November 6, 2017

When to Use New Technologies in Marketing

When it comes to new technology, marketers are often like a newborn playing with a set of keys. It’s new. It’s shiny. And we just need to have it and play with it. But, just because it is new and cool doesn’t mean that it’s the right fit, and often marketers adopt a new technology or platform just so they can scream “first!” with reckless abandon.

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October 30, 2017
October 26, 2017

Key Takeaways from the Pennsylvania Conference for Women

By Megan Egan and Samantha Mueller

There’s something uniquely empowering about sharing a room with 12,000 women (and a few brave men) at the largest annual gathering of women in the country. It was a day where the world’s most influential women—among them former First Lady Michelle Obama and writer, executive producer and creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, Shonda Rhimes—got candid about what it means to lean in, speak up and keep your seat at the table.

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Help! Millennials are Taking Over the Workforce

That’s it. The world is ending. These millennials are going to ruin what is great about our businesses. You know, they’re lazy. They don’t communicate well. They’re completely self-absorbed. They’re… they’re… going to do amazing things if we allow them to!

I’ve been helping national leaders recruit talent for more than 15 years, and I’ve never seen a time when the generational gap has been more obvious. Today, most leaders and managers within an organization are baby boomers or Gen Xers. The boomers are all about value and mission. They are brilliant communicators and message crafters, and are driven nuts by millennials who appear to not subscribe to their value system. Generation X is similar; they look for contributors and seek feedback. They look for autonomy and expect others to do the same. Millennials? Well, not so much.

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Storytelling: From a Mere Nicety to a PR Necessity

Gone are the days when the “newness” of a news item was ample motivation to get people interested and mobilized to support a cause, buy a product or develop brand loyalty. Think about it: When was the last time you saw a press conference—including those at the White House—that didn’t include at least one member from the community sharing the impact of the news on him or her? Consider the same question about recent articles you’ve read, TV news reports you’ve seen or interviews you’ve heard.

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How Can I Get My Job Posts to Appear on Google for Jobs?

What is Google for Jobs?

When posting open job opportunities on the web, you may find that the same job posting appears in the search results from multiple job sites, through an applicant tracking system (ATS) or on a corporate careers page. To remove these redundant and often confusing search results for job seekers, Google recently launched a new AI-powered job search feature called “Google for Jobs.” This mechanism is built right into the standard search engine everyone is already familiar with.

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The Art of Being a Great Client

Recently, I was reacquainted with The Art of Client Service, a must-read for any aspiring account executive eager to set his or her agency (and the ad world) on fire. Flipping through the pages, I wondered why there was never a companion piece, The Art of Being a Great Client. Looking back on the countless clients I’ve worked with over the years, there were certain traits that uniformly predicted who would be a great client and, in turn, where the agency would do its best work.

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How to Prevent the Agency Letdown

So, your business needs a marketing communications agency. Where do you start? Common sense tells you to ask for recommendations, look up agencies that you’ve heard have a good reputation and do lots of internet research.

Even if my intention for this blog was to offer you advice on starting an agency search, I couldn’t—not without knowing specifics of your industry, business model and objectives. But what I can offer any business that’s facing an agency search is insight, to help you avoid what I call the “new-home letdown.”

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Achieving Success Along the Customer Journey

Ever since there’s been the practice of marketing communications, there’s been a concept inseparable from it: the customer journey. If you understood your target audience and could communicate effectively at each stage of their purchasing journey, you’d do OK in the marcom profession.

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Lessons Learned from a New CEO

After more than a decade of managing a marketing communications agency as a partner and chief creative director, making the step up to CEO shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? I believed this as I prepared to step into the shoes of our retiring CEO, John Hawkins, the agency’s founder and my friend of 30-some years. I didn’t envision much changing—or needing to change—at Aloysius Butler & Clark (AB&C), aside from my carving out a role and asserting my own style. I quickly discovered I was off in this thinking. John retired on December 31, 2016, and before we reached mid-January, my point of view had changed.

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Do You Know Your Net Promoter Score?

One of the most important drivers of business for any organization — of any size — is referrals from satisfied customers. Meeting or exceeding customers’ expectations creates a long-term relationship and loyalty, which leads to referrals. And loyalty can pay off — loyal customers are worth up to 10 times their initial purchase value.

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8 Tips for Writing Catchy Headlines

In a world full of noise, how do you get people to actually read what you write? It takes more than good content and design. The most important part of writing is the headline.

My advice? Be bold. Be brief. Be relevant. Because without a great headline hook to pull people into your article or ad, they’ll browse right on by.

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