9
Jun
Posted by GregBurk in Corporate Culture | Tags :branding, manufacturing, marketing, Marketing Coorindator, ornament, Rhode Island College, RIC. Marketing | No Comments
I tend to find that you often need it when you least expect it. As a recent graduate from Rhode Island College and the newest addition to ChemArt, I thought you might be interested in the transition from school, to being the Marketing Coordinator for an ornament manufacturer. Let me start off by saying there isn’t much of a transition period!
Let’s face it; the odds of you landing a position as the Director of Brand Development directly out of school are almost zero today, and most day-to-day marketing activities don’t include you taking a month to put together a strategic plan for “your company.” Entry to Early-level marketing is a lot more about following a plan than creating one.
For ChemArt specifically, we use a number of different marketing vehicles including trade shows, email, direct mail, print and electronic advertising. During my time in school I was able to learn what all of these were, but as you know, not get my hands dirty. In 2009 I coordinated my first trade show, sent out my first email newsletter, put together my first direct mailing, edited my first website, and provided my first ROI report. Phew!
By now you’re probably wondering what part of going to school and getting my degree helped me. Well, the obvious answer is the opportunities it brought me, but there are also advantages in knowing the purpose of your endeavors. For example, I have an easier time editing our website because I’m aware of the goals of the website and how online marketing is a near essential function with the amount of people who have Internet access today. I am also able to provide a different perspective to management for discussions about development and changes we can make.
Finally, don’t forget your arithmetic and accept that Excel will be your best friend!
3
May
Posted by DebParkinson in Corporate Culture | Tags :American history, family tree, Greenfield Village, Henry Ford, Historic Deerfield, history, Isle of Man, marketing, Mount Vernon, Scotland, Smithsonian, South Africa, Wales, Williamsburg | No Comments
Being in marketing can open doors that are really kind of cool, if you’ve grown up believing where you come from and what your family has experienced makes you who you are today. Some call that “standing on the shoulders of those who came before you.”
So I guess you could say that I have travelled through my life with several great influences – a Family Tree from my Mom’s side that can be traced back to the mother country – Scotland and Wales; and a not so well established and documented tree on my Dad’s side that goes back to the Isle of Man and the end of the British Empire with escapades of my Grandfather in South Africa and following the mining business in the US.
As you can imagine my interest in history comes to me honestly. From the time I was a kid, Dad was instrumental in making sure my brother and I really knew American history. By the time I was 12, I’d been up and down the east coast to battlefields, museums, parks, historic houses and meet re-enactors of all sorts.
Jump ahead to the 1980’s and 1990’s, and I’m a marketer, product developer and working with licensed product from museums of all places; the Smithsonian, Historic Deerfield, Henry Ford and Greenfield Village, Mount Vernon, etc. So you can imagine that I was like a kid in a candy store. I have my fingerprints on some amazing rare and ancient books, have seen views from the Mount Vernon Cupola, been shown some of the most exquisite sterling collections at Biltmore. And that sense of wonder even came more unexpectedly when I was shown some exquisite tapestries in Florence, Italy by a worker at the city hall who thought we (my family) really looked like we were taking everything in; so off to the private rooms of the mayor and the council and there they were!
And now I find myself working at ChemArt where we provide products for organizations, clubs, agencies and foundations that resonate with their customers. While we don’t re-enact, or even demonstrate the historical legacy of the institution, we do help create a current experience that becomes history for these clients. The present activities lead to new constituents, new sources of revenue, new membership thank-you, and even new awareness of the organization. And as an annual program emerges, this becomes a portion of their history.
So while I often visit Williamsburg, where early colonial history is re-enacted and the trades revived, to make history come alive, every day I get to work in an organization that is helping to write some portion of an organization’s history. What plan was successful? What campaign worked the best? How to we create keepsakes or commemoratives that are genuine and long-lasting that donors, volunteers, and members will cherish? The desire is to help these groups create a legacy for themselves, and an oral history each donor, member or volunteer can tell their families and friends which in turn foster the mission of the organizations.
So I travel through history on many levels, whether personally, chronologically, or professionally. I can’t wait for next new adventure.
