Last night at a networking event given by IABC/Toronto’s Alliance of Independent Practitioners, or AIP, I shared why I volunteer, as did Leslie Hetherington, Donna Papacosta, Barb Sawyers and Lee Weisser. AIP is a sub-group of IABC that supports more than 100 independent communicators, offering professional development and networking opportunities that address our particular needs. [...]
Tag Archives: Marketing
How to warm up to cold calling
While decluttering my office this week, I ran across a battered 1981 edition of The Canadian Writer’s Market. In it I found 32 pages of agency listings, each entry with a pencilled X or check mark beside it, plus new telephone numbers and scribbled names. I was a newlywed, had just moved to Toronto and [...]
Hit or miss(ed) opportunities
A thank you card arrived today in my mail, signed by someone I had never heard of. Turns out she is part of my local library’s summer reading program, just one of the programs the library notes it is able to run thanks to me and other donors to their literacy efforts. “Ella” carefully printed [...]
Cool promos
USB drives are useful. Mini highlighters are cute. There are magnets, keychains, stress balls, lanyards, mugs and sports bottles everywhere. But THESE are cool ways to promote your company (sadly, not available to Canadians): *Â Sharpie will personalize your pen — nothing hateful or obscene, please! — for $11.99 for six. Be inspired looking at [...]
Left hand, meet right hand
A card arrived yesterday the old fashioned way, in the mail with postage stamp and all. It was from my friends at the local Honda dealership. Since I have just closed the deal on a new car, I thought it might be a “thanks for buying our car” type of card. Silly me! It was [...]
Weasel words in auto sales
Car sales representatives have a reputation that’s hard to shake. There are exceptions, of course, but would you generally link them with words like “honest,” “trustworthy” and “working for me”? I didn’t think so. They also bring to mind the words “high-pressure sales” and “let me talk to the manager.” My car is 10 years [...]
Your Monday smile
Here’s a rare sight: a television ad that makes you smile, and you don’t even mind when it repeats several times during the show you’re watching. I’m talking about the Discovery Channel‘s “I love the world” ad, sometimes known as “Boom dee yada.” You know the one. It starts with two astronauts in space, looking [...]
It’s cheating to set the bar low
Have you noticed that companies seem to be deliberately managing our expectations downwards? I’ve run across this a couple of times lately : When I traded in loyalty points for lift tickets for a recent ski trip, the web site said it would take about two weeks to get the reward certificate by mail. The [...]
Dream toys
Happy birthday to Barbie, who turned 50 today. Talk about a toy with legs! Whether 50 is the new 40 or 50 is the new 30, she sure looks good. And she’s got all kinds of “dream” things — dream bedroom, dream dining room, dream kitchen, dream game room and more, much of it pink, [...]
Are the ads worth it?
The discussion over Super Bowl ads continues days after they aired. Of course, we Canadians are sheltered and can’t see the ads during the event itself, but they are a still a hot topic of conversation. (The game? What game? Oh, yeah, the football game, we did see that, too.) It took me until Monday [...]
