It has been months since we have put a post on our blog. Not because we didn’t have anything to SHARE or celebrate as there is plenty of that, but rather because the demands of prioritizing as we continue to grow as a company – became our main focus.

As mentioned over the last year, I joined the millions of adults who faced the “unplanned” reality of a parent facing significant illness and the change to their lives and mine was monumental.

I think we all believe we can do it all and when reality hits you – sometimes we need to rethink “what doing it all means“. For me it has meant being the best daughter I could be first. Second it meant helping our clients understand, create and implement social/digital strategy and tactics to meet their business objectives and establish meaningful relationships with their customers.

Some may perceive this absence – to be a lack of savvy or klout for us as a business or a company. Others may have thought we dropped out of the game. Neither could be further from the truth! Marketing guru Scott Stratten often tweets on Twitter as @unmarketing -  the idea that one is better to post nothing on a blog, then to post something that is not of value.

What is amazing about substance – is that we began this blog in November 2008. That was almost 4 years ago and right out of the gate I began writing about social media and digital strategy. At that time, all the clients I visited were curious to listen to what I had to say – but none of them were ready to take the chance and test it out. The information over that span of time shared on our blog and website is now relevant and used by many companies and businesses to meet their objectives and establish honest and true relationships with their customers. Funny, that it is now a mandate for all businesses to be engaging social media as a marketing strategy – for success!

From that perspective, the content, opinions, ideas and many examples from the many posts over an almost four year period are well worth the read! We encourage you to look back and see what we had to say then and see how that information matches up to your goals and needs now.

As the summer comes to a close – we look forward to once again becoming engaged and active by continuing to lead the way with ideas, opinions and new styles of engaging and encouraging you – to leverage social media and digital channels to meet your business objectives.

Thanks always for all your support!

Best Nicole

This legitimizes the power and success of social media and re-enforces for all businesses – it is time to get into the game. It also points to many other big companies, Canada’s major retailer The Bay is rumored to be looking at an IPO for the fall. But how are these retailers leveraging the power of social media – as they step into the future in their marketing and continue to engage  their customers?

Everywhere you turn, analysts, media guru’s and business consultants are coming out to talk about social media. The retail industry is just beginning to jump into the foray. I think what is lost on so many businesses – but vital for these retailers is the understanding and skill of linking total communications – to their digital strategy using social media. They all began and continue offline to market to their customers with flyers, magazine inserts, pop -(point of sale) signage in-store, radio and television commercials. Those retailers who have a long history – take with them their brand identity and recognition via these marketing vehicles. As more retailers look to transfer that online traffic to their stores – they need to clearly understand how their customer  wants to communicate in the digital space. Then link their traditional marketing efforts to that digital strategy – seamlessly.

Social media is about engagement. These companies began their engagement with customers offline. Where the message for execution is being lost for many businesses is – that social media communities are extensions of what has and does happen in the real world.  Social media is a way to personally engage and build a one one on one relationship with your customer. The real success and skill comes from mirroring that traditional relationship with your company and brand and moving it online. What were the positive results and transactions you had with your customers offline?

Finding influencers in your target market and creating discussions, sharing ideas, expertise and taking their ideas and expertise to be shared with others in your community is where the success is going to be greatest. Remembering where you started and having a seamless pathway for your customers to travel – using the tools that are familiar and easily available to them, is taking that total communications purpose and making sure that you are making the transition with ease and comfort.

So where to start? Almost everyone has a Facebook page and coming behind Facebook many have a Twitter account. Almost all businesses have a website and from there they can use a multitude of ways to guide their customers in the way they want to communicate. Understanding the total communications pathway and leveraging that path to engage via social media will ensure nobody gets left behind!

Best Nicole

I was thinking about our small boutique agency. As we continue to grow and create successful campaigns for our clients, we work to carve out a space for those companies who greatly desire our skill, expertise, creative tech skills & bandwidth -while meeting and exceeding their objectives. Yes and keeping the money in their pockets with low cost innovation and implementation and high returns. Some believe the more “likers” and followers you have the better success you will be – yet they forget that it is quality not quantity you want via information and engagement. There is today no accident that your neighbor, former high school teacher, doctor, dentist and boss former & current are all on Facebook. (Yes we may all want to take an extra minute to review our privacy settings) It means that all the brands you can think of, businesses, products and services know we are all there too and they are looking for new marcom partners and business advisers to help them reach all of us. Both online and offline. It will be those such as ourselves with a wealth of award winning traditional talent and  savvy experiential technical talent – who clearly understand and can translate that user experience – on an array of platforms, that will help you knock it out of the park- in reaching that customer in the place you desire to have them go.

In the past – the key to audience targeting was focused on assigning people to demographics such as age, gender and location. While this info. is still vital – with so much data available to us now and the idea that understanding that data first- before going forward with that “knock it out of the park campaign” means much success in the campaigns you create.

“Targeting can be and is much more dynamic and can gauge your interests and preferences.” Ever notice that the ads on Facebook and Twitter, the suggested people to follow and things that relate to what you like and care about are truly on par just for you? It is this behavioral targeting that is now the future of where the internet and your marketing and communications is going both offline and online.

Mashable.com has a great article from a week ago that speaks to this very topic. Lauren Drell writes about 4 Ways That Behavioral Targeting is Changing the Web. It is a brilliant article that I encourage all of you who are looking to better understand and target your customers to read.

Drell gives a great explanation of how this works for those that are not yet familiar -“Here’s how behavioral targeting works: Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf. (Though one interviewee, ContextWeb, targets based on content and not cookies.) Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected.”

Companies that are paying attention to this understanding and moving towards  behavioral targeting with their data – through their advertising- can’t help but to expect more success and engagement by people who have indicated on the web what their preferences are and that they would be interested in YOUR product and or service. Of course this detailed data collection can be more costly, but the sales conversion rate of targeting to the correct buyer is sure to offset this cost. The viral advantage grows as well – as those accurately targeted customers- then SHARE those products , your products – with prequalified friends, family and colleagues.

Viva the future.

Best Nicole

Google Canada continued to tweet that, cost, simplicity and time were stopping small businesses and big business to I might add from leveraging online initiatives. They answered with “Canada Get Your Business Online” initiative. With this initiative Google will hand out websites and domain names to at least 100,000 small and medium sized Canadian businesses, with the bill being footed by Google.” Great way to get businesses started in the online space.

I believe though – that although many of these business owners and marketing managers are familiar with the internet and use it in their everyday life,  many have Facebook pages, smart phones and use those too daily. There is still a lack of understanding and evidence as to the link for these online tools and the success of their business. For most – success means seeing data, and monetary growth in their particular business that – is derived specifically via online channels.  To make an online investment it may mean – taking away current successful dollars from the offline marketing campaigns to invest in that “unknown, unproven space“. At the end of the day – any investment and cost that involves marketing – needs a big return on the investment made – to make sense and be of value no matter the size or success of the business.

In Canada alone -it is ironic that “Canada may be known as the most plugged-in population in the world (spending 43.5 hours per month online, nearly double the global average)” yet there are 1 million companies that do not have  presence online, let alone an e-commerce component. The power of total communications means, a business can leverage their current success offline to build quick success online. That dollar can be shared and used to benefit both aspects of your marketing to enhance your customer reach, broaden opportunity for brand exposure and sales. You also ensure that you reach each and every customer where they are most comfortable.

This new world is about  relationships. Understanding who they are, getting to know where  they are, how they want and like to communicate and the respectful act of slowly developing a meaningful relationship – that benefits both of the parties objectives, values and goals . As an example; creating a campaign on Facebook for a business that has  a retail location, will most certainly be more powerful – if you promote and share your online campaign in your in-store signage, your print materials, receipts that you provide at cash registers and other offline modes of communication that you currently use. What about the sales people in your store – that get to talk about the partnership that has been created with your online business. They want customers to continue to visit their stores. Some of those visitors can be the ones that find you online and have yet to come to your bricks and mortar locations. Others that have not visited you online may be unfamiliar with the idea that they could research certain products or services at home, before visiting your bricks and mortar locations. Now all parts of your business team are working together for mutual success rather than as separate entities. This gives your business more ways to make money and it makes it more meaningful- for your team members to be included in the various ways your business can grow.

It is that total communications mentality that can help grow your business and add to the current success you have had online or offline. You do not have to sacrifice one to benefit the other. There are so many ways to bridge that gap online – in ways that are far more cost effective than many of the offline marketing tools. With a clear understanding, effective and simple measurement and tracking tools – you can effectively find success that far exceeds your current planning and previous monetary success. Being digitally ahead, leveraging your total communications marketing tools = more customer reach, establishing meaningful customer relationships and more opportunity to meet your business objectives.

Time to get online and SHARE your offline communications dollars and success for a digitally ahead, total communications campaign!

Best Nicole

Normally I post a link to articles that touch me or incite something that I wanted to talk about and share with our readers. For today I am going to post an article that I though was important as more businesses focus on how to market to women. Most of us are familiar with TED Talks. I have posted many of them on this blog over the last few yrs.  Engage Boomers: Media Posts rss feed from today – had a beautiful article written by Stephen Riley who attended the most recent TED Talks. What got me was the line “What Boomer Women Look Like” and the subsequent overview of some of the world’s most powerful women and how they reflect accomplishment – not reflected as a targeted age group – but rather as women making a grand difference around the globe – and as Riley writes “creating goals with a purpose.”

As more businesses strategically plan and leverage social media tools, as a way to market their products and services – women play a huge role - not only as decision makers and consumers, but also in helping you create and SHARE your goals and purpose. This new dynamic is about finding ways to create an experience – that incites the recipient of that experience – to take the action you intended them to make.

Best Nicole

What TED Can Teach Us About Marketing To Women

I recently attended the annual TED Conference, which gathers attendees each year to hear cutting-edge scientists, inspiring artists, and global reformers give their own versions of the famous 18-minute “TED Talks.” You have probably seen (or been sent) some TED Talks yourself; all the talks I saw will soon be available to see and share.

As I made my way home after four days of these mind-blowing presentations, I started focusing on some underlying themes. One of those themes was the portrait TED painted (through its speakers) of Baby Boomer women and the true meaning of “aspiration.”

I also found myself wondering how these themes will be discussed at this year’s M2W Conference on April 13-14 in Chicago. M2W may not have as many inventors at TED, but it features a lot of speakers and attendees who think about marketing to women of all ages.

What Great Boomer Women Look Like

Most of the women speakers at TED were themselves Baby Boomers, and they reflected a wide array of female accomplishment:

• Indra Nooyi, the 55-year old chairman and CEO of Pepsico, explained Pepsi’s new mission statement: “Performance with Purpose.” On the “purpose” side of that equation, she told the story of the “Pepsi Refresh Project,”, where millions of citizens have nominated and voted for non-profit groups to receive grants from funds that Pepsi would have otherwise spent on commercials.

• Edith Widder, 60, a biologist, conservationist, and deep-sea explorer, told us about her decades-long fascination with bio-illuminescence, the property that lets an infinite variety of deep-sea creatures produce light. Widder’s lifelong passion has changed the way we see and protect 99% of living space on earth that takes place below the ocean’s surface.

• Julie Taymor, 58 and the creator of “The Lion King,” identified her own creative impulse with an experience at the edge of an active New Zealand volcano, then compared that experience to the inferno she finds herself in now as the producer of Broadway’s disaster-prone “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

• Amina Az-Zubair, a Nigerian reformer, told her own story growing up in a more prosperous Nigeria and now delivering meaningful results as she oversees a $1 billion investment in education to improve the lives of 70 million Nigerians who live in poverty.

As these speakers rolled across my memory, I thought of the portrait they painted of what it means to be a Boomer woman in the U.S. and the world. I saw passions and qualities that we hear about from women but rarely see reflected in any advertisement. Those qualities include:

• An entrepreneurial spirit that is about doing well by doing good

• A reforming instinct

• A creative passion that never gives up

• Knowledge and wisdom that come from years of careful observation

Marketers always talk about what it presenting “aspirational” models for consumers. In the case of Boomer women, that usually means presenting them models who have no wrinkles or grey hair. Yet, the TED Talks I heard reminded me that aspiration can take many forms, and marketers who want to reach women over 50 should also recognize and celebrate the values these remarkable women exhibited: accomplishment borne from a lifelong passion, the wisdom gained from experience and a desire to make the world a better place.

If you remind Boomer women that you recognize these (among other) aspirations in them, you will make it a lot easier for them to help you achieve Pepsi’s goal of performance with purpose.

As we work to gear up with new campaigns for our clients in 2011 – using a digitally ahead- total communications outlook – leveraging tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube do and can work - not only for consumer engagement but to increase sales too! In a great article posted on Brandchannel.com – Going Social: Brands Large and Small Must Adapt to Social Media in 2011, Author Barry Silverstein says” Going social will demand a whole new level of consumer responsiveness from brand marketers – and a whole new way of looking at lead generation and qualifications process. Those who rise to that challenge will have the distinct advantage over their competitors in 2011. Click here to read more of this article.

For us the proof is always in the case studies and examples of success to show how powerful something can become. Everyone by now is familiar with the Old Spice campaign. That campaign garnered 140 million views on Twitter, an increase of Facebook fans of 2700% and 1.2 million Facebook fans. Sales rose 107%, according to Neilsen Data. You can’t get better than that. Here’s a link to a video from CREATIVITY that provides a case study for you to see how it worked so well.

The famed agency Weiden Kennedy knocked it out of the park with this one. What are you gonna do?

Best Nicole

Best Nicole and the BCAD Group Team

Search in the world of technology is the main driver and source of revenue for all of us looking to build our visibility online. “As a marketing strategy, SEO is used to increase a site’s relevance. The SEO recognizes how search organics work and what people are searching for. It also initiates efforts to include unique content to a site to ensure that its content is easily indexed by search engine robots, making it more appealing to users.”

As this year winds down it is important to reflect and see what the past year’s successes, failures, tragedy’s and challenges were- in order to help plan and build enthusiasm, goals and growth for the year ahead. I came across this video via Google Zeitgeist 2010 that provides you with a great overview of the top searches in 2010 around the globe. Great way to get the juices flowing as we all plan to search on in 2011.

2010 in Review

Re-live top events and moments from 2010 from around the globe through search, images, and video.

Enjoy!

Best Nicole

When you begin to engage your community it will be come clear within the community – the ways to which your” likers” or community members  love to share information. It may even be in ways that will go outside or beyond the products and services that – you focused your community building on. Finding creative ways to allow these most important customers – to be able to engage others, share their lives, ideas, opinions and interests  -will allow and encourage others to share back. You create a real human association as well – when you are now allowing those who use and love your products most – to be your marketing spokes people. Lets not forget the opportunity to increase sales with people who are so eager to share themselves with others and learn new things in a place that you opened up to them. You also get to learn by listening to this burgeoning community you are building and find out what people love, dislike and are truly interested in – as it relates to your products and services, as well as the customers who are passionate about what you do and want to connect with others with similar interests.

It is no surprise that many companies are now using Facebook as a platform to build communities and engage their customers. 250 million people go on Facebook everyday! There is a wonderful post I came across today – that led to this article from my favorite social media site Mashable.com. It features 5 valuable online community marketing lessons from Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese. This article is written by Sarah Kessler. The community called “The Real Women of Philadelphia” is led by Paula Deen, as their celebrity brand ambassador. Results have exceeded expectation in community size goals, community engagement and sales. Better yet by letting this community build and form on its own – a whole group of women have found ways to engage and support one another far beyond cream cheese!

All good relationships are about listening, sharing and working together to build value to each person in that relationship. By letting your community take charge – you open the doors to some magical opportunities for both the community and your brand!

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers.

Best Nicole

Asking kitchen-savvy women to not only invent their own dishes, but also shoot, edit and upload videos to a contest website seems like a recipe for disaster. But when Kraft invited women to do just that in its latest online promotional campaign for Philadelphia Cream Cheese, it got about 5,600 more responses than the 400 it set as its goal. With Paula Deen at its helm, what was intended to be a one-year campaign blossomed into a thriving social network of more than 30,000 women.

“When it was all laid on the table, I couldn’t believe the opportunity. I had to pass on an ‘attagirl’ or a boost to more women out there,” explained Paula Deen at a recent promotional luncheon.

When someone seated at a nearby table reminded Deen that the campaign has also been successful in selling more cream cheese, she looked sarcastically surprised. “It did? I hadn’t even thought of that!” she said.

The truth is that the The Real Women of Philadelphia helped sell quite a bit more cream cheese — 5% more, as of August. As a branded social network, The Real Women of Philadelphia is about as successful as the cream-cheese-infused French Apple Cake that swept the dessert video competition. These four aspects contributed to the campaign’s sweet success:

1. Leverage an Existing Community

There are arguably few personalities who could represent cream cheese with more gusto, and Paula Deen’s large fan base was likely to already be cooking with cream cheese. By advertising the Real Women of Philadelphia campaign on Paula Deen’s website and having Paula Deen star in ads on other media, Kraft was able to reach an existing community of the women it wanted to speak to. EQAL, the company that beat out companies like ABC and Yahoo for the opportunity to produce the campaign in partnership with Digitas, referred to Paula Deen’s role as the “igniter.”

2. Create a Reason for Users to Create Content

Even with Paula Deen as an ambassador, it’s hard to imagine that the campaign would have had much success as, let’s say, a social network feature on the Philadelphia Cream Cheese website. The competitive aspect was and is crucial to the success. For the first iteration of the contest, women submitted instructional videos about their invented cream cheese recipes. Sixteen finalists were chosen and flown to Savannah for a live webcast competition, hosted by Paula Deen, that determined the four women who would become “hosts” for the next iteration of the competition and win $25,000. Currently these four hosts are accepting submissions for the cookbook that Kraft will create using 80 of the best recipes from the community, recipes from the four hosts, and Paula Deen recipes. Every day the hosts choose a winning recipe from the community, which earns its author $500.

Because women have invested themselves in creating content for these contests, they feel more ownership of the site and are more likely to visit frequently. Greg Goodfried, the co-founder and COO of EQAL, says that it’s important to have some motive for people to create content on a branded social network. This motive doesn’t necessarily need to be a competition, but it needs to be strong enough to spark the community.

3. Focus on Community Content, Not Your Content

Between videos of Paula Deen and vidoes starring the four hosts, the EQAL team has produced more than 50 videos for the site. But they are careful to keep the spotlight on the user-generated content. During the initial competition, for instance, the homepage featured select submissions. One main feature of the site is a gallery of community recipe submissions, and the team will post especially impressive contributions from the community on the LoveMyPhilly Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“There was a really great sense that the content people were sending in was the main attraction and made them feel like stars, and it made people thoroughly engaged,” Goodfried says.

4. Step Aside

When Kraft launched the campaign, the company wasn’t sure what to expect.

“I think originally we thought that they would talk a lot about food, a lot about the competition,” Goodfried says. “[We thought] there might be a little bit of competitive component to it, and they would just all be excited about the opportunity to win.”

When the women started talking about their personal lives, it surprised the community’s architects. At one point, a woman mentioned that she couldn’t afford a dress for her daughter’s school dance. Other women in the community offered to ship their own grown daughters’ dresses to her. One woman offered to make a dress. Another woman who wasn’t sure how to use a video editing program mailed her raw video submission to another member of the community who had volunteered to edit it.

Instead of trying to divert these discussions back toward cream cheese, EQAL decided to let the community shape the site. When the managers saw the conversations shaping around individuals lives, they added a weekly “spotlight” post in which they profile a community member that has been nominated or shared something interesting on the site. When forum topics popped up that were unrelated to Kraft, cheese, or food, they let them be. The tools on the site allowed women to create a robust profile, privately message each other, and participate in whatever way they wanted. By letting the members shape the community, Kraft was able to build a stronger one.

“These incredible personal connections that extended beyond food, beyond cooking, beyond anything related to the competition just occurred,” Goodfried says. “There are substantial numbers of women that we have talked to that have way more friends on Real Women of Philadelphia than they have on Facebook.”

5. Play a Supportive Role, Not a Director’s Role

If the creators of the social network can make it richer by getting out of the way, what are they supposed to do once the site launches?

In this case, they spent a lot of time helping women participate by fielding questions about editing and uploading videos. After a couple of weeks, other women in the community started answering these kinds of questions in the forums. But the role of the managers remained supportive.

“The only reason we build these sites is to encourage people to come to them to make content and submit content,” Goodfried says. “It’s not one-way where we’re just publishing things and people are coming and consuming it. We’re trying to start this spark of a conversation, this spark of community, and then encourage the community to be engaged.”