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Get 100 Ways to Build Your Business

Monday, December 19, 2011 — 

 

Have you ever tried to think up new ways to market, manage, or build your business and found yourself at a complete loss for ideas? I think it happens to everyone. I have to admit, it even happens to us, despite the fact that we’re a marketing company. I’m not sure if it’s because we spend so much time being creative on behalf of others that we just run out of gas for ourselves, or if it’s because we spend so much time dreaming up new ideas that it’s hard to come up with something that feels truly revolutionary for ourselves.

Well, we’ve solved that problem! Last year, we came up with the crazy idea of trying to get 20 of our favorite thought leaders to share five ideas that would help businesses innovate, grow, or manage themselves better. We contacted a few people, who loved the idea, and our big project for 2011, 100 Ways to Build Your Business in 2012 was born.

After several months of hard work, we’re pleased to share these great ideas with you. The book includes thoughts on marketing/PR, web/social media, management, and video/photo, so you are sure to find something that is applicable to your business! Best of all, you can also sign up to receive a monthly tips from the ebook for the next year. (Because seriously, who can remember or implement 100 ideas all at once?)

You can download the free e-book and sign up for the monthly emails at the 100 Ways to Build Your Business website.

Our best wishes for a busy and productive 2012!

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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When you give, you get!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 — 

 

Clear Verve Marketing was recently featured in a Profile in Philanthropy from BizTimes Milwaukee. These profiles, which appeared in the BizTimes Giving Guide, highlight the services of individuals in the Milwaukee area who have made significant contributions to the nonprofit community. Clear Verve, along with Catral Doyle creative and Welke Group, were highlighted for our Tri-Adathon work. You can view our profile, along with profiles of other generous individuals and some deserving nonprofits, online.

If you’re not familiar with Tri-Adathon, it’s a once a year opportunity for Milwaukee-area nonprofits to receive some really great pro-bono marketing work. Each year, we take applications from local organizations, select a number of projects to work on, and then shut down and complete these projects in a 24-hour work marathon. It’s exhausting and fun. It’s also given us the opportunity to meet some really great people and learn a lot about the many organizations that make our community a better place. The 2012 Tri-Adathon will be held in spring. Be sure to watch for our call for entries coming in March or April.

We don’t do Tri-Adathon specifically to get publicity, but it’s nice when that happens. Many thanks to our friend and client, Gary Ross from Community Health Charities of Wisconsin for nominating us. We’re looking forward to another successful creativity marathon this spring.

Here’s a video of our Tri-Adathon experience last year:

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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A new social media planning tool

Monday, December 5, 2011 — 

 

I recently spoke at an event for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee.  The event, called Social Media for Nonprofits, featured Wayne Breitbarth, LinkedIn expert, and me; and although it was targeted at the nonprofit community in Milwaukee, much of what we spoke about can be useful to for-profit businesses.

My presentation focused on the results of our recent Social Media Survey of Nonprofits ( get the results here) , specifically what nonprofits value about social media, and the challenges nonprofits face in implementing social media tools for their organizations. Because the Business Journal was kind enough to ask me to speak at this event, I wanted to be sure to deliver some high quality content for them. The result of my prep for this event is a new tool we hope you’ll find useful in planning your social media strategy. We call it the Ongoing Social Media Strategy Wheel.

One of the biggest challenges faced by nonprofit is getting others involved in the effort, either from a participation standpoint or from an implementation standpoint. This is partially because most nonprofits (64%) do not have a social media policy guiding the people charged with implementing social media. If your organization doesn’t have a social media policy, be sure to download our template so you can fix this!  A social media policy can help make it “safe” to build a team of people to get the work done, rather than relying on a single person (who often has other work to do).

The other challenge is finding time to plan a strategy. Although most of us would never think of spending advertising dollars without a plan or hiring a receptionist and not training that person on how to answer the phone, many people don’t think anything of just jumping into social media without a plan of action.  We hope our new document, the Ongoing Social Media Strategy Wheel, helps address the planning issue. When we created it, we wanted to be sure we recognized the following things:

  • Most organizations are already using social media in some way. It would be stupid for me to lead you through the perfect planning process for people that are not yet involved in social media. That process won’t work if you’re already participating because you can’t stop and undo what you’ve already done just to make a plan.
  • Planning is not a one time activity. You have to constantly reassess where you are at, look for new ideas, and pay attention to what is going on in the world.
  • The world doesn’t stop while you plan. You can’t take a vacation from interacting with your social media contacts while you think. You have to think and act at the same time.

The ongoing social media strategy wheel attempts to show this by using continuous circles. The inner circle illustrates the planning and reflection activities that most people forget. These activities are conducted internally and aren’t seen by the public, but they are very important because performing these activities will increase the effectiveness of the woare the public sees. The outer circle illustrates the activities that most people see. Both wheels are rotating constantly and at the same time.

We hope that this new document will help you continuously refine your communications on social media.

If you want to see the rest of the presentation from the Social Media for Nonprofits event (the ideas work for for-profits too), you can view it here:

Social Media for Nonprofits

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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Business is built one step at a time

Monday, October 24, 2011 — 

 

This week, we kicked off a branding project with a new client that came to us as a referral from someone I met five years ago. Next week, I am meeting with a prospect that came to us as a referral from someone I met three years ago. We are talking with another prospect who heard me speak at a seminar two years ago, and I was just asked to speak at an upcoming event because of a body of work we’ve been building up for the past four years.

Why am I sharing this? Because many businesses are often so worried about the short-term impact of their marketing initiatives that it is easy to forget about or not want to “waste time with” things that don’t pay off immediately. But that’s not how building a business works. Everything you do adds up over time. The most successful and stable businesses are usually not overnight successes (although it may seem like it to an outsider). Remember as you build your marketing plan that it is important to include both short term and long term strategies. Mix different avenues of communication and be consistent. Suddenly, it will feel like you are an “overnight success” too.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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I don’t have time to blog!

Friday, June 17, 2011 — 

 

This is a very busy week at Clear Verve. In the last two weeks, we landed three new clients, and just this week picked up projects from some former clients. While we are most certainly GRATEFUL for the additional work and glad to see our former clients call us when they have needs, we have a lot to do. On top of the increased workload, Susan is on vacation, and we are moving the office to a larger location at the end of next week. I’ve been working at home nearly every night just to keep up. In fact, I’m typing this as I sit in the bleachers during my kids’ swim lessons so I can get it done.

So, why am I taking the time to write this blog? There are a couple reasons. First, blogging is good for our company. Continually adding to our website via our blog is good for SEO and helps keep our Linkedin profiles and our Facebook page up to date. Also, we think it’s important to practice what we preach. Because we focus on working with professional service providers and not for profits, we are always talking to our clients about content marketing and sharing their knowledge. We tell them that blogs, newsletters, and social media are ideal ways to help them showcase their expertise and their personalities. We bug them (in a friendly way of course) to provide us with information we can use to generate content for them or to generate the content themselves. So if we expect them to do it, we should also be doing it. Otherwise, we’d be like the shoemaker’s kid with no shoes.

I hope that when your business gets busy, you can also remember to take time – even if it’s just a few minutes each day – to do something that helps your business grow. Small actions over time add up to great things. Don’t wait – the time to grow your business is NOW.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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What can you do with a hotel room?

Friday, March 25, 2011 — 

 

First of all, notice I said, “What can you do with a hotel room?” not what can you do in a hotel room. Big difference! (And not the subject of this post.)

Recently, a client approached us with an opportunity to do something really fun and challenging. They wanted to create a movie theatre-like experience to accompany a trade show at which they were launching a new product. Important customers were invited to the “theatre” for educational presentations on the new product. We’re really proud of the results, which you can see below. We transformed an ordinary hotel conference room into something that really looked like a theatre with a red carpet and a candy counter. We even popped fresh popcorn throughout the day, making it smell like a theatre too! We’re especially proud of the movie posters lining the sides of the room in which the new product took a starring role in some well-known movies from the past 50 years.

Take a look – we hope you find these photos inspirational!

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns.  Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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Welcome Aboard! Your Social Media Cruise Awaits…

Thursday, December 30, 2010 — 

 

Despite the fact that social media is meant to bring people together we tend to figure it out on our own. There are social (media) cues, of course, but we are each in our own path, deciding what we are comfortable putting out there for all to see on a personal level. And it’s all optional. So Joe Shmoe over there could be invested and involved in Twitter and Facebook and Joanna Shmoanna might be more into Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare. One probably uses Hootsuite and one might use Tweetdeck. Or neither. It all depends on personal preference and your networks. The point is there is no right way in the world of social media.

Whew, long intro. But I wanted to make a point: by the time we get into a professional setting, we know our own rules and we like them. We also know that work rules are different, but we are not completely sure how. And even leaders don’t know much more than “don’t make the company look bad” and “it is/isn’t allowed during work hours.”

Okay, now for the FUN part. It’s time to tell you why I think social media should be thought of like a cruise- seriously!

Each cruise ship is a company. People want to participate in cruise activities, but know there are rules necessary to keep the ship fun. And there aren’t many. The basic rules are put a life vest on in case of emergency (the company’s emergency flowchart), don’t do anything to disrupt the direction of the cruise ship (i.e. leave the captain and the crew to do their jobs and don’t spin the ship’s steering wheel to be funny). Then, you can eat all you want, drink all you want, meet new people, enjoy plenty of pool time, and just plain have fun. This is why social media is not an airplane or a train or a bus (well, maybe it could be a party bus); these are all modes of transportation to get you to your final destination. But a cruise ship IS the destination. I haven’t been on a cruise, but I’m pretty sure I’d be happy to hang out on one for awhile, with Dramamine!

Cruises are meant to be fun, and so is social media. Chaos only ensues without necessary safeguards in place: what to do “in case of emergency” and guidelines for every one’s safety- both for the employee AND the company. Too many rules and neither are fun any longer, but it will definitely help to have basic rules in place and simple guidelines if the company does look bad.

In addition to figuring out what the rules or guidelines are, there comes the issue of how to present it to employees. Employees don’t want to feel reined in, but should be willing to abide by a little bit different rules for the professional world. Some will be less willing, but presentation is all you need to present a welcoming atmosphere.

Here at Clear Verve, we’ve developed what we think are some awesome cruise, er social media guidelines! They’re colorful, simple and inviting. Let us know what you think! We’d love to hear feedback about the documents OR about our cruise ship idea.

Social Media Guidelines or Policy Template
Reacting to Social Media

Welcome aboard!

Erica Gordon is a Marketing Associate at Clear Verve and works part-time at a Milwaukee area nonprofit. She recently received her Communication MA from Marquette University. Follow Erica on Twitter @erica_g.

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It’s Tri-Adathon Time Again!

Monday, December 20, 2010 — 

 

It’s Tri-Adathon time again! A 24-hour pro bono frenzy!

Tri-Adathon is a 24-hour creative marathon which provides pro bono marketing communication services to Southeastern Wisconsin charities. It’s a joint venture between Catral Doyle creative, Clear Verve Marketing, and Welke Group.

During the inaugural Tri-Adathon, the aforementioned agencies completed a total of 37 projects for 22 Milwaukee-area not-for-profits in a 24-hour timeframe. This year, Tri-Adathon begins on the morning of February 17, 2011 and will wrap up just over 24 hours later with the presentation of finished marketing, graphic design, interactive, and public relations programs on February 18.

Tri-Adathon is seeking entries from not-for-profit organizations located in Southeastern Wisconsin that are interested in receiving pro bono marketing support (including PR or interactive services) from one of the participating agencies. Winning not-for-profits will receive solutions to their current marketing and public relations challenges. Potential support includes marketing strategy, graphic design, radio scripting, annual report design, event invitation design, TV strategy/storyboard, Web strategy/home page design, press kits, media plans, or interior design services. The participating agencies will work on individual projects and collaboratively on multi-faceted assignments.

Applications are being accepted until January 7, 2011 at www.triadathon.com.

The 2011 event is the second annual event with 88.9 Radio Milwaukee as a promotional sponsor.

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Survey Says!

Thursday, September 30, 2010 — 

 

Does hearing an unanswerable question over and over again make you want to find the answer? Well, it did in our case.

Professional service providers were coming to us for advice on social media use. But they wanted more than just the standard advice. They wanted to know how to deal with issues that are especially important in their industries. Issues like conflict of interest, confidentiality and providing general advice that could be misinterpreted in a specific situation.

So we collaborated with McGrath Marketing Associates to complete a survey and create an e-book: Social Media Habits of Accountants and Attorneys in Southeastern Wisconsin (and it’s free for anyone, by the way). We felt that providing professional service providers with the opportunity to learn from one anther would help everyone.

Here are some nuggets of information that we discovered:

  • Most professionals who don’t use social media prefer to use other methods of communication such as phone calls, texting or emails.
  • Some professionals have not begun using social media for work due to lack of formal training and understanding of how to use social media professionally.
  • Over 40 percent of participants said they did not use social media to communicate with any of their customers or business associates. However, participants were most likely to say they would use social media with those who they knew were users of the media.
  • An important goal of many firms is keeping employees’ personal communication separate from professional communication.
  • The relative equality in the number of people who use social media for personal and business communications indicates a strong need for social media policies at all firms.

Over 600 professionals between the ages of 21 and 60 participated in the survey, representing 144 different firms ranging in size from fewer than 50 employees to firms with over 1000 employees. The online study was conducted between April 26, 2010 and May 30, 2010.

The forward for the book was written by Todd Sattersten, former President of 800-CEO-READ and co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Todd also reviewed the book.

We learned a great deal from the survey and hope you will too. You can download the book here.

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SIMcast – What’s Clear Verve Marketing?

Friday, July 30, 2010 — 

 

We often share helpful information or tips in our blog and also want to share our expertise.  Have you ever wondered what we do at Clear Verve Marketing?  Check out this recent interview with Kirk Strong for a Smart Interactive SIMcast featuring our President, Christina Steder to hear first hand.

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