Stinky Pepper Boy.

Not a very nice name to be called in third grade.

On the first day of school my oldest came home and said he was done with peppers. No big deal … until I found out why.  He was being teased about his lunch. Why would kids pick on another kid about his food? Well first and foremost they are kids, but secondly, like all consumers big or small, we fear and sometimes even mock the unknown.

After a couple of days, I proposed the sweet pepper ‘marketing 101 campaign’ to my son, and he was all in! “Mom, once they try them, they will love them!” Game on!

Our Marketing 101 Campaign consisted of Four Proven Marketing Tactics:
1. Awareness
2. Engagement
3. CTA – Call to Action
4. Trial

Awareness: A platter of peppers was brought to the lunch room and a short introduction that included the health benefits, what they tasted like, the different colors/options was given. All the benefits can be found here. The kids had the knowledge (awareness) that peppers promoted healthy skin, hair, vision and immune system.

Engagement: The kids were interested … some had tried the peppers, some never had because they thought the peppers were spicy, but when they heard the name ‘sweet mini peppers’ they were engaged. Everybody likes something sweet.

CTA: This year our school started composting. Four days into the year some had not visited the compost bin, which was a coveted trip AND the CTA! The stem was compost worthy and earned a trip for all that tried.

Trial: The lure of the compost trip gave us what we needed. They. All. Tried. A. Pepper. Trial was the key to winning them over.

Of course, not all the little consumers were converted – there were a handful of pepper holdouts. But many really liked them, resulting in requests for seconds!  To my son’s joy they started chanting … Pep-pers … Pep-pers … Pep-pers. 

Everyone sells, in one way or another. As parents, we sell our children on our belief systems, values, and desired behavior. As business owners, we sell our products and services. Following a few proven marketing tactics can convert even the most discriminating customer.

And what of our Stinky Pepper Boy? After our successful venture, as I was walking out the door, my son ran across room, threw his arms around me and whispered “thank you.” And he has been packing peppers for lunch ever since.

Have you heard? This year marks our five year anniversary of doing business on the Porch! And in honor of this milestone, we are keeping the “Five Train” rolling! So hop on board, we’re sharing five things we LOVE to do each and every day! 

So how DO we love to spend our time?

1. Branding – And more branding. It’s the cornerstone for every bit of marketing we do, branding is everything. We love taking clients through our thoughtful brand architecture development process, just as we did recently for Spa in the City. Getting clients started off on the right foot, with the right message, is a great passion of ours!
2. Marketing Plans – After the branding process has been completed, development of a creative and thorough marketing plan follows. Front Porch Marketing’s most recent plan development for The Younity Group was a completely rewarding exercise.
3. Email Marketing – Helping our clients reach their customer base with content-rich, targeted email marketing is critical to their success. Our client partnership with PeopleResults has yielded a highly successful email marketing program. See their latest email blast.
4. Social Media – An integral part of any marketing plan, social media is where we truly rock. Maximizing our client’s presence across multiple social media channels is downright fun. Take a look at The GEM‘s Facebook page for proof of our social media love affair!
5. Mentoring Future Marketing Rock Stars – Such as Sarah Kreuger, our Kid Rocker. Sarah spent the summer as one of our interns, and we loved having her on board. Check out her absolutely brilliant blog, “The Presentation: Marketing to the College-Bound Generation” – this girl just gets it!

We LOVE branding. We LOVE marketing plans. We LOVE our clients. We LOVE our business. We LOVE rocking’ it! Thanks for taking the ride with us!

And last, but not least, we would love for you to join us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Over the last week, I sat down to write this blog at my desk, Starbucks, the library and various other locations, opened my computer and a fresh new Word document … only to hit a blank wall. A very blank wall. I could blame my lack of motivation and inspiration on my lack of sleep due to my toddler’s current sleep regression, or the added stresses now that summer is over, or my ever growing to-do list that just seems to keep getting longer, or a number of life’s other distractors. BUT, in all reality, it’s always something, isn’t it?

And I know I’m not the only one. 

With my deadline looming, I realized that my motivation wasn’t going to just come to me… I had to find it. And ironically, my lack of inspiration turned into my inspiration! Here are some of the ways I overcome creative blocks and tackle tasks that sometimes seem impossible to get done:

1. Focus – Set aside time, sit down and FOCUS. Turn your phone off (or if you need to be reached in case of emergency, turn it on vibrate and turn it upside down), turn off your email and step away from social media and the internet black hole! Hold yourself accountable for that one hour – or however long you need to get started – make the necessary progress, and finish the project.

2. Make the Extra Time – It’s not ideal to work outside of your regular work hours, and it’s important to unplug for personal and family time. But sometimes, you just have to invest the extra time to meet your deadline. Whether it’s waking up early, eating lunch at your desk, or sitting back down at your computer in the evening after you’ve had dinner and a chance to unwind. Personally, that’s one of my favorite times because my creative juices really flow with a glass of wine!

3. Change Your Environment – Working at Starbucks provides energy that can be contagious, but at times it can be too loud for me to concentrate. The library is a great place to go to find a nook and hunker down, but it can also be too quiet. Depending on your project, find a place that will fuel your inspiration.

4. Step Away – Even with a deadline looming, it’s important to step away (but NOT during your set aside time mentioned in #1). If you’re like me, sometimes you return to find that your work is even better that you thought! And, other times, you return to find it’s terrible. Either way, you’ll be in a better place.

5. Just Do It! – Procrastination is not a good habit, and I don’t recommend it. But, at times, it’s necessary and even beneficial. There’s something to the saying “Nothing makes a person more productive than waiting until the last minute.” If the last minute is all you have, just make it count!

There! I did it! Motivation found. Now, what’s next on my list?

As my senior year in high school approaches, the big question that virtually everyone continually asks me about my future can no longer be deferred. It’s time to face that big question – where do I want to go to college?

In trying to answer it, this summer I have focused on two things:

* What major/career do I want to pursue?

* Where is the best place to spend my college years?

I spent countless hours researching colleges and began taking college tour road trips while keeping up with my internship and summer jobs. Our mailbox is full of clever brochures, and every night the phone is ringing with some admissions telemarketer asking to speak to Sarah Krueger.

Interning at Front Porch Marketing has given me an interesting perspective – I am noticing how colleges are marketing to ME. By learning about marketing first-hand here on the Porch, I recognize why many college tours and visits seem so similar. There seems to be a shared formula for colleges trying to sell their school to potential freshman.

I find myself getting a little weary with the tours because they are all so similar:

• SAME questions posed to students on the tour
• SAME highlights and stories of surprisingly similar campus traditions, and
• SAME rehearsed answers from tour guides.

Speaking on behalf of my generation, we are a difficult bunch to market to because we have high expectations and we are looking for new and unique. We also can see through the bold, big and bright letters and slick pictures.

If I were giving these colleges presentation marketing advice, I think it would sound very similar to what we would tell our client partners:

Don’t Sound Rehearsed. Now, I’m not saying that you should wing your entire presentation, but don’t fall victim to make it sound exactly the same every time you give it. Mix it up. Hearing and presenting the same sales pitch not only bores your audience, but it bores you too, and it shows.

Make It More Personal. I want to hear more personal perspective from these college representatives. Find a way to personally connect with your audience. Find a happy medium between striking an emotional chord and being informative.

Don’t Oversell Yourself. If you’re trying too hard, it’s apparent. Don’t. Your product should be doing the talking. Focus on the key points of your product/presentation, and then let your audience explore the details.

Don’t Talk Down to Your Audience. Treat your audience with respect. Nobody wants to be spoon-fed information.

No matter what college I choose, I know that my time at Front Porch Marketing will serve me well in the next phase of my life. Rock on!

Sarah Krueger is a rising senior at Ursuline Academy. As our summer intern, she blogged, grew social media networks, assisted with research and worked on marketing projects.

Throughout this summer, I realized that I have had to use skills from of my entire high school curriculum – English, Math, History and Performance Art. Yes, I said that I have even used skills from my Performance Art classes in Marketing. Specifically, Improvisation.

While Marketing and Improvisation seem like two classes that would never intertwine; believe it or not, I have found the similarities between the two are very prominent in the business arena. Improvisational techniques used in marketing can change one’s skills for the better.

As a marketer, your job is to promote your client’s brand and help them succeed. Initially, you listen to the client’s vision for their company and create your plan for their business. The tricky part is deciding how and what will please both the client and their audience. With some improvisational skills, you can reach that happy medium and succeed as a marketer!

Here are two key lessons in improvisation that can be used in marketing:

1. Never Say No

The motto “Never Say No” applies especially to the building stages of a business plan (meetings, phone calls, emails, etc.). No idea should be shut down without ample thought. Every single idea should be written down and taken into consideration to create the draft of the plan.

How to do this in your office:

When given a project, have each of your partners draft a plan for the company. In a meeting, you can discuss each person’s plan and highlight the best features of each one. With discussion, you can use everyone’s ideas to draft something everyone approves of and enjoys.

2. Put Yourself into the Perspective of Others

Through the design of an ad or a website, the key is to attract the intended audience’s eye. Whether it be with an image, a video, or just text, the material must be catchy and relatable. This can be difficult if you are not interested in the product. To do so, one question must be asked: If I were the audience, would I be interested in this ad? You must make yourself think and see as the intended audience would.

How to do this in your office:

When reviewing an ad, website, app or flyer, consider if you’d click the link or take the flyer out of interest. Ask your partners to ask themselves the same question. If the answer is “yes,” then you are prepared for a submission. If not, make the changes.

I never thought that I would be able to incorporate these two simple mottos into my internship this summer, but I use and see them everyday. The Front Porch Marketing crew never says, “no,” to anyone’s ideas. In meetings that I have observed, they are always very open and listen closely to their clients’ needs/wants! They have had to put themselves into the customers’ and clients’ perspective and remain flexible throughout the process to help complete projects to the best of their ability! Witnessing their keen ear to their clients’ desires and adaptable nature and applying these skills to my own projects have been extremely beneficial as I consider the business world as a future career.

We. Are. So. Feeling. It.

Our five year business anniversary of making branding and marketing rock for our amazing clients has made us totally mad about the number five. FIVE. 5. Cinco.

And so, in keeping with our five obsession, we present Five Rockin’ Things We are Doing for Clients:

1. Development of the Todomodo Website: TodoModo is a consulting and investment firm. We were able to get in on the ground floor with them – we started with the branding process, defined their brand strategies and then translated it to this site. We loved working with them on this and are continuing to be the company’s marketing partner! We wrote and ran this release on the wire for them among other things.
2. Ellen Hoffman Designs at the Accessories Circuit: Ellen, the doyenne of Ellen Hoffman Designs, is a wildly talented jeweler that we are privileged to work with. We promoted her at the Accessories Circuit at the Javitz Center in New York.
3. The Gem Yelp Event: The GEM welcomed elite Yelpers to a mini “Day in the Life” event. Yelp promoted the program as an educational “how to” series.
4. Feizy Rugs Shows at High Point Market: At a champagne brunch at High Point Market, Feizy Rugs and the finalists in its Haute Trends^TM design competition revealed the initial designs for the collection. Each designer’s initial Haute Trends designs are featured on the Feizy website.
5. Vistage: For the past year and a half, our Chief Rocker has been a member of Vistage, which is a fantastic organization that brings together successful CEOs, executives and business owners and groups them into private peer advisory groups guided by expert executive coaches. These peer groups and coaching sessions help members solve their most pressing business opportunities.

We love our clients. We live for our clients. And there’s nothing more gratifying than helping clients rock their businesses!

Does your website have a personality? How evocative are the images? Is it current? The success of your website and brand rides on these three important questions. 

These days, when people are interested in a service or product, the first stop on their shopping trip is the web. Yet marketers, more often than not, fail to realize the influence their websites have on their overall success.

The goal of web content is to move buyers past the consideration stage and into the buying stage, where they are ready to invest, join, subscribe, etc.

The moment of truth is realized when visitors reach your site – will you draw them in or push them away?

Follow these three simple steps to jazz up your website and hook your visitors:

Establish a Personality

Is your company fun and spirited? Or is it serious and conservative? Whatever your company’s personality may be, your website should convey this clear picture of your organization through its web content. A website is more than just a page filled with words and pictures. It has the power to create a trusting relationship, like that of a familiar face of a friend.

Tell Your Story Through Images

We’ve all heard the infamous saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ Many consumers make choices with their eyes instead of their heads, so images are extremely important. The kind of image you use can mean the difference between success and failure, so choose wisely. Too many generic stock photos can send a fake and stiff vibe to web visitors, turning them away from your site. Real, original photography can help visitors develop an emotional and personal relationship with your organization.

Staying Current Is Key

Creating a website is the easy part, but keeping it relevant and up to date is where many struggle. A company’s web content is almost always the first impression they give their potential customers. I can’t count the number of times I’ve visited a website for one specific reason, and get so lost in all the clutter and useless information that I eventually forget what I was looking for in the first place. The Internet has significantly shortened people’s attention spans, so having an easily navigable website has become more crucial than ever before!

If its time to get your website rockin’ again, one of our rockers is here to help!

The power of Disney branding is amazing. 

A mom sent me a message Sunday night during our three year old’s Frozen party, “Just caught myself driving with a crown on my head.”

There was a princess party and moms got to wear crowns. Just sayin’.

Let’s review. Successful brands have three key attributes: conviction, consistency and connection.

Disney does Disney branding so right.

The company forges a strong, emotional bond with its customers that ultimately creates customer preference and loyalty.

Four things to consider when building a strong brand that Disney does right:

1. Customer connection – Upon entering the gate of a property, you hear, “Welcome home.” Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore. What are you doing today to engage your customers or clients?
2. Employee engagement – I’m sorry, the “cast.” The company’s internal team is living and breathing the brand architecture. What are you doing today to feed your team so they deliver on your brand mission?
3. Technology – From the app and “Magic Bands” to drink refills, the company is embracing technology and rockin’ it. How are you embracing technology to further your team’s and your customer engagement? Apps help.
4. Research – Data, data and more data. Fill out the survey. It is about the experience. It is about the people. It is about asking if at every customer touch point you are experiencing the brand. Are you asking for customer/client feedback on a consistent basis?

Disney is being accountable for delivering on its brand promise.

Everything Disney is magical. Your brand can live that too if you believe in brand strategy and engage in brand and marketing strategies so your brand can deliver on its promise.

Our oldest son plays baseball in the North Arlington Little League. Last year, his team, the Pirates, had an undefeated season and won the championship game. Of course, we celebrated the win.

Players moved up and on, but we returned for another season. It started out smoothly enough – the games were competitive, but the team was winning. Then we had a tied game. Then we lost.

No big deal, right?

Wrong.

We celebrated the wins, we worked for the wins, we appreciated the wins. However, we neglected to prepare for the possibility of a loss. For two years, the team was coached and played to win. We should have also been coached and prepared to lose.

There is value in the lessons we learn from losing and sports give us a good arena to teach these lessons to our children.

These are valuable lessons that can be applied in parenting, business and life:

• Respect.
  For every winner, there is a loser. You have to respect both. Period. Respect your team, respect the other team. Act accordingly.
• Resiliency.
  It’s ok to be disappointed or upset after a loss. But the quicker you put a loss behind you, the closer you are to the next win. Fast recovery serves anyone at any age well. Vince Lombardi said, “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” Recover and move forward.
• Review.
  If you review the why in your losses and strengthen your weaknesses, new opportunities will arise. In sports no game has ever been lost the same way.
• Humility.
  Losing challenges us and keeps us humble. It teaches us there are others who are better. The emphasis should be motivated to be better.

Preparing for winning and losing is critical. It is far better to lose and learn than to always win and not learn how to lose. If winning and losing were not important, we would not keep score.

If you are a business owner, an employee, a student or a teammate, what do you have to lose?

An account, a promotion, an employee, a score, a game? The answer is yes, all of these and more. But the bigger question is – what are you learning and how are you improving?

So what about the 2016 Pirates? Well, they are heading to the championship game. They earned their spot with three consecutive wins in a double elimination playoff. Regardless of the outcome, valuable lessons will be learned. Go Pirates!