A big part of why I haven’t blogged since returning from Toronto way back in 2011 was a result of a combination of things.  The first was my idea to write about my New Year’s resolutions and how I felt they would help bring further growth and success to Denote Communications.  As it stood, a big part of that was going to be changing my diet for the better in the form of cutting out candies and sweets, and only indulging in a few of my sodium-laced loves.  Unfortunately, I also brought back a giant bag of home made of authentic Ukrainian perogies (varenyky) from my Baba (grandmother) and there is no way I was about to give those up.  That set me back a few weeks but by the time I got back in the swing, Mark and I had decided to get aggressive in launching our Boost Platform to help small businesses get an edge on their competition by providing a way to make marketing services affordable.  If you are a business or organization looking to really boost (pun fully intended) your online marketing and turn your web site into a tool to make money, check out Boost and send us an e-mail.

As a result of those efforts and our wonderful PR intern, Lauren, we were able to get the story of our attempts to help local business out there to news outlets and picked up by The Chronicle Herald.  While the article doesn’t reveal the full power of Boost, I love that it focuses on the fact that we provide MEASUREABLE RESULTS on our marketing and social media (more on the launch of Denote Social later…).  As someone who started this company on 2 months salary and a contract for a traditional failure project, measurable results are something incredibly important to me.  Too many people, especially marketing professionals and amateurs, forget that marketing and advertising is an investment.  You need to see a return on investment.  ACTUAL return on investment…sales.  Again, ROI is another rant for another day.  Anyway, we are still dealing with the huge influx of people excited by our ability to provide top quality work, at a fair price, and provide actual measurable reports.

With all that said, when we get finished with speaking with all these excited business owners and organizations, I’ll be happy to report back here!  Until then, if you want to join the crowd and become a market leader, check out Denote, check out Boost, contact me and let’s be successful together!

Yes, I’m 2 weeks late on this.  See the full article here.

January 31, 2012 – 7:11pm
BY COLLEEN COSGROVE BUSINESS REPORTER

Jumping on the social media bandwagon is good for business, but managing the message and tracking its influence is a time-consuming endeavour that can quickly get brushed aside.

Two 20-something Halifax entrepreneurs have come up with an all-encompassing solution that they say will help entrepreneurs stay focused on their business and not their Twitter feed.

Dalhousie graduates Chris Kolmatycki and Mark Hobbs launch Boost today, an offshoot of the full-service marketing agency, Denote Communications, Kolmatycki founded in 2009.

“We learned from talking to (Denote Communications’) advertisers that a lot of them didn’t have all of the tools they needed,” Hobbs said Monday. “They wanted to be involved in social media and they wanted to have an active, online presence, but they didn’t hav the time to manage their marketing properly.”

The Denote team saw a common thread among business owners and decided to put their expertise to work; a year later, the one-stop online business solution tool — Boost — was introduced to Halifax.

For a monthly fee, Boost will manage email marketing promotions, branding, advertising and promotions, website design and maintenance, e-commerce solutions and social media management.

If a business or entrepreneur highlights Facebook as their first foray into the online world, for example, a dedicated account manager will create the account and sit down with the business owner to hash out strategy for the next 30 days and a fresh plan for the 30 days following, and so on. And if a business owner wants to sell their wares online, a team of photographers, copywriters and web developers will handle the details and, voila, the products are soon available for purchase with a click of a button.

“Our goal is to keep Boost as an all-in-one product that is very simple,” Hobbs said. “So we offer every marketing tool needed to successfully run your business online, plus the technical expertise to do it.”

The sky is the limit when it comes to what Denote Communications can handle, but Hobbs said the company likes to start small. Once the user’s target market is identified and the best medium for their message is agreed upon, then its time to talk about Boost.

The company uses hard data and a show-not-tell approach to entice customers to think again about the power of social media and an online presence.

An integrated dashboard of metrics to show clients the power of a single Tweet, for example, and educates users about the methodology behind it a given marketing campaign.

“We want to make entrepreneurship accessible. It’s a sad reality, but it is a reality that so many businesses these days fail,” Hobbs said. “The Internet has brought so much potential and reach to advertising and promotions, and we provide that guide.”

The title says it all.  Pretty excited that The Chronicle Herald saw what we were trying to do in the Halifax business community and provide measurable results in two things that not many marketers do (online marketing and social media).  I’ve placed the article here with my own emphasis and links added in places but you can click the link at the top to see it at is original home.  Mark did the actual interview and Ms. Cosgrove really captured what we were trying to do for businesses.  Great all around!

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I’ve been sitting on this link for a while (click above), but it’s pretty interesting to note just how powerful and large Wal-Mart has become.  Many people have their own opinions on the superstore, but this does a pretty good job of just putting the info out there in a way that everyone seems to love these days, AN INFOGRAPHIC!

As an aside, in Toronto now making things happen and visiting family for the holidays.  Don’t expect another post until at least a few days into the new year!

If Wal Mart’s latest abomination makes it off the web and onto my TV set, I’m heading for the hills.  This is the stuff nightmares are made of.

We all saw Heineken burst on the scene earlier in the year with being one of the first brands to utilize those cool video ads in the bottom-right corner of your screen on Facebook.  Now it looks like they’re taking their partnership with Facebook one step further with the Heineken Social Tree.  The video gives a cool overview on the project, but to see the real power, check it out yourself.  I’m not sure if you see the possibilities for similar offshoots to this, but if you don’t, I’m not telling you.  The ideas are mine

Love this parody on the flash mob craze (not sure if it’s a craze years after they became popular), but I mean people are going to have to start getting a little bit more original in their mobs than just randomly breaking into dance.  That said, I suppose there’s a giant segment of people who haven’t caught on to the flash mob thing and it’s probably still really effective.  I’m a victim of the bubble I live in.

Unknown ~ Unknown

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.

Old Spice is going in full effect this Christmas with their MANta Clause campaign.  To be honest, the videos aren’t quite doing it for me, but the idea is awesome.  Check out all the videos and the progress they are making into the campaign.  What do you think?  Always been my dream to do something like this involving a widespread audience at Denote.

I was originally planning to head to Toronto to visit family later in December, but business with Denote and Boost are taking me there earlier than expected.  As such, my posts over the next while are going to be less around the idealistic, and more around the “Hey, here’s a cool concept someone is trying in another part of the world!”  Just no time to be insightful as we try to get as much in-person client work done as possible.

For now, just watch a penguin get tickled.

THIS, is the guy everyone thinks will go #1 overall?