Hot off the presses: A stylish, functional bank annual report.

Hot off the presses is the new First Bank Financial Centre 2010 Annual Report. We’re so pleased with how it turned out! FBFC 2010 Annual Report-Apr26.

What does your Vision Statement and Mission Statement say about you?

Happy New Year!

For the last year, I’ve been working through the APR process – Accredited in Public Relations.  I’m nearly at the end of the journey. On January 10, if I pass the exam, (fingers crossed!), I’ll be able to add those nifty little letters after my name, “APR,” and life goes on. (UPDATE: Passed!)

A great benefit of the study course is that it’s filled in a lot of blanks in my PR and marketing knowledge base, concepts I didn’t pick up in either my liberal arts college career, or in the School of Freelancing Life.

This week, I studied the difference between a Vision Statement and a Mission Statement. These are key communication concepts that businesses can use in both their internal and external communications. You may think, “Only massive corporations like Apple or GM have vision statements.” But every business or organization, even a business of one, can benefit from thinking through and writing down a vision and mission statement.

Vision statements paint with a broad brush. They state a future goal, answering questions like, “Why does XYZ, Inc. exist?”   A vision statement spells out the future state of being of an organization.  It begins with the end in mind – like Microsoft’s famous, “A PC in every home.” That statement seemed wildly unrealistic in the early 80’s, but not now.

An effective vision statement should be emotional, and resonate with everyone in an organization, to help them feel energized and proud to be part of something much bigger than themselves.  Being able to contribute to a larger mission is more motivating in the long run than simply working toward financial gain.

Google’s vision is “to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  UPS’s vision statement is, “Our goal is to synchronize the world of commerce by developing business solutions that create value and competitive advantages for our customers.” These are broad, overarching goals.

Mission statements are more common than vision statements, and strive to answer, “How are we different from our competitors?” and “What is our strategy for achieving our goals?” They change over time. Mission statements help people set priorities and goals, and provide a framework for an organization’s activities. For example, Kia Motors’ mission statement is “Provide high-quality, high-value vehicles at prices well below the competition.”  A local hospital system’s mission is, “To promote health, prevent illness and provide state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment, whenever and wherever we can best meet people’s individual and family needs.” It’s a waste of time and resources to engage in activities that don’t support your mission.

The difference between a mission statement and a vision statement is that a mission statement focuses on a company’s present state (“here’s what we do best”), while a vision statement focuses on a company’s ideal future (“here’s where we want to be”).

As we move into the fresh, unspoiled year ahead, set aside some time to think about your business’s value and mission statements, and how they can help guide your 2011 endeavors.  Personally, I’m working on the MOD values and mission, to help me stay focused on what we do best for our clients and our families. We can help you work through the process for your company, too.

Cheers~!

Kate
kate@mktondemand.com

Why your website needs video

Google is the most popular search engine in the world. YouTube is the second largest. A few years ago, Google purchased YouTube. Have you noticed lately that the top search results seem to always be videos?

If you haven’t thought about using video for content marketing, this is the time to do it. Consumers today are relying on mediums like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and smart phones to find out information about products and services before they buy.  But beware of producing video that’s just a commercial for your business. How many of you are fast forwarding through the commercials on your DVR? Consumers don’t want to see advertisements, they want to see stories or engaging education.

Think you have a story that could be viral on the web, but not quite sure you have it in your budget to do so? Thankfully, there are so many tools today that can allow your internal team to create your own videos. You can take video with a Flip camera or a webcam and edit it with programs that most of you already have on your computer like iMovie for Macs or Windows Movie Maker for PCs. With these programs, you can include images, PowerPoint presentations, transitions and perform your own editing. Other tools you may want to consider are a green screen to to create a blank canvas for your background and a product like ScreenFlow that captures or print screens the contents of your desktop.

These programs allow you to easily post a video on YouTube. Once it’s there, you can embed it anywhere – your website, your email campaign and even your Facebook page. If your video has something people want to share, you have a cost-effective marketing piece that also benefits your search engine ranking. In fact, videos have enabled sites with poor ranking to achieve first-page rankings. Forrester Research found that videos were 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive an organic first-page ranking. So remember, it’s important to optimize your video with a keyword-rich title, content, and descriptive meta data.

Worried about time constraints for this project? You can always leave the whole project to the pros or contract out pieces of the project, such as search engine optimization or editing.

We’ll see you in the movies.

Geeking out on numbers

Wouldn’t you LOVE to know what products your customers are most interested in? How about what time of day they are visiting your website?  Or maybe you’d like to know if the magazine ad you just ran got people interested in your company.

Up until not long ago, these questions often required expensive and difficult market research.  Not anymore!  If you’re not using some free tools available to you, such as Google Analytics, you’re missing out on a wealth of great data that can help drive marketing and better respond to what your customers want.

 

Need a fresh perspective? How about some FREE perspective?

We’re feeling all festive for the holidays, and we know it’s the time of year many of us do planning.  So were going to try a never-before-attempted promotion.

If you book by the end of the year, we’ll give you a free, no-strings-attached marketing planning session in the month of January.  ($300 value).  All the ideas, advice and strategy generated are yours for you to use as you see fit. Everyone (current clients too!) is invited.  If we haven’t seen you for a while, let’s catch up. So call or email today to set up a time.

What’s changed in marketing? Everything…and nothing.

Over the last three years, we have seen more changes in marketing than we’ve seen in the last 30.

Technology has changed. Social media has skyrocketed.  Your PR efforts overlap with your web strategy which integrates with your customer service plans. Strategies that were too expensive a few years ago are now within reach. You have more options than ever to reach out, engage with your customers, and drive attention to your business.

Don’t let change scare you — let it excite you instead!  Even if the tools have changed, the basic principles of marketing – consistency, relationships, great writing and selling on value are still the same, you just have many more creative ways to play with them.

With many businesses putting marketing on the back burner during the economic downturn, your bare-bones, do-what-you’ve-always-done strategy could be missing the mark — and missing opportunities.

This is why now is a great time to plan. As the economy recovers, are you positioned to make the most of increased interest in your company? How can you spend your marketing dollars in the most effective places? How are you consistently reaching out to your customers? How can marketing become more automatic, and less stressful? It’s all part of the plan.

Now what? Regrouping after a failed school referendum

Five strategies for success after a failed school referendum.

School districts – still not convinced that communication is important?

This is one of the best articles I’ve come across, Cutting Communication, It’s a must-read for any district administrator.

Now more than ever, with public school districts under fire from all sides, truthful, timely and transparent communication is critical.  If you are not actively being the voice of your district, special interests and naysayers can jump in to fill the communication void.

Kudos to Rich Bagin, NSPRA President, for this bold post. He writes, “When effective, comprehensive communication programs are cut, school districts might as well wave the surrender flag because they have just cut the primary and critical component of building support, accountability, and trust for their schools.” We couldn’t have said it better. Consider public accountability,

Don’t surrender – make your district’s communication a top priority!

kate@mktondemand.com

Ten tips toward a more effective community newsletter for your school district

In times of shrinking budgets, your community newsletter may be one of the first things on the chopping block. After all, who even reads the darn thing anymore? Plus, it takes a lot of work to put it together…and you certainly have other things to do.

Yet many of the school districts we work with are hearing from their communities that they have no idea what is going on in their schools…and they want to know. Maybe the local paper isn’t covering them so much any more…or negative news is the only thing they hear about.

We think community newsletters can be an incredibly effective way to build support for your schools — but only if they’re done right. Here are ten tips to help transform that limp and lifeless document into one that people will go our of their way to say THANKS for sending!

1. Know your audience. Chances are, 70-80% of your community does NOT currently have a child in your schools. Choose articles for your newsletter that have broad community interest, not just informational articles for parents.
2. Stop thinking like an educator. We know you want to explain things thoroughly, in lots of detail. There is a time and place for this, and it’s not in your newsletter. Your community wants brief, easy to read stories.
3. Use color. Sure, color LOOKS expensive, an you’re on a budget. But changes in printing technology mean that color is getting less expensive all the time – and you can usually do a color newsletter for almost the same price as black and white.
4. Have a plan in mind. Don’t just download random information onto people, tie your newsletter articles into your District’s strategic initiatives. What do you need – more volunteers, community partnerships, technology, fine arts support…design your newsletter with goals for what you want to communicate before putting one word on paper.
5. Don’t engage in “mosquito slapping.” Those pesky little issues and complaints need to be addressed, but probably not in your newsletter. Newsletters are big picture documents.
6. Be realistic. If you have serious issues facing your district, you need to talk about them. Even if you don’t have answers now, let your community know you care and are working towards a solution. And of course, ask for their help!
7. Pictures. Pictures are always what gets the most clicks on our email newsletters. A few great pictures go a long way.
8. Charts and graphs. Charts can be a powerful way to tell a story or explain trends over time. Use them.
9. Use a conversational tone. Writing should be accessible. Think of having a conversation with your community. Let your passion and excitement show!
10. Spelling and grammar. Mistakes will ruin your credibility quickly. Have several people go over your proof to catch any last minute mistakes.

Overwhelmed? Don’t worry. If you don’t have the resources to make it all happen, we can help. Check out our website mktondemand.com and click on the “for schools” tab to see some examples of community newsletters we do for districts who need some help in getting it all done!

Tell your story for 60% less with social media

If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to communicate to your specific audience, social media is it. You can target specific audiences such as customers, prospects,  shareholders or the community for about 60% less than what traditional push-marketing (advertising) costs.

(see http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007534)

Getting your company or organization set up with social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or digg can help:

• Increase awareness
• Tell a community’s story
• Educate the public
• Facilitate a forum
• Enhance other online marketing (SEO, blogs, Ad Words)

Using social media as a public relations tool can:

• Build credibility
• Establish your community or  organization as a resource
• Build relationships with media
• Add awareness about your company or organization

Top 5 Techniques to be Successful:

• Keep content fresh and timely
• Keep content transparent, not too sales-y
• Share thoughts and ideas
• Encourage conversation, be flexible
• Tell stories; use pictures and video

Do you have a social media success story? Let us know!

kate@mktondemand.com