Typically, one of the first things we advise our clients to do is drop their yellow pages ads in favor of reinvesting the money elsewhere with a higher ROI (return on investment). A friend of mine, Adam Chandler (@chachachandler for the tweeters out there), made the astute observation that DexOne, as it’s called, was advertising their new advertising and “consulting” services for small business owners through…. television.

Would you buy a Chevrolet from a guy that drives a Ford or a sandwich from a mom and pop store when the employees eat at Jimmy John’s? So why would anyone purchase “the best advertising for (insert business name here)” when even DexOne isn’t relying on it for growth?

Regardless if you’re working with 5Stone Marketing or another firm, make sure you’re working with a firm that is looking out for your best interests, instead of a yellow pages vulture circling your marketing budget like it’s a dying animal. Ask yourself what you have to gain vs. what the account executive posing as a marketing consultant has to gain.  And of course, we’d love to have you at 5Stone Marketing (www.5Stonemarketing.com).

Where we’ve got plenty of creative ideas and resources available that aren’t pushed by a grown man pretending to be a phone book.

-Tyler Sickmeyer

Creative Director

5Stone Marketing

Tyler Sickmeyer, 5Stone Marketing’s founder and Director of Client Development, lauded Govreau for landing the firm’s largest client. “While 5Stone Marketing is primarily focused on helping small businesses succeed, we welcome the challenges and opportunities that North Korea brings to 5Stone Marketing. Ryan did a fantastic job on this deal.”

Kim Jong-Il, through a translator, stated that “5Stone Marketing is true icon of American success. They will take North Korea to better economic status than Russia, Canada, and (edited for inappropriateness) South Korea combined!”

The agreement between North Korea and 5Stone Marketing begins immediately on April 1, 2010, and will run for a period of five years, unless North Korea decides to exercise the right that all 5Stone clients have and opts-out with 30 days’ written notice.

Obviously, I disagree with him, or I wouldn’t be writing this piece. Text message marketing features a 99% read rate, which is far better than any other medium available to businesses today. That read rate is only part of the success though. 5Stone Marketing uses ethical practices to build mobile lists for its clients, and every member of every mobile list that 5Stone Marketing builds not only opts in, but confirms that they want to join the list.

Simplified: the folks on our clients’ lists WANT to receive messages from our clients.

But what do we do to make sure that consumers MAINTAIN their interest in our clients? By providing them with relevant content, exclusive contests, and by asking them what they think with polls. 5Stone Marketing’s text message marketing strategies are far more complex than just blasting a coupon out to a list and hoping for a response. Things like timing, frequency, relevance, and demographical considerations all play an important role in 5Stone Marketing’s texting strategies. By using a thought process longer than it takes to text “LOL” to engage consumers, text message marketing is the best universal marketing tool available today.

5Stone Marketing offers affordable, efficient, and effective text message marketing options. Contact me directly at tyler@5stonemarketing.com to discuss what 5Stone Marketing’s texting service can do for your business.

-Tyler Sickmeyer, Director of Client Development

When I was in high school, my basketball coach had a saying: as a team, we needed to be “in the foxhole” with each other. What he meant was that we had to be able to trust each other and rely on each other in order to achieve a greater good. In war, the greater good was staying alive long enough to see victory. In sports, it was winning the games that mattered.

Both versions matter when it comes to 5Stone Marketing. Since I launched 5Stone Marketing in 2008, I’ve said that I wanted our relationships with our clients to be different than that of a normal firm. You see, I wanted to work with clients that we
A) believed had at the very least, a great product or service and
B) are great people.

This seems simple, but by working with clients like these, my team and I are able to actually buy into the client. We truly believe in every client we work with. If we don’t think that you’re up to par with your competition, or that we can’t get you up to par, then we’re not going to work with you. End of story.

The natural effect of this mindset is that we are “in the foxhole” with our clients. If they’re doing well, we’re doing well. If they hurt, we hurt. On more than one occasion we’ve put our money where our mouth is in order to uphold that position. And that’s OK, because I am proud to say that I count 5Stone Marketing’s clients not just as another invoice, but as a member of the 5Stone family. You have to be careful who you take into the foxhole with you. The wrong comrade could get you killed or cost you big time. I’m proud to say that we do battle on behalf of our clients, day in and day out. To be honest, I am consumed with improving business for 5Stone’s clients. There is nothing I like more than hearing about a record sales week, more new faces through the door since who-knows-when, and how happy our clients are with what the 5Stone Marketing team is doing for them.

The bottom line is this: you and your business can’t and don’t have to fight this battle alone. Help is available. But who’s in the foxhole with you? Are they enabling or hindering victory? If you’re interested in jumping into the foxhole with 5Stone Marketing, email me directly at tyler@5stonemarketing.com today.

-Tyler Sickmeyer, Director of Client Development

Let’s start by separating marketing firms from advertising agencies. Ad agencies, which are more likely to knock on your business’s door, do one thing rather well: they spend money. Not their own money, mind you, but their clients’ money. You see, an advertising agency only gets paid if they spend their client’s money on advertising, so that’s exactly what they will do. Now, the advertising may or may not work for the client, and things like the client’s return on investment (ROI) rate are rarely considered, but that’s not of importance to the ad agency. A client has a set budget to spend on advertising, and an ad agency is going to spend it, take their commission, and call it a day.

Marketing firms, on the other hand, are a little more likely to get their hands dirty. A marketing firm is usually hired for a specific campaign or kept on retainer, making the total amount of money that the client spends less important. More important to the marketing firm are the results that the client receives from the marketing campaign as a whole, be it a one-week blitz or an ongoing campaign. A marketing firm will construct a comprehensive strategy that yes, includes advertising, but also focuses on things like customer retention, lead generation, and the overall ROI rate for the campaign.

Now let’s separate the men from the boys and look at the differences between 5Stone Marketing and a typical marketing firm. 5Stone Marketing, unlike most other marketing firms, is affordable for small businesses. The 5Stone Marketing team emphasizes efficiency and reasonable, cost-effective solutions to its clients. This enables small business owners to enjoy the marketing support that their larger competitors have at a fraction of the price. Also, 5Stone Marketing is a 360° marketing firm, meaning that 5Stone Marketing offers the same advertising production services that ad agencies offer, as well as public relations and marketing services. The difference is that 5Stone Marketing provides these services to its clients at cost, and even passes on kickbacks, commissions, and other savings to the clients.

Another major difference can be found in 5Stone Marketing’s interaction with its clients. Unlike other marketing firms, the 5Stone Marketing team doesn’t see our clients as campaigns; we see them as people with a passion. All of us at 5Stone Marketing take our jobs very seriously. We realize that if we don’t, we don’t just jeopardize our relationship with a client, we’re jeopardizing that client’s livelihood.

As you seek help for your business or organization, keep these differences in mind and make sure that even if you don’t hire 5Stone Marketing, you’re working with a marketing firm that shares our values. Your business will be better for it.

- Tyler Sickmeyer, Director of Client Development

Who are you…and who do you work for?!

It may be tough to get a straight answer, but the devil is certainly in the details of those two questions.  There is a common sense of confusion between marketing and advertising. (More on that in another post). Most account executives (fancy word for salespeople) call themselves consultants and act as if they genuinely have their client’s best interest at heart.

But one problem: they only eat if they get paid. And they only get paid if they sell their clients advertising. But what if the salesperson(no need to wrap crap in a Hershey Bar wrapper here) sees that the client needs to use a different medium to reach the client’s target demographic than what the account executive has to offer? One is just as likely to see a used car salesman point them down the road for a better deal as they are to see an advertising executive recommend something they don’t sell.

A true marketing consultant, however, will work for or operate a firm (beware the consultant operating independently under their own name: they often overcharge and are under qualified) that isn’t under the same roof as a TV station, radio station, or newspaper. This allows consultants like the 5Stone Marketing team to work on behalf of their clients’ best interests.

Where were you on the night of….

Recently, the Illinois Attorney General sued a “marketing consultant” for conning business owners out of their money by promising their logos on placemats that restaurants “may or may not use.” (Read the story HERE) Further, the restaurants involved had no knowledge of the “consultant” or the placemats.  It’s always a good idea to ask the consultant for a list of past and current clients. Does the consultant come recommended? Are they operating under the name of a relatively new firm? Ask for the names of the people at the top; they should be fairly Google-able.

Why’d ya do it?

Not all marketing consultants are crooks, but they all have different motives. One would be well served to make sure their consultant’s proposals are in their business’s best interests. For example: consultants often receive commissions or kickbacks from advertisers in return for their business.  It’s worth considering these things when using a marketing consultant. An ethical marketing consultant will pass on perks and discounts to the client. For the record, 5Stone Marketing passes on all perks to its clients, which most recently meant passing along two free stays at a five star hotel in Las Vegas.

Where’s the money?

Not all marketing firms will work with businesses of all sizes. 5Stone Marketing is one of those exceptions.  Be upfront and realistic with any firm or consultant about how much money you have to put into your marketing campaign. Businesses should also be skeptical of the consultant that wants to spend every dollar they have every month. It’s not smart for a kid to blow his allowance on bubblegum, so why would it be wise for a business to do the same?

Give it to me straight!

Bottom line: there are a lot of great marketing consultants out there that do things the right way. My team at 5Stone Marketing and I like to think that we’re in that group.

Best of luck to those that don’t heed this advice. They’ll need it!

-Tyler Sickmeyer, Director of Client Development, 5Stone Marketing

All of the nay-sayers to Limbaugh contest that he would simply play the NFL for personal gain, much like he plays his listeners or “ditto-heads” as they call themselves on his daily syndicated show, and create more controversy than any owner ever should. But these nay-sayers are missing the point: Rush already won.

You see, owning a small piece (Rush was not a major factor in this bid and a replacement will certainly be found) of an NFL team would have been icing on the cake. Rush was not only investing in my beloved, irritating, and depressing St. Louis Rams, he was also investing in the publicity that would come from his bid. Keep in mind, this could have been kept quiet for a significantly longer time, had he so desired it to be. But I would be willing to bet you a subscription to the Limbaugh Letter that Rush’s ratings sky-rocketed as his opposition listened in for another chance to blast him on the mainstream media.

People keep forgetting that Rush is a private business owner, and is the best at what he does. I only agree with about 60% or so of his statements, but that doesn’t matter any more than it would matter if I was a full-fledged “ditto-head” or an “extremist from the left.” The point is, people are listening, now more than ever, to a politics-based talk show due to one of the most brilliantly orchestrated publicity stunts we’ve seen in this non-election year. An entirely new base of the highly-coveted demographic of males aged 18-60 have been forced to pay attention to Rush Limbaugh and formulate an opinion on the man and his antics, one way or another. They may not care about politics, but they care about their twenty-week Sunday ritual. And that, my friends, is a sharp branding campaign.

Tyler Sickmeyer is the Chief Creative Executive for 5Stone Marketing and may be reached via email at tyler@rockstock.net.

The economy has taken a toll on everyone. Bottom-liners everywhere are preaching that funds must be cut in order to survive, and marketing budgets are usually among the first to be escorted to the chopping block.

So how does one market their product or brand when they don’t have any money to spend? One way is to barter. Business owners and marketing departments should ask themselves what they have of value that others might be willing to trade for. Hint: if other businesses aren’t even willing to trade for your product, you have bigger issues than your marketing budget.

We recommend forming alliances with other area businesses and brands that you are not in direct competition with and teaming up with them. Doing so will at least cut costs while increasing exposure, and at best case will foster a long lasting and mutually profitable relationship.