Favorite Links This Week

This week, let's start out with a great one! Check out Robert Rosenthal's Freaking Marketing blog post from earlier this week. Let us warn you, however, that the video sports some pretty explicit language, so if you're not into having to hear the F-bomb a lot, don't listen. It is a very funny piece from comic, Bill Hicks, who is on a major rant about why marketers should kill themselves. In the video, Bill outlines how we see opportunity in pretty much everything, then try to build a marketing strategy around it (my words, not his). This one will get you laughing for sure!

On a semi-kinder-gentler note (well, at least he doesn't mention killing anyone), Ron Shevlin's Marketing Whims blog post this week talks to how we tend to over-use whatever seems to be the word du jour. Ron specifically notes these three words that he sees marketers, and business-people overall, using way too much (in his humble opinion): death, disruption, and innovation. As usual, Ron provides his opinions with honesty, candor and a dry wit. His points are well taken, and the thing is, words do lose their true value when people over-use them. Remember when the concept of CRM was first introduced? Then, how it came to be used in every sentence? Pretty soon it came to mean everything -- not a specific discipline, solution, etc. Well, the reality is that CRM is different things to different people . . . but by making it a buzz-word, the idea of it becomes very blurred and diminished greatly in it's interpretation (i.e., everything is dubbed CRM and the word loses its value). So, as usual, Ron's right!

On a more positive note, Lead From Your Heart's blog-author, Lewis Green, tells us how to deal with the summer doldrums that occur in marketing every single year. In Lewis' post, "Friday Mornings in the Dead Zone," he talks about his strategy to combat the summer doldrums and how he plans on getting more than one email to come in at a time and his phone ringing robustly again. As entrepreneurs, I think we can probably all relate to this post, and it'll be interesting to follow the comments to see what ideas others have on bringing in more business in slower times.

We hope you enjoy these links . . . and Happy Weekends to all!

Don't Count Out Newspapers!

Who would have thunk that with all of the electronic ways to get your news that the standard newspaper would still be even in existence? In talking with my very hip, younger neighbor the other day, she told me that she just could not start her day without reading her LA Times. She actually leaves home a half-hour early, so that she can fight Los Angeles traffic to get to her office and read it before starting her day. Wacky!

In a recent BizReport article entitled "Why Local Marketers Shouldn't Count Out Newspapers," author Kristina Knight reports that it is indeed too early to give up on this advertising vehicle. Here's the amazing thing . . . numerous surveys over the past few years have reported a decline in newspaper readership. However, 15-29 year olds are increasingly turning to traditional newspapers to get their daily news. The funny thing about this is that I always thought that newspapers would appeal to older generations who grew up with them (and no internet). Now, we are finding that the younger generations are the ones that may sustain this industry now and into the future. See, you just never know!

The World Newspaper Conference recently released a study on this. From the article: "The study indicates that newspapers still have several chances to reinvent themselves, especially with the younger demographic. Researchers surveyed 3500 15-29 year olds in the US, the Netherlands and Finland; they learned that television is still the demo's choice to obtain news but that these younger consumers are open to local newspapers."

It turns out that both teachers and parents are encouraging younger folks to reach for a newspaper and they are doing it. In addition, social networks are also spreading the word about the "coolness" of newspapers. So, it's a situation where new-school is embracing old-school. It's actually quite refreshing in my opinion.

The other interesting idea is that the Millennial Generation (9-22 year olds) have been compared value-wise to the GI Generation (those 75 years old and above). Maybe . . . just maybe . . . the values of the Great-Grandparents have influenced the thought-processes of the Great Grandchildren.

Now that idea alone makes me want to reach for a newspaper!

Case Study Monday:Award-Winning Marketing Through Collaboration

Today, we'd like to feature a case study that demonstrates how two companies collaborated to utilize multiple marketing channels to create an outstanding and award-winning marketing campaign. By receiving these awards, KG Partners and Con-Way Inc. really demonstrate how marketing success can be realized by effectively working together, thus creating a real partnership through true collaboration.

KG Partners and Con-way Win Six Transportation Marketing & Communications Association (TMCA) Compass Awards

KG Partners, a nationally recognized advertising, public relations and interactive agency, and Con-way Inc. (NYSE: CNW), a $4.7 billion freight transportation and logistics services company, today announced that they have won six awards from the Transportation Marketing & Communications Association (TMCA).

The companies won six TMCA Compass Awards -- one of which achieved the Best in Class designation for marketing excellence in the transportation and logistics industry. The awards were presented at TMCA's recent annual conference held in Ponte Vedra, Fla.

"The TMCA Compass Awards are well-respected throughout the industry and could only be won with a strong relationship between our companies and a shared strategic vision," said Tom Nightingale, chief marketing officer, Con-way. "Developing and implementing an effective, results-driven marketing and communications program is vital in an industry as competitive as ours. Recognition from our industry peers is indicative of the type of meaningful work the teams are producing in collaboration."

KG Partners and Con-way received the highest number of awards of all 2008 TMCA entrants. The Compass Award-winning entry, "Con-way Truckload: Driver Recruitment Advertising Campaign," was the recipient of the 2008 Best in Class award. The Best in Class award is one of the two highest honors in TMCA's Compass program. Winners must have excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and achieved a perfect or near perfect overall score.

"The creative marketing, media relations and interactive campaigns KG Partners executed for Con-way last year were extremely successful in helping promote its Con-way Freight, Con-way Truckload and Menlo Worldwide Logistics lines of business as well as its driver career opportunities," said David Goldberg, principal, KG Partners. "Being honored by our industry colleagues at TMCA for our transportation and logistics industry communications expertise makes the success of our campaigns for Con-way even more gratifying."

The six TMCA Compass Awards earned by KG Partners and Con-way are as follows:

* TMCA Excellence Award & Best in Class: Advertising campaign -- Con-way
Truckload: Driver Recruitment: A national print advertisement series running in several driver-targeted publications promoting a lifestyle oriented career and Con-way Truckload as a leader in the industry.

* TMCA Excellence Award: Integrated communications program -- Filling the Seats: Con-way Truckload Q1 2007 Driver Recruitment Campaign: Planning and execution of a 10-week program that included public relations, advertising, search-engine marketing and online advertising resulting in a 166 percent increase of new driving teams hired each week.

* TMCA Merit Award: Media relations -- OceanGuaranteed(SM) Expanded Service Offering from Con-way Freight and APL Logistics: A media relations campaign creating a thought-leadership position in the global supply chain industry for Con-way Freight and APL Logistics, who teamed up to provide a new service offering on the cutting edge of international supply chain management.

* TMCA Merit Award: New media -- Con-way Inc.: Con-way Enterprise Web Site: A complete redesign of www.con-way.com by KG Partners to improve the customer experience, build the Con-way brand and more clearly define the company's business units.

* TMCA Merit Award: Media relations -- Con-way Inc.: Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Campaign: A media relations campaign to communicate Con-way's support of the National Guard and Reserve and its win of the prestigious Department of Defense Freedom Award -- given to employers who have shown exemplary support of employees who also serve in the National Guard and Reserve -- was developed to leverage the company's thought-leadership position on this issue.

Finally, Con-way Inc. also earned the following TMCA Compass Award for their direct marketing campaign:

* TMCA Merit Award for Direct Marketing Campaign -- Experience The Road Systems Advantage: A video campaign sent to select transportation providers that had a need to extend the lives of their 28-foot trailer fleets. The campaign was developed into a flash module, which served as the focal point of the new Road Systems Inc.(RSI) Web site, a resource for media interest and an ongoing online search presence for RSI.

Great Links!

Welcome to another edition of the Friday Blog Log! Here are our favorite links of the week. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

To start off, we loved this post from the Email Marketing Feed blog. This is a blog that collects all things e-mail marketing and reports it to the world. imediaconnection.com is the author of this particular post and they do a good job of discussing how to create e-mail messages that take into account the user experience when receiving the message. Oftentimes, as we create our e-mail messages, we focus primarily on the content, the offer and the target market. This is all very important, too. However, this post talks to the importance of conducting some simple usability studies that take mere hours to increase the open and response rates of your message. This post gives some examples of how to integrate this into every campaign. It's jam-packed with great information!

Our second link comes from e-consultancy's News and Blog post on Forrester's recent research on how spending lots of money on social media can sustain companies in these tough economic times. e-consultancy's author rips this research apart and provides some great (and pretty humorous) examples of why this isn't such a great idea. Here's a snippet from the article: "Given the fact that it’s increasingly becoming clear that marketing on social networks for the vast majority of marketers who have tried it, and is losing money for even the Googles of this world, Forrester Research’s 'research' seems to be quite contrarian to say the least." Read the full article for some thought-provoking ideas around this important subject -- and what this author's ideas are on what's really important. Good stuff!

Finally, we loved this post from Ron Shevlin's Marketing Whims Blog. In this post, Ron dispels the myth that you can advertise your way to greatness. With his tell-tale humor, he discusses the real elements that create iconic companies. Ron points out that Nike and Apple have accomplished this because they have done things in addition to advertising that helped them achieve their iconic status. "In Apple’s case it’s customers who are really into computer-aided graphics and design, and in Nike’s case it’s athletes and aspiring athletes." This is a wonderful and humorous read on what makes great companies just that -- great companies. And, under no circumstances can you become great simply by building a great advertising campaign. We know you'll enjoy this one!

TGIF!

Direct Marketing To Baby Boomers

It's amazing to think about the fact that Baby Boomers (me being among them) make up 25% of the US population, hold 70% of US assets, and collectively, spend over $2 trillion a year in products and services. Wow!

Savvy direct marketers are learning how to more effectively communicate with this large group of consumers so they can cash in with them -- and get some of that $2 trillion applied to their bottom line. In fact, a new book has been released to help direct marketers and advertisers do just that. Advertising to the Baby Boomers by Chuck Nyren, a veteran creative strategist, explains how to approach this important demographic. This second edition update is divided into three sections. The first part helps us understand Boomers' self-image and desires; the second suggests marketing strategies; and the third offers a listing of some practical resources. This book is a great resource for all of us in understanding the uniqueness of this large group of potential and/or current customers.

In case you aren't aware, there are an unprecedented five generations alive today that we must take into consideration as we plan direct marketing and advertising efforts. And, as you can imagine, each generation has very different needs and desires in terms of how they want to be communicated with, marketed to, etc. The Baby Boomers represent the largest generation alive today and (as Nyren points out) it is imperative to effectively communicate with them, while not alienating them in the process.

If you are interested in learning more about the five generations and how to better market to them, we have created a white paper on this very topic. It's interesting to see the differences between the generations -- and there are many. Although for most of us, these differences become very apparent at any family gathering! Or is that just Cousin Harold's personality that's shining through??? : )