The quick answer is "it depends." Depending on your company, business model, service or product, the key to a successful webinar is to offer valuable information to participants who are interested in giving up an hour of their work time to listen to you.
Before you choose to do a webinar, keep these tips in mind:
- Your target market will associate you with webinars quickly. If you decide to start hosting one webinar, you'll have to keep hosting them to become effective marketing tools and build a loyal following. Plan a series of topics and spread them accordingly over time to sustain interest.
- You must be willing and comfortable on a live web talking to a group of strangers you can't even see, hear them talk, or read their body language.
- Make sure your equipment works well so that the live feed is not interrupted. The last thing you want is technical issues interfering with your webinar.
- Be an authority of your subject matter. There are great webinars out there from self proclaimed gurus who know their topic well and offer quality tips to the participant. Stay on top of topics you can really develop a good Q&A at the end of your webinar, so that your audience can identify with you and your company should they need your services.
- Collect feedback. After the webinar, send a quick thank you email and find out from participants what they though. Offering a small incentive, such as a discount if you are charging a fee, can motivate participants to submit valuable feedback. Social media helps also, with Facebook and Twitter, especially.
Twitter @fuseideas
www.fuseideas.com
Showing posts with label imc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label imc. Show all posts
6/17/10
Making Email Marketing better
It's true that we've moved on from email marketing from the days of Constant Contact. While social media have revolutionized the marketing approach to email, not all is lost. Improvement is key. Here are some pointers:
- Go through your database regularly and comb the emails to find the best ones to reach out to.
- Learn to personalize emails as much as possible. Don't blind send emails to people, they get too much junk already.
- Use the KIS approach: keep it simple. Period.
- Use an easy call for action. Don't overload with rules and exceptions. Either you are offering good value that makes sense to your customers, or the email goes to trash
- Don't send too many emails. Once a month is plenty these days. It's enough to stay in touch and keep your brand in the front of your customers' minds.
- Reply personally. If you get a direct response from one of your mass emails, respond promptly and address questions efficiently. Part of successful marketing is assigning value in customer relationships.
At Fuseideas, we implement e-newsletters and e-blasts with a strategic approach that is part of our client's integrated marketing communications campaign. E-mail can only get your so far, but it is still worth adding to your mix.
www.fuseideas.com
- Go through your database regularly and comb the emails to find the best ones to reach out to.
- Learn to personalize emails as much as possible. Don't blind send emails to people, they get too much junk already.
- Use the KIS approach: keep it simple. Period.
- Use an easy call for action. Don't overload with rules and exceptions. Either you are offering good value that makes sense to your customers, or the email goes to trash
- Don't send too many emails. Once a month is plenty these days. It's enough to stay in touch and keep your brand in the front of your customers' minds.
- Reply personally. If you get a direct response from one of your mass emails, respond promptly and address questions efficiently. Part of successful marketing is assigning value in customer relationships.
At Fuseideas, we implement e-newsletters and e-blasts with a strategic approach that is part of our client's integrated marketing communications campaign. E-mail can only get your so far, but it is still worth adding to your mix.
www.fuseideas.com
6/9/10
FUSEIDEAS HIRES NEW VP OF CLIENT SERVICES
SOMERVILLE, MA – June 8, 2010 – Fuseideas, a premier full-service advertising, interactive and public relations agency, has added Traci Bergan-deBakker as a new member of the management team. As a VP of Client Services and Media Director, Bergan-deBakker is charged with overseeing all agency accounts and manage the interactive team on an array of projects.
Proficient in Spanish, Bergan-deBakker brings over a decade of experience in the integrated marketing communications in her new role at Fuseideas. She started her career at Deutsch Inc. in New York City, where she worked as a Media Planner for Mitsubishi and Reflect.com. She then accepted a position at Universal McCann in San Francisco as a Multi-National Media Planner for Microsoft. After moving to Boston in 2004, she joined The VIA Group, working with clients including HP Hood, TD Banknorth, WilmerHale, Silverstein Properties, and CBS Radio. Most recently, Bergan-deBakker lead the CoCo Key Water Resort marketing department as the in-house Director of Marketing, managing both their Boston and Fitchburg, MA locations, along with an array of portfolio-wide marketing initiatives.
“Traci’s client approach and media expertise is what we are looking for at Fuseideas, especially as we grow our agency in the face of a new decade. I am excited to bring her on board with the rest of our team as the VP of Client Services and Media Director.” said Dennis Franczak, CEO and founder of Fuseideas. “Her knowledge and experience with international brands provides our agency with a window to new opportunities for growth and new business.”
Bergan-deBakker holds as a Bachelor degree in Business Management and Spanish from Gettysburg College.
Twitter: @fuseideas / Facebook: Fusesideas1 / Blog:
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Proficient in Spanish, Bergan-deBakker brings over a decade of experience in the integrated marketing communications in her new role at Fuseideas. She started her career at Deutsch Inc. in New York City, where she worked as a Media Planner for Mitsubishi and Reflect.com. She then accepted a position at Universal McCann in San Francisco as a Multi-National Media Planner for Microsoft. After moving to Boston in 2004, she joined The VIA Group, working with clients including HP Hood, TD Banknorth, WilmerHale, Silverstein Properties, and CBS Radio. Most recently, Bergan-deBakker lead the CoCo Key Water Resort marketing department as the in-house Director of Marketing, managing both their Boston and Fitchburg, MA locations, along with an array of portfolio-wide marketing initiatives.
“Traci’s client approach and media expertise is what we are looking for at Fuseideas, especially as we grow our agency in the face of a new decade. I am excited to bring her on board with the rest of our team as the VP of Client Services and Media Director.” said Dennis Franczak, CEO and founder of Fuseideas. “Her knowledge and experience with international brands provides our agency with a window to new opportunities for growth and new business.”
Bergan-deBakker holds as a Bachelor degree in Business Management and Spanish from Gettysburg College.
Twitter: @fuseideas / Facebook: Fusesideas1 / Blog:
# # #
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
2/22/10
The role of public relations in traditional marketing campaigns
Public Relations is a communications function that has been grossly misunderstood throughout the centuries. PR is not just about shaking hands and smiling at events while chatting up a storm about a client. PR is the process that creates and delivers a strategic message to the media, who in turn deliver it to the public. PR falls under the umbrella of Intergated Marketing Communications, and therefore plays a vital role in traditional marketing campaigns.
From PR strategic planning, press kit development, to pitching media and follow-up, this marketing function has the power to make or break a brand.
For public relations to work, it needs to be planned thoroughly and executed carefully. Messages in press releases, media announcements, newsletters, web copy, and article placement (even your Facebook status updates) must all work in unisen to communicate strategically your business.
Consistency is key in PR practice and the results can be tremendous: if traditional media is the bread, PR is the knife that spreads the butter.
Join our discussion on our Facebook fan page
Follow us on Twitter @fuseideas
From PR strategic planning, press kit development, to pitching media and follow-up, this marketing function has the power to make or break a brand.
For public relations to work, it needs to be planned thoroughly and executed carefully. Messages in press releases, media announcements, newsletters, web copy, and article placement (even your Facebook status updates) must all work in unisen to communicate strategically your business.
Consistency is key in PR practice and the results can be tremendous: if traditional media is the bread, PR is the knife that spreads the butter.
Join our discussion on our Facebook fan page
Follow us on Twitter @fuseideas
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