The official launch of Age of Conversation 2008 is mere weeks away and we have lots of exciting things planned to tell the world about the book, the authors and the charity that benefits from the book — Variety, the children’s charity.
Here in Des Moines, moviegoers attending the premiere of the documentary movie "Trouble the Water" will have the chance to participate in an interactive review via their mobile phones and text messaging.
To join the review, audience members will send the keyword "water" to 72466. A return message back will invite them to join the review by typing in their general opinion based on one to five stars, with five being the highest rating.
Then, participants will asked to submit three adjectives they believe best describe the movie. A final message invites texters to provide additional opinions, with a 160-character limit.
Drew’s Note:As I try to do every Friday, I’m pleased to bring you a guest post. Meet another thought leader who shares his insights via the blogosphere. So without further ado…Steve Olenski. Again. Enjoy!
Welcome to my first guest post. Have a seat. Please make yourself comfortable. If you’re anything like me, your attention span is as short as… where was I again? You get the point, and now let’s get to my point.
For my initial Guest Blogging foray, I want to talk about something that burns my branding britches.
Everyone and their mother and their mother’s mother knows that having an effective website is vital in ensuring success for any company. Yet for all the bells, for all the whistles and for all the groovy Flash intros – many companies have forgotten one minor detail: If your potential customer cannot find your website, what’s the point?!
Case in point: Driving home the other day when a radio spot comes on for a local home remodeling company. The spot sounds great; the VO is good, the music, the script is fine… that is until they get to the part where the URL is referenced.
This establishment in question has a very ethnic sounding name (lots of vowels and syllables), which is fine in and of itself. Hey, you own a business and want to put your name to it, go for it, that’s why we live in America.
But just because your name is on the door it does not mean it should be in your URL! I heard the URL referenced three different times in the spot, which from a marketing/branding standpoint is good. However, if I were to try to type the URL in, I would fail miserably and eventually give up.
If you asked me right after the spot was over what the URL was I would have said something to the effect of "For information, log onto BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH dot com."
It’s a shame too because the spot was very well done from a production standpoint; kept my attention (no small feat) and I was at the very least curious to learn more.
So what’s the lesson here? Easy. Unless your last name is Smith, Jones or some other household name, resist the urge to put your phonetically challenged name in your company’s URL!
Instead, get creative and come up an easily remembered AND easily recalled URL. In this instance, something such as HomeRemodelForYou.com or even something like CustomRemodelDoneRight.com would have been much better.
Steve Olenski was born and raised in the City of Brotherly Love. He is a Sr. Writer at a major East Coast ad agency, well versed in all mediums: TV, Radio, Print, Direct Mail, cereal boxes. He’s a huge sports fan who has never thrown snowballs at Santa nor booed him. He’s been married since 1992 (best 8 years of his life as he puts it) and has two children, one dog and a goldfish. He blogs at Inside the Eagles, but don’t let the name fool you. He writes about much more than his beloved Iggles. His online portfolio is also available for viewing.
Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew’s Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.
Clients aren’t always ready to go where you need to take them.
They might be afraid. They might not have the budget. They might be caught up in some internal politics. What you’re asking them to do might be difficult. Or, they might not get it.
But the bottom line is, they aren’t ready to leave the nest.
We see that sometimes with clients when we talk about branding. They might think it’s just fluff or they haven’t wrapped their arms around the idea that their logo is not their brand. Whatever the reason — they aren’t ready to take advantage of the power that comes from truly knowing and living your brand story.
So as an agency, we have a choice. We can tell them to come back when they’re ready or we can meet them where they are, stuck in their nest.
Wed all have clients like that. Those clients are like baby birds. If we rush them, shoving them out of the nest….splat! That serves no purpose but our ego.
We need to be patient and just hang with them in the nest. We can feed them little tidbits of information, letting them learn slowly and absorb what we’re telling them. Sooner or later, they’ll want to stretch their wings a little.
When you think about it, that’s our job. To help clients gain the information and confidence (in us) they need so they can stretch their wings.
Okay….so what do you think of this spot? Effective? Memorable? Buzz worthy?
Would it make you order the pasta?
If Dominos hired you to critique this spot, what would you say — pro and con? It’s always risky to create a "character" that might be more memorable than your product. Sometimes it works — like Wendy’s "where’s the beef?" spot from 1984. But sometimes, it bombs like the sock puppet from (can you fill in the blank before you watch the spot?) _______.
Drew’s Note:As I try to do every Friday, I’m pleased to bring you a guest post. Meet another thought leader who shares her insights via the blogosphere. So without further ado…Anita Revzani. Again. Enjoy!
It is fairly easy for a business to make a declaration of environmentally-friendly practices and call itself green . But consumers are now leading the green revolution and they are quick to call businesses that do not practice what they preach.
Green or not your business should operate in the most eco-friendly manner possible. But you don’t have to make drastic changes all at once. Most business have been operating a certain way for many years, hence they can make changes at a relatively slow pace. This also allows them to learn about sustainability one practice at the time.
Here are 5 easy steps you can take to start:
1. Recycle. You can pay a little extra to the waste management company handling in order to ensure everything possible is recycled, but this is a justifiable expense…especially if you are going to make the claim that you are a green business. Instead of throwing things away after the first use you may be able to reuse them in a different capacity. If you find a particularly innovative way to reuse something you may be able to share it when highlighting your green efforts.
2. Reduce resource consumption. Find ways to scale back on the resources you use to run your business by printing less and using online collaborative tools , turning off computers at the end of the day etc….. Not only will you save money, but make your business more environmentally friendly. At my company, Bizcard we use recycled paper when producing business cards and other print marketing materials.
3. Buy green. Make sure that the supplies you use for your business are as green as possible. At Bizcard, we buy our supplies from Green certified companies. By supporting each other, we become stronger and easily influence more businesses. Besides your production supplies, you can take a look at what you consume on a day-to-day basis see BuyGreen.
4. Pledge. Unless you are specific in your efforts to be an environmentally-friendly business, your customers may not be clear on what exactly makes you green. A pledge or mission statement about your green efforts spells out what steps you’re taking and what you hope to accomplish with regards to making the world a better place.
Find an environmental cause that you personally believe in and that complements your business and then make regular contributions to the cause. You might even encourage your customers to contribute to the same cause. By creating an affiliation with green organizations you’re conveying an image of unity among environmentally-conscious companies. This may also result in referrals from these companies, resulting in more customers.
5. Engage employees. Don’t just advertise your green intentions without actually explaining them to your employees. You can ask everyone on staff to participate in your efforts to become greener and set up staff outings to do some volunteer work to benefit the environment. Upload photos or recorded videos images of employees cleaning up a local park or volunteering at a community garden on a gallery on your website. This will encourage other companies to do the same.
Every business should take several steps toward sustainability but you do not have to make changes drastic changes in the beginning. You’ll be pleased to find, however, that most of the changes you make in order to make your business green will actually increase your profitability exponentially.
Anita Revzani is the co-founder and President of Bizcard, a print solutions company. Anita’s past experience includes running operations for the ABC Group and helped to create $4 million dollars in annual revenue. Prior to the ABC Group she worked at American Express where she managed key national accounts including high-end brands like Gucci, Neiman Marcus ,Lord & Taylor, and America West Airlines while they were in chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew’s Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.
Every once in awhile, a brand has such a rock solid understanding about themselves, their raving fans and the world in which they exist — they can do something powerful without saying a single word.
Budweiser has always been about as American as it gets. Their fan base is true blue American and they’ve talked about values like tradition and respect for years. (I hope their new owners are smart enough not to change that in the least)
4 months after 9/11, this is the spot they ran on the SuperBowl. Lots of companies ran similarly spirited ads that year. What makes Budweiser remarkable and so true to their brand is that every 9/11 they run this spot as a tribute to their country and the tragedy and triumph of that day.
I have to say….despite the fact that I think Bud is lousy beer, I have an incredible amount os respect for the company and this spot still makes me choke up a little.
Don’t ever forget that your brand can and should stand for something much greater than what you sell. It should be a reflection of your heart. Bud sets an impressive example.
Hat tip to my friend Steve for reminding me of this spot.
I know, as an agency owner, writer, speaker and active community volunteer (not to mention dad et al) there are some days when I literally run from meeting to meeting, trying to squeeze in phone calls in between meetings. And then I wonder…when will I get all the work done that these meetings generated? Those are frustrating days. But, to be fair, I do it to myself.
Sometimes I have to give myself a reprieve. So I cone myself.
Coning is something we invented at McLellan Marketing Group because all of us need some "quiet time" now and then. Every employee at MMG has a traffic cone in their office. When that cone is placed in their doorway, it means, "unless the building is on fire, do not disturb me."
I coned myself for about 90 minutes yesterday. The week had been frantic and I was riding very close to several deadlines. I got more done in those 90 minutes than I had all week. And best of all….I felt great. I felt calm, I felt successful. I felt like I was back in control. Here are some of my secrets to successful coning.
Have a commonly understood signal (like the cone) that everyone in your office will honor.
Set the example by NEVER interrupting a coned person.
Turn your cell phone, regular phone et al ringers off.
Do not check e-mail, blog feeds or any other distraction during your coned time.
Do not do it for more than 90 minutes (its very frustrating to be on the other side of the cone and need to talk to someone who’s been coned for 3 hours.)
Make it a habit. Do it at least 3 times a week. Even for 30 minutes a time
Of course, it does not have to be a cone. Get creative. As you can see, I have added a skull to my own cone…just to reinforce the gravity of circumstance that one would experience if they broke the code of the cone.
It’s hard to keep those marketing juices flowing if you are feeling bogged down. Find a way to get yourself some quiet time. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you get re-fueled.
(And yes, I have a carpet with a little road on it for match box cars in my office. Another post for another time!)
How do you carve time out for yourself? How do you get thinking time, writing time?
At McLellan Marketing Group… we help clients discover their story so they can create love affairs with their customers.
That’s where it all starts and ends at my shop. Story = brand which probably equals USP (but deeper) or really….the heart and soul of the organization.
Why do you exist? If the earth were to swallow you up — what would everyone not be able to find anywhere else? When the clients that love you (you have some, right?) rave about you — what do they say?
If you think you know the answer….do your employees? Do they tell the same story? How about your vendors/partners?
Think back over your education. Do you realize that we learn via stories. Think of how you learned about history or sociology. How about psych or Brit Lit. (what we Americans call it!) We listen to and learn from the stories.
When I construct a presentation, for each main "lesson" I want to share with the audience, I ask myself…which story should I tell. I never try to teach without stories.
So…stay with me here — when we want our clients to get it, to understand how we can help them, to create and spread word of mouth — how do we think they will do that?
Right! Stories.
But, they can only know and tell our story if:
We know it
We share it with them
Over the next few days, we’re going to explore the MMG definition of story (brand) and what elements your story needs to include, if it’s going to be the marketing tool you want it to be.
The internet is a wonderful thing. It allows anyone with a connection to create a virtual storefront. It brings parity to the marketplace. The little guys can compete with the big guys. Excellent.
But what if the little guy (or the big guy for that matter) doesn’t have a clue?
The reality is that the internet has lowered the barriers for entry for just about every service business out there. But it also means that just because it looks like a business, doesn’t mean it’s so.
I think the old adage…the cobbler’s children have no shoes is a really dangerous excuse in today’s marketplace. And it’s a buyer beware world for all of us.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to hire a financial planner who lives paycheck to paycheck. I don’t want to hire a marketing firm who hasn’t created buzz for their own agency. I don’t want to hire a personal trainer who is 40 pounds overweight and I don’t want to hire a business blog coach who has 137 subscribers to their own blog.
In today’s age of "insta-pop up" businesses where the assumption is if you have a website or blog, you must be legit — we have to be even more discerning than ever before.
If they have not done it for themselves, why in the world would you think they can do it for you?
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