BEING "SOCIAL"

As you read this post, 

feel free to exercise the links for samples 

to some of my work for Steel Beam Theatre on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  

Effective Marketing is being able to reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message.  Social Media is a very important channel in an effective integrated Marketing campaign.  I recently have had the pleasure to volunteer my time and expertise and put my recent DePaul Social Media and Internet Marketing training to work.

As a Mass Communication major (journalism/radio/television production) with a double minor in PR and Theatre, I was thrilled to offer my services to a non-profit, semi-professional organization, Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles, for the third year of its annual fundraiser, a 3D Haunted House at the Kane County Fairgrounds.

My involvement ranged from developing an overall project budget, timeline and work plan as well as creating a comprehensive marketing strategy.  The client wanted to target a teen or younger audience for this event.  Although using social media would immediately come to mind, social media depends on a well-defined mission and a well-planned strategy and needs to compliment existing marketing promotions -- it cannot effectively exist on its own.

With a budget of $0, my role encompassed all advertisement and promotions:  from print campaigns (posters and flyers), writing and distributing frequent and compelling news releases, creating and promoting media events and providing "point of purchase" displays; to shooting and editing YouTube videos and creating/delivering content and monitoring all social media platforms.  For the theatre's annual fundraising event, I also created their Facebook and Twitter presence to target, promote and engage customers.  The bottom line, we needed to sell "tickets" for eight "performances" - and we did!

Using wristbands with coupon offerings (as opposed to tickets) was another new idea that I was able to bring to the table and execute. This process improvement proved to be an effective marketing tool as well provided valuable customer sales data. Enlisting partners within the community and contracting services with local businesses provided greater reach to existing and new customers for Steel Beam's special annual event.  Combining event planning and social media, I was able to successfully attract third-party endorsements and reviews.  These relationships will benefit Steel Beam in future years.  

What made this project so exciting and personally rewarding (other than being around some tremendously talented and good people) was the ability to integrate the promotion of this annual fundraiser with their year-round theatre business.  KC Scaregrounds brings awareness of this small non-profit business to so many new customers and enhances its relationships with its existing customer base, local businesses and community organizations. Through focusing on what you have to offer, to whom  and when - Steel Beam Theatre is on its way to meeting its fundraising goals!  


P.S.  Go to our Facebook pages and "like us".  Follow us on Twitter!

TELLING STORIES

When someone says you are a story teller, the term "story telling" creates imagery of folklore,  historical content,  fiction,  and prose.  However, the ability to tell the stories through the eyes of someone else, requires the writer to have a deep understanding of the subject as well as experience in interviewing and most importantly, in listening.  The content of a story, although often is casual, creative and entertaining, technical subject matter can be creatively communicated by quoting subject matter experts.  Below are writing samples relaying feedback from "customer" interviews for residential bill inserts to educating engineers on "technical" solutions to improve energy management in manufacturing.









Newsletters are often a great way to share information internally and with organizations that champion your cause.  With any form of communication, you need to frequently audit the effectiveness and listen to  "your customers".  In some cases, those customers are your employees, in other cases, important insight and improvements can be offered by your customers.

Social media could be a vehicle to not only gather feedback from your "fans", but could make your printed newsletter even more effective and interactive.  The bottom line is whomever is authoring your internal communications needs to know the subject matter AND needs to listen to both employee and customer input.




Today, video is the most effective means to communicate and involve your "audience".  Video TELLS STORIES from the viewpoint of the most important person - your customer. Take a look and a listen to these compelling stories used in a internal employee fundraising campaign.

VIDEO SAMPLES

The following are excerpts of films and videos which demonstrate my video writing, shooting, editing and production skills.

Bright Past Film from Robin Solomon on Vimeo.

Excerpts from "A Place For All Seasons" Documentary from Robin Solomon on Vimeo.

MARKETING COLLATERAL

To allow you immediate access to the wide variety of marketing communications materials that I have written, developed, produced and distributed, I have modified the "blogger" format to house several pages of collateral, booklets, articles, bill inserts, newsletters, publications and other marketing brochures and elements.

Presently www.Robin-Solomon.com is "under construction"!  My new website will display marketing and communications projects, describe my involvement in various marketing campaigns and include a resume of professional accomplishments, activities and involvement.

In the meantime, what follows are samples of a variety of different projects coupled with a brief description of my role and, where possible, some measurement of effectiveness.

In addition to being responsible for the content, messaging, writing, layout and distribution of all monthly residential bill inserts, I managed all business inserts for 350 K commercial and industrial customers.  Sometimes I was able to use similar "stories" across both markets however, adjust the writing style and content based upon the audience.

Bill inserts are cost-effective.  This economical print communication can help sell products and services, especially when integrated with direct mail, and website and social media postings.

Cost-effective and communicating-effectively go "hand-in-hand" with the bill insert sample below. 

Get mileage out of required inserts.  As a public utility, our company was frequently required to distribute "public information" to utility customers. Below is one example of a required environmental disclosure to all residential electricity customers in Illinois.  After reworking the layout, I was able to inform customers of timely energy-related topics on the blank back flap of this mandated seasonal mailing.

Who opens the bills?  Well it isn't always the person who would benefit from bill insert information.  Therefore, in addition to inserting informational business customer mailings in the monthly utility bill, company managers (captured in our customer database) of over 4000 small commercial and industrial customers received a "direct mailing" in an attractive custom envelope each month.  Our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system stored a lot of data to assist sales in targeting customers for products, services, rates, etc. CRM accuracy, data population and maintenance was part of my responsibility.  I was able to keep the data current and accurate through improved direct mail hygiene processes.

Business Marketing owned not only marketing projects, but many communication projects - responsible for not just communicating process changes, but influencing smaller business customers to embrace call center support in place of a designated account representative.  It was a complicated methodology to sort customers, personalize direct mail and maintain or develop relationships with our smaller business customers. The growing electric company must continue to reliably service the unique needs of several hundred thousand small businesses and, market new technologies to increase revenues.  

Below is a versioned business resource guide for larger commercial and industrial customers along with "Fax Back" request form for these account-managed customers. For smaller accounts, a Business Customer Service Center was created and promoted through several channels and collateral pieces including a Small Business Resource Guide, call center phone number magnet and small business account number card.

With Direct Mail comes Returned Mail! However, returned mail is good!  I was responsible for the "Business Welcome Kit" mailing (below) sent to every new business customer - of which we processed thousands of new business customers each month.  I redesigned the mailing from content to layout, design, and managed the data and personalization, using automated response tracking to update and maintain the business customer database.  By instituting the bar code, we quickly, efficiently and inexpensively resolved the returned mail issue--which also significantly reduced delayed billing - resulting in prompt customer payments!   

Counterintuitive....is promoting your customers to look elsewhere for their service or supplier!  That was the task given to Business Marketing Communications with the introduction of Electricity Deregulation. This complicated initiative was to be communicated to all levels of our over 350,000 business customers.  A comprehensive communication package was developed, versioned and distributed to various business customer accounts.  A detailed integrated marketing campaign, complete with fax-on-request sheets, call center and account manager scripts and job aids were produced.  Dedicated website pages, along with on-hold and on-bill messaging as well as bill insert coordination, publications, and news magazine articles reinforced the message that it is "Your Power.  Your Choice."      

News magazines can make a lasting impression on customers, especially when you highlight their business!  I was responsible for quarterly publications for two different companies.  I truly enjoyed this assignment as there is more time and budget to produce the articles, graphics, interviews, and photos. Resource Connection provides forward-thinking articles and interviews about electricity solutions and is targeted to larger, account-managed business customers. While E2E (R.R. Donnelley) is mailed to all business customers using Donnelley data services, packaging, mailing and print solutions.  I was able to increase personalization, and save significant postage costs by simply redesigning the address label placement and packaging the publication in a window envelope. 

When the subject is "money",  people listen!  Effective communication and market segmentation (and a free lunch, of course) draws customers to workshops and other special events.    

Having had more than ten different positions over eighteen years between two companies makes you wonder what I did do, or what I didn't do?  I would like to think it was what I did that provided me so many different experiences. From advertising and audio-visual services, to compensation programs administrator and labor relations.  I hired.  I fired.  I even investigated claims and represented the company in law suits.  One day I am supervising the overhead linemen, then the meter men and then I am the financial analyst for a million dollar business unit budget.  In business marketing, I learned sales;  while in IT, I became a technical recruiter! 

Despite the hopscotch career, I was moving in an upward direction, with greater challenges and responsibility.  Regardless of the job title, there was one common thread, my strong communications skill set.  To round out a comprehensive portfolio of marketing materials, I have experience with internal communications, technical writing and human resources.    

Samples of videos and films that I wrote, directed, in some cases edited and produced will be added soon!