Companies solely focused on selling to other businesses, and not to general consumer audiences, often put all of their promotional resources into sales. They are frequently quick to write off advertising and publicity. That’s usually a mistake. A good marketing program should include investments in both a sales force and advertising.

In the business-to-business model, a [...]

Making the investment in advertising, building and maintain a Web site and developing collateral, like brochures, are worthy investments. Professional design of these marketing elements is important. But great marketing pieces all start with the right message.

We’re inundated by thousands of messages per day. Your ads have to stand out to get noticed. So, make [...]

Joining a business group such as a chamber of commerce or membership-based economic development organization can be a great move for your business. Simply joining these groups can provide many benefits, such as special rates on insurance coverage and referrals. But if you want to leverage these memberships to grow your business, it’s important to [...]

I’ve always been of the mind that well-run political campaigns are on the forefront of the latest in effective research, branding, marketing, publicity and social media strategies.

While creating general awareness through television, print and radio are important components for many campaigns, the marriage between research and the targeted marketing in politics is intriguing.

Political campaigns lead [...]

Your brand is not necessarily your own. Imagine comparing your reaction to seeing the BP logo a year ago to how you would respond today after the environmental disaster the company created. And I bet the warm-and-fuzzy feeling a Tiger Woods picture gave you last year likely gives you a different feeling now.

BP and Tiger [...]

Granted it might not happen every day, but many of us have, at some point, been so touched by a television commercial that it moved us to tears.

That’s pretty amazing for a 30-to 60-second advertisement. I bet an Internet advertisement or piece of direct mail never had the same effect on you. Last week, I [...]

The other night I was doing my part and sitting through a dreadful television show my wife couldn’t wait to see. I don’t think I was exactly the target demographic the TV producers had in mind for this particular show. A commercial break came on, and in rolled the advertisements for products such as fabric [...]

The Great Recession may be over, but it will continue to impact how we think, and rethink, our business strategy for years, even for the remainder of our careers.

One thing that certainly did test us during the recession was change, and how we communicated it. While change done strategically can create better efficiencies and leaner [...]

Staying on message is one of the most fundamental rules of any type of external and internal communications. IBM repeated the word “excellence” in its advertising during the 1980s until the lines became part of pop culture.

Martin Luther King Jr. repeated “I have a dream” in his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
Business [...]

By Josh Sommers
Published:  05/21/10

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now considered the nation’s worst environmental disaster in decades and will have devastating consequences for years to come.

Ever since the April 20th fire on an oil rig that killed 11 people, an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude oil a [...]