A Closer Look: The Season of Gifts, 365 Days a Year!

Supercharge Your Sales and Marketing Efforts with Five Powerful No-Cost Tips
By N.L. Hohns

Mother was right. In business as in life, the littlest things often make the biggest difference. As the holiday season begins to unfold, we’ve been giving a lot of thought to the sometimes intangible, often-overlooked acts and gestures that reap meaningful and positive benefits throughout the year. The following suggestions top our list.

1. Try A Little Tenderness - Smile, Say “Thank-you,” Lend A Hand
Acts of kindness, thoughtfulness and grace are within our reach all day every day, but they can easily become obscured by the frenetic pace of the work-a-day world. Showing appreciation to the people you care about.

2. Turn Off, Tune In – Give Your Client, Associate or Friend Your Full Attention
The world we live in is a very noisy place. Cell phones ring, pagers beep, computers buzz. These days, since every “cool” spot is wired to be a “hot” spot, it’s nearly impossible to find a quiet spot to engage in conversation, meet a friend or have a meeting. Every now and then consider unplugging your electronic devices and taking a respite from all of the high-tech gizmos.

3. Stay Connected – It’s All About You and It’s All About Them
Keeping your colleagues, customers, investors, prospects, friends and family abreast of new developments has never been easier or more affordable. With all of the social media choices available today, and the plethora of e-communication and traditional media options that exist, you have multiple opportunities to reach your circle of influence.

4. Think Green – Triple Bottom-line Thinking Benefits People, Safeguards the Planet and Boosts Profit
Be on the lookout for ways to make your services, products, packaging, marketing, and business practices more eco friendly. TBL (Triple Bottom Line also known as People, Planet and Profit) thinking takes into account a company’s commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility by incorporating social, ecological and economic values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success.

5. Make It Right – When Something Goes Wrong, Say You’re Sorry
Let’s face it -- we all make mistakes. At some point in our business or personal lives, something will not go the way we had intended. Admitting to the wrongdoing, accepting responsibility and taking prompt action to resolve the situation helps us to become better individuals and better companies.

Visit our website to read the entire brief.
N.L. Hohns is LGK’s contributing marketing communications strategist.

Strategies for the Road to Recovery

We’re proud to introduce LGK’s contributing marketing communications strategist, NL Hohns and the first in her series of marketing insight and thought leadership briefs to empower businesses and brands.

Changing Consumer Attitudes & Behaviors

As we begin to slide out of the longest economic slump we’ve experienced in more than 60 years, regaining our most important assets – the trust and confidence we had in our financial markets, our government, our businesses and ourselves – will not be easy. Along with the billions of dollars that have been lost, and the millions of jobs that have disappeared, so too has the faith and belief we held so dear in our leaders, in our corporations and in each other. Far too many of the very people and the very institutions that we believed in have overpromised and underperformed.

Recognize that today’s consumer has changed! Your prospect, customer, client or donor seeks the best product, service or cause with an informed mind, a critical eye and a cautiously guarded wallet. Keeping a close watch on changing attitudes and understanding the psychographics as well as demographics of your customer, client or donor will enable you to improve your marketing strategies, adjust your marketing messages, efficiently target your media buys and strengthen your business planning for the months ahead.

A couple of key opportunities include:

• Embrace the need for speed. Your customer, client or donor wants it now, with a click of a mouse or push of a button. Convenience is key and should you choose to ignore it, the customer, client or donor will surely find another product, service, appointment, answer, solution or beneficiary elsewhere.
  
• Listening to your customer, target markets and audience, while always important, is now even more so. Rather than provide them with what you think they want or need, ASK them directly, and LISTEN carefully to what they have to say.

Visit our website: http://www.lgkmarketingcc.com/ to read the entire brief.

Special Announcement

Today, LGK Marketing Communications Collective officially hangs its shingle. Here's the announcement hitting the wires:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Marketing & Media Vets Form LGK Marketing Communications Collective, Inc.
New Venture Introduced with Innovative Strategies for Client Growth

(Washington, DC/Boynton Beach, FL – September 1, 2009) – It’s become a tired cliché to “think outside the box” and yet this ubiquitous concept could have been the inspiration for LGK Marketing Communications Collective, Inc. (LGK). The corporate structure, the client benefits, the development of ideas and strategies all come together in a unique new venture. This group of independent consultants unites to provide marketing, communications, advertising and public relations results to businesses, agencies and non-profit organizations.

Gay O’Brien of Boynton Beach, FL, LGK co-founder and a former Director of Public Affairs for the Paramount Stations Group, says “we’re way outside of the box, the circle and the triangle. To us it’s not black or white or shades of gray. Our ideas and our operating model are innovative yet flexible, like going from a PC to a MAC. Our principals bring a unique perspective, drawn from their careers of working all sides of the marketing fence: media, agency and client. This perspective offers a tremendous advantage to potential clients who seek to raise the bar, raise visibility and, ultimately, raise profits.”

Collectively, LGK has more than 100 years of marketing expertise, bolstered in a diversity of industry sectors and major markets throughout the United States, including New York, NY, Los Angeles, CA, Philadelphia, PA, Miami, FL, and Washington, DC. Previously, the consultants of LGK worked independently in marketing, advertising, radio, television, web development, public relations and publicity. The time was right for them to join forces and offer the collaborative benefits and effects of their expertise in marketing services, strategies and solutions.

“In this era of recessionary marketing, we’re the upside to downsizing, providing a fully committed team of marketing professionals to work with sole proprietors and companies seeking to maintain and, even, exceed their marketing momentum,” says Leisa Weir, LGK co-founder based in the Washington, DC market. She continues, “Think of LGK as right sizing for today’s economy and competitive environment with a seamless outsourced marketing department of seasoned professionals.”

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Leisa Weir at lcw@lgkmarketingcc.com. Follow LGK Marketing Communications Collective, Inc. on twitter: www.twitter.com/lgkmarketing and visit the practice on the web: www.lgkmarketingcc.com.

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It's a Mad Men Weekend!

Engaged is an understatement when it comes to Mad Men. “Hooked” best describes my feeling about this AMC series, now entering its third season. First, it’s as close as it gets to a bygone era where creative and content shared equal billing and the channels of target marketing were limited to print, outdoor, radio and a developing stepchild, television.

Secondly, the creative. From the storylines to actors, from the art direction to the editing, the commercial bumpers and everything in between, the creative is superb.

For this writer, Mad Men hits close to home. Many of my role models and mentors got their breaks and broke barriers on Madison Avenue. They battled what appeared to be insurmountable obstacles to bring diversity to the mediums, messages and managerial ranks. Each episode I watch reminds me that I am a benefactor of their time spent at a desk beside the copy machine, in the mailroom or as the subject of a water cooler moment. Each episode is a stark reminder of their tenacity and commitment to change – the way we perceive, the way we communicate and the way we execute.

Indeed, we’ve “come a long way baby,” and we have so much further to go, but in the meantime, this weekend, sit back and enjoy Mad Men for what it truly is: great TV. Come Monday morning, harness your creative and productive powers to maximize your momentum.

Maximize Your Momentum Thought for the Month

Minimize the Clutter!

On a recent visit to the home page of a national physician’s web site, I was bombarded by tile ads, banners and crawls….OH MY! In an instant the physician’s credibility in groundbreaking therapies and techniques was awash in a sea of utter clutter.

So here’s the bottom line and stark reality. You can’t stuff 100 pounds in a five pound bag; one size does not fit all and Dorothy did not make it all the way back to Kansas by three clicks of her red ruby heels. Marketing multi-tasking does not mean that you throw it all against the wall to see what sticks.

We’re in the midst of an exciting era with infinite possibilities to build and reach communities of loyal consumers, customers and clients. As you pave your path through the “Age of Engage,” a term so aptly coined by a respected colleague, remember to choose your tasks and targets wisely; be deliberate, strategic and straightforward.

This month, today and everyday, make a concerted effort to minimize the clutter. - gbo

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