On April 27th, almost 100 male leaders got together and walked for change to END voilence against women and children. Being the former, I walked too!

Here’s Jeff, Me, and my husband (and silent Vision team member!), Adam before the trek around Salisbury St., Park Ave., Highland St. and Main St.

Fellow Worcester Business Owner Mike Covino of the Niche Hospitality Group (you know, BOCADO, Block 5 and Mezcal!) walked with us and helped to raise money.

Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray spoke for a few minutes, revving up the crowd and helped promote the ideas of change. Kim Dawkins, Leader of the Rape Crisis Center of Central Massachusetts was on hand to lead the event and kick off the walk (she worked so hard to pull this together - great job Kim!!).

We saw a lot of well-known leaders there, and from my perspective, special kudos go to Jose Rivera - Worcester’s own World Boxing Champion. To participate in a walk that helps “keep it in the ring,” it shows him as a classy example of change and leadership. Thank you!

Do you know any non-profit organizations that could use a little spark in their marketing? …Or are you one such non-profit?

Click Here

Why?

Announcing a NEW annual program, “Brand Your Way Into Success.” We’re giving away a FREE branding package to a deserving non-profit business that really needs a brand boost. Applications are being accepted from May 15th to July 15th, and the winner (and runners up) will be announced to all relevant media outlets by July 31st.

Call us for further details… 508.754.3643

Happy Spring!

The World Green Business Association is proud to announce our Corporate Sponsorship of the Central Mass Green Awards on May 21st.

The Worcester Business Journal (WBJ) has selected nine businesses operating in Central Massachusetts who have demonstrated superior levels of commitment in the movement to become more environmentally responsible. The award winners were featured in the WBJ April 28, 2008 issue. The event, a Breakfast & Awards Program, will take place Wednesday, May 21, 2008 from 7:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. at the Doubletree Hotel in Westborough, MA.

At the breakfast, the WBJ will honor one business from each of the following sectors: biomedical (Boston Scientific’s Endosurgery Headquarters, Marlborough), education (South High School, Worcester), financial services (Fidelity Bank, Leominster), health care (The Dana-Farber/Brigham & Women’s Cancer Center, Milford), information technology (EMC Corp., Westborough), manufacturing (Quabaug Corp. in North Brookfield), nonprofit (Alternatives Unlimited, Whitinsville), public sector (Regional Courthouse, Worcester), and real estate (MassInnovation LLC, Fitchburg). Representing a diverse collection of industries, these businesses prove that not only are there many different methods a company can pursue in order to “green” its operations, but that it is plausible to accomplish this goal.

The event will feature a breakfast keynote by Mark Buckley, the Vice-President of Environmental Affairs at Staples, Inc. In his efforts to direct Staples’ environmentally-conscious pursuits, he focuses on improving recycling, eco-friendly product offerings, energy efficiency, and education on sustainability. The WBJ welcomes all who are interested in the event to attend; registration is required no later than May 14, 2008. Admission is $35 per person. Please contact Kris at 508-755-8004 ext. 286 or email kprosser {at} wbjournal(.)com to order tickets or reserve a table. Registration is also available online at www.wbjournal.com.

Be sure to attend… and ECO-nnect with your fellow green-minded pros (like us!).

By Laura Briere & Bruce Mendelsohn

Consumers expect to double their spending on green products and services in the next year, totaling an estimated $500 billion annually or $43 billion per month, according to new findings from the 2007 ImagePower Green Brands Survey, conducted by WPP’s Landor Associates, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates and Cohn & Wolfe.

The survey also found that consumer perceptions of green continue to change according to various collective definitions and contribute directly to buying decisions.

Green marketing is the responsible way to market your products/services by using technology, conservation and minimizing waste. If you haven’t started green marketing, the information below will help you on your way.

Going green, after all, is just a matter of changing your perception from focusing only on “tried and true” to the creative “let’s try something different.” What used to work still can, but the modern green revolution has opened up a whole new realm of opportunity for new marketing.

Some examples of great new technologies include blogs, social networking, e-newsletters, and online advertising. These complement the “tried and true” methods of public relations, cause marketing, viral marketing, and other activities that leverage the power of the media, word of mouth marketing and human interest.

The easiest way to get started with green marketing is to take a step back from your business and perform a brief green marketing audit. You should already have many of the answers, but it’s in your best interest to ask yourself again and step outside of your comfort zone. You may find it beneficial to consult a qualified marketing professional who can help expose you to a whole new world of green marketing options.

Create your green marketing plan:

1. Perform a market analysis and establish your “ground.”
1. Where is your company in the market?
2. What is your competition doing?
2. Segment your business offerings by “who buys what.”
1. What do your customers have in common?
2. Are you offering too much?
3. Are you trying to be everything to everyone?
3. Determine your product/service market.
1. Is it priced appropriately?
2. Does it cost enough? Too much?
4. Identify your core “green” messages.
1. What green messages are you trying to convey to your customers?
2. What is the basic POINT behind your messages? (Note: These are NOT your taglines)
5. Outline what your core green “brand elements” should be/are.
1. What does green marketing specifically look like as applied to your company?
2. How do you want your customers to perceive your green marketing initiatives?
6. Determine if your web site is in line with your marketing objectives and target markets.
1. Is it up to date?
2. Does it offer the latest technologies?
3. Can you manage it yourself?
4. Is it up to the highest standards in technology?
5. Can you leverage the latest and greatest tools in new media?
6. What can you change?
7. Align your “green marketing plan” with your overall marketing objectives and target markets.
1. Where possible, use metrics to align the two plans.
2. Does your green marketing plan take advantage of the latest technologies?
3. Can you manage it yourself?
8. Determine the promotional areas in which you can get really creative/green.
1. Can you leverage your commitment to green to help you spread your message?
2. Which segments are going to care about your green marketing efforts?
3. How much money can you save?
4. How much money can you reallocate from previous methods to green and new freed-up opportunities?
9. Plan for feedback.
1. How do you plan to get it?
2. What will you do with it once you get it?

With so much focus on green marketing, many companies try to hop on the bandwagon by launching green initiatives that are in essence “greenwashing” or “green sheen.” These terms are generally used when companies spend significantly more money or time advertising being green (that is, operating with consideration for the environment), rather than investing resources on genuinely environmentally sound practices.

Consumers are increasingly knowledgeable of the difference between “real green” and “green sheen”; companies that invest resources in the latter risk significant negative PR when their greenwashing efforts are exposed.

In December 2007, environmental marketing company TerraChoice gained national press coverage for releasing a study called “The Six Sins of Greenwashing,” which found that 99% of 1,018 common consumer products randomly surveyed for the study were guilty of greenwashing. According to the study, the six sins of greenwashing are:

• Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: e.g. “Energy-efficient” electronics that contain hazardous materials. 998 products and 57% of all environmental claims committed this Sin.
• Sin of No Proof: e.g. Shampoos claiming to be “certified organic,” but with no verifiable certification. 454 products and 26% of environmental claims committed this Sin.
• Sin of Vagueness: e.g. Products claiming to be 100% natural when many naturally-occurring substances are hazardous, like arsenic and formaldehyde (see appeal to nature). Seen in 196 products or 11% of environmental claims.
• Sin of Irrelevance: e.g. Products claiming to be CFC-free, even though CFCs were banned 20 years ago. This Sin was seen in 78 products and 4% of environmental claims.
• Sin of Fibbing: e.g. Products falsely claiming to be certified by an internationally recognized environmental standard like EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal. Found in 10 products or less than 1% of environmental claims.
• Sin of Lesser of Two Evils: e.g. Organic cigarettes or “environmentally friendly” pesticides, This occurred in 17 products or 1% of environmental claim

Laura Briere is CEO & Founder of Vision Advertising, a marketing communications firm based in Worcester, MA. She is also head of the World Green Business Association.

Bruce Mendelsohn is Principal of The Hired Pen, a PR firm based in Auburn, MA.

Were you at the North Central Chamber on 3-5-08 for SB2 ? If not, you missed a great opportunity to get the details on how to build your marketing plan from the ground up - the easy way. But don’t worry - there will be more chances - here’s what happened on the 5th…

Speaker Laura L. Briere, Vision Advertising & WGBA CEO and Founder, led a seminar for the SB2 Group at the North Central Chamber of Commerce. The event generated energy and enthusiasm for marketing, due to the simple and effective delivery of the messages and teachings. Ms. Briere went into detail about our marketing thought process model and taught over 80 attendees how to dive into their marketing plan, how to get the most out of their efforts, and also highlighted “green” marketing topics.

Following the lecture was a substantive and engaging “Q&A” period where Ms. Briere and fellow event speaker, Mike Holbrook from the Small Business Development Center, answered a wide array of marketing questions.

If you missed this event, be sure to stay tuned for announcements of future engagements and seminar dates - you won’t want to miss out again!

Some of the comments we received from the event:

“Please come back and teach us more on this topic - there’s so much to learn here and you make it so easy!” - Mike G.

“Her energy really made the subject matter interesting and fun to learn about.” - Jean M.

“I really liked the way the concepts were presented. I learned quite a bit more than I expected and feel like I’m more prepared to start marketing my business.” - Dave R.

Pictures from Event:

# # #

Last week, I received a phone call from Livia Gershon of the Worcester Business Journal regarding internet marketing. Researching for her article published on March 17, 2008, Ms. Gershon asked me some very provocative questions that produced what I feel to be a very informative, fair and balanced article. The article in its entirety can be found here (and at the end of this post): http://wbjournal.com

“Internet Marketing” is an enormous sub-topic of marketing that I could take weeks to teach on. However, as you’ve most likely picked up on by now, I dig brevity.

With that, to concisely expand on the article’s points about social networking, here is a short list I’ve compiled to help get you started. I wouldn’t recommend diving into each one.

Ms. Gershon quotes me in her article as saying “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing correctly” - and I stand behind that. In this case, you may take that to mean that if you can’t jump in all the way and really USE the site A LOT, don’t bother using it at all. By and large, they are ALL only as good as what you put into it.

Popular Social Networking Sites, Their Links & Brief Descriptions

• Facebook - Personal, Biz - B2C
• MySpace - Personal, Biz - B2C
• Cake Financial - Personal, Biz - B2C
• Plaxo - Personal, Biz - B2C, B2B
• LinkedIn - Biz - B2B
• Xing - Biz - B2B
• Naymz - Biz - B2B
• Greenopolis - Biz, Personal - green-centric - B2C, B2B
• Care2 - Biz, Personal - green-centric - B2C, B2B
• Twitter - Biz, Personal - microblogging, RSS updating - B2B, B2C
• Pownce - Biz, Business - short updates, pics, more - B2C, B2B
• Utterz - Personal, Biz - microblogging, RSS, audio - B2B, B2C
• GossipReport - Personal - B2B or B2C

I’m too busy to be on all of them in any meaningful way, but I am on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. I use LinkedIn for business, Facebook and Twitter for mostly personal and some business, and MySpace for personal. They all have their pros and cons from my perspective. More on that another day.

Happy Networking!

# # #

WAY BEYOND WEB SITES

Written by Livia Gershon, Worcester Business Journal
Monday, 17 March 2008

Local experts offer tips for online advertising

When clients approach Vision Advertising in Worcester about marketing themselves online, CEO Laura Briere says they rarely start by inquiring about the intricacies of search engine optimization or the value of having a presence on MySpace.

“It’s more like, ‘Hi, we’d like a web site,’” she said.

Briere and other advertising professionals say companies that lack a web site certainly need to hurry up and get one, but that’s not all they need to do. For businesses that are used to dealing with old-fashioned advertising, learning to navigate the online marketing world is a complicated, necessary task.

Keeping It Fresh

Even the advertising format that most closely mirrors a traditional form, online newspaper and trade magazine ads, has some marked differences from its print cousin.

Jean Giguere, director of accounts at advertising firm smith&jones in Sturbridge, said the most crucial thing about online ads is that they are a gateway to a company’s own web site. As obvious as that may seem, she said clients often want to offer too much information on the ad itself. The key, she said, is simply making it appealing enough to click on.

Another clear benefit of online publications is that a company can check its web site’s statistics and see, immediately and in detail, how well an ad is working to draw in potential customers. Publications that require their readers to register are also able to offer a wealth of statistics to help advertisers target a particular demographic. Giguere said online newspapers and magazines also often give their advertisers a chance to place ads in e-mail newsletters or automatically run ads near relevant stories.

But Giguere said publication web sites are only appealing to advertisers if they keep working to generate traffic.

“You need something that is new every day because that’s what the consumer is expecting now,” she said. “People have very high expectations now for the freshness of a site, and something can look old really quickly online.”

Online Wilderness

Some rules remain the same in print and online publications.

Rich Suitum, president of Exsel Advertising in Spencer said one key to online ads is keeping a consistent message and image. He said some companies overuse flash animation and other gimmicks.

“Sometimes they might get so overwhelmed and excited about the special effects that they lose their base message,” he said.

And Briere said that, as with print ads, companies should resist the impulse to skip a professional graphic designer and create their ads themselves.

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing correctly,” she said.

Online versions of print publications still have advertising staffs to help clients through the process of placing an ad. Things get more confusing as businesses look at other parts of the online world, but there are many options that the experts say are worth mastering.

Suitum said he advises many business-to-business companies to use industry web sites, forums and blogs to drive traffic to their web sites.

Briere said business directories are also a good way for anyone marketing to other businesses to get their name noticed.

For example, she said, an organizing consultant would be well advised to join the National Association of Professional Organizers. Potential clients will likely use the NAPO site’s directory to find a link to an organizer in their area.

Briere said she advises her clients to advertise on any page that shows up when they search for the keywords that describe their business.

Another common type of online advertising is “pay-per-click” ads on search engine sites like Google and Yahoo. The sites show the ads when a user searches for a particular keyword, and the company pays $3 or $4 each time someone clicks through to their web site. Suitum said the ads can be useful, but $4 a click adds up fast.

“You truly have to stay on top of how many of those visits you’re turning into sales,” he said.

For companies that market to consumers, especially young consumers, social networking sites like MySpace and Twitter can be a crucial tool for getting a message out. Briere said even business-to-business companies can use professional networking sites like Facebook, and there’s no reason for any company not to at least try using social media since it’s typically free.

“There’s zero risk except a couple hours lost,” she said.

As you are most likely aware by now, Vision Advertising CEO Laura Briere, founded the World Green Business Association in 2007. We are absolutely committed to green living and “doing the right thing,” and this is very visibly demonstrated through the WGBA, our own policies (newly added to our site - check them out here), and as it directly relates to YOU, through our advice and marketing guidance.

The whole point of marketing is to make more money. That’s it. And it’s a beautiful thing. You need to drive traffic to your business to actually GET business. However - this doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money (misconception #1), or you need to have a ton of physical tools (misconception #2) to be incredibly effective. To that end, here’s some great tips as a follow up to my last blog post with the video of me talking to the North Central Regional Chamber of Commerce. They’re easy and profitable nuggets - so take notes!

Here are some standard ideas with some fantastic green (and $green$ - saving) alternatives:

1. Instead of printing your newsletter, have an e-newsletter.

no postage, no gasoline expenditure in USPS delivery, no printing, less layout, confirmed subscription list, less work, more chance of being shared, more opportunities to shorten the length and increase frequency (always a great thing in marketing), the recipients can keep it without resenting the desk real-estate it occupies

2. Instead of writing letters to your clients informing them of change, issue genuinely interesting press releases via email to them AND the media

no postage, no gasoline expenditure in USPS delivery, no printing, likelihood that you may get more business as a result of your newsflash, chance of positive press, someone else does the work

3. Instead of setting up physical meetings, set up web meetings

no driving, saves travel time, allows you to illustrate your points online, allows you to demonstrate your skill in real-time with BOTH parties being in their own home-turf, shows that you live in the digital age

4. Instead of providing physical proposals, email them.

no postage, no gasoline expenditure in USPS delivery, no printing, no paper waste, the reader can choose how big they’d like to read it, they can save it, they have less likelihood of losing it,

5. Instead of having paper brochures, have PDF brochures available on the home page of your web site.

no printing, no postage, no worry about envelopes, if someone wants to print it out, the onus is on them and so is the bill!

…and what are you going to do with all that extra money? How about some more PR? How’s your web site - is IT paying YOU? Maybe its time to invest in driving traffic to your web site with a kickin’ internet marketing and advertising campaign? Maybe your brand could use a boost?

By the way, that’s just a small sampling of alternatives to the mainstream and ways to reinvest the savings.

The Throwing of the Gauntlet

Let’s see how creative you are! I challenge you to post your best green marketing alternative ideas (or how you could reinvest the savings!) on this blog in the comments section. Show me how much you’ve been paying attention and we’ll give your business some positive exposure.

On Friday, January 11th, 2008, Vision Advertising sponsored the North Central Chamber of Commerce’s Breakfast, and as a thank you, CEO Laura Briere, was given the opportunity to be interviewed that morning and share her marketing expertise with the audience.

Watch the video - and learn about how we got started, who we work best with, when the best time to market your business is, what our service area is, what we do to get involved in the community, and the best advice your business is going to get all year. 5:39

One of our clients needs some product research done - if you know someone that might like to participate, would you please pass this along to them?

Could you (or someone you know) be interested in getting paid to assist in important product research project?

If so, the benefits to your business could be incalculable.

Ask yourself these questions: Has accounting ever frustrated you? Have you recently started a business? Have you ever wished you had that big “ah HA!” moment in truly understanding accounting and what it is?

If you can answer yes, then you could stand to benefit from participating in this project. Not only will you get a FREE copy of the software and accompanying literature, but you will also be paid to participate in this project and provide feedback at the end of the evaluation period.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU:

• $200 - paid at the end of the project
• Free copy of software and accompanying text
• FREEDOM from your accounting worries and that real “ah HA!” moment when you finally understand it!

To participate, you must meet this criteria:

• You have been in business LESS than 3 years.
• You feel you do not have a mastery of accounting.
• You manage your own books for your business.

Here is what we will ask of you:

• Participate in 2 in-person sessions - one at the beginning, and one at the conclusion.
• Commit to going through the product in 3 weeks (it will take 8-15 hours total).
• Complete an exit interview that will help us to set product price, place and market position.
• Provide suggestions and critique in a focus group setting.

Interested? Please respond to me at laura {at} vision-advertising(.)com Know someone else who might be? Please pass it along.

Date TBA. Paid participants limited to the first 12.

What are some of the benefits and advantages you or your business would seek to take advantage of or gain from a membership in an ecologically-focused business organization? Some examples include discounts, seminars, and marketing opportunities. Your opinion counts, so now is not the time to be quiet!

So far, Paul Laskow, Pete Caputa, Chris George, Mark Paskell, Dale Shadbegian, Mike Langford and David Rouille have weighed in (on LinkedIn).

Anyone else want their voice heard?