Articles

Branding Strategies in Marketing

How to Gather Actual Marketing Data

It’s no secret that you need to track your marketing efforts—how else are you going to know what works and what doesn’t!

But there is a trick to tracking your marketing that many companies either forget or don’t know about. The trick is in tracking multiple sources. When a prospect reaches out to you, make sure you are asking specific questions like:
  • How did you first hear about our company?
  • How have you recently heard about us?
Specifically wording your questions in this way, makes the pros…

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Bulls Eye: Striking Gold in Marketing

Imagine sitting in a bar and someone comes up and offers you a bottomless box of darts. No matter how many you take out and throw, there will always be more in the box. Sounds great right? Think of the scores you will be able to achieve with an endless source of darts. There is just one catch: to use the darts in the box, you must be blindfolded.

OK Let’s assume that the box is marketing and the darts are all the different marketing tactics—specific actions or ideas. I bet some of you are thinkin…

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The Employer Branding Secret

The essence of Employer Branding is about organizational authenticity, isn't it? But coming up with a really strong and differentiating Employer Brand seems to be easier said than done. It’s also usually filled with a lot of buzz words.

The more social and transparent that we become, the harder it is for companies to “say this” and “do that”. Accountability now comes from all angles—those who have financial power, those with political power, those with social power, and those that will have the p…

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Are Legos Sexist?

I don’t know if you have noticed, but Lego has been taking a beating lately with claims of the company being sexist in their marketing and who they target their products to. It is no secret that generally speaking, boys are more interested in science and engineering. It is also no secret that the media and toy companies have decided that all girls must love dolls and pink.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is we are creatures of conditioning. How we raise our children and what we expose them to s…

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The Right Words for Marketing

“A culture of trust that encourages empowerment and innovation, we provide people with the freedom, flexibility and opportunity to do great things for our company, employees and customers.”
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a62h6KPX4qw/UBvhxv86pLI/AAAAAAAAEqw/DCYdKZKxMLE/s1600/lying_1.jpgThis quote and others similar always accompany a business receiving an award for best work place. The other time you hear this or some version of it is when companies are going through or need to go through a major cultural change.

One of the first construction conferences I presented at, I was having a drink …

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Blog-Legal

How to Navigate FTC Regulations: The Secrets to Effective Testimonials and Endorsements

For some, testimonials are what sell their business. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is finally catching up to the constantly evolving digital world. For the better part of a decade, the agency lagged a full Internet generation behind advertisers who saw online communications evolving faster than laws governing their fair use. Now the FTC is codifying and enforcing what were once only unwritten rules. As a result, companies caught crossing the bounds of appropriate online behavior now face ha…

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You Realized that You’re a B2Comm Biz, Now What?

As you saw in another post I wrote, B2Comm stands for Business to Community. B2Comm businesses leverage and utilize both B2B and B2C businesses, but they target an entire community instead of only individuals or other businesses.

Also, in that post I mentioned that commercial contractors are an example of B2Comm companies, which surprised many readers. Let’s take a look at why and cover how your marketing will change because of it at the same time.

Generally speaking, commercial contractors have f…

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Clients or Customers: Who Cares!?!

http://d34wpjv4rf3nwa.cloudfront.net/www1/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/customer-satisfaction-survey.jpgThe other day, a friend of mine on Facebook posted about a discussion she had with someone about “Clients” or “Customers.” They were discussing the differences between the two and which word you should be using to address them.

Here is my question for you: Does it matter?

Yes I know there are die-hards out there who “know” the difference between the two, and perhaps one word invokes a different state of mind within your company. But in the end, seriously does it matter?

Do you want to know my answe…

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Do You Want to Know How Your Competition Gets Work?

Here are some interesting stats from a survey done in late 2010 of commercial construction and design companies:
  • 83% said their primary source of business is repeat clients, referral and networking
  • 17% would be receptive to starting a relationship with someone from a cold call, 20% would review printed material, and 87% would if introduced by a trusted colleague
  • 93% of the industry belongs to at least one business or trade organization, 80% attend at least monthly events, and 20% do not a…

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Do You Want a Chief Marketing or Metric Officer?

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/onmarketing/files/2012/08/1223_super-cmo_392x392.jpg

How important do you think it is for a CMO to be creative?

Traditionally, a CMO is defined as Chief Marketing Officer. I saw an interview with a company that was seriously considering changing its definition to Chief Metric Officer. They felt measuring the metrics of campaigns was far more important than the creativity in today’s market.

When you look at recent economic events, let’s say over the last three years, and factor in that an average CMO remains in one job for only 18 months, to me…

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