Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

OWS: Is this a marketing fail or the next big thing?

October 21 2011

Admittedly I’ve been a little under the mainstream media radar lately, but it’s getting harder and harder to avoid the “movement”. So, is Occupy Wall Street great marketing, or listless babble? I came across two blog posts on the subject. You can check out both sides of the argument by going to this post http://su.pr/1TRTHS and this post http://su.pr/2HhYY5. Draw your own conclusions.

Farber’s post is a little crass, but does make a strong argument. I’ve watched the news and one thing is clear, the protestors don’t care for Wall Street. Not the street, but I think Wall Street as the embodiment of what they believe to be capitalism run amuck. Maybe Farber is being too hard on them.

The pro-protest blog post was written by Critithinker. The fact that the author remained anonymous kind of proves several points made in Farber’s post, isn’t the lack of corporate transparency part of the problem? Critithinker believes old school marketing could learn a few things from OWS, or the “movement”.

We’re not about to jump in on one side or the other. To be honest, both make valid arguments for the use of old and new approaches to marketing. If they work together you might truly see something new and different we could all use to sell not just social exasperation, but products and services as well. I just don’t want OVLG; no reason to Occupy VLG for helping companies who’s shares trade on Wall Street. We’re just trying to pay our mortgages, keep the lights on and create jobs.

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Why? That’s a good question

September 16 2011

Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers, a B2B consultancy, recently drafted a post entitled, “Why’s B2B Marketing So Boring?” He makes the argument that it, B2B marketing, doesn’t have to be boring. Bravo! Here’s a snippet. His post is filled with a multi-media barrage of reasons B2B marketing should take off the tie.

Understand your buyers and make it fun. Make them laugh or make them cry, tell them a story or surprise them with insights. They will respond, engage with you and turn into the quality sales leads your salespeople so badly need.

For truly entertaining and informative B2B marketing programs look no further than VLG. We’re so committed to building very un-boring campaigns on behalf of our customers. Also, check out the latest milestone reached by VLG.

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JumpSpark open for business

July 18 2011

For over a month we’ve been fine tuning our sales and marketing tool, delivering on our promise to make JumpSpark available to the masses. JumpSpark, a digital marketing library, is a software application built by VLG for its customers and now anyone in the world. Here’s what you do.

Sign up. No credit card needed. 30-days free.

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Build your library. Pick 10 pieces of marketing collateral and create assets in your library.

Share content. Use posts links to Facebook and Twitter, or use JumpSpark’s email builder to send effective one-to-one emails. These emails are juiced up, giving you real-time alerts when assets in the email are clicked. (Hello, sales!)

Sit back and watch as your team leverages JumpSpark to spread the word at a fraction of the price you’d pay to advertise on Facebook. It’s like crowd sourcing the dissemination of your marketing collateral, interesting articles, earned media, website and more.

Finally, if you’re in sales listen up. Do you want to know if the meeting went well? Want to know if they are blowing you off? That’s where JumpSpark comes in. Send email follow-ups and get real-time alerts when users click assets in the email.

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Getting to stage four

January 11 2011

How would you answer this question?

At which stage should a lead be nurtured before passing it on to sales?

Yep, it depends. I think the answer hinges on how you dissect the question among other factors. What are the stages through which a prospect travels? When does a lead become a lead? Finally, what does it mean to nurture?

If we–sales and marketing–agree on the stages maybe we can determine when leads should be passed to sales.

Stage One, Prospect Research
Build list or cull individuals from a CRM to cleanse data–the source of most clutter and noise.

Stage Two, Marketing Funnel
Plug that prospect into a defined, predictable series of marketing touch points not so much to qualify leads as to eliminate the bad ones.

Stage Three, Nurture
In the truest sense of the word this is where we invest time and money. Now the seed is planted, so it’s time to help it grow.

Stage Four, Outreach
Sales gets a shot at this prospect turned opportunity. Ultimately, sales determines when someone officially becomes a lead. Marketing only creates opportunities and can’t fall into the trap of calling someone a lead.

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The rubber meets the road…

January 21 2010

These days everyone has a formula for marketing success and no two are exactly alike. We either adapt our clients to our direct marketing approach, or adapt strategy to the goals set forth by the client. Giving clients solid advice along backed by previous campaign metrics creates an healthy partnership and solid dialog marketing campaigns. It takes a delicate touch to offer advice without talking down to clients. Many agencies fail here. You should hear our clients relay stories of agency egos the size of conference rooms.

Revenue generation is a team sport. Marketing starts with solid prospect or customer lists.* High mail-to-web rates drive these same prospects and customers into the marketing funnel.** Sticky microsites educate these folks and prime them for discussions with sales. Sales cycles grow shorter as sales gets into deeper and deeper conversations. Decision makers and those that influence the purchase get involved. Revenue is won. It all started with established campaign expectations and a solid customer-vendor relationship.

Not all clients buy into our approach 100%, but together we find ways to leverage our creative work to meet organizational milestones and goals. At the end of the day it’s about communicating expectations, setting goals before the first brainstorming session, and executing against those goals. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

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*Marketers spend far too little time cleaning lists. Traditional direct mail took a shotgun approach. You could afford bogus data, because the per unit costs were somehow justified. Not so with dimensional mail. Higher-end mail pieces help keep lists smaller with better, targeted contacts.

**Once you have a solid list it’s up to us (VLG or whatever agency you use) to deliver a value proposition to those future/current customers. Look for mail-to-web (or visit rates) over 20%. Our Dialog Marketing gives you a leg up with real-time behavior tracking online and notifications via email, SMS, or RSS feed.

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Every Body Poops

November 4 2009

Thanks to long-time friend Susan Abbott, author of the Creative Crossroads blog, for sharing the release of Skip to the Loo, a book by California-based Linda Wright. I’ve been waiting for a chance to share a pictures of our VLG restrooms. Now’s my chance.

First let’s get to the book. I have not read the book, but Linda appears to make the case for restrooms as powerful marketing tools. I don’t think she’s talking about ads over the urinals, but something a bit more sophisticated. In fact, the book focuses on women’s restrooms. It makes the argument that women spend more money, so retailers should spend more making sure their, um, needs are met. The basic premise of the book is “a good bathroom is good for business.”

I can’t endorse the book and I won’t rush out to Amazon and buy a copy, but as a marketer you have to applaud the idea, research and effort that went into writing a bathroom book.

We take a little comfort in the fact that we actually took time to consider how the men’s and women’s restrooms at VLG would be set up to meet our varied needs. We’re a digital ad agency so user interface is always important. Below you’ll find contrasting pictures of how we tackled this opportunity and created two unique spaces in our office.

Ladies first. You’ll see that many of the comforts of home have been incorporated in the design elements. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of the user experience, but it looks pretty. We should spend some money to make it even better. Maybe a little color on the walls.

Artwork, wicker baskets, and scented candles.

Artwork, wicker baskets, and scented candles.


As you’ll see in the pic of the men’s room, we prefer or need only the basics. Nothing complicated. Good reminders. Simple experience.
Simple instructions help get the job done.

Simple instructions help get the job done.

Potty talk may be awkward, but in the end it might be one of the best marketing tools you’re not using effectively. Susan put it best. This is a need felt by 100% of the population.

Follow us on Twitter: @wefightboredom

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Brands: Bend Don’t Break

March 1 2009

We talk a lot about brands. We’re a marketing and advertising agency so it’s hard not too. A year ago, or maybe two years ago we started telling our customers to put their brands on the back burner. There’s no need to march your brand out out in front of your target audience where it will twirl and dance and preen and distract your target audience from your message and your story. Harsh words for someone with a brand management background and a tough sell for us, but we’re sticking to our guns on this one.

Maybe there is a different way to communicate this to our clients. I’m starting to think we should ask them to just let the brand bend a little bit. It won’t break as long as you have a compelling story. To be fair, we do work in the B2B space more often than not. The growth of social media and crowd sourcing brand control on the consumer side no longer rests with the Brand Manager. You might give it a nudge in one direction or another, but branding now resides with consumers and brand evangelists.

In Texas speak, brand control is kind of like bull riding. It’s not the cowboy, but the bull that’s in control.

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Don’t Get Carded

February 27 2009

April Dunford is one of our (new) favorites on the web. If you’re a fan of the beautiful game, or at least pretend to tolerate soccer (Joey) in certain company, you’ll appreciate this little piece.

Just like a foul in a soccer match, bad marketing decisions can be put in two buckets, says Ms Dunford. Sneaky, verbose, meaningless, unsegmented marketing will certainly get you booked. Now that you have a yellow card don’t push your luck. Repeat the same mistakes and you’ll end up with a second yellow that’ll get you tossed. Worse still, lie or cheat or spam and it’s a red card straight away. You won’t do your team any good if you’ve been sent off. Shame, shame.

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Lead Generation Machines

February 24 2009

On Thursday, Bob DeStafano will present a seminar on “How to Make Your B-to-B Website a Lead Generation Machine”. As a premium subscriber on MarketingProfs I like to cheat a little by taking a peak at the slide deck prior to the seminar. I usually base my decision to attend the seminar purely on the content of the slides. I’d wager a bet I’m not alone here. In this case, I’m out. Mr DeStefano loaded 30 slides with some very obvious advice. He also neglects my 10/20/30 rule. Ten slides, 20 pt. font, and 30 minutes to deliver.

What can we surmise from his fully-loaded slide deck? He’s going to speak to the importance of SEO to SEM. If you can get inside your target audience’s head, you’ll use keywords they would use to find you. Most likely these would be based on their real or perceived needs, pain points and solutions. He states, “Make Your Website Customer-Focused”. I hope that’s not news to anyone in the B-to-B space.

Next Mr DeStefano takes us through the importance of converting your web presence into a lead generation machine. We agree. He suggest the use of targeted microsites to drive lead generation. Again, we agree. He speaks to the importance of measuring the impact of your online efforts. Yeah, we agree. Prepare your team to quickly follow-up on the leads generated. Yep, he’s got it.

The real meat of this seminar seems to kick in around slide twenty, so you can roll in a little late on this one and still get good value. If you are not a Premium subscriber to MarketingProfs, keep your money in your pocket and get someone to slip you the slide deck Thursday afternoon. Hint, hint.

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The Lies We Tell

February 20 2009

Waiting in my inbox this morning was an interesting piece by Geoffrey James. He walks us through the five lies marketing tells its sales counterparts. With a title like that you know comments are soon to follow–as of this post he had 38.

For the sake of brevity, here are the lies we marketers tell. 1) Branding is vital to success. 2) Marketing can train sales to sell. 3) B2B marketers conduct scientific research. 4) Marketing can deal with the press. 5). Marketing delivers good leads to sales. There you have it. Now stop lying.

It’s not that easy stop lying, Mr James. 1) At some level branding is vital, but it’s the definition of branding that is changing. 2) Maybe marketing can’t train the sales organization, but we can give them an arsenal of weapons to use. 3) Research is research. Every little bit of intel you can gather about your target audience is helpful. I guess he’s just saying when you collect good information about an audience don’t call it scientific. Okay. 4) Someone that has written for 15 years should be mindful when it comes to lectures about dealing with the press. If you’ve only found 4 diamonds in the rough, maybe it’s you. And 5) This was his big miss. Will sales ever be satisfied with marketing’s efforts on their behalf? It is fair to expect that a cost center and revenue center have differing definitions of leads, or qualified leads. Let me start another paragraph here, because this is our sandbox.

There is no doubt in our collective minds at VLG that marketing and sales do not communicate with each other as well as they should. We also believe marketing works for sales and companies should consider turning marketing into a revenue center rather than cost center. This shift would go a long way, aligning the incentives and measuring stick by which both groups are compared. Talk about bridging the gap between the two. Did I say sandbox?

Maybe I meant soapbox.

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