing.com/blacktop

I keep trying to change the channel, but everything is static. "Someone forgot to pay the cable bill?" I shout back to no one in particular. In fact, there's no one here at all. The bar cleared out in a hurry. Now it's just empty and cold. I can see my breath, and there is water dripping

08/19/2025

From Why SEO Still Matters in 2025 by :

"SEO is a very important part of the online marketing ecosystem. A carefully curated SEO campaign will ensure that your website gets the notice it deserves and utilizes tools that optimize a website's technical configuration, relevance, and popularity. As a consequence, your site ranks better on Google and, in turn, gets more clicks."

Link in bio:
https://www.buffaloemarketing.com/blog/2024/2/2/why-seo-still-matters-in-2024

01/23/2025

TBT to this blog post that I think is still true about why Facebook (and social media in general) is kind of the worst, but why we need it for business. When I wrote it, we were in the midst of the algorithm changes that are still crushing your social media performance to this day.

https://www.buffaloemarketing.com/blog/2022/2/3/blog-why-facebook-is-the-worst-but-you-still-have-to-use-it-for-your-business

01/07/2025

"What we discovered is that honest, thoughtful marketing can be art, and art can be used for honest, thoughtful marketing."

From: A Brief History of the B.C.S. and "Creative Marketing Solutions"

https://www.buffaloemarketing.com/blog/2024/12/31/a-brief-history-of-creative-marketing-solutions

01/03/2025

This is the way a marketing campaign gave birth to a novel:

I was invited to consult on ideas for a “loyalty program” that would be a twist on the traditional “punch card.” Like any other loyalty program, one of the primary goals was to turn casual customers into followers.

However, we wanted to do something different that would help create super fans, resourcing them to become promoters. After much brainstorming, the Barista Choice Society was born.

Read the full story here: https://www.buffaloemarketing.com/blog/2024/12/31/a-brief-history-of-creative-marketing-solutions

01/02/2025

I authored my indie novel (indie sounds cooler than self-published) Canon I: The Definitive History of the Barista Choice Society in 2017. I republished it in its current form in 2020.

To the handful of you who have read it, I desperately owe you the second installment, but that is not what this post is about. In this post, I want to talk a little bit about where the idea came from and how it relates to Creative Marketing Solutions.

"Creative marketing solutions" is not just a tagline - it's something we've believed in since the foundation of Buffaloe Marketing. Here is a brief history of one of the most creative marketing solutions we've every been apart of and how it spun off a profitable product.

01/01/2025

Happy New Year!

12/31/2024

This is a super old post, at least in marketing and blogging terms, but I think the message holds up. Maybe replace "write more" with "tell your story in your own words more often."

Also, I should probably take my own advice this year!

Let me know what you think:

"Do people trust advertisements? Most Americans have at least some distrust of all forms of advertising. While as many as 46% of people say they find television ads somewhat trustworthy, less than one-in-five trust social media advertisements.

What does that mean for small businesses? Word-of-mouth referrals and your reputation matter as much or more than name and brand recognition.

Small businesses may not be able to compete with the advertising budgets of large corporations, but in an age of skeptics, they are in a position to capitalize on this shift in consumer behavior. If people value quality and integrity over commercials and gimmicks, honest content marketing is the key to growing your audience and positioning your small business as a trustworthy subject matter expert in your community."

"Do people trust advertisements? Most Americans have at least some distrust of all forms of advertising. While as many as 46% of people say they find television ads somewhat trustworthy, less than one in five trust social media advertisements.