Do you have well-seasoned, experienced executives at the top of your company?  Great!  But what about those employees at the bottom of your ‘bottle’?  Have you looked into the unique expertise that these younger, entry-level employees posses? 

You need to differentiate yourself from your competitors; you already have revolutionary, innovative products and services,  but you need to let your customers know.  Excessive marketing and advertising budgets spent on print and television commercials are a thing of the past; if you still rely solely on this, you will soon be left in the dust.  Social media marketing allows you to reach your customers on a whole new level, in a much more efficient and cost effective way.   Social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, blogs) allows you to reach a greater amount of consumers with much less effort.   I bet that some of your competitors are already well-engaged in social media, defining themselves as in-the-know, credible and dependable resources for consumers. 

To stay in the game, you must adapt to using social media as a significant part of your new marketing strategy.   How do you tap into these new resources, when your entire staff is accustomed to the old ways?  You need new, fresh thinkers to get your staff acclimated to the new way of marketing.  You will need to utilize resources which have not been considered so valuable in the past – the new, young talent.

A great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “There are always two parties, the party of the past and the party of the future; the establishment and the movement”.  The past serves as a foundation, but it is forward and revolutionary thinking that will truly ensure that your company has a place in the future.  

There is valuable young talent at the bottom of your bottle, make sure to create room for them at the top.  What are you doing to be sure that you do not become victim of the bottleneck?

“Strategy as Revolution” by Gary Hamel

London has prepared the 2012 Olympics to look unlike any other. The iconic ferris wheel, The London Eye, will light up the games in a very clever way.

EDF Energy and a team of MIT graduates will scan Twitter for Olympic related tweets during the games. The team will scan Twitter for tweets such as #energy2012, London 2012, Olympics, Torch Relay, etc.

An algorithm will decide the amount of positive or negative emotion in the messages. This is how they will determine the ferris wheel’s colors during a 30 minute light show every night during the games. Yellow means positive, green means neutral and purple means negative.

Do you intend to alter the color of the ferris wheel by tweeting during the Olympic games?

Supplying great content creates a positive experience for your consumer, and gets them started in buying process.   Naturally, your goal is to reach as many consumers as possible, but if you are not utilizing social media to spread your content, you are missing out.  According to Nielson’s “State of the Media: The Social Media Report” Q3 2011, social networks and blogs reach more than three-quarters of active internet users, and more than half of active online adult social networkers shop online. 

You have a great opportunity with social networks and blogs to positively influence your company’s bottom line- social media is no longer an option, it is a necessity.

There is a new Guerrilla Marketing tactic called NewsNotes or sometimes referred to as Tab Ons. These easy to remove, square stickers attached to the front of newspapers. You can get them customized to your liking. From there you use the newspaper’s circulation to reach your local, regional, or national market. They have many advantages including . . .

• Large Reach
• Easy to See
• Easy to remove
• Typically Bright in Color
• New Solution
• No Established Criticism

They trump most forms of new print advertising and marketing. They can be a great solution for your business. Check out how you can implement these in your marketing strategy through the Lansing State Journal and LSJ Media. Click here for more details and our other product solutions or contact us by view our website.

One of the latest marketing crazes has been QR Codes. These black and white objects have been the talk of many marketers’ conversations. You’ve seen them on print ads, tee shirts, and even in store windows. Some marketers think they’re really effective in capturing a young and technology savvy audience. Others believe that these are already a thing of the past. In this blog we’d like to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of QR Codes.

Advantages:

One of the biggest advantages of QR Codes is their ability to keep advertising relevant. Here we are talking primarily about print advertising. We all know the shelf life of print advertising is not very long, even with pass along readership. When a QR Code is placed on a print ad, it extends the life of that print ad. The website that the QR Code is connected to can always be changed.

Another advantage to QR Codes has to do with mobile phone usage. With QR Codes we can tailor our ads to smartphone users since we know were the QR Code leads. We direct them exactly where we want.

One last advantage to QR codes is their range of usability. The can be used in almost every type of medium. Furthermore, you can make the page it directs to what ever you please.

Disadvantages:

QR Codes require education. The average consumer has to find out what the black and white matrix is. Then they have to download an app. This education has not yet caught fire with a large portion of Americans. Beyond the education, many people who have the technology to perform the action don’t want to take the time to download the app.

Another disadvantage is that QR Codes are not the best looking element on your beautiful print ad. Unless you design your ad around the QR Code, it ends up looks like an extraneous addition to the piece.

Lastly, they have other competitors that do their same function. The latter statement isn’t the issue. The issue is that most consumer don’t want to have 3 or 4 code reading apps on their smartphone.

In conclusion, the fate of QR Codes is yet to be decided. The have both advantages and disadvantages. Regardless, we hope you got something out of this post. Please tweet at us @LSJMediaBizDev and let us know what you think about QR Codes.

Its called…

What is it?

Google wallet makes your smartphone into your wallet.

How does it work?

It takes all of your credit card and banking information and stores it on your phone and on the Google Wallet Cloud. From there your phone acts as a one swipe purchase mechanism. You can even use it with online merchants via the Google Wallet Cloud.

Where does it work?

Right now it is only working in select locations. Enter your zip-code on the Google Wallet website to see where it works now. Click to picture below to take you to the site.

How do you use it?

Once your information is loaded up on your phone and the cloud, it’s as simple as a swipe or just signing in online. Once you swipe, your information is transferred. Even coupons and loyalty points transfer during the transaction.

Where could this innovation take us?

I believe that if this concept caught on we would see 65% or more people using this technology by 2020. It could become the next generation of payment. I can see this concept being applied not only to smart phone and online payment, but also use with iPods and iPads, or other MP3 playing devices.

The only worry with this technology is theft of information, since most of your information is stored on a cloud. Even though most people will trust their credit card to a bartender for the night, this technology still has many people uneasy for use.

Be sure to let us know how you feel about the Google Wallet Concept.

Advertisements are all around us: studies show that on average we’re exposed to over 3,000 ads per day. (Holy cow.)  Billboards, television commercials, Internet banners, e-mail newsletters, junk mail, you name it, you’ve likely been advertised to through all of it. So how can you break the threshold and make your advertisement become the one that’s actually remembered (and hopefully talked about)? That’s easy!  (Says me.)  You just need to be creative enough to stand out in the crowd.

So ask yourself: what direction do you want to take things? What would be the best medium for you to advertise your product/service? These are important questions you need to ask yourself before you dive into the world of guerrilla marketing. For example, if most of your target market uses public transportation it may be a smart idea to use a bus stop as your medium, or perhaps even the handrails inside the bus. Other potential venues include elevators and various areas around your city, like the Folgers coffee example below.

A new trend in the world of guerrilla marketing is the use of 3D projection mapping on buildings.  The projections give the illusion of the building moving, transforming, and potentially even communicating towards the audience. The surreal visual landscape that is projected on buildings is breathtaking, quite interesting to say the least. Samsung recently used this form of marketing on a building in Amsterdam, clearly making a name for itself in groundbreaking innovation.

So what are some fun and creative ways you can get the name out about your business? This article has an array of creative uses of guerrilla marketing tactics from all around the world, check it out for some inspiration on what your business could develop.

Author, Robert Freeman Smith