Recently I was lucky enough to make it to the top 10 shortlist for entries to the Million Dollar Brief: an AdNews competition which asks you to spend $1million on the national launch of a fictitious company. I was also lucky enough to get my photo in the local paper and a short story to feature my achievement. I received a phonecall prior to the article to source some details, and the very congratulatory journalist asked me a very important question: “what did you do that was so different?” The article didn’t do my answer justice, so I’d like to explain myself a little further with the aim of encouraging you to do the same.
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A conversation held with some girlfriends over the weekend made me realise the true power of the customer toilet. It occurred to me that without even realising it, we had judged a whole organisation by the standard of their toilets, or whether they had any at all. All the male readers of this blog will be switching off now, but I urge you to read on and I guarantee you’ll agree with me.
If you have a product with a core target market of anyone aged 15-25, you’re probably finding them very difficult to communicate with. Unless you’re on Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter, you may as well give up. Many companies are sharing your pain. But one very popular and fast growing method, building on the concept of participative marketing, is the ‘brand advocate’ idea.
Now that advertising has evolved to the digital age, the poor traditional alternatives (free to air TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) are being left for dead. Unfortunately, unless they can rid the ‘inflexible’ label they’ve so rightly earned, it is destined to stay that way. Thankfully, there are some media outlets seeing the need for flexibility and are embracing it. I thought I’d bring you a small taste of the plethora of creative ideas being pioneered by some innovative newspaper publishers.
Have you heard all about Google Ad Words or other online marketing options, but have no idea where to start and how you can make it work for your business? Well thanks partly due to the economy and the intense competition between the search giants, Google and Yahoo are going head to head to offer small businesses a free introductory offer of up to $150 for their search marketing products. If you’d like to get your hands on your share, keep reading.
The days are shorter and the warmth is fading. The cricket set has retired to the shed with the Sherrin now waiting for a moment of sunshine. The barbecue cover is on. The forgotten winter wardrobe of boots and trenchcoats is rediscovered. Summer has definitely ended and so has the ‘boom times’ (so the economists keep saying). But it’s no time to let your business fall asleep. Let me tell you why now is the most important time of the year!
When answering surveys that ask – how much time do you spend online each day – I’m one of those sad ones that ticks 5-8 hours. My career choice has forced an addiction to anything new, exciting, different, or out of this world, and that means constant monitoring of what’s online including many many websites. In my daily online travels, there is one thing that really frustrates me that I thought I’d share with you. Websites with empty pages!