This is good news since I am going to start creating more screencast videos. This will give me 50% more video length to work with.
My screencast tool of choice is Camtasia and you can find me on YouTube here
The classis push/pull marketing effect.
Wouldn’t it be nice if large corporations started using their Twitter accounts more often for market research purposes rather than pushing out advertising all the time.
I think there is something to be said for having a balance of marketing messages pushed out but at least start the discussion about the customer experience and try to establish trust with the customer. Once you have that, then you may market.
Yes, if you like sharing your opinions and you have lots of spare time. The surveys range from 5-30mins and you receive points that take a long time to accumulative into anything significant and sometimes you get chances to win grand prizes.
The only public online research panel that I can recommend based on experience is the Ipsos i-Say panel. Even though it seems like they send a lot of surveys, at least I have choice in which ones I want to take.
My only suggestion for them is to tell you the time it takes to complete the survey in the email invitation, rather than the first page of the survey. I would think doing something like this could increase their CTR on their email invites.
We shall wait and see….
June was a long month with time spent between applying for jobs, working on website marketing, pick-up hockey, summer league hockey, and lots of golf.
I think in June I’ve played 3 games of shinny 3 games in a summer league and 4 rounds of golf.
Shot 75 this past Saturday at Anderson Links, my best score in years. We played from the whites which played around 5700 yards. Started the day with a triple bogey then went on to par the next 17 holes with a -2 34 on the back nine. The driver and the putter were on fire that day and it felt good to finally break 80. Too bad I followed it up with a 91 today at Canadian Golf Club.
Looking forward to Canada day in the Capital this upcoming Wednesday July 1st.
May was a busy month although very relaxed with school being done with. Now it is time to look at doing some self promotion and entering the job market.
I’ve also been doing some web design work and web marketing work for a specialty retailer here in Ottawa and small Spa in Napanee, ON. Both companies are benefiting from the use of Google Adwords to attract highly targeted traffic to their respective homepages.
Spent the first few days of May in Las Vegas, went to the Supercross Finals on May 2, 09 at Sam Boyd Stadium, and played a nice round of golf in the middle of the dessert.
Some pictures from the Supercross Finals, Golf, and random Vegas Pics:
April was a very busy month and a very rewarding month for myself. Met lots of new people and contacts, graduated from Algonquin and traveled to Las Vegas for a week long vacation.
April 14 – Final Client Presentations – Algonquin Business Marketing
In school we wrapped up our semester long project with a final client presentation in the boardroom at Algonquin College. This was a one hour presentation to sell our final plan and marketing ideas to our client. Our team delivered a strong presentation which was endorsed by our clients and it will provide them with a solid foundation of marketing strategies to implement in their business.
The Organics Group
April 20-25 – Final Exams – Algonquin Business Marketing
We had three exams to write in order to finish the semester and graduate from the Marketing program. We wrote an exam for our Marketing Communications – New Media, Business Intelligence and Planning, and eMarketing and Distribution courses. There was no final exam in Marketing Research only the final client presentation. I was able to use the time between our client presentation and the final exams to prepare and I ended up doing well with an 87, 90, and 84 on the three exams respectively.
April 27-28 – Powerhouse Sales Event – Hilton Lac-Leamy Ottawa, ON
The Powerhouse Sales Event was a two-day conference at the Hilton Lac-Leamy just across the bridge in Hull, PQ hosted by sales professional Colleen Francis and her team at Engage Selling. This two day event was packed full of light bulb moments and sales strategies that can be implemented in many different ways.
April 29-May7 – Las Vegas Vacation
After a long year at school I decided to reward myself with a week long vacation to Las Vegas to see the Supercross finals, play some golf, and enjoy the 95* desert heat. 10 hours, 2 flights, and 4000kms away from Ottawa, ON is a world full of entertainment and fun. Lots of good times and a relaxing getaway sums up the 8 day vacation.
In the heart of the Las Vegas Strip
Now it’s back to work and time to implement some of the networking and sales strategies I picked up from the Powerhouse Sales Event.
Somehow last week, March flew by and turned into April. March 2009 might have been one of my busiest months ever. In the past 3 weeks, my marketing team at school has completed: a 12 month media plan, a comprehensive marketing research report, and an eMarketing and Distribution channels report. All three of these major reports were tied together with a marketing planning and implementation report that allows our client to pick and choose programs that will help them achieve their organizational objectives over the next 12 months. Our final presentation to the clients is on April 14th, 2009 and then 11 days later we write the final exam and school is over. After a nice rewarding vacation, it’s time to focus on the job market.
March/April Shows and Events
Throughout late March/early April I’ve attended three tradeshows in the Ottawa area. One was for pleasure and two were for business purposes. All three shows were great and I scored plenty of goodies from all the exhibitors.
March 21-22 – The Ottawa Gatineau Golf Expo – Cost: $12
This year, the trade show was at the Ottawa Athletic Club on Lancaster Road in the east end of Ottawa. All the big name manufacturers had demo stations set up (Taylor Made, Ping, Cleveland, Nike, Callaway, Adams Golf) so I was able to go try out all the 2009 drivers and woods. Another thing I liked about this show was the separate area they set up with 20 golf course exhibitors. As you walked in you received a card and they had to go around to each booth and get your card stamped. Once you had the card stamped you were entered into the draw at the hour for a free round of golf, or other prizes. I thought this bingo card system was a creative incentive system to get people interacting with the exhibitors at the golf show. I picked up lots of 2-4-1 golf coupons just by going around and asking a few questions to each exhibitor and getting my card stamped. Plus it was a good way to find out information about local golf courses which helped me since I’ve only lived in Ottawa for 3 years and I’m not sure where all the good courses are yet.
April 1 – Social Innovation and Social Enterprise Tradeshow – Cost: Free
This was the first annual ’social enterprise’ trade show at Algonquin College and a relatively new concept in general. From the presentations I sat in on, my understanding is that a Social Enterprise is where non-for-profit organizations use business and marketing strategies to achieve a triple bottom line.
What’s a triple bottom line?
(Wikipedia): The triple bottom line (or “TBL“, “3BL“, or “people, planet, profit“) captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success: economic, ecological and social.
While I was at the social enterprise show I made a few new contacts. One was Ian from The Code Factory, a great little place downtown at 246 Queen St. The Code Factory is a business incubator and collaborative work space for start-up businesses. They host a variety of events and offer meeting space that can be rented out to members on a variety of terms. Ian told me I should come and check out TeamCamp on Thursday night, I forgot about it until I got home on Thursday afternoon. Looked at the back of the business card I wrote it down on and called Ian around 4:30pm and asked if I could come, he said “come on down, just show up” so I did, and I’m glad I did because it was an excellent opportunity to network and find out about what is going on in the Ottawa business community.
April 2 – TeamCamp Meeting: Pitchfest – Cost: $5 cookie jar donation at end.
From the TeamCamp homepage:
TeamCamp is a series of events aimed at forming like-minded individuals into teams for the purpose of turning smart ideas into startups.
TeamCamp is for you if you are…
I went out on April 2nd and attended the latest TeamCamp meeting and the meeting topic was:Pitchfest. This was an opportunity for anyone with an idea to throw it out there and get some constructive criticism and a chance to brainstorm new ideas. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was a very productive meeting, about 4-5 people pitched different ideas and everybody received some feedback about how to move forward with the ideas. I can’t wait to have some time to prepare an idea for the next Pitchfest. It looks like they’re having another one in May. The TeamCamp meetings are on the first and third Thursdays of the month, I’m gonna go to the next few meetings and see how things progress.
April 4 – Explore Franchising Show – Cost: Free
The Explore Franchising Show was a one day event put on by the Canadian Franchise Association and the Ottawa show was held at the Hampton Inn Ottawa & Conference Centre on Coventry Road, just off the Vanier Parkway. This was my first time at this conference centre and I was pretty impressed when I was walking in, the place looks like a 5 star hotel, as it should for a business conference.
There were a panel of speakers at the trade show, I sat in on the first two. One was titled ‘Learn From A Franchisor’ put on by John Wissent from M&M, Meat Shops. A good presentation about what to expect as a franchisee looking to buy a franchise. The second presentation was titled ‘How to Finance Your Franchise’ put on by Luella Chiasson from TD Canada Trust in Kanata. She put on a good presentation about business banking and how TD will finance up to 70% of the start-up cost through the Canadian Small Business Financing Loan program. The other 30% has to come from the owners to ensure there will be less risk of defaulting on the loans. Before they will consider your start-up you they will want credit history and a personal net worth statement. They also require the last two years of tax assessments from Revenue Canada to ensure you’re not behind on your taxes. TD is also the only bank in Canada that has in-house merchant services. All the other banks have to outsource merchant services and they have a ‘push’ fee to transfer money between accounts. I’m already with TD, so maybe I am biased but overall the presentation was very informative and worth watching. I’ll likely stay with TD if I need to open a business account in the near future.
I also talked with a few of the other exhibitors to listen to their pitches and see if I could generate any new ideas for myself. Most of the franchisors at the show were restaurants and hair cutting salons but there was also a moving company (Two Men and A Truck) and a new sign company (Sign o Rama) that I found interesting. They both had lucrative looking business models but both exhibitors judged me based on my age, and they both assumed that I was a student and only there for research and not to buy a franchise. First impressions mean everything and both of these guys lost mine. Other than that I enjoyed the show and scored some free magazines and a huge franchise directory for all of Canada.
Looking forward to getting out more and attending more events over the next few weeks,
Lucas
