Author Archive for Jennifer

Did you know that younger women are now more likely than their male counterparts to hold a college degree and that the number of men and women in the labor force has nearly equalized?
Hopefully, as a business owner or marketer, you’re paying attention to that statistic and many others like it. Why? Because therein lies buying power and purchasing influence. And, as we all know, men and women are different. What appeals to one, might not to the other.
Not only are women increasing in the work force, but they are a powerhouse in the social scene. I personally have had several friends that started blogs as hobbies and have seen them turn these hobbies into well-paying careers.
What about the new social media darling, Pinterest? In the United States 83% of the users are women. Pinterest gained 13 million users in just 10 months. Most of them are women. Did you know that more women turn to Pinterest than Twitter when it comes to getting product information and advice? I for one will admit how much I enjoy Pinterest! I can’t tell you how often I have heard someone ask a question like, “How did you make that?” or “How did you learn to do that?” And then the person who was asked the question responds this way: “Are you on Pinterest? You should follow me—that’s where I got the idea.”
Have you changed your marketing plans based on any of the information above? Do you have any women centric campaigns?
I would also love to hear how you are using Pinterest to increase your company’s visibility.

Over the weekend my husband and I had an unexpected opportunity to have dinner with a gentleman that is running for congress in the state of Texas. After our brief encounter, I went home and googled him. To be quite honest I was very surprised by my findings.

Even though he gave a passionate and dynamic speech and he obviously moved many of those that attended his conference, his online presence was just the opposite. His website was a mess and looked unprofessional. He had no Facebook page and has never tweeted once.

In 2012, companies and people are not only judged by real life encounters, but also by their social media persona. Many people, like myself, expect companies and politicians to be socially savvy (online and offline). When that expectation is not met, there are usually plenty of other choices for us to move on to.

Being social media savvy will become more and more important as time goes on. As a mother of teenagers, I know firsthand where the rising generation gets their information (Here is a hint…it’s not offline). The great news is that, for the most part, it’s free and easy.

Fortunately for this politician, I was able to talk to him after my findings and give him a little friendly advice. My advice to him and you is:

• Clean up your website. Less is more in most cases. This is one area you may need to spend some money and hire a professional, but it will be money well spent. This becomes your online face.
• Get a presence on Facebook! Post often. This is completely free!
• Get a Twitter account. The great thing about having both FB and Twitter is that you can connect them. Anything you post on FB becomes a tweet.
• Start collecting email addresses from your admirers and customers. Email is still a very effective way to communicate. It is also very inexpensive.

And of course…. Don’t forget to be socially savvy offline too!

First of all, I want to say thank you to all of you that read my last blog entitled “Your Wife is Hot”. It received our highest click-through rate of any blog ever placed in our newsletter. That click-through rate actually proved how brilliant that ad campaign truly was.  It also proved the age old adage that sex sells. Or, even what we perceive may be sexy. Obviously, the original campaign and my blog post had nothing to do with sex per se, but the title was obviously very enticing, as was the billboard.

It’s certainly possible to go overboard, and I’m sure we’ve all seen the tasteless ads that result from marketers taking this little trick too far, but I think adding a little tasteful spice to campaigns where appropriate is a great tool.

I would love to hear from you about any clever enticements that you have seen or used. And if you have never considered taking this route in your campaigns, you may want to give it a try!

I’m not a huge fan of television, so much so that I did away with cable last year. But, there is one show that I absolutely love and I am thrilled when I can catch it at the gym or online. The cast of characters is brilliant, but there is one character in particular that absolutely makes the show. One of his greatest attributes is the fact that he doesn’t really say much. The actor that portrays this character is amazing. Though he may have very few lines, viewers always know exactly what his character is thinking and feeling.

There is much to be said for using fewer words in many aspects of business and life. Here is my list of where I think this principle could be applied.

• Fewer words should be used in presentations and power points. Try demonstrating something instead. You can talk at your prospect all day long but, they probably still don’t get what you do. So, show them what you do and what it can do for them.
• There is nothing worse than a long drawn out meeting. So, take the time to send out everything you can in an email beforehand and then only discuss the items that truly have merit to be a discussion. Also, have a well planned out agenda and stick to it! It may be that you have to set a timer. That has worked wonders for me.
• What about your website? Is it cluttered? It should be clean and precise. If you need a great example take a look at Apple’s homepage.
• How do you handle your PR? Are you always telling people how wonderful your company and products are? Words can only go so far here. If your customer service is awful or your products don’t live up to the hype, your words will be meaningless.

To say it as succinctly as possible: Never say in a hundred words what you can say in ten.

These past couple of weeks have been very interesting for many of us here in the south. Many of us have witnessed the awesome power of nature and the aftermath she leaves behind. For some, it was utter devastation and my heart truly goes out to those who lost so much. For the rest of us, it means rolling up our sleeves and pitching in to help our neighbors in need.

Many of us during this time were without electricity, which is truly a minor inconvenience in the wake of all that had happened to many of those near us. In fact, being without electricity for over four days actually ended up being quite a blessing and eye opener for me and my family.  It really gave us some wonderful distraction free time together. We have always been a close family that really does spend a lot of time together, but it was amazing how the quality of that time went up without the many distractions we normally have on a day to day basis. The other amazing part to me was the creativity that came when our day to day distractions were gone. We had a great time seeing what clever thing we could make on the grill for our meals. Did you know you can make cinnamon rolls, banana bread, snicker doodles and barbecue chicken pizza all on your outdoor grill? Sure it takes some extra time and effort, but it was well worth it! We actually had some of the best meals ever during this time. I also reveled in the opportunity to read books at night to my teenage children again. What made it even better is that they loved it too!

So, what distractions do you have in your life right now that could be hindering your work or office? Now don’t get me wrong, electricity and technology are wonderful things, but I dare you to turn those things off just for an hour and let the creative juices flow. Take the time to find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted, take a single light with you, a flashlight or a lantern or something like that, and just sit, enjoy the silence, and let everything else in your life go for just a short while. Don’t purposefully think about anything, and purposefully refuse to think about anything you “have” to be doing. I think you may be amazed at the results. Let me know if you try and what your results were.

Sometimes, I think we just need to disconnect to really connect.