marketing communications des moines iowa

Here, you’re going to find a large collection of industry news, updates and information on marketing communications. You’ll be able to find everything from Web video insights and marketing tips and tricks to some of our past rants, raves and reviews on the marketing industry.

This information is accumulated from our past CreateWOWmarketing blog as well as current posts from the Spoke Communications team. Categories and post dates can be found to he right.

If you have questions or need to contact us, please feel free to reach out to us using the contact page within this website.  OR feel free to comment on the blogs here! No one seems to do that these days, so it would be a great surprise and pleasure to welcome you to the wheelhouse!

Marketing 101 – Testing Is Imperative

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Education and Training  

One of my colleagues recently asked me,”…out of all the categories of marketing, including online marketing, marketing strategy, ‘Web 2.0,’” yes he used “Air Quotes,” “…market research, etc., what was the most important?” Without hesitation I burst with, “Man, it’s Marketing 101 – Testing is imperative!” Many of my marketing friends might argue and profess that if you don’t have the right positioning statement, reach the target audience, timing, or have the right offer, you won’t succeed. And to that I say SURE! In fact, those are the very elements of a successful campaign that can be identified through proper

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Facebook’s Graph Search Just Made Content Marketing More Powerful

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Interactive Media, Social Media Marketing  

If you missed the announcement, today, Mark Zuckerberg of FaceBook introduced a new search query function for Facebook called Graph Search. In a nutshell, Graph Search gives the search option in Facebook more of an honest “query-style” approach – wherein it will search for your specific terms as usual, but also suggest related results based on varying degrees of separation between your query and the related returns. So, from a content marketing standpoint, if you have been strategically building relevant content through your posts on and to Facebook, Facebook’s Graph Search just made your content marketing more powerful! From NBCNews.com:

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How to Control Your Facebook Page Feed

By on   /   Blog, Interactive Media, Social Media Marketing  

So, we’ve been asked about the news feed on Facebook and how to assure that the pages you “Like” are showing on your wall. While it’s a simple fix, Facebook has certainly gone through some extensive efforts to make it confusing to the “general” user… Once you “Like” the page, you’ll see their posts on your wall for a short time, but if you do not engage for a period of time, Facebook’s programming assumes you’re no longer interested and takes it from your wall. This DOES NOT mean you no longer “Like” the page, but that Facebook thinks the

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Use Video To Generate Interest In Your Brand

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Education and Training, Social Media Marketing  

A client asked me the other day, because I work quite a bit in video, if I encouraged others to use video to generate stronger interest in their brand.  Generally… YES.  But why? At the time, I couldn’t give him a definitive answer. I use many sources to create interest in the brands I manage, so to single out video made it difficult to communicate the sole benefit to their brand. Eventually, the conversation diverted to other topics, but I just couldn’t forget the question. So, out of curiosity, I clicked on the YouTube link on one of that customer’s

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Occasionally, The King Needs Good Damage Control

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Education and Training, Social Media Marketing  

Yes. For those of you that might have been hiding under a rock on Monday, there was a HUGE disturbance in the force. It was like the voices of millions of websites cried out and were suddenly silenced all at once. Our King, our Mohamed atop the mountain was … down. For hours on Monday the King of all web domains, GoDaddy, was nowhere to be found, on the web or anywhere else for that matter. Well, at least it seemed like it. With that, millions of websites and interactive outposts such as email accounts, e-commerce sites and blogs were

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Leadership & Parenting: “Just Do Your Best?”

By on   /   Blog, Education and Training  

My parents told me, from kindergarten through college as well as all of my years in competitive sports, “Just do your best,” and with that, I went on into the world a “fairly well-adjusted, happy kid.” I never quite excelled in school. I never quite excelled in sports. Sure, I was a good student and student-athlete, but was “good” really my best? Just do your best? While I love my parents, I have to say it was a mistake to tell me (an incredibly insecure, sensitive, creative child) to “Just do your best.” Think about it.  What are the benchmarks?

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VIDEO: What Are You Willing To Give Away?

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing  

What is it that you’re willing to GIVE AWAY to help build your brand? Branding isn’t necessarily about you, nor is it even about making money (although that helps). Sometimes building a brand less about what you get and more about what you give. Giving part of your brand is a piece of the marketing puzzle that Michael Hyatt talks about in his book, “Platform” and he illustrates this technique wonderfully at his blog, www.MichaelHyatt.com.  Here is a prime example: “7 Reasons To Buy My New Book” From my perspective, if you receive permission from your target audience to GIVE

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Trade Show Marketing That Wakes The Dead

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Education and Training  

I’ve been in a bit of a trade show marketing mindset lately. Primarily, because I just helped our friends over at pcCentral with their trade show presence for the ABI “Taking Care Of Business” Conference in Des Moines. It also has to do with an ongoing, aching PAIN I have from trade show marketing. Simply put, it all comes down tho this: Why do trade shows always seem like three days of the walking dead? Why can’t exhibitors at least pretend to be excited to be there for more than the reason that they aren’t staring at a flickering computer

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Author, Jim Collins on Iowa Entrepreneurs and Businesses

By on   /   Blog, Education and Training, SPOKE News  

CreateWOWmarketing was honored to be asked to document the 2012 ABI “Taking Care Of Business” Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. Along with streaming amazing breakout sessions and documenting the trade show, we had the privilege of hearing the Keynote speaker, Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great” and “Great By Choice.” While Mr. Collins didn’t fail to deliver on the keynote (more on that later), we were ultimately BLOWN AWAY by his comfort in allowing us to take a handful of his extremely valuable time to give us his thoughts on the business environment in Iowa. Some immediate takeaways from

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