Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

07/11/11

I am a red-blooded American gal and I love to find things on sale! Who doesn’t? I have started to wonder, can a retail business have too many sales? I get an e-mail almost everyday from Lands’ End. I love Lands’ End, I think they have a great product. I am so conditioned to buying when there is a sale

07/07/11

Force 5 remains steadfast in its commitment to be a  “next generation brand development and marketing communications firm.”  Determing what that next generation technology is and how to bring it to clients in an effective and practical way is the real challenge in fullfilling our commitment.  One next generation technology is mobile.  Today, all indicators show that in the foreseeable future, mobile will play a

06/21/11

In a May 2011 Report authored by Michael Stelzner and sponsored by Social media Examiner, the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing. More than 3300 marketers provided insight on the latest trends in Social Media. Here’s a quick summary of the findings: Marketers place high

06/16/11

I emailed a respected marketer and he made a statement that was quite profound.  He said, “Free stuff we’ll take all day long.  But I also don’t want to work with somebody who gives away their products or services too cheap – if they can’t sell their own stuff, how can they help me sell mine?” I loved his perspective

06/14/11

credit: Rocky Ayrawal Hey, Want a deal? Ok, here it is….I’ll give you $2,500—1/3 now, 1/3 in 30 days, and the final 1/3 in 60. You give my customers $10,000 in retail business from your shop. How does that sound? That’s a Groupon deal. The “daily deal” industry structures their deals so that the retailer must be very careful about

06/09/11

For many of us, the internet is an integral part of our lives. Aside from my personal use to book trips, make online purchases and get directions through MapQuest, my focus is generally how it is used as a tool for businesses. I read about best practices in website building, the latest CMS technology, trends, internet marketing, etc. Recently, I

06/02/11

Hungry Twitter Recent news of Twitter purchasing Tweetdeck and cutting off third-party development of Twitter clients has me wondering where Twitter is headed. Twitter has no doubt proved itself as a contender in the online service arena. But can it prove it’s well-carved niche with the likes of Google and Facebook? With the limitation of additional third-party clients and Twitter

06/01/11

I was at a convenience store this past weekend and saw the following sign. So the question that immediately pops into my head is “how is it possible that “Unmatched Pleasure” and “tooth loss” appear in the same ad?” I can’t imagine the marketing challenge involved in trying to sell this product. You have a product that clearly isn’t good

05/10/11

I was surfing yesterday, catching up on news. I noticed an article about a man who was grieving the loss of his wife years after her death. Having experienced the loss of a loved one taken too early and overwhelming grief, I decided to read the article. The article went on to review the circumstances that lead to the woman’s

05/05/11

UPDATE: Since the posting of this article there has been dramatic improvements by the community and now this is no longer the best way to implement this feature. We now use the “Views Slideshow,” found at: http://drupal.org/project/views_slideshow. We have used this method to create the various slideshows for the City of South Bend at www.SouthBendOn.com. One of the more common

05/04/11

Have you made restaurant reservations online? Come on, using a landline phone to make restaurant reservations is so 20th Century! These days, more and more consumers expect to engage with restaurants online and through mobile devices. Are you one of them? Restaurant operators who don’t build up their online presence and brand loyalty are missing an opportunity to generate higher

04/28/11

In their 2007 classic, Made to Stick, authors Chip and Dan Heath cite an experiment conducted in 1990 by Dr. Elizabeth Newton, PhD. The experiment was the study of a simple game. Subjects were given one of two roles: “tappers” and “listeners.” The tappers received a list of 25 common song names such as “Happy Birthday” and “Star Spangled Banner” and asked to tap