I wrote this article for my bi-weekly e-newsletter, “The NMC Report.”  If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to go to www.marshallpr.com and sign up to receive it by e-mail every other Tuesday.  Continue Reading »

This is going to date me, but when I was a teenager, while spending summers at our cottage on Damariscotta Lake, I used to collect S&H Green Stamps and paste them into the little green stamp books. Then my mom and I would go to Rockland where I could redeem my books full of stamps for “stuff.” I don’t remember what “stuff” I used to get, but back then, it was pretty darn exciting.

This brings me to the subject of fish bait. Rockland used to smell like fish bait. Mainers would say “that smells wicked.” I didn’t talk like a Mainer back then, so I would just say, “Mom, it stinks here!”

Well Rockland has cleaned up its act. It doesn’t smell bad there any more. It is a beautiful town with lots of boats, restaurants, and shopt so visit, not to mention the Farnsworth Art Museum where you can see works by the Wyeth Family and the Maine Lobster Festival where you can eat plenty of my favorite crustacean. Continue Reading »

There’s a blog at http://www.copyblogger.com that I receive by RSS every day. I find the information to be really useful and interesting. Today’s post analyzes a landing page created for a Cost Per Click Ad Campaign for www.babynapswell.com. The information provided by copyblogger is really specific and detailed on how this landing page could be improved to increase the click-through rate from the ad to the landing page.  I encourage you to read this post if you currently engage in CPC advertising, or if you plan to dip your toe in the water.

Thanks to Rich Brooks of Flyte New Media  and to Nicole Ouellette of Breaking Even Communications for this article that was published on Fast Company’s blog about making the social media choices that are  right for you. Some of my clients have asked me recently which social media they should engage in. There is no one clear answer. You need to engage in the online communities where your targeted audience can be found (the expression is to ‘fish where the fsh are,’) and you shouldn’t over-extend yourself. Only get invovled with as many online networks as you can keep up with.  If your goal is to drive traffic to your Web site, then you need to measure how many visitors are going to your site from each online community or network, then measure the effectiveness of your efforts. 

Of course some people engage in social media because it’s fun!  I love to go on to Facebook because it’s an extension of my normal socializing. I don’t really expect to achieve anything from it other than happiness.  If  happiness is your goal, that’s O.K.!

My agency, Nancy Marshall Communications, puts out an e-newsletter every other week with useful information on Web marketing, Internet marketing and public relations.  It’s called The NMC Report.  I’d love to have you go to my Web site and sign up for it!

I’m going to give you a sneak peek of an article that will be coming out in tomorrow’s edition. It’s by Anna McDermott who is one of my agency’s account executives and an expert on social media.

Internet Marketing: What Really Works

by Anna McDermott, Nancy Marshall Communications

In the last issue of the NMC Report, I focused on how to use SEO and social media to market your company’s products or services online. Those are obviously both important and useful marketing tools, but there is more to the world of Internet marketing. Another favorite Internet marketing strategy is the use of email marketing. Continue Reading »

This morning my son was leaving for a ski race in Vermont for the week, and he realized that he was nearly out of ski socks. We have a problem with an overly excitable yellow lab who chews socks when people come to visit us at our house. It’s her way of trying to get attention. So our inventory of socks diminishes quickly.  The problem with replenishing the supply is that the type of socks my boys and my husband have been wearing for the past couple of years costs $16 a pair. Continue Reading »