Aha! :: Elliance Blog

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What the Army (and a photo shoot) can teach you about Social Media

Most of us understand, if only by feeling, the power of great photography. But on a recent client photo shoot I was reminded how much your approach to photography—just like your approach to social media—can influence your brand. Do you stage everything? Shoot the obvious? Capture what’s natural? Leave room for the unexpected? Have a […]

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PPC Strategy: Is Yours Driving Incremental Clicks?

It’s the age-old question: if you’re ranked organically for a particular search term, is targeting that same term with PPC a waste of money? New research from Google suggests that it’s not. The original study that Google released back in 2011 was a bit shocking.  Within real advertiser accounts, Google observed that when PPC ads […]

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Wagner College Turnaround Years

Once in a long while, I come across a book that I just can’t stop reading until I finish it. And then I have to read it again and again to savor it. For a guy who finishes a book every week, only a few books have had a magical impact on me. These include […]

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What do declining bee colonies have to do with branding?

Brand managers, take note. Researchers are finding out that insecticides introduced in the 1990’s are causing the decline of bee colonies two decades later. Similarly, the impact of poor branding may not be felt for a decade or two, but ultimately it will catch up. I see several colleges, companies and non-profits doing a reckless […]

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The Elusive Engagement Metric (and how to build it from scratch)

Marketers enjoy web analytics, because we like to count things. Naturally we love Google Analytics, because it lets us count our total website visitors, total time spent on our pages, top converting pages, referral sources, top cities, browsers, and more. Counting has never been easier (or more fun). One thing marketers don’t like is guesswork. […]

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Higher education branding — a writer’s dilemma.

We recently pinned home pages from 50 of the country’s top liberal arts college on a large work wall. Our motive? Learn something about story, content strategy and voice — favorite topics among Elliance creatives. Here is a confession — there’s nothing I avoid more than turning the art of writing on itself. Yes, I […]

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Optimized Press Releases: An Integral Part of Successful Organic Search Campaigns

Press releases have traditionally been relied upon for distributing current news stories and promoting announcements to targeted media contacts within a given industry and, often, a given locality.  They’re great for raising a company’s profile and brand awareness in the marketplace. But, if you’re not optimizing these releases in support of your search marketing campaign, […]

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Costa Rica fishing charters: can clients transport you to mythical lands?

In searching for the true essence of brands, we often journey, sometimes physically and at other times virtually, to mythical lands of their origin stories. Consider some recent places we have visited in our imagination: Xanten in Rhineland where St. Norbert was born, monasteries of Holy Cross in Southern France where Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau […]

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Surveys and Interviews: Getting to Know Your Mobile Visitors

In my last post, I talked about how to use analytics to research your mobile website visitors so that you can make an informed decision about your future mobile projects. This time, we’ll look at how surveys and interviews can help you glean insights about your mobile presence (or lack of) from your site’s visitors. […]

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Higher education branding: Dare to Fail?

I attended a higher education branding session at the AMA/Higher Education conference a few years back led by Purdue University’s chief marketing officer, Teri Thompson and Elizabeth Scarborough, CEO/Partner
 at the well-known quantitative research firm Simpson/Scarborough. Toward the end of the productive hour that covered Purdue’s extensive investment in market research, staff re-structuring and process […]