By Leo Valiquette
Earlier this year, I had the honour of being involved with Northern Lights 2012, a four-day conference that showcased economic and business development opportunities in Canada’s north, along with the social, cultural and environmental considerations that must be part of any commercial activity up there.
The emerging opportunities in the north, as well as the bargaining power its resources afford Canada on the international stage, are immense. The conference focused on the territory of Nunavut, the region of Nunavik in northern Quebec and the region of Nunasiavut in Labrador. Between them, these regions possess oil and gas reserves that dwarf western Canada’s, a diverse selection of mineral wealth, massive untapped green energy resources and new opportunities for tourism.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a content marketer, I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to 201 blogs and have another two dozen or so outlets saved as links, which I monitor daily. I monitor streams on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook and plough through Google news for hours every morning. I’m also a recent Prismatic user. This is how I uncover news for my clients and our agency and stay on top of the latest developments in each industry.
Out of the hundreds of news items I skim every day, I read perhaps only a fifth of their leads. Of those leads, only a small fraction grabs my attention and tempts me to read on. Of those I read through to the end, only a few are shared on our agency’s and client’s accounts. Needless to say, the vast majority of content I read on the Internet today is rubbish.
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By David French
I visited a wine tasting opening event for a make-it-yourself wine business in Shawville, Québec recently. While reclining in comfort, I considered the question: “Do intellectual property rights matter for small businesses in little towns?” IP rights refer to patents, trademarks, copyrights, secrets and a few other subtle types of non-tangible property rights. Everybody’s always interested in patents because they think patents are a ticket to getting rich. But this happens so rarely that I would like to skip to the most important IP right: trademarks.
What is a trademark? Before answering this question, there is a key issue that is worth considering: After you spend all your money on advertising and promotion, including printing letterhead and handing out business cards, what do you have left in terms of value? The answer is people’s impressions and memory of you and your business. And how are people going to remember you and your business? That is where a trademark comes in.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Fast Company, Econsultancy, MarketingWeek, TechVibes, and Business 2 Community.
How to properly define ‘great leader’ — and act like one
We don’t think of leadership as some set of fuzzy, intangible character qualities that some people are born with and others are not. We think of leadership as the performance of behaviours. The skill of performing these behaviours can be learned and developed by anybody. Some people do not develop these skills and therefore do not perform leader behaviours with much competence. Others develop some skill and become pretty good leaders. Others develop considerable skill and become great leaders. Author Geoff Smart defines “great leader” and explains what they do to achieve great results.
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By Leo Valiquette
Customer service, and the lack thereof, is a recurring topic on this blog, and for good reason. As public relations and marketing consultants, we appreciate the profound impact that a poor experience with your brand can have on a customer’s willingness to come again or refer your products and services to others. We may not be customer service experts, but we are active consumers who regularly engage with the front-line staff of numerous brands. And it’s what happens on the front lines that matters most.
Francis said it best in a past post, Kudos for empowered customer service:
“My consistent points are that the cost of acquiring customers is almost always far higher than the cost of keeping them, that effective customer service is the only sustainable competitive differentiator, and that most customer-service operations fail by forcing their agents to be powerless automatons more interested in getting the customer off the line than actually servicing them.”
If your customers do not feel well-served on the front line, your marketing messaging, no matter how well-crafted, will not save you. Your brand reputation is built, not by words, but by the actions of your team at every point of contact, from the reception desk to order fulfilment and after-sales support. The purpose of the words crafted by the marketing team is to evangelize the great service you provide. As marketing consultants we can’t create something from nothing and in the age of social media, what smacks of hypocrisy can come under harsh, and very public, criticism quite fast.
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Happy Independence Day!
July 04, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
To all our neighbours down south, happy Independence Day. Regular posting will resume tomorrow […]
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The top 10 truths of social media
July 03, 2012 by Caroline Kealey
There’s no question that social media is the darling of communications tactics at the moment, and with good reason. Social media gives communicators a direct, immediate and highly targeted way of engaging with our audiences. It’s a profound and permanent […]
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Happy Canada Day long weekend!
July 02, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
From all of us at Francis Moran and Associates, we hope you have a happy and safe Canada Day long weekend. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.
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June roundup: What does it take to bring technology to market?
June 29, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
We are bringing you our roundup a little earlier than usual this month because we will be celebrating Canada Day early next week when this post would otherwise be published […]
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Great articles roundup: Webinars, storytelling, cognitive overload, business mistakes, government funding, and Khan Academy
June 29, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, Business2Community, Entrepreneur Stories, PC Advisor, and Wired […]
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Why is there a lighthouse on your brochure?
June 28, 2012 by Francis Moran
Many years ago, our PR agency had a client for which we did media and analyst relations across North America and in Europe. This matched the market footprint of this rather successful company that was in the document-management space. One day, they sent […]
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7 ways to stay sane and productive
June 27, 2012 by Leo Valiquette
There’s an old joke about the easy-going work-life balance that results from being an entrepreneur. “I can work for only half the day,” says the entrepreneur. “And I get to decide which 12 hours that will be.” […]
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Ottawa entrepreneur Scott Annan comments on the relaunch of Mercury Grove
June 26, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
Scott Annan is widely known in Ottawa for being a startup champion. He’s an entrepreneur who has strong opinions about the local startup ecosystem and what needs to change to increase our competitiveness on the global stage […]
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