VIDEO: What Are You Willing To Give Away?

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

More Marketing News

If You Can’t Toot Your Own Horn, Why Have One?

We love our customers. It’s evident in the time we put into every project, the quality of work we produce and the passion we have for all things that go “WOW.”  But it’s a rarity to hear anyone from CreateWOW spouting personal accolades, or “Tooting their horn” so-to-speak. It’s just not our style… Well, today, we received a blessing and a tremendous testimonial from a client of CreateWOW and we’re going to pass along her comments and let the horn-tooting resound. Because… If You Can’t Toot Your Own Horn, Why Have One? Now, this particular client, Lindsay LeMay from Numark

More Marketing News

Photography As A Communications Tool

Have you become victim of the digital world of photography? On Friday the 5th of May, CreateWOWmarketing presented the following photography in communications deck to the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives.  In our presentation, we discussed the use of photography as a STRATEGIC communication tool as well as showed the audience some tips and tricks for making their photos better – from better photo composition to photography styles and mediums that would enhance their communications needs. Then we broke out into groups and shot some test photos using some of the styles and techniques mentioned in the presentation. Overall, it

More Marketing News

Measuring Social Media Marketing & E-Commerce

HEY, social media marketers, are you doing your job? How do you measure the effectiveness of your services to your clients? Hours billed vs. profit gained? Sure, but measuring ROI is often a tricky game. Do you take the client’s sales reports and compare them to the activity you’ve (hopefully) documented for every campaign, or do you have a tracking mechanism that works within their e-commerce workflow? Measurement is Important All of the above questions are those that should be asked when embarking on a serious social media marketing campaign. Unfortunately, many clients have yet to understand how to ask

More Marketing News

Social Reputation Management – SHOULD You?

When it comes to SOCIAL media, I’m often asked by customers and peers alike “What can I do to really manage my brand’s reputation through social media?” (Yes, somewhat a redundant question, but I’ll get to that in another post…) Well, a lot of that answer depends on the circumstances in which your “reputation” finds itself.  In the case below, I had a conversation about a peer’s client wanting “Edit” reviews on FourSquare… Hmmmmm As always, I try to keep my advice “Above The Line” and beneficial to all parties, but the implications of what the client wanted to do

More Marketing News

5 Tips On Writing Blog Posts To Increase Traffic

I’m often asked by clients and peers, “How do I (we) increase my site traffic? How do I (we) get more people to read the blog?” Well, it’s a matter of targeted marketing, brand consistency and good writing.  All of which even the BEST writers, marketers and bloggers struggle with on EVERY post.  But once a successful post formula is found, it’s like crack. You want, no, NEED to do it over and over again until your eyeballs rollback in your head and you fall to the ground in crippling ecstasy… Okay, maybe not that far, but it’s close. 🙂

More Marketing News

The 8 D’s Of Successful Marketing

If I include my college internship, this September {was} my 21st year working in, on and around marketing. I’ve seen some successful campaigns. I’ve seen some pitiful campaigns. Fortunately, I’ve learned something from them all, but the most important thing I’ve learned is how to tell them apart. (Trust me, some can’t…) So what IS the difference between a successful and a pitiful marketing campaign? STRATEGY. All Marketing Strategy Is Not The Same If you walk through any marketing department or advertising agency, without a doubt, you’ll see computers, printers, scanners, cameras and all of the nifty tools that go

More Marketing News

What’s In A Social Media Name?

One must be mindful of company name when joining social media outlets. Facebook and Twitter have millions of users so one assumes this tool would be on the forefront of any business person’s mind before making a huge name announcement. Alas, last week Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix has transformed its DVD via mail side of the business into Qwikster. This change makes sense with streaming video gaining popularity while one-day Qwikster may go the way of cassette tapes. Although, that is neither here nor there. The real issue at hand is that the people at Netflix neglected

More Marketing News

Social Media = ENGAGEMENT Not Numbers!

Most of us realize by now that a big number of followers doesn’t immediately equal ENGAGED, RELEVANT or INFLUENTIAL followers, but after a recent conversation, I found this bared repeating. “A big number of followers doesn’t immediately equal ENGAGED, RELEVANT or INFLUENTIAL followers…” We had a client mention wanting to have many more Twitter followers and Facebook fans then they do presently. When pressed as to why, there wasn’t a clear answer. Social media can’t be thought of as a way to create “instant sales” but, instead, as a communication tool to truly build your brand. Companies and businesses never

More Marketing News