May 4, 2009 omgadmin
Uncategorized
Odato Marketing Group is one of the three finalists for Young Business of the Year in Sarasota. The script for my video interview follows. The question was: “What advice would you give someone who is thinking of starting a business?”
When someone is thinking of starting a business, there are plenty of books, Web sites and counselors out there that can help with writing a business plan, raising capital and making sales.
But I think too many companies fail to invest enough time defining their values. Every entrepreneur should create a written values statement and look for partners, employees and even customers who share those values.
At Odato Marketing Group, we have our Cornerstones, which are Integrity, Attitude, Ideas and Results. They help us stay focused on what’s important and guide us through the thousands of daily decisions that our business plan couldn’t anticipate.
April 15, 2009 omgadmin
Uncategorized
Some time in the distant future—say six months from now—I’ll probably look back at this post the same way we look at our dusty VHS players wasting away in a corner of the attic. In my humble opinion, these are the best free or low-cost tools available today to help companies market online. These are my opinions only. No hate mail, please.
Professional Networks: I like LinkedIn over Plaxo. Sorry Plaxo.
Social Networks: I’ve seen an explosion of Facebook activity among my professional friends in the past few months. Don’t forget to do corporate and personal accounts. The old corporate “pages” were practically worthless, but the new version is better.
Blogs: WordPress has excellent functionality and can operate from their server or yours. WordPress has some great add-ins, including Add-to-Any and several good RSS and Twitter sync options.
Microblogs: At the moment, Twitter is still on fire, especially among twentysomethings. I prefer the status update feature on Facebook, but I’m doing both.
URL Trimmer: I like bit.ly. It helps you save your precious 140 characters on your tweets, while adding some great tracking functionality
Keyword Research: I recommend starting with Google’s keyword tool. It’s easy, free and shows the relative competitiveness of various terms: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. While you’re learning about keywords to target, don’t forget that you’re looking at some rich insight about your customers and what they want. What you see might surprise you and reveal new opportunities.
SEO Analysis: The folks at HubSpot have developed website.grader.com, which can provide some insightful feedback. It’s more technical than most users will understand and it will discover areas for improvement with nearly any site, but I think it’s based on sound SEO principles. While most people are thinking about Google, don’t forget Yahoo and MSN.
Social Bookmarks: Digg, Delicious and Stumbleupon seem to be getting the most traction.
Newsletter: Constant Contact remains our email newsletter of choice. It’s affordable, works well and will help you stay on the right side of the CAN SPAM laws.
Video: Finally, YouTube may be the Google of video, but don’t forget Google Video.
March 25, 2009 omgadmin
Uncategorized
Thumb through your favorite local or trade print publication. You’re bound to spot these common errors. Most are easy to fix.
Putting the logo on top.
Failing to say something meaningful to the customer right away.
Competing headlines (the eye doesn’t know where to go first).
Throwing too much stuff in there.
Including your photo and/or not including a visual of interest to your audience.
Multiple designs thrown together within a space.
Poor design flow (the eye doesn’t know how to flow through the ad).
Insufficient relief space (reading this ad looks like work) and sloppy margins.
No clear call to action and/or Web site for an intermediate step.
Amateurish logo design.
March 17, 2009 omgadmin
Uncategorized
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all. I heard this quote from someone in Ireland today: It’s not a recession…it’s pre-boom.
Since we started Odato Marketing Group five years ago, several people have asked me about our logo. “Hey O’Data–what’s with the shamrock?” First, I tell them that Odato is Italian (although my maternal grandmother was an O’Neill). Then I tell them about Odato Luck.
You should know that I don’t believe in luck. Never have. But right around the time when I was searching for an icon for our logo, my good friend Bill Gruber accused me of having something he called “Odato Luck.” He pointed out that good things just seem to happen to me and that, in his opinion, I was much luckier than most.
After some colorful and eloquent ribbing in his inimitable style, Bill went on to say that he thinks I make my own luck by working hard, being prepared and, most important, having an ultra-positive attitude. There it was. The formula for Odato Luck. Good luck for people who don’t believe in luck, but believe in themselves and the win-win. That’s what inspired our shamrock icon. Sometimes it’s just that simple.
Slainte!
Rich
March 13, 2009 omgadmin
Uncategorized
March 5, 2009 omgadmin
News
Colleagues and Friends,
OK, so I had this dream and you were all in it! As you may know, today marks the five-year anniversary of Odato Marketing Group, so I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for the support, referrals and business that helped us reach this milestone.
I also wanted to let you know we’re expanding operations in Pittsburgh, which will provide us with access to diverse clients, industries, talent and ideas to the benefit of our current and future clients.
There’s not much to be optimistic about in this economy. But I’m proud of the work our team has done in the first five years and looking forward to the kind of continued success that only comes from having win-win relationships with outstanding people like you.
All the best,
Rich
PS: You can read the full press release here: http://bit.ly/S6iav
