I wanted to point all my readers to an interview of Gil Gerretson of Biztrek.  I mentioned Gil and his company briefly in another post I made this morning. Gil is a marketing mentor who has years of marketing experience and teaching.  The interview was done by a Greenville,SC business newspaper called GSA Business.  The interview can be found under March 17th on their podcast page  of the GSA Business web site or you can for a direct link to the file.

A good part of the interview is about Gil’s company and his vision to take it nationwide. Later in the interview he mentions quite a few things about the need for web site to be dynamic and provide ways to interact with the reader. Gil also mentioned the value of social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and linkedin.

Yesterday I followed the announcement of the iPhone SDK release and we have made the decision to focus on developing for this product as our niche in the mobile market.  Last year we purchased an iPhone so we could begin exploring future uses in our business.  We feel this is where the future is headed in terms of developing web and stand-alone applications that people can access 24/7 and at any location in a rich and meaningful way.
We have a lot of innovative projects and ideas that are perfect for this device. Of course we will be developing podcasts for clients that you can listen or view on the iPhone, iTouch or other iPods. This is what we call portable media. We also want to create programs that will enable clients and customers to create compelling content and organize it in innovative ways.  We plan on developing applications for business, productivity, photography, etc. Expect to see more announcements soon.

We feel this will be an excellent way to enhance our web design and development options. We want to give our clients the tools and ability for their customers to access their information from anywhere, at anytime.  The personal computer definitely has it’s place but the ultimate goal is to give people the freedom to access information and conduct commerece where needed.  We could work at developing for other mobile platforms but we feel it’s more important to hone in our a particular niche in much the same way we are working with a specific content management program for our web site projects.

It’s our desire to be known as one of the premire iPhone/iTouch developers in the Greenville,SC as well as Upstate,SC Market.

This morning I will be in a 2 hour planning session (between 9 and 11am) with my fellow organizers and leaders of the Upstate Entrepreneur’s Forum. We will be meeting at Port City Java near Fluor Field in the West end of Downtown Greenville.  We will be setting our calendar for the next year and lining up speakers.  What topics or special speakers would you like to see at a UEF meeting? Are you an entrepreneur or thinking about taking the plunge? What’s holding you back or frustrating you? How can we help you turn your visions into profitable realities? Feel free to leave a comment as I will be checking my e-mail and posts to this blog this morning.

I’ve been wanting to write something that is a bit off topic from the typical business talk of this site but on a subject that is of interest to me and will probably be to you as well.

One of my weekly activities is to go to my local library branch and see what movies, concerts, or TV shows are available to check out in the DVD format.  You never know what you are going to find but I will have to admit most of the offerings are either old, serious or depressing.  Yes, occasionally you will find a comedy or blockbuster film but for the most part I get the feeling they want to have things on hand that “teach us a lesson.” Yes, I know the library is not supposed to a great entertainment venue. It is supposed to be a storehouse of knowledge but many of the so called, “classics” don’t do it for me intellectually or inspire me.

Another thing that has me scratching my head is the odd assortment of choices between the different branches within my local library system.  I find it sort of odd that one branch will have nothing but Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes which yet another branch will have nothing but Star Trek: Voyager episodes on DVD.

Is their a rhyme or reason to this? Do they study the local demographics and some wise sage in a back room who determines which parts of town will have access to certain DVD’s?  I don’t know but for some reason the Berea Branch of the Greenville Library System has on Next Generation DVD’s while just a few miles to the north the Travelers Rest Branch has nothing but Star Trek: Voyager Episodes.  Why can’t the library system rotate their collections among the branches instead of making me drive to different places to find new things to watch?  Needless to say I have pretty much exhausted the offerings at the Berea Branch and I refuse to check out “serious films” especially in the winter months when I need an emotional pick up.

What are your library DVD experiences and thoughts? What do you wish the library stored more of? What do you wish the stored less of?

According to the American Marketing Association, Integrated Marketing Communications is

A planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.

This is the work of SpinningSilk Multimedia. We provide services and products with consistent branding using web, print, audio, video and other communications. Our core customer bases are small businesses and organizations and in particular churches, agencies and other organizations in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church* denomination. We have also done work with some fine local organizations in the Greenville, SC area. The for profit businesses that we have experiences with are construction contractor companies, business coaches and small business e-commerce stores.
Why is Integrated Marketing Communications so important to us and why should it be important to you? I don’t know about you but I hate having to run all over the place to get work done when it’s much better to have a central point of contact where you can be on the same page.

It’s incredibly easy to go the “free route” on so many things from restricted or ad supported free web services, do it yourself business cards or brochures,etc.  Some of these solutions are just fine for certain situations and I have nothing against someone printing their own business cards on an ink jet printer when they need an emergency run but for the long term you need to think long term and develop a relationship with a company experienced in the skills of communications, branding and marketing.

If a business or organization is serious about meeting long-term sales or donor goals, having a consistent brand and a central resource of experts is crucial. Can you do the work of Integrated Marketing yourself?  Maybe. Are you an expert in that area and how much time will it take away from what you are an expert in?  Marketing and sales don’t have to be overly expensive but you don’t want to do it on the cheap either. You’re business or organization needs a consistent branding program. Here is a checklist of things to consider and ask when seeking out and Integrated Marketing, graphic design, web design, print shop, etc.;

1. Does the company have graphic designers who know the difference between optimizing your images for the web and print?
2. Does the company know how to craft your content in such a way to make it compelling and search engine friendly?
3. Is it evident the company is paying attention to the latest trends in technology and marketing?
4. Even if the company is specializing on one aspect of marketing communications do they partner easy with other companies to get the work done?
5. Are they about showing themselves off or showing you off?
6. If you would like to do some things for yourself does the company give you the tools  like an easy web site content management system or files for printing short runs of business cards, etc?
7. Does the company practice what they preach? Do they have their own blog, professional business cards, etc?

Yes, I’m trying to “sell my companies services” in this post.  This post describes what we do as a business and we would love to meet with you to talk about your communication and branding needs.

*We didn’t design the web site for the main denomination web site. That one is done in-house but we have developed sites and helped with other issues for several of the denominations agencies.