A company’s marketing is usually done by one of two groups—an internal marketing team or an integrated marketing agency that is hired by the company. I’m sure there are some exceptions, but most brands fall into one of those two buckets; however, marketing software is carving out a growing piece of marketing budgets. Automation is a wonderful thing, and as marketing becomes more analytics and results based, automation gets easier. Agencies and marketing teams aren’t anywhere near being replaced by computers (but I guess it’s possible in the future), but software can really change how brands approach their marketing. Aprimo is an Indianapolis, IN based company that provides integrated marketing software. They serve both B2B and B2C clients with software that aids in areas including “campaign management, lead management, brand management, e-mail marketing, event management, performance management, social marketing, spend management, and workflow & project management.” Continue reading about Aprimo…
I just spent a wonderful Memorial Day weekend in Denver, CO, and now I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight back. I walked in to see a huge line for people checking bags, and I got a little discouraged. Luckily, I thought fast and checked in on my phone and went right to the bag drop area (with a short stop to fix a server problem that caused the site to be down earlier this morning) where there was no line. At some point during that process, I managed to get upgraded to a seat with more legroom. That also allowed me to check my bag for free and get the word “Plus” stamped on my boarding pass. I don’t know why Frontier Airlines is treating me so well since I booked the flight on a discount site, which usually means that I get stuck with a middle seat. Since Frontier is treating me so well for no good reason, I thought that I might as well see what kind of internships they have. It’s my first time flying Frontier, probably because I usually travel east of the Mississippi (and they fly mostly west of it as they’re currently headquartered in Denver, but allegedly moving to Indianapolis, IN), but I figure that you gotta love an airline that has a different wild animal on the tail of each of its aircraft. Frontier also apparently offers in-flight television in the seat backs, so maybe I’ll get some good daytime tv watching in during my flight. Continue reading about Frontier Airlines…
I love Memorial Day because it comes with so many traditions. Obviously its initial (and most important) purpose is to honor our fallen heroes, but it’s also the official start of summer for most Americans. That’s why I took some time this morning to read up on Memorial Day traditions. In past years I’ve featured Weber-Stephen and the National Park Service, but today we’re going to focus on a late May tradition that I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know was linked to Memorial Day Weekend—the Indy 500. I’m obviously not a race fan, but I think that you’ve gotta respect the fact that they can fill up a stadium with people who want to watch a bunch of guys (and 4 girls) in fast cars make a lot of left turns. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway plays host to the Indy 500 every year along with the Brickyard 400 and the Red Bull Indianapolis GP. The facility has been around since 1909, and the Indy 500 is coming up on its centennial in 2011. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway also happens to be the “largest spectator sporting facility in the world.” Continue reading about Indianapolis Motor Speedway…
If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, what would you do? I bet many of you would get on the computer, type your symptoms into Google, and probably end up on WebMD trying to self-diagnose. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (maybe we should leave the diagnosing for the doctors), but it’s how most of us operate these days. We have a remarkable amount of medical information available at our fingertips, and WebMD, which is based in NYC with a significant presence in a number of other cities, is responsible for a lot of it. They consider themselves “the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, other healthcare professionals, employers and health plans.” If you read that closely, you probably noticed that WebMD’s business goes well beyond their consumer facing website. Continue reading about WebMD…
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, which means that it’s time to talk about internships in football (we’ve featured NFL internship in addition to a few other cool opportunities). Since it’s our practice to feature non-profits on the weekend, I started browsing around the NFL’s Join the Team site, which features all of the league’s charitable work. One of the things that I came across was the Play It Smart program, which partners “academic coaches with student-athletes in order to, ‘take a student-athlete’s passion for sports and intense dedication to their team and transform it into a force for greater good in their lives.’” It’s a partnership between the NFL Youth Football Fund and the National Football Foundation. I decided to focus on the latter, as they’re exactly what I was looking for—a football related non-profit. The organization’s full name is The National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. The Foundation is located in Irving, TX, while the Hall of Fame is located in South Bend Indiana. The organization’s mission is “to promote and develop the power of amateur football in developing the qualities of leadership, sportsmanship, competitive zeal and the drive for academic excellence in America’s young people.” Continue reading about National Football Foundation…
A couple of days ago the blogosphere exploded (pun intended) with news about bomb proof wallpaper. The story originally came from Popular Science with a video of a wrecking ball trying to knock down a brick wall that has been reinforced with the X-Flex Blast Protection System (the video is included below). I always love news stories like this one, because it puts the spotlight on a company that you never would have otherwise. In this case it’s Berry Plastics, an Evansville, IN based plastics company. Their products range from agricultural films to plastic bottles and from drink cups to trash bags. There’s a good chance that you have dozens of items in your house/dorm/apartment that were manufactured by Berry Plastics—you just don’t know it because most people don’t care who manufactured their shampoo bottles. Continue reading about Berry Plastics…
I think that e-mail is still the king of social media. We have all of these fancy social networking accounts, but they all send their notifications to our inboxes. If you want someone’s attention, e-mail is the way to go (assuming your message doesn’t look like spam). Heck, you’re probably reading this in your e-mail. That’s why e-mail marketing continues to be a rapidly growing industry. Over on One Day, One Job we’ve already taken a look at jobs with Constant Contact, Aweber, and e-Dialog, and now we’re going to look at an industrial strength e-mail marketing company, ExactTarget. They’re based in Indianapolis, and since 2000 they’ve been focused on “providing the most powerful on-demand software for email communications and finding the best and brightest marketers on the planet to revolutionize the way people think about email.” Continue reading about ExactTarget…
Today is the last day to enter our Maghound Your Way to a New Job contest. With so few entries so far, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll win a one-year subscription to an awesome new magazine subscription service (3 monthly magazines for free!).
I’m still on my Inc. 5000 kick, and today we’re looking at a company whose name immediately caught my eye. They’re called College Hunks Hauling Junk, and that’s exactly what they are. Omar Soliman wanted to make some money during the summer, so he borrowed his mom’s cargo van to start hauling away people’s junk. He then entered his business plan in the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition and won the $10,000 first prize. He realized that he had a business that he could grow, and now College Hunks Hauling Junk is doing $2.9 million in revenue. Guess that’s why Omar and his co-founder Nick were named (also by Inc.) as Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30. College Hunks Hauling Junk is headquartered in Tampa, FL, but through expansion and franchising they now operate in Anne Arundel, MD; Baltimore/Howard County, MD; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Indianapolis, IN; Little Rock, AR; Los Angeles, CA; Louisville, KY; Orange County, CA; Orlando, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Richmond, VA; San Francisco/San Jose, CA; Tampa Bay, FL; and Washington, DC Metro. Continue reading about College Hunks Hauling Junk…
After I graduated from college, I decided to take a responsible approach to my personal finances (and I wish I had done it sooner, so all of you current students listen up). It took me a while to get my act together, but once I did I started investing in the stock market through Scottrade, an online discount brokerage company that is headquartered in St. Louis, MO. (And before I go on with more information about Scottrade’s jobs, I need to give Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich
