A Unicyclist With a Clown Phobia

May 31, 2011

Bekah NeuWhen Assistant Office Manager Bekah Neu does something, she’s dedicated to it. Like playing piano, which she’s been doing for 17 years. Or being in a unicycle club for five years, which still wasn’t long enough to get over her fear of clowns. She also spent a month studying in Greece, which is pretty impressive. And, she loves being adventurous outdoors (water-skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing, camping, etc.), which are activities that take some serious dedication.

Lucky for us, Bekah chose to stick with us, too. After as a stint as an office intern this spring while she was attending Augustana College, Bekah is now the assistant office manager at HenkinSchultz. From now on, we’re hoping our office events will be even more fabulous—Bekah’s dream job is being a destination wedding planner. That means she’ll plan an office trip to Hawaii for us. Right, Bekah?

Bekah likes her people a lot like her activities—adventurous and explosive. She cites Frank Sinatra’s charismatic and explosive personality as an example of someone she finds interesting. But hey, we think we fit that bill, too. You know what? She’s going to fit right in.

By betsy

Filed Under HenkinSchultz

Don’t Be Content With Your Old Web Content Strategy

May 17, 2011

Here’s an impressive fact, straight from Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt: every two days, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization until 2003.

Whoa. Mind. Blown.

Because of the Internet, people can access and share information more easily than ever, and they don’t want us to waste their time. As advertisers, our websites have to be good—make that really, really great—to get our customers’ attention among massive volumes of information. We have to think of the best way a website’s content helps customers, which will make a business achieve its goals.

That’s what we call content strategy management. Now, that’s a very simplified definition, but make no mistake: it’s a big deal for the future of websites, social media and everything else online.

The Old Way of Creating Content
Last week, I attended Confab, a content strategy conference in Minneapolis, Minn., and it motivated me to further understand the complexities of web content strategy. To understand why web content strategy is important, we talked a lot about how businesses created websites in the past. A business owner said, “I need a website!” without really knowing the purpose for it. A web designer laid out the website, and a copywriter filled in the blanks later. Often, this process resulted in extreme frustration, rewriting and redesigning. And that’s a lot of inefficiency, wasted time and lost revenue.

The New Way of Creating Content
With the glut of information out there, the old method doesn’t work anymore. Customers have many, many options, so if you’re not giving them the substance they need, they’ll go somewhere else. Plus, many alternatives are available to get your message out there—your website, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and much more. Each one has to be carefully considered if it will help achieve your business’s goals. It’s not great to have a Twitter account just because you can. It should have a specific goal that meets your customers’ needs.

The quality of the content is what’s important. Think about who your customers are and what they want; then build your content around their needs. Luckily at HenkinSchultz, our process has always started with the message and the content. Thinking about content strategy has made us even more determined to be deliberate about content and our customers’ needs.

By amie

Filed Under Technology, The Process

Eye-Catching and Award-Winning

May 6, 2011

Building Hope Gala Invite

Last year, we were pretty stoked about winning some Aster Awards, so we decided to show off our goods again this year. For our creative efforts, we recently pulled in eight 2011 Aster Awards, which are only given to the most outstanding healthcare advertising campaigns in the nation.

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By amie

Filed Under Advertising, Marketing, HenkinSchultz

Spotlight on Our Thinkers: Mark Johnson

May 3, 2011

Mark Johnson, a producer, videographer, video editor and audio engineer at HenkinSchultz, has had a full, rich career in broadcasting and advertising that’s been possible because of sheer talent, creativity and humor, And, if we’re honest, a little bit of luck. We’re taking a look at how Mark has made such a successful advertising career for himself in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Mark Johnson

In more than 35 years in the business, Mark has:

  • voiced more than 40,000 radio and TV spots
  • written and produced 5,000 TV spots
  • served as the spokesman for 250 TV commercials
  • appeared in over 2 dozen live TV commercials
  • emceed several March of Dimes telethons and live broadcasts

Because of his laudable career longevity and the significant amount of work he’s produced, Mark received the South Dakota Advertising Federation’s Creative Legacy Award in 2010. Mark, who was pleasantly surprised and humbled to receive the award, attributes the honor to luck—he’s been at the right places at the right times in his career.

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By amie

Filed Under HenkinSchultz