Agent-X » Research http://blog.agent-x.com Agent-X Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:13:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Consumers LOVE the word “free.” http://blog.agent-x.com/2010/03/consumers-love-the-word-%e2%80%9cfree-%e2%80%9d/ http://blog.agent-x.com/2010/03/consumers-love-the-word-%e2%80%9cfree-%e2%80%9d/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:30:35 +0000 Jill http://blog.agent-x.com/?p=404 Consumers LOVE the word “free.” Even more so in recent years. We love it so much that we go out of our way to get some freebie that we don’t even need. Free pen? Yes please. Free t-shirt? Sure! Free dessert? I’m full from dinner and really don’t need… well okay, it’s FREE!

On the flip side, someone has to pick up the tab; when paying for the free ‘swag’ companies often find it difficult to see the value in giving things away for free (rightfully so). In the past, we could only assume that our message would get out there to increase brand awareness and visibility. What if you were able to measure the number of impressions you gained to truly gauge the value of the campaign? With the addition of online forums, social venues and blogs, it’s now easier than ever to measure success and ROI even when you’re giving it away for free.

An insightful article from Event Marketer: “The ROI of Free” http://www.eventmarketer.com/article/roi-free, points out a few examples of companies who were able to get a tangible return from their “free campaign.”

You remember Denny’s Grand Slam give-away during the Super Bowl, right? Last year they gave away 2 million Grand Slam breakfasts in 8 hours, and in return they received “$50 million in news coverage, 47 million hits on their website and thousands of emails.” Little Debbie gave away one million cupcakes and in three weeks their fan base on Facebook grew from 5,000 to 50,000!

Before you just start handing stuff out, there are a couple things you need to do first:

  • Define your overall goal of the campaign as well as what will make it a success
  • Make sure the appropriate channels (website, social, etc.) are set up and monitor and track the numbers!

Now, anyone know of any good freebies out there? Post them in comments!

jill

]]> http://blog.agent-x.com/2010/03/consumers-love-the-word-%e2%80%9cfree-%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 Marketing is Reborn. Welcome to Communications 3.0… http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/08/marketing-is-dead-welcome-to-communications-3-0/ http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/08/marketing-is-dead-welcome-to-communications-3-0/#comments Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:48:16 +0000 david http://blog.agent-x.com/?p=140 We’re in an age of open conversation.

The Steketee Greiner Company is a global communications strategy, facilitation and measurement firm based in Grand Rapids, MI. We’re global because you are too, whether you want to be or not. It’s just the way things work now. Your job is to make sure you understand and are involved in the conversations going on about you. We can show you how. And we can do it in a way that shows you the return on your investment.

Communications 3.0
You don’t have complete control of your message anymore, but don’t panic. If you’re willing to listen, you can work with your customers to generate real efficiencies and value.

Here’s How You (and We) Do It
Quit trying to market so much, start listening, analyze the conversation, create a plan, inject a message, measure its effectiveness, tweak if necessary and repeat.

So, What Exactly Am I Buying from the Steketee Greiner Company?
Consulting Group
Research
Strategy
Measurement

Communications Group
Creative
Experiential
Digital
Public Relations

The Payoff
You can expect to know the return you’re getting on your investment, because we track, monitor and report on a regular, recurring basis to insure that you’re on strategy and on budget.

Welcome to the next wave of global communications.

Contact:

Brian Steketee/Partner
brian.steketee@sgandco.com

David Geiner/Partner
david.greiner@sgandco.com

Eric Messing/Business Development
eric.messing@sgandco.com

Phone: 616-855-6368

]]> http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/08/marketing-is-dead-welcome-to-communications-3-0/feed/ 1 What’s in a name? http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/08/whats-in-a-name/ http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/08/whats-in-a-name/#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:57:05 +0000 david http://blog.agent-x.com/?p=65 WHAT’S IN A NAME?

QUITE A BIT, ACTUALLY…

We live in the Network Age. It’s viral, it’s social, it’s digital, it’s global and above all, it’s about the individual people that make up communities. And at Context, the strength of our company has always been our community of individual experts. That said, we’ve decided to change our name…

We’re very proud of our people and the insights we bring to bear because of our collective individual experiences. We don’t want to hide those faces behind a corporate name, so as of now, we are no longer Context. We are Steketee Greiner and Company.

Steketee Greiner Co.

Our products and services remain:

  • Research, Strategy and Communications Management & Measurement
  • Creative, Experiential, Digital and Public Relations Development & Management

Contact us to learn more about the new age of communications and how we can help you participate in, grow and measure your brand community.

Steketee Greiner and Company

44 Grandville Avenue SW

Suite 270

Grand Rapids, MI 49503

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]]> http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/08/whats-in-a-name/feed/ 0 The value of information http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/07/the-value-of-information/ http://blog.agent-x.com/2009/07/the-value-of-information/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:59:19 +0000 brian http://blog.agent-x.com/?p=31 Recently I’ve had the opportunity to sit through a lot of discussions around the use and translation of market intelligence. Most of these have been focused on the usability and functionality of the various sorts of tools that grace our industry and help us “listen to the conversation” in the Social/Digital space. There are a lot of these floating around. From Radian6 and Techrigy, to PR Newswire and my new favorite, Dow Jones. Everyone is casting out lines and focusing on listening to all of the noise out there. What’s even more interesting is the there seems to be such little focus on what all the noise actually means. It’s one thing to display a pretty graph, bar chart, or impression metric, but in the end… What is that really telling you…? It gets even more interesting when you start trying to set up the knowledge paths between business functions (Legal, PR, Sales, Marketing) where you have different audiences with different needs trying to make sense of it all. In the end, the data needs to be real time and have the ability to translate into key insights for business strategies and tactics.

It’s a multi-dimensional world out there. The relational database is so yester-year.

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