BDC Advertising created value for the Okuma Fishing Tackle Corporation through online display advertising, public relations, print advertising and promotions designed to help their brand stand out in a sea of competition.  We identified a number of opportunities for the brand, especially in the saltwater fisheries of Florida and California, where their redesigned reels are gaining traction with the angling community.  We were able to recommend select markets for the company to concentrate on to maximize sales, while taking advantage of existing product lines. Through direct interaction with the devout fishing community online, BDC Advertising strengthened the brand image and supported brand advocates with product promotions and awareness campaigns.

Your organization deserves the attention and experience BDC brings to every client relationship.  Contact us to discuss your goals for a comprehensive marketing campaign that delivers on every front.

The goal for this page?  From what we can gather, is to post pictures of Weston dressed up in various doll clothes.  Among the most popular pictures on the page are examples of the dog in boxer shorts.  When asked how the dog feels about these photos, Dugan replied, “humiliated- probably a little.”

Next on the agenda for the dog’s Facebook site is pictures of Weston swimming in a children’s inflatable swimming pool.  Dugan claims that the breed is “notorious for overheating,” which remains to be seen.  Rumors have it that this was actually a scandalous “pool party,” filled with reckless guests and empty cans strewn about.  Don’t be surprised to hear about Weston on Entertainment Tonight alongside other canine stars such as Marley, from the hit family movie Marley & Me.  The future may be bright for this young and rising star, we can only hope that bright light continues to shine.

Bask in Weston’s brilliant fame on Facebook

Weston the Dog

Think…”sales messages are an earned privilege.”  That is, you have to earn the privilege to send them to your database or through the various social networks you may be a part of.  Specifically, we use the 80/20 rule.  80% of our web-based messages are informational or educational messages and 20% are sales.

These networks will recieve your sales messages if you’ve provided useful information that creates the proper environment and relationship to send sales messages.  As Alex Brauer, President of BDC Advertising, says,”It’s all about building and growing communities. The goal is to build membership and expand your networks as quickly and broadly as you can.  In doing so, the goal is to deliver information they look forward to receiving.  That may be a favorite recipe, destination, how to improve your mileage, rigging for salmon, upcoming event, notable date or any one of a million different messages…it’s endless.  The key is they need to be useful, fun, entertaining, easy-to-read and relevant.  You’ll grow your community quickly if you stay this course.”

“Sales messages will be allowed, or more appropriately, tolerated, if they’re kept to a minimum.  Understand that these messages will likely have negligible impact.  Unless the offer is so incredible that they’d be crazy not to participate, expect yields of less than 5% and in most cases less than 1%. That means if you send out 6,000 e-blasts with a sales message expect a return in the order of 60 or fewer people to respond.”

“I see the sales message taking a different form”, observed BDC Vice President, Trey Carskadon, “When you’re talking about new products, changes in personnel, upcoming opportunities or emerging trends you’re sending a sales message, albeit a very soft sales message but a sales message nonetheless. You’re leading the market to the watering trough…it’s their decision whether or not they’re going to drink from it.”

Carskadon continued, “With this approach comes some important opportunities, savy companies will become more disciplined in their messaging and create messaging campaigns designed to systematically create anticipation of upcoming events, opportunities, seasons that will ultimately drive sales.  In marketing to the agricultural community for instance you’ll want to start crafting your messages in spring and summer with a goal of sending your strongest sales message after the harvest when farmers have been paid for their crops.  It’s what we do in Alaska to target dividend check expenditures that occur in the Fall with everything from snow machines and boats to vacation offers.  All the information leading up to that point are messages and information that build a case for the products or services your selling. No doubt about it, it’s a much more methodical, measured and patient approach but it’s a winning approach and one you can add to everything else you’re doing to get the word out about your business.”

“We all agree, it’s editorial, informational, educational content that wins the day in these social networks and e-newsletter approaches. The 80/20 rule is a great guideline and in some cases it may skew 90/10 or 95/5.  The bottom line is that sending out an endless string of sales messages and specials is the surest way to kill the growth of the online communities you may be trying to build. ”

25% of anglers selected the Internet as their primary source of information, while 15% of hunters watch hunting-related TV shows as their primary source of media.

Beyond the fishing and hunting categories there are pockets of growth within the print media.  Large city newspapers continue to struggle as the media market becomes increasingly fragmented between cable TV and the Internet.  Subscription numbers continue to plummet nationwide.  However, smaller community and small city newspapers seem to be holding their own.

In fact, even in depressed areas like Bend, Oregon which has suffered through an unprecedented decline in home sales and real estate values, the Bend Bulletin, the city newspaper, is thriving.  This uptick is being played out across the nation as neither cable or Internet sources have yet to unlock the small city, small town news gathering effort.

BDC Advertising Vice President, Trey Carskadon commented, “Over the past 3 years we’ve been watching this trend closely.  We don’t have a dog in this fight other than to stay abreast of the advertising and information trends that are going to best serve our customers.  The consensus in our office is that the market wants timely, reliable, trusted information.  If they can get it more conveniently or faster through Internet or TV they’ll gravitate in that direction otherwise they’ll wait until the newspaper comes out.  This trend gives small community newspapers a decided advantage over other media.  As news budgets dry up it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for these organizations to have a presence in smaller markets.  More broadly, we believe this signals opportunities within the media and print, especially in specific markets that depend on accurate information, to provide deep, insightful and useful information not found in either TV or Internet resources.  Print still offers the most meaningful opportunity for deciminating the greatest depth of information on a single topic, to specific, targeted audiences.  The Internet has become it’s own worst enemy as viewers have to wade through reams of hyperbole, inaccuracies and conjecture.  It’s wild-west approach to information has marginalized its efficacy as a primary informaton resource on topics that demand clarity, fact and accuracy. The Southwick study confirms what we already believed through our own experience.  Print is still valuable media and a strong Internet presence is equally as essential…it’s all about balance and not putting too many eggs into any one marketing basket.”

The features that are important to you, might not be useful for the next person, and the important thing is a balance between usefulness and a bloated program.  Proponents of Twitter like its ease-of-use, 140 characters at a time.  This social platform thrives on a staccato-like simplicity, but some feel the technology a bit too minimalistic.  Facebook users enjoy posting their own interactive content, or just perusing the content that others create.  It’s the expansive content sharing that helped Facebook rise to fame.  Facebook has been able to keep things personal by surrounding you with people and things you like, while their business is growing like a hungry teenager.  When your personal friend posts a picture of their new car, it is kind of cool to see it while not worrying about getting their floor-mats dirty.

Think about your friends.  Aren’t you closer to some than you are to others?  In your ideal social media platform, perhaps you can place friends at different distances and create new circles of friends who are all talking about the same thing and your grandmother doesn’t have to hear about you painting the town on Saturday night. This is doable in Facebook, but a user must create a special Facebook page, and then hope that people will visit you there.

Whatever the next big thing is, I hope you create it and I want to be involved, helping others make sense of it all and facilitating valuable connections, blurring the line between business and friendship.

When it was time to go off to college, Kevin decided to attend the Art Institute of Portland where he majored in web design and interactive media. He soon found himself downtown Portland, a city-dweller with no transportation to experience the joys of hooking into a big fish.

“I used to love fishing. I missed the whole experience,” said Saelee.

But Kevin’s fortunes were soon to take a dramatic turn. He accepted a position as a web developer at BDC advertising, a world-class agency based in Oregon City, OR. where he would be influenced by many avid fishermen at BDC who share Kevin’s passion for landing the big one. Among the seasoned fishermen here is BDC Advertising President Alex Brauer who recommended a few fishing locations.

“I started working on different fishing websites and looking at Alex’s fishing trophies and started remembering the fun of it all,” said Saelee.

Saelee recalled talking with Trey Carskadon, Vice President of BDC about his fishing experience as well, which includes numerous trips to treacherous buoy 10 on the Columbia river and television and radio hosting of popular outdoor-related programs where he shared his fishing knowledge. Kevin’s return to fishing was all but imminent, but first he would need to learn the techniques and locations for fishing is in the Pacific Northwest, not a small feat.

“Trey had all the specifics, what lures to use, which rods, and the specific techniques,” Saelee said.

Kevin’s quest to find the best fishing in Oregon will undoubtedly continue… probably for the rest of his life.

One thing is certain, the team here at BDC will continue to help Kevin in his fishing exploits and as he continues to produce exceptional web sites and applications for BDC clients, it won’t be long before he gets the invite to jump on board the BDC company boat for a real fishing experience.

The day will soon come when the trophies will find a new home on the wall above Kevin’ desk. When Kevin lands his first big fish, we’ll be there to congratulate him while remembering everything good about sharing wholesome outdoor experiences with friends, family and coworkers that make us all feel proud.

There’s no denying the power of social networking and Facebook in particular.  Beyond the benefits of the network are those achieved through advertising that’s available through their network. Facebook advertising, like any advertising, has it’s upside and downside.  In the case of Facebook it appears for some businesses there’s considerably more upside opportunities associated with this tool.

Specifically, the ability to target an audience can be remarkably accurate.

For example, if you want to target females between the ages of 25 and 40, who live in Beaverton, Oregon, went to Beaverton High School whose birthday is in May and are single — you can do that.  If you want to target a specific birth date in May…you can do that too.

Facebook allows you several target options including: gender, location, age, education, birth date, workplace, relationship status, education and keywords.

Powerful targeting in the right hands.

The key to making this work is running equally targeted advertising messages.  Because this is pay-to-play advertising where you’re charged either by the click or impressions, it’s critical you make your offer specific enough that it only attracts qualified, genuine prospects. You can control runaway spending by setting daily budgets and you always have the latitude to shut your campaign down if you need a breather or time to re-evaluate what you’re doing.

You can offer a free $5 birthday gift card to people within a five mile geographic area to a retail location, for instance, for those all those May prospects.  With your businesses logo at the top of the page, a short description of who you are and what you do and the offer — it should pull well if it’s sent to the right demographic audience.

By the way, research shows again and again that dollars/amounts pull better than percentages (i.e. 20% off).

Finally, and maybe most importantly, test your message.  Just like a direct mail piece, online ads require rigorous testing to evaluate which message is most effective.

Thankfully, Facebook provides useful metrics to assist in the evaluation of your campaign.  Like most online ad campaigns ample information is available to understand how your campaign is performing.  You can mine data that will let you know what age group, gender, location, etc. is most productive.  Certainly, you can evaluate click-through rates if your goal is to get them to a web page or the quality and content of the impressions you’re achieving in an awareness campaign.  The bottom line is Facebook, like so many others has made it easy to evaluate the efficacy of your efforts with data-rich campaign information.

Facebook provides a number of online tools to study in creating and launching your campaign.  They’ve made it paint-by-the-numbers easy where anyone can get in and get a campaign going quickly and easily.  The trick is to launch an effective campaign.  That takes some skill, ongoing effort and constant evaluation to clearly understand where the punctuation is best placed in targeting your market and developing the most effective message in stimulating some anticipated action.

BDC Advertising, Inc. has been the agency of record for the show for the past 5 years and in cooperation with the N.W. Ag Show management team has worked to log steady increases over those years.

To the full credit of the N.W. Ag Show management team has been their continued support and response to exhibitor and market needs. Last year, the N.W. Ag Show brought all their seminars and association meetings on-site with the show which has proved to be enormously beneficial to attendance and sales at the show.

For 2010, BDC Advertising was asked to expand the show’s advertising footprint which includes multiple insertions in some 29 publications, 4 radio stations and an online Adwords campaign. BDC was responsible for all media buys, creative, placement, website development, SEO, Adwords, radio scripts, remote broadcasts, PR, coordination and follow-up.

Even though the show closed just a few days ago, BDC and the N.W. Ag Show management team are already making plans for next year’s show with website updates underway, post-show PR and a top-to-bottom evaluation of show efforts and strategy.