HHB Advertising redefines genius with creative convergence marketing strategies that blend traditional media and internet
marketing options such as savvy website development, SEO, social media marketing, viral video, blogging, email marketing, paid online advertising and more.
Archive for the ‘Convergence Special Blend’ Category
25 Words of Social Media Wisdom
Thursday, July 30th, 2009The following will be apart of major blog project. Check it out here!
First it was eager families gathered around the radio, then the TV set, now social networks are bringing us together in ways we never dreamed!
The Next Big Things for New Marketers
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009Whether you are a new college grad with a major in advertising and marketing or a new biz owner who wants to get a handle on the vast changes in marketing, here is the very least you should know and understand:
Predictions by researchers tell us that advertising spending on traditional media will continue to decline in the next five years, nudged to the sidelines by online, mobile and digital options, website SEO practices, social networking and e-mail marketing. Understanding New Media is essential if you want to be a force in the new age of marketing. If this sounds like bad news, it doesn’t have to be; traditional media will continue to adapt, and those in the forefront of these changes will not merely survive, they will thrive.
Green commerce is gaining momentum, meaning the interest in — and need for – more environmentally-friendly products and services will continue. Great opportunities abound for clients and customers who embrace ecologically-sound practices. And it also makes you feel a part of something authentic and spiritual.
Effective marketing today is more about solving customers’ and clients’ problems than providing clever creative or differentiating one agency from another in terms of cool…
but with that said, creative idea generation is the one single commodity clients seek above all others when they choose an agency/marketing firm or PR practitioner.
Remember when your high school teacher insisted that writing well would eventually be the ticket to success in any career you might choose? He was right. Business communicatons via e-mails, company blogs, online forums, and social networks is more vital than ever before. Telling a business’s cultural “story” in a compelling way is essential in today’s competitive business environment. Thinker-writers who can synthesize information and express themselves well will be in higher demand than ever before. Bloggers? It’s true: they are the new journalists. Blogging is no longer a mere social endeavor; it’s an entirely new profession.
Marketing is less “push” (pushing products and services on people in the form of commercial messages), and more “pull” (getting potential customers to actually seek information themselves about your product and services. It’s less interruption (of customers’ viewing and reading experiences), and more interaction — creating entertaining or informational content they enthusiastically choose to read about or watch.
The most successful businesses of tomorrow will be flexible, resilient, transparent, and socially networked.
A peek inside HHB offices
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Three at HHB Advertising Receive Social Media Certification
Friday, July 10th, 2009
Press Release -Macon, Ga.
Three HHB Advertising employees – Paige Henson (owner/creative Director), Kendra Ferguson (Media Director) and Claire Druga(Marketing Assistant) have received certification in inbound marketing principles from Inbound Marketing University. Certification candidates must pass an examination following a 10-hour class that includes instruction in social media, blogging, lead conversion, lead nurturing and closed-loop analysis.
HHB Advertising is a Macon-based firm specializing in traditional, web-based, and social media marketing. It is located at 1873 Hardeman Avenue in Macon.
New Speak/Old Speak Marketing
Friday, June 26th, 2009Out with the stale, tired, outdated lingo of marketing and in with the new! Here are some great new words that everyone in business should know; and a few words to lose – and the sooner, the better.
The Good…
Inbound Marketing – This is the “pull” marketing you’ve been hearing about. Instead of pushing advertising messages to your customers and clients and assuming they will accept them and better still, act on them …you are pulling them into your own unique company culture with irresistible online content on your website or other platform. What’s more, your audience is actually spreading your message for you through viral videos, social media networks, and links to your cool blogs. Repeat after me: Today’s most effective marketing messages are inbound.
Convergence Marketing – The successful marriage of inbound marketing messages and traditional advertising messages (print, broadcast and yes, paid online advertising).
Viral Marketing – You create something original…something amazing – an heart- stopping audio track, a video short, a blog post that’s life-changing. You post it on your website and several people who visit there see it/hear it/read it and send the link to their friends. Those friends post the link on their Facebook or Twitter pages and their online buddies do the same. Someone bookmarks it as a favorite on one of the bookmarking sites like delicious or stumble upon. Soon your work is spread like the chickenpox all over the Web and you enjoy 15 minutes or 15 month or 15 decades of fame. By association, your business doesn’t do badly either.
The Bad…
Best Practices – Who came up with this Frankenstein-like phrase? As an expression to indicate what might be the best way to do something, it sounds stilted, clinical and laboratory cold. Why don’t we just say: “The most accepted way…”or “The most successful way (to do whatever).” Good grief! It’s not that hard to be understood.
Branding – Spare me. Once a dynamic marketing gerund, this word has been so over-used and abused it has lost any original meaning whatsoever. Got a million bucks and ten years or more to build that brand? Are you Proctor & Gamble, Apple, or S.E. Johnson? Then don’t ask for “branding” at your local agency. Just don’t ask.
First Annual – According to the Associated Press, an event must be held for at least two successive years to be dubbed “Annual.” So a 1st Annual (Anything)? There’s no such thing.
The Downright Ugly…
State-of-the-Art – Now here’s a meaningless phrase that went out with carbon copies and camera-ready art. Oh, and disco balls. It’s supposed to connote “cutting edge” (also a tired phrase), but it actually means “old, stale tired, antiquated.” Old as in your grandma’s old Tappan range.
“great/best service” – Shake your copyrighter out of the 20th century and tell him/her that this over-used, watery claim holds as much credibility as a governor on an Appalachian Trail getaway. What’s your company’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?
I assure you that it isn’t – nor will it ever be—“great/best service” because every other company in the natural world provides it, too.
Mission statement – It’s only for your company’s internal use. A mission statement is meant to keep you and your employees on track in carrying out your company’s mission. Put it on a sign and hang it in your break room, but don’t…don’t ever post it on your website or in your brochure. It’s downright unprofessional.
5 Ways to Get Your Boss to Try Social Media Marketing
Friday, June 19th, 2009Sure, everyone in the various departments of your company understands the need to connect warmly with customers/clients and potentials, but if your company’s executive leaders don’t understand the power that social media marketing offers, you could all be sailing on the Titanic. Rest assured your competitors aren’t passing up many opportunities to cozy up to their targets… and yours. But if the boss says “no!” because he views social media as a frivolity and time waster (if he isn’t familiar with it, he may be threatened by it), here are some tips to bring him/her around:
1. Offer to stage introductory social media sessions for interested employees and try hard to get the boss to attend. At these sessions, introduce some of the more popular social media platforms: for starters, LinkedIn, Facebook and the ubiquitous Twitter, and conduct a help session for set-up. Do this right before work or right after, so you won’t be viewed as an opportunist – one who is only seeking sanction for his own interests. Once your colleagues are relatively versed in setting up and using their personal accounts, you have laid the groundwork to communicate the need for social media in business.
2. Point out that most companies and federal/ state governmental agencies are already engaged heavily in social media. Show online that the United States Air Force has presence that is monitored by a 9-member Social Media Department.
3. Remind your boss that social media is not going away anytime soon. Because it involves engagement/relationships with customers/clients in a friendly way instead of the standard sales pitch – because it’s an authentic conversation that, over time, can translate to credibility, support, appreciation and understanding, it has great power and potential to grow. Social media tools may change forms, but it’s definitely here for the long term. Coupled with traditional sales and advertising efforts, it’s bound to make a bottom line difference.
4. Point out that your competitors are gaining ground every hour your company delays in getting onboard with social media marketing.
5. E-mail your boss this post, and attach a social media marketing success story or two, preferably examples of success within your industry.
