James VanDyke

Category: Marketing

  • Facebook Impressions vs Webpage Pageviews

    Facebook Impressions vs Webpage Pageviews

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    I manage the SMU Facebook page and over the summer I started looking closer at the stats for that page to find ways to improve. I quickly noticed the number of impressions our Facebook page’s content received was significant, more than 100,000 per month. I wanted to place that number in context with our other digital marketing efforts…

  • The Essentials: Clean and Organized Buildings are Important

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    For most organizations, your physical location is just a part of the way a customer experiences your brand. However, it can quickly ruin a customer’s experience because it gives them a concrete image to associate with your organization. A poorly maintained location places an obstacle to your customer doing business with you again. All business…

  • Using Social Media with a Defensive Strategy

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    For most companies, the best reason to have a social media strategy is to play defense. The effort to effectively use social media to influence sales or conversations requires commitment and time. Most companies aren’t ready to put in that effort. Your Social Media Defensive Strategy Create a basic presence on major social media properties.…

  • The Essentials: Social Media

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    Lately I’ve had several people ask me about adding social media to their marketing mix. Here are my three essential rules for social media: It’s still marketing Expect conversations on difficult issues Regular updates  are key, so plan accordingly It’s still marketing Social media is new, exciting and sometimes intoxicating. Before you jump in remember,…

  • The Essentials: Consistency

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    If you want to succeed as a business or organization, consistency is crucial. Last week one of the blogs that I follow had a post that was different than the type of content they normally publish. The blog has a strong following in its specific niche so after reading a post that didn’t have anything…

  • The Essentials: Stories and Relationships

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    My current working theory of marketing says that there are two core elements, stories and relationships. Stories Stories are the threads that tie all the pieces together. Packaging, distribution, pricing and advertising are all parts of a story that is being created about a brand, product, organization or person. Relationships Relationships are how people see…

  • Royal Caribbean: Not so bad in the end

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    james
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    A few months ago I wrote a post about Royal Caribbean adding a fuel supplement to our cruise bill after we made our reservation and paid a deposit. For this I called them out as a bad company. Well a few weeks ago they decided they were wrong and revised the fuel supplement. Now people…

  • The Art of Speed

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    Speed is becoming an essential part of business today, especially on the web. This weekend I attended a panel discussion entitled “The Art of Speed” at South by Southwest Interactive. Here are the points I found useful or interesting: Follow the market to where the growth is – Often companies look to attack new markets…

  • Work Practices

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    37signals the makers of BaseCamp and RubyonRails shared some changes to their work environment recently. Here are three interesting ideas.  4 day work week – If people rest for 3 days, they will be refreshed and do better work in four days rather than 5 days of work and 2 days of rest. Pay for…

  • Starbucks closes all stores – better be good

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    james
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    Starbucks has announced that it will close all of it’s stores from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. today to train its employees on “The Art of Espresso”. The unusual move will catch enough attention that if customers don’t notice better Espresso the next time they visit, the Starbucks brand will lose some trust. Starbucks Closes…