Brand Building
Diversifying Your Marketing Portfolio: An Introduction to Modern Marketing as Compared to the Stock Market
Jul 30th
It’s becoming pretty common knowledge that if you want to have success in the stock market, you have to have a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
While your formula will vary a bit based on age and your overall investment goals, it’s usually a good idea to have some risky quick-gain stocks offset by long-term and steady growth options.
This same principle can be applied to the marketing portfolio of any sized business. For the past 10 years, Trimark has experienced the full gamut of marketing strategies, some borderline insanely risky while others have been chugging along steadily for the past 10 years constantly making small strides for the better.
As uncertainty of times come and go, marketing campaigns are tested. Those with a great diverse portfolio always seem to weather the storm. At Trimark Marketing Group, each client’s marketing goals are evaluated, and a diverse marketing plan is suggested for continual growth and sustainability. All the pieces of this customized package work different avenues of advertising and brand presence, and should combine to meet the goals of the business owner.
Here are a few examples of marketing strategies at each spectrum of risk taking and the reward associated with each:
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Trimark Exhibits at LA’s Largest Mixer in Downtown Los Angeles
Jul 28th
This past Thursday, July 22nd, Trimark’s office hit the road to put up a booth at L.A.’s Largest Mixer, held at the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center in downtown Los Angeles.
Dubbed as one of LA’s biggest networking events for business to business relationships, more than 225 exhibitors and over 2,500 people attended the mixer.
We at Trimark made a bunch of new contacts and friends, and even took a business card collection to randomly raffle off a free portfolio website to one lucky local company!
Hosted by the LA chamber of Commerce and sponsored by local media such as ESPN Radio 710, LA Opinion and others, the “trade show” attracted tons of Los Angeles businesses representing just about every angle of commerce you could imagine.
WE got a lot of compliments on our booth and promo materials and took tons of great pics, so we thought we’d post them online for you to check out!
This won’t be the only tradeshow Trimark will be exhibiting at this year, so we’ll be sure to keep you posted in our blog as other events come closer.
We’ll also be unveiling the all-new Trimark Marketing Group website in the coming weeks, so check back with us for updates soon!
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4.8 million hours were wasted on Pac-Man while it was on Google home page
May 26th
It might not sound like a lot on first glance, but the 36 extra seconds that the average Google.com visitor spent there last Friday playing Pac-Man adds up to a massive 4.8 million of wasted hours.
According to a study by RescueTime, Pac-Man on Google–the playable version of the iconic game that the search giant replaced its home page logo with on Friday–cost the economy a total of 4,819,352 man-hours and a whopping $120,483,800 in lost productivity. As RescueTime put it, you could hire every single Google employee, including co-founders Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and CEO Eric Schmidt, and get them for six weeks for that much money.
Still, it’s hard to get too worked up over 36 extra seconds of time someone might have spent on Google. After all, how much time does the average person spend not doing work when other time-sucks come along, like presidential elections, sports championships, “Lost” finales, the death of celebrities like Michael Jackson, and so on. Clearly, that number is an average, and so it masks that fact that some people probably lost most of their day Friday to Google’s remake of the 30-year-old game.
What’s more interesting to me is how much time people lost More >
$3 Million Super Bowl Ads Becoming Overrated
Feb 10th
This year’s Super Bowl ads seemed to disappoint viewers (although that seems to happen every year). After ads being banned and soaring costs (about $3 million for a 30-second spot), we still saw the same tired commercials (wow, look, Go Daddy girl is ripping her shirt off again while Danica Patrick gawks at her for the umpteenth time) and the familiar brands Coke, Budweiser, et al. With the increasing popularity of social media and viral marketing, I am hoping major brands will start moving away from the exorbitant costs and scrutiny that comes with Super Bowl advertising and take their branding and marketing campaigns online. Not to mention they will get better results for $3 million investment.
Pepsi has already made the shift. A few months ago they announced that, for the first time in 20 somthing years, they were not going to advertise during the Super Bowl, electing instead to focus on social media marketing. I think it’s a smart move since $3 million is going to go much farther online than in a one-time 30 second ad, especially when most of us have DVRs and streaming video. With social media marketing, Pepsi can tweak its messaging to cater to different More >
5 vital logo design tips
Jan 6th
Following are 5 tips of creating professional logo.
1. Learn what a logo is and what it representsBefore you design one, you must understand what a logo is, what it represents and what it is supposed to do. A logo is not just a mark – it reflects a business’s commercial brand through the use of shape, fonts, color, and / or images.
A logo is for inspiring trust, recognition and admiration for a company or product and it is our job as designers to create an identity that will do its job.
One must first know what a logo is before continuing. Here is an article for you to read about what is a logo.
2. Know the rules and principles of logo design
Now that you know what a logo is supposed to do, and what it should represent, you now must learn what makes a great logo aka; the basic rules and principles.
- A logo must be describable
- A logo must be memorable
- A logo must be effective without color
- A logo must be scalable i.e. effective when just an inch in size
Successful Logos
Now you know what the rules are, you can distinguish the difference between a More >
Find your company image and keep it consistent
Dec 8th
Every company has a brand. But it’s important to remember to keep your brand consistent as long as your customers still view your brand in a positive light.
Notice the image to the left. While both of these brands create positive feelings about their brand in the minds of their loyal customers, only one brand has remained consistent – Coca-Cola.
The problem with changing you brand image is, not only sinking tons of money into the rebranding (to replace your company trucks, reformat your website, replace all of your stationary and business cards and even your email signatures), but that it alters the perception of the brand in the minds of your customers.
By keeping your brand and your branding message consistent through your marketing and advertising, you can strengthen your brand identity within your industry and in the minds of your customers.
In 2001, the US market share for the soft drink industry was: Coca-Cola – 43.7% Pepsi Co. – 31.4% Cadbury/Schweppes – 15.8%
Trimark Advertising specializes in Brand Positioning and Brand Building Services to help foreign and domestic companies build a foundation for their marketing strategy and marketing mix.
If your company is just starting out, Trimark Advertising offers Logo Design Services to help your More >
Social interaction in the yellow page industry.
Nov 5th
The internet has brought a new dynamic to social interaction as well as business development, marketing, and advertising. Sites are appearing that are solely for the use of social networking and others solely to sale a product or entertain a user. As the internet grows, we’re seeing more and more collaborations of these different aspects providing more relevant and efficient websites for users.
CityWaboo does something that is very unique in the market, it combines yellow page listings with a very sophisticated social networking platform. This means it’s easier for users to connect and exchange information pertaining to businesses in the local area, which also means multiple useful services are being provided to the user. Users simply create a free profile, and then they may begin to write reviews and give recommendations on their favorite and worst experiences with a particular business. They create their inner circle of friends and go to them for suggestions of where to go for certain services. This is unique because it provides a trusted network of friends, as opposed to asking a complete stranger that may or may not be a reliable resource. With the upcoming 2.0 version, the social networking is greatly expanding providing a More >
Small businesses owners, advertise like the big boys.
Nov 5th
Small business owners always tell me that they are not big enough, in comparison to those large corporations that outsource for advertising and marketing, to invest their funds in marketing. They simply don’t have the money to pay for someone to do the planning, executing and analyzing of their business advertising needs.
My first logical question is- who is actually handling the marketing for your business then? Most of the time, the answer is either an employee or a relative or the actual owner of the business. My next question is typically, are you seeing the maximum results from this? Probably not.
So why take the chance on creating a budget for marketing and advertising? Its easy really, typically campaigns involve limited resources as far as your advertising budget that are actually attributed to advertising campaigns. It would be a shame to take an amateur stance on your business’ well being by using amateur marketing and advertising resources. With the economy in a slump, every effort must be made to reach the ever diminishing consumer with efficient and tested methods of marketing and advertising that a firm will provide.
And the big secret: many business owners do not know that there are marketing More >
How Local Businesses Should Capitalize on the Influx of Traffic from the National Political Conventions!
Oct 17th
The Democratic National Convention came and went, and now its time for the Republicans to have their chance. So who where the losers and the winners? No I don’t mean in politics, this is a CityWaboo Blog. The local businesses in Denver and Saint Paul should have capitalized on the tens of thousands of visitors that were hungry, sleepy, and wanted to party. Well maybe not party.
Most of the delegates that are at the convention are from out of town, so to find a place to eat, sleep and even find a local cleaners will undoubtedly result in a search for restaurants, hotels and cleaners in Denver or Saint Paul.
Here is where local businesses need to capitalize on the large amount of traffic that major search engines like Google and Yahoo, and local city guides such as CitySearch.com and CityWaboo.com receive. Just thinking ahead for couple of months can result in great short term business; which can translate into a positive long term reputation.
There are influencers in any arena, as I was flipping through the channels, I caught a glimpse of one of the local political reporters doing a story on what and where the delegates are eating and they were More >
6 ways to promote your business for under $100 per month
Oct 17th
Lately I have been speaking with many of our customers, and the general consensus is that times are tough. Coming from a small business entrepreneurial background I can feel their pain. They are seeing money going out in every direction and customers just are not buying as they were a year ago.
So what is a business owner to do? They have to start cutting the fat, and usually the first thing that they look to cut is the advertising budget, not realizing that the customers that are trickling in might just be due to the advertising and that those customers may even disappear if the advertising budget is cut.
What I propose to our clients is to ride out the tough times and instead of canceling or cutting their advertising budget in full, try instead to streamline and optimize their campaign and look for free or low budget campaigns. Here are few suggestions on what and how to get started. Most of these are online, but do not require extensive computer or internet knowledge.
- Free local listings on major search engines and directories. This has been talked about extensively in many blogs and forums. Here are some popular sites you might More >