Many marketing companies specialize in services. We get it. Video marketing companies steer their clients to channels like YouTube and Vimeo where views and shares can be measured and tracked. Digital or social media marketing companies focus on creating content that garners search engine love as well as likes and shares through similar channels like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, email programs, and more. But why do the two have to be siloed? Technology is no longer a barrier to good marketing and storytelling. Mobile devices now have photo and video capabilities that rival many prosumer model cameras. With a little forethought
More Marketing News →We had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with the members of the Iowa Society of Association Executives (ISAE) this week, discussing branding and building a stronger association community through our TRUE Branding process. The afternoon breakout session covered the concepts of brand and branding as it applies to marketing communications as well as how the TRUE Branding process can facilitate stronger, more targeted brand marketing and communications for associations, their boards, and the members they serve. The group was highly motivated to take in the action items provided in the presentation. With little encouragement (some strategically timed bribes –
More Marketing News →Okay, 2018 is over and we can all look back and take a deep breath. Suffice it to say, 2018 was “Interesting.” Many cringe-worthy moments. Many upturned industries. Many marketing mistakes. At the same time there were some brilliant marketing events as well. All things considered, it’s time to set up the blocks that tumbled down in 2018 and start building for a more impactful 2019. To help us all get some traction in 2019, we’ve put together 5 action items you and your team (if you have one) can use to make sure you’re on the right track just
More Marketing News →Boy, did I miss the days of frequent public speaking. At one time, I had as many as 2 speaking engagements booked for each month of the year (2005, 2006, 2007). While I was starting up SPOKE Communications (previously CreateWOWMarketing), it was a great way to hone my marketing and branding processes through “Live Engagement and Research” and build a resource for client development for the business. Of course, it’s a true testament of the love I have for what we do at SPOKE when I get to stand in front of a group to share marketing communication tips, tricks
More Marketing News →Brand communications strategies vary from company to company. But one constant is the need for a clear voice and a suitable score. How do you keep your brand voice in tune? After almost a decade of listening to the “solo brand voice,” we’re seeing a resurgence in the corporate “brand choir.” With that comes the need for better understanding, better storytelling and better management of corporate brands from the top down. Whether B2B or B2C, diversified corporations with multiple possible brand story-lines have a challenge ahead of them. And the need for consistency and a brand-centric communications plan is paramount
More Marketing News →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:
More Marketing News →