resources
We read about providing great customer service, but when you’re on the receiving end, man does it feel good.
Fear is a powerful motivator.
That’s a commonly shared saying that struck close to me a few springs ago in March of 2020. We rebranded our decade old marketing and advertising firm.
Social media accounts are proven to help businesses build brand loyalty, direct users to websites, and collect customer feedback.
It came up yet again in a recent leadership meeting at the agency.
One of our Directors joked that in advertising – patience is a virtue. It’s just like real life and that long-shared saying applies to the marketing world too.
Anyone with today’s technology can send an email anywhere, at any time. But you’re not just anyone – you’re a hard-working someone who is going on vacation this summer, and your eyes could use a break from your digital mailbox. Before you trade in your laptop for your flip flops, there’s one vital and innovative mechanism you absolutely must remember to activate before you take to the skies: your email’s autoresponder!
We enjoy giving it as a gift to our clients at the holidays. I also love to meet with clients, and prospects, and potential employees as they drink it. While I feel like I should enjoy a cuppa joe, the reality is: “I do not drink coffee!”
The way we work has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Advancements in technology allow us to work from anywhere, anytime, and collaborate with colleagues from all over the globe. This change in accessibility can make it hard to find time for life outside of the office. If you’re feeling like your job is taking over your life, it may be time to take some steps toward creating a healthy work/life balance that works best for you. Here are some helpful ways to do just that:
It's important to take time off from work in order to relax and clear your mind. It's equally important to unplug while you're on vacation in order to maintain healthy relationships with your friends and family, as well as ensure that you'll enjoy your time away from work as much as possible. With these simple tips on how to unplug from work when you're on vacation, you'll be ready to enjoy the full benefits of time away from work.
So many of our clients are using marketing and advertising to support their sales process. Marketing and sales typically go hand in hand and, in fact, many companies have combined those departments. When we engage our clients in an advertising program, it is often to help them with “direct response” results.
Google Analytics has been giving companies and organizations vital information about their website users since 2005. While the world was listening to music on Apple's colorful iPod nano, Google released an innovative new tool online. It allowed marketers and business owners to see who went to their website and what they did once they got there. This tool provided insight on page views, sessions, and bounce rates. Now known as Universal Google Analytics, this powerful database gave viewers valuable information and reporting capabilities to make strategic marketing decisions.
A while back I saw the familiar look of a Chicago Police cruiser. It was the same as I'd seen in movies like the Blues Brothers or Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Like water, your business may flow in a natural direction, picking up speed as you move forward - often faster than you desire. Until you redirect, harness, and capitalize on the power generated, you're likely to watch it race out of control.
For years I have looked for business principles in odd places or at random times. Usually I file them away for some future use. While it might have been smarter for me to read all the leadership books I could find, observing what others were doing shaped me as a businessperson and has worked out okay.
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This month, I was all set. Ready to share what was on my mind as usual --- until I saw the following piece in Sports Illustrated. It was a classic case of two well meaning departments not cross checking the master calendar.
While doing some research on what other marketing companies are doing with their web sites I happened upon a Roanoke-based firm who had a “What’s New” section on theirs.
How to be a room shifter.
Where did the curiosity of our youth go?
“We’re actively recruiting for…..”
This is a phrase, or even a buzzword, that c-levelers and human resources management types often toss around without a lot of thought.
Remember the old saying, “curiosity killed the cat”? Well, the lack of curiosity has done-in more than a few businesses and leadership teams. Strong questions make a big impact.
Mister Starr was my 10th grade geometry teacher. I didn’t do so well in his class. I do, however, remember him clearly reminding our class to “check your work”.
We enjoy giving it as a gift to our clients at the holidays. I also love to meet with clients, and prospects, and potential employees as they drink it. While I feel like I should enjoy a cuppa joe, the reality is: “I do not drink coffee!”
About twenty years ago, in a city far from where my agency is located, I learned a valuable life lesson.
Gathered with me in an old room with dated furniture on a cloudy fall day were 12 people who I’d never met prior to that week. A few days before, we went through a tryout of sorts, and that was also a strange experience. I always wanted to...
People want to improve. Well, most people do anyway. They’ll talk the improvement game. They’ll go to conferences. They’ll read those books. Most will target a...
On the first night of November (which did seem weird), the Houston Astros captured their first-ever baseball World Series Championship. Just four years ago they were the laughingstock of the baseball world and had lost over 100 games – a near record for futility.
In the marketing world, we tend to be heavily focused on the next month, quarter, or year.
I will often judge how much we’ll enjoy an act at The Spot based on one natural interaction: I watch how the artist treats our magical, kind, and helpful sound engineer, Travis. If they care for him and treat him well, their performances are almost always extra enjoyable.
B2C Enterprises invests over a million dollars in media most years, while at the same time, interacting with salespeople from at least seven states. That’s a lot of business transactions and a lot of sales appointments.
Use someone else’s informative and entertaining story until you create your own to share. I did this when I was younger and I also did it seven years ago when I started my advertising agency.
They’ve ruined the process for many. Certainly they’ve made a lot of work for those who genuinely do put their prospects' best interests first. Typically when a salesperson walks through the door, the potential client leans to the position of distrust. It may be unfortunate, but it’s generally the case.
You get in and settle into your job and before you know it, the realization hits there are lots of other things that need to get done.
Recently I was watching the movie “Inception”. I had seen it before and understood most of the plot, but this time something else caught my attention.
Throughout the years I have written a lot about your message and how to craft what you want to say in your marketing, business development and advertising. Here’s a simple B2Seed reminder for your ongoing consideration…
There was something at the front door. It was the 2012-13 Yellow Book, but it could have just as easily been the Easy to Use One, the Verizon one or some other one. Phone books.
These days there are smart phone aps that allow you to stand in one store and check a competitor’s price right then. If the other location has something cheaper – you leave, go across town, and buy the same item for less money.
While I am no expert in the area of Food & Wine, even I know good wine needs time to breathe. A steak fresh off of the grill needs a few moments to settle before being served.
Like many of you, I have been following the activity over there and watching what happens. Back in the spring Facebook was an integral part of the Egyptian revolution as we witnessed a government in place for decades crumble in days.
The concept of social media marketing, web site marketing, or even that very first and most simple step of building a web site should start with an even more basic question.
To him it wasn’t really anything against State Farm (I breathed a sigh of relief for Big Red). It was that he really liked Geico.
There seems to be a bit of a flurry lately. In the past three or four months I have had a number of companies and organizations reach out to me to ask about their web sites.
For years I have explained to clients that it isn’t necessary to put all their information and statistics in a commercial or have the staff standing in front of the business waving --- in order to get viewers to notice them.
Splinter audiences, narrowcasting, multiple channels, niche marketing…these are all relatively new terms used to describe the extreme targeting of smaller, more interested audiences.
Budget to increase profit.
Compelling stories sell.
One-size-fits-all—except when it doesn’t.
There are plenty of tools at our disposal at any given time, and we have to know when and how to use them to fix our clients’ problems. You’re running your business and it’s not necessary for you to understand how to apply those five critical tools we use in our business . . . you just have to know who to call.
Through the years, I’ve shared my professional background in television advertising sales. As a salesperson, I kept a close eye on the annual Emmy Awards. The more awards our shows won, the easier it was to sell commercials to advertisers – plus it was more fun to brag when you represented a network affiliate that won a big haul.
If you’ve ever looked at the sales process then you already know that people buy from people they know and trust. If you haven’t thought about it, now is a good time to consider what I call the “headwinds” in the sales process.
We get it. It’s a big commitment. You don’t want to invest all your time just to get hurt again. You want someone who listens and communicates, someone who supports your growth and grows with you, and most importantly, someone you can trust.
What’s Content Marketing? Simply put, Content Marketing is the foundation for an entire marketing and communication strategy. Content Marketing can help your website rank on search engines, position you as a subject matter expert, build your stakeholder list and engagement level, and nurture...
Fear is a powerful motivator.
That’s a commonly shared saying that struck close to me a few springs ago in March of 2020. We rebranded our decade old marketing and advertising firm.
It came up yet again in a recent leadership meeting at the agency.
One of our Directors joked that in advertising – patience is a virtue. It’s just like real life and that long-shared saying applies to the marketing world too.
Anyone with today’s technology can send an email anywhere, at any time. But you’re not just anyone – you’re a hard-working someone who is going on vacation this summer, and your eyes could use a break from your digital mailbox. Before you trade in your laptop for your flip flops, there’s one vital and innovative mechanism you absolutely must remember to activate before you take to the skies: your email’s autoresponder!
So many of our clients are using marketing and advertising to support their sales process. Marketing and sales typically go hand in hand and, in fact, many companies have combined those departments. When we engage our clients in an advertising program, it is often to help them with “direct response” results.
While it seems like it was just yesterday, I remember back in the ‘80s when my workplace was decorated with those motivational posters featuring a beautiful photograph and a strong statement intended to lift the spirits and inspire everyone. I bet you’ve seen those, too.
Your business website is designed with your customer in mind. But have you also considered the possible jobhunters who will navigate your website?
You’re pretty careful not to hand your car keys to just anyone, right? I mean, sure – a valet, the guy at the car wash, your spouse – to those folks you’ll toss ‘em and take your chances. Your teenager? That may be a different question. How about someone you don’t know very well? Not likely.
Where did the curiosity of our youth go?
You’re always marketing. There’s no rest. It doesn’t matter if you are a start-up, a tech company, a retailer, a home services expert, or anything else. Whatever you do in business or industry, you’re always marketing yourself.
It’s been well documented in past B2Seeds that I wasn’t the best math pupil. In fact, I never even made it to high school calculus. It certainly didn’t help that we weren’t allowed to use calculators on tests. I do remember wondering why I had to work out those problems by hand when my calculator could do it for me!
When I started this company 14 years ago, Public Relations wasn’t a focal point of our new firm. Back in those days, we farmed out press releases, press conferences, and even media training. My background was in the television media business, so I was more focused on the advertising side of things in our industry.
Some of the best ideas are stolen (may I more politely say borrowed).
Over 30 years ago I was a TV sales manager who called on business and ad agencies in Michigan. One agency founder had a fun title on his card, and I remembered that. Fifteen years or so later, when I started my company, I decided I wanted to have some fun with our titles, as well. Internally we all know what we do, but externally, we like to poke a little fun at the formal titles and let our experience and sunny outlook shape the language that distinguishes us.
Over the past five years we’ve built nearly 70 websites. Some have been from scratch, but many are conversions of sites that needed updating, a more modern look and feel, or to better reflect the shifting work our client is now doing.
I remember one in particular where our client insisted over and over that the information on their current (dated) website would simply transfer over to the new design we were doing. No matter how often we asked, we got the same answer. They would not need new copy. When we showed them...
A budget is a plan.
That’s all it should be.
Let’s be honest at the start of 2020 people were not calculating how to incorporate the adjustment that would come from a worldwide pandemic. No matter what type of industry in which you operate, there were far-reaching ramifications and everyone had to adjust. The budget situates you for success, growth, and should allow you to figure...
From all accounts, Zoom calls are going to remain a part of the business day.
For years companies ran WebEx, Teams, and other video conference meetings, but it wasn’t until 2020 that we all started playing in that arena on a regular (read: daily, or even hourly) basis. That shift was startling to many...
Late last year something happened in my business’ sales cycle and it got me thinking.
To support another organization, I placed a call to a friend of mine whom I had known for about a dozen years. In the course of the conversation about this other topic, he asked me about marketing and advertising. He wondered how we help clients...
The year was 2003 and sequels were all the rage – The Lord of the Rings, Matrix, and Terminator movie series were topping the box office. Speaking of Terminators, it was that year that Arnold Schwarzenegger became California’s Governor too. The government was...
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