Mariner’s Harbor Restaurant Re-opens in Kingston’s Historic Rondout District
March 5, 2010 – The groundhog predicted six more weeks of winter, but that did not stop Sal and Mark Guido from re-opening their Mariner’s Harbor restaurant in Kingston today.
Located at Number 1 Broadway, Mariner’s Harbor is on the water in Kingston, N.Y.’s historic Rondout District. “We’re open, so spring has to be right around the corner,” said Mark Guido.
 Mariner’s Harbor closed after New Year’s to facilitate interior and exterior embellishments, menu updates and also for a well deserved vacation for the staff. According to Sal Guido, “it’s important to all of us at Mariner’s Harbor to constantly step back and make sure everything we’re doing leads to a great dining experience. I think it’s one of the reasons our Facebook fans often refer to us their favorite seafood restaurant.”
Traveling down Broadway to the waterfront, motorists and pedestrians will see bright new awnings on the building, sporting a Focus Media designed Mariner’s Harbor logo that invites passersby to enjoy the Freshest Seafood and more.
Focus Media serves as a strategic partner for Mariner’s Harbor providing advertising and marketing design and support for e-marketing initiatives. The Focus Media developed Mariner’s Harbor facebook fan site, www.facebook.com/mariners harbor, racked up over 500 fans in less than one week.
Contact:
Kerry Donovan
Focus Media
(845)294 3342 x307
kdonovan@advertisingandpr.com
By Josh Sommers
Posted: March 05, 2010
Sometimes gifts, or a really great deal, is what it takes for people to try, or retry, a product.
Banks offer free kitchen gadgets or promotional products when you open certain types of accounts or sign up as a customer at a new branch. Casinos often offer free slot dollars for new players. Getting a trial subscription for a newspaper or satellite radio service is usually pretty easy. For many businesses, special offers to drive new business are part of an effective marketing program.
Fresh coffee or else!
When Quick Chek, a chain of high-end super convenience stores, opened a new shop in Middletown last year, it rolled out the new location with free coffee for the first week. With Quick Chek’s guarantee for fresh coffee brewed every 20 minutes (ensured by buzzers that alert staff when coffee sits too long), the offer played up on their strength and uniqueness (fresh coffee or else!), while generating traffic into its new location. This special offer, of course, was promoted with print ads and outdoor signs. Quick Chek’s free coffee deal is a great example of a marketing tactic to create a trial usage of a product. If, indeed, the coffee was that good and the store met all of its visitors’ needs, they were likely to come back again.
Super Bowl stunt pays off
Existing businesses, with many years under their belts, can also re-energize their brand with sweet offers to get consumers to try them again. Last year, Denny’s sought to reconnect with some customers that may have been overlooking the restaurant — with free food. The stunt, announced with a TV ad during last year’s Super Bowl, offered a free Grand Slam breakfast to everyone in America the following Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. It was so successful, Denny’s did it again this year. Sometimes you have to shake the tree a bit and get people talking. This out-of-the-box idea, which many companies would have balked at, created a huge publicity bounce for Denny’s and got lots of people to sample its product again — and for the first time.
If your product is solid, why not entice potential customers with a taste? Don’t be the best kept secret. Special offers, samples and promotional giveaways can create important consumer trial of your product or service. It doesn’t make sense for all businesses, but for many companies, it can certainly shake the tree.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.
FOCUS MEDIA’S JOSH SOMMERS JOINS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
AT ORANGE COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Brings experience in economic development, marketing and public relations
Goshen, N.Y. – February 18, 2010 – Josh Sommers, president and CEO of Goshen, N.Y.-based Focus Media Inc., has been elected to the Orange County Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors.
Sommers, who also serves as Chairman of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development, brings deep experience in economic development and issue advocacy. On both a professional and volunteer basis, Sommers has played an active role in improving the Hudson Valley’s economy. This work includes advising some of the region’s most prominent companies on marketing and sales, as well as providing public relations counsel to applicants seeking land use approvals.
“The Chamber of Commerce has an exceptional board of directors that includes many of the region’s top business leaders and I’m very proud to join them,” Sommers said. “I hope to make significant contributions to the Chamber’s planning and strategy and help it foster an environment that attracts new businesses and helps existing ones thrive.”
Sommers noted he already has key insights on the Orange County Chamber’s activities as Focus Media serves as the Chamber’s advertising agency of record. He recently was named the keynote speaker for the Chamber’s April 28 marketing seminar.
“Josh Sommers will bring an exciting new vitality to the Chamber Board of Directors,” said Dr. John A. D’Ambrosio, the president of the Orange County Chamber. “The Chamber will benefit not only from Josh’s expertise and savvy in marketing and advertising, but from his unique and creative approaches to strategic planning. He will be a great asset to an already terrific Board.”
Sommers’ professional experience includes serving as public relations and political counsel to labor unions and developers seeking to bring casinos to the Catskills. Sommers is Vice President of Development for the Community Foundation of Orange and Sullivan Counties’ Board of Directors and is a Past-President of the Rotary Club of Monticello, New York.
He also was part of the team that ran a successful political and grassroots campaign for the New York State Transportation Bond Act, a statewide referendum in 2005 that approved $2.9 billion in infrastructure improvements around the state.
In the political realm, Sommers helped flip control of two county legislatures to and numerous media campaigns for elected officials that include Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano, Sullivan County Treasurer Ira Cohen and Ulster County Sherriff Paul Van Blarcum.
The Orange County Chamber of Commerce has 2,000 members and is one of the 10 largest chambers of commerce in New York State. The Chamber is based in Montgomery, N.Y., and has been working for the Orange County business community for more than 125 years. More information is available at www.orangeny.com.
About Focus Media
Focus Media, Inc. is an award-winning, full service, public relations and advertising agency specializing in market research, branding, design, collateral development, TV and radio production, and media planning and placement. Since founding the company in 2002, President and CEO Josh Sommers has assembled a highly talented team of marketing experts, public relations strategists and acclaimed graphic designers that have made Focus Media a preeminent advertising agency known for its creativity, innovation and cutting edge marketing strategies.
In addition to prominent public figures, Focus Media has served clients in many industries, including banking, gaming, healthcare, tourism, construction and real estate development.
By Josh Sommers
Posted: February 05, 2010 – 2:00 AM
My brother, David, was working in the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. After watching, in horror, as the towers fell, we didn’t hear from him for several hours. My family was lucky. We eventually heard from him. Two of my neighbors on my block with loved ones in the towers unfortunately did not get the same call.
Newburgh Mayor Nick Valentine wants to host the 9/11 terrorist trials, including that of admitted mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, at his city courthouse. Valentine, in numerous news media interviews, said he believes Newburgh can benefit from the economic and tourism impacts, including $200 million from the Obama administration to cover security costs.
Officials, such as Orange County Executive Edward Diana, think Valentine’s idea of hosting the terrorist trials in exchange for economic and tourism profits are not worth the potential safety risks to local residents.
While not passing judgment on the merits of Valentine’s plan, 9/11 is just too close to us to make it only about the potential economic gain. The scars of the terrorist attacks run so deep in our community that the notion of “seizing an opportunity” by hosting the trials is offensive to many, as Diana stated during the past week.
While economic spin off is a rational argument, Valentine’s promoting financial gain in exchange for hosting the trials is not acceptable to a community so impacted by this tragedy.
When I develop crisis-communications programs for clients and counsel others on issue campaigns or controversial matters, we always connect with stakeholders early — before doing a media push. If you truly want success on an issue, you need to build coalitions, or at least start the process. Valentine’s admitting that he had yet to start making calls to Washington, at the same time as he did a Fox News interview, demonstrates that his push lacks a campaign focus and coherent strategy.
Valentine can certainly be credited with creating buzz for Newburgh, grabbing headlines in newspapers around the country, and even making his case on national television.
He comes up short, though, with his message. Most importantly, without building support with vital stakeholders needed to make the plan happen, it’s just a lot of noise.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.
by Josh Sommers Posted: January 29, 2010
Successfully marketing yourself and your business is all about multiple touch points. With so many marketing vehicles — like direct mail, print and broadcast, e-mail is a medium that can be part of a winning marketing program. But the initial steps of setting up your program are the most important.
Contact list is key
Building a database of e-mail contacts is easier said than done. Firstly, make it a priority to build a business contact list.
Every time you make a new connection, put their e-mail and other information, into your contact database. In addition, you likely belong to organizations like local chambers of commerce or other business and networking groups. Oftentimes, access to their database, including e-mail, is part of your membership — or can be, for a nominal fee.
When promoting yourself via e-mail blasts to contacts, you don’t want to become a spammer — those parasites that indiscriminately send junk mail to anyone they can.
Besides creating an e-mail database of people that are relevant to you, successful e-mail campaigns provide receivers of your message with an option to opt out of future e-mails from you.
This is an important compliance step that, if you don’t follow, will shut your program down cold. In fact, without an opt out, major Internet providers could quickly ban your IP address from all of their users.
Then it’s not only “game over” for your e-mail marketing; it creates another set of problems for you and your company for day-to-day operations.
Services can handle database
The most widely-used e-mail marketing solutions for small and medium businesses are services like Constant Contact.
E-mail marketing management services provide many important features. Some include management of your e-mail database and removal of duplicate e-mails (Boy, that will save you some grief).
These types of services also usually provide easy-to-use interfaces — with artistic templates and areas for text and image — for you to create your e-mails. The most important component to these services is the feature of providing a compliant opt out at the bottom of each of your e-mails. If someone clicks the opt out on one of your e-mails, the service automatically removes them from your list and ensures you don’t become an intrusive spammer to that recipient
Almost all of these e-mail marketing services provide extensive reporting, including which users opened and clicked through your e-mail.
If done correctly, e-mail marketing can be another great element in creating awareness to key groups. But there are many pitfalls, and it’s important to set your program up right. Next week, I’ll outline how to get the most out of your e-mail marketing program.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.
By Josh Sommers, Posted: January 22, 2010 -
Do you want to increase awareness of your business in the marketplace? Would you like to position yourself as an expert in your industry? Are you looking for a new way for prospects to find your Web site?
If your answer is affirmative on just one of the above questions, a blog can be a great tool for your business.
Just in case you are not entirely sure what a blog is, don’t be embarrassed. Wikipedia defines a blog as “a type of Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. ‘Blog’ can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”
We see blogs everywhere on the Internet. In fact, there are more than 100 million of them out there.
Starting a blog is easy. There are many user-friendly blog hosting sites, like blogspot.com and wordpress.com, where you can set up a blog for free. If you use Facebook, setting up a blog and maintaining it is just as easy.
Posting frequently is key
If you are looking to leverage a blog for increased business, start one about your industry. Write entries that will appeal to potential customers. And post regularly. If you just write a new blog entry once a month, that’s not going to give you results. Daily or weekly posts will give real reasons for Web visitors to come back often or to subscribe.
If your blog takes off, the opportunity to get noticed as an industry expert awaits, particularly if your subjects and advice are impartial and not self-serving. For example, if you keep posting regular blogs that people should hire you and not your competition; your blog won’t have any credibility. Instead, offer advice, reviews and analysis of news and trends. Be the expert for people wanting to know more about your industry. Doing so will mean more traffic to your blog, which in turn is a step in the right direction for new business.
Blogs also can help with optimizing your Web site for search engines. Lots of content that gets updated frequently is good for search engine spiders looking for you. A successful search marketing strategy is to embed your blog right into your Web site. Constant blog entries about your industry and current events loaded onto your Web site will drive traffic and broaden your organic search reach on sites such as Yahoo! and Google.
That’s just scratching the surface about the potential blogging offers. Look for more on blogs in future columns.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303.
by Josh Sommers
Posted: January 15, 2010 -
As a 1980s kid and avid baseball fan, I was pretty excited one day to open a package of Topps baseball cards and find a Mark Mc-Gwire rookie card. It was clear he was going places. Just too bad he ended up being a cheat and the poster boy for steroids in professional baseball.
McGwire’s public confession this week about his steroid use was completely self-serving. He’s got a new job as a hitting coach with the St. Louis Cardinals. That means coming back into the public eye after remaining largely secluded since his embarrassing 2005 testimony to Congress where he stayed mum on his steroid use.
Getting in front of a crisis
McGwire, now back in the game, can’t hide from the reporters and cameras at this year’s spring training. So McGwire deals with it now, on his terms. From a public relations perspective, that’s a pretty smart move. Giving his story to the Associated Press and Bob Costas rather than giving bits and pieces to reporters hounding him at spring training was a good decision.
Planning a P.R. blitz proactively during crisis is better than playing it reactive. It worked for Letterman, and Tiger Woods showed us what happens when you don’t get in front of a crisis.
On an overall image basis, McGwire’s lack of ability to attain enough votes to make it to Cooperstown will likely remain unchanged — although our culture does have a thing for rooting for prodigal sons.
McGwire’s missed opportunity with this P.R. blitz was not coming completely clean. Blaming his use of steroids on medical purposes is just not believable and hurts the credibility of what he is trying to accomplish. McGwire shattered the single-season home-run record the same year he was juiced. He needs to be real and give full disclosure if he wants the public to forgive him.
It was smart for McGwire to head off the media circus of spring training and finally clear the air. But his justification for steroid use hampered the positive image bounce he could have attained.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Friday
Goshen, N.Y. – January 7, 2010 –Focus Media, Inc., a prominent Hudson Valley-based public relations and marketing firm, has been named advertising agency of record for Orange Regional Medical Center.
As agency of record, Focus Media will serve as Orange Regional’s strategic marketing partner. This role includes providing message development and creative for advertising campaigns, Web and social media strategies, and public relations counsel.
“We selected Focus Media for its deep understanding of our market and full-service agency capabilities,” said Rob Lee, Orange Regional’s Executive Director of Public Relations and Marketing. “It’s gratifying for us to have found such a great firm right here in Orange County.”
Orange Regional has engaged Focus Media as the hospital continues to enhance healthcare for the community including the construction of a new, state-of-the-art 600,000-square-foot hospital on East Main Street in the Town of Wallkill. The seven-floor, $355 million facility will have 353 private-room beds, a helipad, 12 operating rooms, two cardiac catheterization labs, a 10 bed Level 2 Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and plans for Orange County’s first Level 2 Trauma Center. Construction is set to be completed in 2011.
“Orange Regional Medical Center is adding more and more healthcare services that Hudson Valley residents need to know about and Focus Media can help deliver those important messages. Certainly, the new hospital is going to change the quality of life for our entire region,” said Josh Sommers, Focus Media’s president and CEO. “We couldn’t be more excited to help position the hospital for future prosperity.”
Orange Regional is the latest prominent Hudson Valley organization undergoing an expansion to turn to Focus Media as its strategic marketing partner. SUNY Orange, in the midst of constructing Kaplan Hall, an 85,000-square-foot building on its Newburgh campus, selected Focus Media as its advertising agency in November. In addition, catering venue Catlin Gardens, in Slate Hill, hired Focus Media in April. Catlin is building a $7 million, Victorian-style inn with 40 rooms which is set to open in the spring.
About Focus Media
Focus Media, Inc. is an award-winning, full service, public relations and advertising agency specializing in market research, branding, design, collateral development, TV and radio production, and media planning and placement. Since founding the company in 2002, President and CEO Josh Sommers has assembled a highly talented team of marketing experts, public relations strategists and acclaimed graphic designers that have made Focus Media a preeminent advertising agency known for its creativity, innovation and cutting edge marketing strategies.
In addition to prominent public figures, Focus Media has served clients in many industries, including banking, gaming, healthcare, tourism, construction, and real estate development.
Event offered OC communities a jump-start for energy grant opportunities
New Windsor, N.Y. – January 13, 2010 – Orange County Business Accelerator, in conjunction with Blue Springs Energy, hosted a successful energy grant seminar recently that offered municipalities in Orange County fast-track opportunities to apply for US Department of Energy grants early in 2010.
On Thursday, Jan. 7, nearly two dozen municipal designates, from planning, engineering and other municipal departments, attended the Clean Energy Grant Seminar at the Accelerator offices at Stewart International Airport, Town of New Windsor. The Accelerator and Blue Springs, a consultant responsible for millions of dollars in yearly energy grants to municipalities across New York, offered the seminar free of charge.
“Attendees were representative of key stakeholders in the economic impact of stimulus money hitting the ground in Orange County,” said Peter Gregory, director of enterprise development at the Accelerator. “With a deadline of Feb. 17 for competitive NYSERDA grant applications, this seminar played a vital role in educating municipalities about the fast-track process. The Accelerator was pleased to introduce Blue Springs Energy, with a long, effective relationship with NYSERDA, as a go-to resource for Orange County municipalities.”
Blue Springs Energy principal Larry Simpson added, “Now is a great time for municipalities to upgrade existing buildings and equipment by taking advantage of NYSERDA grants, and we can help streamline the process. We received great feedback from interested parties at the seminar, and look forward to helping Orange County communities become benefactors in this great opportunity for stimulus funding.”
Orange County Business Accelerator Managing Director Michael DiTullo stated, “Attendees heard dynamic, informative lectures on grant-writing, funds availability and eligibility, and a host of other grant-related topics. This seminar proved to be a great asset to municipalities looking to take advantage of clean energy grant opportunities NYSERDA has made available early this year.”
Pat Courtney Strong, a coordinator for NYSERDA (New York State Energy & Research Development Authority), was a featured guest speaker. She offered information to municipal delegates with regards to the eligibility and application phases for the highly-competitive federal grant fund, soon to be distributed by NYSERDA through its Small Community Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program.
Strong said, “Municipalities are focused on the federal stimulus funding now, and our office can help with that, but there are many money-saving programs offered by NYSERDA that will be there after this current grant opportunity passes. We are ready to help people access that technical and financial help, at any time.”
Examples of eligible projects include energy efficient retrofits, transportation efficiency measures, material conservation strategies, energy distribution technologies, energy efficient street and traffic signal lighting, renewable technologies for government buildings and regional planning activities.
Over 2,300 governments across the country vie for US Department of Energy grants on a yearly basis. Many municipalities may not be eligible for direct grants, but can still compete for a share of the $30 million in funding that NYSERDA receives from the federal government.
OCBA, located at 4 London Avenue in New Windsor at Stewart International Airport, is a business incubator program launched by the Orange County Industrial Development Agency (IDA). The incubator, 10,000 square feet of class-A high-tech research and development space, is designed to attract new entrepreneurial investment by providing businesses with below market occupancy costs, a menu of mentoring programs and a high-tech plug-and-play office environment.
For more information, contact:
Orange County Business Accelerator
Michael J. DiTullo
Managing Director
845-220-2208
mditullo@ocaccelerator.com
Times Herald-Record
Posted: January 10, 2010
GOSHEN — The public-relations people would call this one a blockbuster.
It’s what they do.
Focus Media, the largest advertising and public-relations firm in Orange and Sullivan counties, is acquiring Madden Communications, the largest P.R. firm in Rockland County.
Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal should be finalized Monday. It’s been years in the making.
“We had a chance over the last four years to professionally work together on projects, and there has been a tremendous synergy,” said Josh Sommers, founder and president of Focus Media and a Times Herald-Record columnist.
The past year has been a whirlwind for Focus. The company lost several clients early on, but then Sommers followed his own advice on how to survive a recession and ramped up his marketing efforts.
“By the summer, we had grown significantly in the double digits compared to last year,” Sommers said. “We didn’t hold on by our fingernails. We grew significantly.”
Focus has made substantial inroads in Orange County in recent years, locking up contracts with the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and SUNY Orange, and, most recently, Orange Regional Medical Center.
In a market where most P.R. agencies are one-man shops in home offices, Focus is about to go from two offices to four, and from 10 employees to 14.
The firm will operate out of its new headquarters in Goshen, with branches in Bridgeville and Chestnut Ridge. Later this year, it will open an office in White Plains, a springboard into Westchester and Bergen counties.
The merger is a marriage of contiguous territories and complementary strengths.
Sommers is the creative pitchman, an audacious promoter who held his first news conference while in high school. A former radio DJ, he’s repackaged himself as a spin meister of another kind — a bold marketer and political strategist.
He helped engineer Democrats’ takeover of the Sullivan County Legislature in 2003, and last fall aided Joe DeStefano’s return to power in Middletown.
Bill Madden, president of Madden Communications, is the studied and experienced hand, a former managing editor of The Journal News in Rockland and Westchester. As Focus’ senior vice president, he’ll lead the charge into the lower Hudson Valley.
“In Westchester, the competition will be different,” Madden said. “There are some mature agencies over there “» but they aren’t as contemporary as ours.
“I think, creatively, our firm is ahead of all the Westchester firms.”
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