A few days ago I was reading an article from Entrepreneur Magazine, Secrets of the 10 Most-Trusted Brands, that talked about the importance of brand relationships in keeping companies relevant and successful. According to Jim Stengel, former global marketing officer of Procter & Gamble and author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies, emotional relationships with consumers are the key to success.

“We’re seeing more of an emphasis on brands building emotional relationships with consumers because it’s powerful and it works… When you do it, you have a much stronger affinity, a much stronger business, much stronger growth and much stronger results.”

America’s most powerful brands use a variety of ways to connect with consumers, but the key component for each is the trust factor. By combining a quality product with a personal or emotional connection, the leading brands stay in front of the chasing pack.

How is this applicable to our own businesses?

The message is simple. Provide quality service with a personal touch. Many top brands have made their name not by being flashy, but by caring about their product, and backing it up with commitment and dedication to the consumer. This holds true in all facets of business, such as healthcare, marketing, retail, et al. Building trust helps to build your brand.

At Points Group our goal is to provide a quality product with a personal touch. In our experience, business works best when we are able to connect personally with our clients and align our goals with theirs in a way that best achieves their goals in an effective and efficient manner. For more information on our trusted services, feel free to contact us at 973-998-8008 today!

By Aaron West

I recently parted ways with my technology-lacking mobile device of 4 years and engaged with the ever popular iPhone. Before, the relationship with my mobile device was purely phone calls, text message, and emails. If I desperately needed to use the internet I would begrudgingly wait the 10 minutes until a page loaded. The first time my pointer finger swooshed over the screen it unlocked a whole new world to me. I finally understood what the hype of Apps were all about (my new obsession is Instagram), but more importantly, I saw the extreme importance of Mobile sites. Once I finally joined the thousands of people who use their smart phone to search online, I became a mobile site snob. How can any website not have a mobile platform? I almost boycotted one of my favorite stores because I was on the road and couldn’t find their hours of operation on their non-mobile friendly website.

My new love affair with my mobile device inspired me to not only write this blog, but find some interesting mobile statistics. Here are some of my favorites:

• There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 5.1 billion of them own a cell phone, but only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush.
• (Source: Mobile Marketing Association Asia).
• By 2013, more people will use their mobile phones than PCs to get online
• Sources: Gartner, 2010; Google Mobile Optimization Webinar, 2011; Cisco, 2011
• 23% of adults have cursed at their phone when a site doesn’t work
• Sources: Compuware, “What Users Want from Mobile,” 2011
• 57% would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site
• Sources: Compuware, “What Users Want from Mobile,” 2011
• 40% have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience
• Sources: Compuware, “What Users Want from Mobile,” 2011
• Mobile searches have grown by 4X since 2010
• Sources: Gartner, 2010; Google Mobile Optimization Webinar, 2011; Cisco, 2011
• There will be one mobile device for every person on earthy by 2015
• Sources: Gartner, 2010; Google Mobile Optimization Webinar, 2011; Cisco, 2011
• There are more mobile phones on the planet than there are TVs. (Source: Jupiter)
• (Source: Jupiter)

Does your company have a mobile site? If not, you’re in luck! Contact Points Group for a free consultation to get your mobile site up and running!

By Katie Bourke

This point is perfectly illustrated by the good folks over at HubSpot with their blog, “Why Landing Pages Are an Indispensable Part of Marketing”.

As noted in HubSpot’s blog, landing pages are a great way to convert inbound traffic by creating a Call To Action (CTA) with a special offer, a consultation, or simply a way to get in contact for further information.

For your own further information on how to best use landing pages for your business, contact us at 973-998-8008 or awest@pointsgroupllc.com.

By Aaron West

With that being said, I have compiled a few tips on how to stay better organized and be more efficient.

Prioritize

Make yourself an agenda for the day every day and the same for the week—every week.  Be sure to understand and manage your priorities when doing this.

Weed through your daily E-mails and get as many responded to and/or taken care of immediately.  This will help you eliminate small projects off your plate and prioritize what really needs to get done on a daily and weekly basis.

Work to Completion

On your daily and weekly list, be sure to finish each project listed to completion. It does not benefit your time or organization if you have 10 different projects started with nothing finished.  Set out to start a project on your list, do it and then check it off!

Make Deadlines

Deadlines are set for a reason. Of course, things come up and deadlines change, but try to stay as true to your original deadline as possible.  This will help you avoid “11^th hour fire drills”, which is a sign of poor planning and/or process for a project. Some may argue they “work well under pressure”, but why add extra stress to your workday when you don’t need to? You will always have random projects arise, so be as organized as possible with your current projects to be better prepared and less stressed when other things come up.

Mark Your Calendar!

Set weekly, monthly and all business related meetings into your calendar.  Also, schedule in reminders for yourself.  After a meeting, set different “to-do’s” discussed on your calendar.  This helps you remember details and stay on top of everything.  With that, be sure to actually listen and act on your calendar.  If you constantly update, organize and act on your calendar, you will find yourself being more efficient.  You can also sync your calendar to your cell phone, so when you’re away from your computer, you can get updates and reminders still.

These tips do not come easy or naturally. You need to break free of your daily routine and train yourself to utilize them all, which all essentially derive from using a calendar.  I hope these tips have inspired you not only to GET organized, but to STAY organized!

By Jenna Rocca

We’ve spoken before about the growing importance of video for business, and the statistics continue to pile up in favor of that fact. According to a study done by ReelSEO in early 2011, 94 of AdAge’s top 100 advertisers ran campaigns on YouTube. In addition, the total number of advertisers using YouTube increased 10-fold in all of 2010.

In 2011, the world’s biggest video site generated an estimated $1.6 billion in revenue. Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital estimated that YouTube commands a staggering 80% of Web video revenues, estimating the entire market at roughly $2 billion in 2011.

YouTube is the world’s most popular video-viewing platform, with over 2 billion hits a day. The advertising potential is astounding, with a multitude of various ways to reach one’s target audience. Says Mashable:

The site is monetizing more than 2 billion video views per week… Now that mobile is exploding, so too is YouTube mobile — it’s the most-trafficked video-viewing mobile website, garnering 7.1 million unique visitors each month.

What does that mean for businesses?

Simply put, it means you must put serious consideration into developing and marketing yourself via video. Far from being just a case of “everyone’s doing it”, this is an issue of serious marketing potential and long-term benefits.

For more information on how to create and market yourself via video, please contact us at marketing@pointsgroupllc.com, or via phone: 973-998-8008

By Aaron West

It turns out this is a question that plagues many a marketing company. In answer, here’s a great blog by Search Marketing Post that explains 5 Major Differences between SEO and SEM.

By Katie Bourke

With over 30 million iPhone downloads and 1 million alone on its first day available for the Android, Instagram is without a doubt a booming mobile platform. Facebook’s recent mind-blowing $1 billion (nearly double of Instagram’s last estimated value) acquisition of Instagram indicates that they are taking the growth of “Going Mobile” seriously.

But the real question is…what makes Instagram worth 1 billion dollars?

Quality. Instagram has produced a quality product by making its app fun with user-friendly functionality and sharing capabilities. You can take an ordinary picture and transform its look and feel with the set filters. It literally opens a whole new creative photo world to people, which is why it has gained such a great following since its inception 2 years ago.

At Points, we live by this concept. Yes, we are constantly updating and improving our services and processes, but the quality of our approach always remains the same. The what. The how. The who. This helps us define a concept of innovation, strategy and effective development of plans for our client’s objectives. In turn, this method effectively solves any problems that may arise with our client’s companies and in turn, leverages their marketing efforts.

Facebook and Instagram have assured users that they, “plan to keep Instagram’s unique strengths and weaknesses in mind without ‘just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.’”  Instagram has already developed a quality product which users already love, so smart money for Facebook would be not to tamper with the winning functionality. This to me, holds with the adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

By Jenna Rocca

The New Jersey Commercial Real Estate Alliance (NJCREA) is an organization of successful firms and individuals representing all disciplines of the commercial real estate industry. NJCREA is a network of companies. The Healthcare arm of NJCREA is a collection of companies that are all focused in one way or another on Healthcare and bring specific expertise in Healthcare to the client. Collectively, the involved companies provide a wealth of healthcare specific services, covering a lot of different business areas and needs.

NJCREA and Points Group will combine their experience in using a team approach, with the goal of providing collaborative expert advice. Just as all of the active professional real estate disciplines are represented in the Alliance, and the insights and experiences shared by the members are invaluable in ensuring success of commercial real estate ventures, so, too is the Points Group centered on expanding top-notch offerings to those engaged in the Healthcare field.

Said Points Group CEO Thomas Hofsetter  “The partnership with NJCREA represents a great potential growth opportunity for Points. We are excited to engage in a collaboration with NJCREA, and to expand our reach into both the Healthcare and business community.”

In recent weeks we’ve talked about creative ways to use Social Media for Healthcare Marketing, as well as the potential benefits of infographics and rapidly growing Social Media network Pinterest. Here is a great post from HealthWorks Collective on how to leverage Pinterest for your Social Media strategy as a Healthcare provider.

By Aaron West

In a 2011 survey, 41% of Americans said that they use social media to learn more about health issues. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, “one in four internet users living with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, lung conditions, cancer, or some other chronic ailment (23%) say they have gone online to find others with similar health concerns. By contrast, 15% of internet users who report no chronic conditions have sought such help online.”

Americans are increasingly turning to each other for health advice, and with the ubiquitousness of social media and the ease of access to other individuals, social media is the go-to for such information. Because of the ease of access and high rate of usage in social media, healthcare marketers would be foolish to ignore the benefits of such a powerful tool.

Many healthcare providers have done exactly that, by harnessing the power of social media for their benefit. Consider Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI, who became the first hospital to live Tweet a surgical procedure in 2009.

Healthcare practices may not feel the need to take such extravagant measures as Henry Ford Hospital, but they would do well to consider a concrete social media plan in order to reach their business goals, and grow even further.

For more information on how to harness social media for your healthcare practice or business, call us at 973-998-8008!

By Aaron West