While writing my last blog about event marketing, I realized that barn that I keep my horses at is infamous for event marketing to their marketing strategy.  Honey Tree Stables is located five minutes from Miami University in Oxford, OH.  This means, that a majority of its clients come from the University itself.  While this may seem beneficial to the business, it is extremely hard to capture and maintain services for these customers.

In order to gain customers, the owner, Sarah Oelerich, and several of her employees and clients, must ban together to come up with unique marketing strategies.  Many of these ideas market her business through event marketing.  For example, at the beginning of each school year, Sarah and Honey Tree Stables put on an open house.  Rather than just having the barn open for clients and potential clients to walk through the facility, Sarah has a welcome back party with a band and game festivities.  The band, the pool, and the games allows current and potential clients to interact with each other, for them to get to know Sarah and the other staff, and to have a great experience that will make them come back year after year.  After the party, Honey Tree Stables put up pictures and video footage of the event on its website and invited clients to come and view them online.

Sarah also puts on a number of clinics throughout the year, both with her clients and the Miami Equestrian team.  This allows the community and the internal community to get a taste of what Sarah does.  She markets this through email marketing with the Miami Equestrian Team and the clients, posters throughout Oxford, and creating an experience during the event that makes the customers feel like they are at home.

Without these events, many of Sarah’s customers would not get to experience the culture and fun at Honey Tree Stables.  Without these experiences, it would be hard for Sarah to maintain customers. Sarah and Honey Tree Stables do an amazing job at capturing their audiences through event marketing.  Companies that have a hard target marketing to capture or those that have experiences that they want to sell, should try using event marketing.  They should set up events that promote not only the services that they sell, but that capture the experience a customer has when using the services they offer.  Similar to Honey Tree Stables, companies should hone in on a certain area they would like their customers to experience and then build their event marketing around that.  They will see that event marketing does in fact capture customers and if done right, keeps them coming back for more.

Search Engine Optimization is becoming a vital part of small business marketing.  In order to increase the amount of visits to a website each month, businesses must focus on making their websites the best they can and add enough new content that SEO becomes easy.  While SEO seems relatively simple, there are a lot of different areas that business can focus on whether it be content, blogs, PPC, linking to other pages, etc. 

After working at a small Cincinnati marketing firm for a month and a half now, I am starting to understand why each of the areas of SEO are important to small business marketing.  Blogging for business is probably one of the most important SEO strategies that a company can implement.  By having quality content on the main pages, blogging keeps the rest of the content fresh and up-to-date. Having this constant changing content, Google then recognizes this and puts the website higher on the search rankings.  In addition, adding links within blogs to other sites will help drive referral visitors to your site. 

There are several other SEO strategies that businesses can implement as well to help their website become higher in the search ranks.  If you'd like more search engine optimization tips, contact us.  Also, check out the following articles. 

For a list of SEO tips: http://seoarticles4u.com/Tips_On_SEO_-_Search_Engine_Optimization_a4662.html

For SEO focus for Google:
http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/local-search-engine-optimization.cfm

Frequently asked SEO questions:
http://www.rankforsales.com/seo-seven-most-often-asked-questions.html

One of our newest clients, KeenHire, has just launched a new software solution to aid hiring authorities, executive recruiters and search firms in conducting behavioral interviewing and selection that helps to dramatically reduce the negative impacts of a bad hire.

The release just hit the wires today.  As someone focused on ROI marketing, I'm interested not only in measuring the marketing results of a campaign, but also in using that data to predict future performance.  That's what the study of marketing analytics is all about - using what you know about the past to make more informed future decisions.

As an employer, I find it fascinating there are proven solutions and tools out there that help companies predict the future performance of a candidate before they are hired.  I've always understood that a person's skills and experience are truly only part of the determination of whether someone is qualified for the job.  However, by working with KeenHire, I've learned that the candidate's values, motivations, likely reactions to business scenarios, and ability to learn new skills - what many consider to be the most important hiring criteria - can actually be measured and predicted with a great degree of accuracy.  Suddenly the concept of 'the right fit' takes on a whole new meaning.

So in the future if we interview you for a job with this Cincinnati marketing firm, don't be surprised if we spend less time on your resume and much more on figuring out who your favorite Little Rascals, Looney Tunes, Sponge Bob or Family Guy characters are. 

In the words of the great Stewie Griffin:

"Come, ice cream. Come to my mouth. How dare you disobey me!"

While getting ready to come to work this morning, I had the news on in the background and couldn't help but overhear a news story about a new interactive marketing strategy.  Since most conventional marketing strategies are becoming obsolete and marketers are having to turn to new progressive measures, companies such as Reactrix are setting the bar high. 

Reactrix has come up with an interactive display within malls and specific stores that allow consumers to participate in a number of video games.  These displays are made up of a digital pad on the floor playing advertisements within a video-game realm.  Rather  than just playing advertisements that consumers often block-out, Reactrix is making their advertisements come to life.  This interactive marketing not only grabs consumers' attention from afar, but is longer lasting among consumers as well.  The more fun the game that the advertising is allowing consumers to play, the longer consumers remember the brand, and the more awareness that brand receives.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QzsQKULMbiU&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QzsQKULMbiU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Interactive digital signage and interactive marketing does not stop there.  The company GestureTek is using similar approaches among the gesture-based digital signage.  Rather than only sharing advertisements through games on the floor, GestureTek is using table tops, wall mounts, and interactive decorations.  They also branch out from the interactive games and provide consumers with interactive visual displays of all different effects.  Click here for more information.

Due to the lessening popularity of traditional marketing strategies, more companies are going to be engaging in more consumer interactive advertisements and several other forms of interactive marketing.  Companies that are already ahead of the ball like Reactrix and GestureTek,  have definitely closed this gap of the future!

Tim Manners had an interesting post last Thursday.  Has your Cincinnati advertising agency or Cincinnati marketing firm become irrelevant?  He thinks so, primarily because he says they've become too dependent on the advertising and not enough on the merits of the actual products and services themselves.

I see a lot of this - great ad campaigns that are well written, artfully designed, and oozing with carefully deliberated marketing strategy - and yet, they seem to talk over the consumer.



As Mr. Manners relates in his new book:

Relevant brands understand certain principles:

• Insight. Relevant brands care about what we actually do, not just what we think.  (Side note:  Here's a great company that helps you figure that out.)
• Innovation. Relevant brands know the difference between what's purely remarkable and what actually works.
• Investment. Relevant brands understand the imperative of sparing no expense when it comes to satisfying our needs.
• Design. Relevant brands live and breathe simplicity.
• Experience. Relevant brands realize that it's more important to touch us in real life than on television.
• Value. Relevant brands are more than worth every penny.

So, are we creating the advertising because we depend on it to justify our businesses or are we truly speaking to the consumer?

Taking a job with a small Cincinnati Marketing Firm has opened my eyes to a new world, a lot of information, and even more excitement.  But as I sit here and indulge myself into the world of search engine optimization and email marketing, I cannot help but wonder what my friends are doing now.  Pushing papers? Selling useless items? Still going through boring training? Or are they actually learning about the real-world? So they like it? Are they happy?

Choosing to work for an entrepreneur was one of the best decisions of my life.  Sure its a lot of work, but I already feel like I am more submerged into the marketing community than most.  I feel as though I may be able to make a difference. I'm happy. And I enjoy coming to work to learn and discover the tricks of the trade.  Now how many college graduates can say that?

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine recently about the data that one of our clients, Health Force, has been collecting on its website.  Health Force is a national travel nursing and allied health staffing company.  R.O.Why! Marketing, your friendly neighborhood Cincinnati marketing firm, has been working with Health Force for over 4 years, delivering a range of interactive marketing solutions, including a new website earlier this year.

The website displays travel assignments that are available across the country, and allows visitors to search these jobs, apply online, and also register with their skill sets to receive automatic job notifications in their area of expertise.

We're now 6 months into the new site, and they've collected a lot of data.  Names, email addresses, disciplines, specialties, etc., and also data like the time they last visited and logged in.  Programmers and tech folks think about databases and architectures and linking tables, and how complicated it can be to get it all out.  Marketers, on the other hand, think about what they can do with this data.

With the data we now have available, we can send email marketing messages that invite people back to the site based on the date of their last visit.  Health Force can call them to talk about jobs they've seen on the site and that they qualify for.  We can also understand what jobs get the most searches and inquiries, and provide that data back to the company to better target future job opportunities.

The site looks beautiful and does a great job of brand development, but how about we build the brand at the cash register too?  Let's talk with visitors as individuals, using what we know to deliver custom experiences.

The creative is important to be sure, but a website should talk to you on a personal level at every opportunity.  The technology has been around for years to deliver 1:1 marketing quite well, but it all starts with the data.  Collecting it is important.  Knowing what you'll do with it and mapping out a deliberate plan is something entirely different.

We went live on some major back end upgrades to a client website today at www.MDIMedical.com.  While we were not engaged to work much on the site's design, we rewrote and organized all of the content in a much more intuitive way.  Here, we're all about delivering ROI marketing strategies, so we built some strong calls to action into a common sidebar that should help drive qualified sales and marketing leads for the company, and work to help us monetize the entire marketing strategy.

R.O.Why! Marketing has also delivered a corporate blogging platform consisting of 5 company bloggers and a little over a dozen targeted keyword blogs.  As bloggers post new content on the specific keyword topics, they'll begin to rank much more effectively in the search engines, helping out the overall search engine optimization effort significantly.   

Overall, we completed the following:

1) Organized and architecture files into bookmark / search engine optimization-friendly folder structures
2) Modified layout to polish the overall look and feel without changing the brand
3) Improved the page aesthetics to deliver a cleaner appearance
4) Use general include files so future updates, redesigns and new modules can be "plugged-in" much more efficiently (header, footer, sidebar, etc.)
5) Improve child menus within the navigation to be css-driven & easier to manage
6) Replace most inline javascript into modular included .js files, and use asp to replace javascript code bloat where applicable.
7) Created page-level meta keywords and descriptions support which was not previously present
8)  Applied the new page template code to the ExactTarget email marketing signup confirmation pages
9)  Crafted new, discipline-specific pages of content for each the clients 3 primary audiences

We have many more big plans for the site, but this was just a first attempt to clean things up a bit, give users clear calls to action, launch the blogging platform, and prepare for future upgrades.  We're looking forward to the redesign of the overall brand in the future.

So, what's this Atlanta-based company doing with an Ohio marketing agency?  They sought out a firm with specific healthcare staffing expertise and found us. 

We love when that happens!

I had a great meeting today with a company that is looking for a Cincinnati, Ohio marketing firm / agency.  They operate in the IT consulting space and are faced with a cluttered market of "Me Too's".  As we talked about brand development, marketing strategy, and host of other issues, I asked them:

How unique do you want to be?

It's an important question because as many small and medium sized businesses develop marketing programs to compete against the big guys, most of them that I see choose to, at best, say the same things as differently as they can.  Of course this rarely results in a strong competitive differentiation. 

• Are you willing to be different, not just in your marketing, but from the inside out?
• Are you willing to change your company entirely?  Product, service, culture, deliverables, customer experience and then your marketing?
• Are you willing to be confident enough in what you're great at to cross off all of those other 'services' from your list of capabilities and focus on your top 3?
• Are you willing to hire people that stand out?
• Are you willing to fire your ad agency for not pushing you to be different?

Saying yes to any of these questions requires you to be willing to take the risk of being the Purple Cow.  To quit playing the game your competitors play and to change it entirely.  You'll face scrutiny.  You'll attract attention and naysayers.

And people will remember you.

Apple did it.
So did Google.
And MySpace, 37 Signals, Mint.com, Marc Cuban, Boon, Chipotle, Slide and Obama.

How unique do you want to be?

Are you willing to change something, or everything to get there?

As a full service advertising agency and marketing firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, we're demonstrating blog solutions to more and more companies everyday.  One of the biggest questions we receive is "What should I blog about?"

Many companies are unsure of how a blog fits into their overall marketing strategy.  We try to help them understand that unlike a website, which is communication from an institution, a blog is a much more casual, person-to-person type of writing.  As such, the range of topics and the overall tone of the blog is much different.

When it comes to blogging for business, extend the voice to as many employees as possible, and encourage them to talk about the common successes and challenges of their day.

• If you're a staffing company, blog about a candidate you helped today.
• If you're a technology firm, how is a client benefiting from what you delivered?
• If you're an attorney, what advice did you give a client today that others can benefit from?
• If you're a florist, remind your audience of an upcoming holiday.
• If you're a company that supports IT networks and/or desktop PCs, what tips can you deliver that will make someone's life easier?
• If you're a printer, what are some potential pitfalls of not setting up the art files correctly before delivering them to your pre-press department?
  

The possibilities are endless.  Blog about what you know, what you experience, and how you go about helping your clients.  Just blog.  You'll soon be seen as an expert in your field.

As you embark upon selecting an advertising or marketing agency, is their physical location important?  As a marketing agency in Cincinnati, Ohio, we serve clients across the country, in addition to many here locally.  There are definitely some cases where I would say that location is important, but as communication and technology evolve, for many the location of their ad agencies doesn't matter much.

We just began work for two firms based in Atlanta, and they definitely were not looking for a Cincinnati ad agency.  What they were looking for was the right mix of marketing strategy experience, creative talent, business acumen, and knowledge of their industry.  For both clients, R.O.Why! Marketing fit the bill very well.  We've delivered branding, email marketing, search engine optimization, event marketing, advertising and other interactive marketing programs for companies in their industries.  We were familiar with the challenges they're facing, so location was much less of an issue.  In fact, we even offered to visit one of them for the project kickoff meeting and the client didn't feel it was necessary.  They work very well on the phone and over the web.

A great tool for addressing the issue of location of our marketing firm has been online marketing project management and client collaboration software.  We use a great produce called Basecamp from 37 Signals.  It's fast, easy to use, and our clients love it.  The product centralizes communication, files, milestones, and tasks in one place and has dramatically cut down on the email clutter & confusion.

My advice for companies selecting an ad agency in Ohio or anywhere else:  Find the marketing firm that can competently address your challenges with creative marketing solutions.  With great communication and strong marketing results, location becomes much less of an issue.

I recently received an email 'newsletter' from a local Cincinnati marketing firm, and being the marketer that I am, began immediately evaluating its effectiveness.  I should mention that this company has been known for many years as a printer - and a great printer at that.  However, the company has recently decided to expand its business to include creative and multimedia services to better meet the broader needs of its clients. 

Despite the fact that this company is in some ways becoming a competitor, I do think it's the right move for a variety of reasons.  The print industry is changing, and it appears that this company is attempting to adapt accordingly.

But back to the email.  A big problem right off the bat was the way that the email graphics rendered.  Surely this had never been tested, because when I hit reply the HTML email images suddenly became a wallpaper that took over the screen and made it impossible to read my reply email message.  I wonder if they'll be able to read my reply.  But at least the brand is all over the place.  :-)

Secondarily, there was no real email content.  The message was informing me that the post office will introduce a rate change in the near future.  And that was it.  Really?  Talk about a missed opportunity to use your email marketing message to explain to me what this means and how I can be smart in my business to offset the impact of that rate change by utilizing sorting and bulk mail services when appropriate.  Instead of simply reporting on the news, educate me on what this means to my business and how your company can help me address it in a proactive way!

Finally, as I scanned the bottom of the message I came to the unsubscribe link.  At least they had one, but in a time when CAN SPAM compliance is critical, I thought I'd check it out further.  Surely a company that was moving into the marketing services space would get this right.  Upon clicking on the email, I was taken to a third party website that looked nothing like the company I just came from, and I had to enter my email address.  Huh?  You mean you couldn't pre-populate that form for me and just ask me to hit submit to confirm?  Or better yet, process the unsubscribe request automatically and present me simply with a confirmation screen? 

Disappointing, for sure, but the bigger mistake in my view was the fact that I was told my email address would be removed in 1 week. 

1 Week!?!
You mean that even though I might want to unsubscribe now, you're going to make me endure email marketing messages from your company for another week?  Isn't there a lesson in customer service in here somewhere?  So in addition to not handling my request immediately, this Cincinnati 'marketing firm' may now heckle me for up to a week before sparing me any more agony.  Wonderful.   Oh, and I didn't even mention that this was the first email I ever received from this company, and I was never asked to opt in.  But that's a topic for another post.  For now, here are a few email marketing tips that might help you avoid frustrating your customers in a similar way:

1. Know your audience - assuming they do want to hear from you, what types of content would be most valuable?
2. Ask them to opt in - Don't surprise them one day with your email marketing messages.  If they opt in, they'll expect you to come calling.
3. Develop a design plan - what is the business purpose and how will design support that?
4. Design for the audience - engineers need facts & figures and others like brilliant photography.  Give your audience what they want.
5. Understand the ISPs - analyze your list for the top 10 ISPs and work to understand how those ISPs and email clients render images in email.
6. Educate your audience - tell them something they didn't know, how it affects their business, and how you and ONLY YOU can lead them to addressing it.  People don't need more news.  People need more value.  Give value.
7. Test, test, test! - Develop a test list comprised of people inside and outside your company, on a variety of ISPs and email clients.  Test image rendering.  Test what falls above & below the fold.  Test text versions, URLs for unexpected wrapping, etc. 
8. Measure results.  Finally, test for conversion.  What elements drive success?  Have you tested different subject lines?  Text versions vs. HTML?  Long copy vs. short?  graphics in the email vs. text only?  Answers to these questions will help drive overall campaign success.  It's great if your email marketing campaign gets delivered, but if it doesn't drive readers to take action, it's probably time to go back to step 1.