One of the biggest challenges that small agencies face in a digital world is having to stay current with new and emerging technologies and marketing communications trends.
In fact, interactive agencies have to be at the very cutting edge of new media.
How do you juggle, stay current and not drop the ball? Our CEO, Dennis Franczak suggests these techniques:
- Monitor the news environment. Staying informed means reading material that relates to your clients, your business, your field, and your competition. Subscribe to high quality content that will provide you with solid information, and keep you current on the new market trends. Reading good material is also a great source for conversation started at business meetings and networking events
- Write a blog is no longer enough... become a contributor. Let's face it, nearly every agency pens a blog these days. Whether your blog is good or not depends on how much you enjoy writing it, how often your write it, and how helpful are the tips and topics you blog about. That's not enough these days.
Becoming a contributor or guest blogger on a respected industry website is an excellent branding opportunity for your agency. Sharing insights and information from your own experience in a small agency through viral content is very competitive and well-appreciated from clients and others in the industry.
- Keep it all viral and connected. This one is self-explanatory, but naturally you want to maximize the impact of your agency's brand. Whether it's new work you want to show, a new campaign you are announcing, or a new client, using social media to virally connect with your contacts and friends is integral to your internal marketing effort
- Clients still want it all. You can't compromise the client's work. Period. Somehow, even with a million new things popping up at your agency, you still have to have your priorities straight. A happy client makes a happy agency. And vice versa.
- Mingle and network. While online relationships have taken over, there's still something about that first handshake and small talk that make face time much more personal and genuine to the business approach. Don't stop going to networking parties, industry award ceremonies and seminars. You don't know who you will meet and how that contact can turn into a client. Some things just don't change.
Twitter@fuseideas
Facebook
www.fuseideas.com
4/9/10
Fuseideas Launches YouFloral.com
Small Interactive Agency Spearheads Public Relations & Interactive Marketing Campaign for Innovative Floral Site
Our award winning small marketing and advertising agency has just launched YouFloral.com - a cutting edge floral website that is transforming the way customers send flowers in the industry!
Fuseideas is leading interactive marketing, social media and public relations efforts on behalf of www.YouFloral.com, a Mass based business that delivers the freshest flowers next day anywhere in the US, and is also the inventor of a unique personalization tool, called VaseExpressions™. A VaseExpression is a is a full-color, waterproof liner, which is secured inside an elegant glass vase. Customers can choose from a wide variety of attractive, seasonal vase designs, and then add a personal message, photo, or both, to send to their loved ones. The VaseExpression™ is timeless; once the recipient is finished with the flowers, the VaseExpression™ can be very easily removed from the vase. It then lies flat so it can be placed into a special frame, album, or scrapbook as a treasured keepsake.
Fuseideas’ CEO, Dennis Franczak anticipates great success with the YouFloral.com marketing campaign, “By harnessing the power of social media, along with utilizing traditional communication and public relations tactics, we believe that YouFloral’s message will spread virally far and wide, steadily building a loyal base of customers, while setting a cutting edge trend for true personalization in the flower buying experience,” said Mr. Franczak.
According to the agency, YouFloral will be utilizing social media extensively as part of its launch campaign, and will be publishing specials via Facebook, including an application to send free virtual flowers and VaseExpressions to friends. Already securing positive press by the agency, YouFloral is also expected to launch a blog on its website offering advice, seasonal tips, and exploring creative ways to enjoy flowers at their freshest.
About YouFloral
Massachusetts based YouFloral.com is the inventor and exclusive provider of VaseExpressions™, a new, patent-pending product that enables its customers to personalize and customize a floral vase. YouFloral emerges in the floral market and appeals to customers who want to fully personalize the traditional, thoughtful gesture of sending flowers to those who matter most by making their message timeless in a VaseExpression™. www.YouFloral.com Twitter@youfloral
Twitter@fuseideas / www.Facebook.com/fuseideas1
Our award winning small marketing and advertising agency has just launched YouFloral.com - a cutting edge floral website that is transforming the way customers send flowers in the industry!
Fuseideas is leading interactive marketing, social media and public relations efforts on behalf of www.YouFloral.com, a Mass based business that delivers the freshest flowers next day anywhere in the US, and is also the inventor of a unique personalization tool, called VaseExpressions™. A VaseExpression is a is a full-color, waterproof liner, which is secured inside an elegant glass vase. Customers can choose from a wide variety of attractive, seasonal vase designs, and then add a personal message, photo, or both, to send to their loved ones. The VaseExpression™ is timeless; once the recipient is finished with the flowers, the VaseExpression™ can be very easily removed from the vase. It then lies flat so it can be placed into a special frame, album, or scrapbook as a treasured keepsake.
Fuseideas’ CEO, Dennis Franczak anticipates great success with the YouFloral.com marketing campaign, “By harnessing the power of social media, along with utilizing traditional communication and public relations tactics, we believe that YouFloral’s message will spread virally far and wide, steadily building a loyal base of customers, while setting a cutting edge trend for true personalization in the flower buying experience,” said Mr. Franczak.
According to the agency, YouFloral will be utilizing social media extensively as part of its launch campaign, and will be publishing specials via Facebook, including an application to send free virtual flowers and VaseExpressions to friends. Already securing positive press by the agency, YouFloral is also expected to launch a blog on its website offering advice, seasonal tips, and exploring creative ways to enjoy flowers at their freshest.
About YouFloral
Massachusetts based YouFloral.com is the inventor and exclusive provider of VaseExpressions™, a new, patent-pending product that enables its customers to personalize and customize a floral vase. YouFloral emerges in the floral market and appeals to customers who want to fully personalize the traditional, thoughtful gesture of sending flowers to those who matter most by making their message timeless in a VaseExpression™. www.YouFloral.com Twitter@youfloral
Twitter@fuseideas / www.Facebook.com/fuseideas1
4/7/10
Beyond Economic Recovery and Brand Shakeout: Rebuilding Integrated Marketing Communications for the New Decade
The first decade of the new millennium taught us some very important lessons in integrated marketing communications (IMC). Many agencies made the leap to new media mainly by introducing new apps, cutting edge creative and capitalizing on short term strategies. Information Technology kept booming and the need to share information instantly was at the forefront of producing and delivering generally good marketing work.
Into the first decade, fueled by the growing technology and impact of tremendous world events, blogs exploded in an alarming rate, changing the face of publishing as we knew it. Suddenly, anyone could become a reporter, a self-proclaimed guru of something, the moderator of an online forum, or a podcast host. As a result, brand messaging was under siege; public opinions surged on the internet through a variety of venues, allowing for comments, conversations, both wanted (and lots of unwanted) feedback about any topic was available in just a few clicks.
Those were the early days of the brewing social media era, which eventually gave birth to networks that have now popularized the trend of sharing free information, in an instant, with few regulations hovering. The crisis of the publishing industry was peaking by the mid-2000’s, The MySpace revolution, which preceded the Facebook and Twitter craze started a trend that has essentially become a marketer’s dream.
The viral component of social media paired with an anemic economy that is, at best, struggling to recover, have become vital assets to most IMC campaigns for the next decade. Social media, just like any of the rest of the strategic IMC components (advertising, PR, direct mail, traditional marketing) are interdependent; they work well as part of a full integrated interactive campaign, and can also be successful on their own.
We have officially entered a new decade, filled with prospects, new beginnings and fresh outlooks on business. With new possibilities forming, small agencies have the unique opportunity to cultivate each of IMC’s strategic marketing components to service their clients the best they ever have. A fresh agency perspective and healthy client relationships will lead to exciting projects, great creative and award worthy campaigns. Quality work. Relationships. Credibility. Organic profitability. Those are keywords I am keeping in mind this decade for Fuse/ideas. I would like to share some of my own insights for 2010 and beyond, because I truly believe we are at a crossroads where the agency world has the real potential to become exciting, productive, and above all re-energized:
- What do you stand for? This is the biggest question of the decade, and it needs to be answered by both clients and agencies. Developing a brand positioning statement isn’t easy work. Reposition a brand to adjust to new times can be even more challenging. The key is to ask the right questions and have the right people help you answer them. Often times, we get caught up with little details of everyday operations and neglect to put an idea into perspective. If we can get better in keeping things simple for a brand, yet constantly engaging in new practices, then the higher the potential for success.
- Build a solid brand. This may be obvious, but it is a time consuming process. Building a solid brand takes a strategic approach to marketing and it’s not magic. It could even take years to build a solid brand, but the time spent will be well-worth it. Often times clients get frustrated because they expect results much sooner, while an agency keeps trying to lay the foundation to build the brand. As a result, they pull out their budget and start from scratch with another agency, and so on. Think of building your own home, where you want to raise your family. You want the safest and best materials so that your home will be a solid, strong and fun place to live. The same notion applies to the brand. Clients must hold agencies accountable in expecting progress, but need to be patient in the process of building the brand, especially in the early stages.
- Learn new apps/skills. Agencies will continue to utilize new applications and understand how to use them to serve their clients’ needs best. Whether it’s new social media apps that prove to be great marketing tools or brushing up on Internet writing, agencies and clients must work together to create and execute campaigns that will stand out from the rest
- Everyone is a critic, so be your own. And be the best. This one reflects my own personal philosophy in business and life. There’s no one out there that knows your business better than you, or at least, there shouldn’t be. You have to stay disciplined through the tough business cycles and learn to adapt in harsh times. The same applies to the work we produce here at Fuse/ideas. If we are not happy with creative or a PR campaign, we immediately rethink it and make changes as necessary. If you learn how to become your own constructive critic, it will pay dividends with your clients, your staff and above all it will benefit your business.
- Engage and participate. This is a powerful keyword that marks the beginning of this decade. Social media are at the forefront of engaging in new ideas and participating in conversations. Relationships have shifted to online rather than the traditional face to face communication. Online relationship matter and they can bring business through networking more than ever. For that matter, we need to learn to ask questions on those networks, and when we are done, keep asking more to understand the dynamic of social media, and continuously monitor their evolving nature.
A long time ago, I read somewhere a quote that stayed with me: "There are three types of people, those who watch things happen, those who make things happen and those who wonder what happened." It’s clear that agencies should make things happen in a growing digital world, but we have to look within our business and develop a structure that will help us work through this economic crisis and beyond. By looking in and setting strategic goals for our business and our clients, the agency world will eventually, once again, hail and prevail. In the end, appreciating the lessons from the last ten years not only help us gain a solid understanding of how we got here, but also empower us to create the path for the new decade.
Dennis Franczak, CEO of Fuseideas
www.fuseideas.com
Facebook
Twitter
Into the first decade, fueled by the growing technology and impact of tremendous world events, blogs exploded in an alarming rate, changing the face of publishing as we knew it. Suddenly, anyone could become a reporter, a self-proclaimed guru of something, the moderator of an online forum, or a podcast host. As a result, brand messaging was under siege; public opinions surged on the internet through a variety of venues, allowing for comments, conversations, both wanted (and lots of unwanted) feedback about any topic was available in just a few clicks.
Those were the early days of the brewing social media era, which eventually gave birth to networks that have now popularized the trend of sharing free information, in an instant, with few regulations hovering. The crisis of the publishing industry was peaking by the mid-2000’s, The MySpace revolution, which preceded the Facebook and Twitter craze started a trend that has essentially become a marketer’s dream.
The viral component of social media paired with an anemic economy that is, at best, struggling to recover, have become vital assets to most IMC campaigns for the next decade. Social media, just like any of the rest of the strategic IMC components (advertising, PR, direct mail, traditional marketing) are interdependent; they work well as part of a full integrated interactive campaign, and can also be successful on their own.
We have officially entered a new decade, filled with prospects, new beginnings and fresh outlooks on business. With new possibilities forming, small agencies have the unique opportunity to cultivate each of IMC’s strategic marketing components to service their clients the best they ever have. A fresh agency perspective and healthy client relationships will lead to exciting projects, great creative and award worthy campaigns. Quality work. Relationships. Credibility. Organic profitability. Those are keywords I am keeping in mind this decade for Fuse/ideas. I would like to share some of my own insights for 2010 and beyond, because I truly believe we are at a crossroads where the agency world has the real potential to become exciting, productive, and above all re-energized:
- What do you stand for? This is the biggest question of the decade, and it needs to be answered by both clients and agencies. Developing a brand positioning statement isn’t easy work. Reposition a brand to adjust to new times can be even more challenging. The key is to ask the right questions and have the right people help you answer them. Often times, we get caught up with little details of everyday operations and neglect to put an idea into perspective. If we can get better in keeping things simple for a brand, yet constantly engaging in new practices, then the higher the potential for success.
- Build a solid brand. This may be obvious, but it is a time consuming process. Building a solid brand takes a strategic approach to marketing and it’s not magic. It could even take years to build a solid brand, but the time spent will be well-worth it. Often times clients get frustrated because they expect results much sooner, while an agency keeps trying to lay the foundation to build the brand. As a result, they pull out their budget and start from scratch with another agency, and so on. Think of building your own home, where you want to raise your family. You want the safest and best materials so that your home will be a solid, strong and fun place to live. The same notion applies to the brand. Clients must hold agencies accountable in expecting progress, but need to be patient in the process of building the brand, especially in the early stages.
- Learn new apps/skills. Agencies will continue to utilize new applications and understand how to use them to serve their clients’ needs best. Whether it’s new social media apps that prove to be great marketing tools or brushing up on Internet writing, agencies and clients must work together to create and execute campaigns that will stand out from the rest
- Everyone is a critic, so be your own. And be the best. This one reflects my own personal philosophy in business and life. There’s no one out there that knows your business better than you, or at least, there shouldn’t be. You have to stay disciplined through the tough business cycles and learn to adapt in harsh times. The same applies to the work we produce here at Fuse/ideas. If we are not happy with creative or a PR campaign, we immediately rethink it and make changes as necessary. If you learn how to become your own constructive critic, it will pay dividends with your clients, your staff and above all it will benefit your business.
- Engage and participate. This is a powerful keyword that marks the beginning of this decade. Social media are at the forefront of engaging in new ideas and participating in conversations. Relationships have shifted to online rather than the traditional face to face communication. Online relationship matter and they can bring business through networking more than ever. For that matter, we need to learn to ask questions on those networks, and when we are done, keep asking more to understand the dynamic of social media, and continuously monitor their evolving nature.
A long time ago, I read somewhere a quote that stayed with me: "There are three types of people, those who watch things happen, those who make things happen and those who wonder what happened." It’s clear that agencies should make things happen in a growing digital world, but we have to look within our business and develop a structure that will help us work through this economic crisis and beyond. By looking in and setting strategic goals for our business and our clients, the agency world will eventually, once again, hail and prevail. In the end, appreciating the lessons from the last ten years not only help us gain a solid understanding of how we got here, but also empower us to create the path for the new decade.
Dennis Franczak, CEO of Fuseideas
www.fuseideas.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)