Advertise for FREE!
Hope your short week after a long weekend wasn’t too short… was a little for Reaxion! 
You’ll find a lot of what I pass on is food for thought – designers and marketers have a lot of thoughts! You never know when they’ll come in handy!
A few weeks ago I mentioned a bang for your buck strategy is to direct your advertising to your core past customers rather than a shotgun public advertising campaign. Now twist that idea around and look at YOUR suppliers! Do they have a stake in your success? Any of them fall over themselves to schmooze you for next year’s account? Now you have someone to help pay your ad bill!
So how does this work? A tried and true user of this method is our local chamber of commerce. At least once a month they mail 800+ newsletters and give the option for members to insert a brochure into the same envelope for a fee MUCH MORE REASONABLE than a Canada Post direct mailing. The chamber pays for their distribution and advertisers penetrate their chamber members’ offices- win win!
So how do you implement this? Well, I won’t dissect any possible politics involved, for instance, you don’t want an advertiser duplicating or providing your service, but if you have a "links" section on your site you might have your call list.
What’s a good advertising medium? Start with your website. If any of my hosted clients charged only $10 PER MONTH for an ad, the annual hosting budget would be covered! Add a couple bucks and you can put in for the company Christmas party!
Think of this idea every time you advertise to the public, you might be able to do it for free!
Posted in In General... | Tagged Adverstising, Brandon Chamber of Commerce, Free, graphic design, marketing, News Letter, Print Design, reaxion graphics, Web Design | Leave a comment
CKX is Dead – Brandon Websites More Important Than Ever
Yesterday it was announced and today it’s sinking in as reality. Brandon, Manitoba’s only home grown TV station is going black. I think on an unconscious level everyone in Westman knew the company willing to gamble on buying such a profit lacking station would also be have the guts to slip out the backdoor after reassuring everyone their job’s were safe. We didn’t want to believe it.
I admit thoughts about the situation are still brewing for me just like everyone else, but some initial conclusions can be realized.
Daily news will still be found on the radio and in the newspaper- but you have to admit it’s not TV. Big losers are large local events like the Royal Manitoba Winter fair and out of town businesses invested in television advertising. As a local view myself, I would count myself as someone who looked to CKX for both. I’m the type who only buys the Saturday paper and goes to the internet for radio. This summer I enjoyed the fact that CBC TV I watched at the cabin (where we only get 3 channels including CKX) was far away the best (tired of American news reporting?) and made my wife and I consistently consider cancelling our cable subscription back home. The combination of local TV and quality CBC programs are now gone.
So cut to the chase! What does this mean for advertisers and event promoters? What does this mean for local media consumers?
In my opinion, this makes the average Brandon or Westman resident more of an information seeker than simple receiver. Locals will have to actively pursue their information. At noon and 6 o’clock Brandonites won’t be able to sit on the couch, eat their food and passively watch the news. What’s going on in Brandon? What events are coming up?
So how will Westman find its information? I won’t account for every demographic, but for local information, this is my opinion:
- newspaper and radio will rule the day
- web will rule the night
Marketing as a whole will have to be unbelievably more creative locally than ever before, and for someone that serves all businesses with web and print design that do actively market themselves, it’s very interesting. How will Brandon businesses get their message out of the Brandon bubble? Small town newspapers should be on the ball to catch the dollars of businesses trying to reach surrounding areas. (Playing devil’s advocate, this situation could be very good news for Brandon’s surrounding towns trying to keep their local dollars local). Direct mail may even become a more popular avenue, but as you find yourself farther and farther from Brandon but within the trade area, I would be willing to bet the internet is one of the most valuable – and affordable – transmitter of information. .
This is also good news for Brandon’s local business on the web. The internet isn’t quite as passive as TV, but compared with the TV today, it’s a heck of a lot of fun. There are a lot of laptops on couches each night as people cruise their favourite sites while they ignore the tube – it’s focused and on demand. Have you seen the new ads for Microsoft’s “Bing” search engine mentioning “search overload”? The way Microsoft puts it, search overload is all the peripheral pages you find when you search for the one keyword you really want. The new popular keyword could be “Brandon”, and more than ever, local businesses should have their eye on appearing on that page.
From now on Brandon website owners should focus on a better representation of themselves, more complete information, and more current information. Websites, as always, should strive to take advantage of the web and all its technologies – why not still have your own video commercial?
Good luck CKX employees! Good luck as well to everyone who relied on a good local television station for their news, events and advertising. This is an unfolding story with much to think about, and I doubt this will be my last post regarding it!
Posted in In General... | Tagged Bluepoint Corp., Bluepoint Investments, Brandon Sun, Brandon Television Station, CKX, CKX off air, TV | Leave a comment
Three Web Scams
Don’t fall for these scams!
Though I’d rather ramble on about Reaxion Graphics, I thought I’d mention a few web scams you need to know about! The problem with these scams are they aren’t technically illegal (not yet), which make them harder to point out!
1. Time to renew you listing in the #1 online directory.
This was a new one this week received by a client. The deal is, you are added to their “#1 online directory” without you knowing – which is fine, free advertising! – but call you and tell you your listing is expiring soon and will be $200 to renew! Don’t buy it! I imagine only someone not in the know and holding the company credit card would really fall for that one!
This scam came from a phone number 1-866-328-8551. Google that number and you will find any number of scams attached to it!
2. For $X.XX we can improve your search engine rank.
This one is a bit tougher and I’m sure many of you have received something like this. Yes, you can pay someone to improve you search engine optimization (seo) – I can help with that, and for the sake of capitalism, so can a lot of legit businesses, but you have to do your homework. If the email address attached to the unsolicited email is from India or any other funny place for that matter, walk away, and no matter what, do your homework.
As a side note, nobody can 100% guarantee #1 Google ranking. Period.
3. Your domain is up for renewal – we can renew it.
This scam has been around for a long time and you may or may not have received it. Usually someone holding a number of domain names will receive this. It will come as a very nice and polite letter saying your domain is up for renewal, and if you send all your domain info, they will do it for you. This will hand over 100% control to them, and after that, you’re burned!! For more info on this scam, read this blog post.
Bottom line, if you don’t know what someone is telling you what you have to do with your website, domain name, hosting, etc, send your web designer the information you were given. They’ve seen it all!
Posted in In General... | Leave a comment
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