I think I was born to promote. As the saying goes, “you can’t deny your karma,” so I’m running with it.

 Now that I have a blog, I have something new to promote. I want more traffic to the blog partly because I want it to be successful and partly because my agency is in the business of counseling our clients on how to create their own blogs that rank high in the search engines. Continue Reading »

Today was a beautiful day for my son Jamie’s ski race at Sugarloaf on Competition Hill. I talked with Lee and Holly Thibodeau from Cold River Vodka.  They are a client of NMC. We helped launch their brand in 2005 and 2006. At Christmastime in 2006 we sent a sample bottle to Gourmet Magazine. The staff tasted it during their holiday party. The result appeared this week in Gourmet’s e-newsletter. Another PR result for Cold River Vodka is in this month’s Oprah Magazine, which resulted from a pitch I made at last year’s Maine Media Marketplace event in Manhattan. These two results in monthly magazines are examples of the long-term nature of Media Relations. Sometimes you make a pitch and nothing happens for a year or two. But the results are worth waiting for! 

I also talked to Jen McCormack, my good friend who lives in Carrabassett and works for the Franklin Community Health Network in Farmington.  She and her husband Jim also own Mountain View Cottages in Rangeley. She always counts on me for a good laugh. She and I were laughing and someone near us had a two-way radio which picked up the melodious tones of our joyous laughing sounds. Her husband heard us and called her cell phone to tell her to quiet down.  Oh well, some people just don’t get it that it’s healthy to have a good belly laugh once in a while. Actually every day is a good idea!Speaking of Sugarloaf and ski racing, Bode Miller raced here while attending Carrabassett Valley Academy. Bode recently started a social networking site for skiers called SkiSpace.  Since I’m an avid skier, I’ve just created a profile on SkiSpace. We’ll see where it goes.

Julie Parenteau is the web designer who works for my agency, Nancy Marshall Communications. On Wednesday night of this week, during the Lunar Eclipse, her Gram passed away. I wanted to send my sympathies to Julie on my blog since she is the one who created the beautiful blog design.  She also designed my agency’s site as well as the site for the print shop that my husband and I own, Carrabassett Marketing & Printing. Here’s to the great life of Julie’s Gram, Dolores Genevieve Lefebrve Davidson. And thanks to my good friend Steve Phillips of Steve Phillips Video, for sending this amazing photo of the lunar eclipse.

Last Saturday, I was invited to the Open House of the first hut in the new ‘Huts and Trails’   network in my home town of Carrabassett Valley, Maine.  I saw many people I knew, including Suzi Hockmeyer and Russell Walters from Northern Outdoors Adventure Resort, John Willard from the Birches Resort in Rockwood, and Vici Robinson of Kingfield. Claudia Diller, who created the beautiful art in the upper right hand corner of this blog page, was there with her partner Tom Hildreth. He owns Carrabassett Coffee. Severin Beliveau, one of Maine’s most influential attorneys, was there. He was on the phone with Governor Baldacci who couldn’t come because he was sick. But the Governor’s son Jack was there, as was Ramona du Houx, a photographer and reporter from the Maine Democrat, who documents the Governor’s day-to-day travels.

I was pleased to have a chance to catch up with an old friend who calls himself “Ski Bum.”  Scott Andrews is a journalist who focuses on skiing and the outdoors. He lives in Portland, Maine, and has a blog on mainetoday.com.  Scott and I walked and talked for the 2 1/2 mile trek from the hut back to the Carrabassett Valley Town Office.  Since we’ve known each other since my early days of doing PR for Sugarloaf, starting in 1984, we had a lot to catch up on!

Scott is an example of a traditional journalist who has kept up with the times by turning to blogging. He recently took a ski trip across country, driving his Subaru and skiing at resorts along the way, and blogged about the whole trip.

I told him I would write about him on my blog and link to his story on www.mainetoday.com, thus today’s post!

Everyone knows that the news media is now providing news and information in a variety of formats.  News journalists are being encouraged by their management to not only provide stories in print but to create blogs, podcasts, video clips in order to tell their stories.  Jane Wooldridge, travel editor at the Miami Herald, is one journlist who has been an early adapter in all things “new media.” Check out her blog.  I heard Jane speak on a panel at the meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers recently and she talked about how when she travels now, she not only takes her reporters’ pad but also her audio recorder, her still camera and her video camera. She writes stories, creates blog posts, records podcasts and shoots video segments for every story.

We’re doing the same. PR people cannot stay in the dark ages, and hope that good old fashioned press releases alone are going to produce measurable results. We are working to create information for the news media in a variety of formats. Check out our client page on my agency’s website where you can see the video ‘vignette’ we created for Maine Built Boats as well as the podcasts we have created for the Department of Economic and Community Development of the State of Maine. 

 We are also creating YouTube videos for clients such as Saunders Manufacturing, the company that markets Rhinoskin products. Sarah and Alyssa on my team produced this video and Anna did the voice over.  This was shot right in our own offices in Augusta.  Check it out on YouTube.

For several years now, we have created video news releases during the fall foliage season in Maine to show the progression of the colors as the leaves turn bright orange, red, and yellow during the fall months. We send these videos to meteorologists at local stations and the Weather Channel, and we have had great success. We’ve done the same for snowmobiling and skiing. A picture is worth a thousand words and a moving picture (video) is worth a million words.

There are so many new ways of communicating for publicists as well as journalists. I find it exciting and stimulating.

I’m working on building my networks in Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. I haven’t done too much with Facebook and MySpace frankly but I am going to work on it this week. On LinkedIn, I have been building my network consistently for several months.  I love being able to see how many degrees of separation there are between others and myself on LinkedIn.

Here is my Facebook page.

Today I purchased an ad on Facebook to promote this blog. We’ll see how we do with it. I am experimenting with all these communities so I can better counsel my clients on how to leverage the marketing value of being involved. As I continue to experiment with different aspects of each community, I will report back.

I’ve invited my son to ‘friend me’ on Facebook. We’ll see if he does. I don’t really think he wants his mother as his friend on his page, unfortunately. Jean Chatzky, the financial guru who has a radio show on the Oprah XM 156 Radio Station, was just complaining about the same issue on her show the other day. Jean, if you’re reading this blog, I feel your pain.

By the way, I love Oprah’s radio station on XM and I think that Oprah and her team have set the standard for multi-media exposure to build Oprah’s celebrity and expertise with the TV show, soon to be TV Network called OWN, the radio station on XM called Oprah and Friends, the Magazine, the website, numerous blogs and published books. In so many ways, Oprah inspires me. It’s not only her leadership and sheer success, but for her commitment to doing the right thing as well as how she stays true to herself and true to her friends. Her best friend is Gayle King who also has a radio show on XM 156. I enjoy listening to Gayle, too, as well as Dr. Oz, Dr. Robin Smith, Marianne Williamson and Bob Greene, Oprah’s personal trainer.

I just returned from a weekend trip to Mont Saint Sauveur, a small mountain town north of Montreal where my husband was working on a ski race. It’s located in the Laurentian Region of Quebec. It occured to me while we were there that the personality, or the unique ‘flavor’ of the region, was in evidence everywhere I turned.

The Laurentians combine the international feel of Europe with the outdoor adventure and heritage feel of the Canadian mountains. There’s a distinct ‘look and feel’ to the architecture, the interior decor of the hotels and restaurants, and even the signage. Nice touches at the resort such as outdoor wood-burning fireplaces and a horse-drawn sleigh to carry skiers from the parking lot to the ski lodge only reinforce the local personality or brand.

Several weeks ago I spoke to a group of economic developers in Maine. One of the audience members asked me about branding. He said,”Frankly, I think it’s over-rated. We don’t have the time nor do we have the money to spend on branding our region. We just want to get out and promote it.”

Ouch.

How can you go out and promote something if you don’t have any idea what differentiates it from the competition? How can you tell a prospect about your region if you haven’t taken the time to identify its strengths and its weaknesses, its opportunities and its threats?

I think that if you are in charge of marketing a place, you need to get the players together from the community and do some group thinking about the place you are promoting. Bring together the artists, the authors, the photographers, the business people, the school officials, and maybe even some local kids. Figure out what it is that makes people love your region. What makes if different? How does the local heritage impact the place that it is today? What is it that defines your community, your region, or your state?

When I was in college, I took courses in “American Studies” where we learned a great deal about how the art and literature of a region are a reflection of that region, and how it helps to create the unique personality of the region. The communities in a region are all part of the intricate fabric of culture, heritage, and the economy. The food is part of that unique culture, as is the architecture and even the recreational activities. My professor, the infamous Charlie Bassett, told us that if we don’t preserve the unique personalities of the regions in our country, we are going to become a nation that is ”pasteurized and homogenized.”

So please, if you are marketing a place, take the time to identify your brand. It doesn’t have to be an expensive process, but it does involve some dialogue and some good hard thinking. Make sure you know what makes your community different from others and what you have to offer to a new family, a new business or a new organization that might want to move there.

I’ll talk more in a future post about the way we go about doing branding at Nancy Marshall Communications through our “Marshall Plan” process. A good book on the topic is “Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry and Tourism to Cities, States, and Nations” by Philip Kotler, Donald H. Haider, Irving Rein” available through Amazon.com.

Today is another snowy day. We’ve had a great winter from the point of view of skiing but sometimes driving has been a challenge. I’m glad I have my Saab SUV with new snow treads.



On Monday I drove to the Samoset Resort in Rockport for a meeting with travel writer Melissa Harmon and Pat Eltman from the Maine Office of Tourism regarding an upcoming gathering of the Northeast Chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers.  We met with Eric Fredereksen who is the very professional and gracious Regional Director of Sales & Marketing. 

Every time I log on to my email, I’ve been adding connections on my LinkedIn account every day.  I enjoy looking at other people’s contacts and seeing the degrees of separation. One thing that bugs me is that I am listed as being from the Lewiston/Auburn area. I am from either Augusta or the western mountains of Maine depending on whether you’re considering my office of my home location. I emailed LinkedIn about their lack of accuracy in listing regions on their site. I have not yet heard back but I will let you know what they say when I hear.

Walter Briggs, owner of Briggs Advertising in Bath,  contacted me by I.M. this morning to thank me for giving him a recommendation on LinkedIn. This is important for credibility. I need to ask him to give me a recommendation back!

One of the funny things about Walter Briggs is that he has the same name as my own brother who lives in Bethany, Connecticut where we grew up.   Talk about funny coincidences! My brother Walter is a selectman in the town of Bethany.  At that time we were ’summer people’ in Maine, spending summers at our cottage on Damariscotta Lake. Then in 1977 my parents and I moved to Maine. Walter stayed in Connecticut. My brother Don moved to Maine for a number of years but then he moved back to Connecticut too. Since I’m talking about Bethany and LinkedIn, I always think about the community I grew up in as an example of a tight-knit community.

My family had a huge network of friends around town. We were involved with the school, the town political committee, the 4-H, the church, the Pony Club, the swim team, and the Country Club. Back then, in the 60’s and 70’s, there were no ‘online communities’ but in Bethany, everyone knew everyone so we didn’t need an online community. Everyone also knew who was related to whom, who was friends with whom, what church everyone attended, what pets people had, and what political party people belonged to. 

Now, with online communities like LinkedIn, MySpace and FaceBook, you can actually see who your friends know and what they like to do. I’m not sure if it’s better than the kind of community I grew up in, it’s just different. And for marketing purposes, it’s invaluable to build your network in these online communities.There’s a term called Social Capital that is promoted by one of my clients, the Maine Community Foundation. I have a lot of this kind of capital because I know a lot of people, but I never knew that it had a name.

I also learned recently that having ’social capital’ actually adds real ‘value’ to your life. I know that I feel enthusiastic and excited about knowing a lot of people all over the state of Maine, around country, and even the world and there is true value to having social capital. Adding links through LinkedIn adds to that social capital. I like doing it. As Martha Stewart would say, “it’s a good thing!”


I was just talking with Jen Boes who is one of my associates at Nancy Marshall Communications. I told her I think this blogging habit could become addictive. I guess it’s a good addiction and it’s cheaper and less fattening than some other substances I could be addicted to!