According to the Chief Marketer online newsletter posted this week, Procter & Gamble is cutting its marketing spending by $1 billion in five years. That’s $200 million per year! How will this really play out? According to P&G’s 2014 annual report, net sales are $83 billion with net earnings of $11.6 billion. Cutting $200 million is less than ¼ of 1%. The …
Big-Box vs. Boutique:
Apples to Apples to Apple Pie
Apples to Apples to Apple Pie
Who’s the Best Partner for Your Marketing Campaign? When your company needs marketing materials and promotional products, where do you turn? If you’re like many business owners, you’ll first consult an online or big-box retailer (such as Staples or 4imprint) because of your familiarity with their brand. There is an assumption that these large retailers have a wealth of product …
FROM LAST STRAW TO 1ST STRAW:
THE CONCEPTION OF MY COMPANY
“How did you come up with your company’s name?” This is a question I’ve been asked frequently over the years. Well, it’s actually a pretty interesting – and meaningful – story. My work history includes many years employed by several Fortune 500 companies, leaving when the coast-to-coast traveling became too much, and then settling into the local business community. I …
4 Local SEO Truths That Are
Now More Fiction Than Fact
So, it’s 2015 and your Local SEO campaign is underway. Your site is link-heavy, keyword-optimized and near the top of the SERP. Why is it no longer generating the same number of new leads and customers? The answer is that some of last year’s tried-and-true techniques (along with familiar Google algorithms) no longer apply in 2015. Here are 4 “fictions” …
South Jersey Spotlight:
Lynn Pechinski, 1st Straw Marketing and Promotions
I was recently honored with the opportunity to participate in a “South Jersey Spotlight” blog post for By All Writes LLC, a copywriting and research company based in Southern New Jersey. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about the evolution of my company as well as my personal and professional stories, feel free to check it out at …
Tis the Season for Looking Back and Planning Ahead:
Creating Your Essential End-of-Year Marketing Checklist
We are fast approaching the end of 2014, and while we write our company holiday cards and order those last-minute client gifts, we should also be developing our marketing plan for 2015 (if we haven’t done so already). To make this a successful year, we need to review our “Ghosts of the Marketing Year Past” so our business can continue …
1ST STRAW MARKETING SUPPORTS
OPERATION YELLOW RIBBON
of SOUTH JERSEY
BAKING COOKIES
1ST STRAW MARKETING IS SUPPORTINGOPERATION YELLOW RIBBON of SOUTH JERSEY.HOLIDAY COOKIE/BAKED GOODS DRIVE TO BOOST MORALE OFTROOPS IN MIDDLE EAST FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON Holiday Cookie/Treats Drive for the Troops! 1st Straw Marketing is baking cookies and collecting your baked cookies. Operation Yellow Ribbon of South Jersey (OYRSJ) is proud to announce it will be hosting a holiday cookie collection …
How Outsourcing Your Marketing
Team Can Save You Time,
Money and Risk
Businesses of all sizes need not just a marketing plan, but also a sure-fire way to get that plan executed. Large companies have a dedicated team responsible for all phases of a marketing program, from conception to analysis of the results, including setting benchmarks for improvement. What about businesses who have no marketing team, or a “team” made up of …
Google’s “Pigeon” Update:
What to Do If Your Page
Ranking Flew the Coop
More changes from Google. We keep preaching how essential it is to update your website. As we become more inquisitive and sophisticated searchers, the search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing to name just three) adapt their secret formula (algorithm) to provide the best results to the searchers’ queries. 7 IMPORTANT STEPS TO IMPROVE PAGE RANKING In Google’s ongoing efforts to …
GETTING MORE “GOOGLE LOVE”:
THE POWER OF AN OPTIMIZED
GOOGLE+ BUSINESS PAGE
Google Authorship is Kaput: Why Google Ended the Experiment UPDATE: On August 28, Google announced that it would be discontinuing Google Authorship. Specifically, Authorship results will no longer show up in searches and Google won’t track data using the rel=author markup any longer. This news comes after Google began limiting the number of author photos shown per query in December …