Vintage Filings Business Blog

Statistics continue to support the claim that “green” is important for today’s business professionals and consumers. According to Office Depot, sales of environmentally preferable products represented in The Green Book, the Company’s catalog of green products, increased by more than 10 percent in the contract channel in 2007. This can be attributed in part to a growing interest in green behaviors by small businesses, according to a survey released by Office Depot. The survey found:

• Sixty-nine percent of small business professionals participate in one or more of the following activities: recycle paper, bottles, ink cartridges and/or technology; purchase Energy Star rated technology, recycled paper, remanufactured ink and toner cartridges, refillable products and Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs; and print on both sides of the paper.
• Eighty-five percent of respondents claim they are doing so for one of two reasons: to protect the environment, or to save money.

According to Office Depot, sales of environmentally preferable products represented in the 2007 Green Book, increased by more than 10 percent in the contract channel in the United States. Office Depot said that sales in The Green Book climbed from $660 million in 2006 to $725 million in 2007. The statistics were reported recently in the Company’s 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report.

With rapidly increasing volumes of email communication and legislation that require some emails to be kept for up to seven years, PineApp has announced its new cutting edge email archiving solution. Archive-SeCure provides a cost-effective solution aimed at small to medium sized organisations, that encrypts and stores all email communications based on pre-defined rules for retention and recovery policy.

Archive-SeCure stores an infinite number of emails and supports multiple storage systems including NAS and SAN along with removable drives. By using advanced compression and storing a single copy of an attachment shared across potentially thousands of emails, storage costs can be reduced by up to 90%. A powerful search engine allows auditors and employees to search, view and print archived messages at the click of a button. PineApp also provides support for Microsoft’s envelope journaling and email restoration.

“The value of corporate knowledge held in email communications combined with legislation such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), PCI DSS and the Freedom of Information Act, are forcing companies to take email archiving seriously,” explains Hezi Erez, PineApp CEO. “Archive-SeCure provides a cost effective and scalable solution but also delivers improvements in system performance and employee productivity by reducing the time spent managing email systems.” Archive-SeCure is a stand-alone appliance with no additional per-user license costs or hidden database administration charges. Archive-SeCure works with any email system or environment and integrates with PineApp’s Mail-SeCure email security and management solution. Archive SeCure offers great value at a great price and is available through PineApp’s authorised channel partners.

“By 2009, it is anticipated that 331 billion email messages will be sent daily, in a legal dispute the inability to produce relevant emails is no longer an acceptable defense,” says Hezi Erez. “Email archiving can no longer be left to chance and Archive-SeCure provides a fast and simple solution that makes sure that emails are always available at the push of a button any time in the future.”

Here’s to a prosperous and successful 2009 for you and your company!

Let me introduce you to your best friend and sometimes worst enemy: social media marketing. You have heard the success stories of companies driving powerful consumer awareness via a viral video on Youtube or attaining expert credentials through relevant blog postings. However I want to talk about what happens when social media marketing gets ugly. If you purchase advertisements through an online ad network, there is a strong possibility that you do not know where your brand its being displayed. This has two negative components:

• Your business could be placed next to brand harming content
• Your banner ads could be simply filling in remnant inventory, which means you are practically guaranteed to lose your return on marketing investment

So what can you do to protect your brand’s reputation in the marketplace? Focus first and foremost on where your ads will be shown. This is where traditional advertising had it right. Companies paid based on placement, not solely on impressions. Secondly, experiment and choose innovative advertising mechanisms. If your marketing strategy has little to no risk, then you will produce little to no results. Good examples of fresh advertising placements are:

1. Sponsored blog posts
2. Video advertising
3. Mobile marketing

Social media marketing can be your best friend, but only if you have a well thought out plan and clear objectives.

A phrase I hear countless companies say in regard to advertising is, “I know I am wasting half of my marketing budget, the problem is that I don’t know which half!”  This is a common dilemma that is directly related to where, when and how you are distributing your brand.

A research report was just released by Advertising Age that revealed that the automotive industry would be much better served by transitioning away from television towards radio. This case study is key in understanding domain expertise. If automakers migrate away from television to radio they could be able to dramatically cut their collective marketing budgets while still hitting their target audience; thus increasing their advertising ROI.

If you feel that your marketing dollars are being wasted on the wrong mediums, don’t get frustrated… GET FOCUSED!

Many organizations struggle to optimize online and offline marketing campaigns across an ever increasing number of new marketing channels. Silos of information reside in separate channel-centric technologies, and distributed marketing efforts, from both internal groups and external relationships, add organizational challenges to managing multichannel marketing efforts. Most of all, the proliferation of sales and marketing channels has made multichannel campaign performance difficult to track and monitor.

According to a new study published by Aberdeen, Best-in-Class companies are 1.5-times more likely to address these challenges by utilizing next-generation solutions that enable cross-channel optimization across an enterprise.

The report reveals how top performing companies currently execute multichannel campaigns to extract maximum value from their marketing investments.  By combining organizational capabilities and marketing technologies, Best-in-Class companies are able to positively affect return on marketing investments and customer profitability.

“Traditional multichannel marketing is largely a function of delivering multiple separate campaigns across multiple channels,” explains Ian Michiels, Research Director at Aberdeen. “Best-in-Class companies are executing structured, collaborative cross-channel campaigns, and they are deriving extraordinary results from these tactics.” The top challenges organizations face when implementing a multichannel marketing campaign are data integration problems created by disparate systems, the lack of technology to centralize multichannel management, and the organizational challenges associated with department silos. “The challenge of executing, measuring, and optimizing multichannel marketing has far reaching implications that affect marketing performance, measurement, and customer retention and acquisition.”

Just in case you thought that US companies were the only ones needing a government bailout, think again.  Canada’s biotechnology CEOs are calling for an economic stimulus package that includes targeted measures designed to protect $1.7 billion of annual spending and preserve high-value “21^st century” jobs in Canada in the face of a severe economic times. These measures include a one-time cash refund on tax losses, an exemption from capital gains tax on the next two years’ of investment, and changes to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) credit program to support the sector during the economic downturn.

“We are asking for immediate targeted measures in order to protect Canadian world class technologies from competitors in the US, the UK and other countries, where governments are making significant commitments to protect their biotechnology industries in recognition of their social and economic value,” said Rainer Engelhardt, Chair of the Board of Directors of BIOTECanada and CEO of Eulytica Biologics Inc., Ottawa. “Ultimately, our goal is to get through this downturn and have the high value jobs inherent to this industry stay in Canada.”

BIOTECanada’s proposed economic stimulus package includes three key measures. A one-time redemption for unused tax losses would be available to SMEs with revenues less than R&D expenses and be limited to the lesser of $20 million or twice a company’s annual R&D expenditure. An exemption from capital gains tax is proposed for investors making new direct investments in 2009 and 2010. Both measures require companies to reinvest in Canada. Changes to the SR&ED program to process refunds quarterly rather yearly and an expansion of program eligibility to all firms engaged in research and development in Canada will create a competitive stimulus to support more domestic jobs and investment.

“With limited sources of financing available for the industry, many Canadian biotech companies are wondering where their next six months of operating cash are going to come from and need the Canadian government to take immediate action,” said Andy Sheldon, President and CEO of Medicago Inc., Québec City. “For the industry to survive, we need a commitment from our government to facilitate investment and provide short term relief.”

Without an immediate cash infusion and tax support, $1.7 billion in annual R and D spending, thousands of Canadian jobs and even Canada’s long term economic prosperity are at risk according to Canada’s national biotechnology trade association, BIOTECanada.

“Canadian governments have done the right thing in supporting major investments in post-secondary education and basic research because that research ultimately saves lives. As Canadians and as entrepreneurs we want to see that investment bear fruit,” said Gordon McCauley, President and CEO of Allon Therapeutics Inc., Vancouver. “Our recommendations are targeted measures aimed at protecting these investments, in order to spur Canada’s economic recovery, and get these advances in the hands of physicians and patients.”

It’s resolution season. And in today’s unstable economy, people are resolving to trim more than just their waistlines; they plan to trim their budgets. According to a recent survey by Progressive, more people are resolving to save money in 2009 than in 2008. In fact, those surveyed chose “save money” over other perennial resolutions like losing weight, quitting smoking, or getting a new job.

So how are people planning to keep that resolution? By doing typical things like cutting unnecessary costs and controlling household finances. More than 80 percent plan to eliminate nonessential items such as dining out, movies, and vacations, while nearly half (47 percent) will clip coupons.

“When trying to save money, people sometimes forget about things they might consider to be ‘fixed’ costs, like car insurance. Few realize just how much they could save by shopping around and comparing rates,” said Rick Crawley, insurance expert for Progressive. “One in four people surveyed mistakenly believe that all car insurers charge the same rates when, in fact, people who switched to Progressive in the summer of 2007 reported saving over $350 on their annual premium.”

There are other ways to save money that also have “green” benefits, which men lead women in, according to the survey: they’re more likely to take public transportation (14 percent versus 8 percent), carpool (14 percent versus 11 percent), or drive a more fuel-efficient car (16 percent versus 9 percent).

A new online Word of Mouth Marketing research study conducted by OTX confirms the value of brands engaging directly with consumers online. The initial findings of the new study, “The Impact of Social Media on Purchase Behavior,” revealed that 54% of consumers agree that information from a brand representative would be more valuable than what is typically found on a company website.

In addition, 63% of consumers would like to share their opinions about a brand or product with a representative, and 67% of consumers are likely to pass along information from a brand representative to other people. Just as important, 57% of consumers are likely to take action based on the information from the brand representative, such as shop at the retailer, buy the product, etc.

The study was commissioned by DEI Worldwide, a leading social media marketing agency with specialties in conversational outreach, integrated strategies, market research & application development, to gain valuable intelligence on how consumers interact with and perceive information coming directly from conversations with a brand online.

In an effort to help brands determine if Word of Mouth and Social Media Marketing is relevant for their product, DEI is using the data from the study to launch a new Social Media Analyzer tool on the DEI website. Starting today, brands can access select questions from the study to see how their target audience (by age group) uses social media, in comparison to corporate websites, to make purchase decisions.

“62% of consumers responded that information from a brand representative would be more valuable than advertisements or promotional materials,” said Lou Cuming, chief operating officer of DEI Worldwide. “These findings are particularly interesting because they support what we have been saying all along, that Word of Mouth is a valuable marketing tool that should be combined with traditional media to create an integrated marketing strategy.”

According to the research findings, people rely on social media websites as much as company websites for product information and 70% of consumers have visited a social media website such as message board, social network, Instant Messenger, Blog, Video Sharing Site or Chat Room in order to get information on a company, brand or product.

The survey also showed that people who search information exclusively via social media websites are more likely to spread the word. More than one-third of consumers have passed along information found online and among those, six out of 10 used social media websites to pass along the information. 74% claimed that most of the information they passed along was positive.

“Word of Mouth is a strategy that brands are evaluating more than ever and this survey certainly supports that consumers are placing a high value on information about brands found in social media environments and that interactions with brand representatives are perceived to have real benefits,” said Erik Rabasca, VP Social Media at PHD.

The biggest challenge faced by inventors and small businesses is how to get their new products into retail stores. Who do you call? What documents do you have to prepare? How do you pitch the product? Anybody who has gone through this process knows what a nightmare it is.  To solve this problem for inventors and businesses, The Geisheker Group, an international marketing firm has partnered with Sellion, a leading new product retail incubator located in North Kingstown, RI, to offer businesses a step-by-step retail marketing program to get their products into retail stores.

This new retail marketing program provides businesses with the following services:

• Professional product evaluation.
• Professional marketing materials and product package creation.
• Retail-focused marketing plan preparation for presenting products to major chain retail stores.
• Putting the product on store shelves in a multi-store retail incubator program to test market the product to consumers in a real-world environment.
• Press release writing with national distribution.
• Personally pitching the product to buyers at major retail chains including Walmart, Costco, Sears, Radio Shack, Walgreens, CVS, Home Depot, GNC, Rite Aid, and many other national and regional retail chains.

Peter Geisheker, CEO of The Geisheker Group, states, “Getting national distribution for a new product is the Holy Grail of inventors and business owners with new products. By partnering with the retail marketing professionals at Sellion, we have developed the most affordable and results-based retail marketing program available for getting new products into retail stores. I truly believe this new program will revolutionize how new products are launched.”