Agile is pretty new in relation to other methodologies.

Agile marketing is a relatively new term being thrown around by marketers and project managers to help us adapt to the ever-changing landscape of marketing. In the late 1990s, software developers created agile methodology, which focuses on iterative and incremental goals when developing large programs, to help streamline the development process. Agile is pretty new in relation to other methodologies such as waterfall, which is what most project managers use on a daily basis.

OK, now that you have some background, let’s jump in with both feet. Read full post...

Five observations on getting the most out of the people you depend on for breakthrough marketing communications, or what 10 years on the client side and 35 years on the agency side has taught me. Among other things.

Give your agency team regular “seats at the table.”

1. Creativity isn’t a commodity. And you won’t get it out of your agency team by saying, “This project is really important…” like you expect someone will hit F7 on his or her keyboard and good things will happen. Creativity is an art, and great art takes time. Give your agency team the time to give you their best.Read full post...

Your best bet for hot free sexy xxx content.

Gotcha! I know why you’re here. Pervert. Let me be straight with you: There isn’t any hot free XXX content here. So if that was what you were looking for, the browser back button is located in the upper left-hand corner of this window.

Now that we’ve lost 90% of the visitors to this page, I can continue with my actual subject — crafting content for your website and why you should be upfront and real with your audience. Doing this will help you build trust, and trust is key.

I bet the people who came here for porn were pretty upset to be lied to. (I know I would be. But then again, my online exploits are between me and the NSA.)

“So,” you ponder, “being honest and building trust with my audience — how do I accomplish this?”

I’m glad you asked.Read full post...

For years we’ve been studying Millennials. We know their mindset, values and technographics. We know where to find them online and offline. We know the best ways marketing can gain their brand loyalty and how to entice them to become advocates for our brands.

Except, most Millennials are now 18 to 34 years old. Millennials are aging, and so is the way we market to them. A new marketing demographic is emerging: Post-Millennials.

Take a look at these facts from The Beloit Mindset List of the Class of 2017:

• Eminem and LL Cool J could show up at parents’ weekend.
• As they started to crawl, so did the news across the bottom of the television screen.
• Their parents have always bemoaned the passing of precocious little Calvin and sarcastic stuffy Hobbes.
• As they slept safely in their cribs, the Oklahoma City bomber and the Unabomber were doing their deadly work.
• Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing.
• Bill Maher has always been politically incorrect.

As Post-Millennials emerge as the next big demographic, so do the online platforms we can find them on. Here are a few to keep on your radar.Read full post...

People will complain about privacy even as they don their Google glasses and other wearable computers.

It’s January, and everyone’s fancy turns to predicting the future. Okay, maybe not everyone’s, but that’s what you’ll hear a lot about this time of year. December is for looking backwards and January is the forward-looking month.

JWT, a division WPP Group (formerly known as J. Walter Thompson), always makes predictions about marketing communications in the new year.

This year, JWT writes that people have been motivated by what’s called FOMO (fear of missing out). And it has been one of the main drivers (besides convenience) in our adoption of communications technology. We have also given up a great deal of privacy in exchange for always being in the know. It’s not that we wanted to give it up; it was just part of the bargain. JWT thinks this is the year we the consumers will take some of our privacy back. It’s what tech blogger Anil Dash calls JOMO (joy of missing out).Read full post...

Have goals — and make them SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.

I’m a gym rat. I love lifting weights, yoga, you name it. The days when I leave feeling less than exhausted, I realize it’s because I didn’t have a plan walking into the gym. So I always try to enter the gym with a specific goal — is it a cardio day or a weight day? What muscle groups am I going to work on? Am I going to use heavy weights with limited reps or just the opposite? With a plan in mind, I start seeing results after a few weeks. If I don’t, I know I need to change something.

The same idea holds true in business. For example, at AB&C, we just finished reworking our sales and marketing plan for 2014, and we learned a lot. First, we looked at this past year — what worked, what didn’t, what can we add to our marketing mix, how did our online data analytics look, etc. Then we gathered all our department heads together and had a brainstorming lunch to decide where we needed to head in 2014. As a result, we re-aimed our focus at a national and regional level, and plotted out the tactics to reach our goals.

Don’t have a marketing plan yet? Don’t fret — here is an easy way to get a plan together.Read full post...

The creative director of the future needs a different skill set — he or she will need to come out of the ranks of public relations, social media and interactive digital.

In 2009, there was a terrific documentary on advertising called Art & Copy. It’s an inspirational film that celebrates the most influential creative professionals of the past five decades. And there is something very telling in the title. Most of today’s creative directors rose out of the ranks of art director and copywriter — art and copy. In the era of print, TV and radio, this made perfect sense.

But if, like me, you are one of those creative directors, you may find recent trends to be frightening. Broadcast television ratings have been going down for decades. Newspapers and magazines are struggling to survive. Broadcast radio is competing with iPods and Internet radio. And now, here come the Millennials. This generation is larger than the boomer generation. The oldest of them are entering their 30s. In the next 10 years, they will start to dominate as consumers, employees and clients. Not only do they distrust paid mass media advertising, they’re finding it easier than ever to avoid it completely.Read full post...

Spectators have come to expect the quality of advertising at the stadium to equal the quality they see on TV during the Super Bowl.

Sports marketing has been around at least since the 1870s, when a tobacco company started making baseball cards and sticking them in cigarette packs. Any sports fan will tell you that there is a special level of respect for those advertisers that sponsor their favorite team. Nowhere is this respect more evident than within the realm of professional football.Read full post...

We’re proud to be partnering with our friends from MedStar Health and Scripps Health to present an Idea Workshop at SHSMD’s Annual Conference. Our workshop will tackle seven of the most common healthcare marketing challenges faced by our colleagues around the country. We identified these challenges through a brainstorming session with MedStar and Scripps, a poll of all AB&C healthcare partners and a survey of SHSMD Annual Conference attendees. Here’s a quick look at three of the challenges that we’ll be discussing at the conference.

Challenge #1: How do I choose what to market?

Plan, plan and plan some more. Your marketing plan is one element of your organization’s planning cycle, and you should take cues from the other elements: your strategic plan, facilities plan, operating plan, financial plan, business plan and communications plan. From those plans, identify the organization’s priority service lines. Then determine if they’re ready to be marketed:

• Do you have clinical strength in this area?
• Do you have positioning power?
• Is it profitable?
• Is there competitor vulnerability?
• Is there spin-off revenue?
• Is there a product champion?
• Can they deliver on patient experience?

If you plan properly and can answer these questions, you’ll have an easier time prioritizing your marketing efforts.Read full post...

Despite massive success in 2012, Red Frog Events wanted to keep things fresh when promoting their 2^nd annual Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware.

To reach their core audience, social media was a must. What evolved was one of the most successful Twitter campaigns I’ve seen to date (not counting Oreo’s brilliant moment with a “super” power outage).

They created a virtual scavenger hunt. And the prize was VIP passes to the three-day festival. Here’s how it worked (they can certainly explain it better than I can):Read full post...

Make sure your trade booth staffers are on the lookout for media representatives and familiar with the schedule of media appointments.

Trade shows are an important component of most companies’ marketing initiatives. While participating in the show expo can be a valuable way to connect with customers and prospects at local and national levels, the promotional opportunities afforded by the event extend way beyond the exhibit booth. Boost your company’s return on investment and marketing success with a well-planned public relations effort to gain significant editorial coverage before, during and after the event.

Before the event

Start with pre-event publicity to maximize interest in and coverage of your activities through press releases, media alerts, invitations, and your company’s web site, newsletters and social media programs. Also take advantage of all the opportunities offered by trade show management, such as access to media lists and coverage in the event’s newsletter, show guide, website and social media.

Find out whether the show needs keynote speakers, panel discussion participants, presenters or authors of conference papers. Secure one of these opportunities for your business leaders and you’ll strengthen your industry reputation. Plus, you’ll form relationships with the trade editors, who will come to think of you as thought leaders and industry experts. Each speaking engagement offers the opportunity to send editorial advisories ahead of the event.Read full post...

Point the finger at poor implementation of the technology and too many companies scrambling to get a piece of the niche pie.

Have you ever said, “Wow! I just had an amazing experience with this here QR code!”

It’s safe to say you’ve come across many “Quick Response” codes over the past few years, whether you knew what they were at the time or not. And if you’re in the marketing business, you’ve been asked, “Do you think we should add a QR code?” on more than one occasion.

In 1994, Denso Wave, a subsidiary of a Japanese automotive manufacturer, invented the QR code to track the company’s production process. The idea behind altering the technology for smartphones came soon thereafter — and presto!  People could connect the offline world to the online world by simply scanning a code with their handheld device. Since more than half the country owns a smartphone, you might assume that QR codes are all the rage.

Well, they’re not.

They’re everywhere — some placements are better than others: T-shirts, license plates, metro boards, billboards, websites, gas pumps, buses, TV commercials, etc. Sure, consumers are scanning QR codes here and there, but not regularly.Read full post...

Hospital food is going gourmet. Yum!

I’ve recently become obsessed with where my food comes from. And I don’t think I’m alone. There are farmers’ markets and Whole Foods popping up all over the place. Whole Foods’ labels don’t just give you the “Best Before” date on your New York strip, they tell you where the cow lived, his name and what he generally liked to do on the weekends. Restaurants are at it, too. I went to my first all-raw vegan organic café the other day. It’s a trend that’s picking up speed. And people are voting at the cash register. I have a friend who likes to call Whole Foods “Whole Paycheck.” But like thousands, I’m willing to pay more for a better product, which is presumably healthier, too.Read full post...

The rise of social media and nontraditional marketing techniques has also strengthened this brand-youth connection.

The Internet is everywhere — seeping into conversations, bulging out of jean pockets and trembling in the hands of nearly half of the American population. Never in history has access to information been so readily available; never has the information itself been so torrential. One side effect of all this interconnectivity: It has left the youth of first-world countries with ADD. Their attention spans have been cut in half and their efforts to find something engaging usually leave them numb.

Given this bleak reality, how can an advertiser or brand get the attention of the Millennials?Read full post...

Think about your physician leaders as your hospital’s quarterback.

Like most American men, I’m a huge football fan. Specifically, my allegiance is to the Philadelphia Eagles (you can now officially feel sorry for me). This year has been rough, as we’ve seen draft picks underperform, free agents take large contracts and contribute very little and, after all was said and done, our coach get fired and shown the door. This got me thinking: Hospitals and health systems are not that different than a professional football team. Let me explain how.Read full post...