Four things you need to know about your prospects

12/08/2010 | admin

Do you have high hopes for your marketing campaign? Of course you do, why would you put time, money and loads of effort into a plan that you expected to fail? With great idealism you look forward to the moment when the leads start rushing in. The problem is, they don’t. So what went wrong?

Most marketing pieces make one classic mistake – they don’t address the consumer’s problems. If you don’t present them with their problem, do prospective clients have an incentive to respond? Before you plan your next email campaign, direct mail piece or online campaign, consider the following…

Four things you need to know about your prospects:

They are skeptical. Chances are they’ve had bad experiences and been burned by others making promises in the past. You have to earn their trust.
They want professional guidance. If they knew how to do it they wouldn’t be searching for answers in the first place, d’uhh! Offer a little bit of knowledge and detailed instructions on how to take the next steps. Continue reading →

Groupon: Google, you can’t have everything

12/07/2010 | admin

So the latest buzz is, of course, all about the two big G’s: Groupon vs. Google.

It’s a battle for the new business age. An interesting duel that has no doubt left Google with a bitter taste in its mouth after Groupon’s rumored rejection of the search monster’s $6 billion bid.

Take a second to think about what I just said – Just two years into existence, this rookie online local marketing phenom has built an empire that Google (which pretty much runs the world at this point) is willing to offer $6 billion to own. Which means that the nice people at Google probably think Groupon is worth even more than that – or at least to them it would be.

They may still publicly be going through negotiations, but we think the subtext sounds a lot more like this…

Groupon: Na na nana na! No deal!

Google: Well sh*t!!

Continue reading →

Habits I’ve stolen from highly successful people

09/15/2010 | admin

Yesterday was a mini blast from my past.

My old communications professors invited me to come back to university and speak to the freshman class of Business Communication majors – an enthusiastic but somewhat shy group of bright eyed and bushy-tailed kids just entering the rite of passage that I just (finally!) completed.

With 40 attentive faces staring up at me from desks in a large classroom, scene complete with old-school blackboard to my back, I had the stage.

I was looking at a new, fresh class of upcoming communicators. Although they’re only a bunch of 17 or 18-year-olds right now, pretty soon they’ll be the interns interns and new hires sitting next to us in this office.

So what wise words of wisdom did I impart?

I summed up the whole surviving college and landing a job experience into four tips. And while I think they’re great personal mantras for getting you through secondary education and into the job force, they apply to what we do every day in the creative field. Here’s the cliff notes of my prepared-the-morning-of (procrastinate much?) speech: Continue reading →

Why advertisers can’t afford not to consider digital advertising

08/09/2010 | admin

So what’s the deal with digital? We all know, and by this point love, everything digital. Even if we don’t honestly know what the letters LCD stand for we know it’s a good thing. And when it comes to high definition, whether we’re fast forwarding through infomercials or yelling at a questionable sports call (trust me, the World Cup in HD is totally worth it every four years), as viewers we like what we see.

But consumers aren’t having ALL the fun. Why should advertisers be so excited about digital? Because digital signage advertising is one of the most effective and cost-efficient forms of advertising, way out performing the reach and results of television, online, print, and practically any other medium.

Why should advertisers take a hitch on the digital bandwagon? Studies found that consumers are three times more likely to successfully recall digital advertisements as compared to television, and four times more likely than television ads. Nearly two-thirds of consumers say that digital signage advertising catches their attention – the highest level reported across all media surveyed, including billboards, magazines, TV, the Internet, newspapers, radio, and mobile phone advertising.

If you’re looking for numbers, take these for a spin. It takes an average advertising investment of $21 to reach 1,000 people via television. So how does that compare to the ROI for digital? Continue reading →

Why we’re throwing out the dirty “S” word

07/29/2010 | admin

Busy is good in our industry! It’s certainly better than the alternative. We tend to like a faster pace – we like it when things are going on, and we like to have projects. Most of us would say that we even work better under the pressure of deadlines and crunch time. But what happens when you just have too many things in the queue and not enough days in the week to get them done? As they say, something’s gotta give.

Don’t think of it as sacrificing. I know that sacrifice is kind of a dirty word in our field. I mean, who really wants to sacrifice? The idea of a forfeit or a loss of ANYTHING is NOT appetizing. Our clients want to get everything, get it quickly, and for cheap. Now WE know that’s not happening. And we want to be able to deliver quality, quickly, and for every client at the same time. The idea of having to sacrifice one of these elements seems like suffering. So no, it’s not sacrificing. It’s more like… prioritizing.

Have you ever hear the old line: “Good, fast or cheap – pick two.” It’s a little bit hokey, but it’s so true. Continue reading →

Could bringing Facebook to work make you more productive?

07/07/2010 | admin

What if signing in to work was just like checking your Facebook profile? It’s always such a thrill when you see that bright red alert flag in the corner of the screen, and you can’t wait to see what good news lies beneath that mouse click. Updates, alerts, postings and notifications – things are happening in real-time and we’re all in the loop. How beneficial could that be in the office. In short, very!!

Just think about the kind of intricate collaboration that we’re used to thanks to the social network phenomenon – profiles, status updates, feeds, groups, lists, filters. It’s pretty remarkable how organized our social lives have become, really. Most of us already use these networks to make business connections, but just think about how organized our work lives could be if we took a lesson from the social scene. Continue reading →

What to do when they won’t cooperate

07/06/2010 | admin

While most people were probably welcoming and enjoying the beginning of a long, relaxing holiday weekend, I spent Saturday morning chasing a deer around all two acres of my back yard, trying to herd it toward the open gate that it just couldn’t seem to find. We eventually helped it to freedom, but what did I learn from this awkward and unprecedented dilemma? You can’t make someone (or something) do what you want him to do. Continue reading →

How do you succeed quickly? Fail faster!

05/25/2010 | admin

Our new favorite motto around the office comes courtesy of one of our favorite entrepreneurs and (arguably) founder of a very important Web phenomenon, Mr. Jimmy Wales…

FAIL FASTER

That’s what he told us. But who really wants to fail? I certainly wish I could go through life performing everything perfectly the first time. We all think our ideas are brilliant, of course, and we don’t want to be proven wrong. We want success. We strive for it and will go to the ends of the earth, and our financial means, sometimes dragging out the inevitable because our ego is too vested in the project to give up on it that easily and admit a defeat. Continue reading →