Archive for month: November, 2012

What’s The Buzz? Join us for Lunch to Find Out.

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Over the past couple of years, through our popular quarterly Lunch & Learn programs, we have tried to present new marketing tips, tricks and techniques.  Our goals are to continue to help you add more arrows to your quiver to enable you to make your marketing efforts, and the measurement of those efforts, more effective.

Our next Lunch & Learn on Thursday, November 29, takes a slightly different approach.  With the variety of marketing channels available, it becomes critical for successful marketing professionals to focus on the necessary tasks to support the organization’s marketing goals.  In addition to the tools, it is also necessary to incorporate not just a project management tool, but a marketing management tool.  Marketers must be able to effectively focus on how to create, store and distribute marketing content in ways that not only save money, but maximize resources while producing higher returns on marketing investment. And that’s exactly what our next Lunch & Learn will showcase.

Jon Davis, COO of lee|Stafford, will present marketing success stories that utilized their Beehive Protocol software.  The Beehive Software solution empowers marketers to support multiple campaigns, channels and activities – both online and offline.  In short, it provides ways to help marketers – Organize, Communicate, Respond, Track, Adjust and Improve.

Jon is a veteran of the medical device and healthcare industries.  He has been instrumental in the development of patient communication efforts and in thousands of product launches that represent billions of dollars in sales for his clients, all using the BeeHive Protocol proprietary software that he helped develop.

Please join us for lunch as Jon introduces this concept of how to available software allows you to maximize your quick response marketing needs in compelling case study examples.

And if that is not incentive enough, one lucky attendee will win a new iPad Mini!

I look forward to seeing you on the 29th!  Register here.

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Paul Strack, CustomXM

@pstrack

A Printer Looks at Fifty

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(With apologies to Jimmy Buffet.)

Mother, mother offset

I have heard your call,

Recognized the smell of your ink

Since I was three feet tall.  You’ve seen it all,

You’ve seen it all.

~~~~~

Watched the men who ran you,

Switch from film to plate.

And in your rollers you held the treasure

We thought would never outdate.  You printed dreams,

You printed dreams.

Yes, I am a printer

Six hundred years too late

The presses don’t thunder, it causes me to wonder

I’m an over fifty victim of fate; arriving too late.

Hell, I’m not too late.

~~~~~

I’ve done a little cross media,

I’ve run my share of stock

I made enough money to Google Miami

But I pissed it away so fast, never meant to last

Never meant to last.

~~~~~

I have been marketing now for over 6 years,

I passed out QR codes and measured till in tears

But I’ve got to keep preachin’, got to keep teachin’

I’ll Lunch and Learn, again.  I’ll invite friends.

Engagement never ends.

~~~~~

I go for younger gadgets

Tried several for a while,

Sure they confuse me and often they lose me

And yet they still make me smile.

It just takes a while, just takes a while.

~~~~~

Mother, mother offset,

After all these years I’ve found

My occupational hazard being

My occupation’s just not around

There’s a movement aground.  Gonna head downtown.

~~~~~

There’s a movement aground.

I may just head downtown.

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Paul Strack, CustomXM

@pstrack

If You Aren’t Doing This, You Are Stupid!

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Having recently attended an industry conference, it’s always refreshing to take the time and go through my notes to see what nuggets have been gleaned.  I am a firm believer that if I can find three or four “takeaways” that allow me to improve what I am doing, then it was money well spent.

imageThis year proved to be no exception, with ideas on improving productivity, new markets to consider, and a heightened awareness of the continuing challenges that lay ahead.  As has been the message for some time now, we can’t really expect an upward shift in the economy to assist our industry. Instead, we will have to continue to create and manage our own recovery.

Often during these conferences, the message is more of a soft sell.  “You might want to look into this opportunity.”  “Hey, it’s possible this could work for your operations.” And the ever-present, “There is no better time to get out than now!”

This year had a little stronger tone, and more of a sense of urgency.  Basically, the prevailing message shouted: “If you aren’t doing this, you are stupid!!”

So where is it that some of us are so lacking in intelligence?

Multi-Channel Marketing

Today our audiences are found in more marketing avenues than ever before.  Social, web, email, mobile, and yes, even print.  Print is still a viable alternative, just not the only alternative.  Are we taking advantage of the opportunities within these channels? Many are extremely cost efficient, and all offer more ways than ever to properly measure this effectiveness. 

If we aren’t doing this, we are stupid.

Mobile Marketing

We know that mobile penetration is over 100% of the US population, and that smartphone adoption continues its upward trajectory. We’ve seen statistics that tell us local mobile searches continue to soar.  In fact, some studies have reported that 65% of smartphone users perform local restaurant searches.  And surprisingly, 95% of independently owned restaurants do not have a mobile site.  Do we have a mobile friendly presence?  Are we preparing for the continuing migration toward mobile? Are we looking for ways to improve our clients’ mobile experience? Are we using best practices with QR codes?  Are we learning about NFC and Augmented Reality?

If we aren’t doing this, we are stupid!

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

I mentioned that print is still very much in the mix when it comes to direct marketing channels.  And the USPS current mail saturation program – EDDM – allows businesses to specifically target zip codes, neighborhoods, or certain postal routes to send information, offers, coupons, and more directly to the customer’s home. EDDM lets you reach EVERY address within a neighborhood.  No need to purchase address lists; and the postage is at a fraction of the cost of standard postage. 

If we aren’t doing this, we are stupid!

Learning, talking, engaging

Communications tools continue to evolve. For better or for worse. But now, more than ever, we have ways of reaching our target audiences, engaging them, and measuring their responsiveness so that we can learn more about them. And that’s the difference. Today, it is all about them.  Not us.  So if we aren’t using these tools to engage, to listen, and to learn more about your clients, we should be.  Now. 

So basically, if we aren’t doing this, we are stupid!

Because this was a seminar that I paid for, I originally took some offense to this name calling.  Yes, I realize if I’m not doing these things, I need to get smarter about making them happen now.  But the very good news I see, as I review where we are and where we are heading, is that we are doing most, if not all of these.  And doing a pretty good job of it.

As a final day wrap up, these seminars always have a session on interpersonal skills.  And my takeaway from that is that I would certainly never, ever stoop to telling clients, prospects or readers that they are stupid for NOT considering some, if not all of these tools.

That being said, I mean really, if you aren’t doing this…

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Paul Strack, CustomXM

@pstrack

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