If you really want a great gift idea, you need to check out this LEGO Jewelry website! The owner and designer is my wife’s Uncle, Damien Howard. This guy is incredibly creative. He started a business a few years ago creating Jewelry using only LEGOS. He designs earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Each piece is designed and created on the Eastern Shores of Maryland, by Damien himself. What a great business idea. Tell your friends and spread the word.
How many times have you sat on an airplane and listened to the safety message that typically sounds like this, “Blah blah blah?” One words crosses my mind, “boring.” Companies are always marketing…remember that! When you have a boring old safety talk, that is marketing. How you greet a client, write a blog, paint a house, remodel a kitchen, it is all marketing. So how do you make your marketing different? Be creative! Very creative if possible. Air New Zealand has done just that. They wanted their customers to have a more pleasant experience when it came time for the boring old safety talk.
Watch the video below and keep thinking how you can do something remarkable that will make your customers come back to you and tell their friends.
Below is a recent article by the Wall Street Journal entitled “Author to Bypass Publisher for Fans.” This is a must read article. Traditional marketing has never seen so much change the last 1-2 years thanks to the online and social networking communities such as Facebook, Twitter, and many others. Social networking sites have made inbound marketing popular! Now “fans” and “customers” get to decide what they like . A consumer can follow who they want, when they want and even comment and share info in seconds. Seth Godin has a cult following. His fans tell him what they want, and he realized it is time to take action. Read the full article of Author to Bypass Publisher for Fans and consider how your business can do something similar.
A number of my customers, friends and family know about this “extreme” adventure I will be participating in on August 28th with three of my friend. This is not a nationwide event, and so far we only have 4 hikers. The Maryland Appalachian trial is 41 miles long. It starts at the border of Pennsylvania and ends at Harper’s Ferry (near West Virginia). All 4 hikers were, at one time, athletic, but we’ve all been spending the last few years raising young kids. We’ve made some vows to get in shape and stay in shape and now we are doing the hike of our lives for two reasons: 1) To do something extreme and 2) Raise money for clean water in Africa for the Blood Water Mission organization.
We decided to make a video introducing the 4 hikers and had a hard time making it a serious film. To sponsor a hiker, go to MEUtley.com
Amazon.com has done an incredible job with their brand since its inception back in 1994. When you look at the Amazon.com logo (a part of their overall brand) and think about their company, what comes to mind? A hint, you should be able to think of at least three things!
I’ve known Kevin Nolan, President of Nolan Painting for about 10 years now. My dad and Kevin first met back in the late 1990s when they started the PDCA’s Residential Forum. Kevin has done an incredible job running a successful painting business. He has great people working for him and in the right position. I thought I’d post a recent blog post that describes a little more about the man behind Nolan Painting. You can learn a lot from the way Kevin runs his business.
Just wanted to point out a great website if you live in La Jolla, California or plan to visit there anytime soon. A customer of my dad’s painting company, Kate Dillon, started a blog/site called “La Jolla Mom.” The website is easy to navigate, bright and cheery, inviting and full of very helpful information for both locals and vacationers. La Jolla Mom can also be found on twitter and has an impressive following base. Make sure you bookmark her site but take the time to read over the existing content. This is a good lesson of building a website that is not about selling a product but in connecting, sharing and creating remarkable/useful content. People don’t like to be sold, so don’t do it on your website or blog. Instead, connect, network, invite, post, comment: interact! That is the power of Social Networking.
Social Networking seems as though it is growing at the speed of light these days. Connecting with fans and friends on Facebook and creating an email blast is a piece of cake. Social Networking and Media is becoming the normal way to communicate. Although there is a place for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Email marketing for your business, have you asked yourself, “Is my company still personal, approachable and real?” Can they schedule a meeting where they meet a real live person? Can they schedule a meeting where they meet a real live person? With technology at our fingertips (literally), it is becoming harder for companies to remember the good old days of old-fashioned marketing.
One old-fashioned marketing technique I’d like to reintroduce is the “handwritten note.” Yep. That’s it. Let me explain how it works. It is where a business owner or estimator spends 5-7 minutes of his or her time writing a thank you or follow up note to a prospect or past client using a pen and stationary. This concept is not just marketing. It is relational, personal and real. People buy from people they like. They want a relationship. Facebook started as a great tool to reconnect with long lost friends. Now it is a social online chat club…sometimes enabling chats with people you’ve never met or can’t remember if you were once friends.
Go back to the basics this spring. Dust off some old stationary and get started today. By the way, for the remodelers and painters reading this, try a custom stationary with a featured home you’ve worked on. I’d recommend talking to a watercolor artist to paint a photo or two you can use on your stationary. Check out this site: Watercolor Artist: Cath Howard.
It is old news to say how successful Intel has been with their humorous and creative approach to advertising. Intel makes computer processors that no one but computer techies can see yet just about everyone who owns a computer knows Intel. They’ve stamped their logo in a visible place on computers everywhere. They have the reputation for building the best processors for computers.
So, as a marketing guy, I love Intel’s approach to marketing. They did not want people to just feel comfortable buying a computer that had “intel inside.” They wanted a cult following! Now they’ve secured their #1 status through their effective and downright funny ads. Great job, Intel!
How can you make your company have a fan based who loves you? Maybe a humorous commercial? A tagline? A particular service that no one else offers? A guarantee that is unbeatable? Or a leave behind gift or mascot? (think: Aflac)
I am sure some or all of this video is staged and you’ve seen a few of these clips before. However, whether they are staged or not, it is a great 4 minute break to watch what some of us feel like doing at times!
If you really want a great gift idea, you need to check out this LEGO Jewelry website! The owner and designer is my wife’s Uncle, Damien Howard. This guy is incredibly creative. He started a business a few years ago creating Jewelry using only LEGOS. He designs earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Each piece is designed and created on the Eastern Shores of Maryland, by Damien himself. What a great business idea. Tell your friends and spread the word.
