BroadBased Communications: Marketing, Public Relations, Graphic Design

BroadBased Director of Communications Karen Okie became a member of the OneJax Board of Directors in October. She joins a 30-member board composed of people from various backgrounds and professional disciplines.

OneJax is an interfaith organization that promotes respect and understanding among people of different religions, races, cultures and beliefs.  Members of the board, staff and volunteers conduct education, community-building and advocacy initiatives for adults and youth to overcome bias, bigotry and racism in the Jacksonville community.

On Nov. 18, OneJax held its annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Gratitude Service, attended by approximately 200 people of different beliefs, some wearing ceremonial dress. Each year, the event is held at different places of worship in Jacksonville. This year the service took place at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in San Marco.

To learn more about OneJax, visit the organization’s website at http://www.OneJax.org.

Posted in BroadBased

It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2010 and, if you’re anything like us, you’re looking forward to bright business opportunities and new customers in 2011. If you haven’t already done so, you should be busy planning your strategy for success in the new year.

“One result of the current economic climate is that we have seen many more companies creating 6- or 12-month strategies around specific public relations and marketing goals,” says Maria Coppola, BroadBased’s Director of Public Relations. “Planning in advance is a sure way to make sure your budget is utilized to the fullest and that your initiatives are integrated through all of your promotion efforts.”

“The timing of our messaging is critical to our campaign’s success,” said Jeff Winkler with the Real $ense Prosperity Campaign, a United Way initiative. “BroadBased PR helped us plan accordingly so we can be ready for action right after the holidays are over.”

An additional benefit to planning in advance is that you know what your marketing expenditure will be each month. This allows you to focus on your predefined goals and make fewer ad-hoc decisions as the year progresses.

Questions to ask yourself when planning your 2011 PR and/or marketing strategy:

• What methods will you employ to reach your sales goals? Will you employ public relations? Broadcast, print or online advertising? How about direct mail, email, telemarketing, social media, sponsorships, events and speaking engagements? Or will you rely solely on a highly SEO website for visibility? In what combination will you use these efforts, and what is your expected result for each?
• How will you raise awareness of your company with the public and media?
• What tactics will you employ to differentiate yourself from your competition?
• How will you promote new products or innovations to the market and media?
• How do you identify collaborations, sponsorships, public events and community opportunities that benefit your image?

These questions and many others are answered through our public relations and marketing planning process. If you plan NOW, you can take on the new year armed with a strategic plan that will allow you to hit the ground running and begin generating results right away.

Posted in Marketing Planning

The Blood Alliance (TBA), headquartered in Jacksonville and with operations in North Florida and regions of Georgia and South Carolina, is one of the first community blood banks in the nation to introduce a smart phone App. BroadBased is very pleased to have consulted with TBA over the summer during its exploratory phase, with the TBA marketing communications staff executing development.

The iDon8 App, which can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store, offers eligible donors the opportunity to keep a record of their previous donations and alerts them of their next available date to donate. It conveniently provides locations of blood drives via Google Maps. iDon8 also provides donors with area notifications when the community blood supply is low or reaches a critical shortage.

BroadBased’s “What’s In an App” Lunch and Learn

If you are interested in finding out what it takes to develop an App, BroadBased is hosting a “What’s In An App” Lunch & Learn on Thursday, December 2, at 11:45 a.m. At this event you will have an opportunity to learn the steps of strategy, budgeting, development and rollout. Our developers will also be on hand to answer technical questions. Seating is extremely limited so please contact Tonisha if you are interested in attending.

The Apple compatible phone App from The Blood Alliance displays current blood supply inventories.

Posted in Web/Interactive Development

The 2010 Annual Report for the Early Learning Coalition of Duval (ELC) continued this year to build upon the organization’s theme of children and our shorelines – with a new twist. BroadBased Senior Art Director Karen Kurycki applied an extra special touch by incorporating her custom watercolors throughout. Chad Burns, Community Outreach & Child Care Resource & Referral Manager, called the design a “smashing success.”

Ranked as the #1 Charity in the Jacksonville Business Journal’s 2010 Giving Guide, ELC’s mission is to create a coordinated and integrated system for school readiness services to better prepare children for entry into kindergarten. The organization places an emphasis on literacy skills for children who may be at risk for future school failure. ELC recognizes parents as their children’s first teachers. It seeks to assist parents by providing opportunities to enhance their children’s educational success through participation in quality school readiness programs.

For more information about the Early Learning Coalition of Duval, please visit www.elcofduval.org.

Posted in Brand Development

An August survey by Marketing Sherpa illustrates which tactics B2B marketers are setting aside more of their budget to accommodate. Big winners include websites, social media, virtual events and webinars, SEO email marketing and Pay Per Click (PPC).

The data supports the growing trend of marketers using these cost-effective inbound tools for lead generation.

Posted in Marketing Planning

Continuing a long tradition of BroadBased volunteerism, our marketing Broad, Tonisha Landry-Gaines, spent the last several months participating in planning efforts for Bank on Jacksonville, a new initiative launched to help usher people into the financial mainstream. Landry-Gaines donated her time by serving on the marketing committee and spearheading the development of the website.

The Bank on Jacksonville initiative is a concentrated effort to engage ‘unbanked’ and ‘underbanked’ individuals and promote the availability of low- and no-cost financial accounts. (Unbanked refers to those who have never had an account at a bank or credit union, and underbanked are those who may need to reestablish a banking relationship.)

The collaborative effort, with a partnership of 15 local banks and credit unions, the City of Jacksonville, the U.S. Department of Treasury, FDIC, National League of Cities and a number of local community organizations, was launched with a press conference at City Hall on Monday Oct. 18.

Learn more about the Bank on Jacksonville initiative and what it means for the First Coast at www.bankonjacksonville.org.

Posted in Brand Development, Marketing Planning, Web/Interactive Development

A native of Lakeland, Florida, and a senior at UNF, Jeff is working toward his BA in public relations and will graduate in Spring 2011. Jeff comes to us on loan for a special project for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida (BBBSNEFL), where he also holds an internship.

Jeff will be working with BroadBased through the end of the year on a variety of marketing projects for BBBSNEFL.

Welcome, Jeff!

Posted in BroadBased

Are you wondering if your company or organization is ready for a custom-branded smart phone app? If so, you are NOT alone. “A whopping 52 percent of firms see increasing customer engagement as their No. 1 mobile goal,” says Mobile Marketer in an Oct. 20 article. The article goes on to state: “70 percent of firms will increase their mobile budget in 2011, with one in four companies doubling or tripling it.”

• How do you develop a strategy?
• How much does it cost to develop?
• How long will it take to develop?
• What does it take to create updates?
• What platform do you develop first? iPhone? Android? Blackberry? In what order? At what expense?

If you have questions similar to those listed above, we urge you to consider attending BroadBased’s free “What’s in an App?” Lunch and Learn to be held in early December. To reserve space, or to be kept current on dates and location, please email Tonisha@bbased.com with “App” in the subject line. Our development partners will also be on hand to answer your questions. Feel free to sign up with a co-worker or friend. We look forward to seeing you!

Posted in Web/Interactive Development

BroadBased was honored to collaborate with Florida Coastal School of Law (Coastal Law) to conceptualize, design and coordinate the launch of a custom iPhone app – a first for each party.

The app, designed as a mobile guide for faculty and students, features news items, a faculty and staff directory, calendar of events, listing of nearby attractions and a video gallery.

“As might be expected with any first foray, we hit some bumps in the road,” said Jan Korb, BroadBased’s CEO. “But we came away with a detailed protocol for future projects of this type, and gained invaluable insight that can only be obtained by going through the experience first-hand. We are really pleased with the final results.”

“We have a very robust connection with our students and faculty,” says Brooks Terry, Marketing Director for Coastal Law. “In addition to traditional outreach methods, we also utilize Facebook and Twitter as communication tools. The launch of a mobile app was the next step in our overarching communications plan. We believe Coastal Law is the first school of higher education to launch an app in Jacksonville.”

BroadBased is currently in strategy development with two additional clients for their app. If you are interested in the process, please call Tonisha at 904-398-7279 ext. 14, or consider attending one of our upcoming workshops described below.

Posted in Web/Interactive Development

In September, longtime BroadBased client Jacksonville Beach Pediatric Care Center, known for being the country’s ONLY 24-hour pediatric office, expanded to a second location on Jacksonville’s Southside and rebranded as 24/7 Pediatric Care Center. Owned by Dr. Norberto Benitez, the five-year-old practice has grown rapidly since it first opened its doors in 2005. Read details about the growth of the practice in this Jacksonville Business Journal article.

BroadBased worked with Practice Administrator Mary Daniel on marketing planning and launch implementation.

How did you approach the expansion from a marketing perspective?

We worked with BroadBased many months in advance to develop a strategy and budget, which was included in our business plan. The plan included all rebranding components such as updating our office and collateral materials and updating our website. The plan also included an outreach strategy to market to households with children in our target area through print ads, radio, direct mail, public relations and social media.

What have your initial results been?

The awareness program to our 8,000+ existing patients is working to migrate those in zip codes west of the Intracoastal to the new location at 9A and Baymeadows, across the street from Twin Lakes Academy. For new patients, raising awareness of who we are and what we do is our primary goal.

For our launch in September, our website hits were DOUBLE the weekly average of previous months. Direct traffic to our domain increased 46% and search traffic increased 63%. This tells me our awareness campaign worked. Also, we opened the new Southside office on Labor Day, a holiday in which we don’t believe other pediatric offices were open.  On that day, we treated a combined total of 87 new and existing patients that would have otherwise had to make a hospital emergency room visit.

What are your next steps?

Like many service providers, word of mouth has always been our biggest referral source. We will continue to raise awareness of the practice to existing residents and families new to the area through traditional means. Also, with BroadBased, we are building a social media presence. We continue to receive consistent traffic to our blog and have a very robust Facebook community that has increased website referrals from Facebook by nearly 40%. Additionally, we will continue to build our fledgling Twitter presence to attract a local audience.

Please visit 24/7 Pediatric Care Center on Facebook at Jacksonville Beach Pediatric Care Center and on Twitter @24HourKidCare.

Posted in Marketing Planning