Industry: Economic Development

Objectives: Portray the benefits, which vary depending on age, of living in Perryton; share the benefits of owning a business (particularly retail) in town; show that the town is vibrant and growing

Secondary Objective: To attract high school alumni to the upcoming all-school reunion

Solution: To accomplish all the client’s objectives, we created a custom 20-page marketing piece. We worked with the client to determine the town’s most notable highlights. To ensure that the final product was high quality and that the town was adequately portrayed, our art director and a photographer spent several days in Perryton photographing the town and citizens.

To show the personal benefits of living in Perryton, we included profiles of people ranging in age from their 20s to 70s. Each person’s occupation represented a different industry to show some of the town’s top areas of employment. We interviewed each person to see what they think are the town’s top benefits, and we included their quotes to establish validity. To show the town’s character to people who have never visited and to elicit a feeling of nostalgia in high school alumni, we paired the profiles with photographs of town landmarks that have special meaning to each person profiled.

To show the economic benefits of owning a business in town, we wrote a feature article that highlighted other businesses’ successes and clearly laid out advantages to local entrepreneurship. We showed the town’s growth and vibrancy by including write-ups on recent additions and improvements and things to do in town.

To appeal to high school alumni, we featured their fellow alumni in the profiles. We also polybagged the mailed marketing pieces with a custom letter that generated nostalgia and hometown pride and that encouraged them to attend the reunion. The letter was printed on translucent paper, so the cover would show through when the piece arrived in the mail.

For the marketing piece’s cover, we photographed one of the town’s most popular landmarks. We used metallic ink to highlight the town’s name and to make the overall look pop. This gave it a more high-end look and increased the likelihood that recipients will hold on to the piece rather than throw it away. We also selected a high-end silk paper that will withstand a long shelf life.

Services Included: Project conception and planning, project management, writing, editing, proofreading, graphic design, photography, photo retouching, print and mailing management

Finished Product: The marketing piece was printed, polybagged with a letter, and mailed to a targeted audience. However, you may view an online rendering here.

Industry:

Community Development

Client:

Perryton Community Development Corporation

Objective:

Increase Perryton (Texas) CDC website traffic and increase local awareness about the organization’s business development outreach

Solution:

We planned, created, and are managing an online campaign that includes a blog, social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr). The blog’s design reflects the area’s personality, and its posts cover local businesses, people, news, events, and things to do.

To further help raise awareness about the CDC and to drive additional traffic to the blog and social media sites, we presented the idea to have a poster contest for Perryton students. We planned and managed the contest, which encouraged students to design posters centered on the slogan, “Love Where You Live.” Integrating print marketing, we designed promotional materials that pushed people to the site for more information about the contest. We also created online polls and encouraged the community to visit the blog to vote for their favorite posters. The CDC awarded cash prizes in four age categories, and the overall winning poster will be a billboard near town.

Results:

-Monthly unique visits to CDC-affiliated sites are, on average, 22 times higher than when we launched the campaign.
-Blog readers view an average of three pages per visit.
-There is an average of five new Facebook fans a day.
-On average, there are 18 Facebook fan interactions (comments, likes, wall postings, or photo postings) per week. (The initial goal was 5 per week.)
-Thus far, as a direct result of the campaign, the Perryton CDC has received coverage nine times from local radio stations, newspapers, and news sites.
-There were 113 poster contest entries and 2,147 total online votes for poster contest entries. (The town’s population is approximately 8,000.)
-In the weeks following the poster contest, blog traffic is holding steady at twice what it was prior to the contest.

After I couldn’t wait any longer, I made my way to the baggage claim folks and told them I needed my bag right away. I needed to change clothes to meet some friends for dinner. After another eternal wait, the baggage folks told me that somehow my bag had ended up in Atlanta. I was in Miami.

As I was about to start screaming every curse word I know, I remembered something. I had a backup set of clothes in my carry-on bag. I’m not really sure how, but somehow it made me realize something very important about work. You should always have some sort of backup–not only when you’re checking luggage, but especially when dealing with computers/databases.

Imagine spending hours upon hours building the perfect blog. It’s loaded with content that you and your team cleverly crafted. Now imagine that there’s a server issue and your database goes down. Or your host has error, and your blog is wiped out. Or maybe someone hacks into your blog and deletes everything. All your work was for nothing because you never backed it up. You lose hours of time because you couldn’t take five minutes to protect your content.

Pretty much all blogging platforms or content management systems have a way for you to back up the database, or they have a plug-in that will do it for you. Take advantage of it.

How often you update your site determines how frequently you should back it up. I usually back up our blog once a week. I use the WordPress database backup plug-in to ensure that we never lose our precious content. So far, it seems to be working like a charm. It sends me weekly e-mails with the database tables. Knowing that I have this fail-safe allows me to sleep with ease.

If an outside company is managing your blog, be sure to ask them if it’s backed up. If you’re managing it on your own, save yourself from a potentially agonizing moment by backing up your blog and/or CMS now.

To help you get started, here are a few links to backup plug-ins and resources for some open-source CMS/blog platforms.
Joomla Akeeba Backup
Drupal
Magento
Pinnacle Cart Store Manager
Tumblr, Tumble Log

Share value.

Notice that I didn’t say, “Share your latest sales.” I didn’t even say, “Share info.” To really pique your customers’ interest, you have to share information that’s valuable to them. By that, I mean you should give your customers (or potential customers) relevant info they care about.

Find the intersection of their wants/needs and your goals. Speak to their interests while staying within the realm of your company’s expertise.

For example, through Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, you might share links to helpful articles you’ve read. If most of your followers are local, you can tell them about events they might want to attend.

If you’re blogging, use your industry expertise to write helpful posts on topics your targeted customers care about. Then share links to those posts through your social networking sites.

And if discounts and special promotions are something your customers value, throw some of those in there too. Just don’t bombard them with the same promos over and over again, and try to keep self promotion to one out of every five interactions.

Show personality.

Customers don’t want to interact with a blah brand. They want to know what you’re about and get a glimpse at the people behind the brand. Your company’s personality is (or should be) one of your unique selling points. Show it.

Give followers a peek at what goes on behind the scenes at your office through photos or videos. If you host an event, share the photos through Facebook or Flickr. If you’re a store in a small town, don’t be hesitant to show your excitement that the high school football team made it to regional playoffs.

If customers can see the people behind your brand, they’re more likely to want to interact with you. And if they interact with you, they’re more likely to buy from you or tell others about you.

How do you like to share value and show personality?

A quick tip on how to save time writing your blog