What Exactly Are Facebook Offers? 

‘Offers’ are a quick and simple way to give a deal/coupon/offer to your Facebook fans.  The best part? This feature costs you a grand total of…nothing!

Why give it a try? According to ExactTarget, 58% of Facebook users that like a page expect to receive discounts or promotions.  Now Facebook Offers is the easy way to give fans the exclusive deals they crave.

We’ve tested the waters with a few clients, on the positive side because it is new feature that people aren’t used to seeing a lot, there has been more sharing that has taken place than with a typical post.  If gaining more exposure is your goal then in the short time that we’ve played with ‘Offers’ we’ve seen that happen.

To Set Up Your Facebook Offers:

1. 1.   In the status box of your page select the Offer, Event+ option
   2. Click Offer
   3. Upload a compelling image (90×90 px)
   4. Insert Headline Text (90 characters)
   5. Set the Claim Limit & Expiration Date
   6. Add Terms & Conditions (900 characters)
   7. Click Preview
   8. Click Post
   9. Your offer is now live!

 Claiming Facebook offers:

It is as easy as setting up the offer itself.   When the person sees the coupon/offer in their newsfeed they will just need to do the following:

             1.  Click Get Offer.

            2. The offer is automatically sent to the email attached up to your Facebook account.

            3. Check your email.

            4. Print the coupon/offer to bring into store, or better yet just show coupon/offer on your phone.

Facebook Offers Summary:

This is just another tool for your marketing belt.  Today we need as many tools as possible.  This will obviously work better for some categories than others.  Restaurants as well as categories with a lower average ticket whose products we use often could do very well with ‘Facebook Offers’ if executed properly.   If this sticks around I think the more people become aware of it and how to use it the more popular it will become for the retailer.

Any questions we’d love to hear from you.   http://paraduxmedia.com/contact-us/

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Image via CrunchBase

Every marketing campaign has different goals and objectives, or at least they should.  Google AdWords can be an effective marketing tool if used correctly.  Running a campaign on Google AdWords isn’t much different than a print campaign.  Typically there are one of two objectives in a print campaign, build image or response call-to-action.  We look at Google Adwords for the local business the same way.

Long Term Google AdWords:

For the more image awareness impression based AdWords campaign it should be looked upon like the tortoise, a long race.  The first campaign is focused on longevity and impressions, so you’ll want to do some key word research and select maybe a dozen keywords.  Select an amount per day that if you were to hit that amount 20 days out of the month it would be within your budget.  If you’re going to budget $150 for the month then $7 per day might do.  When selecting the geographical area, don’t cast too wide of a net, keep it close.

The ad should reflect more of what you stand for and offer position.  With so many national companies purchasing Google AdWords to market to our local areas the advantage that you have it that you are local.  Make sure that in one of the three lines available to you that you make a local reference.

Call-To-Action Google AdWords Campaign:

Sellon tragedia ja Adwords (Photo credit: Issakainen)

For a more call to action shorter sales spurt, you’ll want to at least double the daily amount of your long term budget and run it for 7days for a 4 day sale.  You’re going to want to maximize keywords; depending on your business category using 75 to 200 keywords is not uncommon for this type of GoogleAdWords campaign.  You’ll want to increase your reach, so not only would you include your county, but you’ll probably want to include the two nearest counties as well, after all it is a sale.  This will cast the broadest net, but still be able to produce results and with not much of an investment and the all-important ROI.

The ad needs to include save X%, a lost leader, financing, the typical hooks you would see in a call to action ad.  For most sales you’re sacrificing margins for volume, so you want to entice hits so you can get the amount of invoices to make up for the possible loss on your average ticket.

Google AdWords and SEO:

A Google AdWords campaign can go hand in hand with working on your SEO.  If you’re a local business that is trying to improve your SEO launching a Google AdWords campaign will kick start traffic to your website.  It will also give you a great understanding on what terms people are searching for and will help you improve the keywords that you are using in your website content.

Google AdWords Strategy:

Have a Strategy.  Have it complement your SEO.  If you perform well on searches are you defeating the purpose by having a pay per click ad where you’re already appearing at the top of the page?  What days are you running.  I know they say a click is a click but where people are at and their mind set when they do click is important, can they act?  Do you include your competition as keywords… Think of all the angles and have a plan.

Summary:

Google AdWords can be an effective marketing tool in your belt.  It can be effective to drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your website, much more than a banner ad can do.  It’s effective as you’re hitting people who are interested in what you do or sell, as they are searching for what you do but don’t have their mind made up on who to buy it from.

Set your budgets.  While Google AdWords can be a solid marketing tool it can be very COSTLY if you DO NOT set the correct budgets and time frames, don’t make the mistake of over looking those features.

Like with most marketing platforms the results will depend on how effective the execution is.  If you have any questions about how your business can execute a Google Adwords campaign feel free to contact us, we’d love to hear from you.

No minimum buy

• 4 Google AdWords “Strategies” doomed to fail (cleverzebo.com)
• How to NOT Lose Money with AdWords (bizsugar.com)

It was a busy month with political campaign, the launch of a brand, the vintage faire, Memorial Day Weekend sales and our normal daily business and plenty of new websites that were launched.

If you ever have any questions about branding, marketing or advertising we’d love to hear from you. 

Image by VinceHuang

Do you own a salon equipment business or manufacture your own salon products? It can be a tough market to crack. With a quick search on the internet, you can probably find thousands of salon equipment vendors doing business. This means for you to compete, you will need a good marketing plan. You want to reach salon owners efficiently without having to spend a ton of money. With a simple marketing plan, you can target salon businesses in your local area as well as across the nation. You can show business owners the wonderful products you have to offer in just a few simple ways.

The best way to advertise your business is on the internet. You will need a strong online presence to compete with other manufacturers. Online advertising is extremely affordable and it is the best way to reach people. Spend the bulk of your marketing budget on your website. Your store website needs to be easy to navigate and needs to provide potential clients with all the information about your products. Spend some time with a professional web designer to create the perfect site. A great website will have customers returning for more.

Few Online Traffic Ideas

Once you have a fantastic website, you will need to help customers find it. This can be done in a number of ways. The most cost-efficient way is to set up social media accounts.  This will cost you nothing, and give you the opportunity to market your salon equipment business to millions of people all in one place. You can let people know about sales, events, and new products like shampoo bowls. You will even have the opportunity to chat with other users and reach new customers in ways you never thought possible. This is the best way to let people know who you are.

You can also invest in simple mailers or catalogues. Get a business address list of potential customers and send out flyers and catalogues periodically. This is still a great way to get a business owner’s attention. Sometimes the internet can be overwhelming and distracting. With something tangible in their hand to read, they will pay closer attention to what you have. Direct mail pieces can be sent for new products, specials, and sales. If you have a warehouse or showroom that clients can visit, you should definitely target salons in your local area with mail pieces.

Marketing your salon equipment business is easy. Without having to spend a ton of money, you can find and reach new customers and see great success.

Eric Blair is an honored salon equipment expert writing specifically about salon chairs from Salon Equipment Factory and how to improve a spa. He has been in the custom salon furniture manufactring industry over 40 years, distributing to over 50 countries worldwide.

It would have been difficult under their current format so we listened to Nancy and Kathy and what they wanted, not only the look for today, but also goals and what it could be a year from now.  With all of that information we redesigned the Upper Rogue Independent on a WordPress website.

Giving the URI the ability to generate revenue from ad space, have a paypal account for subscriptions and most importantly they will be making their entire publication available to be downloaded from the site sometime this summer.

It is our home town newspaper and we were delighted to help in this project as the success of the URI is critical to the success of our back yard, the Upper Rogue.

One client that we began working with on their SEO has gone from getting 16 to 30 hits a day to consistently getting over 100 hits a day.  The combination of using social media, mainly twitter, properly SEOing their blogs, and adapting the correct keywords to their content have provided a winning formula for our SEO clients.

We offer varying SEO packages that are customized to each client that we serve.  Improved SEO for your business can be more affordable than you might think, contact us for a free quote on how you can improve your SEO and SEM.

With the Facebook IPO and GM pulling their Facebook ads there has been a lot of talk regarding the effectiveness of running ads on

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook.  We’ve run several ads for clients on Facebook, like with all advertising, the execution, the category and the set goals will have everything to do with how you feel about the platform.

Don’t let GM’s decision have anything to do with whether or not Facebook Ad’s are right for you, Ford is doing wonders with Facebook Ad’s, but that shouldn’t have anything to do with your decision either.

Targeting Your Facebook Ads

For business’ that target a more local or regional audience using Facebook ads as a complement to another campaign that you are running will increase the rate of success tremendously.  For most of our clients we like to run either Facebook or Google AdWords as a secondary layer to a marketing plan.

With Facebook not only gain exposure through impressions, but gain quality ‘likes’.  Facebook gives you have the ability to target, geographically, demographically, psychographically.  Target, target target.  Use the ability to target your Facebook ads who you want to spend your budget on.

There are two basic Facebook Ad’s one is more targeted to people clicking through and landing on your page and one is more geared towards generating likes.   Choose what’s most important.  Is this a campaign to make people aware of an event or sale, or long term and ‘likes’ are the most important goal?

Once you know ‘WHY’ you’re doing this and have some goals and objectives, here is what you do:

1. Compelling body copy- Keep it short and straight to the point. Facebook now only allowing 90 characters for copy, say what you need and let the destination of the ad speak for itself.
2. Crisp images- The image is the most important as it is the first part of an ad that a person sees. A clear image- sized to 110×80 pixels on Facebook- will drive a person to then read the copy, and then click on the ad to interact with what you are promoting.
3. A clear and focused destination –  Where would you like for them to land.  On your timeline, or a specific story or post.  If this is about a specific event or sale then you’ll want to have them land on what you’re specifically trying to promote.

1.  Segment Your Campaigns – Identify the different audience groups you are targeting and create 3-4 well-targeted ads for each group. You can target by location, age, gender and interests.  Test which audience responds best to each ad. Adjust your budgets to focus on the high-performing ads.

Summary:

Facebook Ad Campaign Checklist

1. Run Facebook Ads to build up your fan base.
2. Once you have around 1000 fans, use Sponsored Stories to interact with friends of fans.
3. Structure your campaign by segment then test 3-4 ads per campaign.
4. Use compelling copy and images for each ad, tailoring your message to the right audience.
5. Track ad performance on Ads Manager every couple of days.
6. Pause low performers and adjust budget; play around with ad text and images. Remember: Only Sponsored Stories that are doing really well appear in news feeds. So, monitor and optimize your Sponsored Stories, in particular.

• Facebook ads – focus on growing and engaging your fan base (freshnetworks.com)
• Do Facebook Ads Work? (optimalweb.biz)
• Designing Facebook Ads: Which Ads Offer Effective CTR? (social-mediahub.com)

The Butcher Shop Facebook page is a great study in how important your in-store personality can be to how engaging people will be with you on your Facebook page.

The Butcher Shop is a very friendly place from the moment you walk in the door.  The Cheers song has always gone through my mind when entering the store, you feel like everyone knows your name.

The Butcher Shops Facebook page is geared to making updates on new product releases, specials of the day, catch of the day, some tips on what and how you can prepare certain proteins always available at The Butcher Shop as well as just having some TBS fun!

Ask the question:  “People wonder if we’re worth the drive from Medford, Central Point, Ashland… We say yes, what would you say? Click ‘like’ if you make the short drive for The Butcher Shop!” Get 83 ‘Likes’ and 22 comments…  That when they had only 450 ‘likes’  That is getting just about everyone on your page involved.

Introduce a new product – get, 37 ‘likes’ 6 comments.

What the Butcher Shop’s Facebook Page shows is that it’s as much about what happens in your store as what is said or posted on Facebook.  If you’re very engaging with your customers in your brick and mortar then it carries over into the store on Facebook.

Our recommendation, go visit The Butcher Shop you’ll fall in love with the store the moment you walk in, the local flavors, the local feel, a place where everyone knows your name…  Then like them on Facebook and you’ll understand what the engagement is all about.

Mind you, I’m not complaining whatsoever; any day I get a free slurpee or donut is a great day in my book. It seems like every month has a day or a week that companies could use to promote their brand and create engagement with fans on the various social media websites. If you’ve never done a promotion like this, it’s understandable how tricky it sounds. It doesn’t have to be, though!

How to start:

It all starts with a little research on which days you could celebrate that would best fit into your industry. I’d recommend HolidayInsights.com, and for a clean and easy-to-read version, Renfro’s School District website. While reading through them, ask yourself, “Does it make sense for me to give out product X on day Y?” If you can make a connection, then it’s a winner and you should go for it! If you’re stretching to make it fit, then move on and continue searching. I promise there’s at least one day out of the year that will work perfectly for your promotion.

Extra Credit: Awareness weeks and months give you an extra-long amount of time for promotion. Maybe instead of doing a one-day, “everything is 50 percent off” sale, you could do a week where everything is 10 or 20 percent off. For a month long promotion, do something unique or offer discounts on specific items every day to give some variety and keep customers coming back throughout the month.

How to promote:

There’s no point in throwing a fun promotion if nobody ever knows about it! You have to promote, promote, PROMOTE your special day/week/month. Depending on how successful you want your promotion to be, put some thought into how early you advertise it. If you start to promote the day before, then you won’t have a good turn-out, but promote as early as possible and you’ll be sure to see people stopping in specifically on that day or week.

Social media is another easy way to promote your awareness day. Create an “Event” on Facebook to remind people and allow them to RSVP. This is a great way to get the word out, because when someone says they’ll attend, it lets all their friends know on their news feed and you could reach people you never would have before. You could also think of a fun and creative hashtag for Twitter that customers could tweet while waiting in line, something that encompasses the day into it (Some examples are #SlurpFreeDay for 7-11 or #DonutDay for Dunkin’ Donuts). Just with the Facebook event, hashtags could put your message in front of new people.

What to do on the day of the promotion:

When the big day arrives, be ready for it! As exciting as it may be to see a line of people out the door and wrapped around your building, the people in that line will not be as excited. Long waits may even detract people passing by to come in, because who wants to wait in a line for something they don’t know anything about? Make sure you have all hands on deck and working, too. The quicker you move people through, the quicker people can get out there and tell their friends and family about your promotion!

During the promotion, try to snap as many pictures as you can of customers, employees, and other goings-on. These pictures create further engagement on your company’s Facebook page! Not only will people who were there get a kick out of seeing themselves and other customers, but people who missed the promotion or decided not to go will make a note to go next year.

Any company can throw a “President’s Day” or a “Memorial Day” sale, but you’re more clever than that. You know that having a “National Chocolate Ice Cream Day” or “Chaos Never Dies Day” is a much better way to attract customers. Or at least now you do, right? Check out those calendars and see which day is the perfect one for you to celebrate!

Amy Swanson is part of the content department at Quality Logo Products. When she’s not writing killer content for giveaway items like promotional tote bags, she’s blogging about business inspiration. She is a marketing nerd and TV enthusiast who cites Parks and Recreation as one of her favorites. But don’t ask her to put in a good word with Ron Swanson – she unfortunately can’t help you there.

Goals of the Survey

Let’s back-track a little – the goal of any survey needs careful consideration about the wording and how the survey questions are structured. In most cases, a psychologist will devise the survey in a special way which means that the answers will draw the best conclusion from the answers. Surveys can also cover many topics for the same product or service to gain the most advantage out of each survey. The target market or group of people that take the survey also need to be filtered so the right people are targeted. You’ll notice that your interests, age and sex normally have a big effect on what surveys you get.

Examining the Data

Although the survey companies have different ways of deciphering the results from the surveys, there are certain software and manual checking that can configure the actual averages of the results together. This is then sent to the company in question to give a researched positive or negative review of what the survey set out to achieve.

Piling millions of dollars into a new venture is therefore hanging in the balance for the results of the survey and many people who take the surveys think this is even more important than getting paid! Of course, a monetary offering is gladly accepted.

Different Phases of Research

There are of course different parts to the development or redevelopment of products and services. The competition can be checked on to see what people’s views are of other companies. This gauges how different the company’s products are to that of their competition. However, you could be involved in surveys that look at new products, rekindling old ones or revamping existing ones. It could also be devised to find out buying patterns, habits and trends.

The questions might be geared around finding out spending habits or what people expect from existing products. Every single question is important and that’s why companies spend a great deal of time creating the surveys and analysing them.

As you can see, there are more parts to the online survey process than just filling out multiple choice questions. You can be actively involved in the process and get paid for your time. It’s quick and simple to help a company achieve better results, but you’re not only getting paid for it you’re helping everyone that buys from the company by helping them create better products.

If you want to earn more money, work at home, add an additional stream of income then taking online surveys is a great way to do it.

Barry Gardener has been helping large companies with their product research and market research through taking part in thousands of paid internet surveys over the years and has loved every minute of it.

The challenge Asante encountered was that running with three distinct names: Asante, Rogue Valley Medical Center, Three Rivers Community Hospital the community didn’t fully understand the power of the Asante system. They were confused about why one was referring to the other, and they didn’t understand the aggregated healthcare power that that Asante brought to bear. Paradux Media Group helped collect the academic and real-world marketing research that allowed them to make the decision to become one brand instead of multiple brands… to become Asante.

At the same time, there is considerable brand equity in the hospital names, although they are not reflective of the current scale of the facilities. Rogue Valley Medical Center is actually the Regional Referral Center in Southern Oregon. And Three Rivers Community Hospital has grown up to become a Medical Center. It made sense, more accurately name the facilities in conjunction with the naming convention change.

Leveraging all the research and brand equity, pairing it with Asante’s new logo, the two hospitals will now be known as Asante  Rogue Regional Medical Center and Asante Three Rivers Medical Center.

My Circle K is just a number of Circle K’s that are all owned here in Southern and Central Oregon as well as Northern California.  After all it is nice to know that even though these can be looked upon as ‘big boxes’ it’s nice to know that the owner is local, pays local taxes, sends his kids through local schools and supports local events.

Websites are certainly the hub for any on-line marketing and promoting of specials.  In wanting to create their own local specials it was important to create the hub, the My Circle K website.  The site allows my circle k to not only promote national monthly offers but also be able to target the local market as well, including the lottery and winning lottery numbers.

This is going to be a great tool with local reward programs rolling, local sponsorship and at the same time using the national klout for locals to have a chance to win big prizes.

You may have seen or heard the recent commercials from the US Postal Service regarding their new campaign Every Door Direct Mail.  Are you a small business owner or an agency for small businesses that is considering the US Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail?

So Just How Does Every Door Direct Mail Work?

Every Door Direct Mail™ enables you to cast a wider net for less than ever before. Plus, you can do so without the need for costly mailing lists, permits, and related fees. With Every Door Direct Mail, you can distribute an “every home” mailing without applying individual names and addresses to each mail piece.

Pick Your Every Door Direct Mail Routes:

In short, you can choose the postal routes (similar to neighborhoods) where you want your offers to go, and then your mailers are delivered quickly and accurately.  You can pick your postal routes through USPS here or you can use Melissa Data, with Melissa Data, Household Income is available with each postal route.

 Large Size Card = Better Response: 

An 8.5″x11″ is over 3 times the size of a 4″ x 6″ postcard and costs less to mail! Plus you’ll have plenty of room to convey your message.

Choose Your Printed Piece Size: Choose a size that meets the requirement of the program. The most common sizes we recommend are 4.5″ x 12″, 8.5″ x 11″ and 11″ x 17″ bi-folded to an 8.5″ x 11″

The maximum pieces that can be sent out on any given day is 5,000

Downfall:

It does require more work on your end.  You have to go to the post office to mail the pieces, and you have to go to the post office that is in the zip code of the routes that you will be sending your pieces to.

You’ll also have to hand them the exact amount of pieces that are on the route list, in bundles of 50.  When you’re picking out the route whether on USPS or Melissa Data it will list 352 households so 353 pieces will be needed, bundled in 50 of course.

When having your pieces printed have the printer insert a different colored piece of paper after every 50 pieces to keep you from counting possible thousands of pieces.

Summary:

Cost 14.5 cents for postage.  The size, weight of paper and design will determine the final cost but you can figure that you’ll be in every mailbox for a cost of somewhere between 21 and 25 cents.  That’s pretty good by direct mail standards.

We’ve had a couple clients participating; one that has sent over 100,000 pieces since the beginning of the year and is very encouraged with the results.

While this like any direct mail piece is going to benefit some category of businesses better than others, if you’re thinking of a direct mail campaign it’s hard to find a more economically efficient way of doing one.

Related articles

• Every Door Direct Mail, Investing In Steinway And Searching For Emelia. (cadmefoghlamthainniu.wordpress.com)

We had an Every Door Direct Mail campaign as the primary for Brenner’s and the on-line ad will make a nice complement.  The Register Guard gave us a large audience and the ability to hit individuals in the opposite version of a print ad than direct mail.

When utilizing on-line advertising you want to create a couple different looks that stay within your brand.

We designed one look to capitalize on Brenner’s ‘local’ position:

An ad that used the Brenner’s brand with the Tempurpedic brand:

An ad that used the Brenner’s brand with the Tempurpedic savings:

While Banner ads always give you those massive impressions, we can all debate their worth. When you’re looking at having your link on another source Google Analytics will give you a pretty good idea of the success of the ad.  Google Analytics will tell you how many hits came from the source, how long they visited your site as well as how many pages they viewed.

If you’re interested in any on-line advertising give us a call we’d love to talk about the pros and cons of on-line Banner, Facebook or Google AdWords advertising

Having a mailing list is a highly valuable asset and something that you can use to make a huge amount of money and to promote your business and your products to a large number of people. If you want to make money from an e-book for instance, or from a course that you are going to run online via a series of podcasts or videos, then you can use a mailing list in order to quickly build anticipation for this and then to gain a lot of sales when you unleash your project.

The problem however is that your e-mails need to be read if they are going to have any impact on your sales. And this is where things get difficult. When you have a mailing list you have the ability to market to people inside their inboxes. However the difficult aspect is that so many people will just see them and delete them without even reading them. Tricky…

How to Get Your E-Mails Opened

So how do you make the most of your mailing lists and ensure that your messages actually get opened? Well the answer is that it is all in your subjects are what your people will read and they are what they will use to decide whether or not they have any interest in what you have to offer them (that and the name of the person who sent it…).

The way to get your e-mail read then is to think about the psychology of the person reading that subject heading. People are drawn to e-mails that sound genuine and sound as though they are from a real person on their contacts list, or that might have real opportunities. They instantly turn off if an e-mail doesn’t seem personal or if they know that they’ve been sent to lots of people.

One thing you can do then if you want to be a little more sophisticated is to require people to fill in their names when they fill in their e-mails and to then use this in your e-mail system to automatically put the name of each person you are messaging at the start of the e-mail. So it will say ‘New offers for you Adam’, rather than just ‘New offers’. This way you can sound more personal but don’t overdo it – remember that real people don’t always use names when they address someone, particularly by e-mail. It can come off as creepy if you don’t practice moderation here…

Learning to Sound Human

More important is to just generally phrase your e-mail in such a way that it seems as though you are talking directly to that person. Think about how you would phrase the subject heading of a regular e-mail to someone – chances are that it would be brief and abbreviated and just reference the e-mail. For instance it might say ‘Suggestions’ or ‘Some great ideas’ rather than ‘Lots of great ideas you can use on your website!’. You might even just say ‘hi’.

Another thing is to make it sound like you’re responding to a question or conversation which will pique people’s interest. Starting with ‘Re: Your query’ for instance is a little trick that will make it look as though you’ve been asked to message them and they might assume they’ve just forgotten to look.

People also like to be important and they like to contribute. So if you look like you’re asking for their help ‘Can you lend a hand?’, or ‘Need some advice’ then they will also be more likely to open for their sense of importance (and because it’s a less obvious marketing strategy).

Likewise consider what they wanted when they originally signed up to your mailing list. Did they get a free e-book on web marketing (in which case ‘A question about your website’ is a great subject), or were they interested in getting fit (‘Your personal training program’).

Vadim Kirichenko believes for success of business, online promotion and proper seo of website is very important. Vadim works with known company providing seo for Toronto and worldwide clients.

Here are some of the directional changes that we made..

•  Simplified the site from a structural standpoint
• Put the focus on the “Real Estate Show”
• Cleaned up some of the code so the site runs faster and with less lag.

Your website is an im[portant marketing tool to represent who you are.  You’re not going to run a print ad that is two years old and no longer reflects what your business/brand is about.  As the Belcastro Brett Brand changed so has their website.  Just another reason why we believe in WordPress for the ability to have a website change with you not against you.

Don't live with a retro website.  Make sure your website is always reflective of what you're about and what you do.  Contact us to find out how affordable a custom WordPress website can be for your business.

Creating a new radio campaign should always be fun.  You’re looking to create and capture a story about the business/brand and to have the story have chapters, legs that you can build a foundation of future ads.

With the new My Circle K stores our P1 audience is 18/34 and P2 is 18/44.  The benefits of “My Circle K,” no hassle quick in and out, can fill up the tank of your vehicle and re fuel the body and mind all at the same place and back on then back on the road.

Targeting today’s on the go individuals.  People that don’t have time to set in a Starbucks all day, people that need their coffee on the run..  Here is what we hear as the beginning of the “My Circle K” radio campaign.  Versatile enough that we can also target the wants and needs of the two genders, this the female version.

Are you in need of a marketing campaign and not an advertising campaign?  Contact us and get a free consultation.

Like most events it doesn’t happen that day, the preparation begins months out.  The Butte Creek Mill begins distributing fliers with all the store purchases in late February.  Poster hit Eagle Point businesses in March.

We updated the poster as more vendors jumped in.  A Google AdWords campaign was run as well as the generosity of some of the local radio stations to help with promoting the event.

It was great to see how many young families attended and have a great time.  In talking with some of the vendors they were very happy with the result.  One of the wineries sold more wine that day than they did for the Roam The Rogue Event which is an all wine event.

We’re already talking about the 6^th annual and can’t wait.

Tisha Oehmen will be speaking at the WESO meeting on September 13, 2012. Her topic will be YOUR Facebook questions!  Topics likely to be covered include:

• the state of Social Media today
• what the differences are between a personal Facebook page and a business Facebook page
• how to manage a business Facebook page
• how to create engagement with a business Facebook page
• what to — and what NOT to do — on the Cover Photo
• your burning Facebook questions!

To submit your question, please just enter in the form below and she’ll include the answer to your specific question in her presentation.

People who work in marketing do not, fundamentally, have the most beloved of professions. From Bill Hicks’ legendary “If anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourselves” routine to your parents who have tell their neighbours that you’re in jail to avoid having to say what you actually do for a living, this is not a field that is hugely popular with people (Which is ironic if you think about it).

But what if there were ways to use your marketing powers for good, instead of evil? What if you used your abilities to get people to give money to a worthy cause, instead of getting them to believe that spraying yourself with unpleasant-smelling deoderant will cause women to literally throw themselves at you?

Well, fortunately there is. The world is full of charitable organisations that need to spread awareness of their cause and gather donations. Marketing jobs in the charity sector are a great way to do the job you love without actively making the world a worse place.

So, now that you’ve decided to turn from the dark side of the force, here are a few hints and tips to get you started.

Do Your Research

The charity sector has a very different set of problems and demands, even to other marketing jobs. Take the time to read about what various charities are doing, look at the campaign’s they’re running and check out the wide variety of blogs, news sites and online databases that can clue you in on what’s happening in this sector.

Sign up for job alerts through as many websites as you can, so that you not only hear about jobs you might be able to apply for,  but also get a more general idea of who these organisations are hiring and what their needs are.

Bring Yourself Bang Up-To-Date With Social Media

If you’ve any experience or training in marketing at all then you’ve probably been beaten around the head with the message that social media is the new frontier until the words “social media” are indented in mirror writing across your forehead. Social media is an incredible tool for raising awareness, and this is more true of charities than it is anywhere else.

92% of the top charities can be found somewhere on social media and the world’s top 25 charities now have more Twitter followers than the 25 top retailers or the 25 biggest companies on the FTSE 100.

Until very recently most of these accounts were handled by interns and volunteers, but as they start to realise what a powerful tool they have at their disposal they’re going to bring in professionals and dedicated, permanent staff.

Be Prepared For Stiff Competition

The UK alone has over 160,000 registered charities, yet each of those charities will only employ a handful of staff. What’s more, they’re popular, especially the bigger charities. Amnesty International for instance has had cases where there have been over 2,000 applicants for one role. While it’s heartwarming that so many people want to work for such a noble cause, it means you’ll have a big challenge ahead of you.

Volunteering is a good way to show your commitment and build up contacts within the organisation. It’s also worth bearing in mind that a lot of charities use agencies to do their marketing, see if you can find out which agencies they use, and try pitching to the agency instead of the charity directly.

Write About Charity

If you’re in marketing or PR than you really need to be keeping a blog. Your blog is your calling card, it’s a good way of building your reputation, ensuring you have the top spot in your Google results and showing people how you think and how you work.

If charity is the area of work you want to get into, then charity is what you should start writing about. Look at the campaigns various charities are running. Which ones work? Which ones could use improvement? How would you handle certain accounts? Talk loudly and publically about this in your blog, and engage other industry figures in conversation over it. You never know who is going to be reading your work, or what possible consequences it might have.

Jim Turnbull is a freelance writer specialising in jobs in the charity sector and other employment-related subjects.

J’s moving specializes in moving senior’s in the southern Oregon area.  Certainly there is extra care and attention that goes into moving seniors, while a strong back is necessary for any moving project, strong ears and good listening habits are just as important.

Giving the caring from the owners for their clients and being able to translate that to their website was priority number one.  While there are a lot of middle aged children making the decisions for their senior parents there are also a lot of seniors making the decision for them, so making the site easy to read, navigate and find.

That’s when working with a company that has a really good graphic designer is important.  We think we have one of the best.  Kelly’s work always stands out and is affordable to and for our clients.  Here is an ad that were created for a local offer and directed to a local audience with the Eugene Weekly and the Oregon Daily Emerald, both audiences that like to lean towards ‘buying local’

Marketing automation is a fairly new concept, developed right around the the turn of the century. Marketing automation is, simply put, software that organizations use to automatically handle the repetitive tasks of their marketing efforts.

Many marketing automation companies are still small and ripe for the picking by larger firms, with Oracle, IBM and Terradata purchasing such companies in 2010, when only about 7-10% of the market had adopted marketing automation platforms in their business. That rate is expected to grow to 50% by 2015, according to Sirius Decisions.

Marketing automation impacts both large and small businesses alike, proving to impact revenue, and creating limitless growth potential. I saw a recent survey noting that businesses using marketing automation experience a 451% increase in qualified leads, who in turn make 47% larger purchases than non-qualified leads.

Media tools and audience response are constantly changing, and marketing automation companies are considered one of the great visionaries in the marketing world. You can rely on them to help your business stay on top of the shifting market conditions, and offer fully customizable software that can be tailored to your business needs. If their base product does not have a function that your company requires, many of them will have a team of technical professionals that will build it for you…giving you what you need!

Creating user-friendly technology and ongoing support are key with marketing automation. Marketers want to focus on just that, marketing. Streamline your efforts, and allow them to concentrate on meeting your marketing needs. What this does is allow them to more efficiently interact with your customers, and eliminate the time spent on the technology aspects.

A good marketing automation company will provide initial training and education for users and administrators, as well as ongoing technical support to make sure your business is getting the most return on your investment.

The last few years have been very exciting for the world of marketing automation, With the rapid change and relevance of B2B marketing, along with the acquisitions of some software vendors by some of the biggest names in technology, the future of marketing automation is looking very bright.

John Ehlenbeck is a small business owner, and contributing writer on marketing automation and all things internet marketing.

What we were able to deliver is something that looks distinctly unique and offers the ability to change and grow as Kubburd itself evolves. Notice the angled “post-its” which dynamically render the latest 4 blogs that have been written, the automatic Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter posts that update everytime an update is made to each platform. And the binding materials that make up the menu.

If you’re interested in seeing how original your site can look, or if you want to plan a site for expansion over the next few years. Contact us, we can help.

A Candidate’s Business Card Design

As a candidate running for office, Dave Hoppe needed business cards. There are two schools of thought around what the business card design could look like. It could be just the basics – address, website, name, or the business card design could be about his position as a candidate and be an integral component in in his overall position. Obviously, we opted for the latter. The business card design we created Dave Hoppe leans heavily upon his logo. As the candidate who is promising to move the District Attorney’s office into the new century from a technology standpoint, we felt it was important to make is business card design reflect that same forward-thinking ideology. As a result, Dave Hoppe’s business card design includes both his Facebook page as well as a QR Code.

Business Card Design Using QR Codes

Using QR Codes in business card design is not for every business, but for a business (or candidate) who is interested in appearing forward thinking — the QR Code can be tangible evidence. In Dave Hoppe’s case, the QR Code leads directly to his website, which is the hub for campaign.

In business card design, it’s really all about finding a way to represent the business or candidate in a rectangle, 2 inches x 3.5 inches wide. If you can do that, business cards become a significant asset to the overall brand position.

Colvin Oil owns of over 50 convenience stores and gas stations from Grants Pass to Redding to Bend along with car washes and oil change establishments. We look forward to helping them brand their stores and give them a bit of a local flaire.  We’ll be working with some of their vendors like Red Bull and Monster, using twitter as well as other social media platforms and venues, promoting special pricing, giveaways and a rewards program.

It will be a lot of fun working with great ownership and management.  We have a feeling its going to keep Kelly, head of our Graphics Dept., busy for a bit.  Look for the work that we’ll be doing with them in the coming months.

While most in the tech industry have been watching the battle go on between Google and Facebook, Google launching Plus and Facebook talking about beginning a search engine of their own, under the radar comes Siri with possibly a huge advantage with local search.  Can Siri and Yelp change the scope of local search SEO?  Yes, if you’re a small locally owned business it’s worth taking the time and effort to work on getting some yelp reviews.

Working with small locally owned businesses I’ve blogged before about the importance of reviews and local SEO search, but this is a game changer for local media search.  This isn’t going to happen overnight, but for the local business owner who will benefit from local searches you had might as well start now, this is why.

In the first quarter of 2012 over 1.5 million iPhones were sold.  This generation of the iPhone comes with your own personal assistant Siri.  The amount of iPhone sales is only going to grow and everyday more and more people are going to have Siri as a personal assistant.  So just how does Siri work with a local search?

How Siri Will Change Local Search

Siri/Apple have partnered with yelp to generate her response to local search requests.  If you were to ask Siri for Mexican Restaurants in Portland Oregon, Siri is going to draw from Yelp reviews with her answer.  So if you want Siri to recommend your business when an iPhone user asks her for relevant suggestions, you’re going to need to focus your priorities on directories and especially reviews on yelp. This is because Siri is going to make recommendations based on a user’s location, and Apple believes that Yelp gives them the most qualified information that is not owned by Google or Facebook.

For a local business and local search what does this mean?  Simply put, businesses will have to strengthen their local presence in Yelp. They will also have to make their websites more mobile-friendly. Additionally, businesses will have to incorporate keywords into their websites that reflect spoken as well as written queries.

As always if you have any questions about how to plan and strategize for this change in local search please contact us we’d be happy to answer any questions about this.

Related articles

• Apple Gives Siri Deeper Integration with Yelp [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
• 4 Ways to Help Siri Recognize your Business (hudsonhorizons.com)
• Apple Updated Siri With Better Yelp Integration {Video} (technocraz.com)

There are all kinds of focus groups, with all kinds of outcomes. Strategic focus groups in particular can be a way to get board members and management to express and see a vision that may not be there without the right questions being asked, and that’s why the right facilitator is critical to the outcome of the focus group.

For Asante, we conducted a series of focus groups for key stakeholders as they considered the brand ramifications of changing their logo, internally and externally.  And if the choice to update their logo was the right one, right now. As you would expect from a group of visionary individuals, there was significant consensus around the direction, and excitement for what the future holds for Asante.

If your business is at a crossroads and needs more information on the direction and where to invest your time or money and are interested in having a focus group conducted for your board, management or customers, just contact us for more information.

All beauty salons were created the same, no matter how different your business looks from others, who your customer base may be, or what type of salon you have. They all have the same business needs: every salon needs customers to drive sales and every owner needs marketing to help create those sales. Without either customers or marketing, no business can survive. Some owners will argue, “but I’m different, and so are my customers.” Sure, you have different customers and needs for those clients, but every owner needs to spark an interest, generate a desire and get people to physically walk into a salon in order to help rake in the dough.

Being Better Than The Other Guys

In an advertising slogan, say you’re the best. Say there are ten other hair salons offering the same types of services. They each have different names, but only your ad claims to be the best of those ten. When a customer sees ten similar names, but only one of them claiming to be the best, which one is she most likely to choose? The one who is the best. It’s that simple.

Make’em an Offer They Can’t Refuse

Vito Corleone had a famous line in The Godfather, “make’em an offer he can’t refuse.” Promise your customers something. In salon marketing especially, customers want to hear a promise that no other place will make them. However outrageous, make them an offer. Say you offer customers a free pedicure when they sign up for a manicure appointment and a facial. You might be worried that hundreds of customers will flood your salon and “rip you off”. Truth is, most people will feel like they’re getting a deal, but by slightly increasing the cost of a pedicure by a few cents and making them sign up for a facial, you win in the end.

Guarantee Them Something

As with making promises, a guarantee assures customers their money will be well spent. Say you want to offer the lowest prices on haircuts in town guaranteed or your money back. How many customers who visit your salon will open the phone book and call each individual business asking for a quote to save a few dollars? Some will, but the majority will not bother to think twice about it. The amount of cash you will have earned because of your hair salon marketing guarantee will more than cover the losses you’ll take for reimbursing the few customers that do find lower prices.

No matter where you post your ads or what method of marketing you choose to use, you need to ensure that your ads stand out. Every salon is created the same. The difference is how you make yourself stand out from the crowd.

The team at Salon Marketing Pros provide you with every spa marketing tool necessary for tanning salon marketing or for salons and creating custom websites for spas.