With clients and customers becoming ever more mobile and global, will electronic communication replace face-to-face interaction?  Emailing, texting, FTP sites, PDA’s, video conferencing – is there any reason to call your client or have a face-to-face meeting?  Will the next generation of advertising account managers even know how to interact in real life situations after being “wired” to communicate electronically since the day they could hold their first iPhone?

In business, building solid personal relationships is key to success.  Personal interaction promotes effective and collaborative teamwork and builds strong relationships, which keeps clients happy.  Domus credits much of its success to building personal relationships with its clients; relationships that have, in some cases, led to friendships, on top of successful business partnerships.  In addition to regular phone and face-to-face contact, we have gone as far as setting up a permanent office in our clients’ offices in locales across the country  in order to provide constant face-to-face interaction.  It doesn’t get much more hands on than that. Sure, we could save money by virtual communication; but nothing has more value than an on-site presence.  It simply makes good business sense.  When you’re visible, your client will look to you first.

Domus is a leading edge internet marketing agency that brings its full range of classic marketing expertise to its hi-tech digital capabilities. For more information on how Domus can help you accurately analyze your internet presence and develop effective strategies to further your brand, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

As unconventional as it sounds, if you’re not investing competitively in branding your product or service, consider dropping your marketing budget to the bottom line.

BUT, if you have the confidence of a branding vision, you can maximize your short-term and long-term return on investment by shouting more loudly than your competition and investing in a down economy.

The Back Part:

Marketers tend to pull back spending at the first signal of the economy weakening. While it was groundbreaking in 1986, the McGraw-Hill Laboratory of Advertising Performance Report 5262, showed that when the economy was down during the 1981 – 1982 recession, brands benefited from an increased share of voice. Not only did brands’ short-term sales increase but companies that maintained or increased their advertising “…could boast an average sales growth of 275 percent over the preceding five years.”

The proliferation of media vehicles and the ability to micro-target via technological solutions makes this study’s findings truer than ever.

As the current economic factors reinforce that this is a correction in some categories and a down cycle in others, now is the time to evaluate:

1. Who in your category is spending and how much; and
2. Is there a business case for your brand to scream more loudly even with a selective investment now?

• Dacor Luxury Appliances, a six-year Domus client, has chosen to promote its latest products at the annual Kitchen & Bath Industry Show this April. With its competitive noise level down, our client will dominate the share of voice among the key specifier and designer audiences. ROI will skyrocket.

The Future Part:

Strategically positioning a brand and ensuring consistency of messaging in all traditional and online communications are paramount to building brand equity. But, unlike in the mid-1980s, the addition of internet marketing as part “glue,” part “measurement system” and part “conversation facilitator” allows you to test and measure to whom and by which media you should be investing in your brand.

Learn from the DeLorean, (one of the most memorable product placements in marketing history) – use the proverbial time machine to capitalize on proven marketing principles from the past. Then deliver them with state-of-the-art mechanisms and measurements that are present, not future, at Domus, Inc.

Oh, and you may want to skip the jail part too. While Martha Stewart made it sing, John DeLorean’s antics had a Lindsay Lohan destruction effect on a promising brand.

If you want to discuss the implications of this, email betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com or call me directly at 215-772-2805.  For more information on marketing in a down economy, you can refer to additional Domus blog posts here!

Betty Tuppeny is the CEO and founder of Domus, Inc., a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit http://www.domusinc.com. For new business inquiries, please contact Betty directly at betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com or 215-772-2805.

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This guest post is brought to you by Paul Mosenson.  Paul is the Founder of NuSpark Marketing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Consider the following statistics from Sirius Decisions:

Only 20% of leads are followed up on

• 70% of leads are disqualified due to budget, lack of timing, etc
• 80% of “bad leads” do go on to buy within 24 months
• 73% of companies have no process for requalifying leads
• 80% of sales occur after the 5^th contact

Where most companies focus on lead generation, or, generating leads into the “top of the funnel,” most companies do not have an adequate system to handle non-sales ready leads. With the emphasis on new sales-ready leads, those leads that are deemed “not-qualified” now can very easily be qualified within 6 months to 2 years provided they are nurtured through their individual buying cycles.  By nurturing, we mean communicating problem-solving content on an ongoing basis through email and or social media channels.  When prospects engage with a vendor by downloading content or viewing webinars, for example, they inch closer to their buying decisions and their “lead score” increases.  Once the lead score reaches a defined threshold, those leads are sent to sales for closing, because they are deemed sales-ready.  Without nurturing, leads leave the funnel, and those leads engage with competitors who provide value and content consistently.
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Social Media Marketing has emerged as a whole new domain in the marketing industry over the last few years. Social Networking websites have moved a long way from simply connecting family and friends to a platform that’s being used by companies all around the world to market their products. From text ads to banner ads to sweepstakes, a large number of marketing styles and strategies can be found on the social networking sites. The words “Social Networking” and “Social Media” bring the names Facebook and Twitter to most people’s minds, however not everyone knows that while Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world (with over 500 million users), Twitter is not the second. Qzone, a social networking site in simplified Chinese that caters to users in mainland China falls second after Facebook in numbers, while Twitter comes in at a close third place.

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Facing a new reality

In the past 2 years, the percentage of consumers who are using smartphones to access the web has skyrocketed to more than 49 million¹. A recent study by Morgan Stanley predicted that by 2015 there will be more mobile web users than there are desktop users².

As the mobile audience continues to grow, our mobile devices continue to shrink in size and increase in functionality. They’ve gone from oversized “Crackberries” we used for constantly checking email to organic extensions of our hands and minds that nearly do everything for us. Need to pay a bill, make a dinner reservation, turn off your house lights, video chat with a customer service representative or kill zombies? There’s an App for that.

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It’s that time of year again.  And that holiday gift list looks endless. Gift cards have been done, cold hard cash doesn’t seem thoughtful enough, what’s left to give?  One easy answer is lottery tickets.  Most state lotteries have numerous holiday-themed tickets that are promoted and sold during this peak season.

Beyond traditional media to promote these holiday ticket sales, is there more that state lotteries can do to creatively promote tickets as gifts?  One idea is to create holiday cards pre-inserted with an instant lottery ticket allowing consumers to kill two birds with one stone.  It’s all about convenience and one-stop shopping at this time of the year.  Another idea is to create a stocking or a special holiday-themed foil pouch stuffed with multiple lottery tickets for that lucky person who deserves a little extra.  And lastly, lottery tickets make great employee incentives.  Domus worked with the Pennsylvania Lottery to develop the Golden Opportunities Challenge Program, an unprecedented program encouraging the Commonwealths’ 350,000+ businesses to use lottery tickets as rewards and incentives.

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How important is your website? In today’s marketplace it’s everything.  Your website is your number one means of providing your brand, consistency, and message to potential customers.  We live in an Internet world, if your website isn’t first rate it will be detrimental to your business.  Is it time for your website to have a makeover?  More importantly, is it time for your website to start delivering the ROI that your products or services demand?

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Truly good creative is hard to find and even harder to produce on a consistent basis.  Think about the best creative campaigns you have seen recently then compare that to all the creative there is on the market.  Mind-boggling how small the percentage of quality creative really is.  Often one good idea will spawn many knock-offs and wannabes trying to cash in on the popularity of someone else’s hard work.  It’s not easy for creative professionals.  Their livelihood is based on their ability to produce top-notch, successful creative ideas on a regular, recurring basis.  And, when you consider that many concepts don’t even make it to production, you realize what a daunting task creative professionals have.

Who really knows what good creative is?  Something so subjective is difficult to quantify.  Are there really any new ideas out there or is it a matter of presenting historically good ideas in new and fresh ways?  One of the most difficult things creative minds have to do is keep their ideas fresh.

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I was always taught never to discuss religion or politics in mixed company, but nowadays with Facebook and Twitter people air grievances all day every day, and no topic is off limits.   But that candid feedback can be pretty helpful, as the latest batch of politicos are discovering.

The New York Times published an article today on sentiment analysis tools and how politicians are using the technology to see which messages are resonating with voters by monitoring their social media posts. As a previous Domus Dish post explained, sentiment analysis technology has a long way to go – but it’s getting better and giving those using it an edge.

Read the full article here.

Domus is a leading edge internet marketing agency that brings its full range of classic marketing expertise to its hi-tech digital capabilities. For more information on how Domus can help you accurately analyze your internet presence and develop effective strategies to further your brand, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.
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While you drink your morning coffee and peruse the newspapers, you’re likely to find at least one news story on a company facing a crisis.  Some examples to refresh your memory: Toyota, BP, the recent egg recall, energy-efficient windows that melt vinyl siding and even a hospital employee who lost a laptop containing private patient information.  That can’t be good.    The increasing frequency of natural disasters, man-made disasters and business interruptions has made it absolutely critical that organizations quickly and accurately communicate with all stakeholders during an event.  No one wants to be the “last one to know” in these situations.

A crisis is any situation that is threatening or could threaten to harm people or property, seriously interrupt business or damage reputation.  In a recent survey conducted by BtoB magazine, about 53% of marketing executives said they have experienced a business crisis resulting in negative news coverage, declining sales or reduced profitability.  But just about the same number (57%) said their company does not have a crisis response plan currently in place.  Talk about rolling the dice.

Every organization is vulnerable to crises.  Therefore, every organization from Fortune 500 companies to mom-and-pop shops to nonprofits should have a crisis plan.  This is critical now more than ever thanks to the 24-hour news cycle with endless blogs, twitter feeds and video clips that help keep a crisis alive.

Crisis management is critical in protecting a brand’s positive perception as well as the business interest that may be damaged in the long term, short term or both.  Top-notch crisis communications strategies can greatly improve a company’s ability to plan for, respond to and recover from a wide variety of crises.  Are you prepared?

Domus is an innovative marketing communications firm that incorporates state-of-the-art technologies and classic marketing principles into effective marketing campaigns. For more information visit us at Domus, Inc. and Domus Digital.