WATERBURY – Fifteen area businesses came together this summer to help St. John’s Episcopal Church of Waterbury raise enough money to buy a beloved community volunteer and her canine a new handicap van.
Jo-Ann Plunske, a 70-year-old wheelchair-bound church member, and active volunteer, was trapped at home after her handicap van broke down earlier this year. Knowing how important serving others was to her and to Theo, her service dog, St. John’s turned to its neighbors for help.
“People just responded in a wonderful way,” said Rev. Norman M MacLeod, interim rector. “There was a whole range of businesses in the area that contributed various pieces.”
People were able to purchase tickets for spaghetti dinner and buy a meal for Waterbury’s homeless as well. The church also hosted a silent auction. More than $13,000 was raised – enough to buy Plunske a new van.
“Synergy is sometimes an overused term, but it really was a wonderfully synergistic event,” MacLeod said.
BC Interactive of Waterbury (http://mbcinteractive.com/ and G S Regan Associates helped organize the event and Graystone Advertising (http://www.graystoneadv.com/) donated graphic design services and provided free brochures and a banner. CT Transportation Solutions of Naugatuck (http://cttransportationsolutions.com) provided auction items and provided Plunske with a ride to the fundraiser donated raffle items. Food and dinnerware were provided by Napoli Importing, AMS Bakery, Crystal Rock and Dumochel, Jarjura’s. Auction items were donated by Vasi, Spartan Restaurant, Palace Theater, Andrew Skipp, Bank of America, Black Rock Tavern, Drescher’s Restaurant, Warner Theater and BJ’s.
MacLeod said the successful fundraiser is a model for what can happen when individuals, churches, non-profits and businesses work together.
For more information read Plunske’s story at http://www.stjohnsonthegreen.org, or contact Scott Moore at (203) 232-0996 or smoore@us-ct.com.
A lot has been written about traditional marketing versus newer methods of interactive marketing by experts each trying to find out whether these two methods of marketing complement or contradict each other.
The field of marketing has undergone a sea change over the years. From catchy radio jingles to creative television ads, newspaper ads, pamphlets to newer techniques of blogging, social media marketing etc, we have come a long way.
The key difference between interactive marketing and traditional marketing are as follows:
Push vs. pull marketing strategy: -Traditional marketing strategies were based on a “push” methodology where managers were literally pushing the products onto the customers. On the other hand, interactive marketing acts on “pull methodology, where the power of selection lies with the customers.
In today’s world, the customer is king, and it is the responsibility of the business owners to cater to the whims and fancies of their clients. Interactive marketing is able to handle this aspect better. Interactive marketing promotes a two way communication as compared to traditional marketing, which is usually ruled by one way communication.
Fast response to real time situation: – By making use of interactive marketing, business owners are able to respond instantly to the changing environment and user input. This gives the advantage to business owners to understand the tastes and expectations of the customers.
Real time analysis: – Rather than depending on surveys and sample data that was used for creating traditional marketing strategy, an interactive marketing strategy could be defined by keeping in mind real time input from the clients. Spontaneous opinion of the users could help in better formulation of marketing strategy.
More interaction with customers: – Before making a purchase, today’s customers can get complete information about a product from different blogs, client testimonials, and product reviews thanks to interactive marketing. Customers are able to make informed decisions thanks to interactive marketing techniques.
Easy to win trust of customers: – Thanks to social media and the presence of the internet, it is easier for business owners to stay in contact with customers 24×7. The customers can find answers to their queries via online chat or by posting their questions in the discussion forum.
By making use of interactive marketing, a company can advertise its campaign across various platforms consequently. It is cheaper to advertise your product and services using different interactive marketing media. However, no one can deny the fact that newspapers and TVs are still effective; therefore, business owners still can’t do away with traditional marketing. An integrated approach is needed to come up with a winning marketing strategy.
“New marketing is about the relationships, not the medium.” – Ben Grossman, Founder BiGMarK
With sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. hogging all the limelight these days because of millions of new users, social media marketing has become the latest buzzword in the marketing world.
Social media marketing is surely one of the most effective and economical ways to draw traffic to your website. Social media marketing is not only about promoting your goods and services; rather, it is building contacts with people having similar interests and those who are looking for useful information online.
While making use of social media marketing for promoting your small business, you have to pamper your audiences with latest information and keep them interested by providing them with beneficial tidbits. In a nutshell, social media marketing is not about “selling”, but more about “providing” useful information to your customers that will help you make more money.
If you are starting out with an online venture, making use of social media marketing for generating fresh leads without spending big money may seem like a winning deal. However, in this world of cut throat competition, the right social media marketing strategy needs to be followed if you do not wish to get lost in the crowd.
Hiring the services of a good social media marketing company may prove to be a wise decision to promote your business as this can give you true value for your money:
A stitch in time saves your dime: Time is the most precious commodity if you want to succeed in the present day business scenario. Hiring a social media marketing consultant will help you save precious time and effort, as he/she will create your company’s profile on various social media sites and link them together so that you are able to attract more clients.
Perfect Profile Management: You may be able to easily create profiles on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, etc., but to maintain these profiles regularly is not an easy task. The company you hire for social media marketing will take care of all these aspects so that all you need to do is to concentrate on selling your product.
Brand building and driving targeted audiences: – Social media marketing is not just about driving more traffic; it is about getting more conversions. A good company will help you attract best prospects to your website through social media marketing.
Constant content creation and publication: Content is certainly the king, and conversion could be termed as the queen. Writing compelling content to boost the curiosity of your clients is important element of effective social media marketing, and a good company would certainly make this task easy for you.
You need to frequently update your profiles and provide fresh information to your audiences. The company providing social media marketing services would do all that and much more.
Make the most of the social media marketing fever and capture a bigger share of your specific market by hiring the services of a competent social media marketing firm today.
The internet has surely changed the way businesses are conducted. Many marketing gurus deem the internet the hottest advertising destination, but the question remains that even though the internet has made a foray into more than 95% homes in America, why are 97% of all e-entrepreneurs unable to make money using online marketing? What are the common mistakes in online marketing made by business owners?
The year 2009 saw the United Kingdom become the largest money spender in the field of online marketing. The UK alone spent huge amounts of money on digital and internet advertising as compared to money spent on TV and newspaper advertisements.
If you are just stepping into the world of online marketing and want to enjoy immense success without burning your fingers, keep these tips in mind:
Online marketing mistake 1: – The major reason behind the failure of online marketing campaigns is that many are ill informed about the product and service offerings of their companies.
Unless you are passionate about your business, how can you inspire others to make a purchase? Know your product well and let the world know your love for your business through well worded online ads.
Online marketing mistake 2: – One of the most expensive mistakes online marketers make is not using offline channels like email marketing for business promotion. The reason why you still receive hundreds of advertising emails everyday is because they obviously work.
Even if a small percentage of email recipients respond to the mails, it still turns out to be profitable. So make use of direct email marketing, which is still the most convenient and cost- effective way of online marketing.
Online marketing mistake 3: – Creating a heavy website that takes long time to load is another mistake made by e-commerce entrepreneurs. You would have spent lot of money in creating a beautiful website, but all your money will go down the drain if your website consumes a lot of bandwidth and takes more than 10-15 seconds to load. This will irritate customers and make them click off your site.
Online marketing mistake 4:- Lengthy registration forms asking for provide basic information should be strictly avoided if you want to catch the fancy of the customers. You would need to have the email ID of the site visitors for sending them follow-up mails, and to do so, you can get their emails by making them fill a basic registration form. Asking them too many questions could be the main reason as to why you don’t get many repeat visitors.
Studying the sites of your competitors, building permission based email lists, follow-up of targeted campaigns, and making use of Web2.0 technology are some of the other tips that can be used by online entrepreneurs to save money on online marketing.
It is rightly said that “”in all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty”. Avoid the above mistakes in online marketing to make your online marketing efforts really profitable.
Google loves brands – build one- Dave Naylor
Do you own a small business and want to turn it into a popular brand that is recognized not just in your neighborhood, but all across the globe? If the answer to the above question is yes, then join hands with our company’s online marketing team to create and implement an excellent internet marketing plan.
In this time of global gloom, a strong internet marketing plan should be integrated with your existing marketing piece so that you can catch the eyeballs of more customers without burning a big hole in your company’s pocket.
Our company has the following approach toward creating a great internet marketing plan:
Goals and visions should be well defined: – The first step toward creating an internet marketing plan is to have a clear idea as to what your company wants to achieve through internet marketing.
Whether you want to find new clients or a website to provide information to your target customer, want to create an online community, et al, all should be clearly written as a scheduled framework or general plan when you design an internet marketing plan.
Check out the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors: – You should study the website of your competitors, check their rankings on Alexa.com, and see what they are offering. You can analyze the weakness of the websites of your competitors and use such information to design a perfect website for your business.
Marketing filter: – This is one of the most important concepts followed by almost every successful online venture. Marketing filter is in the form of an inverted triangle where the base of the triangle shows the low cost offerings that you provide to your customers like free samples or freebies. As the triangle narrows upwards, you need to defined additional price points to observe what can have an impact on the sales of your product and services.
Focused approach toward attracting the target market: – Rather than creating generic content, it is important to design a website with content keeping in mind the likes and dislikes of your target audience so that you are easily able to capture their attention.
Your website should be easy to navigate, user friendly, and should be able to provide convincing solutions to your target audiences.
Select suitable brand name and come up with strategies to drive more traffic: – Select a catchy brand name for your company like that can best describe your product and services.
Design a website which is easy to load and has crisp, clear content. You should make use of right keywords and dress it up with videos so that your site receives higher search engine rankings. Take the help of a SEO company that can help you drive more traffic to your website.
Once you are done with your internet marketing plan, you would need a team of experienced internet professionals who can turn your dream plan into reality. Select a good internet marketing company and see your business grow leaps and bounds.
There are many methods of internet marketing that are highly effective and will cost absolutely nothing if you give yourself time to learn the ropes and apply them.- Cynthia Minnaar, Online Entrepreneur
For small business owners and budding entrepreneurs, managing finances is like walking on the sword’s edge. By learning the secrets of targeted internet marketing on a shoestring budget, these business leaders can turn their business into a success.
If you too are looking for various economical, yet effective ways of internet marketing, then you have reached the right destination. You can now promote your business without emptying out your pockets in following ways:
- Promoting business through social networking: – If you are a big fan of sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc., turn your passion for social networking into business promotion.
- Create the profile of your business on these social networking sites which are visited by millions every day.
- You then need to attract these visitors to join your group or become your fan so that you can provide them with information about your product and services, suggest links, and hopefully inspire them enough to make a sale.
- Start discussion boards, create groups, and start a forum to promote your products and services for free.
- Blogging and article marketing: – If you have a way with words, you can use it to your advantage for promoting your business.
- Start a blog to reach out to your target audience or write articles and submit it to free article directories likeEzine, Associated Content, etc.
- By publishing informative content online, you can generate new leads for almost free. Remember you need to constantly create and update new content on your blog and post new articles on the internet if you want to keep the interest of your customers alive.
- Affiliate marketing: – This is a very popular and powerful way to promote your business, but you need to shell out some money.
- When you enroll for an affiliate marketing program, your ads would be placed on websites that sell or promote products similar to the ones being sold by your firm.
- There are different options available to business owners. You can pay when someone clicks on your ad or you can only pay for clicks that result in successful sales.
If the above options seem overwhelming to you, then take the help of a good internet marketing company to guide you through the initial days. This is the best investment one can ever make!
Do you know Americans spend more time browsing the internet than they spend reading newspapers or books? If you are a newbie in the field of online business and want to hit the jackpot, then you need more than just well written website content.
You need to find good video marketing companies that can help you create some eye-catching videos if you want to draw more visitors to your site. Not many people love to read, and most of us love to learn things through audio and visuals. This is the main reason why video marketing is a big hit, and you can see numerous Google video ads,video sales letters, and video newsletters floating around online.
Benefits of video marketing
Still not convinced enough about using video marketing? Here are some compelling benefits that will force you to immediately start creating videos:
· Larger audience and global reach: You no longer have to worry about the literacy level of your target audience. Your videos could be well appreciated by global audiences spread across every nook and corner of the world as long as they have access to internet or satellite TV.
The videos created by the video marketing company could be uploaded on the internet, shown on TV, and could be made available to be downloaded on mobile devices to take your business to more audiences, especially video lovers.
· Engaging and enjoyable: If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a live movie is worth much more. Surely, it can prove to be more engaging than any picture or even written words.
· Anytime access: From cell phones to laptops, iPods, and other devices, video contents could be accessed anywhere and anytime as per the convenience of the user.
· Perfect way to please Google: Most of the search engines including Google have introduced a concept of “universal search” where videos will be listed along with the other links on the search results page, so upload a video on your webpage and enjoy higher search engine rankings.
· Brand building: If you are able to constantly create and upload high quality videos, then you would soon become a star in your particular niche. Visitors will flock to your site and you would be able to see a huge surge in your popularity and profits.
· Simple to create and guarantees unlimited success: Contrary to popular belief, videos are easy to create and simple to publish. All you need is a digital camera or video camera, software like Windows Movie Maker which comes free with your Windows OS, and an account with Google Videos,YouTube.com, etc., and you are ready to go.
Now is the time to do away with the excuses and get on with the job of video creation and video marketing.
“Video is a powerful mechanism for communicating what your business is all about” Anupam Gupta, President Search Engine Land
Recent survey of the Nielson Company shows that an average American views 151 hours of television every month. The research further suggests that there has also been an exponential increase in the number of viewers watching videos on TV, mobile and internet devices.
With more than 11 million Americans hooked to mobile web and 65% of the viewers watching online videos daily, video marketing has become an effective tool to capture the eyes of the potential customers and grow your business.
However, there is still reluctance in the minds of the small business owners about the use of videos for business promotion. The thought of creating a video and uploading it fills them with dread.
But the benefit of marketing using videos certainly outweighs the efforts needed to create movies for marketing. With YouTube.com becoming the third most popular website across the globe in just short duration of its launch, now is the time every small business owner dive into the field of video marketing to get a greater share of success pie.
If you are a small business owner and still indecisive about using video marketing then here are some reasons which will help you in deciding why using this medium to market your business would be a sound decision for your business:
· Is an instant attention grabber :- It is clear that Americans love their television sets and with the internet making way into more than 95% American homes, video marketing is certainly the best way to spread message about your product and services.
· Advertises your product 24×7:- Even while you are sleeping, your business is being promoted through your videos uploaded on your company’s blog or one of the popular sites like Google videos or YouTube.com.
Video marketing is certainly one of the cheapest ways for global advertising because billions of internet users spread all across the world watch your videos.
· Can be accessed on different devices:- The biggest advantage of this medium is that your videos can be accessed by users on various devices such as iPods, cell phones, computers and many more.
· Can help you climb up the ladder in search engine rankings:- Believe it or not but by placing your videos on your blog or even uploading it on the YouTube.com can help in search engine optimization as more visitors will be drawn to your website. More traffic means more sales and more profits.
Video marketing can help small business owners to educate their target audiences, spread their brand awareness and increase their customer base. So what are you waiting for? start t creating and uploading videos to brand your business today!
Posted in CT Social Media Marketing Agency by .
Cucina Design located in Branford Connecticut recently partnered with MBC Interactive to expand its online presence. Siobhan Daggett Terenzi opened Cucina Design in 2004, and is an award winning kitchen designer whose kitchen designs have been featured in Home Living Magazine and The All New Kitchen Idea Book.
Cucina is looking to increase its presence along the CT shoreline, and become a resource for anyone looking to remodel, redesign or purchase kitchen cabinetry. You can visit the Cucina website at www.CucinaDesign.com for more information on the company.
The Aurora Story;
After raising a family of four children with her ex-husband, Stephanie Blackwell decided in 1998 to follow the All-American dream of owning her own business. She saw a need for all Natural and Organic offerings of assorted nuts, dried fruits, granolas and trail mixes in gourmet and supermarket stores, and headed out to seek customers. After hiring only 4 employees, and borrowing some money from her personal credit cards, Stephanie packaged her new product line within a small warehouse space in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first few years were a struggle mixed with passion and hard work. Family members and employees became friends and worked hand in hand.
Now, after twelve years, Stephanie has built Aurora Natural into one of the leading all natural and organic food brands in America. What once started as a business that packaged dried fruits and nuts using postal scales and tables draped with plastic covers, Aurora Products now located in Stratford Connecticut has grown to over 150 employees in a 75,000 square foot facility using state of the art equipment. The company strives to maintain high standards in food quality safety for all products and is one of the leaders in obtaining Safe Quality Food (SQF) Certification.
Aurora Natural will now look to increase its brand recognition in the natural and organic foods markets nationwide with a multi-tiered marketing campaign to begin in October 2010. Aurora Natural will also launch it a completely redesigned website www.AuroraNatural.com in late October, and will offer consumers the opportunity to purchase Aurora products online.
Posted in CT Social Media Marketing Agency by .
MBC Interactive's Facebook Wall- http://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-april-15111.html
- Interesting study on mobile; http://streetfightmag.com/2012/04/19/study-local-mo...
- http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/172363/mobile-key-to-google-ad-str...
- Google Glasses, This is pretty funny! http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/05/heres-a-m...
- http://searchengineland.com/are-yellow-pages-toast-four-years-later-we-review-ad...
- Great update on the new Facebook changes and how they impact your business page.
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- Ready or Not! Google is constantly changing the game.
- Wishing each and everyone of you a Merry Christmas, and a prosperous 2012!!
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