The Wichita Business Journal is hosting its first Bizwomen Mentoring Monday event on April 7, 2014, a new initiative to provide mentoring to business women in a casual, fast-paced atmosphere. Our own Deanna Harms will join an impressive line-up of accomplished local experts representing a variety of fields. The speed mentoring consists of five-minute-long meetings between mentors and attendees.
February 28, 2014
© Wichita Business Journal, 2014
“Where have all the good names gone? Others have picked them every one.” My apologies to the late, great Pete Seeger, but that’s inevitably how a naming project makes you feel. It starts out fun and full of opportunity. You research and brainstorm. Ideas flow.
The list of possibilities grow. And you fall in love. Then you start checking availability. Not just the name, mind you, but the URL. The #$%& URL. The slashing begins. Names fall like soldiers on the front lines.
Improve Your Odds
I’ll try to spare you grief by sharing a few pointers. These should help you still have contenders left after your availability search.
Worth the Effort
Somewhere along the way, you’ll ask yourself if the naming (or renaming) is worth the angst. It is. Veteran marketer Al Ries has even suggested the industry add a fifth “P” – proper name – to its product-place-price-promotion marketing mix. I could get behind that. Think about what you’re trying to accomplish. The right name can turbocharge the effort.
Maybe it’s a an emergency airlift service like EagleMed, a loyalty program like Signature FlightSupport’s TailWins, a recruitment campaign like Spirit AeroSystems’ Dream Big. Make It Fly. Or a must-attend inaugural event like Wichita Aviation Festival’s Plane It Hollywood. The name sets the tone – and the hook. It helps the world understand just what you have to offer.
As you think about your next naming project, take a deep breath, and remember the ultimate goal. To create a clear, appropriate, memorable, simple moniker. One that sets you apart and above the competition. You can do it. But it won’t be easy.
Q: How did weather this week affect your business?
“I have a group of troopers who really like to work, so they’ve braved it, shown up and we’ve gotten a lot done.”
Sonia Greteman,
Greteman Group
February 7, 2014
© Wichita Business Journal, 2014
February 5, 2014 BlueSky Business Aviation News
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As advertisers squeeze more ROI from each 30-second ad, they turn to the Internet. The Super Bowl ad season starts weeks in advance and lasts well past the final whistle. It involves a variety of screens – from your computer to your TV to your phone. And it involves multiple channels: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Shazam and more. The Growth of Social Networking
Twitter Spikes Facebook The immediacy of Twitter makes it a go-to channel for events. It generated 25 million tweets during the Super Bowl, up from 24 million during last year’s game. Just as you invite your best buds over to share the game, social media expands the party to friends everywhere. Seattle Seahawks Percy Harvin’s second-half kickoff generated 381,605 tweets per minute, blasting past the previous 231,500 tweets-per-minute record set during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout.
Why? Well, it’s easy to draw comparisons between target-demographics and such, but really it’s about immediacy. Ad folks know how Facebook tinkers with news feeds and how people view their feeds a few times a day to catch up, but Twitter delivers pure, immediate gratification. It takes the first step towards the eventual chain of events that ends with that email from your grandma sharing the ad six months after it went viral. Get in the Game Brands are taking advantage of massive viewership and TV spots during the game to instantly communicate with people digitally and push brand awareness further. A real-time opportunity presented itself last year when the stadium mysteriously and suddenly went black. Within minutes, Oreo memorably tweeted about the blackout. The timeliness became notable enough that Oreo (and other brands such as M&Ms and Tide) captured viral attention. Again, it was about immediacy. Notably, this year, Oreo remained in the game by removing itself from it. @Oreo tweeted before the game started, “Hey guys . . . enjoy the game tonight. We’re going dark. #OreoOut.” Bravo. Some companies may not feel they have a use for social media, or particularly for real-time social media such as Twitter. They might want to rethink that. Being able to add your brand’s voice at a moment’s notice through the go-to, instant-information source is what brings key value to social media. Just because you may not have the staff to support a full-blown social media effort doesn’t mean you should ignore it entirely.
Augment Those Ads It’s likely you haven’t let your smartphone or tablet out of your sight for years now. That means brands are starting to find ways to take advantage of those extra screens. Emerging tactics include ads with additional content beyond the commercial itself. Whether the ads encourage a hashtag for tweets, visiting a website for more information or hitting YouTube for the extended commercial, they’re becoming more and more pervasive. It’s no longer enough to just have a creative ad. The value comes from spurring conversations on Twitter, comments on YouTube and shares on Facebook. It’s engineered virality at its finest. The CDC should issue a warning. It’s important to remember, however, that any successful effort to extend your advertising from one medium to another relies on a compelling message. It does no good to end a TV commercial with “Continued at . . . ” if your creative is so boring that no one cares enough to follow the message to its next destination. Benefits for Everyone If you’re interested in bulking up your marketing, consider what some the best agencies in the world did on game day – and what they do after. It’s an exhibition of forward-thinking digital ideas. And these ideas trickle down, not just to those with the money to spend on Super Bowl spots. The takeaway is that the most successful campaigns use multiple channels to drive traffic online where conversations can lead to conversions. And that’s good business no matter whether you’re selling a cookie or a Challenger.
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