Peppermint Source: unpretentious, effective marketing

Article by Jo Duxbury

I’m not sure whether autocorrect or ignorance is to blame, but my social media feeds have been riddled with eyesores recently. As a grammar nerd, I can’t help but cringe to see very intelligent people making basic language mistakes. Sure, in some context a little leeway is fine – like in chatty, conversational tweets. But anything that’s put out there on behalf of your company, brand or even your own personal brand (like a link to your latest blog post) really should not contain errors like these…:

Reins (noun) / reigns (verb).

I see this one ALL the time. With homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently), if you’re speaking, nobody knows you’re misspelling your words. But write it down and you’d better (a) know that spelling variations can change meaning and (b) use the right version. A person does not take over the reigns of an agency – she takes over the reins (like a carriage driver controlling his horses). She might reign over it though (like a queen).

Vial (noun) / vile (adjective).

Another homophone. Correct use would be: “He poured the vile liquid into a glass vial.” Not “The leftovers I had for lunch were vial.”

[...]

Continue reading

When brands get it ‘disastrously’ wrong, online users are quick to point fingers and bay for blood. And yes, there are some basic marketing rules, let alone social media principles, that companies just don’t seem to comprehend. All brands should have a strategy and understand social media best practice if they want to go social.

But when a brand that usually does a stellar job online makes a mistake, should we not retain some perspective and cut them a little slack? (And let’s reserve the word ‘disaster’ for tsunamis and earthquakes, shall we?)

Much as they (and customers) would like to think they are, social media managers are usually not in complete control of their little online empires. Often, it’s when a social media strategy has been signed off and the channels are launched that the social media managers’ battles begin.

In the last year, the Mints have developed at least 15 social media and/or Facebook strategies for high profile brands. And sound as these strategies are, internal battles can prevent them from being implemented properly.

[...]

Continue reading

A personal note from Mint #1, Jo Duxbury:

The really cool thing about seeing my business grow is that I can now afford to do some of the things that I couldn’t during the Early, Lean Years (make that Very, Very Lean Years). Like pay myself a salary. Or buy nice chairs for the office that don’t cause back pain. Or support organisations who are doing amazing community work. And earlier this morning I snapped up a Groupon voucher for pampering treatments for ME, for a bargain R330 – because I work hard and deserve it.

But did you know that for just R40 more I could feed a child for a YEAR? [...]

Continue reading

[As published on BizCommunity:]

Continue reading

Peppermint Source was recently part of a multi-agency pitch team and we were represented at the presentation by Mint No. 2, Emily. Following several years in ad agencies, Emily is a bit of a pitch veteran, but she still learned something new from this experience.
Here are her take-aways:

1. For multi-agency pitches, when you meet the rest of the pitch team (at whatever stage), be genuinely nice and friendly – and be interested in every last one of them. You don’t know who you might be able to help out, and who might be able to support you.
2. Document everything. Make it clear what the pitch team is expecting from you, and what you’ll be delivering.
3. Pitches are incredibly time consuming. Even if you think you have a small role, it WILL mushroom. Make sure your other (paying client) work does not take a backseat – difficult to do when you’re under pitch pressure. [...]

Continue reading

Yesterday evening, Mint #3, Louis, ran his first client event since joining Peppermint Source. It was a pretty straightforward hour long industry briefing, topped and tailed with networking over drinks and canapés, held at the Pepper Club.

Louis managed to make it look effortless, but it’s taken him a good few weeks and a lot of work behind the scenes. The swan reference in the headline? Calm on the surface, paddling like mad underneath!

We asked him what his main event management lessons were from this project: [...]

Continue reading

This week we gave a big minty welcome to our newest recruit, Louis Nel. A real life rockstar, we’re sure he’s going to be a Peppermint star too in no time. He will be helping out with the day to day running of Freelancentral, as well as supporting the Peppermint Source team on our marketing, brand, social media and content strategy projects.

We asked him a few questions: [...]

Continue reading

UPDATE:  We have just hired a new team member, but are always looking for great people at all levels. If you’re interested in working with us, keep reading… [...]

Continue reading

We’ve had a busy few weeks, culminating last week in Jo presenting at the two Facebook Connects events in Jo’burg and Cape Town. Organised by the Habari Group, who is Facebook’s representative in South Africa, these events were platforms for local and international speakers to talk about what’s happening on the social media site – and showcase how it can be used effectively as part of a marketing mix. [...]

Continue reading

Emily Veitch has just joined the Peppermint Source team as a multi-talented writer, strategist and project manager.

She comes from an advertising background and has recently completed an Honours degree in Strategic Planning. (We admire anyone who manages to study while they’re working full time!) She’s interested in brand equity, contact management and design thinking and when she’s not working, you can find her running, cooking for and entertaining friends and family, or reading a good book in the sun. [...]

Continue reading

We’ve been meaning to show off our business cards on here for ages. A recent blogging competition run by Moo.com (who do our business card printing) gave us a good excuse to tell the story of how we came up with the idea for them – and how effective they are.

Which version is your favourite? The cupcake and mojito tend to be the most popular! [...]

Continue reading

[Jo wrote this article for ITWeb, published there this week.]

I see it time and again. A mid-sized company, say 20-30 staff, decides they want to start doing some marketing, or they’d like to refresh their current activities. They get all excited about it and have a lot of fun doing the cool things, like rebranding, or launching a new website. They may even have put a great strategy and implementation plan in place. But after a few of months, it’s all fizzled out. [...]

Continue reading

Considering the number of emails the average person receives daily, you’ve got to wonder how many actually make it past the ‘is this worth reading?’ filter. I know I’m pretty ruthless about what I read and what I delete. On a busy day, I’ll pretty much delete every newsletter I get in, regardless of whether I’ve specifically requested them or now. And even if I do open them, I’ll spend perhaps 10 seconds scanning them and if nothing catches my eye – ‘click’ – it’s gone.

We’ve been sending a monthly email newsletter out from Freelancentral religiously for four years now. It’s only since we recently switched to MailChimp that we’ve been able to get some great data on opens, clicks, etc. Our open rate is around 15%, which according to MailChimp is average for our industry.

But to me that seems low for a list where people have asked for the newsletter – we’ve not just added them at random. Every month we wonder whether it’s worth sending out the newsletter (it takes about a day to pull it together) and we’re constantly trying new ways of boosting the read rate, with groovy subject lines, great content and special offers. [...]

Continue reading

Thanks to Joey and Chandler on ‘Friends’ , we can’t possibly announce we’re off to London without adding ‘baby!’ on the end.

But yes, we’re off to London next week to meet and run Marketing Healthchecks with a couple of British clients who have realised that outsource their marketing to us is a great idea

So, if you are reading this from your own UK office, and are interested in the services we offer, please get in touch so we can come and have a chat with you while we’re in your neck of the woods.

Continue reading

Jo has just started a series of new columns on ITWeb, entitled ‘Marketing 101′. Starting with the basics, she’ll be covering a range of topics – aiming to demystify marketing. Check out the first column here.

Continue reading

Table Mountain, Cape Town - copyright Peppermint Source

In the week or two since Peppermint Source launched, we’ve been thrilled to have been approached by two London-based companies to discuss how they can outsource their regular marketing communications to us here in South Africa.

With advances in internet and other communication technologies, it no longer matters where you are in the world. But does South Africa in particular appeal to UK and US clients as an outsourcing option? Here’s what we think:

• The exchange rate. Today, US$1 will buy you 7.59 South African Rands (ZAR) and a British pound is worth ZAR12.02. Simply, your money will go further. Check the latest exchange rates here.

• English. Many South Africans speak English as their first language, and many more speak it fluently as a second or third language (or even 11th… did you know we have 11 official language here?!). We use British English here, but are totally comfortable writing for North American audiences too.

• Cultural similarities. OK, so we call a barbecue a ‘braai’ and are very proud of being part of Africa and all its traditions, but in business, our culture is very similar to that of the UK or North America.

• Longitude. There’s only a one- or two-hour difference between the UK and South Africa, depending on the time of year. There’s a good eight-hour window where you and your outsourced team will be at work at the same time. And for our North American friends, you can brief us in the afternoon and know that the work will be in your inbox by the time you get to work the next morning [...]

Continue reading

We’re featured on the BizCommunity home page today!

Click here to read the article.

Continue reading

We’ve had a few freelance marketing people contact us asking how they can be listed as part of our ‘source’. It’s simple – just sign up on www.freelancentral.co.za and make sure that you specify your skills.

If you’re a marketer, the CONSULTING, STRATEGY and ACCOUNT HANDLING sections will probably be most applicable to you. Be sure to add some information in your profile (work history, etc.) so that we know what you’re all about. [...]

Continue reading

We’re thrilled to announce that the Peppermint Source website launches officially today!

Although we’ve been providing a number of clients with outsourced marketing  management services for nearly a year now, it’s time we formalised this and launched it as a division of Freelancentral. [...]

Continue reading

Dynamite comes in small packages… it’s the small things that count… Yes, it’s true – little things can make a difference to your business. And when it comes to marketing, there are some small, quick and inexpensive things you can do to increase your company’s impact.

Here are our favourites – and they all relate to carrying your brand values through in all your interactions with clients: [...]

Continue reading

There’s a great article on FreelanceSwitch today, addressing the questions you should ask yourself if you are thinking about outsourcing.

Interestingly, a lot of the ‘challenges’ the article brings up – particularly in questions 2, 3 and 4 – are the very things that we take off your hands at Peppermint Source. [...]

Continue reading

Marketing. It’s a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many business owners. It conjures up images of posh ad agencies and achingly trendy creatives; and meetings peppered with jargon like ‘integrated campaigns’, ‘sticky strategies’ and ‘monetising your online presence’. Shudder.

All this can understandably make you run away very fast – and rather try to handle your marketing yourself. Tempting as this is, just don’t do it. Why? [...]

Continue reading