Moncton's Dr.Goobie on ET with Dancing with the Stars

Your options for online ad placement sure have come a long way in a short time. It wasn't that long ago if you were a local company and wanted to advertise online, your options were greatly limited. Maybe the local newspaper site or local information website were your only options. Now, with geo targeting, you can place your online ads on sites where people actually go on a regular basis.


Geo targeting? Geo targeting is the method of determining the geolocation (the physical location) of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP or other criteria. via wikipedia

That means here in Moncton, when I visit ET online, I can see an ad for the Moncton Hospital's campaign featuring Dr Goobie. Pretty cool and very powerful. Now not only can you reach your audience more effectively, but you can associate your local brand or cause with national or international properties.

Blogging campaign drives sales of computers

Need further proof of how powerful the blogosphere can be. How about a campaign that increased the sales of a new HP laptop by 85%. According to Marketing Pilgrim, HP's firm Buzz Corps created something they called the 31 Days of the Dragon where they contacted 31 tech bloggers with influence to give away 31 laptops in 31 days.

This was key: Each blogger made up their own rules about how they would give away the computer and each agreed to promote the contests of everyone else in the group on their blog.

In the end HP received 25,000 contest entries and an average 150% increase in traffic. This translated into an almost 85% increase in sales of a computer that was released just nine months previously!

Nice job!

Read the whole article on Marketing Pilgrim.

Power of the Password

It's amazing to me how free (or unconcerned) people are with passwords. Passwords protect your information, your company, your money, your identity.

It's a simple concept that was brought home for me over the weekend. My 6 year old had a friend over and they were playing on Webkinz world (a great kid-friendly website that is password protected). My son was logging in and forgot his password. So without thinking I blurted it out. Both my son and his friend were shocked. My son freaked and his friend was dumbfounded that I would speak out loud a password.

I said I was sorry and helped my son change his password.

If two six year old kids get it -- we should too.

Protect your password.

Social Marketing Myths

I was chatting with a client last week and something he said really set me back. He is a marketing person at a family owned company and he was hoping to get a family member to be the face of the company so they could start doing social marketing. When I asked him why he needed this specific person, he replied that in order for the company to communicate "like a person", they actually needed a spokesperson, "a face" to do it.

This misconception reminded me of a recent blog post on Convince&Convert about dangerous fallacies of Social Media.

His six dangerous fallacies are:

1. Social Media is Inexpensive
2. Social Media is Fast
3. Social Media is “Viral Marketing”
4. Social Media results can’t be measured
5. Social Media is optional
6. Social media is hard

(Learn about all the dangerous fallacies here. It's a great and valuable read.)

So if I were to add my own dangerous fallacy it would be: You don't need a visible spokesperson - or one single person - for your company to act like a person - that's not what it is about.

This portion of the post post makes the point perfectly:

It’s about having a strategy for making your company or organization more like a person and less like a machine. It’s about humanization.

If your customers and prospects feel like your company is more human and actually cares about them, they’ll want to be part of it.

How do you know when it's time to update your logo?

A recent Seth Godin blog entry referenced to two new possible logo updates for Pepsi and Best Buy that they are considering.








I'm not going to comment on whether these are good or not (at least not in this blog entry), but it got me thinking about how a company determines when and and how to update a logo.

At Razor, we have had the opportunity to update two logos recently - one for a tool and die company and the other for a trucking company. In the first case the logo was created internally and the company has grown and prospered and they wanted a more professional look. In the second example, the company is expanding their operations and they wanted a more national looking brand, one that would stand-up agaisnt the competition.

Given that "you should never ask a barber if you need a haircut", here's a guide you can use to help determine whether it's time for your company logo to be updated, changed or tweaked.


1) Homemade: If you made the logo yourself from clip art ... no brainer - it's time to change.

2) Not world-class: If you put your logo beside that of your competition and it doesn't look or feel as good, you might want to consider updating it.

3) Old and Dated - look: If your logo is older than you are, you might want to consider tweaking it as chances are it's starting to look a bit tired. It's important for your customers to see that you are keeping up with the times and not stuck in the past.

4) Old and Dated - icon: Sometimes logos contain icons that become dated as technology changes. It makes your company seem out of touch. A good example computer-related comanies that show old designs for a computer, mouse or monitor as part of the logo.

5) New focus: If your business has changed focus or direction and you feel the logo (or name) no longer reflects what you are all about. Like what Apple did recently when they went from Apple Computers to just Apple.

6) It's just time for a change. Some times you just feel that it's time for a freshening up. It's just a gut feeling that the time is right to evolve.

So if you find yourself in any of these situations, you might want to consider an update.

Remember change is good... especially if you look at the big picture.

The most frequent roadblock to change is when someone says something like: "we can't change our logo - our customers won't know who we are" or "we have so much equity in our existing logo, we can't change it now" I point to other well known brands and what they have done over the years to keep themselves fresh and relevant:




















I'm sure there are additional points (and counter points) let me know and leave a comment if you can think of anything.


For more logo evolutions, check out Best-ad blog or the results of logo evolution on Google image search

A sign of the time?

Seen at local Moncton Walmart:



Hmmmm....

Problem: Customers do not shut freezer doors all the way and food can potentially thaw and become up safe.

Solution: Put up a sign asking customers to close the door -- sign it "the management" -- that will make sure people pay attention

Problem: Employees can't put up signs without permission.

Solution: Get all signs approved by management before they go up.

Problem: How do other employees know they are approved.

Solution: Have management "stamp" and "initial" each sign --- now it's very official!

Problem: Customers have to see ugly, stamped and initialed signs and wonder what's going on (Like I am right now).

This is what I imagined happened when I saw this sign at my local Walmart. It made me smile when I thought of all the steps that must have taken place for the signs to go up.

REAL Solution: Fix the door so it closes properly. OR: Have a professionally designed sticker thats says something like: To ensure food safety, please make sure doors are tightly shut"

NOW I have a reason to listen to and do as they ask as there is something in it for ME!

Even on a freezer door, the proper message delivered in a correct way can deliver the desired results. Otherwise, you'll likely wasting your time and resources.

Know your audience.... blah, blah, blah

Interesting article about how a letter to alumni at Framingham State College used the term "Blah" 137 times in an attempt to communicate to recent graduates and raise funds.

"Today, the fact of the matter is that deserving students need help to finance their education. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah," the letter said.

I think it is funny that someone thought this was a good idea. While its important to try to communicate to an audience in the way they are used to be communicated with... you have to also keep the subject (reason) in mind. They were not selling Coke or Nike, but were asking recent graduates to part with their money. They just spend some meaningful years of their life learning, growing and becoming prepared to begin their professional lives - so they want to be talked to like adults.

The tone and message can be written is a youthfull way and still resonate with them... but don't be flip about it.

Any way... blah, blah, blah... here's the full story from WCVBTV/DT Boston.

Grade your website

Ever wonder about the how your site matches up?

Just discovered this site and it's great! Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.

It's interesting to plug in your site, your competitors, and other sites you frequent. We all know our sites can be better , this shows you how.

Visit Website Grader here.

Explain Twitter (and other things) to your grandmother

They say is you can figure out a way to explain something to your grandmother, you've found out the essence of the the topic and have boiled it down (or dumbed it down) in such a way that anyone could understand it. The folks at Common Craft have struck upon a technique that does this beautifully. Using paper cut-outs and smart writing they tell the story of everything from Twitter to how the president of the US is elected to Zombies. Basically they make complex ideas easy to understand using short and simple videos

Here's some of my favs:

Twitter:


US Election:


Social Media


Zombies


See more Common Craft videos here.