By Marty Simon – CEO

One thing’s for sure in the marketing communications business: nothing is forever. Not even the very best accounts. Here at The Simon Group, we’ve been privileged to work with dozens of great and near-great companies in our first 24 years of business. And, before that, I had the pleasure of working with a bunch more for 19 years at my previous agency. A lot of those clients came with me when I started The Simon Group. One of them was with me for almost 40 years…not a bad run…we helped each other grow and prosper for sure before we shook hands and moved on.

This story is about the accounts we’ve lost over the years because we simply did too good a job for them. Well, that’s not quite true…we did the job they asked us to do: we made them very profitable and very famous in their markets and they went and got bought out by much bigger companies! Not that we begrudge them that…after all, that’s kind of what they hired us to do.

So, while it is painful to lose a successful and profitable account, it’s not always a losing proposition. First, there’s the extreme satisfaction from knowing that you just helped some of your colleagues score the biggest sale they may ever see in their careers. We’ve had lots of thanks and praise and “you guys have made my career!!” kind of responses from our now-sold clients.

And it doesn’t even always end there. Sometimes, our primary contacts, for one reason or another, move on to a new company and they don’t forget the job we did for them at their previous company. Frequently, The Simon Group has been transferred from one great client to another because our key contact moved on and insisted on our moving with him. As long as there’s no conflict of interest, we’re delighted to do just that!   It’s quite a compliment and certainly an acknowledgement of the success we had for that client.

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Articles, Business Marketing

Thought online advertising meant just web versions of print ads? Think again!

Although print advertising is still effective, it’s important to tap into the new world of online advertising, since this is the prime source of information for some market segments.  And, research from various sources (Nielson, MRI, eMedia Strategist, and our own analysis of media kits and publication data over the years) repeatedly shows there’s minimal overlap between people that get their information from the web and those that obtain it from print, so if you want to reach your entire target audience, you need to use both advertising channels.

Online advertising takes many forms – e-newsletters, banner ads, webinars, white papers, virtual trade shows, videos, podcasts, social media, pay per click…the list goes on.  With all the technology available, an advertisement can be much more than just words or an image.  Online ads can incorporate motion and sound—something a print magazine ad is incapable of doing.

Online Advantages
A major advantage to online advertising is accessibility.  Unlike print, where the ad reaches only a certain amount of people, online ads have virtually no limit and can reach anyone in the world around the clock. Long after the advertisement is posted it can continue to brand your product or company.

Online advertising also provides something print advertising could rarely deliver: information about the people who are actually responding…clicking on your ads, downloading your whitepapers and tuning in to your webinars. While print advertising can provide you with circulation data and readership details, it can’t provide the names and contact information for the last 10 people who really, actually viewed your information (though the amount of data provided varies by publication).

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Analytics, Facebook, leads, Marketing, Paid Search, Social Media, Twitter, Web