Marketing/Public Relations
Trade Show ROI? 4 Ways to Get More of Everything You Want
January 17, 2013
The first trade show of the year opened with a quiet thud. CES’s 3,200 exhibitors may have gotten what they paid for, but unfortunately, almost none got heaping piles of awe-inspired praise (unless, perhaps, you were making a self-driving car.)
Wal-Mart, on the other hand, rocked the house at NRF. How? It announced it would hire Vets and buy (more) American products. The magic number: $50 billion. (Cynics, please sit down: Yes, WalMart is almost singlehandedly discredited with the shrinkage of American manufacturing. And yes, this increase – spread over 10 years – represents just a 1.5 More >
7 Questions to Ask Before Launching an Integrated Marketing Campaign
January 2, 2013
There are many pieces to the integrated marketing puzzle.
When constructed properly, the outcome can be a thing of beauty. But if one or two puzzle pieces get lost — the business impact and ROI suffers.
Here are seven questions to ask before you launch your next campaign to ensure you get the most bang for your buck:
- Perfecting the offer: What’s your offer? Are you bringing customers and prospects value?
- Sales: How can we integrate with lead generation? Are your landing pages optimized to convert?
- Nurturing: What’s the call to action for each campaign element?
- Segmentation: Who’s our More >
What Can Endorsements Do For You?
December 6, 2012
A powerful endorsement can make or break a deal – or in President Obama’s case, a campaign. Just ask Governor Christie and Mitt Romney.
Gov. Christie was a prominent ally to Republican nominee, Romney, but Christie’s very public thumbs-up to Romney’s rival in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy was a gift to Democrats with just one week to go before the election.
Did the President need it? That’s up for debate. But you can bet that it helped.
The same can be said about endorsements for products and services. This type of authentic, third-party backing can help generate leads and convert More >
Inbound Marketing: A Magic Pill For Driving More Leads?
November 21, 2012
HOORAY INBOUND MARKETING!! It’s tough not to get swept up by the inbound marketing hype machine these days.
Leads, demand generation and more leads – that’s the promise of vendors like HubSpot and Marketo. But is it really that easy? The way most marketers talk about inbound technologies makes these tools seem like magic weight loss pills. Just start using them and you’ll be inundated with new leads.
But like anyone that’s ever splurged on that revolutionary diet pill, most marketers find out that these tools are far from magical. Just like losing weight requires diet and exercise (crazy More >
Smarter Hiring: 5 Secrets We Learned The Hard Way
November 19, 2012
I never bought the so-called rule that 1 in 3 hires will wash out – so we rig the stats in our favor, with some tough up-front testing, conversations and profiling. We do this at every level, and for every hire. We started this some 15 years ago, after the unhappy discovery that someone ‘senior enough’ to know how to write actually didn’t write very well at all.
Here’s what I’ve learned is most important about good tests – writing and more – prompted by this interview on writing tests, which just appeared in PR News.
1) Basic works. Our tests are just a simple pitch, and the first few More >