Outback Steakhouse has launched a marketing campaign that supports our Troops.  During the month of March, order off of their Red, White and Bloomin’ menu and you will be helping to donate $1,000,000 to Operation Homefront.  Operation Homefront provides assistance for our troops, their families and wounded soldiers when they return home.

This is a great way to help our troops while enjoying dinner.

I think this is a great cause and I applaud Outback for their support of our troops.  I also applaud Outback for their great marketing idea.  Yes, they are doing a great job of supporting Operation Homefront, but they are also driving additional sales to their restaurant.  The tie-in to the non-profit will likely give customers an even more compelling reason to eat at their restaurant vs. another.

Outback also encourages you to spread the word by including links on their website to Facebook and Twitter.  Their use of social media ties nicely into their overall marketing campaign.

This seems to be a well thought-out campaign that supports a great cause and supports Outback’s sales.

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Ever since I watched the iPad launch video, I have been thinking the demise of the Kindle is on it’s way. The iPad combines the rich visual content of a print publication, the ever-changing immediacy of a website, and the portability of an e-book reader and it’s only a few hundred dollars more than the Kindle. I have friends who read novels on their iPhone, because they like its portability. I never considered reading on a display so small. Now I have an option with the iPad. I’m also excited about not having worry about recycling so many publications. With all the benefits I mentioned I seemed to overlook the biggest game changer and that is how the iPad is going to change the face of advertising.

I thought I’d share some insight from an article “Master of Magazine Design, on How iPad Will Revolutionize the Discipline” I came across in Fast Company. Pentagram’s Luke Hayman, designer of, among others, Time, New York, and Travel + Leisure, was asked how this new format would change the world of magazines and came up with five ways.

1. A reversal of a decades-long trend
Editorial content online started shrinking to fit computer screens and then even smaller for PDAs and 140-character tweets. The iPad represents the first time this trend has been reversed. Instead of smaller, more low-res content, we have the chance to get bigger, brighter, sharper content.

2. The end of frequency
Print publications, already under siege by the Internet and 24-hour news cycles, will have to learn to adapt to a world of instantaneous updates.

3. A reset on advertising
Online advertising—banner ads, pop ups, and so forth—aren’t popular with readers and advertisers. The iPad’s a new medium that will create a whole range of opportunities. Once people start exploiting what it can do, we may see a kind of creative renaissance within online advertising. People will start subscribing to certain i-mags just for the ads alone.

4. A new way of telling stories
Editors have been telling us for years that people won’t read long stories online. Yet they will read 1,000-page novels on their Kindles. What will they be willing to read on their iPad? With the iPad, the return of long-form journalism is possible. At the same time, visual storytelling will take deeper, richer forms. Information design will be more important than ever.

5. A new role for print
Digital magazines with rich, uncompromised, real-time content will corner the market on delivering what you need to know instantly. The publications that end up enduring will be the ones that exploit what print alone can do. The best ones will be things that you want to save, not toss in the recycling bin. They’ll project a sense of craftsmanship and permanence.

I really hope all of Luke Hayman’s points above come true. Not only will it change how we read magazines and have an environmental impact but most importantly it will create jobs again in a once dying industry. Do you think the iPad will change the face of the magazine industry?

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Have you heard of Free Shipping Day? If not, this is something to check out. 703 merchants (and counting) have come together and will be offering free shipping to anyone that places an order on December 17, 2009 and they are guaranteeing delivery by December 24, 2009. What a great way to get some last minute online shopping in.

And what a great idea for the merchants that are participating to secure some added, free, exposure. Merchants sign up for free. The only two items they must provide is free shipping on December 17 and guaranteed delivery by December 24. In return, their logo is added to the Free Shipping Day website and consumers are driven to their website for free. In addition, Free Shipping Day is promoted via twitter and it is picked up on various blogs. Mashable, NBC Washington, and Small Business CEO have blogged about it and it has been featured on many news programs. It’s a great program for both consumers and the merchants.

These types of programs are great ways to offer something extra to consumers, while benefiting from a broad based program and the PR that comes along with it.

If you check out the Free Shipping Day website, be sure to look for Bandshell. Bandshell is a client of ours and they are launching a new iPhone case designed to enhance sound quality and volume.

Happy shopping!

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Our new, dedicated video studio has already been put to great use with the production of a video for an exciting new iPhone case. The makers of Bandshell, an iPhone case that enables the iPhone to stand on its side and enhances the sound quality and volume of your iPhone, commissioned Primum to develop a video to capture the features and benefits of the product.

The video is just over one minute in length and incorporates video shooting, production and editing as well as an extensive amount of motion graphics development. We are happy to add this video to the list of Primum video projects and Bandshell is happy to showcase the video on their website, YouTube and at trade shows.

Check out the Bandshell video.

And, if you are looking for a great holiday gift for your favorite iPhone user, check out the Bandshell website. The Bandshell is a great stocking stuffer at a price of $19.99.

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One of our clients, PLAYER MAP, has developed an application designed to improve team communication and increase win rate. It’s the PLAYER MAP X-Ray and it is a web-based application that helps your sales team create a map of your customer. The map is an easy to visualize way to see the key people making decisions, those that have the power to sign-off on budgets and bridges you need to cross to close the sale.

The application is easy to use, the maps are easy to develop and their current customers will happily tell you their results. And the application is only $2.95 per month. Very little cost to get your feet wet and try it out.

Check out the information on the PLAYER MAP X-Ray and decide for yourself. And tell them Primum sent you.

Your website is the virtual front door to your company, but do you know how many people are walking through that front door? If you answered no, then you are missing out on a lot of great information. There are many website tracking tools out there that are designed to provide you with information about the number of visitors going to your site, how long they are staying on your site, how many pages they are looking at and more.

Tracking this information enables you to make key decisions about your website. Is it time for a redesign? Are visitors interested in a certain capability or service you offer? Do you need to work on search engine optimization (SEO) to boost visitor traffic? Did a certain campaign or PR hit send large amount of traffic to your website?

All of the details you can learn from tracking can help you build a better website or enhance your current website, making your virtual front door that much more inviting.

Interested in learning more, give Primum a call. We know how to help.

Have you determined your marketing objectives for 2010? If not, now is the perfect time to develop your marketing plan.

The first step is to determine overall business objectives for 2010. Does the company want to focus on a new product, enter a new market or hold a steady course? These business objectives will drive your marketing plan.

Next, determine your budget. This can be tough for many companies, but a planned (or close to planned) budget will help determine what you can accomplish in 2010. Without a budget, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack – pretty difficult. So, try to nail down a budget or a close-to-exact budget before you plan.

Now, take a step back and answer a few questions. Who is your target audience? What information do you know about them? Are these current customers or prospects? How large is this audience? What is the buying cycle for your product? Really dig deep and put as much known information down on paper – make sure it is known information and not just assumed.

Now, let’s get to planning. Marketing objectives should support the business objectives. Develop the marketing objectives and strategies first, then move on to specific tactics. Your tactics may include public relations, advertising, a new product launch, entering the world of social media, etc., but the tactics must support your marketing objectives. And they need to fit your budget.

Your marketing plan should act as the roadmap for 2010 and should be agreed upon by all necessary stakeholders. Once the plan is agreed upon, you’ve got your plan and a guide for the coming year. Then just sit back and relax…yeah right, now get ready to implement!

The Primum team recently completed a number of branding projects for one of our clients, Dermond Property Investments. Dermond is developing a new apartment community on the East Side of Milwaukee and tasked Primum with developing a name for the apartment community, designing a logo and designing and programming the website.

The Primum team jumped in to the projects and provided Dermond with a number of names for the apartment community, with the final name being the Latitude Apartments. We then created a logo designed to stand-out, convey the overall branding of the apartment community and be versatile for numerous applications.

Primum also worked with Dermond to design and program the Latitude Apartments website. The website highlights the branding and many amenities of the Latitude Apartments and enables the Dermond team to easily update the home page with new construction information. Check out the Latitude Apartments website here.

The entire branding project highlights Primum’s abilities to understand the client’s requests, creatively design a brand and carry that branding through to marketing materials.

The Latitude Apartments are currently in the construction phase and will be ready for occupancy in Summer 2010. Drive by the corner of Kenilworth and Farwell avenues to see their progress.

Today’s BtoB newsletter included an interesting article on 2010 e-mail marketing trends. The article references a survey that concludes online marketing spend will be up in 2010. The article also highlights what marketers will be spending their marketing dollars on:

“Social media and e-mail marketing are the top two areas, with 69% of respondents saying they will be increasing e-mail spending; 59% saying they would be increasing social media efforts; and 69% saying they would be integrating social media and e-mail marketing.”

Interesting, but I wouldn’t call this surprising information. Would you? By now, most people are aware of social media, although on the BtoB side, it may not be integrated into marketing plans quite yet. And e-mail marketing has been and continues to be a way to reach customers with relevant information. So, increasing the usage of these two tactics makes complete sense as we look to recover from 2009 challenges.

In most cases, BtoB companies can handle their social media and e-mail marketing tactics internally - especially if they have a designer in-house. A facebook or twitter account can be set-up quickly. Even a blog can be set-up fairly easily. If you are looking for customization, then you may need some help from an outside agency.

E-mail can also be set-up quickly, but if you would like more customization or a standardized template, you may need an outside agency.

Both social media and e-mail marketing can be a cost effective marketing tool for companies. But as with any marketing tactic, it is important to establish metrics upfront. Will you measure by number of fans? Followers? Comments? Opens? Clicks? These are questions to discuss and answer before moving forward. Then, once you “go live” with your social media or e-mail campaign you’ll know if it is successful - based on the metrics you’ve established.

What are your plans for 2010? Do they match the findings of this survey?

Check out the full article at BtoB.

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One of my Facebook friends posted a link to this article - 100 Ways To Measure Social Media. It is literally a list of 100 possible ways to measure social media. The ways range from number of comments to clicks to brand association. It’s an interesting list and worth a read through, so check it out when you have a few minutes.

Pay close attention to his closing statement - it’s imperative to determine business objectives first and apply metrics accordingly.

Ironically this post is an example of measurement in action. I clicked on a link and then blogged about it.

Enjoy the list!

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