Date
Feb 06
At the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, I attended a roundtable discussion with a group of Business School Marketers from Tepper, Sellinger, McCombs and others. They shared the top concerns/challenges they’re facing at their institutions. Read about the top six 'hot 'topics' for marketing their schools.
Date
Feb 01
Academic institutions have been faced with an unprecedented number of challenges over the past few years. Admissions and marketing folks across the country have noticed a rise in competition, a notable decrease in qualified applicants; and we’ve all been affected by ever-tightening budgets.
Date
Jan 16
When a culture is not established by an organization, you can guarantee that the individuals within the organization will begin to establish a culture of their own. And that’s not always a good thing. Read about the top 5 things we’ve done to foster a healthy environment and culture at VisionPoint Marketing.
Date
Jan 11
We recently revisited our values (as we do from time-to-time) and have expanded on them with what we’re calling ‘VisionPoints’. These are shared internally of course, but we thought we’d also post them here to share with our current clients, prospective clients and future team members. Enjoy!
Date
Apr 27
Understanding your client's needs is important, but truly caring about your client and their needs is essential to building long-standing relationships.
Date
Dec 22
Our friends at the Triangle Community Foundation have put their creative minds to work and have inspired a philanthropic 'experiment' of sorts: The Give Back Giveaway. At their annual holiday party, the night ended with a surprise involving envelopes with $10 cash and a challenge. The Give Back Giveaway has three rules, 1) match the $10 with at least $10 of your own 2) go out and give the money to someone you do not know or an organization doing good in the region and 3) tell us what you did.
Date
Aug 31
Rivals – every higher education institution has them, and almost every student will dedicate their time, energy and gallons of face-paint defending their school against them. On the surface, a rivalry simply is a competition toward the same goal. But in an ambitious industry, where the majority of colleges and universities out there are still trying to differentiate themselves from their competition, the rivalry is a fight for uniqueness.
Date
Jun 30
SO the pressure has been on me to get writing in my blog. Some BRILLIANT ideas have popped into my head while driving home, while in the shower, just before falling asleep and at some other very inconvenient times that will remain private. But by the time I get into the office and begin the tempest that is my work day, these ideas have taken their place in the ether and are miles away from being typed into the digital realm.
Date
Jun 18
At VisionPoint Marketing, we like to reach out to higher education clients because we feel as though we share their appreciation and respect for one core principal in particular: research. Setting goals through the use of research not only is a sign of respect to your target audience, but like any university, it demonstrates an air of professionalism, organization and is the primary step in a successful marketing program.
Date
Apr 24
I’m often inspired by those who surround me. I try to make it a point to hire and socialize with individuals who know more than I do and who will constantly challenge me so that I continue to grow.
And I’m in the fortunate position to be able to choose most of my friends and coworkers but, as is the case with family, you don’t always get to choose your clients. At VisionPoint, however, we’ve been very fortunate to be in a position where the majority of our clients fall into the ‘thoughtful/challenging’ category as well.
Date
Apr 20
This morning a client asked us to make the logo bigger on their newly designed site. This is such a common request that I felt it deserved a little blog entry.
Date
Feb 09
We’ve found ourselves with a number of large branding projects over the past year, and I’ve found myself digging through my aging, yet more-relevant-than-ever library of design books.
As I look for inspiration and direction in the thought processes and works of masters like Armin Hofmann, Saul Bass, Ivan Chermayeff, Milton Glaser, Lou Dorfsman, Seymor Chwast, and so on, I notice that I keep coming back to the straight-forward, no bullsh*t, and remarkably elegant writing of Paul Rand.
Date
Dec 20
As VisionPoint Marketing has taken on a new strategic direction and grown over the past year, it had become obvious that a proper re-brand exercise be undertaken. And what better way than to take ourselves through the same process that we take our clients through when we brand/re-brand them?
Date
Jul 17
If you keep up on world politics, you might see the same trend I do in terms of a new cold war being on the horizon. This one is going to involve not only the US and Russia (who is reverting back to their old Soviet ways … although the same might be said about the US, but that’s another story altogether), its going to involve China as well as some other regional players.
But I’m no historian or political buff, and my concern is not the upcoming cold war, it’s more about the fact that we can only handle one cold war at a time. That means that we need to end the cold war that has been plaguing us for the better part of the past 20 years: The Mac vs. PC Cold War.
Date
Jul 08
So the electricity went out in Brier Creek the other night while I was in Barnes and Noble waiting to get my hair cut (I wasn’t actually getting my hair cut IN Barnes & Noble … I was WAITING in B&N).
After a lovely haircut and massage experience at Blo (if you go, see Jenny and tell her I sent you) I went back to B&N to get a gift for my nephew and, while the lights had come back up, the computers were down for the night. No big deal, they rolled with the punch and broke out the old carbon copy receipts to hand write all the transactions.
Date
Jul 06
I’m not from Raleigh. I moved here in March 2006 from Miami, FL. Before that it was San Francisco, before that San Juan, Puerto Rico and before that Boston, MA. Why should anyone care? Beats me. I just like mentioning it.
I DO think that being an outsider provides you with a fresh view of the surroundings and allows you to see things how they really are. Example: when I moved to Miami from San Francisco I was frankly disappointed at the amount of litter on the otherwise lovely South Beach. When I brought this up to friends of mine who had lived in Miami for years, they couldn’t understand what I was talking about … they saw past it. Maybe the exposure to the sun had burned out a the part of their retina that allows you to see trash on the ground, but I always thought it was interesting to see how people adapt to their environments.
advertising 4 adwords 4 content strategy 4 culture 5 facebook 7 google 11 graphic design 6 higher education 13 inspiration 10 intern 4 internship 5 marketing 12 mba 8 mba education 9 online marketing 27 paid search 4 process 11 public relations 4 raleigh 8 search engine optimization 4 seo 12 social media 24 social media marketing 6 strategy 22 team 7
VisionPoint Marketing provides strategic consulting, development, and execution of online marketing solutions for mid-sized organizations. Recognized as a leader in integrated marketing programs, VisionPoint Marketing specializes in web design, search marketing, branding, social networking, email marketing , and ongoing reporting and recommendations.
02.22 2:30 pm
See how @cneagles is integrating “tag” with Facebook to increase campus involvement: http://t.co/UdzioZRc
02.22 1:30 pm
How can you use social media during a crisis at your institution? @cksyme gives you a snapshot of what’s best to do: http://t.co/cuMTZfrD
0