Strategic Guru, Inc.

Strategic Guru Retained By Alternative Engine Technologies For Marketing Services

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:43:09 +0000

CARY, N.C. – Strategic Guru announced today that it has been retained by Alternative Engine Technologies to provide strategic marketing services. The Triangle-based marketing and communications agency will provide branding, messaging and collateral development for the company.

Alternative Engine Technologies is launching a cutting-edge device called AirFuelMAX™ designed to increase fuel efficiency in trucks. First developed in Australia, AirFuelMAX offers significant fuel savings for light, medium and heavy duty trucks. The company called upon Strategic Guru to assist with introducing the product to the U.S. market.

“We are very excited to help Alternative Engine Technologies bring this product to the U.S. market,” said Carolyn Rhinebarger, Chief Brainstormer with Strategic Guru. “Their patent-pending device is proven to both save on fuel costs and deliver eco-friendly benefits to vehicle owners and to companies with truck fleets”

“AirFuelMAX is an exciting new device that we are proud to provide to the U.S. marketplace,” said Dewey Weaver, President of Alternative Engine Technologies. “We are eager to work with Strategic Guru to develop a strong brand identity and product communications.”

The Lowdown on Google Buzz

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:16:55 +0000

Stumbled across a great post a few weeks back on Google Buzz’s applications for B2B over on the OPEN Forum. Since the debut of Google Buzz just about a month ago, we marketers have been scratching our heads on its best use for B2B purposes. Integrated right into Gmail, Google Buzz is a hybrid of Twitter, Facebook and the location-based social network, Foursquare. As it stands now, you must be a Gmail user to access Buzz, it’s not yet available as a stand-alone or through Google apps but Google’s mentioned it should be more widely available shortly. So, if you are not a Gmail user, why should you care? Based on the explosive growth of Twitter and Facebook, Google Buzz could offer marketers, for better or for worse, another social channel on which to engage prospects. Where does Buzz’s potential lie?

“Check ins” encourage your customers to notify their Buzz followers when they visit your brick-and-mortar location. Location-based services can drive free word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
Buzz can help you understand what’s being said about your business. It allows you post a message to a group of followers that ask to receive updates. Messages can be longer than Twitter’s standard 140 characters and replies to messages are grouped under the original message. Unlike Twitter’s free-for-all style of communication, exchanges are easier to track in Buzz.
Buzz can be used to share blog posts, deals, or interesting links related to your business. However, be polite. Remember, it’s considered rude to incessantly self-promote in social media. Bring value to the conversation.

Until Buzz is available to any user, it’s not the place to invest a significant amount of time but Google fine-tunes its product quickly based on user feedback and likely wants their piece of the Facebook/Twitter pie.

What’s your take on Buzz?

Strategic Guru Names Business Development Professional

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:57:30 +0000

Cary, N.C. – Strategic Guru, a strategic marketing consulting firm, announced today that Sandy Andrews has joined the company in the role of Business Development Manager. Andrews will introduce new clients to the full spectrum of strategic marketing services that Strategic Guru has to offer, including strategic market planning, brand strategy and implementation, effective lead generation, social media marketing and website marketing strategy.

Prior to joining Strategic Guru, Andrews most recently held the position of Marketing Director at Atlantic Avenue Orchid & Garden. She has also held positions in new business development with the Triangle’s largest independently owned public relations firm and has worked in account management for some of the area’s most respected advertising, media buying, and creative agencies. She has executed successful campaigns for clients whose geographical footprint spans the globe, the region or just the neighborhoods that we call home.

A native of Pennsylvania, Sandy has called the Triangle area home since 1985. She graduated from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire with a degree in Psychology summa cum laude. She can be reached directly at 919-459-4200 ext. 104 or via email at sandy@strategicguru.com.

“I am pleased to have Sandy join our team and am confident that she will, in her new position as Business Builder, use her deep industry experience to reach out to business owners in the Triangle and beyond who need assistance driving business through marketing,” said Carolyn Rhinebarger, Chief Brainstormer for Strategic Guru.

“Strategic Guru offers clients unique and effective solutions that solve today’s marketing challenges as well as providing traditional tactics to assist in business growth,” states Andrews. “I’m happy to be a part of the organization and look forward to contributing to its continued success,” she adds.

The Heart of Sales is Nurturing

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:29:15 +0000

The rise of social media in shaping the prospecting/sales process has changed the way some marketers interact with prospects. Remember at the core of any effort should be a solid lead nurturing plan that ensures that the leads generated are properly guided through the sales funnel.

• Incoming lead campaigns enable you to identify sales-ready leads versus those that will need to be nurtured further by sorting leads into “hot”, “warm” and “cold” categories. Remember to let these leads opt-in or opt-out of the further communication from your organization.

• Stay-in-touch AKA drip marketing campaigns are useful for prospects that are not yet sales-ready for a variety of reasons. By sharing information of perceived value to these prospects on a regular basis, you create top-of-mind awareness of your product or service.

• Accelerator campaigns are designed to move prospects through the buying cycle more rapidly by “prodding” the leads in a meaningful way. The nudges are triggered by a variety of factors for example, a product update, special offers or other.

• Lead lifecycle campaigns maximize marketing’s investment in lead generation by ensuring that leads are not lost or abandoned. Three categories of lead lifecycle campaigns include:
• Lead handoff campaigns automatically pass the lead to sales when it is ready to be closed.

• Lead recycling reassigns and tracks leads that cannot be pursued by sales in a timely manner.
• New client drip marketing campaign developed specifically for new customers to foster loyalty and generate cross- and up-sell opportunities.

Tell us how you implement drip marketing in the comments.

Strategic Guru Renews Marketing Engagement With Environmental Engineering Firm

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:20:45 +0000

CARY, N.C. – Strategic Guru, a strategic marketing consulting firm, announced today that Piedmont Geologic, an environmental consulting and remediation company based in Raleigh, has renewed their engagement for the execution of strategic marketing tactics. Strategic Guru launched the re-brand of the firm in 2009 and has provided marketing services to help the firm grow.

Established in 1994, Piedmont Geologic is a consulting firm specializing in environmental assessment and site remediation. With a professional staff of scientists, engineers, and technicians, the company has completed hundreds of projects for major petroleum companies, Fortune 500 companies, public agencies, and small and large businesses.

Strategic Guru will continue to assist Piedmont Geologic to further build brand identity and generate sales leads. The agency will provide web solutions, including direct marketing, electronic communications, and other marketing support.

“We successfully worked with Piedmont Geologic over the past year to re-brand their business and provide ongoing communications and direct marketing,” said Carolyn Rhinebarger, Chief Brainstormer for Strategic Guru. “We look forward to assisting them to reach their goals in 2010.”

Pete Dressel, President of Piedmont Geologic said, “Strategic Guru has helped us transform our brand over the past year. They understand our business needs and bring enthusiasm and innovative ideas to our marketing efforts. We are pleased to renew our contract.”

What Business Can Learn From Tiger

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:23:52 +0000

The Tiger Woods brouhaha developed further today when after over two and half months of silence, Woods held a press conference to address the events that unfolded after his late November car crash. Although Tiger’s mistakes were personal in nature, his approach to making amends reflects key elements of business crisis communications.

Take responsibility

Rather than blaming the media, his family, wife or the women with whom he carried on the affairs, Tiger accepted full responsibility. Don’t finger point or shift blame when a customer or client finds an error in your work. When you’ve screwed up, own up.

Show the steps you are taking to make it right

Tiger briefly mentioned his 45-day stay in an inpatient rehab center and the long road he faced to earn back the trust of his family, friends and sponsors. When a problem arises with your product, service or communication chain, help your customer understand what you are doing to correct that error. Actions, not words, help earn back customer trust.

Remember where you came from

Calling upon his childhood faith, Tiger mentioned the teachings of Buddhism that will help him move forward. In business, remember the first few clients you served and how their business helped you land where you are now. Reflect on your core values when addressing a crisis.

What did you think of Tiger’s comments? Are they enough to salvage his brand? Will his sponsors come back?

Dip a Toe in the Social Media Waters

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:05:10 +0000

Flickr, boasting 36 million members, is a photo hosting and sharing site that allows users to create groups, tag a staggering 3.5 billion photos and video and share content across the world. It can be a great place to start dipping a toe in the waters of social media – as well as increasing your organization’s online real estate – Flickr will often come up in the top 10 of a Google search for a product name!

Here are a few examples of what other small and large businesses are doing on Flickr. Tom Bihn, a small laptop and travel bag manufacturer based in Seattle, has a rabid following. Customers upload photos of their bags to a pool. Bags are both showcased in far off-lands and unpacked to show how much gear they can haul. By encouraging brand evangelists to connect with one another and share solutions, Tom Bihn’s customers help share the brand story.

Active on Flickr since 2006, GM leverages their presence to showcase concept cars from the lab, share shots of industry events and maintain individual sets (groups) for their brands. GM encourages contacts to share photos of products on their “Photo of the Day” feature on the FYI blog by tagging them “gmfyi”, engaging owners and fans to share their GM experience.

Graco, the child-products company, not only uses Flickr to share product shots, but also to offer a slice-of-life from corporate headquarters. Because the key element of social media that makes it so powerful is authenticity, Graco shares photos from their family-friendly corporate Halloween and summer events, reinforcing the child and parent-centered brand image.

Strategic Guru Launches Redesigned Website

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:22:06 +0000

CARY, N.C. – Strategic Guru, a Cary-based strategic marketing consulting firm, announced today that it has launched a refreshed website (http://strategicguru.com/). The fully redesigned site incorporates new features, including social sharing, blogging and a dynamic portfolio of work. Design of the site reflects the look and messaging of the firm’s recently refreshed sales collateral. The site was also optimized for search engines.

Strategic Guru’s site features a ‘think tank’ section that offers free access to marketing whitepapers, articles and blog posts. Built on a content management system (CMS), the new site gives the strategic marketing consulting firm the power to refresh content frequently and provide improved web communications for clients.

“Our new site truly communicates the value we bring to our clients,” said Carolyn Rhinebarger, Chief Brainstormer with Strategic Guru. “As marketing experts, our focus for the new site is to clearly reflect the mission of our business: to help other businesses flourish and grow through sound marketing strategy and targeted tactics.”

Super Ads 2010

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:43:43 +0000

Super Bowl XLIV’s spots hit a nostalgic note, trotting out characters and themes known and loved in some fresh and not-so-fresh ways. Let’s take a look at some of the ha! and meh! ads from yesterday’s game.

Ha!

FloTV’s look back at pivotal world events of the last 50 years was a walk down memory lane that alternated between the sentimental, the sad, the inspirational and the shocking. The use of a remixed version of halftime performers The Who’s “My Generation” was a good choice, if a bit on-the-nose. Well-done, this spot highlighted the importance of television in American’s shared cultural experience.

BoostMobile also dusted off a bit from days of yore and riffed on the ridiculous-even-then Super Bowl Shuffle from 1985. It was clever – and everyone loves to see Mike Ditka make a little fun of himself.

Google’s spot was simple, like their service. It hit an emotional chord highlighting the very ways viewers have likely used Google, positioning the search engine as a tool to navigate life.

KIA hit on childhood themes and sent a sock monkey, robot and friends on a wild road trip in a new Sorrento. A fun romp.

Meh!

GoDaddy’s Danica Patrick “Too Hot For TV” spots are boring retreads of old ideas.

Sketchers went for the celebrity endorsement and hired football great Joe Montana to plug their shape up shoes. But he provided a voice-over only–a missed opportunity to link a fan favorite’s face to the product.

Animal themes may be reaching their saturation point – the Monster.com Fiddling Beaver spot fell flat.

Tell us about your hits and misses in the comments…

Knowledge Vector brochure

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:24:04 +0000

2009 MarCom Awards: Platinum Award