Insights by Justin Downey

November 2009

VoiceAdvantage Hiring Frenzy

harQuen unveiled VoiceScreener (now VoiceAdvantage) which lets its account holders set up a web-based dashboard to develop and distribute custom-recorded phone interviews so business owners, hiring managers or recruiters can quickly and efficiently find those perfect candidates. VoiceAdvantage couldn’t come at a better time–especially in this holiday job market.

1,043 Views

November 2009

The State of CRM

According to Silverpop (an engagement marketing solution which blends CRM, SFA and marketing automation together), Salesforce.com is the most popular solution by a landslide, accounting for almost 40% adoption by the several hundred surveyed.

1,948 Views

July 2009

You Can Afford to Interview

As job seekers have been told for months, the job market is a lagging indicator of a return to economic stability. For businesses looking toward 2010 optimistically, a there’s a catch-22 developing. They can’t afford to hire, but they need to hire to grow.

1,042 Views

February 2009

Super Bowl Ads the Corporate Jet of Marketing?

This year Super Bowl ads ran a whopping $3 million dollars per 30-second spot. Although ads have run more than $3 million per spot in the past, this year marks the highest starting price to date. The question becomes, in an economy like this, does this kind of marketing convey stability and positive Branding or are Super Bowl ads becoming the corporate jet of marketing?

1,138 Views

July 2008

Shame on Google’s “Aging Delay”

Lawrence Deon in a post on “Web Marketing Now”, wrote about the length of time it takes Google to calculate and attribute a higher page rank to a much deserving website. Originally, it was to eliminate “link farms” and other unfair SEO behavior, but they’ve gone too far!

1,355 Views

July 2008

Ruin a Rebranding in 5 Steps

Today, competition is heating up and consumer spending is down. It’s a natural tendency for businesses to look to changing their Brand through a rebranding exercise, rather than looking at themselves and making a real change. Like trading your bathroom mirror for a fun house one rather than just hitting the gym, rebranding without rethinking …

3,228 Views

April 2008

Backwards Marketing Budgeting

When putting together your marketing budget, starting with a percentage of revenue, or building complicated SLAs or distributing detailed RFPs are all inefficient ways of determining your marketing budget and finding the perfect agency for the job.

1,497 Views

April 2008

The Negative Campaign

The Negative Play, or Negative Sell, is one you’ve probably heard before when you hear that the sports car your looking at is too fast, or the TV is too big, or the painting is too expensive. If you hear you can’t have it, you want it more than ever. It’s simple human behavior. We …

1,270 Views

March 2008

The Slander Campaign Strategy

Slander is usually a dangerous play for marketers and a profitable play for lawyers. If successful however, it can pay off huge dividends, but tread softly–you wouldn’t like it if it were played on you… Although political smear campaigns made this strategy a household name, the Slander Play is a viable strategy if it’s executed …

2,678 Views

February 2008

The Holy Grail of Marketing

1 to 1 marketing or the ability to send your highly-relevant, personalized marketing communications to prospects as if you where speaking to them specifically, is often referred to as “the Holy Grail” of marketing. This is easier said than done. Traditionally, marketing activities simply targeted a demographic and in recent years specific psychographics, but those …

1,502 Views

January 2008

Gotcha Marketing

Bob Sullivan recently published “Gotcha Capitalism”. It’s all about the culture of how hidden fees designed to rip you off every time, have somehow become so common we barely notice or know how to avoid them anymore. While Bob’s got it right that we’ve become so used to rip offs like rental car insurance, airline …

3,035 Views

November 2007

The Unattainable Triangle

Branding experts refer to the “unattainable triangle” as composed of quality, price, and speed. All products or services have two out of the three sides of the triangle. The triangle is unattainable for two reasons. The first is logistical. Providing high-quality service with faster-than-average turnaround time is going to cost you more money than your …

5,850 Views