Everything we've written in January, 2009
Trends
A recession-proof business: The holy grail
posted by McKenna @ January 6th, 2009
Over the holidays, the big topic of discussion was the economy. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs (I am the first person in three generations to not work for myself), and my circle of friends is heavy on the self-employed side. I expected a lot of worry and wringing of hands over cookies and cocktails.
I was wrong.
Most of my friends and family say their deep client base will help them weather this recession. And – surprisingly – many said they are focusing now more than ever on marketing their services to qualified customers.
In fact, one acquaintance said his graphic design firm unfailingly improves during recessions. He’s owned his business for nearly 30 years and has weathered several deep recessions, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a fluke.
He said that when layoffs happen in the marketing departments of his corporate clients, they still need that marketing work completed. The work doesn’t simply disappear. It just gets shuffled around until they find a more economical way to finish it – and sometimes that means calling an outside vendor like my friend’s business.
And there’s always marketing work to be done. Some say that tough economic times are the best times to put the pedal to the marketing metal. Committing yourself to marketing your business successfully – with a strong strategy and targeted goals – in this economy can reap great rewards.
As Yoda says: “There’s no try – only do!”
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AgencyThink
May the foresight be with you
posted by Mad Mags @ January 5th, 2009
Recently, while working on a list of “cool things I want to buy for me,” I happened to find a few Star Wars gems certain to top my lineup.
Of course, after further reading, I realized these beauties are not for sale, and are actually concepts that had been tabled. I know. How was this possible? I wanted to order at least two Han Solo carbonite fridges, and the Tauntaun suit would have served as my go-to first-date outfit certain to weed out the unworthy in seconds.
Anyway, I shared the rejected Star Wars items with a few of my advertising friends, and everyone (Star Wars fans and non-Star Wars fans included) found at least one item they were interested in purchasing. It made all of us wonder just why the items were rejected.
After a group pow-wow, we decided that the reason must have boiled down to one thing - timing. Unlike 1999, when these items were proposed, this year’s holiday season would have embraced these quirky items. I’m relatively certain if the Death Star grill was available last November, someone would have been nicked by a lightsaber in the rush to get one on Black Friday.
The rejected Star Wars items made us all realize that whether we’re talking products or slogans or platforms, it is definitely worth revisiting ideas that didn’t make the cut the first time around. We’ve begun to keep better files and to revisit ideas before we concept, just to make sure one of our seeds hasn’t ripened when we weren’t looking.
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Social Media
Top 5 Must Have Blogging Tools
posted by Jason Fleck @ January 5th, 2009
People ask me all the time what programs or services I use when it comes to blogging. So, here are my top 5 favs (which are in no particular order).
5.) WordPress — When starting a blog, you need to choose a platform that’s customizable enough to meet your needs yet robust enough to stand up to the constant changes of the internet. WordPress works like a charm. Everything from its slew of features to it’s easy-to-use interface makes choosing WordPress a no-brainer. I’ve been using it for the past four years and still love it.
4.) Google Reader — Now that your blog is online, you must start posting content. Starting your own directory of blogs is a great way to start. I read probably close to 100 blogs a day and I find my best inspiration comes from what I read. Reading keeps your brain working at full capacity and always gives you new content to write. Google Reader makes reading your favorite blogs a breeze. No longer do you have to load individual web sites. Just add every RSS feed you want to follow into your Google Reader account and Google takes care of the rest!
3.) ScribeFire — This program allows you to write blog posts without actually logging into your blog site. It runs as a toolbar in your browser and creates a new window within your browser when you venture onto your website. Pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me. The only way to feel its full awesomeness is to try it out. Oh - and as a bonus you can advertise through them or earn a little extra revenue by allowing others to advertise on your blog.
2.) Twitter — Now that you’re posting content on a regular basis — ahem, and you are posting regularly, right? - I’m sure you’re beginning to wonder: - where are your readers? Since your blog is fairly new, you’re probably not receiving a lot of search engine traffic and that large number of page impressions you’ve noticed is probably from either yourself or your close friends. Getting an audience quickly is where Twitter reigns supreme. Start following people on Twitter who have similar interests to you and soon you’ll realize a lot of those people will follow you back. Use Twitter to update your followers on your latest blog posts and if you have memorable content, those followers will retweet your blog post to their followers and so on creating an exponential growth of visitors to your site.
1.) Google Analytics — The tracking service your web host provides is — at best - alright. You can typically get statistics like page impressions and unique visitors, but not much past that. Google Analytics takes statistic tracking where it belongs. It’s by far the best site tracking program I’ve found to date. It tracks all your visitors, breaks them down into geographic locations, tells you what time of day they visited, which pages were visited, where they came from, if their visit resulted in a conversion, and so on. The list continues and the best part of this service is that it’s FREE.
Are there any others that should of made the list or do you disagree with any of my choices? Let me know by commenting below.
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