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Leveraging the power of converged media

October 20, 2015

I think the idea of leveraging the power of converged media is both an old and a new idea.  Media has changed (to say the least) but the idea of a media mix is hardly a fresh concept.

We’re talking about media differently today and I think that’s smart. The truth is — our definition of media hasn’t changed. That suggests it was something and now it is something new. I think about it in terms of a new and constant evolution. What media is today absolutely will not be what media is tomorrow.

And who controls media today, as we’ve seen with the rise of social media and other consumer driven communication tools, is not who will control the media tomorrow.

I believe the brands that learn how to shift back and forth throughout all media, weaving ourselves into all kinds of conversations, are the brands who will be on top in the future.

Let’s explore the big buckets that media is falling into today and how to consider playing in all the buckets.

Earned media is the result of media relations efforts, ad campaigns, events and any content you create and share through social channels that gets picked up, shared or run. It’s also the label we attach to anything your customers or other people who interact with your brand do or say publicly on a review site or social channel. This is also where word of mouth, referrals etc. would be found.

Paid media is, as you might suspect, media coverage you pay for. It could be traditional ads on TV, radio or print publications. It could also be ads you buy to run on the web – banners or paid search, sponsorships etc. If you can completely control the message, the placement and timing, even though you don’t own the advertising vehicle – it’s paid media.

Owned media are those outlets that a brand can create, own and control like their corporate website, blog, enewsletter, sales materials, etc. It would also include your Facebook page, Instagram videos and Twitter account. If you can build, change or completely destroy the channel – it’s owned media.

Each type of media on its own can be very effective. But, thanks to how media is now created and consumed – we can really leverage our content by converging the media. With some planning and effort you can integrate your marketing process and tactics so that each channel builds off the other.

Let me give you an example. Is Facebook earned, paid or owned media? Actually, it can be any or all of them. You can buy Facebook ads (paid) that drive people to your company’s Facebook page (owned) where they might give you some feedback on their recent experience with your company (earned).

Don’t dismiss this conversation because you don’t want to dabble in social media. If you send out old school media releases, buy ads and have a website – this pertains to you too. Whether you go old school or are on the cutting edge of digital executions, this idea of blending medias should be on your radar screen.

Why does this matter? Here are a few reasons.

Converged media saves you money: By repurposing content and using one platform to connect to another – you can compound your investment. Think of it as earning interest on every dollar you spend. You spend money or time (or both) to create an ad, some content etc. and then you just reshape it for a different type of media. Each time you re-use the content, it costs less to revise it and it stacks up with all the other impressions, making it even more effective.

Converged media creates trust: Every survey tells us that consumers trust corporations/companies less than they used to and they are skeptical of paid media when it’s the only place a message is found. But when you mix media types – especially adding in earned media, every message is perceived with more trust. When you add responsiveness to the media mix, you’re golden. It’s difficult not to trust a company who is actively listening and responds when someone reaches out to them.

Converged media lets you connect with prospects and customers: In today’s economy, consumers expect to have access. At a very minimum, they want a form on your website that will be responded to within 24 hours. But ideally, they want to talk to you in real time, via Twitter, Facebook or a live chat on your site. To keep that manageable – you can use owned and paid media to provide many of the answers that routinely get asked.

The fourth quarter sprint has begun

October 6, 2015

It’s do or die time.  We have 3 months until the year is over and the scorecard is tallied.  How are you doing on your marketing and sales goals for 2015?

You can’t afford to let up on the gas as we approach the fourth quarter.  It’s now or never in terms of your year end results. Here are some ideas on how you can get yourself ready for the final push of 2015.

Review your marketing goals:  Was there something that you were gung ho on earlier this year? Did you want to start an e-newsletter?   Pick the one thing you felt would really contribute and take one step towards getting it done.  Your goal is to have it ready to launch by the Tuesday after Labor Day.  Not sure what to do?

1. What audience are you under communicating with?
2. How can you amplify something you’re already doing?

Survey your customers: Now’s a great time to search for that needle in the haystack.  If you make the effort to ask for their opinion, your current and past customers will tell you how you can get even better.  If you really want to dig deeper – let a third party do the surveying.  Be brave enough to ask questions like:

1. If they could wave a magic wand, what would they change about your business?
2.  What would they be willing to pay a premium for you to offer?

Set a short-term goal: Look over the year’s performance so far.  What would be a good stretch goal for you to shoot for to accomplish before the end of December 2015?  Rather than splitting your focus, narrow in on the one goal and resolve to knock it down before the end of the year.

1. What’s the one thing you could accomplish that would really set you up for 2016?
2. Is there a goal tied to your best customers?  Why not make sure they want to stay?

Stop doing something:  Odds are you are doing at least one thing because it’s something you’ve always done, you think you must do it but have never tested that assumption or it’s such a habit you hardly know you’re doing it.  One of the ways you can find more bandwidth to do some of the things listed above is by taking something off your To Do list.  Wondering what doesn’t need to be done?

1. Do all of your efforts include some sort of measurable metric?  If so, check the numbers.  If not – add one.
2. Is there something you procrastinate doing every time?  Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something.

In a blink you’ll be prepping for the holidays and wishing you’d done X, Y or Z.  Or…you can prep for the holidays, celebrating that you accomplished X, Y or Z.

What’s it going to be?

How are your multicultural marketing strategies?

September 23, 2015

CMOs acknowledge that they need to have strong multicultural marketing strategies but despite rapid population growth and strong support for initiatives within marketing circles, CEO and board support falls far short, failing to assist marketer’s ability to prioritize and fully fund their efforts.

According to Geoscape, the leader in business intelligence across the multicultural market, groups including Asian-Americans, African-Americans and Hispanics will grow to nearly 130 million by the year 2020. Furthermore, the non-Hispanic white population will become the minority, dropping below 50% of the population by 2042.

A new poll from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and Geoscape—entitled “Activating the New American Mainstream”—reveals that half of the 150 North America-based senior marketing executives surveyed feel there is some level of support for multicultural engagement strategies from the senior levels of the organization.

Here’s what I thought was one of the most telling factoids in the report — While 67% admit that the CMO has a high level of buy-in and support for multicultural efforts, 55% admit that the CEO does not share that opinion, failing to fully support initiatives.

This lack of top-level support translates into a de-prioritization of multicultural engagement programs as more than half (51%) of marketers admit that there are simply too many competing priorities. In fact, when asked to rate commitment levels, only 20% of marketers felt that multicultural strategies were mandatory and unanimously embraced across the organization, and just over one in four believed that the multicultural market was mission critical for the organization.

Specific to investments into multicultural programs, marketers indicate that:

• 20% invest in excess of 15% of overall marketing budgets to engaging with multicultural markets; 28 percent spend less than 5%.
• 53% of marketers believe their investment into the multicultural market will increase going forward; 15% believe this increase will be significant; only 2% anticipate a decrease in investment.

For those marketers who have deployed multicultural marketing strategies, the operational approach is one that fails to separate initiatives into significant segments. Only 16% of marketers are separating marketing initiatives for specific ethnic groups, a practice which would allow for a deeper level of engagement thanks to relevant communications based on cultural behavioral patterns and insights.

“Multicultural marketing strategies must move away from the niche campaign mindset and become an engrained part of any personalized customer experience strategy,” noted Liz Miller, Senior Vice President of Marketing with the CMO Council. “This is no longer a scenario of replacing images or localizing content into a different language. This is about truly understanding the nuances of the customer, including any culturally distinct behaviors and buying patterns that can and must alter the way our brands reach and engage.”

Without doubt, the multicultural market in the United States is an increasingly powerful consumer. According to Geoscape research, Hispanics currently represent 18 percent of American households but were responsible for nearly half of the growth in consumer spending from 2013 to 2014. Between Asian-American and Hispanic markets, the groups accounted for two-thirds of the total economic spending growth.

“By understanding cultural nuances and marketing in a proactive and data-driven manner, marketers are positioned to grow ROI…however, none of this happens overnight,” added César M. Melgoza, Founder and CEO of Geoscape. “Targeting consumers without understanding their unique cultural behaviors and preferences risks growth optimization among the consumer groups that quarterly and annual budgets and success can hinge.”

Key findings from the 10-question online poll of 150 senior marketing executives are included in a 12-page complimentary white paper, now available for download from the CMO Council. Some 36% of respondents hail from B2B organizations, 29% are from strictly B2C organization, and 36% are from hybrid organizations. 43% hail from organizations with revenues in excess of $1 billion USD.

How do we connect with our audience?

September 17, 2015

We talk about wanting to engage and connect with our audience but what does that actually mean?

Global marketers see the value of making their digital interactions with customers and stakeholders richer, more personal and predictive.

But most are still struggling to make their mobile, social and web channels work together to provide a more enriching and engaging experience.

A new study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council—entitled “Brand Attraction from Enriched Interaction”—reveals marketers still lag in creating multi-channel, digital marketing campaigns that reach and resonate with diverse, micro-audiences worldwide. Only 19% said they are extremely good or very good in this area. In contrast, 45% gave themselves a lackluster grade , saying “in terms of connecting with our audience with fully integrated mobile, web and social channels — we aren’t hitting the mark.” This compares to just 21% who said they were very proficient.

The latest study, sponsored by IBM Digital Experience, was designed to assess the degree to which marketers are embracing new digital channels and content management technologies to realize the full value of rich media engagement, crowd-sourced content, and mass-customized commerce through higher levels of personalization and tailored interaction.

“Digital marketers are challenged to create an end-to-end, multi-channel experience that engages and enlivens customer, partner and employee audiences with more compelling and relevant content-driven commerce and conversation,” noted Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council, which has nearly 10,000 members in 110 countries. The council’s research was based on input from 287 marketing leaders across all regions of the world. A free strategic brief summarizing research findings and highlights is available for download from the CMO Council website.

“A critical area of insight from survey respondents centered on what technology transformations are most likely to impact how companies market, operate and connect with our customers.” Topping the list was the advent of the smarter digital enterprise, with its automation of marketing execution and customized interactions at scale. Next was the new API-driven economy, where partners and ecosystems share mobile/web links, information and insights to add value and further monetize transactions and interactions. Not far behind this is the disruptive potential of the “Internet of things” and the ability to gather real-time data and intelligence through pervasive, sensor-based tracking of behavior, intention and satisfaction.

The CMO Council believes content has become pivotal to the way companies and brands attract attention, entice engagement, acquire and grow relationships, encourage purchase and further word-of-mouth. In addition to its thought leadership studies, the council operates the Content ROI Center, which shares best practice innovations in content marketing.

Areas of exploration covered by the study included:

• How brands rate their ability to captivate and connect with their audiences, partners and employees through evolving mobile, web and social channels of interaction and digital experience
• How effective brands have become at creating, executing and tailoring new multi-channel digital marketing campaigns to better reach and resonate with diverse micro-audiences worldwide
• Which mobile apps, analytics, tools, solutions or cloud platforms have been embraced (or are being considered) to create richer, more meaningful, relevant and persuasive interaction with key stakeholders
• How companies believe they are achieving competitive advantage and business impact with more enriched, personalized content and digital interaction
• Where and how digital experiences are shaping and influencing the attraction, acquisition, conversion, monetization and retention of customers
• To what degree brands are becoming more proficient at integrating content and commerce to increase the value of customer touchpoints, experiences and relationships

Best practices for creating infographics

September 14, 2015

Whether you know what they’re called or not, we all consume infographics every day but when it comes to using them to market your own business — what are the best practices for creating infographics?

Most people are a combination of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners and about 65% of us are mainly visual learners. Visual learners easily pick up information with their eyes. Visual learners often associate the things they learn with the images they saw when they first learned the material.

Why are so many of us visual by nature? The brain processes visual information more quickly than text and it retains more of that information. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.

Back in the good old days of marketing, we used to (and really still do) talk about white space and using fewer words and more graphs, charts and pictures to tell a story. So it shouldn’t surprise any of us that infographics are here to stay.

Infographics take full advantage of the brain’s power to absorb images, which allows the viewer to capitalize on the advantages visuals can have over text.

I’m sure you’ve seen one but just in case — an infographic is a visual representation of information, data and knowledge that is intended to quickly and clearly communicate complex data. It might include maps, charts, diagrams, lists or graphs and usually is a combination of these.

They’re basically a very visually interesting way to tell a story conveying accurate information and data but in a visual form that allows us to get the gist of the message quickly. Think of them as a snapshot of complex data that is easy to read and easy to share in a short amount of time.

They also generate lots of web traffic and for many companies have become valuable marketing tools.

There are many elements to a creative, successful, attention-grabbing infographic. They’re essentially stories containing accurate content, controllable design, easy integration and versatility – all advantages from which marketers can benefit.

Thinking about infusing infographics into your marketing? Here are some things to keep in mind:

Tell A Story: An infographic conveys a story or message as a visual sequence. The creative use of graphics helps people to understand the message or story being delivered and increases retention.

Incorporate Insightful Data: A key element of most infographics is statistical data. Viewers are drawn to statistics so make sure they’re accurate. A single inaccurate statistic will damage the credibility of the entire piece and worse — your company.

A Brand Builder: Infographics are great for creating brand awareness, so be sure it accurately reflects your brand. Your graphics should inviting viewers to investigate your website or company a little more. Be sure you have content to satisfy their interest when they get to your website.

Another benefit of this tool is brand recall. Readers of the infographic are not only more aware of your brand but will also recall it better, which may help influence decision-maker purchase consideration. Research shows that the action of sharing increases brand recall by 63%.

Make It Easy to Share: These visual tools are easily shared on websites, blogs and social networks. Make sure you give people a way to embed your infographic to generate more traffic, views and shares. A strong effort will earn your site a lot of inbound links and give you a big SEO boost.

Credibility: Through the use of accurate data, statistics, insights and references, your infographic builds credibility and demonstrates your expertise in a very unique way. It not only uses a variety of statistics and facts to reduce a complex data set to a manageable and eye catching visual representation – but it also enhances your reputation as a thought leader.

As you begin (or continue) to work on using visuals in your marketing efforts be sure you bake in these best practices for creating infographics so you maximize the incredible benefits of this communications tool.  For some more examples — check out these 11 infographics on what makes a good infographic!

Are you leveraging visual content?

September 8, 2015

If any of the trend reports from the last five years are accurate — visual content should be a critical element in your marketing and content strategy.

If’ve you’ve master this — you’re in the minority.  While a picture may be worth a thousand words, marketers have not turned a strategic lens on optimizing the return from their visual media content investments.  While 65% of senior marketing executives believe visual assets are core to how their brand story is communicated, only 27% have the ability to aggregate, organize and manage these assets across marketing and non-marketing teams—including those outside of the organization.

A new study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council—entitled “From Content to Creativity: The Role of Visual Media in Impactful Brand Storytelling”—reveals that marketers believe visual assets, including photography, illustrations, infographics and videos, are core to customer engagement and will increase in usage in the coming year. Video will most dramatically increase in importance in the near future, according to 79 percent of senior marketers. Infographics (60 percent), photographs (50 percent), and illustrations (41 percent) will also increase in usage. The 17-page strategic white paper is available for download today by clicking here.

Conducted in partnership with Libris, a PhotoShelter business unit, the study reveals that internal silos, disconnected content development strategies and a vast list of other marketing priorities have prevented visual assets from being fully leveraged across the organization.

“Marketers have been remiss in approaching the visual asset dialogue as part of the strategic customer experience and engagement dialogue,” said Liz Miller, Senior Vice President of Marketing for the CMO Council. “Perhaps because visual assets have long been the domain of creative or agency resources, the conversation around maximizing value across the organization has fallen off of the priority list. But as customers continue to react in meaningful ways to visual media, marketing cannot afford to stand idly by and not include visuals in the content ROI agenda.”

Consumer research shows that 40 percent of customers will respond better to visual information than plain text (Zabisco). Marketers have, in turn, shifted content production to include vast quantities of graphics, videos, photography and illustrations. Infographic production, by one estimate, increases by 1 percent every day (Zabisco). Yet according to the 177 marketing executives surveyed by the CMO Council in the second quarter of 2015, current investments in centralization of these assets do not reflect this level of priority.

The audit, conducted through the CMO Council’s Content ROI Center, tapped into the insights of 177 senior marketers, with 52 percent from B2B organizations, 18 percent from B2C companies and 30 percent from hybrid organizations selling to B2B2C. A quarter of respondents hail from organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, and 41 percent hold chief marketing officer, head of marketing or senior vice president of marketing titles. Areas explored in the paper include:

• The role of visual content in marketing and brand storytelling strategies
• Anticipated shifts in the importance of visual content
• Budget allocations and anticipated shifts in spend for visual content development
• Key challenges and obstacles to maximizing ROI
• Impact and value of visual content aggregation and consolidation

About the CMO Council

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is the only global network of executives specifically dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO Council’s 9,000 members control more than $450 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include more than 35,000 global executives in more than 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa. The council’s strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Mobile Relationship Marketing (MRM) Strategies Forum, LoyaltyLeaders.org, CMOCIOAlign.org, Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience Board, Digital Marketing Performance Institute, GeoBranding Center and the Brand Inspiration Center. Learn more at www.cmocouncil.org. 

About Libris

No one wants to be sold

August 31, 2015

Here’s a truth we seem to want to ignore — no one wants to be sold. Ever.

Think about some of your favorite stores.  Beyond the merchandise they have – what do you love about going there?  Odds are your favorite stores became your favorites because of the experience you had.  So you go back time and time again.

Now – forget about your favorite stores for a minute.  If I asked you to describe the ideal encounter with a salesperson, what would you envision?  Is it the salesperson that follows you around on the floor, repeatedly asking you if you need help or interjecting their opinion on every item you look at?

Or would it be walking in the store and having someone introduce themselves and ask how they can help you?  If you say “I’m just looking” which is universal code for leave me alone – do they?  Are they around to answer any questions you might have but otherwise, let you explore?

Let’s translate that to when you call a business looking for information.  Does the operator read from a script, barely letting you get a word in edgewise because he has two specials you need to know about?  Or are you immediately connected to someone who can either answer your questions or get you to the right source for the answers you need?

The truth is – no one wants to be sold.  When you hear the word salesman, what images pop into your mind?  The stereotypical used car salesman with the “you can drive it off the lot today” sort of sales pressure?  I don’t care who you are or what you’re in the market for, no one welcomes that sort of salesperson.  Why do we react so badly?

A bad sales person is someone who:

• Wants you to buy today
• Relentless
• Talks to much about themselves and their product/service
• Doesn’t listen
• Makes us feel as they though they only care about the sale

When you look at that list, no wonder we run for cover.  If your favorite store had that sort of sales force, I suspect it would no longer be your favorite store.

Now – go grab your brochure, pull up your website and eavesdrop on some of your sales calls.  See any similarities?  All too often marketing materials and messages bear an uncomfortable resemblance to that pushy sales guy.  We’re so anxious to make sure the prospect knows how amazing our stuff is – we over sell and the reality is, no one wants to be sold.  Ever.

What you love about your favorite stores and your favorite brands is that they’re helpful.  Depending on your needs and the type of purchase, helpful come in the form of convenience or providing you a lot of information.

Helpful might be that you can try as many styles and sizes as you’d like and return the ones you don’t want for free (like Zappos) or it might be a robust website that really allows the consumer to educate themselves long before they speak to a salesperson like River Pools and Spas that has over 800 pages of content and offers it all for free.

You will sell more if you sell less.

Be helpful, be someone I can trust, be approachable without putting your hand in my pocket looking for my wallet and I will come to rely on you.  When I am actually ready to buy – who do you think I’m going to by from?

You.

Dollar cost averaging equals marketing

August 17, 2015

dollar cost averaging equals marketing

If we’ve learned anything over the last decade it’s that the stock market is volatile and difficult to predict with precision. Even Warren Buffet can’t tell you exactly when a stock will go hot or drop like a rock.

Which is how the whole concept of dollar cost averaging came to be.

According to Investopedia.com, it’s a technique of buying a fixed dollar amount of a particular investment on a regular schedule, regardless of the share price. More shares are purchased when prices are low, and fewer shares are bought when prices are high.

Dollar-cost averaging lessens the risk of investing a large amount in a single investment at the wrong time.

That’s how you need to think about your marketing efforts as well. Rather than trying to guess when a potential buyer might be ready to buy – you need to be marketing every day, so that when they’re ready, you’re right there.

Even if you sell a season-specific product or service, that doesn’t let you off the hook. It may dictate that you ebb and flow your marketing – but it doesn’t mean you stop or restrict your presence. With social media and SEO/content marketing – there’s no off-season. An article that’s posted on your website in March may be the search result that drives a sale in November.

Think of your marketing efforts as constant lead nurturing. It’s all about building solid relationships through consistent conversations with your target audience, acknowledging that while you don’t know when they will buy, you know some of them will buy sooner or later.

Here’s a quick overview of how you can build up a lead nurturing program.

Generate leads: You can’t market if you don’t have anyone to talk to. You’re going to want to generate leads on a macro and micro level. Some tactics, like social media and offering something for free on your website, tend to draw big numbers and many of those leads aren’t really quite the right fit. But that’s okay, because you haven’t expending a lot of money or time to attract them.

You’ll also want to generate some more targeted leads. To do this, first you need to define your sweet spot customer. Then create a lead scoring tool, which will let you objectively assess leads and sort them accordingly.

Create a drip campaign: Lead nurturing is all about regular contact. Now that you know who your sweet spot customer is – what kinds of information would be helpful to them? Note – I did not say what kinds of things could you sell them. This is about you offering value over and over again. Make me smarter, more efficient or better at my job and I will be indebted to you. Try to sell me something all the time and I will disconnect.

You don’t have to offer them a twenty-page white paper each time. It can literally be a nugget – a single idea or suggestion. In fact, they’re more likely to keep reading what you send if you do keep it bite-sized.

Test, track and tweak: The beautiful thing about most drip campaigns is that they’re so trackable.   You will be able to test headlines, the types of content you’re sharing, day of the week and a host of other variables.

Let the data help you fine tune your program and keep in mind, even if it needs a lot of tweaking – you’re still ahead of 95% of your competitors who are still trying to time the market!

Don’t expend energy trying to figure out when to market. The answer is now.

Fundraising is marketing

August 4, 2015

Let’s face it — fundraising is marketing. I love the stories of the good old days in my community.  You’ve probably already heard the same sorts of stories in your community too.  How the “founding fathers” would gather over coffee and when the community had a need, they’d each pull out their checkbook and invest in the solution.

Many of those men and women have streets or foundations (or both) named after them and their mark will forever be a part of most of the cities in our country.

There are quite a few charities that owe their start or a portion of their success to those visionary leaders.  As great as they were – those days are long gone.  I’ve received a few solicitations lately that make me wonder if there are still some area non-profits that are living back in the old glory days and haven’t fast forwarded to today.

Whether the target is a business or an individual, the game has changed and if nonprofits want to keep serving their mission, they’re going to need to make some shifts in their efforts.  They need to recognize that fundraising is marketing.  There’s no separation today and the organizations who embrace this idea will win the day and the dollars.

Here’s what non profits need to remember:

Why you? It’s a rare charity that doesn’t have a competitor who also serves the same people/cause or at least a portion of them.   If you want a donor’s dollars or even their attention, you’ll need to be able to demonstrate how you do it differently or better and you need to do that on a consistent, steady stream of communication basis.

I don’t know you so get your hand out of my pocket: The “send everyone we can think of” a solicitation letter (especially at the end of the year) is just a waste of money.   If we don’t have a relationship and your work isn’t meaningful to me, I’m not going to send you a dollar.  Don’t waste your stamps.

Slow going: The days of walking out of your first meeting with a check are gone.  Sure, it might happen once in a blue moon but in general, you’re going to have to work hard for your money.  Think marathon, not sprint.

Fewer but deeper: One of the amazing truths about Des Moines is that we’re blessed with a huge number of committed charities.  But the flip side of that truth is that no business can possibly support them all. Which means, choices have to be made.  Businesses don’t want to be one of ten logos on the back of yet another t-shirt.

Donors are opting to spend their money on fewer nonprofits but to give more to those few.  And once they’re locked in with a specific charity, it’s going to be much tougher to pry them loose.

Going, going, so gone! Our community is golf tournament and auctioned to death.  If you don’t already hold one of these, don’t start one.  And if you already have one – be ready for declining attendance or revenue unless you can make it unique.  Bravo to Des Moines based charities like YESS (Duck Derby), Childserve (Bubble Ball) and others who have taken the risk and created something one of a kind.

The Obama election fund reality:  One of the ways Obama defeated McCain back in ’08 was to race more money from more people.  The dollar amounts were smaller but the impact was bigger.  The same 20 companies (every charity has the same list) in Des Moines cannot be the title sponsor for everything.  Find ways to make it valuable for smaller companies who don’t get into the limelight every day to be your benefactors.

No one is arguing with the amazing work you do.  In fact, we want to make sure you keep doing it.  But, like the for-profit businesses have… you have to adapt to today’s economy and reality.  And soon.