Marketing Works is a B2B strategic communications firm.  Our culture is based on achieving work-family balance, fostering long term relationships, acknowledging contributions, continuous learning, and encouraging creativity.  Our team is collaborative, hands-on, and results-oriented when it comes to delivering marketing strategies, messaging, public relations, reputation management, and branding to our business-to-business clients.  We’re passionate about building relationships that last and a reputation we can be proud of.

If our culture is a fit for you, and you are an experienced marcom account manager or PR pro, let’s talk.  You get bonus points for being an excellent writer, effective presenter, and team player who loves to learn and grow. You’ll be interfacing with clients daily, responsible for ideas and actions that move their businesses forward. You should possess 5-7 years of experience with some or all of these responsibilities:

- written communications such as press releases, by-line articles, speeches, program reports, corporate messaging and web content

- overseeing the implementation of effective media relations campaigns by developing pitches for media and forging relationships with editors and reporters to maximize coverage opportunities

- proactively seeking media coverage, brand awareness and integrated communications that will ultimately benefit agency clients

- leading project management process by being proactive and responsible to client and internal teams

- assisting with the marketing plan development process

- leading client presentations, concept reviews and other meetings

- working with team to schedule and prioritize projects and maintain efficient project flow to ensure all deadlines are met

- seeking out new business opportunities within existing accounts and playing a leading role in their development

Must-haves:

• Bachelor’s Degree and 5-7 years experience
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Knowledge of social media practices

Put your skills and passion to use today. Join the Marketing Works team! Please send your resume and cover letter to info@marketing-works.net. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Our fascination with these commercials is amazing when you think about how most of us can’t wait to fast forward through them any other time of the year. So why do we care? Because they make us laugh, connect with us emotionally or simply make us go, “hmmm.”

The ability our favorite ads have to draw us in is actually due to one thing – the content connects with the desired audience. Something we marketers often overlook as we’re working to push out that new website, direct marketing campaign or print ad. We tend to spend so much time focusing on cool images, selling our product and weaving in our QR codes that we lose site of building our campaigns around content that resonates. Of course, we all think that the dog trying to shed a few pounds in the VW The Dog Strikes Back commercial is adorable, but it’s what the dog is doing to get his groove back that connects with us.

Here’s a challenge. Next time you write content or brainstorm that new campaign, go back and watch your favorite and least favorite Super Bowl ads. Think about why you really like or dislike them. Then, ask yourself the following:

1. Who is my audience? Are they male or female? How old are they? Socioeconomic status?
2. What does this audience care about? What do they like to do?
3. In other words, what will connect with them emotionally? Is it humor, nostalgia, inspiration, pride?
4. How does my product or service tie to that emotion? For example, the Downy Mean Joe Greene ad got me thinking about how much I like that fresh from the laundry scent to last as long as possible. It made me think about their new product while taking me back in a funny way to that golden era of my Steelers.
5. What do I want my audience to do? The call to action (CTA) is important and often forgotten about. In Super Bowl ads the CTA is often more subtle, but it’s typically to instill the desire to buy a product or service.
6. Is the theme or concept easy to follow? Think about it. Your least favorite ads are probably because the humor or content makes you think too much.

And remember, just because you might not be writing content for a Super Bowl ad, there is no reason why you can’t make them think your ad isn’t worthy of a $3.5 million spot! Drop us a line and tell us about your favorite Super Bowl spot and why it connects with you.

That is how long it takes for someone to form a first impression about you. Chances are, it’s before you say hello, introduce yourself or even begin the (oh so important) elevator speech.

Social psychologists have determined that within that first 30 seconds, someone new takes in your personal appearance – wardrobe, grooming and nonverbal cues – and makes assumptions on both your character and ability. These assumptions span a variety of qualities including:

• Education level
• Career competence and success
• Personality
• Level of sophistication
• Trustworthiness
• Sense of humor
• Social heritage

Don’t believe me? Let’s do a little test. Check out the two fellows below. Both are dressed well and nicely groomed. And yet, there is something about the smiling man that leaves a better impression. That something is our brain making assumptions based on appearance.

Don’t blame the brain. It’s actually doing its job quite effectively. When faced with a complex scenario your mind makes snap judgments to quickly categorize. This categorization helps us make sense out of something or someone new. These same categorization techniques help us respond in emergency situations and navigate the complexities of relationships. And because our brains can’t “switch off” categorization, first impressions are subject to snap judgments as well.

Perhaps even more daunting is the fact that the first impression lasts. Due to a cognitive bias called “The Halo Effect,” someone you’ve just met will likely transfer their positive/negative impression of your appearance to other traits such as intellect, leadership skills, and personal qualities.

Now before you assume I’m simply championing well dressed people, think about how this information might affect your business. First impressions are especially important in new business meetings. If you can get a step up on the competition in just 30 seconds, why not do it? Take some extra time to ensure that the top-notch, quality work that you are about to present isn’t counteracted by a less than dapper appearance. Remembering to smile could be the one thing that clinches your next job!

Sources:

The New Professional Image, Susan Bixler

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell

With the popularity of social media it can be difficult to secure your company’s desired username. Before making any fundamental naming decisions be sure to check availability across all platforms.

As you go through the branding brainstorm process checking Twitter, Facebook, Digg, WordPress, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. for availability is extremely time consuming, but necessary.

Make it easier for your team by visiting only two websites to answer all your questions. First, GoDaddy.com to check url availability and price. Second, visit NameChk.com to determine if your desired username is obtainable on almost 100 different social networking and social bookmarking websites. NameChk will instantly show you what is still accessible.

You can save an exorbitant amount of time and ensure better brand visibility by using these resources. Check them out!

What Disney excels at is creating not just theme parks or movies, but experiences that leave children – and maybe even a lucky adult or two – believing in magic. That’s not just the pixie dust talking; it’s what happens when quality and creativity combine to inspire a twenty-something to wear Mickey Mouse Ears.

After all, Disney has tweaked the Field of Dreams mantra to make enough gold for Scrooge McDuck to dive into: If you merchandise it, they will come (and buy it all).

Sadly for most companies in the B-to-B world, you aren’t going to get much business selling industrial mouse ears. And no matter how great your logo, you’ll be hard pressed to find customers taking out their pocketbooks to help advertise your company on anything that can be embroidered.

But an unadorned customer base doesn’t mean you don’t have a legion of mouseketeers who are fiercely loyal to your brand. A great tool to measure customer loyalty is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Developed by Satmetrix, Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld, NPS is a metric that helps drive improvements in customer loyalty and enable profitable growth. The survey is designed around one question: On a scale of zero-to-ten, how likely are you to recommend [company] to a colleague or friend?

Those who answer 9 or 10 are your Promoters, or the ones who’d wear your company’s mouse ears. Customers who answered 7 or 8 are deemed Passive, while anything six and under are brand Detractors. The scale is categorized as follows:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

Once you’ve identified the percentage of Detractors and Promoters, you can subtract the former from the latter to calculate the Net Promoter Score.

In an article in the October 2011 issue of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review, TARP researchers argue that the Passives are actually the most important to identify: “Customers who are seemingly happy – or are at least not angry – deserve more attention than most companies give them. Despite their apparent satisfaction, these consumers could be poised to sow discontent with your brand.”

The researches base this on three main points. First, they are vocal and more likely to say something negative because they are less loyal. Secondly, the group often represents a large part of your overall customer base and should not be overlooked. And lastly, this group offers the biggest opportunity to move up the scale to Promoters.

That’s why we recommend allowing survey participants to provide feedback on why they rated your company as such. You can even identify areas where you think your company is strong or weak and have customers select what they feel is your best area or your worst.

Being able to create action items from your survey findings will help you strengthen the way you do business while giving you greater potential to transform Passives to Promoters. The most successful companies build an operational model with Net Promoter as the focal point.

What are some ways you engage your Passives to move them into the Promoters category? Let us know in the comments below.

It seems to me twitter has developed a language of its own, taking from the early mobile text acronyms. Multiple twitter dictionaries and cheat sheets are popping up all over the internet. I never thought I would be talking in a series of abbreviations and hashtags to get my point across effectively. Then again, I never thought I’d be limited to getting my point across in 140 characters or less.

To the untrained eye, a savvy tweet may be gibberish. However, with a little training, you too could be communicating in this “twitter code.”

Not only that, the hashtag symbol will organize the over 200 million tweets-per-day into real-time trending topics and easy-navigation by subject. They can even be used to help explain context in an otherwise obscure, shortened, 140 character statement.

To help you out, below is yet another list for you to add to your cache of shorthand twitter speak. It is by no means exhaustive, so feel free to add to it in the comments.

@ = Reply to username

AFAIK = As far as I know

bc or b/c = Because

BG = Background (referring to their Twitter background)

BFN = Bye for now

BR = Best regards

BRB = Be right back

BTW = By the way

CT = Cutweet= It’s a shortened retweet that had to be shortened to include all of the information.  Usually happens when there are a lot of RT’ed users.

DM = Direct message

EM = Email

FB = Facebook

F2F or FTF = Face to face

FTW/FTL = For the win/for the loss

FWIW = For what it’s worth

Gr8 = Great

H/T = Hat tip

HTH = Hope that helps

IDK = I don’t know

IIRC = If I recall correctly

IMO = In my opinion

IMHO = In my honest/humble opinion

IRL = In real life

JK or J/K or JP = Just kidding, Just playing

JSYK = Just so you know

LI = LinkedIn

LMK = Let me know

LMBO = Laughing my butt off

LOL = Laughing out loud (I’ve also seen people use LOL to mean “lots of love”.)

NP = No problem

NSFW = Not safe for work

OCT = Obsessive compulsive Twitterer

OH = Overheard

OMG = Oh my God

OOT = Out of touch

PLZ = Please

PPL = People

PRT = Please retweet

RE = regarding

ROFL = Rolling on the floor laughing

RT = ReTweet

RTHX/TQRT = Thanks for the retweet

SMH = Shaking my head

STW = Search the web (for you lazy Twitterers)

TMB = Tweet me back

TMI = Too much information (Some of you need to be aware of this.)

TTYS = Talk to you soon

TTYL = Talk to you later

TWTBL = Tweet back later

TY = Thank you

Via @ = Crediting a user for their tweet, but not copying it verbatim

W/E = Whatever or weekend

WTH = What the hell

YGTR = You got that right

YT = YouTube

YW/YVW = You’re welcome/You’re very welcome

ZOMG = OMG to the 10th degree

<3 = Text version of a heart.  (I would argue that it’s a kiss too.)

Companies, both large and small, often fall into the cycle of having no rhyme or reason for their activity. Many choose to post minimally because they don’t know what to say while others post about anything or everything, just to say something in the absence of nothing. Both scenarios are guilty of social media abuse. If you don’t consistently provide your followers with valuable content, you and your business will be ignored if not forgotten.

Just like life, the key to social media is balance. So before any erroneous tweet can get retweeted, create a strategy to ensure your efforts are consistent, compelling and engaging.  Follow this with a schedule or calendar that outlines topics of interest and value to your audience and includes realistic timelines so you don’t get overwhelmed or behind.

Start by scheduling one month at a time. At the end of the month, stop and evaluate your efforts to determine if you are still on target.viagra Do you need to tweak the schedule? Do you need to get involved in more social networks or less? Here are a few general, industry scheduling tips to include in your monthly schedules:

Two times a day (morning and afternoon)

• Check your Twitter account, follow the @replies relevant to your industry and reply when necessary.
• Tap into your LinkedIn network by posting to your LinkedIn profile and interacting with some of your groups.
• Check your company’s Facebook page and post something of value or respond to comments when necessary.
• Scan Google Alerts for information on your competitors and mentions of your own brand.

Want a more concrete example? Try this on for size.

Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays:

Get involved in an industry-specific conversation on Twitter and add new content to Facebook (photos, videos, news and other promotions).

Tuesdays and Thursdays:

Respond to blog comments on your blog and leave a comment or two on another blog.

Fridays:

Check traffic at your blog and/or website. This would also be a good day to review your analytics for your website and blog traffic for that week.

Ongoing

• Set up saved searches in Hootsuite to find out if people are talking about your company.
• Re-evaluate your Twitter and Facebook lists/followers to ensure you are sending targeted marketing messages when appropriate.
• Scan LinkedIn questions from network connections and respond when appropriate.
• Keep an eye open for new social networking venues, tools, and functionality that will make the social networking experience easier to manage.
• Identify new social networking influencers and build relationships where appropriate.

Keep in mind your schedule may be different from this one. Take into consideration your time commitments and tailor it to your availability so you can maintain a balanced social media strategy…one that won’t interrupt the balance in your life!

Source: www.socialmediatoday.com

In this post I am going to present some best practices, intended to optimize your searches. Save time and money by leveraging these quick and crucial tips for your next Google search!

“quotation marks”

As I mentioned in my last post, utilizing quotation marks ensures that your words are not split up during the search. This proves very helpful if you are searching for an exact phrase or term.

-dash

Placing a dash before a word or term (no space in between the two) excludes it from search results.

+plus

Comparable to the dash, but opposite in function, the + ensures that the indicated word or phrase will be included in the results. For the majority of searches, Google will omit commonly used words like “of” or “the.” If any of the commonly used words are key to your search, using the + guarantees that it will not be removed.

~tilde

Using a tilde tells Google to search for related terms, as well. For example, ~car would instruct Google to also look for terms like “automobile.” Think of it as a mini thesaurus in action during the search.

date…date

Are you looking for an article or post that was published at a certain time? Or maybe you just want reaction pieces to something that occurred on a certain date. Either way, you can instruct Google to return results from within a certain date period by using ellipses. For example, 2000…2010 will provide search results from the last decade.

site:name.com

Sometimes the search engines within websites just don’t cut it. That’s where Google steps in with a functionality that allows you to search within a specific website. Just include “site:” before the specific web address and Google will only search within your specification. Note: you do not need to include www. in your specified URL.

And there you have it. Your arsenal of Google search tricks has been multiplied three fold. You are ready to take on the world (wide web). You are a Google search master*.

*Ok, not really a master. But easily above beginner. And certainly above novice. Cheers!

More recently on a popular design blog the classic explanation “Voila!” was spelled phonetically as “Wala!” Although not nearly as detrimental to the blog’s reputation as Old Navy’s mistake, such an obvious error did not miss the eyes of regular readers. Even within informal publications proofing should be essential.

Typos are bound to happen, we’ve all had our fair share, but it is important to take every step you can to avoid them.

Editing Tips

1. Don’t forget the power of spell check. Many blog, website and e-newsletter platforms don’t automatically proof content for misspellings. A good practice is to copy and paste your text into a Word document and use spell check before you hit publish. This effortless step can save you from simple mistakes.
2. Print out your document. Many find it easier to edit a hard copy versus digital. Computer screens can hurt your eyes and allow spacing or homophone slips to be missed.
3. Have someone else proof your write-up. No matter how many times you read and re-read your own piece it is easy to miss a fault like “voila” versus “viola.” Spell check won’t catch this either. A fresh pair of eyes can pick up mistakes you may have missed.
4. Focus. Don’t try and catch all your mistakes at once. Read one time for spelling errors, another time for repetition, again for grammar, etc. If you try to look for these things at one time it is almost impossible to catch them all. Although tedious, it helps.
5. Subscribe to grammar guides. My personal favorite is Grammar Girl. The website grammar.quickanddirtytips.com provides articles that break down how to avoid common mistakes. Their free e-newsletter subscription makes it easy for me to stay up-to-date on new style changes.