MarCom Professional

When do you use all your database for a mass mailing?  I have a huge database of contacts – both personal and business.  Knowing when and how to contact them all is a difficult issue because you don’t want to annoy – but equally there are some things that you really want to communicate to a wide audience because the matter is important.

I just received an update from Mike Butcher that is a great example of the right time to use a mass mailing.

Mike is a journalist and the editor of TechCrunch Europe.  He’s a fantastically connected person and I suspect this mailing ran into the thousands. More...

Disclosure: Sergio is a client of ours.

In 2009 Sergio Lopez Figueroa received an award from the British Council part of the Cultural Leadership International Programme and produced Delhi City Symphony. Following an experience in Delhi, Sergio composer, director and founder of the social-cultural  enterprise Big Bang Lab created the concept of cultural social responsibility in order to sustain  a global project in a network of cities, aiming to empower deprived young people to become the future changemkers and creative entrepreneurs.

Global City Symphony is a three year programme combining culture, digital media  and music. More...

Received via LinkedIn

Hi

Congratulations for your profile.

I’m expanding my network in the Marketing sector and I’d like to connect with you.

If you think this is not the best time to connect, please archive this request.

Thanks

B*** S****

It all reads so well, especially the suggestion about archiving the request if the timing isn’t right… except I don’t know them and that bit about congratulating me on my profile (which I must admit is admirable – but why would they think that?)….leaves me doubting.

I wrote back.  Questioning.

Let’s see

  More...

There’s a great summary of the pro and anti arguments about the Belgian Agency strike over on e-consultancy’s site.

The comments are helpful including ones from client and agency side folk.

I particularly liked Neale Gilhooley’s comment

My career path has been 90% Agency and 10% Client, but the 10% has radically changed my views on how Agencies should service their Clients.

Agencies are not all the same and as a former Client I have seen many agencies presentations, largely falling into 2 categories:

A. Those that are professional, insightful truly creative (in strategy as well as the creative product) and added value to my business. More...

The old cliche about “you’re only as good as your last job” can sometimes seem finding new clients a daunting task.  How can you show off your work when there are client confidentialities involved?  What ways are there to show that you are a really creatively-led agency?

Well the answer is to have a store of case studies.

What is a case study?

A case study is a piece of marketing collateral that shows off the skills of your organisation and demonstrates clearly success you have created for a client.

It’s as simple as that.  Show off your ’smarts’ the work that you want to make you famous and boast about it.  A lot. More...

The London communicators group is having a meetup on March 9th to talk about:

Sex and Turkeys – Are you ready to manage a merger, acquisition or joint venture?

The session will be run by Doug Ross and Phoebe Dunn of award winning consultancy, Square Peg International. (http://www.squarepegint.com)

Your organisation is for sale. All organisations are for sale – it is just a matter of price. And when it happens it is the communications functions who will feel the pain as they are often faced with managing the issues of transition with respect to often-declining productivity, performance and morale during times of change. More...

Just doing the analytics review – some interesting findings

Top 5 posts viewed

1. Writing proposals avoiding common pitfalls
2. Top 10 must-read business development blogs
3. Shout! with Johnny Vulcan MD of Anomaly
4. A new business model for creative agencies
5. Rant. Unsubscribe unacceptable behaviour risks your brand

Thank you all for your readership last month.

Help us spread the word – please forward article links to colleagues and friends who may like to read CreativeAgencySecrets for themselves.

  More...

We have been members of BIMA for a while – it’s a trade body for digital agencies.  They ran an event called “New business generation – farming style” earlier this month.  It was a panel discussion with Chris Cowpe – The Caffeine Partnership, Paul Kirkley – JWT, David Hart – Codegent and Mark Clark – @JFDI.

Here is Jane’s take on the event with her own views expanded.

Changes in Business Development

A subtle yet important shift is starting to change the way we look at business development. The change can be best described as a move from hunting to farming. More...

Apologies for the silence this last fortnight. I’ve been moving house. Grim unpacking duties.

Here’s a quick tip that I am using myself today from Mike Cliffe-Jones

Priorities

I suspect many of you are writing blogs while holding down full time jobs, and that can be hard. I wanted to share some tips with you for being organized so you can get the best out of the time you do have to spend on the blog. We talked about time management last week, so this week I want to focus on priorities.

If you only have, say, a couple of hours a day to work on your blog, then you need to make the most of the time, so that the jobs you do get completed, are the most productive. More...