While it’s important to promote your company to establish and grow your brand, brand differentiation and loyalty will only be achieved when everyone in your organization understands their role as a carrier of the brand, believes in the brand, and most importantly, delivers exceptional customer service to reinforce the value of the brand.
I was recently asked to provide my take on a hotly contested tool of the trade – press releases. I provided basic tips on when a press release should be used, how to use the headline to get attention from a reporter and the format for how press releases should be written.
Once the bases are covered and the press release is distributed to your media contacts, how do you get a story written? A press release only opens the door. Relationships and resources are necessary to securing the coverage your investors can smile about. Let me explain.
Advancements in areas such as telecommunications, smart cities, the Internet of Things, electric vehicles, and cloud computing are all pushing us towards a more sustainable, healthy, energy-efficient, and smarter lifestyle. And thanks to all the inventors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, risk-takers, venture capitalists, techies, marketers, sales folks, social media, fans, and individual consumers… we are one, big, connected planet celebrating our global connection and competitive spirit of the World Cup together – no matter how physically far apart we may be.
As of July 1, 2014, Canada Day of all times, Canadian companies and individuals are subject to hefty fines of between $1 and $10 million CAD through Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) organization if the people they solicit have not agreed to said solicitation. This new law requires companies and individuals to obtain this consent before sending Electronic Marketing Communications (CEM), and to provide an “opt-out” method, too.
What is freedom? What freedom – and its twin sibling, Liberty – truly is is opportunity. The chance to chase a dream or to see a challenge and then find a way to overcome it. At its heart, freedom is about innovation. It’s about having the ability to make a change for the better, to find a new way of doing things for the benefit of you, others, and the world at large. It is the right to try, fail, and then try again, for as many times as it takes to get it right.
Knowing HTML provides you with the ability to make changes to a web site on the fly and alter e-mail newsletter templates. Generally, that kind of work would have to be outsourced, which means the company would have to spend money and time on working with a unfamiliar developer. Granted, a professional developer is necessary in cases that require a more intense knowledge of HTML. But for the everyday web site and e-newsletter edits, some basic HTML skills can go a long way.
The first time I really recognized the value of branding was about 12 years ago. I was driving down I-476 back from a Pocono Mountain weekend with my three daughters. A five-year old voice from the back seat perks up and says “McDonald’s!”.
My dad did stuff all of the time. He built houses – really built them, I mean…held-the-hammer built them. He built a boat. He built a camper trailer. He fixed our broken cars, toilets and lawnmowers. He threw pottery on a wheel. When we decided we needed a new piece of art for a wall, Dad would paint something to the dimensions of the wall space we wanted to fill. He was always doing stuff. He was working on something all of the time.
Why is net neutrality important and why is its existence in jeopardy?
Because net neutrality is the guiding principle that preserves a “free and open” Internet, every corner of the U.S. economy depends on the indiscriminate way service providers allow access to it. By altering any form of this principle, net neutrality ceases to exist…and so do your Internet privileges.
I was in Maui in early May of this year, kitesurfing with a friend. As I chatted with other kiters there – who have subsequently become friends – I learned about Maui’s MaiTai’s event. This unique annual networking gathering brings together elite kiteboarders, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and tech companies.