Check out the new Rooster T from the designers at Mulberry Marketing Group.  Made in the USA by American Apparel, the t-shirt was printed by Sharprint with trendy fashion soft inks for low-impact texture with color retention.  The T was designed for a social media campaign and given to to five randomly selected contest winners.  Recipients of the Rooster T receive a custom packaged shirt with MMG biz card stitched inside with new signature color, hot pink.

MMG Rooster T with handmade packaging

Lisa, Shannon, Kristie, Brett, Jen & Melanie at Tlaquepaque

Social media is fun and engaging, and it’s available to B-to-B marketers.

As a follow up to our last blog post B-to-B Marketers Finding Value in Social Media, here’s some highlights from our sponsored day with Jason Sadler of IWearYourShirt.com.

Jason Sadler sports our new Rooster T and starts talking Mulberry Marketing.  Looking good, Jason!

The feedback rolls in . . . we asked Jason’s followers for feedback on our new web site … we received a lot of great input throughout the day . . . it was interesting to read and we’ll definitely be increasing the font size of the text on our web site … what? Everyone doesn’t have 20/20 vision?!

Lunch . . . (not important, but totally fun and we love to weave food into every event) we had a great team lunch, although we got a few stares for wearing matching shirts, but we wore our Rooster T’s with pride while eating tacos at our fave Mexican joint.  See picture of full and happy Mulberries, ready for more . . . work!

The USTREAM was interesting, people IM’d, e-mailed and watched, our team included, as Jason Sadler wore our shirt and talked about everything from marketing to . . . well, [insert something mindless here] . . . but the feedback continued to come in on our web site.

Mulberries & Scuppernongs . . . what’s a scuppernong?  Watch and learn . . .

Thank you, Jason, your search for Mulberries was nothing  less than entertaining.

And the winner is . . . so the feedback did come at a price, like any good contest, we gave away prizes and we were glad to do it . . . MMG Rooster T’s and $25 gift cards to Amazon.com went to five individuals and new social media connections:

• Joshua Merryman
• Shannan Hearne
• Kadie Chandler
• Hannah Beck
• Anne Toney
• Seth Oyer . . . Seth actually won a Poken, from Jason and his IWYS video sponsor PokenZoo.com

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Not bad for a days work . . . The scoppernongs You Tube video had 210 views (and counting – go check it out!), the U Stream video – 134 views, our web site traffic was up over 200% from the previous month and we received referrals from IWearYourShirt.com, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and more.  We also picked up a few new followers (thanks Twitter folk) and posted our first Qik.

In addition to putting social media in practice as b-to-b marketers, our team had a blast exercising their social media skills . . .this is a creative bunch and it’s great to engage in activities that will make us better, more interesting and more knowledgeable in our fields . . . we can apply what we’re doing here to our individual areas of expertise.

For Immediate Release

B-to-B Marketers Finding Value in Social Media

Canton, OH — Mulberry Marketing Group, a company solely focused on serving the strategic marketing needs of businesses that market and sell their products/services to other businesses, will help underscore the value that social media channels can provide to b-to-b marketers.

On Friday, August 14 at 3pm, social media entrepreneur, Jason Sadler (aka “I Wear Your Shirt” Guy) will stream a live webcast wearing Mulberry Marketing’s new Rooster T-Shirt. Jason will be “talking up” Mulberry Marketing all day long, not only during the live webcast, but also on Twitter, his blog and the iwearyourshirt.com web site.

According to Mulberry Marketing Group President, Shannon Zaher, “The value in being featured on Jason’s webcast is more about the spring board it provides.” The company is leveraging the quirkiness of the “I Wear Your Shirt” concept and the size of its audience [including 15,000 followers on Twitter, more than 124,000 have watched him on UStreav.tv; 180,000 unique visitors go to his web site each month; he has more than 1,700 Facebook friends; his Flickr photos have been viewed more than 58,000 times; and his YouTube shows have been viewed more than 35,000 times] into an opportunity to receive feedback into the company’s newly launched website and a chance for people to win their own Mulberry Marketing Rooster T-Shirt. Zaher also states, “While the percentage of B2B marketers incorporating social media channels into their marketing portfolios has risen dramatically over the past two years according to a recent study “Harnessing the Power of Newer Media Platforms for More Effective Marketing” by ANA and B-to-B, many marketers are unsure how to utilize these highly public and seemingly uncontrollable channels. It’s not an all or nothing thing…companies need a strategic approach and it will usually involve tactics from both traditional and social media to successfully meet the objectives.”

Mulberry is always looking for innovative ways to leverage the power of new media for the benefit of their clients. Kristie Bryant Fitzgerald, Mulberry’s Creative Director adds, “We tweet, blog and Facebook, attend webinars and virtual trade shows, listen to podcasts, carry iPhones and Blackberries and fully submerse ourselves in the whirl of social media. That’s how I learned about Jason.” Jason is today’s version of the person who invented the pet rock. In a time when marketing budgets couldn’t be tighter and technology couldn’t be simpler, Jason created the concept of hosting a live webcast every day of the year wearing a different t-shirt. He makes money on the deal by offering each day of the year for sale…January 1 costs $1 and December 31 is $365. Buy the day and Jason will wear your company’s t-shirt and shamelessly promote your company on his webcast. Mulberry paid $266 for August 14. Every day at 3pm Jason broadcasts himself on the web, people watch and chat with him online. His inventory is sold for the year. If you haven’t done the math already, that’s $66,795 for wearing a free t-shirt every day. He has been featured in articles and blog posts around the globe…from WSJ to Yahoo!Japan.

From a b-to-b marketing perspective, how do you turn a video of a guy wearing your company’s t-shirt and hyping your value proposition into something of value to your customers? According to Zaher, “While we’re not suggesting this specific approach for many of our customers, it works for us, because our customers expect us to be “creative-types” and “out-of-the-box” thinkers! We think they’ll be intrigued enough to tune in to Jason for a few minutes on August 14th, but they will be more likely to offer their marketing insight on our new website and participate in the chance to win one of our super cool new Rooster T-Shirts!”

About Mulberry Marketing Group
Mulberry Marketing Group exists to serve the strategic marketing needs of companies that market and sell their products/services to other companies (i.e. B2B). In order to be successful in these endeavors, the company places a strong emphasis on marketing strategy and supports it with the right mix of technology and design as determined by each individual situation. As a result, clients get high impact tools such as interactive white papers, videos, websites, rich internet applications, printed literature, direct mail, email campaigns, trade show graphics and displays, advertisements, 3D animations and more.
www.mulberrymarketing.com

Contact
Shannon Zaher
330.445.2370 ext 13
shannon@mulberrymarketing.com

Recently intrigued by the “Addictionary” by MarketingProfs, I decided to try my hand and presenting a word to a definition submitted by another user. First of all, I am a huge fan of MarketingProfs and if you haven’t checked out their site and/or subscribed to their newsletters, blogs or tweets, you are definitely missing out!

“Addictionary” is their way of letting you either submit a definition such as “noun, The work that piles up while you’re on Twitter” which is exactly what Alyssa4AR added 1 month 12 days ago. Almost immediately, the perfect word to that definition lept into my brain (because let’s face it…any respectable marketing person has found themselves sucked into the social marketing quagmire all in the name of research only to find several hours have slipped by and that pile of work remains). The word, of course, is “twitload”. I realize it may not be the most professional word and I don’t expect Webster to scoop it up, but clever nonetheless…if I do say so myself!

So, I watched the “Addictionary” addicts mull it over and vote it “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” and then went back to billable duties. Now today, I am informed that my word is “The word of the day”: http://words.marketingprofs.com check it out at the top of the page. And if you click on the word you’ll see my name (no lights) and can review other lesser submissions.

Of course, the prestige of being selected is quite momentous (jk), but what’s even more interesting is the process. Someone presents a problem…a situation that they cannot define, then someone else presents the solution…a way to concisely describe that situation. Sounds like what we marketers try to do on a daily basis! Our clients present a situation “we need our target audience to know that we have more robotic welders than anyone else”. And we present a way to concisely describe that situation/benefit in a way that is meaningful to that target audience. Watch for that case study coming soon to our website!

Does this mean I now have a “blogload” of work on my desk? Nah, but I’ve had a “twitload” of fun!

Here it is – the soft launch of our new web site.  Revamped and ready to go, the site featues more projects and strategy based perspectives to help get the marketing initiatives flowing.  Of course, our new networking tools are available and waiting for interaction with the best and the brightest (and the socially inclined) in our industry.  Business-2-business is our business and we look forward to sharing our knowledge and passion via mulberrymarketing.com.

Mulberry Marketing Group received a Best of Show Award in the Creative category at the Northeast Ohio Craftsman Club’s Annual Ben Franklin Ball.  The winning project, Diebold Security Credential One print piece, featured intricate folds, tabs, various stocks and utilized diargrams, icons and other visual elements to guide the reader through the piece and aid understanding of complex content.  The Ben Franklin was presented to our team by Printing Concepts who we’re proud to say produced the work of art!

” . . . Everyone wishes for silver and gold.”

- Sam the Snowman, Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer

It might not be Christmas, but it is ADDY season and Mulberry marketing Group accepted two precious medals.  A Gold ADDY was awarded in the Trade Show Exhibit Category for the Diebold ASIS International Trade Show Graphics submission.  The Silver ADDY was presented to our talented marketing and graphic design pros for the Diebold DVR Health Check Direct Marketing entry in the Direct, B-to-B or Consumer category.  Thank you Canton Ad Federation (CAF), part of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), for a lovely event at the historic Canton Palace Theater!

That’s right, this is our first official post on the new Mulberry Marketing Group blog!  Very exciting stuff happening here . . . this is where we’ll come to mull over all things b-2-b and marketing strategy related (plus some general interest pieces for the sake of playful conversation) and invite you to Mull It Over, too!