Agency posts positive third quarter growth in its 40^th year

NEW BRIGHTON, MINN. (Nov. 12, 2012) – Risdall Marketing Group (Risdall) added nearly a dozen new accounts in the third quarter, further diversifying its client base in its 40^th year in business. Among the 11 new clients are Eemax, the nation’s leading manufacturer and distributor of electric tankless water heaters, Conservation Beyond Borders, a nonprofit organization dedicated to biodiversity and landscape conservation, and Venture Academy, Minnesota’s first digital blended learning school for grades 6-12, opening in 2013.

“At Risdall, we pride ourselves on offering clients integrated solutions. Our public relations team, in particular, saw a busy third quarter, and their success was bolstered by support from our 14 other divisions,” said John Risdall, Risdall vice chairman and CEO. “Our clients gain recognition from their audiences through Risdall’s innovative approach and expertise in the digital field.”

Risdall’s new and expanded accounts include:

• Codex Corporation – Public relations
• Conservation Beyond Borders – Web design and development, and public relations
• Crown College - Social media, SEO and PPC services
• Eemax - Product launch, positioning and public relations
• PRA Location Services – Web development and public relations
• Venture Academy – Public relations

About Risdall Marketing Group

Driven by its profound understanding of the digital space, Risdall Marketing Group creates and establishes brands with an integrated and entrepreneurial approach. Now in its 40^th year of business, Risdall is a full-service agency organized in 15 specialized divisions, including the largest web/online marketing agency in Minnesota, the 7^th largest ad agency and the 6^th largest PR firm. As a whole, Risdall ranks as the 23^rd largest independent agency in the U.S. It won two Health Care Clio Awards in 2010 and regularly ranks as one of the most awarded digital marketing agencies in the world by the Web Marketing Association. The agency was founded in 1972 by John Risdall, now the longest tenured agency head in the Twin Cities. Visit www.risdall.com.

Agency wins more than two dozen awards across multiple industries, the third most awarded by the Web Marketing Association

NEW BRIGHTON, MINN. (Sept. 17, 2012) – Risdall Marketing Group (RMG) was one of the top winners for outstanding web development by the Web Marketing Association for the 7^th consecutive year. Presented with an impressive 28 WebAwards, RMG placed third in the overall competition and continues the momentum of performances in years past with its WebAward count now totaling 136 in seven years.

“Our hard work comes to fruition when we build a website that not only satisfies our client’s expectations, but also meets or exceeds industry standards,” said Joel Koenigs, president of technology for RMG. “At RMG we adhere to an internal standard of excellence that leverages our in-house strategy, creative, online marketing and development capabilities.”

Among the RMG websites honored, the agency received two coveted Best of Industry awards, including the Best Sports Website for Par Aide, as well as seven Outstanding Website awards and 19 Standard of Excellence awards across 13 different industries. (More than 2,000 entries from interactive agencies and web-development teams from 42 countries entered the annual competition.)

“It’s an honor to be continuously distinguished as one of the top web development agencies in the world by the Web Marketing Association,” said RMG vice chairman and CEO John Risdall. “RMG’s ability to combine acute knowledge of the digital space with full-service agency capabilities is what sets us apart from other agencies when it comes to delivering on our client’s bottom line.”

Each WebAward entry is reviewed by a panel of three to five expert judges who base scores on a set of seven criteria, including design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copywriting and ease of use. Judges include members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

The following is a partial list of RMG’s award-winning websites in 2012. To learn more, visit the WebAward website and search “Risdall.”

• Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union: Credit Union Standard of Excellence
• Conwed Plastics: Manufacturing Standard of Excellence
• Cap Carpet: Small Business Standard of Excellence
• Dart Trucking Jobs: Transportation Standard of Excellence
• Documentis: Information Services Standard of Excellence
• FasTest: Manufacturing Standard of Excellence
• Fishing Kids: Outstanding Website
• Hickory Tech Communications Solutions Provider: Telecommunication Standard of Excellence
• Intuitive Technology Group: Consulting Standard of Excellence
• Katun Website Redesign: Best Other Website
• Olson’s Sewer Service: Small Business Standard of Excellence
• Management Compensation Resources Website Redesign: Outstanding Website
• McKinley Consulting: Consulting Standard of Excellence
• Metro Metal Corporation: Environmental Standard of Excellence
• Multicare Associates: Outstanding Website
• Par Aide: Best Sports Website
• PE Universe/Gopher Sport: Education Standard of Excellence
• Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board: Outstanding Website
• Spanlink: Telecommunication Standard of Excellence
• Star Transportation: Outstanding Website
• The One Man Project: General Interest Standard of Excellence
• Twin Cities Charlie Awards: Food Industry Standard of Excellence
• UniPunch: Manufacturing Standard of Excellence
• Locator Technologies: Information Services Standard of Excellence
• Visit Eau Claire: Outstanding Website
• Zinpro: Science Standard of Excellence

• Winthrop and Weinstein, P.A. : Legal Standard of Excellence

About the WebAwards

Now in its 16th year, the WebAwards is the premier annual website competition that honors the best websites across 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all web development.

About Risdall Marketing Group

Driven by its profound understanding of the digital space, Risdall Marketing Group creates and establishes brands with an integrated and entrepreneurial approach. Now in its 40^th year of business, Risdall is a full-service agency organized in 15 specialized divisions, including the largest web/online marketing agency in Minnesota, the 7^th largest ad agency and the 6^th largest PR firm. As a whole, Risdall ranks as the 23rd largest independent agency in the U.S.  It won two Health Care Clio Awards in 2010 and regularly ranks as one of the most awarded digital marketing agencies in the world by the Web Marketing Association. The agency was founded in 1972 by John Risdall, now the longest tenured agency head in the Twin Cities. Visit www.risdall.com.

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Check it out - Has Facebook Got a Deal For You

Another “controversial” twitter story showed up in our streams today. This time, a Marc Jacobs intern decided to rant about how the CEO is a tyrant and working for him is miserable. The intern proceeded to tweet that he/she understands that this could have been  a lethal personal branding move, yet does not care because he/she plans to never return to that particular city and it was the last day on the job.

All in all, the tweets got deleted, it was considered to be on brand with Marc Jacobs and  in the end, hardly a disaster. Like the Chyrsler scandal, which was public pandaemonium and the Red Cross debacle, which ended up working out well for the brand, this Marc Jacobs twitter meltdown is one of many more to come that may or may not be a big deal.

Read “twitter meltdown” story here.

hashtag #brandjo

Hared to believe it’s been 11 years since The Cluetrain Manifesto, and we’re still doing the same panel. And we’re still trying to teach big companies and ad agencies how to communicate like humans, how to listen, and how to use transparency as a messaging tactic. Brand Journalism is a way to take those decade-old ideas and incorporate them into actual campaigns (we know, we’ve done it). The first step is to teach agencies and clients to think like publishers instead of marketers–it’s not a new idea, but it’s one that is rarely executed well. In this panel, Brand Journalism pioneers will share some of the secrets, successes, and obstacles of their award-winning campaigns.

An editorial approach to brand building. Do we need to start thinking like a publisher?

Audio of session

Presenters

Bob Garfield, Bob Garfield LLC

Brian Clark, Partner/CEO, GMD Studios

David Eastman

Kyle Monson, Editor, JWT

Shiv Singh, Mktg, PepsiCo

So what does this mean? The short description is taking an editorial approach to brand building. If you are in branding its not a choice anymore, it’s imperative to look at how you are approaching branding.

An example of brand as a journalist is mormon.org. They have turned their brand over to church members to tell their stories and they are not doing any editing of the stories.

Today’s consumers are more interested in speaking to your employees instead of those who write your mission statement. Think really hard about this. Are you ready to turn your brand over to your employees and consumers?

The Chrysler social media issue was brought up in this session and the panel made some good points. Their thoughts were that the Chrysler mistake was not having an employee tweeting. Brands should not outsource trust building. With an organization as big as Chrysler, why are they outsourcing their brand building and journalism to a social media agency and a 20 y/o running the Twitter account? Your journalists should be part of your organization, not outsourced. Do you outsource trust-building? AdAge’s Garfield: “Chrysler Tweet shows conflict between nature of social media and control freakdom of brands.” PR stands for public relations, why fire someone for saying something the public can actually relate to?

People like to bring up how many followers they have on Twitter and how many Likes they have on Facebook. What they need to realize is that its not the numbers, it’s about the engagement metrics.

Advertising goals = recognition and awareness. Social media goals = credibility and trust. Where do they meet for brands? How do we add value to a consumer’s life? Think about these questions when you putting together strategy. Branding magic happens when brand values and consumer values align.

@jaredroy

I first heard @peterkim speak in 2009 at Web 2.0 in San Francisco. The session was titled “Why Social Media Marketing Fails – and How To Fix It.” Ever since then I’ve been following him on Twitter @peterkim and his blog, Being Peter Kim.

Make me laugh, make me famous or pull at my heart strings are the keys to social media engagement. This brought me to a quote that I discovered yesterday by Mitch Lieberman in his post titled The Perception Gap in Social —

Brands: “Social media is cool, let’s interact!” Real people: “Wait, we just wanted product info & discounts.”

Brand really need to dig deep to engage with consumers. You can’t just engage on your time-frame and terms.

Social ads driving to “likes” on your Facebook are the gateway drug. You may have to actually advertise to get someone to “like” your Facebook page. Once you have earned that “like”, then it is your responsibility to make them laugh, famous or pull at their heart strings. If you are just driving those ads to your wall, you are already behind. Create a custom landing tab that speaks to the consumer. You can create custom tabs with an iFrame application.

Peter’s 4 myths of social media include:
1) Fail fast – I’m not sure where you work, but if I fail a client fast, I might as well fail myself out of a job. Fail fast means not having a clear strategy or no strategy. If I’m going to fail fast it should be in the planning stages before it makes it to a clients strategy. A great example of failing fast is Motrin Moms or Chrysler’s social media agency.
2) Focus On People, Not Technology – Focus on people, process and technology, don’t just focus on people.
3) People Are In Control – Consumers are not in control. Marketers have more control then we let on. We buy media and create and provide the content for consumers to react to. A great example of this is the TV series Jericho. It was pulled off the air and a few select viewers went nutts. Because of all this backlash, CBS brought it back and the viewership wasn’t there and they pulled it.
4) Brands Don’t Need a Facebook Strategy – Facebook has over 600M users, and it valued at almost $80 Billion. You probably should have a facebook strategy. Every day I have clients telling me they need to be on Facebook. I always push back and ask “why and what are your objectives”. A Facebook strategy should follow awareness>>engagement>>conversion.

I’ll leave you with this
lamestream media = mainstream media

Sometimes I forget that I live in a marketing bubble. This response to my location based services post brought an interesting perspective from a non-marketing friend of mine over at SoulRevolution. I especially liked her quote on relaxing on the beach. There is a line that doesn’t need to be crossed with location services, but what is that line? It’s different for everyone….she gave me permission to repost her response.

Hey Jared,
This post struck such a chord with me I had to respond, however, not being in the professional marketing world at all, I wasn’t sure that it would be appropriate to stir the pot online. So, I am just sending to you – I’d be curious to know your thoughts on my comments. Hope this finds you well! -Tracy

Given the make-up of the session’s panel, I am not surprised by the definition of “location-based services.” However, I think that the folks (such as those on the panel) who make the money have inappropriately usurped the word “meaning” here.

A more accurate definition would probably be “You’re putting out signals, and you want to be rewarded with pleasure or the avoidance of discomfort.”

Most people in our society, unfortunately, think that they “need” this type of “meaning” because it is how they live their lives, which is, of course, a losing battle strategy in the war to win happiness and fulfillment in life.
I would argue that if people were really honest, “meaning” would be defined as something like “happiness and fulfillment in life.”

I like that you used the word “relevancy” (and maybe they did too in the session). That rings more true. Although, I would add that at some point there must be diminishing returns on the “in-your-face” marketing. I mean, when does this just become a virtual version of a beach full of people relaxing, but unable to enjoy themselves (or conduct their lives) because with every motion they are harangued by peddlers of goods or services. People telling me what I “need” via mobile devices is not relevance to me, but manipulation.

On the other hand, mobile devices ARE extraordinary tools. And when consciously used, can be of great service and convenience. I love to use the “Around Me” app. I like knowing that when I am somewhere and, for example, need to find a gas station, I can access the “collective information” (not “collective intelligence”) to find one.
I also like the group-buying services when offered to me as a daily option that I can just delete or open and consider.

I think just because we can, does not mean we should move further on this continuum toward real-time location-based marketing. Our culture already gives us enough opportunities to avoid thinking for and understanding ourselves.

Tracy Sides

SXSW: By the numbers from CNN on Vimeo.