I give you Michigan Apples. Apples are Michigan’s largest and most valuable fruit crop, with an estimated economic impact of $700 million annually. Along with a website overhaul, we developed a new logo for the Apples folks to use in their promotional materials.

Check out the photo below and view the results in a local Meijer supermarket. Seeing our designs come to life is something special that never gets old!

The Michigan Apple Committee has a website which we proudly designed.  Check it out here: http://www.michiganapples.com. As well as highlighting a sleek design and many informative sections on growers, news and where to buy Michigan apples, the top portion of the website has easy-to-view links to the organization’s social media, which include an RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Here is a snapshot:

The ease with which a visitor can quickly find these links is something I want to stress to businesses and organizations when designing a site. And it is not just having links to a social network which is important; any widgets that I have seen for things like including a Twitter feed directly on your site can pay huge dividends. It aggregates more content in an effective manner making things easier for site traffickers.

Then, on your social media pages, include links back to the main website and your other social networks so everything is well connected and easy to maneuver between. Small things like this are components that should not be forgotten when considering effective web and social media strategies.

Besides working on social networks here at BCP, I also have had the responsibility of maintaining campaigns for publications as well as my band. So where do we begin?

Two things stand out to me when working with social media.

A successful social media campaign must 1) be monitored at a consistent level to maintain the most up to date content and engagement, and 2) provide some sort of ROI (return on investment). Let’s break it down into these individual parts based on my experiences running social media.

First comes the monitoring aspect. With the use of platforms such as Hootsuite, it’s easy to just plug-in your interesting links and share them with followers in an automated fashion. While there is nothing wrong with this, in order to build meaningful relationships online, time and effort must be spent to forge relationships in a more personal, real-time manner.  This will make your followers feel more engaged in what you have to offer. A carefully chosen method of using programmed content and real-time engagement is what I have found works best. “Set it and forget it” by itself rarely creates a meaningful following.

Next is the topic of ROI, which is the goal of most marketing campaigns but can be quite different for social media.

Traditional ROI goes something like this: (Change in revenue – investment)/ investment x 100.  Companies have used this to help determine whether money spent for an ad campaign is worth the result.

With social media however, it’s not always about this model. For brands, creatively engaging customers and building loyalty can be part of the top line of that equation. Promoting social good through charitable efforts also can help build a company’s following and presence online. Basically, there is a whole new set of rules when it comes to ROI for social media. A client needs to have a specific goal in mind when starting a campaign so that time and effort can have worthwhile results.

These are just the basics of any social media campaign, but are extremely important in determining a successful outcome. Also, I would like to give a quick thanks to the people at SocialMediaToday.com for all their great articles. I suggest checking them out if you are interested in this subject!

If you have any questions or would just like to talk about social media, contact me directly at: pete@blohmcreative.com.

Love it or hate it, advertising IS and forever will be part of our daily lives.

As a recent graduate (the ink still fresh on my diploma) of Michigan State University, I have had the opportunity to work at Blohm Creative Partners as an intern since my undergraduate courses ended. Originally a journalism major, I have seen my career prospects shifted by the collapse of the print newspaper model and my burgeoning interest in advertising and public relations.

My previous experience has been doing writing and video production for PR materials that fronted one specific organization. Never have I had the chance to experience life at an ad agency managing (or juggling) the projects of multiple clients.

So, you may ask: what has this experience been like for a trained journalist? What has your job experience entailed working for the “dark side,” as those in news circles call it? To be frank, I have been extremely pleased with my experience here at BCP. And that is not just because of the scrumptious cake provided at weekly meetings.

Here, the day-to-day environment is quite special and incomparable to any place I have ever worked. There seems to be a constant energy in the office as creative ideas are formulated and marketing strategies are born. Everyday brings new challenges, new clients, that pose unique situations for the team here at BCP.

And that’s not to say that everything is always peachy around the office. But there is open communication between all members of the BCP team allowing for constructive criticism and sharing of ideas. The traditional hierarchical nature of the office setting is nearly non-existent. This model seems to provide a recipe for success, something more companies, in my opinion, should embrace.

For me, being able to find creative solutions to tell the story of a client’s brand is extremely enjoyable, more so than objective reporting. As a journalist, my education was primarily writing-based. Here, design, graphics, photos and video are the name of the game.

In my limited run here, I have had the pleasure of getting to know the entire staff and can truly say that I come to work each day with a enthusiasm to help getting the best out of each project. And while it may not be as glitzy and sexy as Mad Men, AMC’s award-winning show about the New York City ad world, I still have been impressed by the quality of work and fun had here at BCP.

So, if this truly is the “dark side,” then baby, it’s good to be bad.

It's not quite as clear-cut anymore–a realization that usually hits me when I'm writing a proposal and trying to describe our capabilities without it sounding like we do everything but hang drywall.

It's not just that the Internet has changed everything (although it has). I think it's also that the arts of communication, marketing and advertising overlap more than they used to. Let's face it: every organization, large or small, public or private, is selling something. And every written, spoken, video, web or other communication that comes from an organization either contributes to that selling effort or detracts from it.

That means that the people in charge of influencing their organizations' target markets (those influencers would be our clients) are charged with ever more complex responsibilities. You can't just build a website and assume people will go there. No longer can you do a brochure or a TV spot and expect them to do all the heavy lifting. And "reaching your target audience" may leave you staring at more potential ways to do that than you ever thought possible.

Here at BCP, our capabilities have continued to expand to meet the expanding challenges facing our clients. "Traditional" advertising–creating print and broadcast and buying the time and space to put them in–is still very much a part of the mix. Web design and development, banner advertising and social media now occupy a large and fast-growing segment. People still need brochures and posters and trade booths and annual reports and data base management and corporate videos and even help writing their letters and emails, and we do all those too. Thanks to the judicious choosing of the players by the guy whose name is on the door, we all bring a lot to the table and we fill in each other's gaps.

But perhaps the best thing we do is not just "do stuff" for our clients, but help them figure out what they should do. Not just respond to their requests, but anticipate them. Not just create the deliverables, but create a context for them. But so far we don't hang drywall.

When an organization approaches marketing on a project-by-project basis, itʼs kind of like buying a clothing a piece at a time. Itʼs a good way to end up with a whole bunch of elements–each of which may be perfectly fine pieces–that have nothing to do with each other. You know, a closet full of clothes (or disparate brochures!) and nothing to wear.

Years ago (to continue in the chick-like vein), there was a book that exhorted people to wear only colors suited to their “season,” as defined by hair color, eye color and skintone. The science may have been suspect, but focusing on the color palette that was theoretically right for me accomplished at least one great thing: it narrowed my options. It made me stop to think how, or if, a piece fit my self-imposed parameters. And, over time, it resulted in many more pieces in my closet “going with” many other
pieces. Much easier to put together an outfit.

So back to marketing. Instead of a brochure here, an ad there, or a spanking new website thatʼs expected to generate results just by being there, we encourage clients to let us help them develop a comprehensive
marketing plan. Yes, of course weʼll do “one off” projects, and do our best to make each one great. But we believe weʼre doing clients the best service when we can help them identify big picture. A marketing plan
keeps them focused on their goals–and helps them avoid “impulse buys” that donʼt help them accomplish them.

Itʼs enough to make an ad personʼs head explode.

Hereʼs the thing: The best message in the world wonʼt get the job done if itʼs not getting to the people it needs to get to. One way or another, new media or old, Twitter or TV or stone tablet, you have to “get it out there.” But, once out there, it has to somehow capture its audience. Whether itʼs quirky, heartstring-tugging, everyman-relatable, funny, technically astonishing or any number of other labels, the message has to click, be memorable (in a good way), and rally people to the cause. Whether the cause be a candidate, an issue or an energy drink.

You thought this stuff was easy, didnʼt you?

As Iʼve said way too many times over the years, itʼs a weird blend of art and science. And, it must be said, a little bit of luck. It means that we in the business have to be on top of our games, all the time, in every way: creatively, strategically, technologically, competitively. We have to know the product, understand the market, create great stuff, and find the best places for it to land. And be wise enough to make tweaks as the landscape changes. Itʼs like a campaign because, in essence, it is a campaign. Itʼs how we get you where you want to go.

Not my words, but those of Lee Clow, the advertising guru behind the phenomenally successful Apple brand. Itʼs a sentiment I agree with–the idea that our charge is to help the client navigate an intensely competitive, often confusing sea of commerce.

Hereʼs another way to put it: Good advertising is one thing, good advertising that actually works is often something entirely different.

Our job is to help nurture that part of the conversation which begins and ends with the sentence “Why are we doing this?” Itʼs one of the reasons ad agencies exist–to provide the client with hard-to-come-by perspective, void of politics, board room pressures and personal bias.

Note that our job is to nurture the conversation, not dominate it. The client will always know more about their business than we do, no matter how many web pages we visit or competitors we study.

If commerce is a sea, then we should do our best to temper the wind gusts we ad folks are too often known for.

Only then will we all catch that perfect sail.

And so it is in marketing. Periodically a clamor arises about this or that new marketing method, the new “silver bullet” if you will. The current new favorite is social media. While undoubtedly the different social media options, like Facebook and Twitter, are valuable additions to the marketing arsenal, they are not a panacea. They are, and any future “silver bullets” will remain, a part of a marketing mix that each client’s marketing efforts demand. Despite the wishful thinking no magical silver bullets exist in marketing or in life. If anyone tries to persuade you otherwise...tell them about the Wolfman.