Posts Tagged ‘Coles’

Here at Coles Marketing Communications, our clients are all great! We consider ourselves partners in their business and want to be involved in every aspect to help them achieve their goals.

After meeting with a couple potential clients this week, an artcile posted on the Council of Public Relations Firms’ blog on how to be a great client seemed appropriate. Ron Culp, the author, includes the following five tips from Jon Harris, SVP of Global Communications at Sara Lee:  

1. Direction is key. The best clients are the ones who are able to effectively communicate their goals and objectives.

2. Don’t wait until it is too late. The sooner you bring in your partners into the process, the better they can shine.

3. Be realistic about measurement and timing. Every strong relationship is built on candor and honesty.  Make sure that you provide your partner with enough information about expectations and measurement.  And be sure to listen to their counsel.

4. Listen to the advice given. Wayne Callaway, former CEO of PepsiCo had a great line that I have used often in my career.  “God gave you two ears and one mouth and they should be used in that proportion.”

5. Know your strengths and opportunities of improvement. Make sure to listen to the advice given.

Click here to read the entire article.

I was aghast to learn your Hotmail account can actually sabotage your job hunt or career connections!

Over dinner with some tech execs, DailyWorth’s CEO Amanda Steinberg got the word: “If an applicant applies for a job with us and is still using Hotmail or Yahoo for email, they’re immediately eliminated,” one successful CEO said.

So an uncool email domain can kill your job prospects or career opportunities. DailyWorth’s reader responses to Amanda’s Facebook post ranged from, “Never heard that before!” to an office manager who said she doles out “unofficial demerits” to AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail users.

Bottom line: Employers and business executives are looking for any reason to cull through reams of job applications, says career coach Cynthia Shapiro, author of What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here.

A Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL email address could signal that you’re not exactly tech-savvy — or not comfortable with change. Gmail (or a personal domain) is considered leading edge.

Maybe you need a digital image upgrade. Gee, mail.

Whether you’re in marketing, public relations or communications, you have probably heard about mobile. There are lots of different areas when it comes to going mobile, including SMS, web browsing, email, location services and more!

George Bilbrey’s company is in the email business and is focused on the impact mobile has on email marketing and deliverability. They even released the results of a study they did on mobile email habits (“Email on the Move: The Future of Mobile Messaging“), and there were several takeaways and actionable items for mobile and email marketers. 

Here are a few things that jumped out, according to Bilbrey’s article:

• You may need a strategy for tablets. The study revealed a 15% growth in email viewership on an iPad in just six months.  iPads (and, presumably other tablets) are rapidly growing in usage. It’s time to pay attention and experiment with the best practices and tactics to reach your market in this environment. If your subscriber base is in line with this trend, how are you going to adjust and react?
• Mobile readership goes up over the weekend. Relevance is about so much more than just content. The time of day, day of the week or hour in the day you send something can greatly impact users’ behavior and their relationship with your email. With the increase in mobile email readership, people are constantly accessing and reading email. We learned that mobile readership goes way up over the weekend. This is something to keep in mind when planning your email marketing campaigns and when designing your email for rendering optimization. The same email address is more and more likely to have multiple viewing environments.
• Image is everything. The key to your Sender Score reputation is relevance. And I can think of no quicker way to become irrelevant than by sending email that your audience can’t read. Even the smartest of smartphones can be dumb about how it handles images and layout, so test the various configurations and optimize for the devices most often used by your audience. Of course, even in cases where images are enabled by default, travel and dead zones can mean that your email won’t be image-enabled. If your subscribers can’t read the email, they aren’t getting the message. Be mindful of sending email that is so image-heavy that it is useless if images are turned off.
• Ignoring mobile may have real consequences.  If your subscribers are mobile-savvy, and your email isn’t optimized for these environments, you run more than just the risk of missing out on communication. By not reaching customers the way they prefer, your emails will go unread, marked as spam and your messages will be ignored – all greatly impacting your reputation and deliverability. Take a careful look at your subscribers and see how many of them are viewing your email on a mobile device. If your base’s usage is consistent with our reported trends, consider making some changes to incorporate this mobile segment now, to protect both your engagement and your deliverability.
• What about complaints? Most “native” mobile email clients don’t have a “report spam” button.  If you’re seeing an improving complaint rate, is that because more subscribers are reading in mobile clients — or is that because you’ve improved your relevancy?

What changes are you considering to your email program to take advantage of mobile technology? What risks do you see emerging as smartphones and tablets continue to proliferate?

Are you tired? Not because you didn’t get enough sleep last night. Not because you are stressed in the workplace. But are you tired – of tired words?

“A Rant: Ten Tired Words and Phrases That We Can Live Without,” by Gene Marbach, notes some particularly tired, clichéd and overly-used words and phrases, used particularly by practitioners in the communications business. 

“In our business, the hip can become mundane fairly quickly; however, some expressions just refuse to go away. Let’s make the world a better place at least from a language standpoint,” Marbach says.

Some to stamp out: 

1. “At the end of the day” – We all go to bed, as should this phrase.
2. “It is what it is” – What else could it be? Gone!
3. “Thought leadership” – A particular favorite among PR firms currently. Just count how many times this one gets used (or abused) during your next meeting.
4. “Going forward” – Going nowhere.
5. “Synergy” – Thought this one died with the ill-fated merger of AOL and Time Warner. Apparently not. It appears to be staging a minor comeback.
6. “On my plate” – I usually have too much food when I’m at a buffet and not at work.
7. “Bandwidth” – Still hear this chestnut, which I suspect came into vogue during the telecommunications boom. What’s wrong with “I’m busy. Go away!”
8. “Space” – Play in the space. Sit in the space. Dominate the space. This one should be “lost in space” permanently.
9. “Crave-able” – A particular favorite among food companies.  Is this really a word?
10. “Win-win” – Let’s lose this one, shall we?

What are your contributions? But make sure to add to the list because actions speak louder than words. Well, don’t get all bent out of shape about it! Let’s blaze a new trail of fresh, new phrases; they won’t be able to hold a candle to the cliches. (I could go on, but I won’t.)

A very special story comes from Beth Greeson, a parent whose son Mitchell recently went through the Brain Balance Program in Indianapolis, a client of Coles Marketing Communications. The Brain Balance Program is a non-medical program that has been successful in helping hundreds of children who suffer from ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, Tourette’s, Asperger’s and Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Brain Balance is a comprehensive, individualized program that integrates physical and cognitive exercises with dietary change.

Beth speaks from the heart about Mitchell’s diagnosis, behavior and what brought her to Brain Balance. She also describes what changes she has seen in her son since going through the program and what that means to her.

For more information on Brain Balance, please visit http://www.brainbalanceindy.com/ or call 317-843-9200.

One of Indianapolis’ most experienced CPA and accounting firms has tapped Indianapolis-based Coles Marketing Communications to create and lead its communications, marketing, creative and online business development strategies.

Sponsel CPA Group, launched in September 2009 by managing partner Tom Sponsel, consists of experienced business advisors, financial planners, CPAs, forensic accountants, bookkeepers, HR professionals and IT experts. The firm manages entrepreneurial services; tax services; auditing and assurance services; valuation and litigation services; employee benefit plan services; mergers and acquisitions; financial planning; and technology services.

The firm recently moved offices to 251 N. Illinois St. in downtown Indianapolis. Sponsel CPA Group’s four partners and 16 employees now occupy about 10,000 square feet of new office space in the Capital Center’s North Tower.

“Tom Sponsel has a proven track record of success in providing unmatched, quality CPA services and leading successful and progressive CPA firms,” said Barbara L. Coles, APR, president of Coles Marketing Communications. “Our agency knows the accounting industry well and looks forward to working with Tom and his team to build awareness of his firm and share Tom’s wealth of industry knowledge, commentary and best practices.”

For more about Sponsel CPA Group, visit www.sponselcpagroup.com.

Do you even know how to answer this question? An article from the Council of Public Relations Firms discusses how to become a leader — and in order to do so, you have to experience discomfort. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’m a fan of discomfort. It’s about “putting yourself out there” and learning to get out of your comfort zone to experience that beyond the unknown and familiar.

According to the article, there are two types of leaders: survivors and succeeders. Survivors are reluctant to undergo any kind of discomfort. They tend to foster the status quo in organizations. Unlike mere survivors, succeeders constantly push themselves and their organizations to enter uncomfortable places, to go above and beyond, to pioneer, innovate, adapt and build. Being a succeeder is a more difficult and lonely path, but it offers great rewards.

So are you ready to undergo some… discomfort?? Here’s how:

1. Make A Daily Practice of Breaking with Familiarity. For instance, if you normally eat with your right hand, spend a week eating with your left hand. Will Burns, CEO of the ideation firm Ideacicle, periodically rearranges the furniture in his house. As Burns explains, “It makes the room feel totally fresh and new again, even if it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable. These kinds of things constantly keep me on my toes during the day, which makes it easier for me to put myself out there at work.”

2. Pay Close Attention to How You Feel. Sometimes we fall into patterns of routine and excessive comfort without even realizing it. So ask yourself, do you really feel charged up and alive? Are you too comfortable in your job? Do you feel like you always pretty much have things “under control”?

3. Take On New Personal and Professional Challenges. Think about areas in which you’re weak, and then take on fun challenges that lean into those weaknesses. On the professional side, if you were a firm with a successful business, would you blow up the model and take a short term hit for the possibility that a new model would lead to even greater rewards?

4. Try Things You’ve Never Done Before. One art world executive interviewed makes a practice of trying one new thing—tennis, ballroom dancing, public speaking, etc.—every month.

5. Develop A Support Network of Other People Who Are Also Succeeders. Putting yourself out there is tough, so it can help to surround yourself with others who are in the same position.

Dig in, and get uncomfortable!

I’m sure we’ve all seen and heard about the left brain vs. right brain battle: Which side of your brain is the most dominant? We’ve probably also heard all the reasoning behind the results: This affects your personality. This is reflective of your gender. This is what you can work on to strengthen your “weaker” brain side traits.

I just saw another mention about the brain side match-up and went perusing the Internet for some “brain quizzes” to tell me — or perhaps remind me — of which brain side I use most. And what was the result? Inconclusive. One quiz said I was right-brain dominant, the other said left, and a third said I was fairly equal to both. Hmmmmm.  

Which brain side do you prefer? It depends — apparently on which quiz you take. Check out some of these and see what you think!

• Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
• Hemispheric Dominance Inventory Test
• Are You Right or Left Brained?

Supposedly understanding where the different brain functions reside inside your head, and which side of your brain is dominant, can help you better access your creativity and inventiveness. On the left side, I am definitely more detail-oriented, favor words over pictures and am very organized. On the right side, I am more emotional than logical, imaginative and prefer music to math.

The first question I saw asked me, “When you walk into a theater, classroom, or auditorium (and assuming that there are no other influential factors), which side do you prefer?” If I had to think about that answer for awhile and still didn’t really know — what does that mean? (I wonder if my brain sides are duking it out!)

Since its inception, Facebook has been subject to a host of changes — different layouts, formats, policies and so on. One of the more recent and widely-noticed changes has been the phasing out of the Facebook Fan Page in favor of the “Like” button. But are you giving the “Like” a thumbs up?

The change was part of a broader plan to spread the “Like” button across the web and lower the barrier for users to become connected with brands and organizations. According to Facebook, users click “Like” almost twice as much as they click “Become a Fan” — so,  if Facebook changes “Become a Fan” to “Like,” more users will click on it. Right?

However, in a poll by Mashable, 29.6% preferred the “Like” button — while 57.3% preferred to “Become a Fan.” The rest were indifferent. (Come on people — Choose a side!) Then, there are the articles that talk about how “fan” is a whole other level of “like,” dictating the Wikipedia definition of the word “fan.” And believe it or not, there is actually a Facebook page titled “‘Like’ vs. ‘Become a fan,’” and you can choose to “Like” it or not. (By the way, there’s only 20 people who do!)

Jay Krall’s article on the Cision blog notes that “when you ‘like’ an article, it gets published to the news feeds of your friends on Facebook. This little feature has the potential to drive new traffic to your content. If you publish press releases or blog posts online, then you should consider using it.”

Is the “Like” button more lightweight, like Facebook says? Do you “Like” the “Like” button? Well, it really doesn’t matter if you actually “Like” it — so far, there is no “Dislike” button.

Bright House Networks today announced in partnership with TNT and PGA.com, it is featuring coverage of the 92nd PGA Championship live in 3D on Thursday and Friday. The company is offering its digital HD customers exclusive 3D coverage of the PGA Championship, shown live from Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., at no additional cost.

The 3D coverage will focus on Whistling Straits’ Nos. 12 and 17 – both par 3s – from 3-7 p.m. EST each day. Host Vince Cellini, who will be joined by 2002 PGA Championship winner Rich Beem, will provide commentary and analysis on the famous par 3 holes. He will also provide analysis throughout the weekend during PGA.com’s extensive 2D online offerings. The 3D feed will be available to Bright House Networks digital HD customers on channel No. 1000.

The 3D production will utilize eight cameras produced specifically for 3D that will provide a unique look at course action and give fans a dynamic visual experience to watch the world’s best golfers play the course’s challenging par 3’s. Bright House Networks digital HD customers who wish to access the PGA Championship in 3D will need a 3D TV and the TV manufacturer’s specified 3D glasses.