It’s no surprise digital marketing is dominating the ad buying space. Time spent online is predicted to account for 46.7 percent of total time spent with media, and as a result marketers are projected to spend 17 percent more in the digital space this year alone.

Small business owners all around the world are busy. So busy that when it comes to social media they likely consider it a "win" if they can get any form of simple engagement. Because of this menatlity, they are stuck in the social media infancy of 2008. The social media evolution has made great strides over the past few years for the small business owner, but that business owner likely doesn't know it.

Every good marketing plan clearly outlines objectives so your team can look back on the year and say, “We got where we wanted to go.” After all, no one starts a race without knowing where the finish line is.

You’ve landed a television interview - you should be excited (unless of course it’s 60-minutes knocking on your door).

Assuming your interview is for positive purposes, the presence of a camera still provides a unique dynamic, and there are factors that need to be considered before doing an interview with broadcast media. In preparing for a broadcast interview, here are simple and specific steps you can take to make your television appearance a successful one.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

OKLAHOMA CITY (October 2, 2015) – The third carnation of VI Marketing and Branding’s Carne Diem was one for the books, the record books.

In print advertising, headlines are critical. They’re the bait. They grab your attention, and once you’re hooked, the body copy begins reeling you in with product or brand benefits, Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), reasons to change your behavior and so on. After this, either the fishing line breaks and you’re off the hook, or the CTA brings you aboard the boat and throws you into an ice-filled Styrofoam cooler marked “sold.”

There’s an old Steve Martin joke that goes something like this: “You can be a MILLIONAIRE and never pay taxes! That’s right, you can have ONE MILLION DOLLARS and never pay taxes! You say, Steve, how can I be a MILLIONAIRE and NEVER pay taxes???! First… get a million dollars…”

We’ve told you many times before that a brand is not a logo or a tagline. Rather, it’s a promise you make to your customers. If you agree with that line of thinking (and we hope that you do) this blog will explain how your brand position can and should guide decisions at your company.

If you’re a modern marketer, you likely understand the benefits of digital tools. You can target prospects far better today than ever before. You can adjust marketing activities based on the online behavior of your prospects. You can see, in real-time, what tactics are driving conversions and put more resources towards them. And much of this can be done automatically. Marketing automation we call it.

Just attending a show isn’t enough. It’s crowded, packed with booths, and everything and everyone is doing what they can to get noticed. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up over my 10+ years of designing booths, working alongside clients and booth companies, and being a show attendee myself that I have seen impact overall trade show experience and success.

How much do you notice the fonts and typography used throughout the websites you visit and interact with on a daily basis? Facebook uses Helvetica, Instagram uses Proxima Nova and the New York Times predominantly uses Georgia. These fonts are applied through a line of code in the CSS of each site, that sets the “font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;” for example. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you are probably aware that things are already gearing up for the 2016 elections. The primaries (especially Republican) have been dominating the local and national news.