Vertical Measures » Miscellaneous

Accelerate! Nominated in 2012 Small Business Book Awards

Sarah Moraes — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:00:09 +0000

We were thrilled to find out that Accelerate!, Arnie Kuenn’s best-selling Internet marketing book, is nominated in Small Business Trends’ 2012 Small Business Book Awards in the category of marketing.

The Small Business Book Awards recognizes business books published in 2011. The top 10 winners will be selected by readers based on number of votes as the Best Small Business Books of 2012, while the top five vote-getters in each category become Category Winners.

Voting commences February 1, 2012 and ends February 16. In last year’s Awards, over 41,000 votes were cast by the community. Please vote for Accelerate! and spread the word to family, friends and fellow book lovers.

If you haven’t read Accelerate! yet, the book is for small to large organizations eager to enhance their content marketing. The book includes eight steps to achieving a comprehensive, successful content marketing plan. The book also includes contributions from 16 other industry experts including; Jay Baer, Rand Fishkin and Joe Pulizzi. With case studies and real world examples of companies that have experienced great success with content marketing, Accelerate! is packed with tools that will help any business get started today. Pick up the book at Amazon or download a free, condensed version, The 8 Steps to Content Marketing Guide for 2012.

To vote for Accelerate!, just visit http://bookawards.smallbiztrends.com/marketing_2011/accelerate-3/.

Sarah Moraes

Sarah Moraes, Marketing Manager, heads the tactical planning and implementation of cross-platform marketing activities for Vertical Measures including; blogging, social media marketing, webinars, content marketing, email marketing and promotions. In addition, she published the Local Search Marketing for Business How-To-Guide, a part of the Vertical Measures How-To-Guide Series.

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Ten Things That Happened to Me My First Week at Vertical Measures

Pel Abbott — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:30:00 +0000

Pel Abbott just started her first week at Vertical Measures as an Account Manager and chronicled some of the interesting things that occurred during that introduction to a new organization and a slightly different role for her than in her past.

An unexpected, unscripted and un-caffeine-aided self-introduction at approximately 8:50 AM on Monday to a room full of new peers. Nothing like trying to think on your feet.

Gluten-free. Sadly, not gator-free.

My first (and last) taste of alligator jerky while egged on by colleague Michael Schwartz. Yes, it’s made from real alligator meat. Just ask Kaila Strong, she brought it. It tastes a lot like smoked fish.
Fantastic all-day “Content Marketing Workshop” led by Vertical Measures’ founder Arnie Kuenn, with a wealth of information that will be in his new book coming out in May called Accelerate! Grow Your Business Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing.A couple of things from my notes: you must have a blog, preferably written by a real person with an interesting and believable personality. Also, blogs or articles containing “top” lists (like “Top Twenty-Five Reasons to Work With Vertical Measures “) still test at the highest levels for readership.
Met some really cool attendees at the workshop (see #3), which allowed me to: a. taste-test handmade chocolates soon to be available on a custom website from Epiphany Chocolates Company; b. reminisce about my favorite old-fashioned candy, Cherry Mash, just one of the many classic candies that will be sold at a new local retail store at Camelback & Central in Phoenix called Smeeks; c. Learned that scorpions do not sting themselves to death when drenched in alcohol per urban or desert legend, but they do appear to get drunk.
Promotions department colleague Ann-Marie Jancovich showed me the latest ways to get optimized public relations impact on the web. I was totally wowed, since I used to do a lot of PR in the old-fashioned snail-mail way in the past. This is yet another area where the Internet has totally improved an important piece of the marketing mix. The days of poring over Bacon’s and the SRDS books (Standard Rate & Data Service) to get news out to the right journalists and information sources are over!

It keeps getting betta and betta

Had a great lunch with my boss Patty Adams at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant right down the street. Found out we are both addicted to the same Greek salad with gyro meat – yum! Also found out more about my role in working with new clients. Can’t wait to help people, my favorite thing to do.
Was introduced to two new as-yet-unnamed office pets that grace the client services department. I vote for naming them Betta Test 1 & 2. Sarah Schager has assured me they will have real names next week.
Had the white board in my office stolen off the wall, I’m sorry, I mean “exchanged” for a vertical one that has yet to appear.
Met with director of client services Liz Gessaman several times for a few moments at a time, and just can’t understand why she keep prioritizing client work and deadlines over yakking with me.
Set up HootSuite so I can manage all my social media accounts from one handy online site, follow me @PelAbbott on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or connect with me on Linkedin. I’m officially a VM’er now!!!

Do you have any interesting stories to share about your first time at a new job or in unfamiliar territory? Share them in the comments below!

Pel Abbott

As a former small-business owner, advertising agency executive, and marketing manager at a major newspaper, Pel brings a diverse background to the team at Vertical Measures. A solid grounding in marketing and business principles allows her to help clients generate concrete online marketing plans by identifying and capitalizing on their unique advantages over their competitors.

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Top 10 Takeaways from Our Inaugural Content Marketing Workshop

Sarah Moraes — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:37:59 +0000

The day started early…really early! The yawns were contagious spreading around the room, but thankfully Dynamic Worldwide hooked us up with a sweet breakfast and some Seattle’s Best Coffee. People came from all of the Valley, Arizona and the US from all different backgrounds and professions. We had a start-up chocolate company, Epiphany Chocolates – she was harassed all day by the way to hand out some chocolates. We had some B2B companies including Incentive Logic, a few creative agencies and even a bug guy, Thomas Ballantyne from Bulwark Exterminating. But, they all had one goal – to learn how to use content marketing to take their business and their clients’ businesses to the next level.

At the end of the workshop, we distributed a survey to find out what they all got out of this eight-hour day and the responses were pretty fascinating. But, allow me to be a little selfish and start off with my key takeaways.

Everyone has something cool to talk about, we all have stories, which equal content opportunities! The number one thing I noticed is all of the light bulbs going off. We poked and prodded their brains with exercises forcing them to put their ideas and stories to paper. When asked to share their stories, we only had time to talk about a few, the hands kept raising. Everyone wanted to share and the stories were interesting and relevant to their business and would easily engage their audiences.

Photo of Arnie Kuenn taken by Rocky Mountain Mattress

I’m going to steal number two as well. I just have to share this story with the key point being, content really can happen anywhere! We actually met Thomas Ballantyne through Twitter. He’s the bug guy, remember? Elise Redlin-Cook was promoting AZIMA on Twitter about a year ago. That same day she re-tweeted what she thought was an interesting fact – that scorpions will sting themselves to death if you pour alcohol on them.

Well, Thomas saw this Tweet and felt compelled to prove her wrong. He showed up to AZIMA with a scorpion and it sure caused a stir. He grabbed a drink at the bar, drizzled some on the scorpion and filmed it. Thankfully the scorpion was just fine and he proved the myth wrong. The next day he posted the scorpion myth video and today the video has over 30,000 views!!! So yea, content can really happy anywhere and often in some pretty weird ways.
“Open up to ideas that are not directly related to the business.”
“Content marketing is not just about content.”
“Know who your audience is and what they want.”
“Find out where your potential customers are hanging out online.”
“You must optimize your content.”
“Link, link, link!”
“Develop a comprehensive content calendar to stay focused and use all conduits for maximum results.”
“Measure the results.”

All in all, it was a great day. Attendees walked away with exactly what we were hoping they would and much more!

Sarah Moraes

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Have You Heard You Need A Content Marketing Plan, But Need To Know How To Do It?

Sarah Moraes — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:30:52 +0000

Content marketing is still forming at a rapid pace. Most struggle to find not only the time to integrate content marketing into their current traditional and online marketing plans, but struggle to figure out how. Creating your own content strategy can be a confusing endeavor. This workshop will help you make it happen!

The What

Like no other event currently available in the internet marketing industry, the workshop will cover eight critical steps of content marketing: developing a strategy, conducting market and keyword research, content development, optimization, promotion, distribution and success measurement. With professional curriculum and a hands-on style format, students will learn to create, implement and sustain a successful content marketing program for their organization.

Each student will be provided with a workbook to follow along and participate in exercises. Following completion of the course, each student will be given a free copy of Arnie Kuenn’s upcoming book, free copies of five how-to guides including; Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Keyword Research and Local Search Marketing, plus several concrete ideas for content for his/her businesses and a workbook filled with exercises, resources and free tools!

The When

The Content Marketing Workshop will take place at Dynamic Worldwide in Tempe, AZ from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 7. Don’t worry, we’ll give you some breakfast, a couple of breaks and lunch!

The Main Character

Arnie Kuenn, president and founder or Vertical Measures and soon-to-be published author, has held executive positions in the world of new technologies and marketing for more than 20 years. Kuenn served on the 2008 Arizona Super Bowl Marketing Committee and is the founder and president of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association (AZIMA). Arnie has presented at SMX Advanced, AMA Phoenix, Online Marketing Summit, Social Media AZ, EduRG, ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and many online webinars.

The Who

If you own a website, you are a publisher. Organizations (B2B and B2C) need to provide content that their audience will enjoy and portraits them as the expert. Whether you are a content strategist yourself or need a roadmap to get started, this workshop will serve as your guide.

How to Get There

Taking place at Dynamic Worldwide in Tempe, AZ, one can get to the workshop via train, plane or automobile! And, if you’re really looking for a workout and to save a tree, bike or walk. There are plenty of nearby hotels in case you’re from out of town.

Get more details! Early bird registration is available until March 1. Seats are limited, register early!

Sarah Moraes

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Our Top 10 Blog Posts of 2010

Abby Gilmore — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:00:23 +0000

As 2010 winds down, we’d like to recap the year with some of our best blog posts of the year! Here are our top 10 most visited blog posts:

If you need a link building resource, our 100+ link building resources post is a one-stop-shop.
And if you are marketing your business or brand online, don’t make these 10 deadly Internet marketing mistakes! (Guest Post by Gerald Weber)
Did all of the 2010 predications from Internet marketing experts come true? Well, the year isn’t over yet!
One thing is for sure, this year we realized many SEOs have celebrity look-alikes.
A rumor that kept coming up through the year: Google starting its own SEO agency. APRIL FOOLS!
And of course, many new tools were released. But perhaps the fastest, easiest, cheapest keyword research tool can be found at your fingertips.
This Halloween there were plenty of ideas for Internet marketing related costumes.
Even though we thought our Google SEO Agency joke was over, apparently it wasn’t. Twenty seven days after April 1st, our post was still being reported on… as actual news.
But believe it or not, the year wasn’t all fun and jokes. One of our posts aimed to help people to explain and measure the ROI on Internet marketing. We hope it pointed you in the right direction.
And back in February, Vertical Measures introduced an “Ode to SEO” contest, in which entrants had to write a Valentine’s Day inspired poem using a choice of keywords. The finalists were announced, and voting was on! Let’s just say, the winning poem was quite the read

As you can see, we like to have a little bit of fun with our blog posts in addition to bringing you SEO, link building and Internet marketing best practices. What was your favorite Vertical Measures’ blog post of the year?

Abby Gilmore

Abby Gilmore is a content strategist at Vertical Measures. When she is not creating, tweaking and developing strategies for online content, she creates her own offline content as a freelance print journalist.

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