I'm Lovin It! McDonalds Dominates Olympic Marketing Scene

McDonald’s is the top sponsor for this year’s winter Games in Vancouver. Sportsfeatures.com describes how they have branded themselves as the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games while opening three restaurant areas in the Olympic Villages in Vancouver and Whistler and the main press center in Vancouver.

Much of the advertising is athlete-themed while embracing a “Share the Gold” slogan with Chicken McNugget promotions.  Along with the golden Chicken McNuggets, stores here in the U.S. are offering a new limited time sauce.

McDonald’s is using three new advertising campaigns specifically targeting the Olympic season.  New items that have been added to the menu are the S’mores Pie and the Crème Brulee, and Crunch McFlurry.  To further support the Olympic themes, Happy Meals will include interactive toys of the 2010 Winter Games mascots.

Outside of the Olympic themed advertising, McDonald’s is also continuing their Champion kids program which began at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games.  This program offers children ages 6-14 from all around the world the opportunity to personally experience the Games first-hand.  A panel of ten ambassadors at the Vancouver Games along with Olympic athletes judge essay entries to award the winners.

As the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games, McDonald’s focuses their advertising on supporting the Games and branding themselves through new winter themed menu items.  Their Champion kids program embraces the Olympic spirit while reaching out to involve young kids all around the world.

[Via http://imcclass.wordpress.com]

How much marketing is too much? When do you become annoying?

Well, that depends and there’s a few things you should consider. Statistics show that people need to hear a message anywhere from 9 to 29 times before they actually make a decision and decide to move forward. So, when marketing a particular product, service, or program has your target market seen your message that many times? Generally they don’t.

Ironically, since we are doing the marketing we feel that we are being annoying and sharing it too much, sending out too many emails, and overdoing it but in all honesty we are all busy with our lives and we don’t actually see or hear every message that comes across. Think about this, do you read every email in every detail that you get? Probably not.

I’ve had good friends who were marketing a product or program and I didn’t even know, I somehow missed their messages, invites, and updates about it. Why? Because I’m not always looking and something really has to grab my attention before I pay attention, plus, we are busy we may actually see it but within a matter of seconds we forget. This isn’t intentional or saying what you are offering isn’t important, it’s more that we just have too many things going on in that brain of ours.

There is a point when it’s too much, usually it’s too much from someone who you’d probably never do business with or don’t need what they offer. But when someone we really like and has a service that we are interested in, it’s generally not annoying. I find that when people get annoyed they probably never would have done business with you anyway.

More often than not people are marketing too little and not too much. I rarely find that someone is overdoing it in their marketing, trust me I could probably tell you to double what you are doing and you still wouldn’t be annoying to your loyal and true fans that are just waiting for you to offer something juicy and delicious so they can sign up for it, but then again you’ve got to get it in front of their radar.

[Via http://andreacostantine.wordpress.com]

Avoid These Common Marketing Pitfalls When Using Twitter

Twitter has become an increasingly popular aspect of many online advertisers’ strategies; it not only provides a venue to assemble a log of devoted followers, but it also simplifies ongoing communication with them. This is effective in and of itself at driving traffic and improving sales. But unfortunately, if you don’t know what you are doing, you can not only waste time but also negatively impact your reputation. And so there are specific mistakes to avoid if you want to succeed.

The first and foremost mistake people make when marketing on Twitter is to, well, start with marketing. It might not seem such a bad idea to start off with marketing goals, but if you want to achieve results, be aware that it isn’t a good beginning. However, by developing confidence and reinforcing your connections in the beginning, you will create a loyal stream of followers. You should first get the consent of your intended audience before you attempt to sell them something later. How should you get such consent? By first becoming involved and neighborly to them on Twitter. In being active in the forum, you will have the opportunity to forge powerful bonds with people, so that after you have gained your audience’s trust, you will be able to utilize Twitter in generating additional visits on your website, creating a database, and gathering more specific sales. But your everyday activity on Twitter should be informal and friendly. Do not be too mercenary and focused on business in your tweets, and don’t turn them into uninteresting advertisements. Marketing is serious business to you, but add some spice and humor to your tweets for the sake of your readers. Illustrate your expressive side through your tweets. If you can manage to do this, you will be helping people in a fun way and they will trust you better. Be engaging and easy to deal with, that’s the secret to winning their hearts.

Twitter’s a two-way street, though. If you want the community to pay attention to you, you have to pay attention to the community. It’s only fair, after all. You should not anticipate receiving, if you do not contribute. But the good thing is, this mistake can be easily avoided. Due to the community spirit of Twitter, your participation means following others who are in your niche a well as responding personally to any and all tweets sent to you. If you only tweet “one way” and don’t respond to the tweets that others send out, you can figure that your efforts are going to see very little return. Twitter’s simple to understand. It’s a social network. Therefore you need to build a network to socialize with -to sell your products to. That means you need to fit in, make some friends, help out your community. Don’t just talk to an empty room; draw them to your words of wisdom. Then give a name to that perfect hair product from that fabulous styling tip you sent the other day. It cannot be emphasized enough. Twitter’s a community. Throw off the suit and sit down to dinner. Be a friend, and watch Twitter work for you.

[Via http://twittermarketingpower.wordpress.com]

Living the LUSH life...

So, this week things started getting back to normal, after the great, but slightly disruptive weeks of the leadership module! It felt great to be back with Corrine, with our teams, and thinking about Temptation once again. As I said last week, we have definitely been stuck in a rut, and it feels wonderful to be getting back on track!

We began the day with some general feedback on the business plans, and started to fill in the NESTA worksheets which Corrine had provided for us. While discussing branding, brand image, our favourite brands etc, I thought back to the time I worked at LUSH (natural cosmetics company). I LOVED working there, and people often said that my enthusiasm for the products and the brand ethics were infectious. We all felt the same; we started to dress the same, act the same, speak the same and smell the same (if you’ve never been into LUSH, this may sound  bit weird, but trust me, it’s a good thing!) You can tell which brands and businesses treat their staff well… my three favourite brands… like LUSH, Apple or Benefit: everyone is always smiling, in a genuine, friendly, rather than an ‘I’m going to stab you if you don’t buy this bath bomb’ way. People who love their job make it easier to sell their product, their service, the lifestyle on offer, to anyone.

But most importantly, LUSH got the best results from their staff because they enjoy their job. I enjoyed working there so much that I didn’t mind dressing like an Easter bunny and looking like a complete loser for a week.

But, back to business. Catherine also gave us a talk on the basics of marketing, alot of which I had covered previously on marketing modules during my BA. But it was fantastic to start thinking of how models such at the 7Ps apply to our business…

After a team meeting over lunch, and filling in the NESTA worksheets Corrine had given us, it was time to face the music – our marks for our business plan and feasibility report. I can honestly say that I am so proud of the team for the marks we achieved, to get distinction level for both pieces was fab… now let’s keep this up! It was cool to get the chance to pitch our idea to Catherine, and to chat things through with Corrine, as a group.

And so to group work…. after Corrine’s web design class, I have been focusing on making the website more user friendly. I decided that the nav bar was too cluttered, and decided to divide topics and headers up into folders, to make things look a bit more organised. I changed the layout, so that all articles are accessible through a menu on a single page…

I also got started on the ‘persona’ sections of the website… the idea being that each viewer takes a quiz to find out which of our three personas, Bing, Megs or Jonny they have most in common with. They are then directed to a specially designed page, full of content to fill their needs…

This week, we are meeting as a team, having prepared a list of issues with the business which we may want to address, things we want to achieve, and how we are going to do this. I think this will be a great way to continue our newly-found momentum, so that we can continue to get the results, and the satisfaction which we deserve.

[Via http://iamthroughthelookingglass.wordpress.com]

Should Charities Collect Donors' Cellphone Numbers?

The article below is from Give and Take, the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s blogroll.  The author asks an interesting questions – “should charities collect donors’ cellphone numbers?”  She also asserts that nonprofits will turn off potential supporters by asking this question.

This is partially true – though I think the logic *might be* suspect.  What testing has found is that the more information you request (whether as part of an online or offline donation form, or even an event registration, etc.), the fewer people you’ll have complete the process.  That’s why the experts tell you to ask for name and e-mail address only for the initial registration for your online newsletter.  Very few people object to filling out those two pieces of information.

Once someone has opted into your communication stream, then you need to send them a full registration request.  It’s at that point that you might want to ask your donors or supporters for their cell phone numbers.  And to get the full registration done, you might in fact need to offer something very interestig in return.

Where I *might* (I say might because I could very well be wrong about my assumption here) disagree with the assumption is in the thinking that specifically the cell phone number is something people won’t want to give out.  That might be true right this minute – but the market is shifting – and I suspect that in the next few years cell phone numbers will be no less guarded than home phone or e-mail address are today. 

So I’d say yes – you should be actively trying to secure this data (and permission to use it) from your donors and other supporters.

Should Charities Collect Donors’ Cellphone Numbers?

By Holly Hall

Are donors willing to give their cellphone numbers to charity?

Allyson Kapin, a marketing consultant, notes in Frogloop  that the recent success by the American Red Cross—which raised more than $31-million through cellphone text messages after the Haitian earthquake—has many charities eager to try mobile fund raising. To do that effectively, however, charities needs to gather the cellphone numbers of potential supporters.

But doing so might be hard. Charities that require people to provide a cellphone number—when  making a donation, signing a petition, or joining an event—could put off many potential supporters, she acknowledges.

Still, with a growing number of Americans giving up their land lines in favor of mobile phones, Ms. Kapin notes, organizations may find that people are increasingly willing to share their cell numbers.

During the presidential election,  organizations like Rock the Vote say people under age 30 were often willing to share their cellphone numbers. And the Obama campaign told those who did that they would be the first to learn who the candidate’s running mate was.

To get people to willingly offer their cellphone numbers in the same way, Ms. Kapin writes, “nonprofits would hve to find a compelling enough hook.”

Does your organization collect cellphone numbers of donors and other constituents? If so, how have you motivated people to share this information?

[Via http://nonprofitstrategies.wordpress.com]

Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. - Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare - Deals and Alliances Profile--Aarkstore Enterprise Market Research Aggregation

Aastrom Biosciences (Aastrom) is a development stage regenerative medicine company, which is engaged in the development of autologous cell products for use in regenerative medicine. The company’s principal business is to develop Tissue Repair Cell (TRC) based products for use in multiple therapeutic areas including cardiac, vascular, bone and neural disorders. The company’s preclinical and clinical product development programs investigate the ability of patient-derived bone marrow stem and early progenitor cell populations to aid in regeneration of cardiac, vascular, bone and neural tissues. Aastrom is headquartered in Michigan, US

Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. – Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare – Deals and Alliances Profile is an essential source for company data and information. The profile examines the company’s key business structure and operations, history and products, and provides summary analysis of its key revenue lines and strategy as well as highlighting the company’s major recent financial deals.

Scope

- Provides key company information for business intelligence needs

- Gives information on the company’s major recent financial deals including Mergers and Acquisitions, asset transactions, PE/VC deals, equity offerings, debt offerings and partnerships.

- Data is supplemented with details on the company’s history, key executives, business description, locations and subsidiaries as well as a list of products and services and the latest available company statement.

To know more about this report kindly visit:

http://www.aarkstore.com/reports/Aastrom-Biosciences-Inc-Pharmaceuticals-Healthcare-Deals-and-Alliances-Profile-21457.html

[Via http://aarkstore.wordpress.com]

Connect to Your Customers

Developing well written and concise messages – that connect with your customers – should drive your marketing strategy. This is particularly true for Web sites.  Although the Web is a visual-driven medium, with flashy graphics, sounds, and other fancy features, success still comes down to what you say and how you say it. 

However, website copy differs significantly from brochures or display ads. With only few seconds to capture and hold the reader’s attention, Web copy must be brief and to the point, but engaging enough for them want to see more. Focus first on establishing credibility. The content on your site must be crisp and intelligent. What you say should grab a visitor’s attention, pique their interest and motivate them to action. But avoid sounding like a commercial. 

“Don’t make your Web site look like an ad” is rule number one of Web copywriting, says Maria Veloso, director of Web Copywriting University. We are all bombarded by ad images daily, says Veloso. The last thing we want to see on a site is another ad. Yet many small business sites seem specifically designed to look like billboards. Avoid this trap. “People go online for information,” says Veloso. “That’s why they call it the information superhighway.”

 Provide help, not hype, with the feel of editorial, not advertising. Web visitors consider themselves active participants in a shared online experience, so the writing should speak to them in this way. 

Even though you’re writing for an infinite number of potential readers, your copy should read like a conversation. That’s why many successful Web sites use common, everyday words, not platitudes and overused clichés. Use the second-person (“you”) to help create a personal bond with your website visitors and convey your sincere interest in helping them. The more they like, know and trust you, the more interested they’ll be in doing business with your company. 

For help marketing your small business, contact Lancaster SCORE, Counselors to America’s Small Business. SCORE is a nonprofit association of more than 50 business experts who volunteer as mentors to emerging and existing small businesses. SCORE offers free mentoring, business plan reviews, business roundtables, and low-cost workshops. 

Check out our special workshop – Marketing on the Web – scheduled for March 11, June 9 and November 4 at the SCORE Learning Center, 313 West Liberty Street, Lancaster.

Learn more at www.scorelancaster.org  on the “Special Workshops” menu tab– or call us at  717-397-3092.

[Via http://scorelancaster.wordpress.com]