Marketing Musings

Your Personal Marketing Accent

Marketing Musings

Every individual has some sort of accent, whether in their native language or that of a language they’ve learned; even Seattleites have an accent, albeit a very slight one. Regardless, there is something unique about how each and every person communicates.

When learning a new language, people usually pick up the accent of the region in which they’re living. I experienced this while learning Spanish in southeastern Spain while sharing an apartment with students from five other Spanish-speaking countries. I acquired distinct inflections unique to both the region I was in and the people I was spending time with.

OK—so how does this relate to marketing? People at Projectline come from a vast array of backgrounds. We all apply the inflections we’ve gained from our education, professional training, and outside experiences to our work. The rich diversity of these experiences helps us better translate our clients’ vision into marketing success—whether we’re assisting with content strategy, facilitating customer communities, or analyzing campaign data.

For me, the joy of marketing is that, much like language, it’s a dynamic, ever-evolving discipline. And, just like mastering a spoken language demands an appreciation for nuance, proficiency in marketing requires the ability to become conversant in its many genres. By creating a team that blends knowledge of the different categories or dialects of marketing—a team composed of people from all around the world who have different marketing skill sets—we’re able to flexibly meet a wider spectrum of client requests.

Projectline makes a distinct effort in recruiting individuals who can bring a unique accent to the team, creating opportunities to expand the shared knowledge we apply to every client engagement. Just as if I had learned only one dialect of Spanish, I wouldn’t be able to communicate as effectively with Spanish-speakers from different parts of the world, so do we emphasize a holistic approach when it comes to marketing fluency.

Fortunately—for both our clients and our work environment—each of our employees brings his or her own marketing accent to the table, providing the dynamic marketing flair that Projectline is known for. What kind of accent are you contributing to your company?

Chat with me about this or any other b2b marketing topic on Twitter @_samantha_smith.

Weekly Roundup: 5/11/12

Marketing Musings

Welcome to the Projectline Weekly Roundup. We know that the week can move pretty fast. Since Fridays sometimes offer a chance for a breather, we wanted to share links to some of the articles we liked this week. As always, we’d love to get your take, so feel free to leave a comment or chat us up on Twitter. Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Weekly Roundup

Customer Engagement
7 Rules to Responding to Customers Online—Get tips on how to move beyond simply monitoring for brand references and replying with scripted responses. This post lays out the ingredients for an engagement strategy that’s focused squarely on improving the customer experience.

Social Media
Facebook to Brands: You’re Posting Stuff Wrong—Good reminder that, while it’s good to cultivate an authentic voice in social media, it’s important for businesses to keep comments relevant to the products and services they provide. Want to drive up “likes” and “shares?” Keep your posts fun and genuine, but don’t stray too far off topic.

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Google+: The (Not So) Little Social Network That Could

Marketing Musings

I’ve mentioned Google+ here and there on this blog, and I’ve used it a bit too, but I’m still a Facebook and Twitter guy (and increasingly a Pinterest and Instagram fan). I read an article a little while back that talks about how Google+ is actually doing OK in Google’s eyes. This is interesting because if you spend any amount of time on the Internet, you’ll no doubt hear Google+ as the punch line to many jokes. For example, if somebody posts to Google+, does it make a sound? In my experience, there’s some truth to these jabs. I’m connected to a good number of people in the social media world, but I don’t know very many Google+ power users.

The TechCrunch article poses another idea as to why Google+ is doing OK. Maybe Google only needs Google+ for the behind-the-scenes connections it creates between people. You don’t necessarily have to interact with somebody to make your connection to that person valuable. I am connected online to people I’ve never met and don’t communicate with, but the connection is still valuable. I’ve often wondered what Google+ is good for and I’m not sure I have an answer, but I do think I understand why Google might not care whether or not people spend tons of time on its social network.

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Weekly Roundup: 5/4/12

Marketing Musings

Welcome to the Projectline Weekly Roundup. We know that the week can move pretty fast. Since Fridays sometimes offer a chance for a breather, we wanted to share links to some of the articles we liked this week. As always, we’d love to get your take, so feel free to leave a comment or chat us up on Twitter. Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Weekly Roundup

Customer Engagement
Happy Customers Tell Their Stories—Live and In Person—Casey Hibbard wrote a great post about how best to use customer references in presentations. This a critical part of any customer reference program.

Social Media
SEO and Social Marketing Resources—This article provides some good links to other articles that talk about using SEO and social media marketing to build your business. Poke around some of the links, I’m sure you’ll learn something.

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Projectline UK Partners with Volunteer Centre Westminster

Marketing Musings, News

As part of Projectline’s mission to have a positive impact on its community, the team at Projectline’s European headquarters has joined forces with Volunteer Centre Westminster (VCW) to help increase awareness of the organisation and expand its volunteer base. Projectline will be offering expertise, such as social media consulting, case study production, and newsletter development, pro bono to VCW on a monthly basis.

Projectline and Volunteer Centre Westminster marketing partnershipEstablished in 1986, VCW works with anyone who wants to volunteer in the City of Westminster (their services cover the seven boroughs that make up Central London) and any organisation that wants to involve volunteers in these areas. Many of Projectline’s clients live and work in this area, providing an additional tie between Projectline and VCW.

“Volunteer Centre Westminster was the perfect organisation for our UK office to partner with in their volunteer efforts. Because the Projectline team is somewhat geographically distributed, volunteering remotely using the marketing skills they have at hand will allow a greater impact. We are happy that the administrators at VCW feel that they can use our services,” says Anika Lehde, Vice President at Projectline Services, Inc.

Projectline’s initial project was to review and make recommendations on a draft email survey that VCW plans to send to partners to gain more understanding of the value its services provide. A second project is now underway to produce case studies on the various initiatives that VCW has run. Projectline is committed to providing consistent time and effort each month to help VCW increase exposure of its volunteer opportunities.

If you live or work near the City of Westminster and are interested in learning more, follow VCW on Twitter. To learn more about Projectline and its commitment to community, follow Projectline on Twitter.

For more information on this story, contact Anais de Bourayne at Projectline or Dawn Newton at Volunteer Centre Westminster.

Storytelling with Numbers

Campaign Desk, Marketing Musings, Marketing Operations

Sometimes when I tell people I work in data and analytics, I can actually see them stop listening. While I rapture on about how exciting it is to enable tracking of views, to the clicks and downloads of our client’s product or event pages, their eyes glaze over and their shoulders begin to droop. I get it. I really do. Data often seems big and foreign and too complicated to warrant our attention. It isn’t something most people feel a connection to.

It’s for this reason that I’ve been so interested in the emergence of a fresh type of data: personal analytics. Scientist Stephen Wolfram recently posted a blog that details the extensive records of his life he’s kept since 1989. The data is rich and tells a much deeper story than one might expect of a coordinate or bar graph. In these graphs, you see his life: his habit of staying up until 3:00A.M., the trip he took to Europe in the summer of 2009, and the break he takes for dinner with his family each evening.

Dan Meyer has collected similar data, compiled yearly into his “Annual Report” and animated into a video clip that I highly recommend watching (see below). His report, which at first glance is not much more than a collection of lists of the beer he drinks and friends he texts, shares a quality with Wolfram’s data—although narrow in scope, they are expansive in terms of insight. There is much to gather and derive from the information presented, even if at face value it seems mundane or trivial.

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Projectline Volunteer Recap: Looking Back at February and March

Marketing Musings

Each month, a group of individuals (both Projectliners and friends of Projectline) come together to put their skills to good use by volunteering at a local organization. Each organization and the tasks we complete are different, and meet different needs within the community.

In February, we saw our largest turnout in over a year as we rolled up our sleeves and sorted clothes at the West Seattle Helpline’s donation center. More than 25 individuals lent their energy and determination to the effort. The result? We finished the sorting and organizing in half the time! This project directly supported the West Seattle Helpline Clothesline program, which provides support to families in need of clothes. For more information about the other services that this organization provides, please visit http://www.wshelpline.org. http://www.wshelpline.org.

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