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Can You Stop Copyright Infringement

February 23, 2012 By 2 Comments

I am sure you know that I am part of an interesting discussion group, The Wedding Water Cooler. We have some pretty serious back and forths. interestingly enough, the same day I published my post on Pinterest, the group got into a fairly heavy discussion of copyright infringement.

Pinterest and copyright infringement is an issue that is all over the internet right now. This article on theverge.com explains it pretty well. Recently Pinterest has created a snippet of code to place on your site that will disable pinning. That won’t prevent people from downloading the image and uploading it anyway. In light of this from The Wall Street Journal, why would you want to?

It has also been a boon for some small businesses. “Our traffic converts to sales,” said Amy Squires, co-founder of The Wedding Chicks LLC, which posted about $540,000 in revenue last year, up from $340,000 in 2010. The four-year-old online retailer of wedding-party gifts, which joined Pinterest last summer, said

Pinterest now brings in more than double as many monthly visitors to its website than Facebook and Twitter.

Here is what I told the Water Cooler.

Watermark example

see disclaimer

Copyright infringement sucks. Having said that, I have to say this…

 I am speaking only of images here.

The more ways people spread images of your work the better it is for you in terms of marketing, branding and SEO. That is why I believe so strongly in Pinterest. I think you should have the Pin It button on your site and encourage your visitors to use it.

I can set a site to lock down images but a semi-savvy geek can still lift them fairly easily. Trust me, I do it all the time for bridal salons to show images of gowns they stock.

My advice, share your images and encourage people to share them for you BUT watermark anything that goes on the web. The way stock photography sites do it is great. (see above) They use a semi transparent all over mark that is unobtrusive to viewing the image but damn near impossible to Photoshop out.

One more thing to think about is how are your images being used. Is a bride grabbing your image for her pin board with a link back to your site to say she loves this bouquet or is another florist putting it on their site and saying they created it? Big difference. Either way, having that watermark will mean a lot.

 The written word is another story.

You can embed it in a watermarked image but that does nothing for your SEO, maybe even hurts it. So you may try using it for your packages, but not for content you are writing for SEO like your blog post. My only answer is to write in your own distinctive voice and be vigilant in checking with utilities like Copyscape. Computerhope.com has some more great tools.

This is a conundrum that is going to continue for a long time to come. 

Let’s add to the conversation the very nature of the internet and the effect it has on the generation that are our current brides and grooms (and most likely all the ones to come after them) The internet is inherently about sharing and connecting. Today’s generation of brides grew up with torrents and Pirate Bay. They view any content on the internet as fair game. Convincing them otherwise is going to be a bitch, to put it lightly.

 

disclaimer: The image above is a fully licensed image. I spoke with iStockPhoto to get permission to use one of their watermarked images in this article on the condition that I also purchased a licensed copy of  the image. As you can see by the unwatermarked version in the thumbnail on the homepage, I did just that.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Understanding Pinterest

February 21, 2012 By 2 Comments

For the un-initiated, Pinterest can be a confusing mess. Some see it as a time waste, while others can’t figure out why it would even be popular or useful. Maybe I can help.

I am going to approach this from a marketing stand point. Be warned once you are hooked it will go way beyond that.

A poll just out from Shareaholic shows Pinterest refers more traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. That should certainly answer a part of the ‘why’. The rest of that answer has to do with today’s brides. Pinterest is over 90% female. Today’s bride and millennials in general are very visual. They look at the pictures rather than read content. Pinterest is right up their alley. What once was a wedding planning binder is now a pin board. Got it? Good.

The next thing I keep hearing is “I signed up but I don’t know what to do”

 

Getting started with Pinterest

Give yourself an hour or four to get familiar with it. In this image you see a couple of things  I am going to point out to get you going. Hint, click the images to enlarge.Pinterest: An Overview

At first you have nothing, no boards, no pins so hold off on finding friends until you populate a little bit.

In the middle top under the word Pinterest you have some options. Click on ‘Everything’ and a drop down menu opens, you probably want to choose weddings & events as a jumping off point. An entire page of images will open. Now just start pinning stuff you like. Click on a picture, you will have the option to Pin it, Like it or Comment. You will also have a button to follow that person. If you like the stuff they are posting, by all means follow them. You can always unfollow later.

When you pin something it will ask you what board you wish to pin it to. Better create some boards! You can create boards on the fly when you pin something. So maybe “table decor”, ‘cakes’, ‘gowns’ whatever you fancy. It really is easier to create boards this way because you will be able to see what you’re pinning and organize it accordingly.

Now that you have a bit of a feel for it and some boards and pins it’s time to start connecting to people you know.

Finding friends on Pinterest


On the left hand top, under your name the drop down menu has the option to find friends. You can see which of your friends from Facebook are on Pinterest and
connect to them. Since I am talking about using this as a marketing tool you might want to start with the people in your industry that you know from Facebook. You don’t need to limit yourself to that, it is just a good place to start.The next time you open Pinterest, you will see all the pins from the people you are following. Repin all you want.

How, Christine, is this marketing my stuff?

It isn’t yet, that was just learning the ropes.

 

Marketing with Pinterest.

At the top left it says Add+  Open that and you have a screen that gives you the option to Add a pin, Upload a pin or create a board. You want to Add a pin. Just copy the url for an image on your website and paste it in. Rather that choosing the Upload option, the pin will link back to your website.

You need to have a Pin it button on your website so visitors can share your images and they will also link back to your website.

One more thing, when you set up your profile, you did make sure to include the name of your business and your website address, didn’t you?

How about using Pinterest for research?

When you open a pin, it show you who all has pinned it. With a little luck and a bit of intuition, you can tell which pinners are brides and which are in the industry. See how this one calls the board “Our Wedding?” Dead giveaway. Just takes a bit to get the hang of it. Check out the boards on the ones you suspect are brides. See what they are pinning. It should give you a decent read on the pulse of the market, both their dreams and their reality.

Also pay attention to which of your pins get repinned. Obviously something in that pin is worth paying attention to, it may just be a coming trend. You can change your email setting in your profile to notify you when certain actions take place.

I haven’t even touched on the search function.

Just like any other social media, if you are using this for business, think about what you pin. The pins you choose will show your personality in a way you can only imagine.

 

Let me know if you need an invitation.

 

 

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Marketing, Social Media, Trends, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bridal Shows: Break the Rules

February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Before the show opened, I visited a booth that had a nice display, but failed on my pet peeve, NO SIGNAGE. Not bad signage, none! Hmmm.This was a cake booth and I know just a little more about cake booths than most. There were no pre-cut samples, there was a table in the front of the booth with ~gasp~ a chair behind it.  This I had to keep an eye on.

This is the line outside her booth an hour later.

Here is why…

Because she was hand cutting those samples, she got to talk one on one with every person that sampled her cake. Her booth placement helped; she was the first cake booth.  I am sure she gave out far fewer samples than the other cake vendors, but every single one counted. (I checked. She gave out about 50% of the other cake vendors.)

Unconventional thinking; I love it. This was an interesting twist and I doubt that it would work on a really large show or for a different type of vendor, but for a smaller more elite show…maybe.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Blog, bridal shows, Marketing, Outrageous Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Tales From a Bridal Show

February 7, 2012 By 1 Comment

Superbowl Sunday found me sliding into the stilettos for a day at the behemoth that is Gaylord Opryland Hotel for the Perfect Wedding Guides Winter Bridal Show 2012.

In theory, this show had everything going against it. It was Superbowl Sunday. The hotel itself is a PIA to navigate. It was the third show of the season. The exhibit hall is massive and a bit cold and the fire marshal insisted on aisles big enough to drive a semi down. Load in couldn’t start until 5 hours before the show because they had to get the Cattleman’s Association out first.

Wipe all that out of your mind because the show promoters ended up with a Superbowl sized win on their hands!

From the time they opened the doors until I left (30 minutes before the show closed) those giant aisle were packed; the booths were busy and the brides were engaged.

If I had any doubt in my mind that the bridal industry has turned the corner this wiped it out. Brides were booking appointments left and right. They weren’t just there to look, they were there to book.

The great thing about attending a show the way I do is that I get to talk to everyone: producers, vendors and brides. The ones that don’t already know who I am, I just say I am a blogger and they spill their guts. hehe.

The strangest thing I heard was from a vendor, “The minute I hear you are coming, my stomach just knots.” Umm wow. They know I will tell it like it is when I review the show.

First, the hits.

When I ran into Gregory Byerline at the pre-show mixer on Thursday and he showed me my book on his iPhone I knew his booth would be a hit and he did not disappoint.

 

The booth is elegant and sophisticated, just like his target market. The overhead lighting drew your eye to the booth long before you got there. The colors are muted which helps the photographs pop. The booth was well staffed.

His collateral nailed it. He did a rack card on wonderful heavy stock with a slightly  irredescent finish on the back. The images on the front are the same images as in the booth and in his print ad. The back has his perspective on life, love and photography and draws you into his world. The card ends with the subtle but urgent: “RESERVE EARLY”   No discounts, no giveaways. Brilliant.Bridal show handout

Now that he has drawn you in, his other hand out invites you over for drinks in a hand written note. I love it!

 Tomorrow I’ll do some more booth reviews including one that breaks all the rules, but seemed to work. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, eBooks, Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

A Magical Affair

February 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A couple of years ago I put together a blog for Courtney Hammon’s company A Magical Affair. This year she decided to finally bag her old flash website in favor turning that blog into a complete website. Yeah! Courtney. Now you get all the SEO  power of WordPress and Genesis.

Of course we did some updates but kept the same basic look she loved in the blog.  Click the image to visit the site.

website for nashville, TN wedding planner, A Magical Affair

Filed Under: Announcement, Clients, Portfolio, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New Ideas for Bridal Show Email Follow-up

February 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

OK, you’ve invested your time and treasure in a bridal show, or several and you have a fat, juicy lead list. Now what?

I have already given you tons of ideas to use both short-term and long-term like cherry picking your lead list and outrageous marketing. The question people still are asking is what  to put in that first email?

An interesting answer popped into my inbox just this morning that I think you should give a try.

How about instead of telling them something you ask them something?

Check this quote from today’s Research Brief from The Center for Media Research.

A new survey from Cint shows that 62% of those surveyed said they were more likely to purchase a brand’s product if their opinion has been sought by brand in a study. The survey highlights the importance of customer insight, says the report, as over half of the 1,200 consumers polled felt more loyal to a brand if it takes the time to find out their opinion.

Personally I can’t think of a better way to get them engaged from the very beginning. You know me, here is an example. If it were me sending the email for Indulgence Custom Bakeshop I would have said something along the lines of:

“Hey there {add first name}, it was great to meet you at the XYZ Bridal Show.  I was wondering if I could get your input on something. It’s a new year and I really want to add some new and exciting flavors to the menu.  If you could have any flavor or combination of flavors for your wedding cake or dessert what would it be?”

Better yet, put in a very brief survey or poll.

Don’t be crass and ask what their budget is. Ask them something that they may just have an interesting opinion on and ask it like you mean it. Give them some reason to believe that their input matters. Tweet the answers like a horse race. Build some excitement. Keep a tally going on Facebook. Foster engagement.

Here is one more tip that you probably already know but needs to be reinforced.

That email needs to be finished and uploaded to your bulk mailer BEFORE  you set up your booth. As soon as the show is over you need to load the emails you collected in your booth and hit the send button. That night. I know you are tired; shows can be brutal. Not taking care of the follow through is the biggest mistake that bridal vendors make when using bridal shows to market.

 

Bonus.

Here is another great article I just found on Asking as Marketing.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, bridal shows, email marketing, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Fisher’s Tudor House

February 2, 2012 By 3 Comments

It may not look like it on the surface, but this was a huge project. The mandate was to take two very dated, very old school websites and bring them into 2012. There were so many pages and interior links that just sorting it out required a flow chart. The SEO was Jurassic but losing ranking in such a competitive market wasn’t an option. Top it all off with an eCommerce component and a former webmaster that didn’t want to be a team player. I even pulled in old friend Marc Fuller to tweak the SEO.

 

The shining light was a client I just love. He understood the challenges and listened to my advice. Now he is no longer held hostage and is amazed at how easily he can update the new site himself.

Fisher’s Tudor House 2012

Just so you can get some idea of where we started…

thanks Pete.

Filed Under: Announcement, Portfolio, Website Design, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Mastering a World in Flux

January 21, 2012 By 4 Comments

 

I caught this great quote in the editors column in the February issue of Fast Company magazine

“In our hyper-networked world, the rules and plans of yesterday are increasingly under pressure; the enterprises and individuals that will thrive will be those willing to adapt and iterate, in a disciplined, unsentimental way.”

This is more or less what I have been saying since 2008, much more eloquently stated. You have to keep your eyes open and be agile and unafraid; but that isn’t what this post is about.

This post is about this philosophy in action; a case study if you will. This is a post about my dear friend, Paul Pannone and how he is single-handedly and unflinchingly transforming a very stuffy, nearly dead industry.

The men’s formal wear industry had all but written its own obituary. Stuck firmly in the past; saddled with outdated looks and hopelessly chained to traditional marketing channels, it was sinking fast. They were living in a bubble. Paul, however saw the bigger picture:create product that followed fashion and market it in a way that would appeal to a younger demographic. To survive, the industry had to get with the program…This ain’t your Grandpa’s tux!

To accomplish anything he had to break down the walls of the stuffy, ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ men’s club that ran the industry. To do that he had to get noticed and show his chops. Chops in formal wear he had in spades having been in the industry for 28 years and publishing a successful industry newsletter, E-formal News. What he needed was to show his mastery of the new marketing. Enter eWedNews. Well, that worked for a while, but it still wasn’t quite it. It did open his eyes to what it was going to take to get this done. Throwing off the bonds of a traditional milquetoast editor he struck out on his own with eWedNewz. Look out world!

Paul understood that in today’s fast paced, information heavy, 24 hour news cycle world you needed a little sensationalism and controversy to shine through the haze. Love him or hate him, he got your attention. More importantly, he proved to the powers that be that he knew what the hell he was doing in the new social media world.

Enter the Weintraubs and FLOW Formal Wear. One of the largest manufacturers of men’s formal wear in the US, they had a lot to lose if the industry failed. Seeing that it was time to adapt to a changing market, they brought in Paul.

Finally in a position to influence change in an industry he had been in since 1984, he stepped up to the plate. Styles were updated, marketing changed and you started to see formal wear that didn’t look antiquated. That was the first step.

 Time to raise the roof.

A big part of marketing today is celebrity endorsements. What you want is a celebrity that understands social media and eyeballs. Oddly, it’s less about how closely the celebrity personifies your brand as it is whether or not they are getting the eyeballs of your target market. So who does Paul pick? Not a dapper James Bond type, but the Situation from Jersey Shores, Mike Sorrentino. Again, love him or hate him, he loves clothes and gets a ton of media attention.

The traditionalists in the formal wear industry blew a gasket! To say they were appalled is an understatement.

This is what MyTuxedoCatelogBlog.com had to say:

When FLOW Formal Wear announced that Mike Sorrentino (aka “The Situation”) from reality TV series ‘The Jersey Shore’ was going to be the celebrity face for their new line of tuxedos, we were admittedly… concerned?  Confused?  We didn’t really get why anyone would choose for a tuxedo line spokesperson a guy best know for losing his shirt

Get over it, you wanted new, you got it. The Situation got his own branded line to stand alongside the lines of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. You want to appeal to a younger demographic? Here you go.

Was it a risk? You bet it was. The top style in the line, the Avalon is just beginning to arrive in stores and according to Mr. Pannone, “Without going into numbers, let’s just say if this was a book, we blew away our first printing and are already on our third.”  Here is how the industry reviewed the Avalon once they actually got their hands on it.

From the original quote,”adapt, iterate in a disciplined and unsentimental way”; I would say that pretty much sums it up. How one man, unafraid to take risks but with a vision of what can be is on his way to saving an industry.

So what are you doing to shake up your world?

 

Filed Under: Inspiration, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Facebook or Blog?

January 18, 2012 By 1 Comment

I ran across an interesting question today about where you should put more effort, in your blog or your Facebook page.

I’m not really sure why that is a question. Let me break it down for you.

Your website is your own personal piece of  internet real estate. Think of it as your home because in terms of your marketing, it is. Your blog should be the heart and soul of your website. In web design today, integrating your blog as a page on your website is the only way to go. If your blog is off on another url from your main one you are missing the boat.

Today’s brides go to one place to find their vendors above all others:

SEARCH.

If you aren’t ranking high in search engines for what you do and where you do it, you are behind the game.

Reread that last sentence. Notice I did not say for your name. I hope to hell you rank number one for your name. Unfortunately, that isn’t how brides search. They search for things in places.

Huh?

They search for florists in Bucks County.They search for wedding planners in Washington, DC. They search for caterers in Fairbanks, AK. They don’t search for Polly Sue Purebreds Catering. If they do it is because they have already been made aware of Polly Sue from a referral and that is a post for another day.

Now that you understand this, you understand why your personal piece of real estate is so important.

Back to the original question: your blog or Facebook.

Every time you post to Facebook, you are sending all that Google juice to Facebook.com, not to Polly Sue’s url. Great, I’m sure Mr. Zuckerberg appreciates the Google juice, but frankly, you need it worse than he does.

Think of it this way, you have an office or a store but you still meet people in the local coffee-house. Instead of investing to improve your office or store, you take time and treasure to improve the coffee-house. That’s just dumb.

How about this instead, you work on improving the store, and then post updates on the coffee-house bulletin board. When your potential customers start looking for you the coffee-house bulletin board is one of the many signs pointing to your store. When they get to your store, they see how amazing you are.

Enough with the analogies, if you don’t get it yet you never will.

Your blog should be an integrated part of your website.

Facebook should send traffic to your website, not the other way around.

Post to your blog and have it automatically cross-post a headline and an excerpt to your Facebook page leading them to your website.

 Done.

 

 

Filed Under: Announcement, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bridal Shows: How to Bag an Elephant

January 11, 2012 By 1 Comment

 

Bridal show ROI and goals are interesting things. If you think the only goal of a bridal show is to book brides at the show you are missing most of the opportunities.

I had a most interesting conversation last week with a florist concerning his recent booth at a bridal show. Now this was a small show, but popular among the luxury wedding vendors. Our florist knew that booking more than one or two brides from the show was probably a pipe dream, but he had another goal.

You see, there was a planner in town that he had been stalking (only in the business sense of the word) for several years. This planner was known to use the same vendors over and over, throwing them a ton of work. If our florist could finally get the planners attention, it would mean a lot of additional business.

The planner had booked a booth at this show.

Time for a little research. Our intrepid florist made it his business to learn every thing he could about the planner’s style. He scanned images on her Facebook page, in local magazines and on her website and looked for patterns. Of course there were patterns, we all have them. Then he designed his booth to reflect her style, down to the use of her personal favorite color.

Like I said, it was a small, lightly trafficked show and the vendors had plenty of time to schmooze. Our florist chatted with friends in adjacent booths but stayed pretty much in his booth. In other words, he didn’t approach his target at all.

The target found him.

On the planners FIFTH visit to the florists booth, as she oooo’d and ahhh’d over a particular bouquet for the fifth time and the booth in general she invited the florist to lunch for the following week.

That my friends, is how you bag an elephant!

Filed Under: Blog, bridal shows, Marketing Tagged With: , ,
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