MB Celebrates its “Sweet 16” with Mad Men Theme

100 Guests to Gather for Tribute to the Golden Age of Advertising and

“Can’t-Miss” Celebration of the Year

Ottawa, Thursday, September 29, 2011 - Marketing Breakthroughs, Ottawa’s top marketing firm, celebrated 16 years in business by throwing an exclusive invite-only bash for Ottawa’s business community and selected VIP guests.

This exclusive event was held at SOMA, a downtown fitness studio and spa. SOMA was be transformed into a 1960s-inspired lounge, reminiscent of a Manhattan club from the era. With 1960s-inspired food and drink and full Mad Men-themed costumes and décor, guests felt like they are rubbing elbows with Don Draper and Roger Sterling.

Alongside the 1960s theme was a cutting-edge multi-media and social media showcase. Guests tweeted throughout the event using the hashtag #MBSweet16. All Tweets using this hashtag were displayed live on giant plasma displays – much like the interactive billboards at the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest. By participating in this social media element, guests felt like they are truly a part of the event.

With walls lined with 1960s decorations and poster-sized advertisements from the era alongside MB’s plasma displays, this event will surely be the most talked-about business social gathering of the year. As Ottawa Event Producers, MB was thrilled to host this exciting event. “We’re proud to have successfully grown our business in Ottawa and to have fun while we recognize our achievements,” said CEO, Steve Klein.

In addition to a birthday celebration, this event also had a live charity auction (with celebrity-auctioneer “Stuntman Stu”) benefitting the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and The Caring and Sharing Exchange (home of The Christmas Exchange). Over $6,000 was raised for these worthy charities.

Steve Klein founded Ottawa's Marketing Breakthroughs in 1995. Since then, MB has helped some of Ottawa’s best known brands grow. This includes Preston Hardware, HolmesHeating, District Realty, Paramount Properties and MacEwen Petroleum. As the winner of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce’s 2009 Professional Services firm of the year, MB specializes in web marketing, traditional marketing, and offers Canada’s only “VP Marketing” service for companies that have neither the time nor the resources to have their own internal marketing department.

MB Becomes an Adwords Certified Partner…Now What?

Last month MB became Ottawa’s second officially Certified Google Adwords Partner. Internally this news was fantastic. Word was filtered through the watercooler, emails and texts, with staff feeling very proud and excited about this achievement.
Soon after, word started spreading to our clients, garnering a different response.

“Congratulations. What is a Certified Partner?” or “Good for you. Will my bill be going up?”

To begin, no, bills are not going up, but these interactions raised out very good points related to our relationships with clients as online marketers. Most importantly, it exemplifies that the most important part of any Adwords campaign is trust.

Like many other Ottawa marketing firms, Marketing Breakthroughs manages thousands of online marketing dollars for clients every day. Our clients know how much we spend, and they know how many leads these tactics generate, but the strategy that turns money into leads is primarily trusted in our hands.

Often they will ask:

• How many leads did we get this week?

Occasionally they will ask:

• Are we targeting “example keyword”?
• Do we have ads that say “product benefit”?
• What is our cost per click?

Rarely do they ask:

• Are we bidding on ten keywords or ten thousand?
• What is the Adwords allocation between search, display, video and mobile ads into the Ottawa market?
• How have we structured the landing pages and what is our Google Adwords quality score?

And never do they ask:

• Are we running false advertising that will lead to our Adwords account being banned like the 50,000 Adwords accounts Google banned in 2010?
• Are you one of the companies that Google recently sued for $1.6 million for promoting fake Adwords services?

If I was a client I would be asking all of the above, but I am not. Our clients have their own expertise, in their own fields, and they are extremely good at what they do. Instead, they place an enormous amount of trust that MB is extremely qualified in what we do.

So do I expect that clients will begin asking about MB being Ottawa’s second Google Adwords Certified Partner? No. They trust that MB will handle their Google Adwords Campaign effectively and within the Google guidelines at all times.

Is it because we are certified? No. We underwent the training to become a Certified Google Adwords Partner because we want to be the best Adwords provider in Ottawa.


So why do our clients bring their Adwords business to MB?

For results? Well, yes...but more importantly, because we have built their trust.

Ottawa's Byward Market: Web Marketing Replacing Word of Mouth?

One of Ottawa's biggest tourist attractions is also one of it's oldest: the Byward Market. A mecca for tourists and locals alike, it's a place that evolved to symbolize the best features of the city itself: a proud and harmonious blend of cultures and commerce.

Over it's 184 year history, the Byward Market has relied heavily upon word of mouth, but in today's ever evolving marketplace, it seems "The Market" is changing with the times. Yes, The Byward Market has gotten into web marketing. Behold the bright, shiny, SEO driven Byward Market website. (No seriously, check it out!) It advertises all the best features of this historic gem including, upcoming events, a directory listing everything from restaurants to nightlife, to health and beauty services, and more. They also provide handy maps and an interactive calendar of sorts where you can click on any particular day to see what's happening. Pretty cool.

So is the website geared for optimal advertising results with a most-excellent dose of SEO? I'm not going to say, but I can recommend an amazing Ottawa web marketing firm that can do all that and more...

Friday Breakthrough: Wiki, Wicked, and Web 2.0 Wizard

The Friday Breakthrough is Ottawa's weekly roundup of some of the Internet's best marketing and social media articles for a less-than-intense day at the office.

1. Ten Word Wiki may provide you with a few minutes of enjoyment on this Friday afternoon. Pretty self-explanatory, this site describes random things in exactly ten words. For example, here's the entry for Canada: "Similar to America, except more laid-back, worse at hockey." Whooooa! Them's fitting words. Someone needs to remedy that entry, stat!

2. Just when you thought getting dumped the old fashioned way was depressing, just wait until you hear about Bradley Laborman's company IDUMP4U. Not feeling up to being a decent human being and ending your relationship yourself? Well, you're in luck. For a measly $10 fee ($25 to end an engagement and $50 to initiate a divorce), Mr. Laborman will take it upon himself to call your significant other and break the news. He then uploads audio from the call to the IDUMP4U website, a "therapeutic" act, according to him.

3. Finally, a shout-out to Paul Chaney, the fabulous keynote speaker at the very successful inaugural Ottawa Web Marketing Club event yesterday morning. Check out his blog for some key insight into social media: The Social Media Handyman.

Top 5 Things Online Businesses Can Learn from the Ottawa Apple Store

When the Rideau Centre Apple Store opened in Ottawa, it was a quiet revolution for Mac and iPod fans. Finally they would have a place to go and worship their favourite consumer electronics.

But more than a place for nerds to drool over glossy 27-inch screens and the latest multi-touch devices, Apple stores, especially the one in Ottawa, represent a larger strategy for a company that can often seem based in the distant lands of California and the Internet. And it’s a strategy many online-only companies can learn from.

1. Give your company a face. I don’t know a single Ottawa Apple store employee, but I know what one looks like: Smiling face, colourful T-shirt, and name-tag lanyard. Putting the faces of your employees on your website can reflect a positive image in consumers’ minds. (We do a pretty good job of that here at MB.)
2. Give your company a location. Even in today’s digital economy, where many businesses are internet-based, giving your company a physical location can increase consumer trust and loyalty. Unlike your website, they can depend on your store, warehouse, or home-office being there tomorrow. List address information, or, better yet, include a photo of where you work on your website.
3. Make it shiny. Even if your store is small, it’s got to be eye-catching (that goes for your website too). People wander into the Ottawa Apple store all day long because of its unique layout; bright, open design concept, and grand, all-glass storefront. Potential customers will spend more time on your website if it’s visually appealing.
4. Don’t be afraid to sell your own product. If it’s good enough for the Internet, it’s good enough for the streets of Ottawa. One of the reasons Apple opened its retail chain was because it felt other retail businesses were not doing a good enough job of highlighting its products. If you believe your product or service isn’t getting the recognition it deserves, stepping outside the confines of the Internet can increase your product visibility.
5. Educate everyone. Sometimes it seems like Ottawa Apple store employees are simply there to promote products they believe in—the sale comes later. This ‘soft sell’ can educate customers about your products or services and implant positive selling points in their minds that they will recall later.

This is, of course, a simplified version of just some of the techniques that Apple retail stores employ and no one seems to be doing it better. Incorporating all or just some of these tips into your online business can increase consumer trust and loyalty, and improve brand recognition.

Public broadcasting, now hand-held

Some folks may complain that CBC is increasingly irrelevant in our modern 24-hour news and Internet world. Everyone seems to blog constantly, CNN reports more news than any person would ever want to know, and Twitter is delivering information directly into our cellphones. How can Canada’s public broadcaster possibly compete with that?

Well, they’re giving it their best shot, and the results are quite pleasing. The CBC was an early adopter of podcasting, creating the internet-only CBC Radio 3 (also available on satellite radio), and released it to great success in the iTunes store. Now they’re moving into new avenues for mobile devices.

Now the CBC has jumped onto the iPhone bandwagon, creating a website, specifically for mobile devices (and especially the iPhone). Readers in Canada’s capital will be happy to hear this includes the Ottawa regional news website.

On Aug. 1, CBC debuted its radio app, allowing iPod Touch and iPhone owners to stream Radio 1, 2, and 3, and access on-demand audio programs.

The app has risen to #14 in the iTunes Canada store, clearly demonstrating a demand for this kind of product, at least among Apple enthusiasts. The app is so easy to use, even a person with no iPhone experience could figure out how to stream the local Ottawa station. And best of all, it’s totally free.

If the CBC continues to embrace new media and mobile technologies, there may still be a place for it in the hearts, minds, and cellphones of Canadians after all.

Travel Destinations in Our Own Backyard

The other day, I happened upon a web banner for the "Locals Know" campaign. Since I was, at the time, planning a mini vacation to Toronto, I clicked the link to check out what the website has to offer. The main messaging of the website urges Canadians to "Discover the Canada you don't know." Is that a challenge, Canadian Tourism Commission? As their press release for the campaign explains, they aim to inspire Canadians to explore Canada's "surprises and secrets" such as "desert-like dunes in the middle of the country", "volcanoes on the verge of the Pacific", and "tropic-like waters within hours of vibrant cities." Tell me more!

Visitors to LocalsKnow.ca are encouraged to post their own "spots" - they must be in Canada and they should be places that "most people have never heard of." As I perused through the photos, I noticed that there were in fact intriguing Canadian hot spots that I was unaware of. For example, check out this photo of beautiful turquoise water. Can you believe that this is an Ontario destination? Crazy!

The website also boasts travel deals from "partners" of the campaign. Most of the deals here in Ottawa are care of Ottawa Tourism. The great thing about Ottawa is that, as Canada's Capital, there are countless tourist attractions. That said, these attractions are not just for tourists! People come from miles around to see our great museums, check out the Byward Market or Parliament Hill, attend Bluesfest or the Jazz Festival or the Casino du Lac-Leamy Sound of Light festival... I could go on forever! What's your favourite Ottawa attraction or activity? (My favourite attraction is Saunder's Farm at Halloween-time, located just outside of the city in Munster.)

Although I didn't end up finding any deals to take advantage of for my upcoming trip, I did find that the site was inspiring in that it reminded me that you don't need an expensive plane ticket to experience something new and exciting!

Hockey 2.0

My boyfriend, like many hockey fans, is very excited about this whole possible-relocation-of-the-Phoenix-Coyotes-to-Southern-Ontario thing. As he was telling me the whole story over dinner last night, my interest was piqued by his mention of makeitseven.ca. Jim Balsillie (pictured here wearing a silly hat), the man behind the scheme to purchase and move the team, initiated this website, designed to be an "online community to help promote bringing Canada its seventh franchise". If you check it out, you'll see that right now there is just a splash page with messaging and the option to sign up for updates. What's interesting to me is that Balsillie has taken this web 2.0 approach, reaching out to hockey fans for support. I think it's a really smart move, considering he has a big battle with NHL bigwigs ahead of him.

Today, Balsillie issued a statement to the press, thanking the 100,000 + people that signed up to support his bid. 100,000 people... that's a lot. How can you argue with 100,000 fans??? Now, not only is the NHL battling it out with Balsillie, but also 100,000 other people on his side!

Do you think it will make a difference? I'm pretty sure that social media helped Obama in a pretty important battle last year, so maybe it will help Balsillie, too!

5 Useful SEO and Web Marketing Articles by MB

Okay, okay. I'm only linking to articles on MB's home site, MarketingBreakthroughs.com. These articles have been around for awhile, but I think readers of the Daily Breakthrough should be checking these out.

• 6 More Tips for Improving the Copy on Your Website

• How to Search Engine Optimize Your Website

• 7 Easy Ways to Improve the User Experience in Your Website

• Turning Your Website into a Money-Making Webstore

• How Good is Your Website? Take the "MB Test" and Find Out!

More articles are available, of course. Check out the MB Knowledge Centre now.

Six Questions to Ask Before Your Build Your Website

When you build a website, or when you begin any traditional or web marketing campaign, you should carefully consider what your end goals are. Who is your website targeted towards? How do you position yourself against your competitors? You should know the answers to these questions like the back of your hand before you begin building any section of your website.

1. What are my competitors doing?

Take a look around the web for your competitors. What are their websites like? How can you stand above them and really blow them out of the water? What elements do all your competitors' websites have in common that you'll need to incorporate as an industry standard? You should know exactly what your competitors are doing, and how you'll be positioning your site against theirs upon launch.

2. What's my Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

Your website USP might be different from your regular USP. What does your company offer online that no one else does? Carefully consider your positioning before you start writing the web copy for your website. Do you offer a best-in-class solution? A low price? Unbeatable customer service in an industry filled with faceless corporate entities?

3. Who will be updating the website?

If you're building a website for a client that doesn't know much about website design or coding, you'll no doubt want to hand them a Content Management System, or CMS. This lets them edit their own content in a WYSIWYG editor, without worrying about breaking the website. Blogging software such as wordpress is an example of a CMS, and many non-blogging websites are designed using this high-powered software.

4. What are my website SEO plans?

Beyond just dumping a bunch of keywords into your meta tags and creating a site map link off the home page, you need to know what your "go-forward" SEO plans are. How will you get link backs? Is there a section of your website to load on keyword-dense SEO articles? A section for linkbait?

5. Who are my website User Groups?

Before you begin planning your website, you should understand who exactly will be using the website. What are they using the website for? What information do they want? How much do they know about your products and services? Are they technologically savvy?

6. Where will my call to actions be, and how will users "buy"?

It's important for the user to be able to buy (or contact you) from every page on the website. How will this be done? Where will the call to action take them? If you sell one product, that's easy. If you sell a variety of products, you should have a "Your cart" and a "Checkout" option located conveniently for the user (see Amazon.com for an example). If you don't sell anything online, a call to action might be a button that says, "Contact Us Now."

Monetizing Social Media

I recently came across 11 Business Plans for Twitter, a collection of business plans submitted by people on how to monetize Twitter.

It's pretty tough to monetize social media. People on Social Media generally don't like ads. You might object and say that there are ads on Google. Well, Google ain't Social Media. And people searching on Google are often given added value by the Pay Per Click (PPC) ads that appear. That's why Google is so successful. If I'm searching for "furnaces" and a PPC advertisement shows up that offers to sell me furnaces, I really don't mind. There's a full list of non-PPC search results right there anyway.

Now, if I get an advertisement on Facebook, we're not in the same situation. I wasn't searching for anything. It's just an ad in a place where I'm really not looking for ads. Facebook even lures advertisers with the line, "Reach your customers before they start searching. Pay per click." See, that's not a benefit. I want a customer who IS searching for my product.

Now, occasionally, I get a see a few ads on facebook that are useful. When I went to Queen's I constantly saw ads for Queen's Student Housing. I never clicked on them, but still, they were more useful than most ads. However, now most ads seem to be internet marketing offers to MAKE $5,000 WITH GOOGLE NOW or HOW I MADE $100,000 POSTING LINKS ON GOOGLE. I don't even know what possible business model there is that can be described as "posting links on Google."

Some businesses have made good use of this. See Burger King's great viral marketing campaign. Oh, wait. Facebook didn't like that idea.

I'm not saying Facebook has no business offering advertising. That's silly. Facebook advertising has worked for people. But I don't think it's very optimized right now, and the ads don't add value the way Google does.

Let's move on to Twitter advertising.

Twitter has over a million registered users, but it isn't yet really monetized. That's where the business plans linked at the top of this post come in. They are attempts to turn Twitter into a valid business model.

"Targeted ads" isn't really a very innovative business model, but there are a few in there. I like the one about contextual Tweet response advertising. For example, someone posts, "Going out tonight. What restaurant should I go to?" and the response comes, "@example user Bob's Restaurant is located on Madison Ave. Check it out at: www.exampleURL.com!"

The problem with this is that you'll probably get a lot of crud. And if it becomes popular, it'll just plain pollute your Twitter feed.

However, if they were VERY targeted, it would be useful. What if the example I outlined above was more, "I'm looking for a good pizza place to go to tonight? Recommendations?" and the answer/advertisement came, "@example user Bob's Pizza Restaurant is located on Madison Ave. Check it out at: www.exampleURL.com!"

That's a lot better. But there's only so much a search spider can do. But the more users start using Twitter, and the more advertisers there are, the more specific the ads can be. In short, they can take advantage of the Long Tail.

But before Twitter can do this, it needs even more users. In short, it needs to harness the market for microblogging, and the market for microblogging has to expand dramatically.

But it's possible. Who knows. Smarter people than me will be looking at ideas like these for a long time to come.

Why Facebook Will Never Be a Great Advertising Platform

Well, the awesomeness of Burger King's "Whopper Sacrifice"

online advertising

campaign has come to an end. The application still exists, mind you, but it has been severely de-fanged after Facebook forced the developer to change the way it works due to "privacy concerns".

Seems Facebook had a flame-broiled beef against the way the app notified all of your friends that somebody had been dropped in favour of the almighty Whopper (normally, friends removals are not announced over the news feed).

Unfortunately, that was the whole point of the campaign -- to let your friends in on the joke, and to spread the campaign virally by alerting others about its presence.

Now, nobody will get a notification when they are sacrificed, and all of your friends will think you're a jerk for dropping them with no notice. Yay!

Well, Burger King tried (and hey, they got a lot of press out of it, so this

social marketing

campaign was undoubtedly a huge success for them), but Facebook's unwillingness to play ball with these marketing and advertising agencies isn't doing itself any favours if it still wants to pretend to be a viable advertising platform.

Registering SEO Domain Name Keywords

One of the SEO strategies that we often use at MB is to register keyword rich domain names. In terms of SEO, domains play a very large factor. If you basically register "keyword.com," and you have a decent number of outside website linking to your (Google rates this by "Page Rank") then there's a good chance you'll come up in the top results for anyone searching "keyword." If you register "modifierkeywordlocation.com" then you're almost guaranteed to come up for anyone who searches "modifer keyword location" or "modifier keyword in location."

This is a common SEO strategy, but to do it well you need to think a little first. To begin, you should always have a branded domain name. Forget SEO until you have a branded domain.

Let's take the Marketing Breakthroughs website as an example. Our main domain name is http://www.marketingbreakthroughs.com. The purpose of this domain is 99% branding. As well, there's the added benefit that some people will, even if they know a URL, will still type "marketing breakthroughs" into Google to get to our site. We obviously want to catch those users, but even if this weren't an added benefit, the branding advantages of having "companyname.com" make it your first choice for a domain.

Now, after doing an SEO Audit, you would come up with keyword phrases. There are too big factors when prioritizing keyword phrases:

1. What's the Search Volume - how many people search for this keword?
2. Are users searching for this keyword likely to buy?

The second factor takes a bit more explaining. You could easily sort a list of keywords by search volume and pick the top ones, but that's a losing proposition. For one, those keywords will be extra expensive. And secondly, you don't want to burn all your resources targeting keywords that won't bring in qualified buyers.

Let's say you have a website that sells baseball equipment. So you head over to Google's Search Based Keyword Suggestion tool and you type in "baseball." One of your options you'll see is "fantasy baseball." This has a high search volume, but is anyone searching for "fantasy baseball" likely to be looking for aluminum baseball bats to purchase? No. Someone searching for aluminum baseball bats will search "aluminum baseball bats" or "cheap baseball bats" or something. Those are the type of keywords to target. Don't target unqualified buyers with your keywords.

I don't want to get too much into brainstorming keywords, so I'll move on.

Domain names are competitive. You're not going to get baseball.com. Sorry. But you might get "baseballleaguesinottawa.com" if you register it. You might also get "ottawabaseballteams.com" or something. It all depends on what people are searching for. Depending on your location, you might also trying .ca names instead of just .com names. There will probably be less competition, and if you're actually in Canada, this won't hurt you.

Once you have a few domains registered (the number will depend on your budget and how important targeting various keywords are) you should try and get a few links to them with good anchor text. Good anchor text will be very similar to the keyword. Just don't make all your anchor text for backlinks identical.

You'll also want to look at your competitors and see what they're targeting with their keywords. See if any of them have SEO domains registered.

Also, don't register super long domain names. It's kind of tacky, and the likelihood of people searching those exact phrases is minimal.

Social Media Marketing Manager to the Stars

Do you love Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace? Then you can work for Britney Spears!

Seems that Britney needs a full-time Harvard grad to help manage her online network, develop web marketing campaigns, moderate community activity, and analyze web traffic and search engine results.

No doubt about it, maintaining the online marketing for one of the world's biggest stars would be more than a full-time job. Of course, that also means that Britney herself wouldn't be online -- it's just a PR firm's representation of Britney Spears.

And that's what makes the fact that Shaq himself is on Twitter so awesome ... while Britney's new web marketing guru will undoubtedly come up with lots of cool social media stuff, "The Big Aristotle" himself is actually taking time out of his own schedule to surf the Net, write crazy Twitter posts, and have real conversations with his fans.

In the end, Shaq's method is more "real", and therefore much more effective in building relationships with the online community.

Could It Be ... A Facebook Advertising Campaign Done Right?

When it comes to

Web 2.0

and

Social Media

, Facebook is definitely at the top of the heap. However, despite all of its success, Facebook is still nothing more than a place where web advertising goes to die -- the futile attempts to leverage Facebook as an effective advertising medium has been well documented across the web (this recent article on Silicon Alley Insider goes into more detail as to why companies such as Proctor & Gamble are becoming more and more disillusioned with the site's ads).

But the fact of the matter is, a lot of people use Facebook a lot. So there must be some way to capture this audience, right?

The problem with most Facebook ads is that either they're nothing more than a simple banner ad, or they promote banal and predictable customer interactions such as leaving comments or submitting photos. It seems that although Facebook is supposed to be the very definition of "Web 2.0", the ads on the site are very Stone Age in nature.

That is, until Burger King came along.


Instead of using a normal Facebook ad, BK has opted to market itself through a new Facebook Application -- a program that must be actively installed onto the Facebook user's profile.

This new app, called "Whopper Sacrifice", is offering Facebook users a free Whopper ... but not by doing lame stuff like joining a group or forwarding links. Instead, you can get your free hamburger by choosing to de-friending 10 of your buddies on your Facebook account.

That's right. You have to choose between your friends or your food. And to add insult to injury, the application will also send a message to your ex-pal telling them that they were dropped from your friends list in favour of a juicy, flame-broiled burger. Harsh. As one poster on Fark commented, "Those worthless people I knew in high school are finally proving to be useful for something."

I've already touched on the cleverness of Burger King's previous marketing campaigns, and in my opinion, "Whopper Sacrifice" is nothing short of amazing.

First of all, it's getting people to actually go to Burger King to cash in their free Whopper. Second, every time you drop one of your friends, the proclamation of your burgerish loyalties is displayed on your News Feed -- for all of your other friends to see (which will likely prompt a few of them to download the app themselves, thereby repeating the process ... hmmmm ... sounds like the very definition of

viral marketing

to me).

Some people say that the app is pointless since you can just re-add your friends after claiming your burger. But guess what? That's not the point. As long as the app makes you think of Burger King (and ultimately step inside the joint for your free burger), then it's done its job. The King doesn't care what you do with your Facebook profile after the fact.

The only question is ... is this the start of something good (companies actually thinking outside the box and using clever ways to utilize Facebook), or will this launch a new era of poorly-written and annoying copycat corporate applications that will flood our Facebook profiles like so many zombie, ninja, and pirate apps have in the past? Time will tell.

It's 2009 ... So Why is Your Website Still Stuck in the '90s?

Here were are the dawn of a new year. Out with the old, in with the new, right? And yet here we are, in the year 2009, and the Internet is still littered with websites that look like they were written and designed during the mid-90s heyday of Geocities and Alta Vista.

While an old book in a library might be a comforting sight, on the Internet, old is bad. Take a look at websites such as the aptly-named Web Pages That Suck -- does any of it look familiar to you? If your company's site looks anything remotely like the ones posted there, it's time to make a new New Year's Resolution and get with the times -- and fast.

Your website is your "virtual storefront", the place where first impressions are made and sales won or lost. And if you have a poorly designed website -- or even one that was a state-of-the-art "online brochure" 10 years ago -- people will quickly leave your site and never come back.

For whatever reason, bad websites can happen to the very best of companies (for more information on this topic, I recommend reading the series of posts at EvoBlog). However, that's not an excuse to just let your website slide into obscurity.

Yes, you'll need to invest in a reputable

web design firm

to do much of the work on your behalf. But there are so many easy ways to improve your site, and you don't need to be a programming guru to make thing happen. For example, writing

search engine optimized web content

is easier than ever thanks to

Google Analytics

and its plethora of SEO keyword tools.

With a few clicks of a mouse, you can find out what exactly people are searching for, how many people are searching for it, and what they are doing once they finally reach your website. Having this information at your fingertips makes it extremely easy to revise your copy, as necessary, on a regular basis. So what's stopping you?

Of course, if you need help getting the most out of your website, or simply don't have the time to write copy, well, that's where web marketing companies like Marketing Breakthroughs come in. Our staff of Web 2.0 and web marketing specialists has turned around numerous websites, providing extraordinary results to our clients.

The pages of the calendar have turned. You owe it to yourself and your clients / customers to make sure your company's website isn't stuck in the past.

What is Viral Marketing?

It's not just a buzz word.

According to Wikipedia, viral marketing is so named because of it's likeness to:

...self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.^[1] Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.

So, viral marketing is not spamming Facebook or Twitter. That's just bad advertising.

Viral marketing is not a press release you spam to all your friends.

Viral marketing is not a Youtube version of your company's 30 second TV spot.

Viral marketing is the creation of something worth passing on, that then gets (and pay attention because this is key) passed on.

In short: it ain't viral til it is.

A good example of viral marketing is the Pomegranate Phone. What makes it viral?Well, I heard about it because Dave said, "Hey Mike, check this out." And now I'm passing it on further on this blog. It's being spread, freely, by people not associated with the Pomegranate marketing team.

Oh, and here's the original site for the Pomegranate Phone: http://www.pomegranatephone.com/

Pass it on.

Why Small- and Mid-Sized Companies Should Embrace Social Media

Why?

Because Big Companies Are So Scared of Social Media.

Social Media is about, you know, socializing. Engaging back and forth with someone. It's not the same as a TV or Radio ad. Your audience isn't passive, meaning that neither should you be.

For small companies, social media affords them the rare chance to actively engage with their consumers. To find out what customers want, what factors affect their decisions, and how a business can provide more value.

The actual article linked to above mentions niche sites, (i.e., the Long Tail) that get more hits in a week than corporate sites get in a decade. The truth is that most corporate sites suck, because for most of them, they're useless. Why would I ever go to the Pepsi website? The only reason I might consider would be to nab one of those crazy insane flavours they sometimes make (take a hint, Pepsi). So big brands like Pepsi set up viral marketing campaigns, which sometimes are quite effective, as in the case of Pepsi + Mentos Youtube videos, and sometimes fall flat (the hundreds of other corporate viral marketing campaigns you've never heard of).

Now, for a small site, they can probably provide value online. A small restaurant can post its menu or driving directions. They can even add a reviews section to their menu. Or even a recipes section for a few of their popular dishes. Freelancers have it even better. They can just add clients to Facebook or Twitter and actually interact with them like a human being.

I say take advantage of web 2.0 if you can. Just don't try and disguise an ad as basic interaction with your customer* - they're not all dumb and you'll look kind of silly.

*Note: Actually advertising on social networks is fine. Just don't pretend like that's not what you're doing.

Marketing Decision-Makers Are Moving Their Ad Dollars

No doubt you've heard that with dips in the market, there are opportunities to be had. Take a look at this story from Advertising Age:

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Over the next six months, not only will ad spending be down, but the feeling among advertisers and their agencies toward media such as broadcast TV, national newspapers and magazines is growing more pessimistic. The dreary outlook is courtesy of the new Advertiser Optimism Report by Advertiser Perceptions.

But while the outlook is somewhat bleak for the aforementioned ad media, others like online, cable TV and mobile are likely to attract more of marketers' money.

Other companies are moving their ad dollars.

What do you do? Be sure you don't blindly follow the pack. If you move ad money where you know others will too, make sure you're leading the pack and that you're doing something very unique.

Consider putting ad dollars where you know there will be less competition. Take a good hard look at what you're selling - how will it do in print media?

Just be sure that whatever you do, it's not done blindly.

Marketing Fast Food to Kiddies: I'm Not Lovin' It

Fellow Ottawa marketing company Fuel Industries is flying high these days - McDonald's Europe has given the company the mandate to revolutionize the Happy Meal. So what's their approach, you ask? The answer is "advergaming" (video games + advertising), featuring an original Fairies and Dragons concept.

While this is great news for our neighbours at Fuel and an exciting and fresh new direction for McDonald's marketing, I can't help but find the idea of marketing fast food to children problematic.

One of my past professors at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University, Dr. Charlene Elliott (now teaching at the University of Calgary) is currently researching food marketing and its relationship to obesity here in Canada. More specifically, she is focusing her studies on the marketing of "fun foods" to children in supermarkets.

In her article "Assessing 'Fun Foods'", published in the "Obesity Reviews" journal in 2007, Dr. Elliott argues that the 'fun foods' she has identified, which are aimed specifically at children, promote the idea that food should be valued as entertainment rather than for its nutritional value. A clear conclusion from her research is that this trend is dangerous and that manufacturers of such foods such be more responsible and promote healthy nutrition and an active lifestyle to impressionable children.

Coming back to McDonald's, a study stemming from the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown that "most 3- and 5-year-olds who taste-tested a variety of foods said they preferred the ones in the McDonald's wrapper -- even though the foods were exactly the same", proving that the company's advertising techniques do have influential power over cute little kindergarteners like the one pictured above. Unlike grown-up audiences, these children do not have the faculties to view advertisements with a critical eye.

Just some food for thought.