Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for returning daily to read our posts. We will continue to share with you our thoughts, ideas, musings and rants. Please continue to find us at www.bcadgroup.com.

Best Nicole

One of the companies that are best utilizing one-to-one marketing channels on all fronts, including utilizing ways to better market to women, is Best Buy. I came across this article today that I think provides a great overview as to the many ways social media can be utilized. It comes from Online Marketing Blog and the post I am going to share is written by Lee Odden.

Lee starts off by stating, “Whether you think “social media” is an overused term (yes, it is) or it’s a fad, or the evolution and revolution of the web, you don’t have to look far anymore for abundant examples of how companies, organizations and the U.S. Government are going social.”

I was in a meeting this evening with several experienced and successful Toronto based business leaders who happen to rule in the field of communications. And during our discussion, there was one topic on which we were clearly unanimous—the speed at which traditional media is moving online is warp speed. I do believe that there has to be a seamless integration that allows both traditional and online media to successfully coexist. But in order for marketing efforts to be truly successful, one-to-one marketing is integral in truly engaging the customer to whom you are speaking. Please see the article below.

Aggregating Social Media: Best Buy Connect

Posted by Lee Odden on Feb 9th, 2009in Online Marketing, Social Media

Whether you think “social media” is an overused term (yes, it is) or it’s a fad, or the evolution and revolution of the web, you don’t have to look far anymore for abundant examples of how companies, organizations and the U.S. Government are going social.

Social media can involve a variety of platforms and media ranging from social networks to blogs to image and video sharing. These forms of social technologies have been in use for years, individually and together in the form of integrated social media marketing campaigns or social media newsrooms.

A few fairly recent examples of companies using several social media types together include: the Ford Story web site created in conjunction with Ford’s efforts during the auto industry’s bid for financial help from the government, Sony Electronics Social Media site which is a revamped version of the Sony Electronics blog that includes photos, video and networking, and Best Buy Connect, which I’ll describe in more detail below.

The objective of Best Buy Connect is to showcase the people, behavior and unedited perspectives/ideas of those who power Best Buy. It humanizes the brand, increases accessibility and fuels transparency. This can affect current and future customer perceptions as well as future employees.

I talked to Dawn Bryant from Best Buy PR about the Best Buy Connect project in December and she said, “If people outside of this company could really feel the culture and drive that makes this place what it is, we can strengthen our reputation, goodwill, and ultimately grow our talent and grow the company. The beauty of that is that we didn’t need to create anything new, people are doing it and we don’t want to control it, we simply want to make it easier for the rest of the world to find the energy and human-ness”.

The site aggregates employee blogs, Twitter, YouTube and other sources including Tweets and blog posts from Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO. Best Buy employees are already active with the social web, aggregating sources is good for many reasons including creating a central location for employee insights in different media as well as providing additional flavor for the personality of the people that make up the company – at all levels.

A few tips of advice from Best Buy on a social media aggregator:

• A legal team can help with traditional concerns but it can be tricky since most companies aren’t approaching social media with an aggregator mentality. Many are still focused on controlling the message.
• Organizations will lose credibility pretty quickly if they persist in trying to control electronic mediums. ”If you don’t like what you see out there as a company, you need to make changes on the inside”. The truth will manifest outside.
• Don’t mess with the authenticity of the medium (thus, aggregate and don’t try to control)
• This kind of project brings some risk, so think it through and update your PR crisis plan as necessary
• Spread the word grassroots style – promotion via social media using traditional PR tactics doesn’t work
• Revisit with those involved to stay relevant and up to speed with the technology
• Make guidelines public and easy to find – it’s about transparency

During the current economic situation, this kind of transparency is particularly interesting since most companies are probably tempted to control “the message” more now than ever as they deal with lower sales, staff changes & layoffs and inevitable belt tightening. I think by aggregating multiple sources, Best Buy is giving interested readers multiple stories to consider, which gives a broader picture of the organization.

Best Buy Connect isn’t all there is to Best Buy’s social media efforts. Others include: askablueshirt.com, at15.com, forums.bestbuy.com, geeksquad.com/news, iambestbuy.com, wolfinspires.com and of course, the famous blueshirtnation.com.

Besides Dawn Bryant, who helped out a great deal with information for this post and is now working on her own PR consultancy, I’ve interviewed Gary Koelling from Best Buy, co-creator of BlueShirtNation and GiftTag with Steve Bendt who I have also talked to and I can say from those interactions and the social participation by corporate and employees, Best Buy really appears to be one of those companies that’s walking the talk both in terms of their public social media projects and the culture of the organization.

Best Buy is leading the way. I hope this blog post will inspire and encourage you to take the leap NOW and find the ways that you can begin to utilize social media to engage your customer.

Best Nicole

-Wayne Gretzky,
Canadian professional ice hockey player

I received an email from my friend Anne Ream’s foundation The Voices and Faces Project—a documentary initiative created to bring the testimony of sexual violence survivors to the attention of the public:

“we have seen first hand how difficult it is for women to come forward with their testimony”.

Yet we know that the barriers faced by our sisters in other countries and regions (especially regions where there is military conflict) are often far greater than any we have encountered in North America.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, tens of thousands of women have been raped in what United Nations officials have called the worst violence against women in the world. In a culture where rape brings victims more shame than assistance, how are women finding safe ways to speak out about their suffering? What role can testimony play in changing public attitudes and responses to sexual violence and crimes of war?

Congo/Women — a series of portraits of war from the Democratic Republic of Congo — explores these themes in a way that calls us to greater compassion and action. The exhibition features photographs by Lynsey Addario, Marcus Bleasdale, Ron Haviv and James Nachtwey.

The photographs attached to this site clearly articulate the pain and struggle that should not exist in the 21st century…ANYWHERE. I urge everyone who reads this post to please pass it on and have everyone you know visit this site. And to visit the exhibit if you happen to be in Chicago, New York or Washington D.C. when it arrives. Major support for Congo/Women has been provided by United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, Humanity United, and Leadership Donors of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media Columbia College Chicago.

We all have a responsibility to support and stand for the protection for ALL people around the globe and ensure their safety, their respect and their dignity.

Act Now.

To view the photo’s please click here.

Best Nicole

I have spent much of my time on this blog sharing with you all of the articles and information that I have read—with the hope that it will help you better find ways to build one-to-one marketing strategies and channels.

I want to hear from you! What are some of your favorite  social media sites for women and business? What are some of your favorite social media sites that are focused on women in general? I look forward to hearing about some of your favorite blogs, best posts, sites and articles. As they come in I will feature these sites in my regular posts and let everyone one know who selected them!

Best Nicole

I am the girl who is always looking to be challenged and grow. How does one do that in a way that stretches you? That lets you test the waters in a way that allows for innovation? For me, that means taking risks—putting myself out there in a way that still affords me a lifeline as I discover which risks are worth taking and which ones lead to dead ends. I especially love the ones go no where—as they allow me to see that by taking another approach I can help our business continue to be creative, innovative and unique in our offering at a time when everyone is looking to find a niche that keeps them in the game.

I came across this article at HarvardBusiness.org. It uses Chris Rock—one of the truly brilliant and funny comedian’s of our time—as a superb example of innovation. And Jeff Bezos.

It’s funny…for years Jeff Bezos of Amazon was dragged through the media for not making money and for a business model that many felt (as a result of that little “not making money” thing) just wouldn’t work. Now look—in an uncertain economy where everyone is adjusting their financials, Amazon is making money. They had one of the best holiday online sales seasons for 2008. In the article I am going to share with you Peter Sim’s, the author, cites that “Amazon led by founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has continuously used experiments to identify unique growth opportunities beyond the company’s core book business—such as the Kindle, Amazon stores, and elastic cloud computing.”

My hope is that all businesses will remember Jeff Bezos when reviewing their 2009 marketing plans. And remember that experimenting to identify unique growth opportunities beyond the core channels that they have used up to this point is necessary. Especially when it comes to inclusion of digital media, which is an absolute marketing must in this changing economic time.

Where are you innovating this year?

Best Nicole

Chris Rock has become the most popular comedian in the world. There is no doubt he’s got enormous talent, but his brilliance also comes from the fact that he’s an experimental innovator. The jokes he rolls out on his global tours are actually the output of thousands of small experiments—some of which worked, but many of which did not.

We can all innovate like Chris Rock. Consider his process and methods.

First, he picks small venues where he can do rapid, low-risk experiments with new material. In gearing up for his latest global tour, he made between 40 and 50 appearances at a small venue called the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey, not far from where he lives. Rock told the Orange Country Register, “It’s like boxing training camp. I always pick a comedy club to work out in.”

In front of audiences of say 30 to 40 people, Rock will bring a yellow legal note pad with lots of joke ideas scribbled on it, according to fellow comedian Matt Ruby. In sets that run say 45 minutes, many of the jokes will fall flat, but according to Ruby, “There were 5-10 lines during the night that were just ridiculously good. Like lightning bolts. My sense is that he starts with these bolts and then writes around them.”

It’s all part of a process. When the material falls flat, Rock will even pause to say things like, “This needs to be fleshed out more if it’s gonna make it.”

In an eerie way, Chris Rock innovates like Amazon does. Amazon led by founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has continuously used experiments to identify unique growth opportunities beyond the company’s core book business—such as the Kindle, Amazon stores, and elastic cloud computing.

Experimental innovators don’t overanalyze or put all of their hopes into one big bet—they quickly, creatively, and inexpensively use experiments to learn, gather insights, and identify unique opportunities—they then rapidly iterate, relearn, and refine to achieve success.

Chris Rock has become the king of comedy, but getting to his final product doesn’t happen in a vacuum—we can all learn from his process. How are you using little bets to work toward breakthrough innovations?

Peter Sims is an author and strategic adviser specializing in leadership and innovation. He is the coauthor (with Bill George) of True North, the nationally bestselling book on leadership.

“No one wants a sales pitch from a company. Instead, they want to feel like they know the people behind the products.”

–Crystal King, blogging at Social Media Today

Today it happened. I wrote about it in my last post. Equal pay for equal work. Today President Obama made such a poingnant speech as he signed the Lilly Ledbetter bill that I thought that sharing the story was an important way to high-lite some of the magnificent women that are paving the way for all of us.

Lilly Ledbetter, who worked at Goodyear, began her quest two decades ago to fight for the right to have equal pay for equal work when she found out that she was being paid less. Two decades later, after going to the Supreme Court and incurring losses of more than $200,000.00—not to mention the losses that will be reflected through her pension and social security—stood next to the President of the United States and watched the bill in her name finally be passed. As President Obama so beautifully stated, this bill is signed in honor of women like his grandmother who reached a glass ceiling, for his daughters who would never have to lose the earnings that they will so rightly work for, and for many other generations to come.

Representative Rosa DeLauro wrote an article today about this moment in the Huffington Post. See below to read her account of the moment:

Well into his first full week as President of the United States, Barack Obama—with the backing of the US Congress—is signing into legislation equal pay for equal work! Woot as many say on twitter when someone loves something.

Change has finally arrived! Steve Hildebrand’s latest article discusses this new great moment in American history. What make’s the article I am going to share so wonderful is that it points out how this legislation is particularly important to women as well as minorities.  In his article (posted fittingly enough in none other than the women owned news blog Huffington Post), Steve says:

“It’s a new day in Washington. After years of Congressional Republicans holding up the equal pay provision, Democrats in the House and Senate swiftly passed the bill. Tomorrow, the first bill that our new president will sign into law will be equal pay for equal work. How proud President Obama must be.

More importantly, what a great moment this will be for the millions of women and minorities in our country who have worked just as hard as their counterparts, but paid substantially less because of their gender or color of skin. This critical moment should be celebrated in every community and in work places across our great country.”

As we watch the current economy go through vast changes and as businesses assess how they are going to navigate the economic challenges, it is clear that all corporations must address how they are speaking to, engaging, and connecting with women consumers all across the spectrum and in various environments—including in the work place. Here are some great stats about women and business:

• Women in the US spend more than 3.3 billion annually. (purchasing power)
• Women business owners employ 35% more people than all the fortune 500 companies combined.
• 95% of family financial decisions are made by women.
• Women in business will invest in 44.5 billion in high tech products this year.

This is a target market that not only needs to be addressed from a marketing and communications perspective, but needs to be acknowledged for its contribution on a grand scale to the economy at large. And that’s why equal pay for equal work is now a mandate and a right step forward into the 21^st century. Bravo President Obama!

Click here to read the full Huffington Post article.

How are you planning to access the opportunity to market and engage this most important target market in this challenging 21st century economy?

Best Nicole

In two weeks and a couple of days, love will emerge with a barrage of chocolate hearts, kisses and flowers; the colors red and pink will abound in the rush to find that perfect gift (for that perfect someone) with the aim of sweeping your the object of your affection off their feet. I still remember cutting out Valentines cards for everyone in my grade school class and the excitement I felt that night when I went to sleep—knowing that everyone else was doing the same thing as we geared up for the in-class card exchange the next day.

Today I came across an article that had some great ecommerce marketing tips for Valentines Day. “Even if your e-commerce business isn’t in the business of selling chocolate or jewelry or flowers, if you aren’t capitalizing on Valentine’s Day, you could find your heart broken and your site abandoned.”

May February 14th be a day when we are all reminded that love comes in many forms and that the creativity and ability to connect with one another allows us all to share with the ones we love!

Enjoy the tips below or check out the article here!

Best Nicole

Show Your Customers You Love Them via YouTube
Proof that you don’t have to be in a traditional Valentine’s Day business to feel the love is ThinkGeek. Last year, ThinkGeek, which sells “stuff for smart masses,” created a quirky video to promote its 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt, one of the sites many offbeat Valentine’s Day offerings, and posted it on YouTube.

That video “was watched more than 250,000 times and also helped us achieve a record-breaking Valentine’s Day season,” said Caroline Offutt, vice president and general manager of ThinkGeek.

And this year ThinkGeek plans to use even more social media sites and tools to get the word out about its Valentine’s Day products.

“Social media techniques provide online retailers new, effective avenues for promoting their products,” said Offutt. “And this year, we’ve grown our blog and Twitter feed significantly, giving us new ways to promote our Valentine’s Day products in a fun, geeky sort of way.”

Friend Facebook
And speaking of using social media to promote your site/Valentine’s Day wares, CCBerries, which sells gourmet chocolate-covered strawberries, created a Facebook application and a CCBerries fan page on Facebook. The result? They allow Facebook members to send either electronic versions of CCBerries’ delicious chocolate-covered strawberries to their friends or tag product pictures with their friends’ names (which results in having their CCBerries pictures show up in their friends’ Facebook profile).

In addition, CCBerries staff has been spending a lot of time in Yahoo Answers, answering questions about chocolate-covered strawberries and chocolate in general, reported Skip Manley, the owner of CCBerries/CCBerries.com.

And the entire CCBerries home page has been given over to promoting Valentine’s Day, with important delivery and product information writ large near the top of the page and large, well-photographed pictures of the company’s Valentine’s Day offerings just below.

Use E-mail, Cross-Marketing and Special Promotions
Another site that specializes in chocolate, as in gift baskets and chocolate tours, Chicago Chocolate Tours, is also pulling out all the stops for Valentine’s Day, one of its biggest times of the year.

“I am [currently] promoting some special Valentine’s Day tours, such as a ‘Champagne and Chocolate’ girls’ night out on Friday, February 13, which is Valentine’s Day Eve,” said Valerie Beck, the president and founder of Chicago Chocolate Tours. To promote the tour, and the site, for Valentine’s Day Beck is doing multiple things:

• The event is listed on the Chicago Chocolate Tours Web site, in the Events section.
• The event was highlighted in the January Chicago Chocolate Tours e-newsletter and will also be in the February edition.
• Beck is co-marketing the tour (and her site) with a number of sites, including the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association’s site, www.themagnificentmile.com, and trying to get listed in/links on popular local “what-to-do-in-Chicago” sites, such as www.metromix.com, www.centerstage.net and www.timeoutchicago.com.

• And Beck’s tour guides are promoting the event on their Facebook pages.
Yvette Craddock, the founder and style director of ShopStyleFolio.com, a new e-commerce site “dedicated to bold, modern and luxurious women’s jewelry that is really wearable art,” has also taken a multi-pronged approach to marketing her site and wares around Valentine’s Day.

She recently sent out the first of several e-newsletters to promote and sell her beautiful handmade, one-of-a-kind jewelry, with the subject line “Dripping in Drusy for Valentine’s Day — Exclusively on ShopStyleFolio.com” and the headline “Give Your Sugar Some Sugar,” explaining why the necklace featured in the e-mail is the perfect Valentine’s Day gift.

Craddock has also come up with several innovative online services to help women and the men who love them get exactly what they want for the big day, including “Cupid’s Custom Confectionary Service,” a free design service (deadline February 2); the “‘Honey I Want’ Service,” which is basically a wish list; and the “‘Purge to Splurge’ Program,” which rewards shoppers who send in their unloved jewelry with up to 25 percent off their ShopStyleFolio.com purchase.

Create a Special Valentine’s Day Product or Service
Another great way to get some Valentine’s Day love is to create a special Valentine’s Day product or service, or more than one — and promote them on your site as well as on complementary sites, via e-mail, and social media sites.

That’s what RealMemories.com, an online custom frame shop, is doing. In honor of Valentine’s Day, the company created a special heart-shaped mat, which it is featuring on its home page and promoting via e-mail (along with other Valentine’s Day products).

Similarly, custom card and movie site Thank you. I love you. created special Valentine’s Day customizable cards and movies, which it is featuring on its home page and are the subject of its new Valentine’s Day email campaign.

Don’t Forget That Aspiring Cupids Love Coupons
And there are always those Valentine’s Day e-coupons, which many e-tailers are using to reward existing customers or attract new customers to their sites. Purveyor of custom underwear for women, men, children, babies and even dogs, Blume Girl, recently did a special Valentine’s Day email blast featuring a discount code, “CUPID,” which it hopes will lure customers to the site, which currently features a festive Valentine’s Day banner.

And Remember, Valentine’s Day Isn’t Just for Lovers—or Retailers
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (TPE), which runs a blog for and about entrepreneurs, providing them with tips, help and inspiration for their businesses, came up with a special Valentine’s Day promotion to drive traffic to the site and spread the entrepreneurial love.

On Valentine’s Day, the site is going to ask readers to send in their tips for “The Best Way to Show Your Customers that You Love Them.” Then the TPE team will pick the best submissions, post them on the blog, and ask readers to vote on which one was their favorite. The person who submitted the winning entry will be sent a box of chocolates and 10 copies of the book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, to be given to the customers they love the most.

Jennifer Lonoff Schiff loves writing about e-commerce and SMBs and runs a blog for and about small and mid-sized business owners.