Working with the team at the Detroit Creative Corridor Center has been a dream, and I’m very happy to launch this site for them. Here’s a bit on who and what they are:

“The Detroit Creative Corridor Center is designed to support the growth of Detroit’s creative economy through business acceleration services, community outreach and events, and talent development resources tailored specifically to creative professionals’ needs.”

“We are committed to promoting the success of the creative economy in Detroit, and believe that Detroit’s Creative Corridor (from New Center to the River, between the I75 and Lodge Freeways) is quickly becoming home to some of the nation’s most innovative creative talent. We are working with creative sector businesses- everything from world – class advertising agencies to up – and – coming fashion designers – to ensure that creative talent is informed of the opportunities in the city, supported in their business functions, and supported in the development of their creativity and business skill.”

Integrated social syndication

As a part of the project we set up both a Twitter and Facebook page for the Center, with the Facebook page having an interactive Welcome page that is pretty cool. The new website’s blog publishes directly to both Facebook and Twitter, and of course if built on the most excellent WordPress platform.

Take a look and let us know what you think!

We recently launched two more sites on WordPress.  One had been a custom site and the transition to and open CMS was amazing smooth (www.highlandtowers.com ).  The other is a non-profit site with PayPal donation and event registration integrated into the functionality (www.redswhitesgreens.com ).  Both have SEO plugins—removing some of the mystery and work around search optimization.  The broad array of WordPress themes and plugins makes this platform a fantastic solution for the vast majority of our clients.  Implementation timing is relatively short and the installation of WordPress in various hosting environments consists of a few button clicks.  This is a match made in heaven for a virtual agency such as ours and for the next generation of nimble agency models.

Still, there are new options emerging daily.  Right now we’re interested in the Concrete 5 platform—the user editing tools are terrific!  These and other open/free services leveraged to support client work, are important pieces of the “next generation agency” value proposition and are becoming more prevalent in the mix of solutions for clients big and small.  We hope the communities around these products and services continues to drive innovation and we welcome the opportunity to try new platforms—our clients recognize these benefits and yours will too.

Powersports TV

PSTV was founded by Mark and Jason just 4 short years ago and has become a pre-eminent online destination for people who love motorcycles, all terrain vehicles, personal watercraft and snowmobiles. Here’s a bit from their about us section:

We’re in the business of identifying people in the market to buy powersports vehicles and then ensuring they have the best possible buying experience with our network of “best of breed” Dealers throughout the United States.

“TV” is in our name because over time we’ll move to a totally interactive, full multimedia interface -away from the boring flat text and graphics of the web. Already on the site you can see our guidance videos and Manufacturers commercials.

Buycentives

Buycentives is a new startup based out of Ann Arbor that plans to revolutionize the way incentives are created and delivered directly to consumers. Here’s a bit from their website:

We’ve noticed two trends in shopping, whether online or off: an ever-increasing abundance of information and, at the same time, shrinking consumer attention.  Today, consumers face an overwhelming amount of information and choices.  So what is Marketing’s response?  Even moreinformation.  Marketers pile on additional information (which isn’t needed) in a valiant effort to get attention (which isn’t available).  We thought: enough already.

So while buying online has gotten easier over the years, the shopping process has become harder.  As a leading brand, if you want attention, then offer consumers something of value for it.  Offer some consideration for their (purchase) intent. How?  Offer a Buycentive^TM.  Give something of value to a customer who is already shopping and that attention can turn into a sale.

More than ever before, new ways of thinking about the automobile were showcased and this picture of a three-wheeled car epitomizes the changing mood of this industry and the willingness of the public to consider what was never considered in the past (or even laughed at).

The same mood is washing over the marketing industry and our clients. For the small marketing firm, this “mood swing” has swung open the door of opportunity where previously gatekeepers once stood (you know who you are!). Our biggest challenge of 2010 will be taking advantage of this opportunity and meeting the demands of clients whose doors we didn’t dare dream of walking through last year. The key to success is collaboration—with other small companies, with big companies, with freelance talent. Collaboration will drive innovation and creativity in the marketing space—to service those leading the economic recovery.

A bit Pollyanna for those of you who know me, but I think 2010 will be a rockin’ year for marketers in more ways that one!

1. Volume of consumer-created buzz for a brand based on number of posts
2. Amount of buzz based on number of impressions
3. Shift in buzz over time
4. Buzz by time of day / daypart
5. Seasonality of buzz
6. Competitive buzz
7. Buzz by category / topic
8. Buzz by social channel (forums, social networks, blogs, Twitter, etc)
9. Buzz by stage in purchase funnel (e.g., researching vs. completing transaction vs. post-purchase)
10. Asset popularity (e.g., if several videos are available to embed, which is used more)
11. Mainstream media mentions
12. Fans
13. Followers
14. Friends
15. Growth rate of fans, followers, and friends
16. Rate of virality / pass-along
17. Change in virality rates over time
18. Second-degree reach (connections to fans, followers, and friends exposed – by people or impressions)
19. Embeds / Installs
20. Downloads
21. Uploads
22. User-initiated views (e.g., for videos)
23. Ratio of embeds or favoriting to views
24. Likes / favorites
25. Comments
26. Ratings
27. Social bookmarks
28. Subscriptions (RSS, podcasts, video series)
29. Pageviews (for blogs, microsites, etc)
30. Effective CPM based on spend per impressions received
31. Change in search engine rankings for the site linked to through social media
32. Change in search engine share of voice for all social sites promoting the brand
33. Increase in searches due to social activity
34. Percentage of buzz containing links
35. Links ranked by influence of publishers
36. Percentage of buzz containing multimedia (images, video, audio)
37. Share of voice on social sites when running earned and paid media in same environment
38. Influence of consumers reached
39. Influence of publishers reached (e.g., blogs)
40. Influence of brands participating in social channels
41. Demographics of target audience engaged with social channels
42. Demographics of audience reached through social media
43. Social media habits/interests of target audience
44. Geography of participating consumers
45. Sentiment by volume of posts
46. Sentiment by volume of impressions
47. Shift in sentiment before, during, and after social marketing programs
48. Languages spoken by participating consumers
49. Time spent with distributed content
50. Time spent on site through social media referrals
51. Method of content discovery (search, pass-along, discovery engines, etc)
52. Clicks
53. Percentage of traffic generated from earned media
54. View-throughs
55. Number of interactions
56. Interaction/engagement rate
57. Frequency of social interactions per consumer
58. Percentage of videos viewed
59. Polls taken / votes received
60. Brand association
61. Purchase consideration
62. Number of user-generated submissions received
63. Exposures of virtual gifts
64. Number of virtual gifts given
65. Relative popularity of content
66. Tags added
67. Attributes of tags (e.g., how well they match the brand’s perception of itself)
68. Registrations from third-party social logins (e.g., Facebook Connect, Twitter OAuth)
69. Registrations by channel (e.g., Web, desktop application, mobile application, SMS, etc)
70. Contest entries
71. Number of chat room participants
72. Wiki contributors
73. Impact of offline marketing/events on social marketing programs or buzz
74. User-generated content created that can be used by the marketer in other channels
75. Customers assisted
76. Savings per customer assisted through direct social media interactions compared to other channels (e.g., call centers, in-store)
77. Savings generated by enabling customers to connect with each other
78. Impact on first contact resolution (FCR) (hat tip to Forrester Research for that one)
79. Customer satisfaction
80. Volume of customer feedback generated
81. Research & development time saved based on feedback from social media
82. Suggestions implemented from social feedback
83. Costs saved from not spending on traditional research
84. Impact on online sales
85. Impact on offline sales
86. Discount redemption rate
87. Impact on other offline behavior (e.g., TV tune-in)
88. Leads generated
89. Products sampled
90. Visits to store locator pages
91. Conversion change due to user ratings, reviews
92. Rate of customer/visitor retention
93. Impact on customer lifetime value
94. Customer acquisition / retention costs through social media
95. Change in market share
96. Earned media’s impact on results from paid media
97. Responses to socially posted events
98. Attendance generated at in-person events
99. Employees reached (for internal programs)
100. Job applications received

DON’T LET ANYONE (EVEN YOUR AGENCY) TELL YOU IT CAN’T BE MEASURED.

PLUS – I love the “If you can’t handle the truth.” It’s perfect for us for, well, obvious reasons!

The first ever East English Village home tour was a huge success. Highlighting the architecture, amenities and community organization, “The Other Village Home Tour” was instrumental in bringing over 200 fresh new eyes to the small village located on Detroit’s East Side. Featuring distressed sale homes, the tour was meant to shine a spotlight on the real-estate gems available in the neighborhood.

A Few Good Marketers played a key role in the branding and marketing of the event, originally estimated by experienced tour organizers to draw 50 – 75 people. By 3pm the day before the tour, 175 had registered online. By the time the tour had closed the total attendance was 220, an increase of 293% over the original estimate.

A Few Good Marketers  participated in planning meetings a few months before and leading up to the event, and was responsible for all print and interactive work for the tour that included: Website for information and registration, tour day pamphlets, association brochures (that can be used year-round), directional event signage, tour posters, and advertisements in local publications The Metro Times and Between The Lines.

The tour included 4 houses ,  4 garden rest stops with food, beverages and entertainment, and a registration home that displayed the  ”Kennedy Rug,” a vintage needlepoint that Jacqueline Kennedy purchased and used in the White House. Two packed buses made two circuits each of the tour route, one with your’s truly co-guiding with megaphone.

More about East English Village here http://www.eastenglishvillage.org

You can also visit the tour site we created for the event here http://www.eastenglishvillage.org/tour

It has to consider the type of model we use at A Few Good Marketers—and one I’m sure many small businesses have come to master.  We are a virtual company, so we have mastered the fine are of free applications on the web;  free file sharing, free large file transfers, free email, free conference calls, free video calls, free content management platforms for our client websites…and the list goes on.  This mean we have remarkably low overhead—as in, almost none at all, relatively speaking.  We’ve also mastered the art of churning project work which is not a model well suited to support extravagant offices and employment perks.  It takes careful business planning and an investment in business development as a core competency.   And in order to service this project machine, we’ve had to master the use of contract talent.  Now, agencies are used to the freelance world for creative talent, but we’re using contractors for all lines of work—from strategy to PR to development.  And we get to match our talent with exactly what the client needs.  Imagine that!  We don’t have to use the copy guy down the hall who simply cannot write to a female audience or the developer or pushes everything into .NET because he’s a Microsoft junkie.  We just pick the right talent for the job.  And then we pay them just for that job.  And then we move on to the next project.

We’ve also had to learn how to manage a talent pool and workforce in disparate locations who are not connected under some European parent umbrella company and beholden to work together.  But—surprise!—there are plenty of seriously talented individuals seeking work who provide outstanding contributions to client deliverables.  Sometimes, we deliver projects for clients and never actually see or meet with our talent in person.  That’s right.  They are hundreds of miles away, but just one click away on the other end of Skype if we need them.  Being able to walk down the hall and see your production team hard at work is over-rated and over-priced.

The client benefits in all of this obvious to us because we believe it is our strength.  We can deliver diversity in talent, ideas and creative while dedicating the majority of the client’s budget to actual work deliverables instead of paying for overhead.  We can quickly morph our team into the talent set that is needed as marketing/advertising needs ebb and flow.  We believe many clients today have the ‘food on the table’ imperative and see opportunity in the changing marketplace of communication services.  In the end, great ideas and great work will prevail, but it might be found in new places or unlikely partnerships.

http://www.afewgoodmarketers.com

Helping out a great, local community here in Detroit

A Few Good Marketers is helping out a local community showcase their abandoned homes in an effort to get people to move in. East English Village is a great area of Detroit with about 3000 unique, hand-crafted homes build in the 1920′s, 30′s and 40′s.

Residents and organizers are excited to show off their neighborhood and are looking forward to attracting new families and professionals to their community.

A Showcase Home will be featured on the tour with furnishings from McGlaughlin’s, carpets from The Original Hagopian and design elements from Elegance By Design of Ferndale. Also featured in the registration home will be the Kennedy Rug, an exquisite needlepoint creation of rich colors and elegant detail formerly in place at the West Wing of the John F. Kennedy White House. In the
early sixties, the rug was a familiar accent in a room that entertained dignitaries, astronauts, as well as the Kennedy family.

A Few Good Marketers is handling all aspects of advertising, PR and interactive for the organization as service to the community. Work also includes facebook, twitter and flickr accounts that are fed and managed by the AFGM staff.

Want to go on the tour? Simply register at www.eastenglishvillage.org/tour and show up on tour day. Attendance is free and you’ll be amazed by this Detroit neighborhood, its architecture and community.

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Patty with the AOL Runner Man

A Few Good Marketers goes to AdTech

Well that was an interesting trip. Patty and I spent the day at Navy Pier in Chicago this past Tuesday meeting and learning, finding new solutions for our client. Interesting show and some great products despite a pretty low turnout.

Brafton Custom News

Pretty great resource for custom news with Brafton Custom News. This company creates custom news for your webites and newsletters in your industry. Basically it’s like hiring a taff of writers to help your organization become information leaders. Totally customizeable for your business, this would be a great asset for many of our clients.

Hope Bertram from Windy City Social

iSpeakVideo

Nothing new here… but I really like the product, quick turnaround times and low cost of this solution. If you’ve ever used avatars to help explain a complicated product or service like I have, then you’ll appreciate this company. iSpeakVideo

Windy City Social

Hope Bertram founded Windy City Social and we met up with her at the show. Hope’s group helps out companies in the greater Chicago area grow their businesses through networking events and online communities. Check them out..