Early in my career, when I first had the responsibility of hiring an employee, I spoke with a colleague who was a longtime HR director. His advice? Look for attitude above all else. Skills are important, he said, but can be acquired or enhanced on the job to some extent. Attitude, on the other hand, is tough to change.

In today’s economic climate, folks are either struggling to maintain their businesses, grateful for the job they have or anxiously looking for work or clients. It’s not an easy environment for a great attitude, I know.

Having a positive outlook is like jet fuel – it provides you with lift and can take those around you up a level as well. A good attitude inspires energy and enthusiasm on the job on the good days, and it keeps you moving toward higher ground when times are tough.

Think back to your first week at a desirable new job – you were excited to be there and eager to contribute and learn, remember? That’s the attitude that we should strive to keep. This is the backbone of working toward a common good with colleagues and clients alike.

What creates a good attitude?

• Enjoy what you do. If you need to revitalize your career, find something new to learn, whether it’s through a book, a webinar or a colleague. If you need a change, look into other options – action steps will improve your view of the current situation.
• Keep the team going. Work diligently and creatively. Be liberal with praise when it’s due. And if someone drops a ball, help them toss it back in the air.
• Find the silver lining. Even the worst situation will bring something positive, even if it’s only a lesson or new insight.
• Maintain a sense of humor. Laughter is a universal bond, and it keeps good energy flowing through the day.
• Balance confidence with humility. It’s important to believe in yourself and your skills, as long you don’t ram your accomplishments down everyone’s throat! Be aware for opportunities to assist the common good.

In the world of marketing, advertising and PR, a good attitude is essential since it transmits to a much wider audience. It eases collaboration in the creative process and keeps you flexible and patient through each round of edits or press pitches. And it’s absolutely mandatory in social media conversations. Remember that your words may be floating on the Web for years! Your thoughts and opinions are important but use diplomacy when sharing them.

So what’s the big deal about attitude? Everything. It’s something you carry with you, from day to day, job to job, person to person.

What do you think makes a good attitude on the job?

Donna had a great post last week about understanding the media’s perspective in order to be a better PR person. I loved her post and it got me thinking that her philosophy can be applied to far more than just media relations.

One of the reasons why CCA is able to be so successful is that we don’t just “talk the talk.”

Working in marketing, communications and social media without having real-life experience consuming the media that you are creating is a disaster waiting to happen. Imagine a reporter for the Boston Globe admitting that they just weren’t “a news person” and could go weeks without picking up a paper or going to the local news Web site. It would be pretty hard to trust their reporting credentials.

To that same point, wouldn’t you have doubts about taking advice on how to manage your company’s presence online from an agency that doesn’t blog, has one Twitter follower, can’t be found anywhere on Google and couldn’t find their way around an RSS feed?

Here at CCA, we are fortunate enough to be in the position where we get to learn on a daily basis from other marketing pros. Not because we are simply sharing war stories from the trenches through various discussion boards or LinkedIn groups, but because they reach out to US on behalf of THEIR clients to tell their stories for them. Trust me, getting a phone call from another PR agency trying to convince you to blog or tweet about their client while you are doing the same for your own client is an out of body experience, and one that isn’t all that rare around these parts.

We blog,  manage Twitter followers by the thousands, build communities on LinkedIn, Ning and share videos to our YouTube subscribers not just for the sake of creation, but as a gigantic and constantly evolving social media experiment. Read all the books you want on effective social media marketing. While you are curled up on the couch reading the latest insights from 2009, we’ll be in the “lab” testing our latest experiments created to help us understand anything from Twitter trending topics to blog syndication strategies. Then we get to turn that all around and bring back all those lessons to the client with the freshest understanding of online behavioral trends.

Now how do YOU experiment and test your ideas online?

While Facebook is arguably one the best places to stay connected with friends and family, it’s also a powerful marketing tool that we have helped leverage on behalf of many clients. A stat recently came out that 25% of all US page views are on Facebook, showing the immense reach that the site has built.

One campaign that we launched for a major Boston hospital was focused on driving attendance at an event that they were running, educating prospective patients on  available varicose vein treatments. We were happy to once again prove that there is business value in Facebook, even if you aren’t a farmer, mobster or in a wagon train going down the Oregon trail. (Anyone remember that app?)

In fact, statistics show that mothers and middle-aged women are the fastest growing population on Facebook.  CCA used that knowledge to help our client after learning that their target audience was women, ages 45-60, with concerns about varicose veins and/or possible treatments for varicose veins.

By targeting users through their social data and geographic proximity to the various events that were being hosted, we were able achieve an ROI that far surpassed that of other traditional marketing tactics that were being used.

Here are the results of the campaign:

• Over a 5 week period the targeted ads were shown 2,042,151 times
• 773 people clicked on the ads
• 17 people registered for the event directly through Facebook
• Cost was a fraction of the budget compared to spending on local newspapers and radio
• Cost per conversion (attendee):

Facebook: $42.80

Radio equated to $525

Newspapers equated to $128.53

What was most powerful about this campaign was not only the capability to use Facebook to target the users that mattered to us, but the ability to do so without the hefty budget of traditional radio and newspaper advertising. Leveraging public social data to place relevant messages in front of audiences willing to listen may be one of the most underestimated impacts on marketing that the social media revolution has caused.

The thing that I’ve seen consistently raise eyebrows when presenting marketing communications strategies to clients is the idea that social media programs do NOT have to live in their own isolated bubble.

“Wait, you mean the intelligence that I gather through my email campaign can be used in my PR/Facebook/Twitter/SEO programs (and visa versa)?!”

Yes.

Each medium does have its own challenges. You can’t treat people the same over email as you would over Facebook. It just doesn’t work. BUT, the information you gather from how your audience best responds to email campaigns to what keywords they search and have alerts set for to what types of blog posts they are most likely to “like” on your Facebook fan page has no boundaries (other than extrapolating to unrelated audiences).

Audience behavior intelligence is universal.

Don’t just collect all that information and stare at it. Use it! Understand the way that your audience behaves on Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/Linkedin/Google so that you can be exactly where they are, in ways that they want to see you while encouraging the behavior that you want them to express  (phone calls, link sharing, blog post publishing…).

For a lot of marketers, social media technology itself still seems pretty foreign, but let’s not forget that behind (most) of those Twitter accounts is still another human that has the same basic needs and desires as any other person.

Because when you break it all down, your Twitter followers aren’t all that different from your Facebook fans and your YouTube channel subscribers. They just choose different channels to engage with your brand and the content you produce.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackystuff/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

With every brand, big or small, clawing to create some tangible value out of all the buzz around social media marketing, let us not forget that traditional media is far from dead.

After yet another year of being declared buried and forgotten, television, radio and even newspapers are still alive. Sure, newspapers weren’t exactly in great shape before the recession. Yes, they’ve been hurt like every other business and yes, just like every other business they’re refining their business model. But before you write up a death certificate for traditional media and leave them out of your marketing  plan, consider this:

• Television: 99 percent of video viewing was done on a television in the past year; less than 5 percent of TV viewing was DVR or TiVo playback. (Source: Ball State University’s Center for Media Design)
• Radio: Broadcast radio (free AM/FM radio) has the largest listening audience of all audio platforms (satellite, iPod, CDs) with 122 minutes of daily use, while CDs are at 72 minutes and portable audio players (iPods/mp3 players) are at 69 minutes. (Source: Ball State University’s Center for Media Design)
• Newspapers: 74 percent of adults read newspapers both online and offline. In addition, 82 percent of households with incomes of more than $100,000 read the paper online and/or offline and newspapers are starting to successfully attract 18 to 34 year-olds to their Web sites. (Source: Integrated Newspaper Audience Report from Scarborough.com)

Traditional media isn’t dead, its role is simply evolving as new technologies emerge and the competitive universe grows increasingly crowded.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steeljam/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

From the October 5th, 2009 New York Times:

“On Monday, the F.T.C. said it would revise rules about endorsements and testimonials in advertising that had been in place since 1980. The new regulations are aimed at the rapidly shifting new-media world and how advertisers are using bloggers and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to pitch their wares.”

So the jig is up. Advertising claims and the people who love them are once again under the microscope.

While I’ve used some pretty bodacious adjectives and gussied up a few product shots to bring out the best in my clients’ offerings, I’ve always tried to live by the slogan of one of my previous employers: truth well told.

Truth well told was originated by McCann-Erickson at a time when many products were making some pretty questionable claims. Even big companies were guilty: a 1914 ad for Ford’s Model T featured the headline “Buy it because it’s a better car” and suggested the reader get the particulars from a Ford dealer. Um…okaaaay….

Fast forward about a century. Laws and guidelines are in place to protect the public from misleading advertising claims and fuzzy endorsements. And generally speaking, I think the ad world does a pretty good job of policing itself as well. But, thanks to the anonymous nature of the internet, we’ve taken a few steps back.

I think the general public will always be wary of advertising but let’s get back on track. Let’s put our clients’ wares out there in the most honest, best possible creative light we can.

Let’s try the truth well blogged.

CCA recently received the honor of joining the 2009 Inc. 5,000 list as one of the country’s fastest growing privately held companies. After a rigorous vetting process, we are very proud to announce that we have been named to the prestigious list for the second time.

While we are proud of our accomplishment, it is our valued and respected clients that entrust us to build their brands—along with the talented team at CCA—that enabled us to not only be in the Inc. 5000 list in 2007, but again in 2009. Our thanks and gratitude go out to all of our past, current and future clients for your commitment to our brand of marketing and client services.

Especially in a time when marketing teams are constantly forced to defend their investments, we couldn’t be more humbled by this accomplishment. We are truly lucky to have such an amazing stable of companies that we view more partners than clients. It is these valuable partnerships that have allowed us to grow even under the toughest economic conditions.

Thanks to everyone to has helped us make this accomplishment possible. It has been a true team effort.

One of the questions our clients frequently ask is “Why didn’t our postcard, online banner, or [fill in marketing tactic here] get more response?” While creative concepts, punchy copywriting, well-placed media, and targeted mailings will likely help any campaign perform better, the fact is: on any given day, there are a very limited number of people who are even vaguely interested in your product, much less actively seeking it. If your target has no interest or need for “widgets” on the day your widget direct mail piece arrives in his home, you could have miniature fireworks exploding from the envelope and he would probably still put it in the shredder. (After saying “wow, that’s cool.”) Sad, but true.

That’s why repetition  ( known as “frequency” in the ad biz) is one of the few strategies that will make your advertising work better. If you consistently and methodically reach out to your customers via multiple media…direct mail, online, print, social media, television, etc., eventually you WILL be in front of your customer on the right day (I Need A Widget Day!). Not only will you be in front of them, they will quickly recognize your name from all of the other patient outreach you’ve done.   Recognition leads to trust…trust leads to interest…and alleluia, interest leads to response!

So, next time you are looking for the magic bullet, remember: slow and steady wins the race.  We’d be glad to show you how.

The challenges presented to all corporate marketing directors is: How do we accomplish our new business goals with the current budget? With so many opinions on how you reach your target audience, it has become increasingly more difficult to put a strategic media, direct mail or internet marketing plan together.

Image Credit: ALOFBRID

Keeping every opinion in the plan does not work.

Trying to wrap together everyone’s opinion and favorites spreads the budget and plan out to a point where, in most likelihood,  the plan never gains enough awareness or continuity to achieve any level of recall or response.

Putting a marketing plan together is not a popularity contest. It needs to be focused and based on solid research and experience. As a marketing strategist you need to  be confident in your decisions and hold the ground rather than giving in to popular consensus.

How many times have we all heard “Why isn’t this publication, web site or radio station in the buy?” It seems that to many decision makers are jumping on the “what is the flavor of the day”  media choice, looking for the holy grail of leads generation.

It does not exist.

How much share of eyeball does any consumer or potential client have? The deluge of media options and social media sites (even this blog) has transcended into a conundrum of who, what where  do you invest time and budget to reach out for new business.

Make well informed decisions and stick to the plan. Stand up and defend the thinking. As marketers, your opinion and expertise needs to be re-enforced and presented with competence and confidence. Do not try to spread out the plans tactics. Allocate the budget to the best of your capabilities to deliver the target audience with intelligent recommendations, not consensus executions built to simply please everyone.

Budget jugglers seldom attain the set goals.

Decision makers build brands.

Earlier in my career I had the opportunities to hone my advertising agency skills at places like Saatchi and Saatchi and McCann-Erickson working on accounts like AT&T, General Motors, Tylenol, Coca-Cola, and Nintendo. Back then, our primary challenge was to make sure our work was memorable, pithy, targeted – all the characteristics that produce successful ad campaigns, increased sales, and happy CEOs.

Identifying the perfect word or words for the right image with the right message and having every component work in harmony, is, after all, why creative people are drawn to advertising and marketing agencies. After working in the industry for more than 25 years, I eventually learned to transform my art into a pseudo-science.

Then along came Search Engine Optimization, and with it, a new dimension of word responsibility.

While effective SEO gives you a whopping bang for the buck on many levels, as an artist, trying to wrap my Madison Avenue brain around key words and phrases, query performance reports, and exact matches, this new process does not necessarily lend itself to free-flowing creative juices. It’s like taking right brain matter and infusing it into the left brain hemisphere, or vice-versa, to come up with a great campaign – one that must utilize the correct “word ratio” of specific phrases that will be “picked up and noticed” while “driving traffic” to where you want it. Exactly.

Admittedly, in the beginning, altering copy to work in key phrases wasn’t easy. Whether it was for a brand marketing development strategy or advertising campaign, the artist in me wasn’t taking it so well. However, when we began getting big hits for our clients, I saw the payoffs, the enhanced visibility, the head-turning results. Now, at our marketing and advertising agency, it’s all about making sure those key phrases – priceless little treasure troves – are cleverly entwined in our clients’ messaging.

In this new era of copywriting, SEO is where MIT and the Museum of Fine Arts collide – where “formulas” have to be worked into creative masterpieces. But when you experience the success of SEO first hand – when your client says the phone is ringing off the hook – there will always be a way to become inspired.