TAC Marketing

Two Marketing Trends for 2011

TAC Marketing — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:31:12 +0000

In 2010, we witnessed many business invest their marketing dollars and time into search engine optimization, paid search, email marketing, social networking, blogging, mobile marketing, podcasting, websites, video, and coupons or promotional strategies. Many, if not all, of these marketing trends will remain prominent in 2011, however I would like to suggest that companies will increase their focus on two of these strategies.

1. Web Presence: Although many companies have websites, the “Business Insider” claims that as of September of 2010 51% of small businesses still don’t have websites. In 2011, we will likely see this number decrease as more and more businesses recognize the key strategic advantages of having a strong web presence. Here are a few reasons why your business should have a website:

- Viral marketing (word of mouth) is far more effective when the business has a website. Now your fans have a place to point other potential clients so they can learn more.

- Websites can be a source of revenue and can truly help drive your business. In many cases, selling products and services online allows you to reduce your overhead. If you had an online store, maybe you could run your business with less square footage than you currently operate in.

- A website promotes your business 24-7, it never closes for the holidays or takes time for a nap. This is especially great for attracting international clients from different time zones, and even those in your local area who can’t drop by during business hours.

- Websites allow you to position your business in a high-traffic area (11,100,000 Google searches in Calgary every month). If you think you are getting lots of traffic in front of your brick and mortar store, you haven’t seen anything yet!

- Websites allow you to better target potential customers. How? Put a newsletter sign-up on your website. As people sign-up, they give you permission to market to them until they otherwise specify. Even more, you have their contact info so you can get in touch with them. Our hosting clients also receive a weekly report on their sites activity, seeing what pages are of highest interest to viewers and where in the world people are viewing their site from.

- And more!

2. Online Video: According to ReelSEO, the use of video by small businesses grew from 5% to 19% in 2009. This number continued to grow in 2010, which foreshadows the upcoming trends for 2011. They always say a picture is worth a thousand words; I wonder how many words a video is worth? I am not quite sure, but I am confident it is far more than a thousand. Why video in 2011?

- Video is personal. In many industries, such as medical fields and financial services, a video can truly help build trust between yourself and the viewer (and in those industries, trust is key).

- Video is an effective educational tool. Videos can be used to educate your customers at a level that static content cannot.

- Video provides a platform for you to unleash your creativity. There are countless video styles and ideas. Creativity truly helps businesses differentiate themselves from the competition.

- Video can improve your rankings. The title, tags, and comments related to your video can improve your search engine optimization rankings.

- And more!

To conclude, if your business doesn’t have a professional-looking and functional website and/or is not using video as a marketing tool, I would like to suggest you put both these iniatitives on your list of new years resolutions.

Need help with video or website marketing? Visit www.tacmarketingonline.com and contact us.

A marketers dream scenario for 2011 (theglobeandmail.com)

Get A Free Review Of Your Website Until December 25th

TAC Marketing — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:05:55 +0000

You may be wondering: Does my website look outdated? Is my website helping my business? What could I do to improve my website? What features could I add to my website that would help drive more business?

Get the answers to these questions until December 25th. We are offering you a free review of your website. And yes, I did say free! Consider it our gift to you this Christmas.

So, how does it work? Email chantelle@tacmarketingonline.com with your contact information and your website URL, and we will be in touch with you shortly about your free website review. We will either meet with you in person to discuss your website and business needs, or we can facilitate the review over the phone or by email. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Click here to view the AD for this exciting offer

Adfont Calendar gives away one free webfont per day until Christmas (downloadsquad.switched.com)

TAC Marketing Hosts Calgarian Junior High Student

TAC Marketing — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:36:15 +0000

On November 3rd, over 200,000 grade 9 students went to work at thousands of businesses across Canada. The goal of this program is to help students gain insight into the career they are hoping to pursue in the future.

We were excited to have Brooklyn Thorne, a grade 9 student from Calgary Christian School, join us at TAC Marketing as a part of this initiative. We started out the day with an overview of our company, and taught Brooklyn about the key marketing principles that drive our business. The rest of the day was spent filming a video that we will eventually use to market our hosting and content management platform, having lunch at a clients restaurant in downtown Calgary (Q Haute Cuisine), and doing a photo shoot for this blog article.

When I sat down and asked Brooklyn about her experience she explained, “It was really cool to see how TAC helps its clients differentiate themselves from their competitors.” She also said, “My goal is to find a career in design. I don’t know what kind of job yet, but spending a day at TAC helped me to see all the different types of careers I could pursue in the design and marketing areas.” Who knows, maybe one day Brooklyn will work for TAC and accomplish her goal of a career in design!

Thanks Brooklyn for spending a day with us here at TAC!

From Homelessness to Entrepreneurship: Frank O’Dea, Co-Founder of Second Cup

TAC Marketing — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:22:23 +0000

On November 6th, Frank O’Dea, co-founder of The Second Cup, addressed an excited group of business people at the MEDA Convention in Calgary, AB.

Frank told us his story, describing how his drinking problem led him to the streets in his early twenties. For Frank, as I am sure is the case for many others who rise out of homelessness, he had to make a conscious decision to get away from the street life and to become successful. It didn’t just happen, it was a decision followed by many intentional actions that led Frank to become a successful entrepreneur.

Franks decision to start a coffee chain was truly an un-researched decision. These days you hear lots of dialogue about market research and analysis prior to starting a business, but Frank and his business partner did none of that (not to say that market research has no purpose, as I am sure some additional research could have significantly helped the two young entrepreneurs). The story goes like this: Frank and his partner were asked to find a coffee chain to lease space in a commercial building. Frank’s partner asked around and there were no bites on the offer, so he gave the same sales pitch to Frank. Moments later they both decided that if they couldn’t find a tenant for the space, they might as well start their own coffee chain. And simply, that is how Second Cup started. Initially the two entrepreneurs started by selling imported coffee beans and had little success. In an attempt to boost business, they decided to setup a coffee machine so that people could test the beans. Once again, this strategy met with limited success. And then it happened, their million dollar idea: They decided to sell cups of coffee for more money than a customer could get it anywhere else. Doesn’t sound like a million dollar idea does it? Yet, Frank and his partner believed that this strategy would change the face of the coffee industry (and sure enough, it did). By charging more for coffee and by offering a superior product to what most coffee drinkers were buying, they made drinking coffee an experience and made coffee a luxurious item. This strategy has truly re-defined the coffee industry in North America. Frank continued with a smile on his face, “And yes, Starbucks did come after us.”

The story of Frank O’Dea is one of hope, vision, and action. Despite his homelessness, Frank hoped for something greater, he had a vision for accomplishing something great, and he acted with diligence in order to achieve greatness.

If you are interested in reading more about Frank O’Dea, click here to get a copy of his book, “When All You Have Is Hope”. I picked up a copy myself and look forward to reading more about Frank’s journey from homelessness to entrepreneurial success!

Unleashing Entrepreneurship – Report on MEDA Convention

TAC Marketing — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:44:59 +0000

As promised, here is a short report on Dale Brubachner-Cressman’s session, “Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Creating New Businesses from Innovative Ideas.” Today I had the privilege of sitting in on Dale’s session, and I would like to share with you some of what I learned.

Dale’s story is an incredible story of innovation, passion, and hard work. After starting his career with a software company in Ottawa, Dale decided to give up his software job and move to Waterloo to be closer to loved ones. The only challenge was that he needed a job, preferably in software development and technology. After searching on the Internet for various positions, he came across a job description for a company called Research in Motion (RIM). One Friday afternoon he dropped by the company’s headquarters, which just so happened to be located right above a KFC restaurant, and handed the founder his resume. To make a long story short, Dale was offered a job with the company that afternoon and the following Monday he officially became RIM’s 5th employee. Since then, RIM has grown from a 5 employee technology consulting firm to a 16,000 employee firm that has revolutionized the mobile phone industry with the Blackberry product line. Five years ago Dale left RIM and took a few years off before becoming an Advisor to a company called Aeryon Labs and before starting his own company, Vigor CleanTech.

Pulling from the entrepreneurial experiences mentioned above, Dale provided a few tips to budding entrepreneurs:

1. Get the right talent: Hire the most intelligent and talented people you can find. People will make or break your company.
2. Hard work is imperative, not optional: If you want to make it big without hard work, it simply will not happen. RIM’s success was fully dependent on the work ethic of its people. As Dale puts it, “all-nighters were just common in my early years at RIM.”
3. Intense focus on the right thing: Start-ups must focus on their core capabilities. Nurture and grow these capabilities, instead of becoming distracted by ideas that won’t grow your business.
4. Be agile: You must be able to recognize needs and meet them. If your company is rigid, you simply won’t be able to adjust your business to meet changing demands and new market trends.
5. No compromise: Don’t compromise on your products, services, and the things you value. The job has to be done right, or it might as well not be done at all.
6. Be willing to take risks: Take calculated risks, because if you aren’t willing to take risks you will not meet with success. There is some truth to the saying, “The greater the risk, the greater the reward.”

Thanks to Dale for his insight and advice!

Coming up – MEDA Convention: Unleashing Entrepreneurship

TAC Marketing — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:12:04 +0000

Every year, Christian businesspeople, from across North America, come together to celebrate their calling at an annual convention, Business as a Calling. This year’s convention brings together many of North America’s most influential Christian business leaders to talk about the power of unleashing entrepreneurship. I will be attending portions of this year’s conference and will be reporting on some of the sessions I attend. Here is what you can look forward to…

Report on “Creating New Businesses from Innovative Ideas” with Dale Brubachner-Cressman from Research in Motion

Report on “From Homelessness to Entrepreneurship: The Power of Hope, Vision, and Action” with Frank O’Dea, the Founder of the Second Cup

Learn more about this conference and/or register here.

Did social networking make the difference in Calgary’s 2010 Civic Election?

TAC Marketing — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:38:49 +0000

Businesses in today’s digitally literate society, are leveraging the benefits of social networking as a key part of their marketing efforts. As we have been discussing in the last two weeks, those businesses who are NOT leveraging the Internet are being left behind. It appears this was the case for many of Calgary’s mayoral candidates in yesterday’s Civic Election. I am not writing this to debate politics or to identify the candidate I voted for in yesterday’s election; I am writing this to get you thinking about the power of social networking for your business. So here it goes…

As all Calgarians know by now, Naheed Nenshi won Calgary’s 2010 Civic Election with 8% more votes than the runner-up, Ric McIver. What some may not know is that at the beginning of this mayoral race, Nenshi was not even close to the popular choice for Calgary’s next Mayor. According to a Calgary Herald article published this morning, Nenshi went from 8% popular support on nomination day to capturing 40% of Calgary’s votes on election day. In other words, Nenshi went from being far behind the race’s top candidates, Ric McIver and Barb Higgins, to becoming Calgary’s Mayor.

So, how did Naheed Nenshi do it? How did he rise in popularity so much so that he was elected the city’s new Mayor?

Although it would be fallacious to attribute ALL his success to social networking, as that would downplay the experience he brings to the table, I would like to suggest that social networking has played a KEY ROLE in his success. I think Nenshi would agree with this statement, as he even admits: “Technology is hardwired into the DNA of my campaign. It isn’t a gimmick” (Calgary Herald). So, even Nenshi agrees that technology was strategically used to bring him to where he is today. Now the question becomes: How do we really know if social networking and technology gave him a competitive advantage over his fellow candidates? I took the liberty of doing a bit of research, with the goal of identifying how Nenshi’s use of social networking compared to his rivals. Let’s take a look at the results…

Use of Social Networking by the Top 3 Mayoral Candidates

As this research clearly shows, Nenshi had significantly more fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter than his two closest rivals. In fact, Nenshi had 2.89 times as many Facebook fans and 3.47 times as many Twitter followers as Ric McIver. The number that is most telling is “3,603”. This “3,603” proves that Nenshi had more Twitter followers because he used Twitter more often than his fellow candidates. In fact, Nenshi made a new post (tweet) with Twitter 10.21 times more than Ric McIver and 14.95 times more than Barb Higgins.

Another interesting thought to consider: Nenshi’s website emphasized social networking. Click here to view Nenshi’s website, and take a look at how prominent Facebook and Twitter are at the top of his site. Then take a minute to check out Ric McIver’s site and Barb Higgin’s site and notice how prominent Facebook and Twitter are on their sites.

I have laid out the evidence for you – Nenshi used social networking more often and more effectively than his rivals. Going back to the title of this blog – Yes, I would say that social networking made a key difference in the rise of Nenshi as Calgary’s new mayor. What do you think?

Sources:
Calgary Herald

Our world is shifting – Is your business keeping up?

TAC Marketing — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:52:12 +0000

In last week’s post I discussed the digital landscape of today’s world, and the implications this has for today’s businesses. To summarize my remarks: in a world where digital technology is more than prevalent, businesses must leverage digital technology in their marketing efforts in order to remain current and competitive. As author Allen P. Adamson puts it, “Time waits for no one, or no brand online.”

In this week’s blog post, I would like to further this discussion and encourage you to watch a very thought provoking video that connects very well to this discussion. Sit back, relax, and prepare to learn something…

I am curious, what did you think of this video? Do you feel this video over exaggerates reality? Or do you feel this video is accurate? If so, what does this research mean for your business?

To recap:
Radio took 38 years to reach a market audience of 50 million
TV took 13 years
Internet took 4 years
iPod took 3 years
Facebook took 2 years

Given today’s digital landscape, are you using the most effective method to reach your target audience?

Thanks to Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman for the thought provoking research and video.

Digital marketing for a digital landscape

TAC Marketing — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:26:32 +0000

What is digital marketing? Simply, digital marketing involves the promoting of businesses and their brands using the Internet and other technological mediums. The marketer’s dilemma is that technology is changing at such a rapid pace, and in many ways it is difficult to keep up.

Why is there such a great need for digital marketing methods? Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century, indirectly answers this question when he identifies and discusses the technological and social shifts that successfully leveled the economic world. Referring to the greatest technological advances of the 21st century, Friedman says “[they] created a flat world: a global, Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of sharing knowledge and work, irrespective of time, distance, geography, and increasingly language.” With these technological and social shifts the world has become increasingly connected and digitally focused.

How should businesses respond to this radical shift? In Allen P. Adamson’s book, Brand Digital: Simple ways top brands succeed in the digital world, he challenges businesses to become digitally minded. Why? Because digital technology has become the catalyst for better branding, customer relationship management, and stronger public relations. However, it is only those firms that are strategic, consistent, engaging, and relevant that will get their brand speaking the loudest. Adamson urges marketers to run fast, otherwise digital technology and significant marketing opportunities will pass the marketer by. As Adamson puts it, “Time waits for no one, or no brand, online.”

Weigh in on the discussion – Why do you think digital marketing is so important in today’s digital landscape?

Thanks to our sources:
Allen P. Adamson. Brand Digital: Simple ways top brands succeed in the digital world. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Thomas L. Friedman. The World is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005).

Why Marketing Is A “Must” In A Recession?

TAC Marketing — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:18:58 +0000

With the recent global economic occurrences, some companies are tightening their marketing budgets as part of their survival strategy. They reason that marketing is less important to their core business than other business functions, and it is the one area that could be cut back on. As a marketing guru, I beg to differ with these sorts of thinkers. In fact, I am going to be as bold as to suggest that businesses that do freeze or slash their marketing budgets are less likely to survive than those that don’t. One article adds credibility to this argument, “Studies completed on marketing during the recessions of the 70s, 80s, and 90s show that the smartest thing to do is to spend on marketing. In fact, a study published by McGraw-Hill shows that companies that continued or increased their marketing spending during a recession had 256% higher sales than the companies who chose to cut or halt their marketing budgets.” Ultimately, building credibility through creative, authentic, and affordable marketing efforts is a necessity for businesses as they refocus and endure through difficult economic times. On top of that, it helps your business drive sales! And we all know, that driving sales in an economic downturn is extremely important. By continually marketing in economic turmoil, your business keeps your brand in front of your customers. So the moment things in the economy turn around, who do you think your customers are thinking about? The company they haven’t seen throughout the crisis? Or the company that reassured their customers through confident and honest marketing efforts? Well, the answer to that question is pretty obvious.

Let me clarify one thing: Spending money on marketing efforts doesn’t necessarily drive sales. However, spending money on the RIGHT marketing efforts will drive sales! Some businesses are known for throwing their marketing dollars at the wrong initiatives, and that is likely why they cut their marketing budget in an economic crisis – because they saw no benefit. The key to leveraging marketing in an economic downturn is spending your marketing dollars in the right places. Further, seek to invest your marketing dollars in initiatives that can be measured or evaluated in some way. And finally, get an expert to give you some marketing advice!

We believe that building credibility through creative, authentic, and affordable marketing efforts is a necessity for businesses as they refocus and endure through difficult economic times.