Marketing Eye

Thursday, 24 July 2014 00:00

Want to make $6 million in 12 months?

I’ve been in the marketing industry for over 20 years; it’s fair to say, nothing fazes me.

However, every now and then I meet a client that achieves the extraordinary.    

Then I meet a client that achieves the impossible, and recently, for me that was Frank Richmond, the Founder of Cirrus Networks.

While a sex tape is a good way to get media exposure for some; Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and alike - it's not the right way to get the type of media exposure to escalate your business's chance of being written about.

When I first started doing PR, I used to write a media release and fax it to a media outlet - all with varying results. The headline, like it is today, is worth it's weight in gold, and if you have a strong first paragraph, you may get that call back you have been waiting for.

That was soon followed up with 'pitching' on the telephone and depending on what mood the journalist was in or your ability to 'sell' a story to them, you either walked away with a published article or your press release was thrown in the trash can.

In 1998, the faxing part changed to emailing which was fantastic because it was a much faster and less tedious way of getting a media release out to journalists. It also was a much more environmentally friendly way to operate and allowed for changes to be made to ensure that each email sent out to a journalist was a one-to-one marketing piece rather than an everything to everyone, hit and miss style approach.
Published in Marketing
I am mad. Very mad. In case anyone has forgotten, it is 2014 and people are still senselessly killing others. Terrorists not only exist, but take the lives of our loved one's who innocently fall victim just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Thursday 17th July, 2014, will go down as the day that it stopped being another terrorist attack and started being something that every person became responsible for. A human life is valuable whether they are young or old, man or child - it all means the same. That person deserves the right to live in a safe world, not scared to walk out on their doorstep, or take a flight.

The plane had not sent a distress signal. It reportedly came apart at a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet, with its wreckage landing in territory held by pro-Russian insurgents who have been fighting the central government in Kiev.
Published in Mellissah Smith
Last month I sent a team member to a two-day class to learn about "The Project Success Method".

As a company, we handle many projects, all at the one time, for multiple clients across multiple offices. Ensuring that everything runs as smoothly as possible is critical. 

I had read quite a bit about Clinton Padgett and his proven Project Success Method. What prompted me to take action was the fact that our company is growing exponentially and we have so many international projects on that unless our people are equipped to run these projects, something will fail. Most importantly is that qualified people train the project leaders, who then in turn work with their teams to train them.
Published in Management
The lines blurred sometime in the last 10 years, but I don't know exactly when it happened.

Having started my first business at 25 years of age, specializing in technology marketing, I thought I had it all. A marketer who understood technology marketing and who could talk the talk which at that time seemed to be, the height of the dot com boom, the most lucrative marketing position one could hold.

Then of course, someone came along and started talking about company culture, and marketers took a turn to start embellishing the on-boarding process of new recruits, with a mixture of "people marketing" with "technology marketing" - and for a time, that was all the rage. It seemed to be the only thing people were talking about and marketers starting play a role in human resources, giving recruiters and in-house HR managers the tools to "sell their brands" like they were a front line sales executive needing to close the deal in order to reach their quotas.
Published in Marketing
The next 12-months is going to be incredibly different for people who work at Marketing Eye. After years of working hard at establishing a product and service that is unsurpassed by industry standards, driven by technology, systems and processes, we are now working tirelessly on how to build the right culture going forward.

There have been many hit and misses and lots of unnecessary frustration, but finally I think as a team we have hit the nail on the head and I am about to test it to the enth degree.

Flat Organizational Structure

Weaning employees off hierarchy-driven decision making has been a test of both patience and perseverance. Gen-Y's have been told that they need leadership in order to be successful, yet some of the most successful companies in the world, like Google, are saying quite the opposite. Their investment in a flat organizational structure has not only shown dividends on the balance sheet, but it has created a workplace and culture that the world-over admires and respects.
Published in Management
Monday, 07 July 2014 00:00

16 Lessons I Have Learned This Year

There have been many lessons I have learned this year; some the easy way and some the hard way.

The past six months have been exhausting. It has tested me in ways that I never imagined possible and at the same time, made me realize a few things about myself that will help shape the person I am moving forward.

I have learned:

Published in Marketing
Sunday, 06 July 2014 00:00

Outside of the box: our $7 PR campaign

Recently, a client shared a sage piece of marketing advice, he said “If you have just $100 left in your advertising budget, your best investment is to use it to travel and share your story with your market face-to-face”. Today Marketing Eye put this advice to the test, with great success for one of our clients – Papa Gusto.

Marketing plans do not have to be intricate to be effective, nor do they to be supported by exorbitant budgets.  We keep it simple and achieve results.  
It’s no secret; marketers are driven by the satisfaction of when the product we are promoting sells.

But how often do we pause to consider the impact that product is having on the world - the people, the wildlife and the environment around us?

Published in Mellissah Smith