Donna's Promo Talk

Refections from a Mom on this Graduation Day

Today being Wednesday was my guest blogging day over at Lip-Sticking.com. It was also the day that we attended the high school graduation ceremony of my youngest daughter. So since I've been feeling a bit melancholy today I wrote about her in my post and how time keeps going by way too fast. So please hop on over and read it which also talks about some recent online visitation stats that comScore released this week that pertain to this season of gifting, whether it was Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduations or Weddings.

As I anticipated tonight I took many photos during and after the ceremony of my daughter and her friends. Many with her posing in groups with friends in their cap & gown and many of her with just one special friend. Some of these girls she went to school with since kindergarten and we've gotten to be close friends with some of the parents as well. Will we stay in touch? Perhaps with some, but it will not be the same. 

I thought the valedictorian did a great job tonight with her speech in which she talked quite a bit about relationships and questioning if they will stay in touch with their fellow classmates. I was thinking that they have it easier now since we didn't have Facebook and Twitter and blogs back in the day that I graduated. In fact many of us are just now reconnecting with our long lost high school classmates now after many years. Boy, how times have changed. 

My daughter attended an all female private school, so they were a small, close-knit class, even though there were specific groups that hung around with each other. The valedictorian made jokes about how they didn't need to worry about their appearance and could really be themselves because they were all just girls. She ended her talk using words from St. Gabriel, the Archangel "Do Not Be Afraid".  So, let us all remember that as we move forward in the pursuit of new opportunities and challenges that we face in our lives and in our business.

So congratulations again to my daughter, Alex, on her graduation day and here's to the next chapter in your life. We are very proud of the smart, young woman that you have become.

The Rochester Women's Network Celebrates Local Women & Names the 2009 "W" Award Recipient

I'm continuing my Wednesday gig as guest blogger over at Lipsticking.com. So today I wrote this post about an event I attended last Wednesday, June 3rd, which was all about women. It was The Rochester Women's Network (RWN) 4th Annual SPLASH! which was held at the Woodcliff Hotel and Spa. It was marvelous night with some 165 guests which consisted of enjoying some good food and drinks, visiting with friends, meeting some new friends and celebrating women. Since I'm the editor of the RWN's monthly enewsletter I really wanted to cover the event here on my blog as well. So here it is:

Part of the event was to not only acknowledge the RWN members who have worked so hard in pulling the event together, but also to honor the six "W" Award finalists and name the 2009 "W" Award Recipient. This esteemed award is given annually to a local woman who works tirelessly on behalf of women; supports and empowers women to learn, grow, and succeed by her example, inspires women through her courage, initiative and creative energy, and exemplifies a high standard of integrity and respect for others. Members of RWN first get to nominate women and then cast their ballot from the six finalists selected by the "W" award committee.

This year's six finalists were: Regine Calvar, Jackie Campbell, Catherine Cerulli, Ph.D., Sheila Gaddis, Esq., Angella Luyk, and Mary Catherine (Kitty) Van Bortel and the 2009 "W" Award Recipient went to Mary Catherine, 'Kitty' Van Bortel, President and General Manager of Van Bortel Subaru and Van Bortel Ford. She joins the illustrious group of past winners which include: Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Carol Love, Cynthia Herriott and Germaine Knapp, among others.

New American Idol Chris Allen Singing Falling Slowly

Happy New Year - Top Searches of 2008

Well it's almost New Year's Eve and I wanted to write a quick post to wish everyone a wonderful and safe evening whatever your plans may be. We're staying at home tonight and have a nice dinner on the menu. My daughter will be having friends over later, so I'm enjoying the peace and quiet now with just me and my dog, Shadow. So I cracked open a Corona, put on some old CD's on the stereo and sat down at the computer.

So as 2008 comes to a close I wanted to reflect on the year and just thank all my readers. I never have gotten much conversation going back and forth on this blog, but I do have a fairly consistent subscriber base and when I do a post my page views to go up. So I'm assuming that my words are not going unread. So thank you for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment at any time in the future.

At this time of year it's always interesting to read the many opinions and forecasts that people have for the new year. Some are fairly safe to predict, others, who knows? Yesterday the ClickZ Network ran this article - The Year in Search: A 2008 Review that I found interesting. It's amazing how much we can tell about ourselves just by reviewing the words we search for online. Here's a few of the highlights:

In the U.S. the words that were the fastest rising were Obama, Facebook, ATT, iPhone and YouTube. One of the words is our new President, the other all relate to online/mobile communications. However, on a global level Sarah Palin came up #1. I didn't realize she gathered such an interest worldwide.

Top political campaign buzzwords were, Joe the Plumber, Jeremy Wright, Maverick, William Ayers and Bridge to Nowhere. Most of these can lead us back to Ms. Palin.

What I find heard to believe is that Brittney Spears is still at the top coming in as the #1 search on Yahoo. She beat out Obama. However, the most influential woman searched wasn't Brittney, or Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton for that matter, although Sarah and Hillary came in #2 and #4 respectively. It was Angelina Jolie!

And based on the keywords I've mentioned, what do you think the #1 Brand is? ....Apple came in on top!

Donna's Promo Talk didn't make the top blog list, Perez Hilton beat us out! I guess we love our celebrities.

Anyhow, I wish us all a happy and healthy New Year full of good friends and family and hope we can all find some prosperity and success in the year ahead.

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Election Day Gives Us Free Coffee, Donuts, Ice Cream and a New President

It's now just about 24 hours since the media officially announced that Barack Obama will be our next President of the United States. History was made last night and many of us are still walking around in awe today with a happy grin on our face and a very optimistic attitude. It also helped that it was November 5th and was sunny and hit 70 degrees in Western New York as well as a good portion of this country!

So, did you get your free Starbuck's yesterday? I didn't get a chance but my daughter Kelsey said she did. She was disappointed however that they ran out of "I voted" stickers because it was her first time voting. See the Starbuck's ad in my previous post.

Participating Krispy Kreme donut shops also had a free promotional offer and were giving customers a free star-shaped donut with red, white and blue sprinkles to those that showed their "I Voted" sticker (sorry Kelsey no donuts for you). Online they changed their traditional Krispy Kreme "hot light" sign signaling a new batch of donuts in stores "Hot Now" to instead read "Hot Vote Now".

If you didn't get free coffee or a donut, Ben & Jerry's was also "Celebrating Democracy" by offering a free scoop of ice cream between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. at participating scoop shops. Ben & Jerry's website has a link to a Facebook page that includes a special locator function that lists 24 colleges and universities around the country where company reps where scooping free Election Day ice cream in student unions and on campuses. Facebook profile pages have been created for each on-campus event with RSVP capability.

"We want to thank you for voting by giving you a free scoop of ice cream," reads the Ben & Jerry's college site Facebook copy. "If you did not vote, we'll give you a scoop anyway, but no complaining about the results"¦or the size of your scoop."

Besides theses promotions, online sites, especially social media, where all buzzing last night. I was tuned into Twitter's Election Day page that had so many tweets coming through it was hard to keep up with them. It was amazing to read the tweets that announced when a network proclaimed a state's winner. When Obama won Ohio I read about it on Twitter first before ABC news proclaimed it.

CNN.com reported today that they brought in 27 million unique visitors to their site on election day, a record. Comscore says they averaged just 5 million unique daily visitors in September, so this is more than 5x normal traffic. The site also generated an record 276 million page views.

So I don't think anything could top a day that gave us free coffee, red, white and blue sprinkled donuts, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, great warm weather, record-breaking online visitors and the democratic election of America's first black president!! Let's keep the momentum going!

Donna's New Marketing Role

Well it's now probably been the longest lapse I've had in writing on my blog since I started Donna's Promo Talk some 20 months ago. I feel like I'm missing a part of me and I apologize to my loyal readers. But honestly I've just been very busy. There's many excuses I can give you, but the main reason is something that I think I should now finally come clean with. When I actually stopped to think about it I realized that I haven't written about this yet , so this post is my coming out of the closet so to speak.

Over the summer I started working for another company. I have been running my own company, DDC Marketing Group, which has specialized in online promotions for over three years now. 2007 was a pretty good year, however, as the year ended and 2008 began I started to see a slow-down in business. The calm before the storm I guess now that I look back. Business with existing clients was still going fairly strong, but new business was not materializing. So, I started to consider some options. 

When an opportunity came up for me to work with this privately-owned company, Butler/Till Media Services I jumped at it. The company is owned and managed by two great women (Sue Butler and Tracy Till) who I worked with during my early years in this business some 20 years plus ago. They've been growing and have consistently made the Rochester Top 100 Companies list for the past few years. The company's services are specifically focused on media placement...the planning, buying and execution of where you see, hear, read the message, not what the message is. Which is a little different for me to get used to again, but my roots do go back to the media side of the business.

I'm part of the online team at Butler/Till as their Emerging Online Media Supervisor. My responsibilities include managing the search marketing initiatives for our clients which has been the first priority and one which I'm still getting up to speed on. Second is to introduce new media strategies to our clients such as mobile marketing, social media, blog marketing and promotions.

I had to first get fully comfortable with utilizing Google's AdWords tool for multiple clients as well as get my head around paid search strategies and executions. I have spent much time these past couple of months reviewing our existing client campaigns as well as Google's Learning Center. I recently took the Google test and passed which now makes me a Google Adwords Qualified Professional.

I am committed to continuing my blogging both here, being a guest blogger at Lipsticking.com and a reader and commenter on many other blogs. I still strongly believe that the best way to be knowledgeable in this area is to actually partake in it. The same I learned goes for paid search marketing. While I could learn some by taking practice quizzes, and reading articles, the best way is to actually build a campaign from scratch and then manage and optimize it.

We just launched a small local online media program that is the first for me at the agency to call my "own client". It's to help promote a new exhibit that the George Eastman House right here in Rochester is hosting which just started this past weekend. The exhibit is called TRAINS! and it is comprised of three different exhibits that all celebrate trains through photographs, video, films and lectures.

We have placed banner ads on various local websites throughout New York State and into Canada which include utilizing Google's Content Network. It also includes a paid search program on Google for those actively searching for this information. The campaign just started on Oct. 1st and so far is doing very well and on it's way to reaching it's goal which is to drive traffic to this microsite that we also developed.

So, it's now exciting for me to be part of a larger team again and see our efforts start to pay off for clients. At first it was a big change going back into an office everyday and I'm still learning many processes and who to go to for what. But I'm also learning many new, interesting things as well as teaching others a few things about what I know. So that's what keeps us all young. Right?

As far as DDC Marketing there are projects and programs that I have committed to and I am continuing to follow through on all of these. I still plan to offer my promotional marketing services under the DDC Marketing name and will incorporate them into Butler Till when and if appropriate.

Right now I'm very proud to be part of a company that was just named one of the 50 Fastest-Growing Women-Owned/Led Businesses in North America by the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) and Entrepreneur Magazine.

So, I plan to share with you here more of what we're doing for some of our clients and pass on part of what I'm learning. I hope you'll stick with me as I adjust to my new roles and learn how to keep the balancing act going. Thanks for listening.

Holiday '08 Marketing Outlook

Please hop on over to Lipsticking.com today to read my most recent post, Holiday '08 Marketing Outlook. I've included some interesting stats from BIG Research which gives us an advanced peak at consumer insights relating to this year's holiday gifting season. As we all probably are aware by now, it's not going to be a good one for us marketers, especially anyone in the apparel industry.

My previous post that I wrote on Lipsticking two weeks ago, Politics, Sexism, and Marketing to Millennial Women, received quite a few comments. Whether or not you read the post back then or not, you should take another look just to read some of the different opinions that it generated. It shows how really concerned most of us are today regarding the future of our country and economy.

I'm planning to cover many of the promotional and online campaigns that are focused on the holiday selling season over the next few months, so please stay tuned. If you're working on one that you'd like me to cover, please send me the information. Thanks.

Marketing to the Baby Boomers - 50+

I'm going to make this a quick post. I don't have much time, however I did want to write something here this morning because today's my birthday. And it's not just any birthday. It's the BIG one as the say with the BIG "F" word in it. Yes I'm now officially 50 years old as of 10am EST on this 20th day of September, 2008.

What that means, especially to us in the marketing and advertising industry, is I now have to check the box that puts me in that other demo. The "older adult" demo vs. the "middle-age adult" demo. At least I'm still not in the last box, the 65+ demo. My sister, Frances, had to rub it in and send me this "over the hill" ecard from AOL this morning. When you click on it you get the word "Fifty" of course.

I just wrote a couple of posts about marketing to millennials, those that were breed from us baby boomer parents. So what about us baby boomers?

I was sitting in a presentation the other day given by two fine young women who work for Platform A, the still fairly new conglomerate that is comprised of many smaller companies such as AOL and Advertising.com and who are all owned now by Time-Warner. They were presenting many facts about online usage and the trends we'll see over the next 5-7 years. Bridget joked about one of her first computer memories as a kid which was playing the famous "Oregon Trail". Now I recall playing that with my kids. It brought me back to the fact that when I started in this business there was no such thing as online, let alone a choice of computer games to play.

I was talking to another women that I work with this week, Tracy, and confessed to her that it was my 50th birthday this weekend. She's just a couple of years behind me and we both agreed that in our minds we don't feel 50. We're still the same person we've always been, just a little smarter and wiser from all our experiences. Yes, I need a little more sleep than I used to and I don't bend quite as easy, but I'm still the same person. I have my likes and dislikes, and I'm even more sure of them now then I was in my younger days.

So why market to me differently? Oh I know, there's plenty of research available that tells us marketers why, how and what we should say to the different demographic segments. Now we have this thing called "behavioral targeting" as well. So how are us 50 year-old women supposed to behave? I'm new to this, so I guess I have to learn.

So, Happy Birthday to me (and anniversary). Yes, I got married on my birthday, 22 years ago today on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Today it's a beautiful, sunny Saturday (I think it's the official last day of Summer as well). My hubby's taking me out to play some golf. Maybe I'll get lucky and get a par. We'll see.

Confessions of a Back-To-School Marketing Mom

I'm still trying to recuperate from this past weekend, both physically and emotionally, but thought I should get around to updating my blog tonight nonetheless. This past weekend we dropped my first born daughter off at college for freshman orientation week which started this past Sunday along with many other parents across this country. Not only was it our first college move-in experience, but it also happened to be in New York City at NYU.

We first drove to my sister's house on Saturday who lives about a hour north of the City and who we spent the night with. She happened to invite a few of my old friends over which caused us to be up a little late. Therefore our time getting into the city on Sunday was not as early as we had originally planned. Nothing really new for us though.

When we arrived in NYC I have to say that NYU was pretty well prepared. They had blocked off most of the parking places in front of the dorms and had traffic cops which allowed you to pull right up to unload. However, once uploaded, you had to move your vehicle out ASAP and then check out your options.

Next steps included signing up on a waiting list for a cart to put your stuff in and then waiting on a line that was out the door and down the street for the elevators. Since there was four of us and my daughter's room was only on the fourth floor we decided to skip the elevator line and instead carry her stuff up the stairs ourselves. On my first way up with stuff in tow I passed a mom who was walking up to the 12th floor! She said she had no choice but to do the elevators since they were 12 floors up!  I have to admit that my husband carried the majority of the heavy stuff up to her room which concerned me because it was your typical humid, NYC summer day.  Thank god he quit smoking last year and with the help of some water bottles that we brought with us, we're all still alive today.

Once the stuff was in the room we started unpacking and setting it all up. Now this was our first college move-in experience and even though I thought we were pretty much prepared and thought of everything, there were things we didn't. In old buildings, especially in Manhattan, you don't have many electrical outlets, so we needed more extension cords and power strips. Students today come with too many electronics...laptop computer, printer, TV, fridge, microwave, lamps, etc. One of her suite mates next door even brought a Wii!

The dorm does provide free cable TV hook-up, but it just so happened in our case that the box was on her roommates' side of the room. So we needed a really long TV cable to make it work! No way could we have known this before we came nor the fact that her roommate, who happens to be just from Long Island, would beat us to the move-in.

Thank god for Kmart, which was just a few blocks from the dorm. My husband walked there to get the last minutes things that we needed and then had to go back out a second time. There was also a Radio Shack in the area so they got our business on trip #2.

Now Kmart and Bed Bath and Beyond are the two biggest retailers in the NYU area and they had a shuttle bus set up to take people back and fort on move-in day. Bed Bath and Beyond went another step further and hosted a party at their store that evening for all NYU students which they offered 20% off on their total purchase. The party latest till midnight that night and there were supposedly free snacks and other give-aways. I think this is a brilliant marketing promotion, however, my daughter didn't attend the party. By the time we left her she pretty much had everything she needed. Plus her particular college was hosting a party that night which she did attend. I did however see many families walking around that day with full Bed Bath and Beyond bags.

There is currently a joint online sweepstakes promotion targeted to college bound students called Shop Smart for College Sweepstakes sponsored by Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples. They have a grand prize for students and another grand prize for parents. It's only open till September 2nd, so you need to check it out soon.

We have been somewhat conservative with our spending all summer long as I believe most Americans have. But I have to say that over the past month we contributed quite a bit to the local economy by just getting her ready for college. I'm not sure how most moms do it, but even with the best planning when it comes down to the final days you just start buying so that you have everything you can think of that she needs.

I was quite aware of the huge back-to-school marketing push this year that included many various promotions. We visited and bought from many different retailers, all who were marketing to the college-bound students. They included Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's and Penny's. So, you see what I mean? Did we miss any of the big ones?

We received many direct marketing messages from these retailers, some that included a checklist of "stuff" college kids need. I'm not sure if that was really helpful to us parents or if it just added to the list of "stuff" my daughter felt she really needed.

Next year I have to do this all other again with daughter #2. I think I'll be a little more marketing savvy then (even though I'm in marketing now). Plus daughter #2 is much more easy-going that daughter #1 so it will hopefully be easier. Or will it? We'll see.

Easter Greetings

It's Easter Sunday and I realize that probably not too many people are checking their computer for blog updates today, but I did want to wish everyone a Happy Easter nonetheless.

Did you know that this is the earliest Easter has been in our lifetime (unless you're 95 years old and born before March of 1913). The earliest possible date it could ever occur would be one day earlier - March 22. It's not expected to be this early again till 2160, so none of us won't see that unless some miracle grows our life expectancy. The date is determined by some odd formula that has to do with the full moon and the Jewish Passover. I found a more detailed explanation of this on Wikipedia if you're interested in reading up on it.

Palm Sunday actually occurred before St. Patrick's Day this year and our first day of Spring was just a few days ago. Easter 2008 is not finding the U.S. economy in very good shape. However, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Easter Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, consumers are still expected to spend a total of $14.44 billion on Easter food, apparel, gifts, flowers, decorations and candy. The average consumer will spend $135.03 on the holiday which is almost the same as last year’s expected $135.07. 

Easter is typically seen as the official kick-off to spring, when retailers debut new clothes and consumers are in the mood to buy for warmer weather,” said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. ”Although this is one of the earliest Easter holidays on record, retailers are hoping that this year will be no different."

I have to admit we, as a family, didn't spend much this year. I did buy some candy for my two teenage daughters which I put in a couple of used Easter baskets that I took down from our attic. I sent my parents a potted Easter Lily with some spring flowers since I won't be seeing them this holiday. Plus we spent a little extra on food for our Easter dinner, so I guess we probably did come very close to that $135.03.

My two teenagers did make appearances at the mall this weekend since they had some time off from school. One daughter was already searching for a prom dress but didn't find anything, the other did purchase some new clothes for the warmer weather - it should be here in upstate NY sometime soon!

My sister Eileen sent me this photo on Friday that I thought was just too cute not to share. I have no idea where she found it. So anyhow, here it is and enjoy your Easter Peeps today!