We recently developed a mixed media campaign for Memorial Physician Services (MPS), an affiliate of Springfield, IL-based Memorial Health System. The beautifully-shot 30 second spot conveys a clear message: that MPS doctors are more than just doctors; they’re personal guides to great health.

Several different scripts were presented to Memorial Health System. Their marketing department, physicians, and staff chose the script you see in the video. It was a complex shoot, but efficiency allowed us to both shoot and edit into a final polished spot within one week. At Demi & Cooper, we take pride in using technology to our advantage. It used to be producing a spot that looked half has good took twice as long. No longer!

Wondering what Demi & Cooper can do for you? Drop us a line!

As marketing continues to evolve from one platform to another it’s no surprise that companies’ budgets are also changing.  An online marketing presence is crucial these days, but with the giant increase in smartphones and mobile web browsing the importance of mobile marketing has even greater significance.

70% of marketers are planning to increase their mobile budgets for 2013, for mobile websites, search, advertisements, or apps.  This year’s mobile ad spending is estimated to be around 2.6 billion dollars.  According to Scott Forshay, mobile and emerging technology strategist, “Of that $2.6 billion spent, $2.5 [billion] of that was probably wasted.”

Scott is not implying that mobile marketing is a waste of money, but rather that there are smarter ways to allocate the funds.  Mobile marketing faces the challenge of an on-the-go audience that’s is looking for timely and contextually relevant information.

Although an increased budget is a good way to increase mobile presence, doing research and getting active can be a great way to increase your mobile marketing results.

Before your mobile budget gets increased here are a few simple tips to make your mobile marketing more effective and establish your mobile marketing needs!

1. Know your audience and where they are coming from. Is your audience search driven or are they coming from referral sites and page shares?
2. Why are people coming to your mobile site? Users ultimately have a goal or objective with every page they visit, whether it’s to research, purchase a product, chat about topics with fellow users, or fix a problem, there is a motive.  The more your mobile site can cater to the audience’s need, the more effective it will be.
3. Should your mobile site differ from your desktop version? Some websites offer the same site, scrunched to a 4” screen to serve the user’s purpose.  But knowing the user may be on-the-go and looking for a quick fix, does this change the information or features your site should have?
4. Is your mobile app necessary? Mobile budgets can go through the roof when app development and upkeep is involved.  Can the overall goal of your app be fulfilled in a mobile site?  Or on the other hand, is your site not offering enough and would an app be beneficial to your audience and brand?

Are you in need of a mobile site? We’re ready to build yours! Check out some of our past work here.

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal for most companies when running a social media contest is to increase their number of “likes” and “followers.” When contests first start out they tend to be successful, but they also are likely to attract a specific group of users. I like to call them the “one-and-doners”. These users are seen to be the individuals who are very likely to participate in one contest, but are then less likely to get involved in the page ever again. “One-and-doners”
 are participating in these contests mainly because they are concerned with the prize, not because they are interested in the business.

Contests can be highly efficient and effective if they are done correctly and used for the right reasons. Here are a few tips you should consider when starting up your own social media contest:

1. Set a Goal

When a company decides to have a social media contest most marketers would agree that what they want most out of the contest would be more followers. What those marketers do not realize is that there are different and better approaches to this.

Yes, it is nice knowing that by the end of  your contest the number of followers on the company’s various social sites has significantly improved, but in most cases it should not be the ultimate goal of a social media contest. If it were to be your end goal then that is where you see several of your “one-and-doners” coming into action…and that’s usually the last thing a company wants.

Goals typically differ between companies. The goal could simply be to increase traffic to the company website. Other goals could include expanding or revealing a new customer base, initiate leads, or create buzz. What it comes down to though is making sure that the main point of the contest is to determine what you want to achieve and making sure you take in account the direct impact the contest had on the goal.

Basically, it comes down to having a clearly defined goal and being able to successfully accomplish it.

2. Define Your Target Audience

Most marketers believe that your goal is the most important part when creating a contest, but defining your target audience is equally important. Taking a step back and realizing who it is that the company wants to directly connect with is crucial and will potentially produce a greater outcome in the end. Businesses tend to market to a wide variety of people in hope that they will be able to reel in as many people as possible. This is not the smartest idea. Narrowing down your target audience can eliminate all the “one-and-doners” along with those individuals who just don’t really care at all.

In the long run, in regards to the contest, affiliating your target audience with your end goal will provide your business with the best results.

3. Pick the Perfect Prize

The first thing most businesses think of when determining what they want to provide the winner with is usually the latest technological gadget. This type of prize is considered to be a third-party prize, which are the most common, but are also the most commonly misused.

Businesses that use their own products for prizes can be equally appealing as a third-party prize. A benefit of this kind of prize would be the possibility of creating brand advocates. Not only are you supplying the prize to a someone just because they won, but you are also hoping that by doing this you are gaining a new loyal customer. Letting the user know you want them to return again is the biggest take away from providing a prize.

The last type of prize businesses look into using are called intangible prizes. Although these type of prizes include using creativity they tend to have a fantastic outcome! The contests typically ask the customer for their ideas. For example, a group might be looking for a new name for one of their products and they turn to their users for their personal thoughts. The intangible prize would be getting the product named after that specific individual. This prize does not cost a penny and usually causes the contest to be a big success!

Meet Michael Dubin, real-life CEO of recently-funded Dollar Shave Club. The premise: for as little as a dollar per month, get your razors shipped to your home. Great idea, right? That alone would likely have been enough to secure funding. But just to be safe, DSC threw in this startup launch video, which is just about the greatest thing ever.

The lesson? Have fun with your product, and if there’s room to ease up and maybe not take it so seriously, then by all means do it.

Clockwise from Top Left: Walter, Josh, Luke, Mark

One month ago, Sherman Health announced a new Facebook contest: mustache-growing for men’s health awareness. Deanne wrote about the contest last week, and you can get contest details here, but for this post, I wanted to toot the horns of some mustache submitters who, because of their affiliation with Sherman, are not eligible to win prizes. All mustache scores below are out of a possible 10.

1. Walter

The Man: Walter is Web Art Director and the man we rely on at Demi & Cooper for all things technology. As far as we know, Walter controls the Internet. If you told someone besides Walter to go reset the modem, we’d stare at you with a blank face until you went elsewhere. We literally need Walter to function.

The Mustache: Luckily, Walter does not need his mustache to function. It’s nearly indistinguishable from his skin, which is not ideal. His lips are pursed in the photo above, implying he’s chewing something, he’s super creepy, or both. The hand on the chin tells us he’s thinking about something, most likely prunes.

Also, the name he gave the photo (“You stay classy, Chicago”) reveals a close affiliation to the movie Anchorman, a film whose protagonist was #1 on our Top 5 Movie Mustaches list.

Creepy Score: 7.5

2. Josh

The Man:Josh is Sherman’s Marketing Communications Manager, and a man with a quick wit and an open mind for any idea. His unmustachioed personality is one of the best we could hope to work with.

The Mustache: The smirk is unsettling, as is the black background. This photo may have been taken in an underground lair. Extra credit goes to Josh for going for a creepy look and nailing it (he titled it “Not at all creepy”, which just made my sarcasm detector explode).

Creepy Score: 9.99

3. Luke

The Man: Luke is me, and thus I will stop talking in the third person. I write things at Demi & Cooper, and I am newly married to a beautiful woman who is fully supportive outside of all things mustache.

The Mustache: It’s in black and white not for stylistic purposes, but because of necessity: my mustache in living color is one of the most horrifying things you will ever witness.

I said earlier Walter’s mustache is almost skin-colored, but that’s nothing compared to this. To properly explain, I recently described the mustache to a group of people who were wondering what it looked like as “fleshy”. Eww.

I titled my submission “1950s blog author”, which is funny because blogs did not exist back then, you see. And just like that, I ruined the joke.

Creepy Score: 4 in black and white, 12.5 in color

4. Mark

The Man: Mark is also recently married, to Michelle, Marketing Specialist at Sherman. He is ineligible to win because of his wife’s ties to the contest. Dealbreaker? Dealbreaker.

The Mustache: I cannot stress enough how much more awesome Mark’s mustache is than the previous three.

We’re all friends here, so I’ll shoot straight. I’ve creeped on some of Mark’s Facebook photos. In my defense, whatever, man. Creeping happens. I had no idea that beneath his seemingly clean-cut exterior lay the perfect Hulkamania trucker mustache.

Awesome Score: 10

Want to vote in the Sherman Health Movember Mustache Contest? All you need is a Facebook profile. Click here to get started, and remember not to vote for Walter, Josh, Luke, or Mark.

I’m a sucker for contests. I absolutely love them and I enter them all the time. Contests are not only a great way to win something cool or gain some extra cash…they are a great way for the company who is running it to advertise themselves or their product. Lets be honest, we all remember the Doritos contest winner from last year’s Super Bowl. Why? Because Doritos did some serious marketing to promote their contest last year, therefore leading to crazy amounts of brand awareness for them all over the internet. I mean, if you see something you like or you have a friend who submitted a commercial and you want to help them get votes, where are you going to post a link? More than likely you will post it on Facebook or tweet it to get exposure from the widest audience all at one time without having to know everyone’s email address.

Some friends of mine recently entered a submission in this year’s Doritos Crash The Superbowl Contest. Within days of posting their video, it is one of the most viewed commercial submissions on the whole site. This proves two things. One is that the use of social media can spread the word rather quickly and two is that Doritos just got oodles of exposure without spending money on media placement. Think about that. Someone just created a commercial for them for free and even if it’s not picked, about 1,400 people have seen it without them even having to do anything. That is excellent marketing! Of course, they are offering the winner 1 million dollars and the chance to work with The Lonely Island, but your prizes don’t have to be so extravagant to get people to participate. Let’s be honest, we all like free stuff.

Our client, Sherman Health, is currently running a contest for Movember. If you don’t know what Movember is, it’s a month long event where men grow mustaches. For Sherman, the mustaches symbolize men’s health and through their Movember Contest, one lucky guy sporting a sweet ’stache will be taking home some Blackhawks tickets. If you haven’t heard about the Movember contest, take a look at the Sherman Health Blog and see what other fabulous prizes we are giving away! Don’t forget to start growing out that mustache .

Your sad devotion to that ancient Jedi religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, but now it may give you the clairvoyance to update your Facebook status. Or perhaps you’d like to boot up the old the W.O.P.R. or tap it out on your brand new iPhone 5.

Well now you can! With Status Via (inspired by a redit post) you can choose your method of Facebook status delivery.

But come on, really folks — let’s back up a minute. It’s cute. But how can we really use this to our advantage? Well, why are there those little tags declaring that that post was delivered from your Droid anyway? Advertising, of course. This is could be a clever little opportunity for marketers to allow customers to post status updates directly from their organizations or products.

Status updates from a product you sell or manufacture? How about from patients at your hospital? How can you do this? You’d have to use Facebook’s Status Message API to label updates with whatever source you want. Go forth and have some fun with your next marketing campaign. And may the force be with you.

Example:

Microsites have been around for some time, but I still encounter quite a few people who either don’t know what they are — or how they can be a powerful addition to an advertising and marketing campaign.

This microsite was developed as part of our “Memorial ER Stories” campaign. The campaign was designed to extend the lifespan of the core message that Memorial’s ER was the number one choice of Springfield, IL residents.

For the uninitiated, microsites are exactly what they sound like: small websites that exist at a separate domain from your corporate website. They’re similar to landing pages in that they help with tracking and analytics, you can choose clever domain names and fun graphics — but there’s more.

Let’s take a look at the seven most important principles of microsites.

1. Each microsite should have a single purpose
Microsites tackle a specific segment of your overall market, a specific message, a particular important event, product or service, advertising campaign or geographic location. Basically they can help deliver a set of information quickly and more compellingly than your larger corporate website. The best microsites have a simple and engaging design, a highly focused message and no more than about a dozen pages (here’s a great example of a very small microsite.  So small it’s called a landing page). They’re an important spoke in the wheel of your overall herding (what’s herding?) campaign — which may involve print, social media, radio, TV, PR and online banner advertising.

2. A microsite should improve confidence
When you’re wading though search results and information online the water tends to get a little muddy. Sending people directly to your website doesn’t usually help either. Microsite visitors aren’t distracted with complex navigation choices and information that’s not directly relevant to why they’re there in the first place. By delivering only the most pertinent information — in an easily viewable way — you can promote confidence in your potential clients or customers — leading to higher conversion rates.

3. Microsites should be small but meaty
One of the biggest mistakes some marketers make can make with a microsite is making it too light and fluffy. Microsites should be meaty — but lean. In most circumstances there should never be any teasers. Without enough information to satisfy a visitor they’re likely to leave.

4. Microsites should provide instant gratification
Build it for speed. After all, you’re creating a microsite so that viewers don’t get bogged down in the wealth of content on your full site. Give the viewer what they came there for, only what they came there for — and do it fast — but never in a Flash.

5. Microsites should allow users to find information on their own
Don’t be so controlling. Unless you have a very specific story or message to tell, “guided flow” site architecture can seem a little suffocating. Provide clear navigation choices to allow a user to explore on their own terms and at their own pace. This type of navigation has a secondary benefit. Studies have shown that users who discover things on their own through information foraging can develop an information scent trail. When users feel that they have found information on their own they take ownership of it, building an affinity with your brand and less like you’ve sold them something.

6. Microsite navigation should be intuitive
If there’s one tenet of a microsite it’s simplify. Offer a few simple, quick choices on the landing page, followed up with highly targeted information. Breaking your information into several subtopics makes it easier for people to consume what they need. Each navigation link should allow the viewer to explore and learn more — without forcing them to dig for the information they really want. A big, long, scrolling page of content isn’t useful.

7. Microsites should be economical and agile
Creating a microsite shouldn’t be an ordeal. Designing one should be only a little more work than a simple landing page. Because they’re part of your marketing message and not directly tied into your corporate website they can be deployed quickly, hopefully without committee after committee tangling it up in red tape. You can even create two microsites with  A/B versions so you can conduct multivariate testing to experiment with different content, presentation and conversion offers.

If there’s an 8th principle, it’s that microsites shouldn’t be reserved for special occasions. Much like that champagne in your refrigerator, what are you saving it for? Microsites can be created for just about any purpose, quickly and easily. If they’re created on an open platform they can be changed easily and updated at little cost.

If you woke up this morning and thought to yourself, “Boy, I sure do miss working with Venn diagrams,” have I got a blog post for you! But in all seriousness, if you have any interest at all in how your company is perceived in the Email, Mobile, and Social Media marketing trifecta, you’ll find this Venn immensely worthwhile.

It comes from flowtown dot com, and I recommend you click that link if you’d like to see an enlarged version of the graphic below. Having a voice in Email, Mobile, and Social Media is absolutely essential to healthy growth, and this fact won’t be changing anytime soon.

So where do you fall?

These days, we are all looking for new and interesting ways to save some money. Printing promotional materials can get expensive, but it is a necessary cost for furthering your business.

How then can you get around this cost? Well, you shouldn’t cut back on your promotional spending, but there are some things you CAN do.

Let’s take a look at the different aspects of self promotion. You’ve got your online media, your printed media, your billboards, etc. Some of your budget might be spent on internal promotions, but a majority is spent on external promotions to people who are not members of your “community”. The most important part of your budget is what you decide to spend on external promotions, because you need to make sure that your company’s name is getting out there and that people are aware of who you are and what you do.

We have seen too many clients cut back on this type of spending and, eventually, go under because of it. They have tried to take on all of their buying, planning, creating themselves only to become overwhelmed and inevitably, get nowhere. Cutting back on their promotional budget only forced them out of the public eye – and as they say: out of sight, out of mind. They might be saving themselves some extra dough, but they are not giving their promotions the kind of love and attention they need. For this reason, the area of spending that should be cut back on is the internal promotions, not the external promotions.

That being said, you should not cut out these fun things altogether. Maybe you use some of your budget to pay for posters for employee parties or workshops you’re holding. Or, you might use this budget to print invitations for events and to make t-shirts or polo shirts for your employees. How can you do all of this without allocating a large portion of your advertising budget to internal promotions? Well, that’s where the Yudu Machine comes in.

For under $300, you can get a machine that will help you print all of these types of media in just a few easy steps. Of course, you will have to be a bit more “hands on” with this approach, but the savings might be worth it. To use the Yudu Machine, you just need a few key elements.

• A Yudu Bundle – This bundle comes with most everything you would need to begin.
• Blank Transparencies – Make sure to buy the kind that can be put through an ink jet printer.
• An Ink Jet Printer – Or, if you would rather design/draw your posters by hand, you’ll need a Sharpie.

All of these elements make it easy to print your own posters, shirts, cards, etc. I will let you do your own research about the details of screen printing, but just so we better understand each other, here is a four-step intro for how the process works.

1. Draw/print your design onto a blank transparency.
2. Apply an emulsion sheet onto your screen.
3. Burn your design onto the emulsion by exposing it to light.
4. Clean the screen and you are ready to print!

It does take a bit of practice to get into the hang of things, but once you get it down, it’ll be much smoother. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “$14 for 2 emulsion sheets?!” I will admit, I thought that as well. There are, however, plenty of ways to save yourself even more cash and be even more thrifty by buying off-brand liquid emulsion, paints, and emulsion remover. You can get large quantities of these items for a fraction of the cost. It is, however, a bit more messy to use….so be prepared!

Moral of the story: if you own or work in a small business setting, there are plenty of ways to cut back without cutting back the most important parts of your budget. Keep in mind that it’s always more important to put business before pleasure, meaning that you should always put your external promotions budget before your internal one. But most of all, remember to have fun!

For a more in-depth view on the screen printing process, you can check out my blog here. Happy screening!