Street League Skateboarding™, the premier professional street skateboarding series worldwide, has announced the 2011 League schedule with live programming on ESPN, espn2, and an international webcast on www.streetleague.com. The nationwide tour will kick off its second season in Seattle, WA this May and end with the Championship event in Newark, NJ.

Street League Skateboarding™ has partnered with MCKINNON DUNFORD Media to help further it’s brand identity in the Arizona market.

MCKINNON DUNFORD Media is excited to plan and execute Street League Skateboarding’s media placed in the Arizona market. McKinnon Dunford Media will support Street League through radio, television, digital billboards, bus shelters, as well as e-mail and print marketing. Going forward, McKinnon Dunford Media’s goal is to increase Street League Skateboarding sponsorships, ticket sales and overall brand awareness.

20-year professional skateboarder and entrepreneur, Rob Dyrdek, established Street League Skateboarding in 2010. Dyrdek combined competitive skating with traditional street skating to give the sport a new approach. The stakes are being raised for the 2011 Street League Skateboarding tour with the addition of a winner-takes-all Championship, as 24 of the world’s best street skateboarders compete for $1.6 million dollars in prizes.

Check out the official 2011 Street League Skateboarding trailer below. CLICK HERE to purchase tickets and to learn more about Street League Skateboarding.

ARE YOU TALKING WITH THEM OR AT THEM?

How companies communicate with their audience is a key factor for successful marketing in today’s information abundant and technologically savvy society. The days of in your face’ marketing tactics, such as radio spots aggressively shoving so-called deals down our throats, are quickly losing their appeal!  Today’s audience are not only heavily informed, they essentially dictate how and when they want to be communicated with.

We are in an era of conspicuous consumption, where buyers spend time carefully researching products and gaining insight on other people’s experiences before making any decisions. Because first hand experiences with a company’s product or service are passed around so readily via social media and other online platforms, audience members no longer need to wait for or be interrupted by one-sided messages.

How do we as marketers get around this?  The first and most important step is to get directly involved with your audience- ask questions, create a platform for dialogue, and develop a willingness to really listen! Rather than force feeding your message, ask your customers for honest feedback and pay attention to the results. Address the bad with the good, communicate your willingness to improve when negative feedback arises, and treat your audience with the respect and intelligence they deserve. Let’s build trust and offer information about our products and services when and where it’s appropriate. Let’s use these new media tools and communicate with, not at.

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If Google’s search algorithms weren’t tricky enough, the Mt. View based company will now take into account how fast your website loads.  Call it part of Google’s master plan to speed up the web with the company’s new Caffeine Update, or their new Chrome Operating System, coming soon.  Either way, we highly encourage company’s to get on board and make adjustments accordingly.

How well you show up on Google results is crucial for small businesses looking to gain exposure in a highly competitive marketplace.  So forgo the antiquated, fancy flash and look to create a lean running and clutter free online presence that effectively conveys your company’s message.

Your new web pages and linked assets should be no more than 100kb each, according to Google.  With that being said, you will need to make sure you look at key elements for any page, such as page code size, the size of the images per page and other files such as feeds.

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Anybody in retail will tell you that the holidays are the most important time of the year for sales. Consumer spending hits its peak in the months of November and December, and every business needs to maximize their exposure and promotional strategies to best capitalize on these spendy times. It has been proven that email marketing, if done correctly, is one of the most effective and profitable ways to reach out to your client base. MCKINNON DUNFORD has the experience and know-how to create an engaging, results-based campaign that can achieve outstanding results with a small investment of time and money. What better time to get started than the consumer crazy holidays?

70% of consumers are conducting product research and comparison shopping online in 2009. This has nearly doubled from last year, which was 38%. That behavior is already in progress. 30% have already begun shopping, most of them beginning this month (October).  -pricegrabber.com

Case Study: House of Copenhagen

MCKINNON DUNFORD client and online Danish furniture retailer House of Copenhagen regularly used email marketing to send out promotions at various times in the year, with great results. Last winter, we developed an email campaign to promote end-of-year sale prices on furniture by renowned Danish designer Hans Wegner. An initial email was sent out early in December 2008 informing their customer base of the sale prices and the products available. As the month progressed, reminders were sent out to create urgency for the December 31st deadline in conjunction with content promoting the sale on the homepage of the website. All in all, the email campaign contributed towards over $80,000 in sales for the month of December. Happy new year indeed!

View Newsletter Example No. 1

View Newsletter Example No. 2

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all shapes and sizes. Unlike direct mail, there are virtually zero production, materials, or postage expenses. It saves on paper product waste, and is delivered instantly to the inboxes of your customers. Modern web technology allows us to format and style the newsletters in new and creative ways, with rich graphics, photography, and typography that shows your business in the best light possible. In addition to featuring the specific promotion or product that the newsletter highlights, the email format also allows your customers to connect with you on your other channels like your website, twitter feed, and blog. You are doing those things, aren’t you?

Commercial e-mail returned a whopping $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, according to the DMA’s just-released Power of Direct economic-impact study—an effort the trade organization publishes every year at its annual fall conference. Meanwhile, non-catalog direct mail returned $15.22 for every dollar spent in 2009 while catalogs returned $7.32, according to the study.  -directmag.com

Proactive Communication

Instead of waiting around for people to search you out or stumble across your website or storefront, email marketing is PROACTIVE COMMUNICATION! Your business is savvy, you have great deals, your sales team and customer service is top-notch, but people need to know about it. What better way than an attention grabbing, visually enhanced email newsletter that is specifically targeted, action oriented, and visually appealing to drive people to your store or website and increase your market dominance. In addition to sales now, email newsletter campaigns are an ongoing strategy to develop customer loyalty, drive traffic and sales, and build your brand visibility.

Let’s get it started

It’s less than a month until Christmas, and your products aren’t going to sell themselves! We are offering special promotions on email campaigns for the month of December, so contact us today with some details about your needs and we will get started immediately on a strategy.

Let’s face it, today’s consumer is highly informed!  They can and more than likely will find out anything and everything about your products and services before making a purchase-or at least consumers have that ability.  They will visit forums pertaining to your company, they will check out your Yelp, they will receive tweets about your company and of course, see what pops up on the first or second page of your Google results.

According to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries- recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising.

Marketers really can’t hide mediocre products and services behind fancy ads and false claims any longer.  So why not be completely honest up front about who your company is and strive to make it better?  If we as marketers are not transparent in order to achieve more sales and impress Wall Street, the consequences will be MUCH MORE damaging when the truth about our mediocrity surfaces, thus diminishing any brand equity we have managed to build.

Because of the wealth of information at our disposal, a key element to the future of marketing is the product and service itself.  We as marketers have an increased ability to receive instantaneous feedback about our products and services directly from the consumers and act accordingly.  We have the ability to communicate how we are changing and evolving by engaging in these online discussions with individuals who have a vested interest in our business.   The marketing of tomorrow will be about talking WITH our target audience, not AT them.

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There is always going to be a market for high end products and services, no matter how dire the economic outlook is.  A down market forces most, if not all companies in the high-end sector to be much more strategic in their marketing approach.   Here is a tip for you to consider!

Partner up with one, or several high-end brand(s) in order to create more fish in the pond, or you could say a larger, qualified clientele base.  More specifically, get with your new partner(s) and share clientele data, such as emails and start to send newsletters to a larger audience.  Have an event and invite both sets of clientele or perhaps build a micro-site that shows off both companies and captures data. Let us refine these plans by contacting us at info@mckinnondunford.com.

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Many of us business owners have been forced to refocus our efforts to win more customers just to keep the lights on. However, it doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom! In fact, learning new tactics and refocusing efforts can breathe new life into our operations.  One of the most important things to remember is to keep communicating and maintaining relevancy with already established clientele and also building upon it, as much as tough times will permit— communicate, communicate, communicate!

We fully understand that hiring a marketing or PR firm to set forth and execute every aspect of a comprehensive marketing plan is not a reality for a lot of businesses due to budgetary constraints.  However, an agency such as MCKINNON DUNFORD MEDIA can equip a small business with the necessary knowledge and tools to allow them to execute such plans on their own, thus saving them money.

Our process is simple, it starts by listening to your specific needs and matching these needs with the appropriate solutions that you will be able to execute in-house, knowing you have our expert-guidance an email, text or call away.  Also, we will help you with setting timetables and objective goals, which are extremely useful towards keeping efforts on track.  Our comprehensive marketing plans include various solutions, such as-

-Identifying your target audience
-Newsletter development and database management
-Creating a hit list of media contacts that should know about your products and services
-How you should approach an editor or blogger with your story ideas and press releases
-How to effectively write a press release

Tweet, Tweet!  Yes, jump on board with social media, if you have not already.  We will show you how to effectively set up and manage the core social media platforms and making sure these efforts are optimized.

Contact us by clicking here or via email info@mckinnondunford.com

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