Marketing that goes above & beyond
Differentiating your company’s brand in an ever-similar marketplace turns good marketing into great marketing.

Take the next step by marketing your company interactively on the Internet.

60-Second Articles:

1. A Business Focus for 2007: The Year of Differentiation
2. Differentiating Convenience Stores: 7-Eleven’s Marketing Home Run
3. What to Do If Time’s “Person of the Year” Isn’t “You”
4. The 60-Second Close: Being a Top Goal Scorer

1. A Business Focus for 2007: The Year of Differentiation

• Each January, we recommend a focus to help guide you and your business through the upcoming new year. In previous years, we have recommended “The Year of Wow” and “The Year of Imagineering.”
• The purpose of a business focus, much like that of a mission statement, is to rally your business, with a simple phrase, to perform beyond the normal expectations.
• This year, we usher in “The Year of Differentiation.” In an age where similarity is rampant in all business categories, what will you do to make your business distinct among your competition? When your customers have a number of choices, what is it that you offer that will make them choose and remember you?

2. Differentiating Convenience Stores: 7-Eleven’s Marketing Home Run

• 7-Eleven convenience stores have taken a giant step toward differentiating their brand from the other “faceless” C-stores located on almost every corner of the country.
• The more than 175 7-Eleven stores in the Chicago market have signed a sponsorship with Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox that requires that all weeknight home games will start at 7:11. Elements of the promotion include in-stadium announcements, coupon giveaways and in-store merchandising.

3. What to Do If Time’s “Person of the Year” Isn’t “You”

• Time Magazine has selected you — yes, you — as its “Person of the Year” for 2006. Why? Because you had a part in controlling the new “Information Age.” Wait, you say you had no part of this? You don’t understand what’s going on? Are you suddenly feeling left out of the Internet world around you?
• Here are the two most crucial things you need to know that will bring you up-to-date on the new “Information Age”:
  • Over the past several years, the Internet has evolved from a monologue-type format to a world, called Web 2.0, where people can instantaneously share information with each other on blogs, instant chats and video uploading sites like YouTube.
  • Why should your company participate in Web 2.0? With a simple blog, your customers can provide testimonials about your company or even upload videos about how they use your product.

4. The 60-Second Close: Being a Top Goal Scorer

• Hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You’ll miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.” The subtleness of this quote speaks volumes — if you don’t take any shots, you’ll never reach your goals.
• If you have goals and an idea of where you want your company to be in 12 months and need assistance getting there, then let us know. From traditional to online marketing and from differentiation to Web 2.0, we’ve got an all-star team that can help you get where you need to go … faster than ever … and score more goals than ever before.

Best wishes, Jason Mudd, APR Founder and CEO AXIA (904) 583-1977