The conference is being held at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina.

Karen will be speaking on Saturday from 9:15am until 10:45am. She will share helpful tools that you can use to manage your company’s online presence — from your corporate website to your social media sites.

For more information about the MFSA Conference , you can visit their website at http://www.mfsanet.org

The conference is being held at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina.

John will be speaking from 10:45 am until noon. He will provide compelling content to help build the business case for making  social media and mobile marketing part of your sales and marketing strategies. He will demonstrate how you can use these channels to increase awareness and demand, as well as to generate leads and to build client relationships.

For more information about the MFSA Conference , you can visit their website at http://www.mfsanet.org

            On May 3, 2010 Mark McIntosh assumed the role of President at interlinkONE, Inc. Prior to this Mr. McIntosh was an interlinkONE customer at Cedar Graphics, in Hiawatha, IA, where he held the position of Director of Fulfillment Solutions. I sat down with Mr. McIntosh to ask him a few questions about his transition: 

Q: How has your first week in Massachusetts been?

A: It’s been a blur! I’ve set up temporary accommodations and hit the ground running! It’s been very humbling and flattering. I’m quite impressed with everyone I’ve met.

Q: How has your transition from Iowa to Massachusetts gone thus far?

A: Iowa and Massachusetts are actually very similar. In fact, Wilmington reminds me of my hometown, especially with all the woods around. We get the same weather, just three days later, because we’re on the same line of latitude. In the Midwest people from the east coast are stereotyped as rude; I’ve found it to be quite the contrary.

Q: Is there anything that borderline scares you about Massachusetts?

A: The cost of living! It makes me sick to my stomach!

Q: What do you think the biggest challenge facing the printing industry is?

A: The printing industry is slow to adapt to market changes. It needs to transition into offering more value added services. By embracing customer needs the printing industry could alleviate having to play a pricing game.

Q: What should the printing industry focus on or improve upon in the next couple of years?

A: Marketing technologies could greatly benefit the printing industry. More specifically, an integrated communications system could help printers to better manage their data, digital assets, and campaigns. Going further, the printing industry must learn to embrace the distribution of multimedia communications.

Q: What is your vision for interlinkONE?

A: Growth. Period. Plain and simple. interlinkONE is poised for growth. 

Q: What do you feel you bring to interlinkONE?

A: I bring my many experiences in sales, marketing, and management. In addition, I am a four year user of the product! I feel like the Governor-Elect going to represent the people of the market. I credit interlinkONE for my success at Cedar Graphics.

Q: What are you hoping to achieve at interlinkONE?

A: I have three main goals: to expand product offerings into more markets, to maintain a leadership role in the market place, as well as to exceed all customer expectations.

         I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Mr. McIntosh. We, at interlinkONE, are very excited to have him on our team! He is going to be a great asset to interlinkONE and its customers.

We are happy to announce a new hiring that has strengthened the leadership of interlinkONE. Mark McIntosh has been hired to assume the role of president for interlinkONE. McIntosh succeeds John Foley, Jr., who founded the company and remains CEO of interlinkONE. McIntosh will assume the role effective May 3rd, 2010.

McIntosh brings vast leadership and management experience to his new role as President, as well as a deep working knowledge of the print industry and a history of achievements in both sales and marketing. Formerly director of fulfillment solutions for Cedar Graphics, Inc. in Hiawatha, Iowa, McIntosh was responsible for developing business and product strategy, identifying operational efficiencies, and helping the company move to offering a complete portfolio of marketing services.

“Mark McIntosh is a proven leader. His reputation as an astute business person and forward-thinker is well known throughout this industry. His experience in developing innovative sales and marketing support solutions, coupled with his experience implementing our software solution at Cedar Graphics, makes him the perfect choice for moving our company to the next level,” said John Foley, Jr.

Prior to joining Cedar Graphics, McIntosh held the position of vice president of sales for The AdTrack Corporation, a provider of customized lead management systems. McIntosh oversaw all aspects of the company’s sales process with regard to expansion and retention of national accounts, account implementation, and development of all sales support materials. In his 16-year career at The AdTrack Corporation, McIntosh began as a director of call center services and quickly rose through the ranks to take the vice president title in 1996.  

        Highlights:

• Mark McIntosh: New President of interlinkONE
• Years of Experience in Sales & Marketing
• Successfully Managed Print & Fulfillment Operations

             In a world of change you must have a willingness to make change. According to Harold Wilson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” People fear and reject change because they fear the unknown and being vulnerable. Take, for example, the internet. When the internet initially went mainstream it was rejected as a fad. We all know how that played out. Like the internet, social media is not going anywhere. It will persist and eventually be outplayed by a new form of communication. The world of communication will continue to change and we will have to adapt in order to keep our businesses viable. Will you keep up? Your business depends upon it!

Isn’t it nice when two of your favorite things come together?

• Hassan Igram is the President & CEO of  Cedar Graphics.  (We are very happy to disclose/note that Cedar Graphics has been an interlinkONE customer for a number of years.)
• WhatTheyThink is one of our favorite websites – in fact, it’s a must-read-on-a-daily-basis.

Today, there is new video on WhatTheyThink featuring Hassan Igram. He takes a few moments to speak on the subject of how to use integrated marketing for your own business. Hassan describes campaigns that Cedar Graphics has done, as well as how they have had success delivering and measuring integrated marketing campaigns for their clients.

Click here to enjoy the video.

To put it mildly, it was one of the best shows that we have exhibited at.  The booth was packed with visitors throughout the 3-day show. We even had to print (and do an overnight shipment) to keep up with the demand for our printed collateral.

We look forward to getting in touch with everyone that requested a demo or just more information about our marketing software.

One of the highlights of the show was when Julie Sullivan from Wilde delivered a wonderful presentation on “Successfully Delivering Multi-Channel Marketing Solutions”. Our CEO, John Foley, Jr. was her co-presenter.

In case you missed it — or if you just want to see it again — we are happy to say that the slides are now available.

Head on over to our special “OnDemand Resources” site to download the presentation, along with a number of other free resources.

Enjoy!

There are many different events occurring today to commemorate the official date of Earth Day.  From concerts to movies to good ol’ fashioned picnics and more…

Of course, people and companies are truly trying to promote “greener” practices throughout the year. At interlinkONE, we truly do strive to do the best we can in that regard to.

But on this special day, we wanted to share with you a few ways that our marketing software may be able to help support your “green” initiatives.

Take a moment to download our “interlinkONE’s Green Solutions” brochure… It’s free! Enjoy, and have a great day.

I promise – I really intended to take a picture of the whole pizza. But, I became caught up in excitement from the moment it was delivered to my table, and as you can see, I was a few slices-in-the-hole by the time I remembered to pull out my iPhone.

The pizza in the picture above is from one of my favorite restaurants – Flatbread. (Go ahead – Light the oven and enter.)

They do many things well. Here are a few lessons that I have learned from watching them that could be useful for all businesses.

The Product is the Best

When it comes to marketing, we naturally do whatever we can to make people believe our product or service is exactly what they need. It is our job. We need to create awareness and demand. Of course, we never want to overlook this fact —- our product/service should truly be better than what the competition has!

Once you’ve eaten Flatbread’s pizza, all other pizza places sink down a level. Sure, you may need to go to other places every once in a while for convenience’s sake, or even perhaps due to cost. But you will always know that the product is not as good as it could be.

Along with the quality, Flatbread keeps their product fresh and unique. Every week they provide two different specials – one in the carne department, and the other for veggies. I’ve eaten there many times, and am always excited about their latest twist.

How often do you find ways to spice up your product or service offering?

Personality, Galore

The people that work at Flatbread are amazing. You will never feel intimidated when it comes to asking questions. They also put forth a tremendous amount of effort to reach out to you while you’re there. I can personally speak for the Flatbread in Burlington, MA — the owner/manager during the mid-week deserves an award and a raise. Now.

Also, the setup of Flatbread allows you to have visibility to all of their employees — from the servers to the chefs to the bartenders and to management.

When it comes to our business, we all have a tremendous opportunity to humanize our brand. Thanks to technology and marketing channels, we can all easily create and distribute content that features people from all of the various departments in our company. It might be in the form of videos, pictures, blog posts, podcasts, and other methods.

Are you fully taken advantage of opportunities to promote your company’s personality?

Keep in Touch with Me

Flatbread sends out a weekly newsletter. Primarily, I look forward to it to hear what the new specials are for the week. But they also do a great job providing news on special events and other causes that are important to them.

Newsletters are easy to send out! Sure, if we are starting  from scratch, we may need to make a push to develop some content. However, it’s not only doable, but it’s also very important. Sending out a newsletter on a regular basis to subscribers is one of the best ways to stay in front of your prospects and customers.

While we are there, John Foley Jr., President and CEO of interlinkONE, inc. along with Julie Sullivan Vice President of Marketing at W.A. Wilde Company will be speaking at the On Demand Expo on Tuesday, April 20th from 1:00pm- 1:50pm on the subject of  “Successfully Delivering Multi-Channel Marketing Solutions”.

Here is an overview of what they will be discussing:

As printers make the transition to marketing service providers, they are discovering that for a marketing campaign to be truly effective, multiple channels must be used. This session explores how W.A. Wilde Company is making multi-touch marketing a reality-from print, to interactive, to mobile, and more.

For more information about the On Demand Expo, you can visit their website at http://www.ondemandexpo.com/