Looking to the Light

Branding vs. Direct Marketing

Branding
A traditional advertising method used to create an acquired response from a target audience based on cumulative impressions and positive reinforcement. These ads are not purchase for the sole purpose of generating a click or visitor. They are geared towards increased product or company name awareness and lifelong customers.

Direct Marketing
A direct communication to a customer or business that is designed to generate a response in the form of an order, a request for further information, or a visit to a store or other place of business. (Also called Direct Response Advertising)

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the idea of branding versus direct marketing. Both of them have their value and their time. When is that though? In my mind branding is to be done to benefit your direct marketing efforts. It places your company and products in the forefront of a buyers mind when they go to make a purchase of your product. It then becomes essential to get in front of the right people at the right time so that when they are in front of your product they are driven to make the desired action you are hoping for. To brand effectively requires difficult campaign planning, development and management.

At this point direct marketing, specifically advertising, is then placed in front of the user that helps to drive an action. Direct marketing is more, to put this simply, direct. It is way easier to measure a direct marketing campaigns effectiveness especially online.

When a company decides to brand it needs to be very blatant in it's attempts and should have some value associated with it and should not be an excuse for failed direct marketing attempts.
 

Flying High and Flying Low

I just got off a plane coming back from my trip to California. With all the current news about airplane crashes in Oklahoma and with Yankee's Corey Lidle dying in a plane accident I was a little apprehensive to travel. I knew though that everything would be ok.

My trip was good. There were some high points and some low points but it was good to be able to spend time working with the marketing team and talk about the way that we can best work to grow our business. Hopefully we'll be able to work together to grow our companies and help them gain the skills to help them get any job they want when they decide its the right time for them to move on to another opportunity.

Wedding Invitations

Jordan and I got our invitations today and we are almost done putting them together. I expect that by tomorrow we'll be ready to send them out and then we'll have most everything done except for a few small things until the wedding day.

I'm really excited to get married. Jordan is such an amazing girl and I am lucky to marry such an amazing girl.

BliggyBank

One of my close partners is starting a new company, BliggyBank.com. BliggyBank is supposed to be a blog service where you can donate, via paypal, to a blogger's account to incentivize them to post on your pitch/idea. I think this is a great idea and as a new blogger hoping to build a larger readership I think this is ingenious and as soon as it become available I'll be signing up to do some work with them.

The founder of BliggyBank is also the owner of ChristianDatesOnline.com. Drop me a line if any would like to get in touch with BliggyBank and I'd be happy to pass you along their contact info.

Attitude of Success

Have you ever seen the movie Coach Carter? Coach Carter, played by Samuel L. Jackson, takes the position of Head Coach at an inner-city high school filled with hood rats. Throughout the movie Carter keeps asking one of his players, Timo Cruz, what his biggest fear is? After a dramatic series of events pulling Timo out of the street life he discovers what Nelson Mandela relayed in his inaugural address:

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God, your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

As a manager I spend a lot of time trying to train people to be successful and I've finally come to the conclusion that you can't teach someone to be successful. You can give people the tools, instructions on how to use the tools, and tips on how to hone people skills but people need to find within themselves the desire to succeed. Each of us must be willing to risk looking like fools to be able to find success. In a company, a family, or amongst friends it never serves anyone to think small. We are all born to shine and to bring out the light in those around us. Succcess can not be taught but it is found within all of us. We need to search deep and find what will motivate us to be successful. Is it money? Is it social status? A title? An office? A beautiful girl or guy?

For me my big passion that motivates me is...success. I love to conquer a challenge or a take risks so that I can be successful. And I don't want some lame success that I could find in my sleep. I want one of those hard painful successes that reuired stretching myself to new heights.

What motivates you?