Marketing Tips and News

The arrival of summer campers to Camp Boggy Creek on June 12 marks the beginning of the Camp’s 15^th consecutive year of caring for seriously ill children. By the close of 2010 the Camp will have served over 50,000 children and their family members throughout Florida, all at no charge to them.

Camp Boggy Creek first welcomed campers in the summer of 1996 following an intensive two year construction program on its 232 acres located in Lake County.

The mission of the camp is to allow kids with chronic or life threatening illnesses to enjoy traditional camp experiences in a medically safe environment so that they can forget they have what they have and just be kids. Founded by actor/philanthropist Paul Newman, it was his vision to create a place where kids could in his words, “kick back, relax and raise a little hell.” Newman was joined early on by co-founder; Tampa resident retired U.S. Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

Camp Boggy Creek, a non-profit organization, relies on the generous support of individuals, corporations, foundations and healthcare partners to reach its $4 million annual budget. Additionally, it relies on nearly 2,000 volunteers each year to fulfill its mission.

Camp Boggy Creek is always in need of volunteers and supporters. For more information visit www.BoggyCreek.org or call toll free 866-Go-Boggy (866-462-6449.)

You may be noticing some subtle additions to our home page. In an effort to promote one of our growing specialties, we’re adding links so our visitors can join our e-newsletter list, visit our archives or link quickly to Constant Contact.

We’ve chosen Email Marketing by Constant Contact® and have been working with this industry-leading program for more than a year now. It’s an easy, effective, and highly affordable way to get your message out to your customers, clients or members.

We have created high-impact, professional-quality emails for ourselves and our clients. These have helped all of us to build strong connections with our audiences, leading to referrals, repeat business and loyalty. We offer our clients every conceivable level of assistance with their email marketing program. So far, our full-service approach, in which we design, write, edit and distribute your e-news while you tend to your core operations, has proven most popular. This plan includes maintaining your e-mail list and reporting on opens, click-throughs and other statistics.

Discover how the power of Email Marketing by Constant Contact can help you better connect with your customers, strengthen your relationships with them, and grow your organization.

Join Our Email List Email:

Thursday, April 22 marks the 40^th Earth Day Celebration. According to the Earth Day Action Center, Earth Day is the largest secular holiday around the world, now celebrated by more than one billion people.

Earth Day History

In 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to force the issue of clean air, water and land on the national agenda.  20 million Americans demonstrated and it worked. President Richard Nixon and Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA was tasked with the goal of repairing damage already done to the environment and establishing guidelines to help Americans make a cleaner, safer environment a reality.

 Media Contact:

Catherine Klasne,

(386) 212-7376

Write Result for Easter Seals

klasne@write-result.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rising Local and National Prevalence Is Central Theme of April’s National Autism Awareness Month

DAYTONA BEACH, FL (March 31, 2010) – This month, 2,160 children were diagnosed with autism nationwide. Next month, the figure will be about the same, but more people might be thinking and talking about the disorder, thanks to Easter Seals, the leading provider of autism services and a leader in observing National Autism Awareness Month in April.

This is the first time the national observation will take place since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised the autism prevalence rate upward from one in 150 children to one in 110. The change represents a significant jump in autism spectrum disorder diagnoses in the four years that passed between 2002 study results and the 2006 study results, which were made available last year.

Lynn Sinnott, an Easter Seals National spokesperson and CEO of Easter Seals Volusia and Flagler Counties, says the local scenario reflects the reported increase, and her organization serves a growing population of clients with autism spectrum disorders. In fact, the local Easter Seals, with its Autism Center of Excellence, offers families touched by autism a progression of services that is difficult to match anywhere else.

“We’re fortunate to have all of the disciplines under one roof, and we’re able to offer multidisciplinary diagnosis, including with ADOS,” says Dr. John Patrick, a clinical psychologist who serves on Easter Seals’ board of directors and is a consultant to the organization. The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule he references is described as the “gold standard” for assessing and diagnosing autism and pervasive developmental disorder for all ages, developmental levels and language skills.

Although autism can be difficult to recognize, it can be described in broad terms. “Autism is generally characterized by three attributes,” Sinnott says, “difficulty with social skills and communication, as well as repetitive behavior. Individuals may also have an overwhelming focus on special interests, like trains or the Civil War.”

After Dr. Patrick signs off on the diagnosis, it’s just the beginning for the family of a child with autism, and Easter Seals can help on multiple levels. “In this situation, they really don’t need to go anywhere else,” he says.

With an array of therapies and evidence-based interventions at hand, the local Easter Seals affiliate is uniquely qualified to offer a personalized plan that addresses the whole child. “In little old Daytona we’re really fortunate to have not only all the disciplines under one roof, but also state-of-the-art programs and treatments that are just not available in other parts of the country. It’s not in every center in every town.”

To learn more about autism in April, check out the current edition of Parents magazine for a four-page section on Easter Seals’ autism services and its new Act for Autism Web site (www.actforautism.com), plus online components at www.parents.com.

About Easter Seals

Easter Seals is the leading non-profit provider of services for individuals with autism, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities and other special needs. For more than 85 years, we have been offering help and hope to children and adults living with disabilities, and to the families who love them. Through therapy, training, education and support services, Easter Seals creates life-changing solutions so that people with disabilities can live, learn, work and play. Support children and adults with disabilities at www.easterseals-volusiaflagler.org. Also, donate to or participate in the Daytona Walk With Me fundraising event at www.walkwithme.org. The walk is scheduled for May 5 at Mainland High School in Daytona Beach.

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Media Contact:
Catherine Klasne
(386) 212-7376
Write Result for Easter Seals
klasne@write-result.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Feb. 18, 2010) – From Florida to Pennsylvania, shoppers are supporting Easter Seals, including our local organization, on their regular grocery trips through March 9. By visiting Food Lion during its Shop&Care campaign and purchasing specific products – or contributing at the checkout – they are making a valuable donation to help children who are receiving Easter Seals services.

These money-saving coupons and painless charitable opportunities are available:

• Kraft will donate 25 cents to Easter Seals for every Shop&Care coupon redeemed (plus consumers will save money on Kraft products).
• Food Lion will donate 25 cents for every 24-pack of store-brand water purchased during the campaign.
• Procter & Gamble will donate 5 cents for every specially marked Pringles potato chips package purchased.
• Customers also can donate at checkout and write their names on special hangtags for $1 each.

Food Lion LLC and subsidiaries Bloom, Bottom Dollar Food and Reid’s raised $3,300,000 for Easter Seals in just four weeks through the 2009 Shop&Care campaign. That program featured special cereal boxes with pictures of children from Easter Seals Volusia and Flagler Counties. Over the last 19 years, Food Lion LLC has raised more than $21 million in support of Easter Seals nationwide.

Easter Seals is the leading non-profit provider of services for individuals with autism, developmental disabilities and other special needs. Easter Seals is proud to partner with Food Lion, LLC to support services that offer help, hope and answers to these individuals and their families.

Locally, participating Food Lion stores are at 1382 Howland Blvd., Deltona; 1603 Nova Road, Holly Hill; 4178 S. Atlantic Ave., New Smyrna Beach; 101 East Granada Blvd., Ormond Beach; and 3826 Clyde Morris Blvd, Port Orange.

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Social media is the new word of mouth marketing, an important component of any strategic marketing and communications plan. But if you think social media is all about “talking” and “posting” you’re wrong. It’s mostly about listening.   The #9 conversation you should be listening for through your social media engagement is The Problem.

If something isn't working properly, wouldn't you want to know?

More than ever before, consumers are using social media to find help with a problem. Consider this example, which is a post I placed on my Facebook page recently.

“Does anyone know how to change the privacy settings on Facebook so that I can pick and choose who can see certain information on my page? I’ve looked at Facebook’s FAQ and made what I think are the right changes to my profile, but Facebook won’t let me save the changes. I think there’s something wrong with Facebook’s settings. Help!”

Now if you are Facebook, and your system is encountering a problem that is preventing people from changing and saving their privacy settings, you’d want to know about that and fix it as soon as possible. Monitoring what people are saying about your organization, your industry, your service or product when they talk about a problem is one of your biggest opportunities to clarify information or correct misinformation. Don’t be afraid to help tackle a “problem” using the social media platform as it helps to manage the expectations of your audience.

Bob Turk, with the Economic Development Department for the City of DeLand, e-mailed Tuesday afternoon with an offer of free help for local businesspeople. The purpose of this blog is to share, so here goes:

Get Your Business Ready for the Good Times To Come

The City of DeLand, the DeLand Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Development Center at Daytona State College will be co-sponsoring a free three-hour workshop on “Getting Your Business Ready for the Good Times to Come” conducted by FastTrac, a program of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

We realize that all our local small businesses need all the help that they can get during this recession. All you need to do is register.  This is a free seminar! A $35 value!

Tuesday, February 16th from 8a.m. – 11a.m.
DeLand Campus — Daytona State College
Building 8, Room 113
1155 County Road 4139, DeLand

Questions That Will Be Addressed:

• What do I want from my business?
• How do I get it?
• How can I sell more?
  

We hope our local businesses will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. For more information on FastTrac, visit www.fasttrac.org

To register, call (386) 506-4723 or e-mail sbdc@DaytonaState.edu.

Sure, it would be nice to have a service like Vocus or Cision.

It would take care of or automate a lot of the drudge work of PR, such as tracking down media contacts for your campaigns and keeping track of results. But it’s not cheap!

The least expensive option a company like Vocus can offer — without many of the bells and whistles that make it so attractive in the first place — is about $4,000 a year. Since we deal mostly in locally oriented companies and our clients are deeply rooted in the communities of Volusia and Flagler counties, it’s easy to see that the national media contacts one of these big services can provide  would not be a good value for them.

We are always looking for ways to give our clients a lot of bang for their buck, and that includes doing as much as we can for free. Of course, it takes some digital elbow grease on our part. But, if we need to, we can use traditional methods, plus social media and other means to pitch for attention on a national level. Here are two free services that can be useful:

• pr.com: Experts say this is one of the few free news release sites worth the bother, but it can be tricky to keep from racking up a bill here. The “free” news release distribution is bare bones — no google or Yahoo news, no links, no embedded images or videos — but it does do pretty well in straight-up search engines and will be seen by a good number of people. I recommend the video above to see how it works. (If you can’t see it, it’s at http://www.youtube.com/v/w9DW2vbCiXE)
• pitchengine.com: I just learned about this from a Vocus Webinar — many are free and I recommend you check out the Vocus link that opened this post for a list — and it offers a lot for zero investment. In your pitch, you can include videos, audio, images and social links. Pitchengine shares your release with “your media contacts via link or email or with thousands of consumers via social sites like Facebook, Twitter and others.”

In Time for Capitol Steps Show

Hannah Gonzalez and her family, from DeLand.

DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Jan. 28, 2010) – The first of several encores for the “Faces of Ability” photography exhibition, which opened earlier this month on the main campus of Daytona State College, begins today at the college’s News-Journal Center.

“Faces of Ability” features the everyday lives and triumphs of 13 young Easter Seals clients and their families as photographed by Daytona State College and University of Central Florida students. Easter Seals Volusia and Flagler Counties and the Daytona State College Foundation are the show’s presenters and will be mounting the exhibit at various locations throughout the two counties.

This stop at the News-Journal Center, 221 N. Beach St. in Daytona Beach, is just in time for the audience of tonight’s Capitol Steps performance at the facility. Other visitors can see the photographs for free during the center’s lobby hours throughout February.  Details of  “Faces of Ability” will be updated periodically at www.facesofability.org.

Media Contact:

Catherine Klasne,

(386) 212-7376

Write Result for Easter Seals

klasne@write-result.com

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