July 24th, 2009 
Dean 
You have heard it before: If you want to stand out, you have to do something unique. True, but not always.
I came across this article in RainToday.com talking about how trying too hard to be unique in business and marketing can sometimes be a silly thing. Here are the salient points:
Posted in General, Just-In-Time lessons 
Tags: business owners, consultants, Marketing, unique 
No Comments » June 8th, 2009 Dean 
Received an EDM about Search Engine Marketing from Marketing Interactive Magazine. The intro gave a simple, straightforward steps to boosting your online profile (ie. PR). Allow me to shameless cut and paste here so that the knowledge can be shared:
THE ISSUE
There are myriad methods to help boost your presence and build your brand via online search engines, but which is right for your business? When do you focus on optimising your site’s content, when is it more effective to engage paid or organic search, and how much should it really cost you? As the online battle for top rankings in search engines really starts to heat up, marketers need to be as informed and prepared as possible of their options in order to accomplish what’s really important: achieving greater lead generation and online conversions.STOP STABBING IN THE DARK
1) Identify your issues – Key challenges marketers face maximising their online spend and ROI
2) Get the data you need - Enhance your knowledge of free product offerings
3) Know your audience – Understanding general search engine usage behavior
4) Be informed – New trends for managing your SEM campaign
5) Make more sales – How to optimize & convert your website traffic to real $$
6) Make it easier for your audience to find you – Incorporating offline-online integration into the marketing mix
March 31st, 2009 Dean 
Client: Gold & Silver Jewellery
The idea:
Gold & Silver wanted publicity for their latest range of high-end jade jewellery pieces. The local jeweler had been around since 1940s but has not gotten any form of media coverage. They also wanted their brand to reach out to a wider consumer group.
The challenge:
The purpose behind the publicity was simple enough. Unfortunately, for this very reason we believe it is going to be tough to media interest. Just pitching for a product line may get them token snippets in magazines. But for us this is not good enough. We want more for our clients.
The strategy:
We sat down with the Creative Director, who is the force behind their jade collection, to dig out any interesting story around their jade collection. The chat uncovered the history of her passion for jade and we learnt some surprising technical details of the gemstone that most layperson may not realise. Herein lies an interesting human story that could be weaved around the technical details of jade gemstone.
We also found out that more and more young ladies are buying jade pieces from them because of the modern designs that Gold and Silver produced. Despite jade being a very oriental gemstone, even Westerners were buying from them because of its quality and potential investment benefits. We decided to package this as a trend.
We pitched the story with slightly different angles to Channel News Asia, newspapers and women’s magazines. Radio was intentionally left out due to the visual nature of the story.
The outcome:
We managed to get Prime Time Morning interested in featuring the Creative Director as an avid collector of jade. To impart some credibility to the interview, we arranged for a gemologist to accompany her on the show.
Business Times, TODAY and My Paper picked up the story, each with its own variation of story angles. Business Times went for a more commercial angle. TODAY used the personal collector angle, while My Paper picked up the ‘trend’ angle.
The jade designs were picked up by Female magazine and Tatler’s annual supplement The Best of Singapore 2009 gave them a good 6-page coverage. We did a promotion with HomeTeam NS magazine to reach out to the mass market. For that our clients got a full page article.
In Summary:
Total Broadcast coverage: 1
Total Print (newspapers & magazines) coverage: 6
February 11th, 2009 Dean 
Time and again I come across corporate profiles written in a language that don’t seem to be English at all. They are so full of jargons and adjectives weaved into one tight nothing! I keep reading a lot of words which has no meaning to me.
Here is a fine example of ‘talking’ a lot and saying nothing. The business deals with flowers and gifts, but I shall not name the entity, just the initials will do.
HT is a floral design firm acclaimed for its bold attempts to inject vibrancy and excitement to conventional floral creations. HT is inspired to bringing dazzles to bouquets, inspiring emotions and joy to life. HT seeks to give the best by crafting warmth through its flowers to touch your loved ones and creating stunning floras to forge new relations, strengthen corporate ties or simply to brighten a dull day.
Woa! What??
All I can sum up is that HT is just a florist. Everything else is noise.
“acclaimed for its bold attempts to inject vibrancy and excitement to conventional floral creations” – acclaimed? did it win awards? if so, why not mention it?
“inspired to bringing dazzles to bouquets” — What does this mean, really?
“inspiring emotions and joy to life” – Do we need to be inspired to feel emotion and joy?
“seeks to give the best by crafting warmth through its flowers” — So HT craft warmth with its flowers and therefore they are giving their best? I am confused.
Oh dear!!
Here’s my humble attempt to unravel the corporate babble:
What do you want our flowers to say? That is the first question we at HT ask our customers. We all know that flowers are used for a myriads of situations and purposes. We at HT will bend our backs, and our floral arrangements, to give you stunning floral creations that send just the right message.
If it is a loved one that you are giving flowers to, we add warmth into our design. If you want to forge a new business relationship, we will add a touch of class and respect to your name with the right choice of flowers. Tell us the message you want to send, and we will say it with flowers.
Some of our customers are already referring to us as a design firm rather than a florist! Honestly, we can’t blame them. Come find out if they are right.
..…………….
Ah! the joy of simple English.
But that is just my opinion. Which version do you prefer? HT’s or mine? Why?
Posted in General, Just-In-Time lessons Tags: Consultant, copywriting, Marketing, PR, Public Relations, publicity, Small Medium Business No Comments » January 23rd, 2009 Dean When I come across a good article, I love to share it. I got one yet again from Cision. Written by President of Eisen Marketing Group. He mentions very aptly that a good publicity and marketing plan involves not only a realistic plan but also a sustained committed action plan. This is where many business owner falter. Being “multi-taskers”, they always end up giving preference to ‘working in the business’ to ‘working on the business’.
The author tells us to base goals on realistic market research rather than just plugging numbers out of thin air or based on assumptions. This can lead to frustration when your efforts don’t produce the expected results.
I particularly liked these lines:
…good public relations and marketing activities take time and are not a quick fix to your business ills…
…Regardless of whether your marketing program is grand or modest, continue to do at least something…
Yes, indeed! Don’t wait for your plan to be perfect, just do it and fine tune along the way.
Here is the article:
New Year’s Resolutions and Marketing Activities: Success or Failure Exactly the Same
By Rodger Roeser
Eisen Marketing Group
Here it is just a few weeks into the new year and already those resolutions are fading away. Well intentioned efforts to lose weight, get into better shape, quit smoking, stay in touch with family – perhaps already things of the past. It got me thinking how similar resolutions are with marketing and public relations. Regardless of the economy, marketing activities are not flash in the pan, quick fix options, but rather long-term, sustained programs and campaigns that actually yield positive results.
Experts will tell you that the reason most resolutions fail is because they involve sustained commitment and effort. Also, they are often unrealistic in nature – leading folks to give up altogether. Similarly, good public relations and marketing activities take time and are not a quick fix to your business ills. Finding good publicity angles, creating image and article opportunities, reaching out and sharing a company story or profile all take time, patience and stick-to-itiveness.
It also takes time and effort to achieve realistic results. One push-up will not make you thin or build your biceps. All too often, I see business executives simply increasing sales numbers because Excel allows them to plug in a 25 percent increase in widget sales – for no apparent reason. It seems solid research and market realities have given way to just plugging in numbers and storming the gates. This is a bad practice and often leads to frustration and a lack of business clarity and focus among employees. Don’t be that executive who says you want X amount of articles in the newspaper or just any other number that appears to be pulled out of thin air, and when those numbers aren’t hit, you’re disappointed. These types of business mistakes are not productive, and surely not good for morale.
A good marketing executive or agency can offer better, more realistic guidance to those types of numbers, and advise best ways to achieve those goals. And, like a good personal trainer, help keep you motivated and on track. Here are four simple steps to a successful 2009.
1. Get a Plan!
If you don’t have a marketing or marketing communications plan, get one. Do yourself and your business a favor, hire a good firm and get a plan developed. The investment of just a few thousand dollars may be the best investment you make this year. The plan will have realistic goals with realistic prices. You do yourself no favors when you believe you can do a national advertising campaign for $500. A good plan will lay out strategies, tactics, timelines, goals and budgets that will be easy to follow. The firm should be able to implement the plan with skill, or work with you to share in the implementation duties. If you don’t have a plan, this is the first and most important step you can take for your business.
2. Stop with the Magic Bullet
We all play Monday morning quarterback, and surely if you’re the coach you likely know more about football than most. It doesn’t stop people from wanting to share their “ideas.” The same holds true for marketing. Rarely are folks short on “ideas,” but recently it seems there is this great new invention that will revolutionize marketing as we know it and cause all other forms of marketing to wither and die – social media. For some reason, all the Monday morning marketers are jumping on the social media bandwagon and putting up any manner of information on Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, MySpace and others, and waiting for the sales to roll in. While having a good social media plan is important, it is not THE answer. It certainly can be integrated into an overall marketing plan, and blogging and tweeting and friending and updating are all smart – just be realistic about it. If I hear one more time, “we’re not going to do much marketing this year, we have a blog now,” I may have to send out the Marketing Police.
3. Keep at It
Regardless of whether your marketing program is grand or modest, continue to do at least something. While you must be smart and you should certainly scrutinize every dollar invested, now is not the time to “stop.” I recently had a client that, for all intents and purposes, stopped their proactive marketing outreach last June. Now, they have no pipeline, no leads and no revenue. The lack of consistency in their outreach has likely caused yet another business to go under. So invest wisely, be proactive and keep at it.
4. Change up the Routine
Just like working out, changing things up a bit can yield some quick and dramatic results. Now may be an excellent time to do something different – perhaps an event, a new sponsorship, a cause marketing initiative or a podcast. Properly positioned and integrated, new programs can attract entirely new segments of consumers or prospective business partners in a fresh way. When was the last time you wrote a thought leadership article or submitted an opinion piece? Take a look at where you may have some holes and where opportunities may exist, and then capitalize.
By taking some simple proactive steps, businesses can look forward to a bright 2009. Now is the time to get out there, stay focused and be aggressive. Ideas and options are a good thing. Now, go make some waves.
Posted in Tips and How-to Articles Tags: Consultant, Marketing, PR, Public Relations, publicity, Small Medium Business No Comments » January 19th, 2009 Dean I was having a discussion with one of my client, a learning programmes business owner. I told him he neededto record a video of his best classes and upload it to YouTube. And his response was, “You Tube is for entertainment, not for real business”. I was speechless!
I wish he knew that even world leaders are using You Tube to get votes. World-class trainers and speakers are using it to promote their programmes. Chefs are using it to promote their recipes and books.
If you don’t know it yet, You Tube is becoming a major How To resource centre. I myself have gone onto the portal to check on how to do this and that, especially new exercise routine. Here’s a article on Straits Times to proof my point (Sunday 18 Jan).
If you are a consultant, then you need to seriously consider making a presence on You Tube. Here’s how you can do it in 3 easy steps…
1. Get a video recorder of some sort. It need not be super high quality
2. Record something you already know well but might be of interesting to somebody. Your video need not be polished, as long as it has good info. Keep it within 5 min. You might want to add your website link onto the video to encourage viewers to go to your site.
3. Upload, add the correct tags.
4. Sit back, feel proud of the work you’ve done, no matter how poor the quality of your video. You can improve it the next time around.
Many business owners hold back on doing this simply because they are waiting for a time when they can produce a high quality, polished, corporate video. The problem is, that time may never come. And what they dont understand is, the You Tube community dont care for high quality, polished, corporate video. They want reliable, interesting content. It needs to be authentic more than polished.
It is a good way (read low risk way) for your consumers to sample a little bit of you before they commit to a proper programme, product etc.
So what are you waiting for?
January 9th, 2009 Dean 
Are you trying to find a way to beat the recession and boost your sales?
I thought this article from B2B Marketing Confidential could give you something to think about as you revise your marketing plan (if you have one, that is *wink*). I believe that how good your business can be during these hard times really depends on how you view the current economic condition and how you interpret all the bad news you hear in the media.
You have a choice not to participate in the recession. Here is the article:
……………………..start………
Depression Marketing Best Practices
No, we’re not in a depression. But, given all the recent depression buzz (Krugman’s book, non-stop CNBC pundits who won’t shut up about crashes and black Mondays and Fridays,) I pulled Studs Terkel’s fantastic Hard Times down off the shelf the other night. There’s a section in there called “The Big Money” where he interviews people that actually did well during the Depression. Here are some outtakes from William Benton’s interview:
“I left Chicago in June of ‘29, just a few months before the Crash. Chester Bowles and I started in business with seventeen hundred square feet, just the two of us and a couple of girls. July 15, 1929–this was the very day of the all-time peak on the stock market.
As I solicited business, my chart was kind of a cross. The left-hand line started at the top corner and ended in the bottom right corner. That was the stock market index. The other line was Benton & Bowles. It started at the bottom left-hand corner and ended in the top right-hand corner. A cross… When I sold the agency in 1935, it was the single biggest office in the world. And the most profitable office.”
Well, this is an interesting case study, I thought. Maybe I should pay attention. The most amazing thing about Hard Times is how familiar it seems. The passages talking about bubbles, business cycles, people’s incredulity at how all this happened is really eerie. So how did Benton & Bowles kick butt in the depression? Here are some best practices:
Lesson: Marketers who listen to their customers in new and powerful ways will win the battle for fewer dollars.
Lesson: Those who master the next wave of media will rise above the fray. Mobile? Social? Something we haven’t seen yet??
Lesson: Just because things are done one way, don’t fear doing it a totally different way. Thinking outside the box is critical.
Lesson: Keep some powder dry. The really good investment opportunities are starting now. Once you buy, own and retool. Pretty good time to be a PE company, even if Carlyle is laying off.
Lesson: Keep hiring channels open and be pickier than ever.
For anyone who hasn’t read Hard Times or any of the Studs Terkel interview compilations, they are an incredible insight into people’s attitudes and behaviors throughout history. I highly recommend them.
……………………………………………..end……….
January 8th, 2009 Dean 
I came across this an extract from Journal of Marketing Research website that caught my attention. It just validates what we have suspected all along. Eating ‘low-fat’ labeled food product can actually make you fat! This is something food retailers might want to know:
In this era of increasing obesity and increasing threats of legislation and regulation of food marketing practices, regulatory agencies have pointedly asked how “low-fat” nutrition claims may influence food consumption. The authors develop and test a framework that contends that low-fat nutrition labels increase food intake by (1) increasing perceptions of the appropriate serving size and (2) decreasing consumption guilt. Three studies show that low-fat labels lead all consumers—particularly those who are overweight—to overeat snack foods. Furthermore, salient objective serving-size information (e.g., “Contains 2 Servings”) reduces overeating among guilt-prone, normal-weight consumers but not among overweight consumers. With consumer welfare and corporate profitability in mind, the authors suggest win–win packaging and labeling insights for public policy officials and food marketers
Posted in General, Opinions Tags: brand, Consultant, Low Fat label, Marketing, PR, Public Relations, publicity, Reputation Management, Small Medium Business No Comments » January 2nd, 2009 Dean Posted in General Tags: brand, Consultant, Marketing, PR, Public Relations, publicity, Reputation Management, Small Medium Business, Social Media No Comments » January 2nd, 2009 Dean 
Local retail store Tangs becomes the first retailer in Asia to set up a store in a virtual world Second Life, to be launched in March ‘09. This is amazing! A 76 year old retailer embracing Web 2.0 means that they are plugged into the changes in consumer habits.
In Tangs virtual store visitor will be buying clothes, hairdos and different looks for their avatars. As Straits Times reported:
Shoppers can expect to see items from Tangs’ ’signature lines … but with a tinge of fantasy’, in line with players’ desire for a ‘larger than life’ appearance for their online personas. They can pay for their purchases in Linden dollars, the game’s currency, or via a virtual credit card. Credit card bills are paid monthly in Linden dollars, which can be traded for real money. More floors, ’stocked with usable and desirable items by well-known Second Life designers’, will be added over time, said First Meta co-founder Aileen Sim.
I am sure many small business owners and retailers are not even aware of the power of using Second Life to reach out to their consumers. Before you say you are just too busy running your shop, note the statistics:
You might be saying to yourself that it is too much of a hassle. Here are three reasons why you should seriously consider it:
Do it for brand recognition
With people buying stuff from virtual Tangs for their characters it becomes a brand people will recognise and grow to trust. Tangs is a local retailer and has been for a long long time. But with Second Life, people from all over the world will get to know the brand. Should they visit Singapore, they will go “Aha! I know this store.” They are more likely to step into the store. Should Tangs want to expand overseas, the brand recognition gotten in Second Life would definitely be beneficial.
Abacus, a Singapore based travel agent, already has a virtual store. I doubt they are a big company.
Do it for brand loyalty
If you want your retail brand to achieve a cult status, with strong consumer following, you can’t achieve it in a few months. With more and more people getting an avatar in Second Life you can expect their virtual experience to affect their buying decisions in real life.
Do it to get another cash register
Buying and selling on Second Life is done using their local currency, Linden dollars, which is really pegged to the real dollar value. Your virtual store might be another revenue generating machine too. Who knows?
Start small
If you are a B2C kind of business, don’t think too much. Get your toes wet in Second Life. Get yourself an avatar. Play around a little. Once you are comfortable, start working on your virtual store. It will take a while, but who is keeping score…..Of course, you can always hire a techy undergrad to do it all for you.
Till then, hope we bump into each other in Second Life!
Or maybe you are just happy being an old school mom & pop store like this below. Discovered along River Valley road.
(the pic is rotated to the left) It’s no surprise that I found the old lady sleeping in the middle of they day…you can see her leg sticking out
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