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Author Archive

4 Tech-Driven Content Marketing Trends We Like

Written by Kit Falvey

If you engage in content marketing, i.e., creating and sharing content, you’ve likely noticed the increased effect that technology plays in your marketing strategy—from PR and social media to advertising. If not, you will. Technology is driving content marketing and will continue to do so as we increase our consumption of content on mobile devices, and as improvements in reporting tools and personalization, mobile optimization, and virtual reality continue. Here are a few developments that we think are interesting that were recently discussed in a Forbes article. (more…)

4 Tips for Organizing A Large, Complex Marketing Campaign

Written by Amanda Marshall

A large, comprehensive marketing campaign is a bit like a three-ring circus – there are a lot of pieces and parts to manage, and they’re usually all going on at the same time. For that reason, the idea of launching a large, complex campaign may be overwhelming and cause a business owner to just not do it. Instead, they stick with the one or two types of marketing they’re comfortable doing. But these days customers get information from too many channels for business owners to simply rely on one or two types of communication. An effective campaign has to reach people using many different types of communication. The key is to organize your campaign so it’s manageable, even if you have minimal marketing staff. Over the years I’ve relied on a few tips to help keep large campaigns organized and on track, and they can help you do the same. (more…)

How To Pitch Stories To The Media

Written by Meg McDonald

I worked in the TV news industry for almost 11 years, and covered just about every subject out there—from twisted murders that were worthy of a “Dateline” special, to weather damage where families lost everything they had, to historic job announcements, to (my personal favorite) feel-good stories that left you with a full heart.

While all of them were different, they had one thing in common: they made folks stop and watch, because those viewers felt the stories affected them in some small way. (more…)

Template or Custom: Which Website Design Approach Is Best for You?

Written by Jay Mclain

Websites have become a critical component of business development and particularly marketing. Your website is probably the first place people go to when they want to learn about your products or services. With a range of options currently available, from do-it-yourself self-starter websites to custom designed and developed website solutions, what’s best for your business and budget?

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Make The Write Choice: 3 Reasons To Outsource Custom Content

Written by Kit Falvey

If you market via the web you’ve likely noticed the proliferation of brands generating blogs, articles, e-newsletters, native advertising and other types of custom content. In fact, it’s difficult to avoid such content. There’s a reason for the increase in this type of marketing – it’s effective. In fact, Curata notes that almost 75% of companies who engage in content marketing report that it generates more frequent and higher quality leads than other types of marketing. Who wouldn’t want results like that? (more…)

In The Digital Arena, Education Never Ends

Written by Amanda Marshall

For most medium and small businesses, marketing was pretty simple just 10 or 20 years ago. They’d buy an ad in the yellow pages, maybe run a few newspaper ads, send out a direct mail piece to their regular customers, and that would be it. Advertising with mass media like TV, radio, magazines and billboards was often too expensive, although a billboard might be considered if the business sold a product and the board was nearby. (more…)

How To Prevent An Email Fail

Written by Jay Mclain

Bulk email development and distribution can be overwhelming and frustrating. One common challenge is keeping an email’s design intact and consistent across all email clients (e.g., Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, etc.). This issue arises because email clients, unlike web browsers, operate completely at the discretion of the application developer, which causes disparities from one email client to another. Outlook, for example, uses a word processor rendering engine instead of a browser. As a result, an email may look great in Gmail but fall apart in Outlook. Go-to email service providers like MailChimp and Constant Contact have not even been able to account for this across the board.

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My Smart Phone Hang Up

Written by Amanda Marshall

It’s a mobile world out there and, in case you haven’t noticed, many of those living in it appear to be tethered to their phones. This is true personally as well as professionally. I’m a Millennial – I’ve never known a world without cell phones, where you could be reached pretty much anywhere at any time. But the accelerated rise of smart phones use has been a game changer. Now phones aren’t just for calls anymore. Instead, communication and information of all kinds is flowing in constantly.

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It’s Called Civilization For A Reason

Written by Kit Falvey

Election years are often characterized by a general decline in civility and a certain amount of polarization, both on the part of candidates and those who support them. As a society we’ve come to expect, and sometimes accept, this dynamic. But, more and more, it seems that the decline in civility has extended beyond the realm of politics into our everyday lives, including our business interactions. Who hasn’t been on the receiving end of less than polite emails or struggled through contentious meetings? We may have done some offending ourselves. (more…)

The Benefits of Corporate Philanthropy

Written by Martha Murphy

As a marketing firm with deep roots in Winston-Salem, we spend a lot of time listening to our clients discuss their marketing and advertising challenges. Through our conversations with them and our own extensive network of community contacts, we became aware of a need that exists in our community.

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