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Archive for July, 2009

A cold sweat at 3:23AM

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Thanks for visiting our new gen 2 website and corporate blog site.  You are reading my first official DRS Jot and I can tell you that my team and I are excited about the launch of our new site. Many hours of hard work and creativity went into the creation and execution of this project. Web sites are a continuous work in progress so I can’t say that we are finished – but we certainly are ready to put it to work for us and our clients.

The concept behind Jots is simple and quite casual, if you will.  We wanted to create a blog area where we could share our thoughts, ideas, and just about anything marketing and branding.  We might even slip in a few impromptu comments, antidotes or stories that might seem off the wall… but that’s what makes it fun.  To me “Jots” are quick little blurts of information that come to mind…. Like jotting down a note… or thinking of an out of this world idea… or speaking out about what’s on your mind.  For those of you who know me well, understand that I can go off in many tangents and directions during a conversation in my quirky way, but we always end up back on point.  Well think of our Jots blogsite as a place that we all can be granted permission to go in many directions and share a bit more of our personality.  Feel free to send us your comments and feedback about anything you like and it just might end up as a posted Jot too.

The gen 2 website story: It starts like this; I wake up in a cold sweat at 3:23AM nine months ago (I am sure you’ve had one of those “what keeps me up at night” experiences) and I am kind of in a panic state, mind racing, imagining the future of social networking and how the web will be utilized to engage luxury consumers and what we should be doing in a bigger way as a marketing agency. I know what you are thinking… this guy does not get out much if that’s what he’s dreaming about.

Well our agency was already ahead of the curve in so many ways years prior to this with our on-line initiatives and with proven results for our clients. Yet I really realized that we were not doing enough and we needed to take serious steps to really propel our business into in-bound and social media marketing. I also realized that we had the opportunity to provide our clients with more enhanced services within our own shop. It had been on my list of things to do in our business for the past couple of years and we had been tinkering with outsourcing services and making referrals for different services – but we were never satisfied with this process.  It was probably 4:00AM at this point… and I yelled, “OK, Do it now!”  Nat did not appreciate that of course because she was still fast asleep and who knows what she thought I was dreaming about.

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The Beauty of Inbound Marketing

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Many Interior Designers, Luxury Brands and High End Product Manufacturers have invested significant amounts of money into their website, but still have no online presence. This can be for one of a number of reasons, including:

- The website was built with a dated technology or one that is literally unreadable by the search engines (much like our old site found here)
- They built a website and let it get stale, dusty and die
- They are doing nothing to market their website online

If you have not seen a return on the investment of your website, then it may be time to examine whether or not you’re getting all you can out of this investment? Or is your website like a new, expensive toy that you bought out of impulse and never use?

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PR, Branding and Internet Marketing

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

In today’s Public Relations world more and more magazines, newspapers, groups and individuals are publishing their content online. Editorial, news and blog online coverage is now one of the more noticeable direct results of Public Relations activity. A year ago less than 5% of coverage from our clients was found online, and now that number has risen all the way up to 17%. This is an interesting factor that has made how nearly every facet of Public Relations to be analyzed and optimized for the Web.

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Twitter Acronyms

Friday, July 10th, 2009

If you’re new to twitter and need a guide as to what this is all about, please take a look at our other blog post “The phenomenon of twitter!”. For those of you that have made the jump and have a fully functional twitter account complete with an avatar and background image, but can’t understand all the acronyms that the people you’re following are using then this quick guide is for you:

@ : This is what you use to reply to someone’s post, but if you already have a twitter account you should already know this. If you want to see what people have said as replies to you, login to your account and go to the twitter homepage (http://twitter.com/home ). You will then need to click the @yourusername in the right sidebar to see your replies.

RT: This stands for “ReTweet” and means that you are just sharing this tweet that you read from someone you’re following, with your followers

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Online Tracking & Reporting – Don’t be left in the dark

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Do you know what is hands down the most important factor in Internet Marketing? That’s right, it’s tracking your website’s visitors. Even if you have no Online Marketing Strategy in place, at least if you have website statistics in place you can tell if you get any traffic or make any impact in the search engines, blogs, social networks, news sites or through email. Without any type of accurate tracking system you are completely in the dark as to what your site is doing on the Internet.

The simplest form of tracking is visitor tracking which will tell you how many visitors came to your site, where they came from, what pages they visited, how long they were on your site and each page, what browser and operating system they are using, and if they clicked on a link to leave. This is all the most basic information that a tracking system will tell you, but not necessarily the most important. The most important information that a tracking system can log is if these visitors completed one of your online goals.

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The phenomenon of twitter!

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Twitter is a small social media application that has become gigantic in a very short amount of time. Twitter is basically a mini blog that allows its users to give brief updates, tips, jokes and anything else you can think of, throughout the day. Each update on twitter is called a “tweet” and many active users update their twitter feed 20 times a day. This is considered a social platform because people “follow” each other on Twitter and can comment on what people post on their twitter feed. People generally follow their friends, colleagues, fans, audiences, people with similar interests, people in the same industry etc, to stay on top of what is going on in the world and to see what people are doing.

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New LEED Certification for 2009

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Introducing LEED 2009

On April 27, 2009, The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) launched LEED v3. LEED 2009 does not reinvent the wheel in terms of what exists in the market, but it reorganizes existing commercial and institutional rating systems and offers several important advancements. The flexibility of the LEED structure is key – allowing it to evolve, build upon new technologies in building science while prioritizing energy efficiency and CO2 emission reductions.

So you may ask how has it evolved and how does that effect the kitchen and bath industry? As you are well aware, products do not earn LEED certification points, but projects do – the very projects you want to get your products into. Therefore, supplying your client base with green products that conserve water, are composed of low-emitting materials, recycled content, or certified wood will all likely serve as big selling points in 2009.

Here’s a Breakdown:

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Expand your business network

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Many, if not all, interior designers, architects, and luxury durable goods companies have a vast network of people that they work with on a regular basis. These people tend to consist of business constituents, partners, customers, employees and friends. When you stand back and take a good look at the network of people you know and work with on a regular basis, you can see how by bringing these people together in a way that represents you and your company will give people outside your network a better idea of who you are and who you are.

Being a well connected individual and a company that has had a number of excellent business relationships over the years is a major plus to doing business with you over someone who does not have these relationships. Let’s say your number one customer is also a business owner and has a great idea for a new venture in another completely unrelated industry, but really wants to bounce their ideas off of someone knowledgeable before they invest. If you, through your business contacts and vast network, just so happen to know one of the leading experts in that industry; you will then become your customer’s new best friend for making this introduction possible. Your past relationships and connections should be working for you every day to help your business grow and establish new business, relationships and connections.

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Increase in PR in a downturn economy

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

As a Public Relations firm we receive and go through several magazines a week. In keeping our magazine lists and information up to date, we’ve seen it all. From lay-offs to magazines ceasing completely. Our clients’ target publications are much thinner than a year ago.

One would guess that in this economic downturn the volume of magazines coming in would be low in comparison to last year. But after a quick comparison of our 2008 and 2009 magazine lists, not only is volume of magazines we receive higher, but editorial coverage is up too.

It goes to show that even with cuts in advertising and a more selective audience our clients’ products along with the information we provide remain fresh, interesting, and relevant.

Bringing Your Brand Online To Reach Luxury Customers

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

I have noticed that far too many high end brands and upscale Interior Designers are not able to be found online. This is a common, yet grave mistake in the Luxury Product market and as an Internet Marketer it really hurts me to see so many excellent brands and products not have the online visibility that they need to be successful.

It is extremely important for these brands to not only be online, but to reach their target market online. The demographics of the luxury consumer is very promising, and involves a market segment that has a higher than average income, is in a higher social class and lives a luxury lifestyle. This segment not only goes online often to use the Internet, but even has access to the Internet in more places then the average consumer based on their wealth and the trend that we have seen in applying the Internet to nearly all high end electronics, automobiles, boats, planes etc.

If an upscale brand is NOT on the Internet, and not easily findable on the Web then it greatly reduces the chances that their customer base will be able to find the important information they need when making their purchasing decisions. Many high end brands are taking advantage of all of the benefits of having an excellent online presence. This fact, in turn, hurts the competition who is not applying their brand to all aspects of the online world even more.

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Emma