One of the things I love the most about having an agency where we work with lots of different clients  is the opportunity to get to know some really nice people. We had that opportunity recently when the owners of Northeast Merchandising in Skowhegan asked us to come in and talk with them about a new logo and a new Web site. We actually ended up renaming their company as well, from Northeast Merchandising to Northeast Coffee Company. Jen Libby,one of my great graphic designers, came up with the cool new logo design and she also did the design for the new site through our Marshall Interactive Division. We did a press release about the new logo and site that you can see on Mainetoday.com. Continue Reading »

Leaf peeping is a very popular activity for tourists during the fall months. Research has shown that driving around and looking at the sites is actually the number one activity that tourists in Maine enjoy doing, and during fall foliage, the Maine attractions have the backdrop of oranges, yellows, reds and golds to make the views even more magnificent.

My PR agency, Nancy Marshall Communications, has been promoting leaf peeping in Maine since 1993 as part of our work for the Maine Office of Tourism. So it was very exciting today when MSNBC named Maine  as one of the top leaf peeping destinations in the nation. (Moose Photo Credit: MSNBC)

Now there are lots of things to do in Maine while you peep at the ‘leafs.’

You can:

1. Peep and Eat. As a matter of fact, Portland was just named one of the best eating cities in the nation by Bon Appetit Magazine.

2. Peep and Paddle. Canoeing on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail or whitewater rafting is great at this time of year, and there are fewer people on the rivers than there are in summer. Check out the rafting on the Kennebec, Penobscot or Dead. I was a Maine Rafting Guide in my 30s, but then I realized it made me really nervous to be responsible for so many people in a rubber raft going down a roaring rock-filled river, so I decided not to do it and just carry the license around to show people. Continue Reading »

You know the expression, “the shoemakers’ children have no shoes.”

I can relate to that old shoemaker. He is busy making shoes for his paying clients. When the day is done, he has to go home and do his chores, including taking care of his children and his home. The poor shoemaker has no time to make shoes for his own children.

Yet if he doesn’t, the children will have cold feet and then they will get sick. (Luckily the shoemaker lived in the day before the H1N1 Virus, but that’s a topic for another day.)

So here at Nancy Marshall Communications, we’re in the business of helping our clients to define their brands, their key marketing messages, and the “look and feel” of their identity. We do this work with great enthusiasm all day long.  But recently it became obvious that due to our business growth and expansion, and we needed to look at our own brand, I was overcome with a certain sense of paralysis. Continue Reading »

A video posted by a friend on Facebook today provided some interesting insights into the idea of using social media for marketing. Company CEO’s who thought that allowing comments on their blog or creating a Facebook page for their company meant giving up control should watch this video. Social media expert Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group talks about how we essentially give up control if we don’t participate in social media. She also breaks down the different type of social media users in a way that makes it easier to understand how some people just read social media, some comment, some share content with friends, and some publish their own blogs or other online media. She talks about how marketers can engage all levels of social media users from the ‘watchers’ right through to the ‘publishers’ so as to engage entire communities of people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0zrCI1m7Nk
This is from SES San Jose, a conference on the future of search. Wish I had been there!

When I first learned about Search Engine Optimization(SEO), I was working with a Maine whitewater rafting company that had their accountant optimizing their site for them in his spare time. He was able to easily baffle me by talking about the logarithms for each of the search engines. This was at least 10 years ago, back around the time that we were spending a lot of time worrying about how all our computers were going to crash with the onset of Y2K.  Back then, we didn’t think about Google as much as we did Yahoo, Alta Vista, and even AskJeeves. Today, Google rules the roost when it comes to SEO.

Being a typical PR person, I have always thought more about words and images than about numbers. So when I even heard the word “logarithm,” I was immediately convinced that I would never be able to “do” SEO. The accountant easily convinced me that I needed to pay him to do it for my own site and my clients’ sites. Continue Reading »