At Next-Mark, we handle both national and international clients, so it is important for us to be aware of both the disparities and parallels that exist between international borders. Earlier this year, I was presented with the opportunity to study abroad at the University of Adelaide located in Adelaide, Australia. While enrolled in an entrepreneurship and peace studies course there, I had a tremendous opportunity to learn about the culture and rich business history of Australia. Seeing a different perspective, specifically in marketing, I picked up on a few similarities and differences between the United States and Australia.

1. Technology is driving the world

Overseas, and in the United States, there is a technology craze; users are constantly looking for the latest and greatest invention. Akin to the United States, the Apple Store, the worlds leading technology retailer, leases out some of the largest space in downtown areas throughout Australia.

The prominence of digital marketing is also very similar between the United States and Australia.. Mobile advertising is making a strong push, and one of the biggest international influencers is, of course, social media.

2. Public Advertising

With a strong emphasis on public transportation, there are emerging trends that allow organizations to effectively market to potential customers using public transport advertising space. Delivering a message and utilizing the allocated advertising space on public transportation is a key difference in between America and Australia. When considering the amount of time a person spends sitting on public transport, there is significant opportunity for a companies to reach a much broader audience.

Advertising through various media outlets is where the true difference lies between overseas and marketing in the U.S. Australians take better advantage of the designated space in public transportation. Looking at the small avenues of advertising that one never thought had any value is something that we look for in the United States.

Make note of where you spend more than five minutes of your day and think of the marketing possibilities in area surrounding you.

3. Marketing to youth

Marketing to youth and the millennial generation has always been a tall order, no matter what geographic region you are in. In Australia however, independence might not come right after high school. An increasing amount of students are still living with their parents well into their twenties, allowing them spend more on material items instead of rent. It’s hard not to underestimate the power of advertising when the minimum wage is around $18 and the unemployment is around 5%. These youth are more likely to spend money in a retail setting instead of saving for future living needs.

Marketing to youth in Australia is a more challenging task, but worth the effort because of the large amount of untapped potential. Young adults are able to earn a decent living without going out of their way to fulfill their education.

Next time you travel abroad keep these in mind, and take note of the similarities and differences YOU notice!

Quick: which is more creative, the billion-dollar multinational corporation with established market positions in competitive markets all over the world or the scrappy start-up with ten employees in a loft and a foosball table in the corner?

If you’re like most people, you probably assume it’s the start-up. After all, everyone knows that start-ups are fueled by the creative vision of their founders.

But what if someone told you that popular concept of creativity—chaotic, harried, stressed, small-scale—has nothing to do with the actual science and practice of creativity. And worse yet, most businesses are sorely lacking in creativity, whether they have two employees or twenty thousand.

Experts are just now beginning to understand how creativity works and how powerful it can be in the business world. The problem is that so few businesses understand how to correctly identify creative people and create an environment that fosters creativity.

According to Natalie Nixon in Inc. magazine, the idea that creativity “just happens” and is driven by flights of fancy and emotion doesn’t reflect the reality of creativity. Nixon is the director of strategic design MBA program and Philadelphia University. According to her research, creativity is actually a discipline. It takes practice and thrives in a structured environment. In practical terms, this means making an effort to provide time and space for people to be creative.

Google is a great example of a company that works hard to foster creativity. The tech giant famously has a department where people are paid to dream up the robots and tech products of the future. This department is where Google Glass and the Google self-driving car were born.

The fact is, most companies don’t recognize the creativity of their own employees and do little to encourage it. Instead of providing a venue for employees to exercise creativity, many companies have built cultures that are based on rules, division of responsibility, and above all, relentless productivity. The same employees who might grumble about following the latest departmental procedures are likely going home and mastering all sorts of creative pursuits, whether it’s scrap-booking, gardening, painting, photography, or any other art form.

So, is your company creative enough? If your company has created a culture that is open to new experiences and ideas, where people have structured time to engage in the act of pure creativity, then you are likely reaping the rewards of a creative workforce.

If this doesn’t describe your workplace, it’s likely that you’re company is missing out of the tremendous competitive advantage of creativity.

As you are probably well aware, the importance and impact of blogging has become, and continues to play, a major role in the marketing world and beyond.

In today’s highly competitive internet-based world, it can be difficult for companies to stay relevant and stand out amongst competitors, especially in those industries that have become increasingly saturated. Blogging not only adds fresh relevant content to your business website, it gives users a voice, an opportunity to share something with your social communities. It gives businesses a chance to go beyond the status quo sales pitch to give the brand a degree of personality.

So what makes an effective blog? We have come up with five tips to keep in mind when creating blog content.

1. Let your passion shine through your words

Like anything in life, in order to be a successful you need to have passion. Focus on a topic you really enjoy, something you feel zealous about and put a little of yourself into it. If readers can feel your passion, that passion will translate into a devoted readership.

2. Speak to a target audience

Who is your audience? That question in itself begs careful attention. Good blogs know their audience, listen to what they have to say and consistently speak to that audience the whole time. Make sure your blog is current, and relevant to the audience you are seeking to address.

3. Keep it simple

Don’t get caught up in the length of your posts. As long as your content is interesting and engaging, your readers will come back for more. However, blog posts should be easily digestible, as readers lose interest if they have to scroll down endlessly. Your writing will be more powerful without superfluous words and phrases.

4. Start a conversation, include a call to action

Write content that will encourage your audience to respond, allow them to leave comments and comment back thanking them for their feedback. Not all comments will be positive but all allow you to learn from them. Blog posts should finish with something that moves readers to some sort of next step. Do not ask them to buy something, as that will turn them off. Instead, perhaps tell them to do more research, leave a comment follow you on twitter, etc.

5.  Show your readers, don’t tell them

Stray away from telling your audience that your organization is awesome; show them by writing good content. Readers are easily turned off by haughty language, so use distinct unambiguous language and examples to build trust with your readers.

Those are our top five tips for creating a successful blog. Now get out there and put it to good use – and let us know how it worked!

Joseph is a business analyst intern at Next-Mark. In his role, he analyzes our clients’ business models and goals, creating strategies to maximize their marketing outreach, particularly in digital media. In his first blog for Next-Mark, Joseph looks at what it takes to reach the young adult market today.

This fall, more than 17 million college students will go back to school – taking their $117 billion in discretionary spending with them. Once there, their minds will be focused, of course, on grades and paying for the increasing costs of tuition (said the intern who works for his father).

Obviously, these young people make up a lucrative potential market, but how do you engage them long enough to convince them of the value of your particular goods or services?

As a college student myself, I have first-hand experience as a consumer, of course, but I also can look at it as a marketer. While majoring in finance and marketing at Indianapolis’s Butler University, I’ve learned to look at potential markets in every way they can be diced, employing different techniques to promote brands to each.

In a recent article, Elizabeth’s Harz’s states that “old school” marketing doesn’t work for younger consumers. Here is what, according to Harz, marketers should do:

1. Diversify: Take a 360-degree approach.

–       Regarding college students, developing a 360-degree approach means targeting all aspects of where they are viewing; for example, not only advertising in a digital way, but also focusing in on the physical college campuses themselves.

2. Be real.

–       With a busy schedule, college students are eliminating the “fake,” that is, anything with language even faintly reminiscent of scams and get-rich-quick schemes, and looking for facts and real reasons to buy.

3. Listen and adapt.

–       Demographics are seldom static, and this age group is one of the more volatile. Use social media to listen to your market and quickly change your tactics and strategies if you find that something doesn’t work.

Contact Next-Mark today to learn more about effective approaches to marketing to a college demographic (and the rest of the world as well).

Engage Today. Transform Tomorrow.

As the social media world continues to grow and evolve, organizations are beginning to look at social media as more than just an inexpensive outlet for getting their marketing messages heard. As we move into the latter half of 2014, there are 7 trends beginning to take shape according to PR Daily and Media Mosaic. As you read through the trends, take note of the ones your organization does or does not participate in.

1. Social Listening Taking a Prominent Role
Polls show that more brands are beginning to listen more actively to their consumers. 24% of marketers said they plan on using more effective listening techniques, a 2% increase from 2013. This offers brands an opportunity to interact on a more personal level with their consumers.

2. Social Advertising
The lure of social advertising is becoming increasingly enticing to social media marketers. 57% of marketers used social ads in 2013, and this is expected to increase by 23% in 2014. Social Ads give you the opportunity to reach the audience in which you’ve invested a lot of money and time into nurturing, which is why social media ad revenues are expected to grow by $11 billion by 2017.

3. Images as Marketing Tools
The use of images in social media marketing has grown exponentially over the years and is continuing to grow in 2014. Images allow marketers to share a lot of information in a short amount of time in space. Infographics are becoming an increasingly popular promotion tool for brands.

4. Data-based Marketing
Prior to the rise of social media, database marketing has been the conventional go-to solution to increase sales. With the seemingly boundless rise of social media however, companies are presented with an opportunity to reach customers immediately and efficiently. It gives marketers great insight into consumer culture through customer activity such as comments and likes on company products.

5. Social Media Integration with Business
2014 will see the further integration of social media with the rest of the business. Polls found that 57% respondents have a dedicated social media team to strategize, and implement planned social media initiatives. However, most only have the budget to have a team of 3 or fewer.

6. Social Data Guiding the Future of Relationship Intelligence
Information from social sites is being used more and more to effectively gage and monitor audiences. This will push brands to place much more emphasis on formulating increasingly creative campaigns.

7. Online Meets Offline for Customer Engagement
Despite the ongoing momentum for everything digital, organizations still have to find the best recipe for effective marketing tactics. This means finding ways to bring online content into the real world in order to engage consumers. Thus, in 2014 we are seeing companies take a much more hands on approach to finding that their consumers care about in order to find those winning practices.

At Next-Mark we work with major brands in managing their social media content and strategy. Let us know if we can help.

The term Brand Ambassador means different things to different people. In some usages, it’s a corporate position; in others, it’s college kids handing out swag. Often, it means empowering employees to go forth and spread the word. And, increasingly, it means building a power base with a product’s or service’s fans.

In that regard, following are a few ideas to fuel the buzz you need from customers to create excitement for your brand.

1. Know the customers most passionate about your product. Look at the base you have and build from there. Google your company or product and see what’s being said. Then start brainstorming about how to turn comments into       commitment.

2. Create an aura of exclusivity. Not long ago, we talked about Maker’s Mark, a bourbon with an official Ambassador Program. What makes it cool is that it isn’t advertised (at least we haven’t seen it); it’s a word-of-mouth sort of thing that makes Ambassadors feel unique. (Trust me, if you know one, they never shut up about the product and look for it everywhere they go.)

3. Let your employees know what you’re doing and why. Get them excited, as well. You can even provide incentives for bring true Ambassadors on board.

4. Go social. Set up forums for your fans and get conversations started on social media or on your own web site.

5. Encourage your active Ambassadors to invite kindred souls. Remember that you’re not searching so much for quantity as quality when it comes to people who represent your brand.

6. Reward your Ambassadors. Whether with the occasional lagniappe, or insiders’ emails or special status at events or notifications specific to them.

7. Listen! Along the same lines, don’t forget to listen to what your Ambassadors say, acknowledge it and, if appropriate, act on it. There’s no better reward than knowing you’re being heard.

There’s more, of course, but these are some of the basics.

A good place to start is the next time someone says, “I use your product/service all the time.” Instead of thanking them, ask questions as to why. You may find out you already have Ambassadors. You just have to reach out to them to make the most of their enthusiasm.

Need help getting started? You know where we live.

Here at Next-Mark, we work in the social media space all the time—just like your company probably does, and 99.9% of the world’s big brands—so we’re in a great position to see one of the fundamental disconnects between marketing and social media.

Social media has taken marketing by storm and changed forever the way brands interact with their customers. Simply, social media has taken a traditionally one-way monologue, where marketers talk at their customers and prospects, and turned it into a two-way conversation, with customers talking among themselves and to the brand itself.

The result has been an intoxicating brew of information and dialogue that marketers have a hard time resisting. After all, what marketer could resist interacting directly with customers and prospects?

But as Jorge Aguilar and Abhishek Mehta argue in Branding Magazine, it’s easy to go too far down the social media rabbit hole. Why? Because social media engagement is not necessarily connected to sales—and the marketer’s job is to build the brand and drive sales goals. As they say, “Love is not enough.” Simply knowing that someone likes a brand is less meaningful than understanding the behaviors that stem from that like.

So what’s a marketer to do? The key is to align your marketing with your sales goals, and then take advantage of all the tools out there that can help you bring social media into line with sales goals. It’s not enough to simply know that a person “liked” your Facebook page, for example. You need to know more: Is that person a current customer? How did they get to your Facebook page?

To be a truly effective, social media engagement needs to combined with marketing data that can uncover actionable data and potential sales. Something as simple identifying the purchasing habits of your own Facebook fans, including who “liked” your page but hasn’t bought anything by looking at transactional data, can turn a bland metric into a powerful sales driver.

It’s OK to be loved—but it’s better to be loved while you’re increasing sales!

Occasionally, companies looking for marketing, advertising or public relations support will ask the invited agencies or those responding to a proposal to provide “comps,” that is, samples of specifically what they would do for the company.  We never do.

It’s not because we can’t compete but because it isn’t fair – either to our agency, which is being asked to work for free; our existing clients, who deserve all our time; or the prospect, who would not see a true reflection of what a truly strategic approach would accomplish.

And that’s the key:  No one can know what an organization needs without knowing the organization. On the surface, it may look as though a few bells and whistles will suffice, while, deeper down, more relevant content may be needed. The point is that comps are shots in the dark – very unlikely to hit the target.

So how do you gauge what an agency can do for you?
 
A good place to start is their web site, particularly any case studies. Do they work with clients in businesses such as yours or have they addressed issues similar to those you face? Did their efforts bring measurable results? Do you like their design aesthetic?

Nose around a little more, looking, for instance, at their blogs. Are these people you want to work with and know? Check out their credentials. Are these the quality of people you would want on your team? If you’re still interested, ask for a meeting. Any professional agency would be happy to chat with you about your needs at no charge.

At Next-Mark, we stand on our competencies and ground all we do in strategy. We don’t create materials in a vacuum and work to sincerely understand our clients and their goals. We also showcase our client work on the portfolio section of our website.

 
If that sounds good to you, we may be good for you, as well.

We are very proud to be partnering with the Sarasota Film Festival for the third consecutive year. In collaboration with artist Vince Fraser, we have created some of our most dynamic work to date. We are grateful for the opportunity to showcase our capabilities in our local market and internationally. Special recognition goes to Steve Wroczynski, our Director of Creative Strategy for leading this project.

Whether you are strolling down Main Street or reading local publications, you can’t miss Next-Mark’s influence on the festival this year. Our favorites are the building wrap at the Hollywood 20 theater downtown, the large-scale mobile billboard, and the traditional (not so mobile) billboards alongside Route 41.

The festival emphasizes the best in cinema alongside exciting programs and events, with more than 180 films screened each year including features, documentaries, shorts, and kid – friendly picks. SFF brings the best new and veteran independent filmmakers to our community each year.

Take a look around the city this week, pick up a couple of local publications and check out the films and events at the film festival. It’s well worth your time.

The Next-Mark leadership team often shares stories of brands and companies that have influenced our perception of the marketing industry and shaped the way we do business. Our focus tends to center around the start-ups that beat to different drums, color outside the lines and embrace the unconventional. These companies create the inspiration – the “AHA!”

Deep in the heart of Kentucky’s bourbon country – in the tiny town of Loretto – the small-batch bourbon distiller Maker’s Mark has been providing its premium bourbon whisky (note the lack of an “e” there) since the 1950s. The creation of the Samuels family, Maker’s Mark is all about tradition and (at least according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) “whisky” is the official spelling … not to mention that Whisky Creek runs smack through the Loretto distillery property.

Maker’s Mark works hard to maintain its fiercely loyal following, both within the distilling process and beyond it – from its trademark black rick houses (barrel warehouses) with red shutters to its iconic square-shaped, long-necked bottles, each individually hand-dipped in red sealing wax.  Unsurprisingly, this extends to the marketing world as well.  And that’s where the Ambassador program comes in.

By recruiting its customers to become good-will ambassadors, Maker’s Mark turns them loose to spread the good word far and wide – globally, in fact.  (The distiller was recently acquired by Suntory Holdings Ltd., a privately-owned Japanese company.)  Now, this isn’t the only such program out there, but Maker’s Mark diligently massages these avid followers to maintain interest and loyalty.

A visit to the distillery will get an ambassador the white-glove treatment, a special nametag and repeated hearty greetings from distillery employees throughout the visit.  But, that’s only the beginning. Ambassadors also can have their names added to a barrel of bourbon and – since Maker’s Mark is one of the few remaining distillers to rotate its barrels – are regularly notified of its progress through the six-year aging process when the barrel is periodically moved around the rick house to absorb the environmental differences in temperature.

When their barrel matures and the bourbon is ready to be bottled, ambassadors can come by the distillery for the opportunity to buy a couple of personalized bottles and hand-dip them in that red wax. (Ambassadors are known to make that trip without hesitation.)  Periodic emails and a password-accessed area on the distiller’s website keeps ambassadors in the know about events such as its annual Thoroughbreds & Redheads horse racing weekend coinciding with the Kentucky Derby.

Other premiums, such as DVD’s, etc., occasionally pop up in ambassadors’ mailboxes just to keep them up to date on news, bourbon and distilling in general.  Every Christmas, a special ambassador gift arrives as well – Maker’s Mark wrapping paper, bottle cozies, ice cube molds and glassware are recent examples.  All this attention helps market the product, but also makes customers feel not only valued, but part of the family. And that’s what it’s all about.