We started the Dallas Business and Marketing Blog as our official company Blog for Franklin Spirko Media. Rather then the “typical company blog”, we wanted it to be more. Our goal was and still is to make this blog more about the general business market in Dallas along with tips and suggestions that can improve your business both on and off line. Then about three weeks ago we made a decision to redesign the company blog on a new ASP driven Content Management System (FS -CMS) we developed for our customers.

On top of the typical work load that goes with creating a complete new website one of Mark Barrera’s other challenges was dealing with “minor technical issue” that popped up. Here was the problem, FS-CMS runs on the very flexible and powerful ASP platform (that means Windows Hosting). While this blog (which is built on the Word Press Platform) has many features that require Linux Hosting.

The solution was to put the blog on our new domain (www.BusinessInDallas.com) and move the data base to and blog and all the old content to it. Build the new site on a temporary domain, then migrate the rest of the site to the new platform.

I have to give a big pat on the back to our E-marketing Program Director (Mark Barrera) who doubled as a programmer and designer during this migration. The challenges of this move and redesign coupled with multiple data bases and multiple formats were pretty complicated. Thanks to Mark’s exceptional skills and dog headed determination we have now accomplished the move and are tuning up the look and feel of this blog.

Now with that out of the way we can get back to the business at hand for our blog, posting stories about the DFW Market and the successful business people within it. Remember we want to tell your story, visit our Contributors Page, for more on that.

In any event we are very pleased with the new look and feel and were pretty happy to find that the domain, BusinessInDallas.com was availalbe. Don’t let anyone tell you all the good dot com names are taken. We hope you enjoy the new Blog and look forward to your particapation and feedback.

~ Jack Spirko
President
Franklin-Spirko Media

A few years ago I had the chance to visit the public relations department of the world’s largest IT outsourcing organization headquartered in Plano, Texas. I was thoroughly impressed with the knowledge and expertise of the people I talked to in their PR department and the structure of the department itself. They had people dedicated to the various vertical markets they provided services for, in addition to corporate PR, internal PR and of course investor relations.

After a few hours of discussions about all areas of PR, I found it interesting that not once did they mention marketing, nor, most importantly, integrated marketing communications. When I brought it up, the PR experts (and I don’t use that term “experts” loosely…they truly are experts in every sense of the way) sitting in front of me said they did not deal with marketing. In fact, the departments were organized such that marketing was on one end of the building, while they occupied the other end of the building. In other words, they had nothing to do with each other.

I left impressed with their PR team and efforts, but just shaking my head at the thought that they had no interaction with marketing at all. Despite their success and phenomenal powerhouse position in the industry and on Wall Street, imagine how much STRONGER and PROFITABLE they could be if they had an integrated marketing effort?

Integrated marketing communications is paramount in building and reinforcing your branding. A consistent message and voice – written, visual and verbal – will ensure that your message is never diluted, but remains strong. As you communicate the same message over and over again on your web site, in your collateral, during your sales presentations, internal to your employees, on the trade show floor and in a magazine article, you’ll find that your message is stronger and becomes more recognized. Think about a TV commercial song: it plays on TV, then on the radio, on the web…and the message is even pulled into ads, on packaging and in promotions at the store. You start to recognize it, and remember it. And if it’s a strong message, you’ll remember not only the company, but the product or service its offering.

So, while the bigger corporations may be able to get away with their PR and marketing teams not working together, don’t rely on a “mish mash” of press releases, brochures and a web site that don’t have a consistent message. Because if you do, you won’t be able to successfully grow your business or increase your sales.

Instead, think integrated. That’s your key to successful branding.

~ Deb Decker

a, b, c

The above formula is the crux of marketing and the central philosophy of what we do here at Franklin-Spirko. the first thing we do with a client is to establish the ‘message’ of the business and this is not as easy as it seems! Having done this, we ‘position’ the message by designing this as a value proposition for the target audience or marketplace and not for the business owners! this is the single most important aspect of creating a marketing plan that will turn into revenue. Here is a tip – when you do this, you must be able to explain your business to anyone, starting with your family! If Mom cannot understand what your business does, chances are your customers can’t.

I should know this not because I’m involved with the Company, but I’ve been through the pain first hand! I can now sit back and count the wasted hours and not to mention the time with the design and marketing people that I incurred in my business career, simply because of my own insistence that, as a business owner, I was always right. I would personally agonize over designs, brochures and copy, just to put the ‘owners influence’ on it and to ensure that I was involved. I’m sure I paid several times over for the job to be done simply because I got in the way of the talented and creative people I had already paid to do the job in the first place!

Shortly, we will produce a video showing how we can look at a website and get a feel for the overall business – again, this may sound obvious, but when you watch the video, you will see how much detail we go into and how we can literally sense the personalities of the business without even knowing them! The video is not meant to be negative and naturally, we will not reveal the identity of the Company, rather we will provide direct, but constructive criticism, with a clear strategy on how to improve. The analysis will focus on both commercial and technical aspects.

Lastly, don’t spend your money on expensive advertising and marketing campaigns until you’ve nailed the above.

~ Neil Franklin

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