BrandMuscle, Inc

We are pleased to announce our partnership with PPG Industries’ (NYSE:PPG) automotive refinish business to offer a wide range of marketing support services to its collision repair facilities and distributors across North America. The PPG Marketing on Demand web-based tool allows streamlined development of local marketing campaigns that are brand compliant and cost-efficient, saving time and money. Many Fortune 1000 companies across the manufacturing industry use BrandMuscle’s integrated solution to optimize local sales and marketing performance. Click here to read more.

BrandMuscle is looking forward to joining some of the best and brightest financial services marketers at the 17th Annual Best Practices in Retail Financial Services Symposium March 11 – 13 in Boca Raton, Florida to share retail banking best practices and identify new trends that will define industry standards.Financial services marketers face significant challenges today. Communicating your banks brand promise consistently at the local level was tough enough when traditional media was the only option. Today, building trust and loyalty requires communicating with customers one-on-one in new and highly personalized ways using both traditional and digital media.

New regulations and the deleveraging of consumer balance sheets have kept executives within the financial services industry on their toes. While conditions have been challenging for banks in recent years, many are stepping up their games by taking advantage of technological advancements to reinvent the ways they engage with consumers and small businesses, and retooling their branch networks to more actively engage front-line staff in high-value revenue-generating activities.

We’re looking forward to sharing best practices for leveraging local marketing automation technology at the branch-level to increase customer acquisition and retention.

Attending the show ? Stop by and visit us at booth #17.

The Riverside Company Acquires BrandMuscle; Strengthens Distributed Marketing Platform

Cleveland, Ohio (February 28, 2012) – BrandMuscle, Inc., announced today that it has been acquired by The Riverside Company, positioning the company for the next phase of innovation and aggressive growth within the distributed marketing landscape.

BrandMuscle’s technology supports brand-compliant customization of a variety of traditional and digital media including print advertising, sales collateral, direct mail, email, video, television and video spots, flash banner ads, electronic brochures, online business pages and websites. BrandMuscle also provides professional media buying, planning and placement services; enabling users of the company’s solution to receive expert assistance to execute local marketing programs.

“Our clients rely on us to deliver the most innovative solutions possible to solve their greatest marketing challenges. We’ve delivered on that promise every day for the last 12 years and are thrilled to partner with Riverside to expand our capabilities and deliver additional value to our clients,” said BrandMuscle’s Chief Executive Officer Philip Alexander.

BrandMuscle will continue operating in Cleveland under the leadership of Alexander and current senior management.

“It’s always nice to make an investment in your back yard,” said Cleveland-based Riverside Principal Alan Peyrat. “BrandMuscle is an incredible business, and we’re glad to be part of the next chapter in its growth.”

BrandMuscle will join Riverside’s platform Centiv Services, a Chicago, Illinois-based provider of marketing automation technology and digital print fulfillment services and TradeOne Marketing, an Austin, Texas-based trade promotion management company, to build out its distributed marketing platform. The merger will leverage each company’s unique capabilities in delivering an innovative, integrated services platform for local marketing.

“BrandMuscle is an impressive company, both in terms of scope and capabilities,” said Riverside Managing Partner Loren Schlachet. “The companies will form the clear market leader in the localized marketing space, with technology and service offerings to meet virtually any traditional or digital marketing need for clients with distributed marketing organizations.”

About BrandMuscle, Inc.
www.brandmuscle.com
BrandMuscle is a leading provider of web-based local marketing automation software and unparalleled end-user support for companies with decentralized sales and marketing channels. The company’s capabilities are embraced by Fortune 500 companies within the financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, retail and automotive industries. Using the company’s proprietary BrandBuilder® software, marketers can empower field-level customization and execution of personalized advertising and marketing campaigns to optimize local sales and marketing performance. Founded in 2000, BrandMuscle employs 160 talented professionals and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with a regional service office in Los Angeles, California.

About The Riverside Company
www.riversidecompany.com or www.riversideeurope.com
The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm focused on acquiring growing businesses valued at up to $200 million (€200 million in Europe). Since its founding in 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 275 transactions. The firm’s international portfolio includes more than 75 companies, and it has $3.2 billion/€2.5 billion in assets under management.

In the wake of the financial crisis, there’s been a change in how marketers leverage technology, such as local marketing automation solutions, to develop more personalized relationships with consumers. Consumers now expect companies to work harder to gain their business while offering a standard of customer service that has been unmatched in the past. It’s a challenging time for financial services marketers. With tighter budgets and reduced staff, marketing is changing at the speed of light and the emergence of new and fragmented media only adds fuel to the fire.

Marketers on both the corporate and local level are focused on rebuilding a reputation that is more centered on open communication, honesty and trust. To be successful, brands need to generate deeper, more personalized one-on-one connections with consumers and consumers want to connect a face with a company’s product or service. They want to do business with someone in the local community they can trust and rely on. To do this, the most successful banks and financial services organizations are abandoning the batch and blast mentality. Instead, they are leveraging technology and restructuring marketing messages to become more locally relevant and using a wider variety of media channels to drive acquisition and retention.

A recent report conducted by the CMO Council titled How Banks are Regaining Trust as the Financial Sector Readjusts, identified that 82 percent of marketers surveyed plan to increase use of new digital channels and content. The article surveyed 120 marketers from banks with revenue of $500 million to $120 billion and found that websites, social media, online and mobile segments are significantly surpassing the use of traditional print media. Because of the consumers’ need to have the most up-to-date information at the tip of their fingers, financial companies are working hard to make sure that information is available with digital technology. Further, the article states that the “adept use of digital media channels for rapid versioning, content personalization, and customization relative to audience types and levels of sophistication” is needed to outperform competitors in today’s market. It’s important for not only banks, but all organizations within the financial services sector to reach customers through a number of different media channels to make sure the audience receives the message in the way they want to be reached.

BrandMuscle has local marketing programs for leading financial services organizations. Our solution provides a platform for corporate marketers to host cross-channel marketing materials that can be easily accessed and customized by local representatives. This allows corporate marketers to ensure that all materials distributed in the marketplace are both legally and brand compliant while giving local representatives an opportunity to create the personalization that customers are looking for, saving time and money. Click here to find out how a Fortune 50 company grew local marketing participation and increased co-op usage by using BrandMuscle’s marketing solution.

How are you overcoming these marketing challenges? Share your story with us today!

By Philip Alexander, President & CEO, BrandMuscle, Inc.

Changing trends in consumer behavior, proliferation of new media, and the advancements in technology are all driving a complex network of opportunities for national brands to engage one-on-one with consumers at the local level. According to the CMO Council’s “Localize to Optimize Sales Channel Effectiveness” report, nearly 50 percent of marketers believe localized marketing is essential to business growth and profitability, yet only 12 percent believe they have highly evolved campaigns and analytics in place to execute and measure their local marketing efforts.

National brands with decentralized marketing organizations are increasingly turning to local marketing automation platforms to meet the needs of local affiliates (stores, agents, dealers, franchisees, and resellers) who desperately need an easy way to create and deploy more targeted, personalized and interactive sales and marketing materials and campaigns. Fulfilling these needs was a challenge for decentralized marketing organizations when media options were limited to print and broadcast. The stakes have only become higher as CMOs look for ways to achieve greater customer relevance and seamlessly deliver the brand promise across dozens of new digital media channels.

By the time the consumer enters the local store, it’s likely he or she has already made a decision based on some form of online research. This presents a significant opportunity for marketers to improve the value of their creative and marketing assets by impacting consumer demand prior to purchase. As the report suggests, BrandMuscle has also seen an escalation in demand across its client base for tools that allow local affiliates to easily create local microsites, social media content, electronic messaging, local events, and online advertising. As the search industry grows, the drive to innovate and optimize local efforts continues to increase demand for technology that can streamline how these new forms of media are used to produce results in a way that complements the national brand rather than competing with it.

Three particular trends we see dominating marketing communications today:

1. Large, national advertising campaigns are being replaced by activities that are locally focused This trend is being driven by media fragmentation and an increase in consumers who want to connect one-on-one with brands and support businesses that will boost their own local economies.

2. Significant shift in spending from traditional forms of media to digital Local businesses are embracing email and other forms of online marketing (microsites and landing pages, paid search, banner advertising, and now SMS) because they deliver a relatively low-cost way to reach consumers quickly via smartphones and mobile devices.

3. Considerable shift from mass production of marketing materials to advertising on-demand Economic challenges have forced marketers to re-analyze expenditures to ensure every dollar invested is generating the best possible return. While long-run printing still has valid applications, many have found that recent advancements in digital printing is allowing for cost-effective production of more personalized and effective pieces while reducing the cost and waste associated with warehousing materials that quickly become outdated. Digital media further accelerates the shift to personalized one-to-one communications.

Web-based local marketing automation solutions like BrandMuscle’s make it possible for corporate marketers to support brand-compliant local customization and deployment of marketing campaigns by local affiliates to address geographic, demographic and local competitive considerations. From customizing a print ad to delivering an email containing a link to a personalized landing page, BrandMuscle’s solution provides a cost-effective way for marketers to ensure global brand compliance, improve operational efficiency, and increase speed-to-market.

While having the right technology in place is critical to executing local marketing in a decentralized environment, it’s equally important to provide ongoing professional support to ensure local affiliates adopt and use the solution vigorously. While ease of use remains a key consideration, BrandMuscle also provides tactical and strategic local marketing support to both the corporate marketer and local affiliate to achieve optimal ROI. A key challenge many local affiliates face is understanding what types of advertising or campaigns will work best for their businesses and limited budgets. BrandMuscle addresses this by providing an option for local affiliates to work one-on-one with local media planning and buying specialists who can make recommendations and execute more strategic buys that will generate favorable returns.

As Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council notes, “Localization is the name of the game for national brands with significant field, channel or network marketing organizations.” With today’s consumer driving the conversation, marketers are forced to rethink their messaging and how it’s delivered to increase relevancy and speed-to-market. Local marketing automation platforms deliver a way for brands to centralize the origination of localized content while providing significant cost savings, global brand compliance and increased participation, interest and enthusiasm by the field to drive channel, and field sales performance. As new forms of media emerge and are tested with favorable results by corporate marketing organizations, it becomes even more critical to leverage technology that allows the brand to quickly scale high-performing tactics across sales channels to secure a competitive advantage.

Click here to download the full report from the CMO council.

According to BrightEdge Technology, over three-quarters of the nation’s Top 100 brands have created a Google+ page as of December 19, 2011. This is a 16 percent increase from a month ago, when only 61 percent were using Google+.

In today’s market, there is a lot of grey area in determining how important it is for a business to have a Google+ page, or how to gauge the success of your Facebook page. The way that B2C and B2B companies use social media is very different. So how do you measure the impact that these outlets have on your business?

As an early adopter of Google+, we see the value of using this channel as a way to engage with our customers, our end-users, our employees and our prospects through different ways. Being able to have different circles allows us to interact with our groups regarding topics and discussions that are important to them.

Not to mention that Google + optimizes your SEO. Google uses the content posted on your Google + page to run algorithms that determine where you fall in Google’s search results. To optimize your page and make sure you that you receive the traffic you’re looking for, there are several things that you can do.

• Keywords – use specific keywords in your profile that will trigger you to appear in common search results
• Include links – links to your website or reputable outside sources can all increase your optimization
• Add photos – the more content you can post, the better
• Add and share comments – detailed and relevant content helps you boost your search score. Google wants to feature businesses that post new, relevant and interesting content that features a lot of interaction including other’s comments and shared posts
• Make time – Making sure your Google + page is fully optimized will take time. As more people begin to use this channel, your results will be sure to beat your competition

Have you already created a Google+ page, either for yourself or for your business? Tell us about your experience and where you think the future of social media is headed!

You’ve seen them on flyers, in restaurants, magazines and direct mail pieces. They’re intriguing; mysterious; little black and white squares that hold the promise of a must-have discount, special offer or more. While QR codes have been used for over a decade in the automotive industry, they quickly popped up over the last couple of years in a number of different media channels. It’s the QR craze – everyone’s using them. But what’s the value? To be effective, the QR code needs to have something worthwhile to the customer to reward them for taking the time to scan it.

Here are our top 10 tips for utilizing QR codes:

1. Identify What and Why

Your customers are taking the time (even though it’s only few minutes) to scan your code. What’s on the other side of that code better have some significance or be worthwhile to them. Sure, if you use a QR code in a restaurant it could take you to your location’s website. But isn’t it more compelling to have an offer or some type of activity that drives customers to take action? For example, they could be taken to a coupon offer that they can show on their mobile device or find out about restaurant events. Or if they click on a code in a magazine ad, they could find insider beauty tips. Customers need to know if they are opting into a list, receiving a coupon or special offer or if they are visiting a mobile website before they scan to set up the expectation. This can easily be done by putting a short description or phrase on the material to explain what action the user will be completing by scanning the code. By doing so, you’ll get solid results from people that scanned your code since they knew what the result would be.

2. Always Test the Code

Test your QR Code on at least 3 different scanners. Not every QR Code generator follows the same requirements or development standard. If your code does not work on some scanners, there are a number of free QR code generators that are compatible with different formats.

3. Keep it Simple

Send your user directly to the site that you want them to reach without any additional clicking. They won’t know where to go if you don’t take them there directly. Additionally, the site that the code links to should be mobile friendly. Most people will scan the QR code using a smartphone. Websites that are not mobile friendly are difficult to read and even might throw errors.

4. Use the Right Media Type

Codes placed on materials like billboards do not typically give the customer enough time to scan it since they are quickly driving by. Not to mention, this can be a dangerous situation. Recognize what obstacles the user might face when deciding on where to place a QR code. For example, QR codes placed on subways can reach a lot of people but when the train is underground, there might not be a telephone or wireless signal available, defeating the purpose of the ad.

5. Integrate Your QR Code in Your Marketing Campaign

Use your QR code across media channels to establish consistency and brand awareness. In standard advertising, we know seeing a message multiple times resonates more with a customer than only seeing it once. Do the same with your QR Codes.

6. Create a Custom Design Only If Needed

Custom created QR codes grab the user’s attention and builds curiosity about what they are scanning. Codes can have different colors or have a small image placed in them. While there can be a small margin of error in the design that will still allow the code to work, it can be tricky to create a custom design. Really, custom designs should only be used if the campaign really needs that little something extra. For most campaigns, regular codes will do just fine.

7. Find Out Any Limitations with Your Link

Some QR code generators create codes that will expire after a given time period. Finding out if there is an expiration date is important in case you will be using the code for a long-term campaign. Also, make sure that the link will not be changing after a given period. You certainly do not want to advertise a QR code that won’t work.

8. Create a Code Based on Appropriate Size

QR codes can be created in different sizes depending on the material type that it will be used on. Since QR codes are built on a series of modules – the tiny dots you see – the larger the QR code, the more modules generated. Best practice is to create a smaller code upfront if it will be used in a smaller space. Shrinking a large QR code down could make it more difficult for a scanner to read. If you are using a QR code on multiple documents for one campaign, you will still want to create separate codes for each material. This way, they all link to the same campaign but you can identify which media types were most popular. See our next tip!

9. Measure Your Results

Creating and using your QR code are just the first steps. Measuring how well your QR code campaign worked is necessary to understand how effective it was and to help in strategic planning of future campaigns. If you use a QR code on multiple mediums, you can identify which material provided the best results so you can spend your dollars focused on those outlets rather than ones that didn’t work as well. There are a number of websites that provide free QR code tracking so you can monitor your hits throughout your campaign. Some sites even output the QR code and tracking URL at the same time.

10. Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Using QR codes to link to your Facebook or Twitter page make it easy for your customers or fans to leave comments, “like” your posts and see what other customers are saying. Every organization wants recommendations direct from their consumers – why not make it as easy as possible for your users to access these pages and give you free publicity.

Bonus Tip!

Get creative. QR codes can be used in a variety of ways, as long as there is a purpose behind it. Check out these links below to start getting creative ideas of how YOU can use QR codes in your business. And, be sure to let us know what creative ways you are using your QR codes!

http://mashable.com/2011/11/10/j-c-penney-qr-codes/

http://mashable.com/2011/04/26/qr-code-resume/

http://mashable.com/2010/07/12/social-media-business-cards/

Local Digital Marketing is everywhere. And it isn’t going away any time soon. The “Annual U.S. Local Media Forecast, 2010-2015 – Fall Update” conducted by BIA/Kelsey, featured on ClickZ and Mashable found that local digital ad sales are projected to increase by 62 percent by 2015: that’s total revenue of $37.9 billion from digital alone! Further, local ad revenues from digital media will increase by 35.4 percent and social media spending will reach $8.3 billion.

How will you be using your local marketing dollars in 2012 and beyond?

The increase in digital spend is being seen across both small, local businesses and larger organizations with distributed networks across the country. For the small dealer, digital is a low cost alternative to expensive media buys. Want to create your own social network and gain fans? Create a free Facebook page or start a Twitter account in just a few clicks. There is virtually no cost to using these tools but the return that can be generated by being accessible, providing updated information that customers want (or might not even know that they want) creates a digital world of endless possibilities.

With unstable economic conditions still an issue today, marketers are taking a more targeted approach to how marketing dollars are being used. Understanding how best to reach your audience and doing it through channels that work for them can give you the results you’re looking for.

BrandMuscle’s BrandBuilderDigital® platform creates a streamlined marketing automation system for organizations with distributed networks of dealers, franchisees, agents and sales reps. From creating a flash banner to building a custom landing page or microsite, BrandBuilderDigital® provides a comprehensive solution to maintain brand guidelines and global brand compliance while giving local providers the flexibility they need to run their business. The anticipated growth that the industry will see with digital media means that it’s going to become more competitive and companies will need to be even more creative in how they reach customers.

Check out BrandMuscle’s suite of local products here!

Forbes Insights recently published a report on marketing for the future based on interviews with more than 300 senior-level marketing executives. The report, “Bringing 20/20 Foresight to Marketing,” highlights tactics that some of the country’s most innovative marketers use to remain at the forefront of the industry.

One of the biggest challenges facing today’s marketer is the overwhelming number of channels available for communication. In addition to television, print and radio, there is now social media, SMS messaging, location-based services like FourSquare and flash sales sites like Groupon. According to 78 percent of the marketers surveyed, there is greater scrutiny today than there was a year ago on figuring out which channels are getting results and which aren’t. Today, marketers don’t just need to know about the latest tools, they need to know how each tool can deliver a message that speaks to the consumer while fitting into the company’s overall marketing goal.

To keep up with all of today’s channels, marketing leaders are drawing from a larger pool of data than ever before. According to the report, the best marketers inform their decisions by analyzing everything from online behavior like search, social media and mobile use to offline behavior like in-store decisions, customer service feedback and historical data.

These marketing leaders don’t wait for a year of data to pile up; they make decisions in real time. According to the study, only 9 percent of respondents tracked and adjusted their campaigns in real time. Among companies that classified their marketing as “world class,” however, 27 percent tracked performance in real time and 39 percent adjusted campaigns based on real-time data.

Staying competitive in this rapidly changing marketing environment requires strategic planning and investment in tools that successfully deliver your message to the right audience through the right channels. For companies with a strong network of retailers, agents, dealers, distributors, etc., the biggest challenge is making sure that your local marketing adheres to corporate standards while maintaining marketing’s best practices. BrandMuscle makes it very simple and easy for your marketers and sales force on the local level to automate tasks like ad customization to keep your brand consistent across channels, while allowing for sophisticated analysis.

Through BrandMuscle, marketers can create, measure and adjust advertising on a local level in real time, creating a powerful one-to-one personalized message. Your messages can quickly be updated through both print and digital platforms, making sure your customers are up-to-date on product changes and new offers. BrandMucle’s suite of marketing software helps you to identify and target the right advertising tactics to ultimately increase your sales and further drive your business. Learn more by requesting a customized product demo.

Company Named ExactTarget’s “Embedded Partner of the Year” at “Connections ’11, the World’s Largest Gathering of Interactive Marketers”

 Cleveland, Ohio (September 30, 2011) – ExactTarget, a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions, recently presented BrandMuscle its “2011 Embedded Partner of the Year” award at the company’s annual user conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. The award recognizes BrandMuscle’s innovation in digital marketing and in creating a seamless brand experience for companies that rely on a decentralized network of dealers, franchisees and sales agents to deliver relevant marketing and advertising to local markets on behalf of their company’s brands.

 Using BrandMuscle’s web-based BrandBuilder® software, corporate marketers enable local dealers, franchisees and sales agents to create and deliver brand compliant, corporate-approved, advertising and one-to-one communications using standardized templates. As an ExactTarget Embedded Partner, BrandMuscle has layered the robust delivery, hosting and analytics features of ExactTarget’s platform for email, landing pages, microsites and SMS text messaging into the BrandBuilder® product. This integration is transparent to users of the BrandBuilder® product and allows BrandMuscle to deliver a unified, consistent and exceptionally user-friendly interface for the customization of all media types.

 “Corporate marketers are capitalizing on the benefits of interactive marketing channels from a national and international standpoint. Our integration with ExactTarget makes it possible for them to scale top performing digital media campaigns across their decentralized sales and marketing organizations, right down to the local level,” states Clarke Smith, BrandMuscle’s Vice President of Product Development, Sales & Marketing.

 “With a few clicks of the mouse, a franchisee, dealer or sales agent can create his or her own email campaign or microsite without worrying about misrepresenting the corporate brand because we’ve limited their customization capabilities to include only options that corporate marketing has pre-approved. We’re also able to give corporate marketers insight into what’s occurring at the local level, something they would have little control over otherwise.”

 Within one week of launching BrandMuscle’s microsites solution for one of the nation’s largest providers of wireless voice, messaging and data services, the company’s sales agents created more than 400 customized microsites to deliver customized, up-to-the-minute rate plan and discount information to employees of some of the largest corporations in the U.S. The program has delivered a steady stream of new activations and exceeded the company’s annual goal for number of microsites created.

 “We were thrilled with the instant adoption by our client’s sales agents,” states Philip Alexander, BrandMuscle President & CEO. “It validates ease-of-use and more importantly, the impact our product has on driving sales.”

Learn more about BrandMuscle and its suite of local marketing customization software and services by visiting http://www.BrandMuscle.com or by calling the company at (866) 464-4342.

 About BrandMuscle

BrandMuscle is a leading provider of web-based local marketing Software as a Service (SaaS) and unparalleled end-user support for companies with decentralized sales and marketing channels. Using the company’s proprietary, Adobe InDesign-based software BrandBuilder®, marketers can empower field-level customization and execution of personalized advertising and marketing campaigns to optimize their local sales and marketing performance. Founded in 2000, BrandMuscle is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with a regional service office in Los Angeles, California. BrandMuscle clients include many of the nation’s most recognizable brands including Allstate Insurance, Chase Bank, BMW of North America LLC, DIRECTV, Hunter Douglas and T-Mobile.

 About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry. ExactTarget powers permission-based multichannel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Best Buy, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com.

 Media Contact:

Lori M. Alba

Director of Marketing

(216) 454-2047

lalba@BrandMuscle.com

Implementing an online local marketing automation solution that enables your field organization to customize ads and marketing collateral in a few clicks is major achievement in maximizing your marketing ROI. Here are a few simple ways you can ensure the technology you’ve implemented is adopted and used passionately by your field organization.

1. Keep Your Creative Fresh

Continually adding new creative onto the site keeps visits to your online marketing tool exciting for your users. If you plan to launch a new national campaign, notify your account executive at BrandMuscle to work with you to make new materials available for local customization. Don’t forget to share information about national campaigns (print, radio or TV) with your local users so they can enjoy the lift by complementing what you’re doing in their local markets!

2. Give Users Plenty of Options

In the world of local marketing, one size does not fit all. Offer a variety of media types and sizes for your users to select from. With a wide variety of options available, local users will more inclined to visit your online marketing tool each time they need materials. Users should have the ability to access templates for ads that come in a variety of media types, shapes and orientations that fit their budgets. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, it’s possible they might try creating something on their own, risking brand integrity and legal compliance.

3. Solicit Feedback

Often times, the best enhancements come from the users themselves! Make it easy for your users to share their ideas by incorporating a survey or feedback form onto your site year-round. This helps foster a sense of ownership and allows us to work more closely with you to make ongoing improvements your users are excited about.

4. Provide Ongoing Education

It’s likely your user base grows and changes daily. Do you have a program in place to inform new users about your online marketing tool? In addition to pre-recorded online training sessions your users can access at any time, consider working with your BrandMuscle account executive to set up quarterly live training sessions to educate new users or to introduce new functionality to your entire user base.

5. Reward Your Best Marketers

Host a sweepstakes or contest that encourages local users and/or regional marketing managers to participate in local marketing activities. Several BrandMuscle clients have great success stories to tell thanks to some friendly competition between regions or individual locations. One client entered each local user who built an ad on the site into a drawing to win an iPad and another rewarded its regional marketing manager with a cash bonus for the most ads built in a quarter.

6. Don’t Forget to Market to Your Users

Are you using every opportunity to remind local users about the importance of using your online marketing tool and sharing success stories? Some of the best practices we’ve seen/heard include customizing voicemail greetings and on hold messaging systems with a quick reminder about how to access the online marketing tool. Corporate and regional marketers have also customized the email signature lines they use for field communications to include a line or two reminding users about the tool or latest campaign. And of course, don’t forget to promote the tool at corporate events and training sessions, on your company intranet site, in company newsletters and in email blast communications you send to the field.

For the past several weeks, the Web has been abuzz about Google+, Google’s foray into the world of social media. Users have given rave reviews to features like Hangouts that allow group video chats and Circles that help keep professional and personal relationships separate.

Unfortunately for local marketers, Google is being very careful about whom they let into Google+, and right now, they’ve closed the door to businesses. According to Google+ Project Manager Christian Oestlien, a team is working to customize Google+ for businesses, and something will be available later this year. Right now, companies can apply to be included in a small beta test for Google+ for businesses.

You can apply for the experiment here. Even if you aren’t included in the initial test group, you’ll have the option of being updated as soon as a solution becomes available. Here are a few reasons to start brainstorming ways to use Google+ in local marketing:

• Integration with other Google properties – In an interview with Advertising Age, Oestlien said, “Ultimately we want to use Google+ across every Google property.” This means that you’ll potentially be able to use Google+ to increase the effectiveness of everything from your pay-per-click ads to your Google Places page. You should be able to use the power of Google Analytics to track your social outreach in ways that haven’t yet been possible.
• Group video chats – Early adopters like Ford have already taken advantage of the Hangouts feature to have face-to-face chats with their customers. These video chats can be a powerful tool for connecting on a personal level and offering everything from customer service to local announcements.
• Competition is fierce – Oestlien told Advertising Age that Google was overwhelmed by how quickly businesses like Ford and MTV responded to the new product. While marketers were slow to respond to sites like Facebook and Twitter when they were first introduced, they are much savvier about the power of social media today. If you want to break through the noise, it is important to innovate early in the game.

Will you sign up for the Google+ business test? How do you think it will benefit your local marketing? Let us know in the comments section below.

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association recently conducted their biannual survey  of nearly 3,800 chief marketing officers at Fortune 100, Forbes Top 200 and CMO Club companies. Some of the highlights of the survey include:

• CMOs rated the US economy as a 63 on a scale of 0-100, up from a 56 in August.
• CMOs expect to hire 50 percent more marketing professionals in 2011.
• Social media ad spending is expected to increase from 6 percent of the marketing budget in 2010 to 18 percent over the next 5 years. Traditional advertising spend is also expected to increase by 2 percent.

So optimism is up, hiring is on the rise and marketing departments anticipate spending more.  The question for many of today’s companies isn’t “Where are the resources?” instead, it’s “How are we going to make the best use of the resources we have?”

If you’re investing more money in marketing this year, here are three important questions to ask yourself:

1.    Are you delivering a targeted message?   The rise in social media marketing is just one sign of the trend toward more personalized marketing. The benefits of personalization and locally relevant messaging can be achieved across digital and traditional media channels. Investments in local ad customization software solutions like BrandMuscle’s allow you to cost-effectively version ads for the smallest segments of your audience, delivering a message that’s powerful, timely and relevant, resulting in a higher return on your marketing investment.

2.    Are you hiring with a purpose?  Are you one of the CMOs who are planning to add resources in 2011? While adding to your staff can be a great way to increase your capabilities, first make sure you’re doing all you can with the resources you already have. Do you find that you’re wasting a lot of time versioning ads for all your different markets? Is your team responding to a lot of one-off requests from the field? Are staff members so inundated with tactical work that they have little time to focus on long-term strategy? If you’d like make your marketing operations as efficient as possible, take the time to explore BrandMuscle’s solutions for localizing ads and purchasing local media. You may find yourself doing more with less and possibly even save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year that you could invest into things that actually drive sales like buying more media and advertising.

3.    How quickly are you getting your message out?  As a marketing professional, you already know how important it is to deliver your message as soon as possible to remain relevant in today’s culture. Examine your marketing process. How streamlined is it? Ad builder solutions like BrandMuscle’s can save you valuable days, weeks and months by empowering your local stakeholders to create their own localized marketing. They’ll be able to take a piece of creative, plug in the right options for their market, and have an approved ad delivered in a matter of minutes, not weeks.

As the economy improves, most marketers will eventually find more money in their budgets. Make those dollars count by considering BrandMuscle’s local ad builder solutions. Request your personalized demo today.

Ever wonder how leading marketers are enabling field-level customization and distribution of digital marketing to better connect with local consumers without destroying the corporate brand?

BrandMuscle and ExactTarget will join forces to tackle this topic during a live Twitter chat on Thursday, July 14th at 11 AM EST. Join the conversation at #NexusCafe.

We’ll share case studies, best practices and look forward to answering any questions you might have related to the topic of localizing digital marketing.

Company Receives Two Awards at the 2011 Crain’s Leading EDGE Awards Ceremony

Cleveland, Ohio, June 21, 2011 – BrandMuscle, Inc., a leading provider of local ad customization software and services, was one of several prominent Northeast Ohio companies honored recently at The 2011 Crain’s Leading EDGE Awards at Cleveland State University.  In its fifth year, this prestigious award was created by The Entrepreneurs EDGE to recognize value-creating, middle-market companies in the Northeast Ohio region. Recipients of the award were identified for their value creation in the regional economy, based on their EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) added to taxable employee compensation. Last year, BrandMuscle achieved its largest, single-year increase in new client acquisitions and grew its staff by over seven percent.

In addition to receiving the Crain’s Leading EDGE award for the third consecutive year, BrandMuscle was selected as the recipient of the Richard Shatten Civic Distinction Award. This award recognizes a Leading EDGE honored company that demonstrates a strong love for the region by giving back to the community. “There are a number of ways to measure a company’s success,” states Philip Alexander, president and CEO of BrandMuscle, Inc. “This award is especially important to us because it exemplifies the culture at BrandMuscle, something I believe is one of our most valuable assets.”

Each year, BrandMuscle employees collaborate to organize dozens of civic involvement opportunities for their peers. These activities have included food drives to benefit the Cleveland Foodbank, preparing and serving meals at the Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland, participating in cleanup events at Beech Brook, a facility for at-risk children, collecting shoes for Soles4Souls and prom dresses for area high schools, among many others. “Our employees are deeply passionate about making a difference in the community and I’m both proud and honored to accept this award on their behalf,” concludes Alexander.

Learn more about BrandMuscle and its suite of local ad customization software and services by visiting www.BrandMuscle.com or by calling the company at (866) 464-4342.

About BrandMuscle, Inc.

BrandMuscle, Inc. is a leading provider of marketing software and services for national brand advertisers with strong distributed or local marketing programs. Through the use of BrandMuscle’s BrandBuilder® software, marketers can empower field-level customization and execution of advertising and marketing campaigns to optimize local marketing performance. Founded in 2000, BrandMuscle is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with a regional service office in Los Angeles, California. BrandMuscle clients include many of the nation’s most recognizable brands including Allstate Insurance®, Chase Bank, BMW of North America LLC®, DIRECTV®, Hunter Douglas®, and T-Mobile®.

About The Entrepreneurs EDGE

The Entrepreneurs EDGE, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, provides services, programs, education, civic and networking opportunities to mid-market companies in Northeast Ohio to help them grow in value. For more information about EDGE and its programs and services, contact Pam Schwaller at pam@edgef.org or visit www.edgef.org.

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