Marketicity Featured for Work with City of Columbia, Ill.

As a business based in Columbia, Ill., the Marketicity team was honored to work with the City of Columbia Economic Development Coordinator Paul Ellis to create a marketing tool catered to attracting new businesses to the city. (photo: final DVD and interior graphics of DVD sleeve)

But perhaps the biggest treat came in today's Suburban-Journals article by Kevin Darr, titled COLUMBIA: City joins technological wave, where we found a very gratifying quote from Paul Ellis, it reads:

"They came up with all the graphics and the layout while the words are mine," Ellis said. "They exceeded my expectations and came up with some really great ideas."

Read the full article.

Paper bills, video rentals and newspapers…what’s next?

Just in the past year, we have experienced a few changes among our local media. One being that the Suburban Journals has moved to a subscription-only basis. As seen, this has made a rather large impact on their circulation numbers and on the level of investment for our clients.

As most would agree, the newspaper industry is taking quite a hit this year. So what does this mean for our local media?

Newspapers are continuing their evolution from print to Web. After all, that’s where most of us are getting our news these days. Twitter, a social networking vehicle, is the newest media source that is tossed in the mix. We’re using it, as well a many of our clients, to drive traffic to our Web site and keep customers in the know.

Where do you receive your daily dose of news: newspapers, broadcast, Internet sites or networks such as Twitter and Facebook?

The question that remains in the minds of many is, ‘are these news sources as credible as print?’ With this question in mind, I thought this was an interesting article from yahoo.com:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Irish-student-hoaxes-worlds-apf-15201451.html;_ylt=ApJV6d46gpkjFqG4YhFIkTEazJV4?.v=1

Q1 '09 - What We're Seeing

From the looks of it, everyone's in full spring-cleaning mode. New and existing clients are brightening their product/service lineups, polishing up their printed materials, dusting off their marketing plans and sprucing up their physical and virtual identities. As mentioned in an earlier post, many are also remodeling the effectiveness of their sales meetings.

Simply put, your peers in industry are busy and moving forward. We hope you are, too. It's definitely not a time to be caught flat-footed.

We're also seeing a renewed sense of responsibility on a fiscal basis. Although businesses are certainly investing in marketing efforts -- our first quarter sales were well ahead of last year and nearly at '07 levels -- they're doing so prudently and wanting to monitor the return on that investment. We're helping with that evaluation, as well, and we believe it's wise.

This uptick in spending isn't confined to one industry, either. We're seeing it in health care, agribusiness, construction, manufacturing, transportation and engineering. It's widespread. So consider this your fair warning to get started on a spring cleaning of your own ... before your business is left in the dust.