Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 64

From Marketing Eye's website, we had a lead last month from Industrial Maintenance Group. They were interested in our industrial marketing expertise and were looking for a refresh of their brand and website, as well as ongoing marketing.

Industrial marketing is very different to traditional business to business marketing. It is very important to think about who is receiving everything from a business card through to a direct mail piece or a visit to your website.

When we looked at Industrial Maintenance Group, we realized that they stood out in the industry. The owner, Wes Schollian, works on the tools while his senior management team does most of the business side of things like bringing in new clients and marketing.

The reason Wes does this is to ensure that the best possible job is done every single time for his clients.

Our job is to get this act of "precision" out into the market place and communicate why Industrial Maintenance Group is the number one choice for fabrication, industrial services, recycling services and the purchase of balers, screw conveyers and recycling equipment. 

Industrial Maintenance Group Brand

Marketing Eye's brief was to create a brand that ignites the sense of perfection in the fabrication, industrial maintenance and services, and recycling products and services.

Waking up in Atlanta this morning was pure bliss. I literally woke up smiling and from that moment onwards things couldn't get better.

The reason was simple. I realized that my life is not boring - it's just one big, exciting adventure.

#24yrold said to me yesterday when I was a bit down in the dumps, "Your life is not boring - every day is different." 

She is right. Every day is different and if every day was the same, I would be bored mindless. It goes the same with people that you hang around with - if every person was the same, than life gets a bit dull - doesn't it?

There are so many Apps around today, that it is hard to know which one's to download and take up space on either your smart phone, tablet or computer.

As a marketing agency, we use a number of "must have" apps to ensure that we are regularly monitoring our clients performance online and ensuring that we are abreast of their competitors movements, campaigns and conversations as well as leveraging industry news and developments to bring their brands to the forefront.

While we continue to grow audiences, increasing our clients brands within the circles in which they trade, it becomes increasingly important to utilize Apps that cut-through the clutter and help ensures that we don't waste time on social media where possible.

Here are 8 of the most efficient analytical Apps that Marketing Eye uses:

1. HootSuite: If you don't use this, then you have not only been hiding under a rock, but you are missing a valuable tool. HootSuite is a social media management solution that enables teams to collaborately execute social media campaigns across multiple platforms from one single view point - a dashboard. HootSuite includes audience identification tools, the ability to streamline workflow and customize reporting. It is perfect for managing Twitter accounts.

Flying is like catching a taxi to me. I do it every week and have done so for the past 15 years. I never complain and I would not dare let myself think negatively of the fact that I have to catch yet another flight.

From time to time, I do receive bad customer service from airlines, hotels, taxi drivers and restaurants, but mostly, I suck it up. It has to be something really bad for me to make a big deal about it because quite simply, by dwelling on it, it also ruins my day.

Last month I missed a dinner with a bunch of business women because my diary was overbooked and I was stuck in Atlanta instead of being in Los Angeles. I felt terrible. How did this happen? I am beginning to be quite unreliable with this business group and I respect their time and efforts in putting this dinner together particularly since I don't live in the same city.

The leader, a highly successful international business woman with companies in Europe, UK, and Australia, had gathered a small group of people together as a favor to her cousin, for a woman that she didn't know.

Always ready to help out, THE LEADER, gathered seven or so women that all run successful businesses together to meet for dinner. As they all arrived, they introduced themselves and talked about what they did and where their businesses were going. All normal stuff in a meeting of like-minded individuals there for the sole purpose of sharing ideas and experiences regarding business.

What started out as a dream became a reality, much faster than I anticipated.

Many entrepreneurs can attest to having a dream or maybe just something on their bucket list that needs to be crossed off. I am one of those people. I have a dream but most importantly for me, an item on my bucket list that needs to be crossed off by a given time frame.

What once was a dirty word to me, the position of entrepreneur in a fast growing, dynamic company is the most exhilarating career choice I could have every made.

What other job has you jumping out of bed at 5am each morning, dressing in a matter of minutes and rushing off to the office to start your day? For that matter, what other job gives you the highs of an entrepreneur and the flexibility to be exactly who you are?

Driving back from Hilton Head in South Carolina on the weekend, #24yrold asked me what I thought of the new branding for Yahoo! I hadn't given it much thought and had mainly seen press around the rebrand that was negative - aimed directly at Marissa Mayer.

My thoughts on Marissa Mayer are varied. Firstly, she should be applauded for her career achievements, ambitions and determination to clean up a company of Yahoo!'s magnititude. It's no small feat! She is a woman who is held in high esteem amongst most women who want to climb the corporate ladder.  The downside of Marissa Mayer is that she comes across as arrogant, dominant and because she makes the hard decisions - not always in good favor with her colleagues. She isn't necessarily a crowd pleaser.

The forty year old hangover is over. While the sun didn't come out shining today, the world is as it should be and I am fairly pleased about that.

I celebrated my birthday twice. Once in Australian time and the other in US time. Both were equally fabulous and without flaw. I spent the most amazing couple of days in South Beach Miami and just chilled. Somehow all of the expectations of turning 40 disappeared and I enjoyed the "now".

Freaking out about turning 40 was wasting energy that could have been better spent elsewhere. I don't know why I started to look in the mirror and feel 10 years older, nor what started me thinking that my life is so miserable, when in fact, it is truly amazing. I am living the best life I could have ever imagined and I am doing things that I never thought possible. 

When evaluating the marketing budget of our company, it became apparent that printing was a significant cost. As such, when it came to printing our custom published marketing magazine, it was time to do things a little differently. 

At first, my design department sourced quotes. They ranged from $18,000 up to $33,000 for exactly the same product. I was fine with paying $18,000 but not so fine to find my normal printers quotation significantly higher at $33,000. It literally had me stopping in my tracks and evaluating what I was doing and whether it was worth it.

Then, as if someone was looking down on me, a company was referred to Marketing Eye to do some of their marketing. It was an online print automation company that specialises in reducing the cost of printing so that marketing departments can reinvest the savings back into their marketing campaigns. I personally worked on this account because I was interested in seeing what they did differently. In the end, I became as passionate about their business, as they became of ours. On top of that, they saved us 45% of our printing costs.

Today, I thought I would give the founder of this business, Mark Alioto a call to talk about what they do differently at ECM.

If I could have a dollar for every time I didn't trust my gut instinct, I would be a very rich woman.

Like most entrepreneurs, I have failed more times than I have succeeded and every single time I have failed I have thought back to how I could have done things differently. 9 times out of 10, it was because I didn't trust my gut instinct.

Trusting in yourself and your intuition is important, but if you are anything like me, you second guess what you think you should do and find reasons as to why you should do something a different way. It's not too indifferent from taking a risk. We are all reluctant to take risks but sometimes there is this thing inside us that tells us that we must do it - even though there a thousand reasons why we shouldn't.