Blog | Communication Works RI, Inc.

Netty Award Winner: Communication Works Powers Rhode Island’s Economic Revival with ShopLocalRI.com

Netty Award Winner: Communication Works Powers Rhode Island’s Economic Revival with ShopLocalRI.com

The distinguished Netty Awards, a platform that appreciates and honors exceptional contributions in the digital realm, has celebrated ShopLocalRI.com (SLRI) – an extraordinary multi-media advertising/marketing/PR campaign by Communication Works RI – for its pioneering approach to e-commerce. This venture has not only injected life into the Rhode Island (RI) small business scene during trying times but has also set a precedent for other regions looking to fortify their local economies. Join us as we dive deep into this award-winning project’s unique attributes that earned it the title of “Best eCommerce Website” of the year.

Innovation and Differentiation

SLRI’s innovation lies in its dual-angled approach. By presenting clients both as products and leveraging the groundbreaking e-commerce platform, it has exponentially boosted B2B and B2C engagements. Established against the backdrop of a pandemic-induced economic slump, founder Lori Guittari set SLRI’s mission: to foster a spirit of community-building and facilitate small business growth.

Endorsed early on by notable figures like Gina Raimondo, RI’s former Governor and now the US Secretary of Commerce, this platform started as a lifeline for local businesses during COVID, offering them a digital storefront. Transitioning from a comprehensive business directory, it has evolved into a full-fledged e-commerce marketplace that distinguishes itself by maintaining affordable costs for sellers and delivering a seamless shopping experience.

Measurable Impact and Success

The inception of SLRI during the COVID crisis was a turning point for countless small businesses that faced economic hardships. With a relentless commitment to community-building and local patronage, SLRI has showcased measurable market expansion since its inception. The budding interest from two West Coast cities is a testament to its scalability and wide-reaching impact.

Notable statistics include:

2,500+ weekly newsletter readers
2,000+ Instagram followers
2,072 businesses registered on the platform
450+ products available for purchase

Creative Elements and Execution

In an era when small businesses were grappling with lost sales opportunities due to COVID, ShopLocalRI.com emerged as a beacon of hope. It has provided vendors a streamlined process to present, promote, and deliver their products, while shoppers benefit from a consolidated, user-friendly platform.

Beyond mere transactions, SLRI has instituted monthly forums for business learning, fostering a communal space for entrepreneurs to share their journeys and connect with potential customers. Their content-rich approach, with long-form storytelling and sponsorship opportunities, further bridges the gap between larger enterprises and smaller businesses.

Overall Excellence and Industry Advancement

SLRI’s footprint in the media landscape is undeniable. Garnering attention from varied media houses, ranging from lifestyle magazines to business publications, its influence is widespread. On a shoestring budget, it has managed to capture the attention of audiences, both B2B and B2C, earning accolades and sponsorships. The national buzz surrounding the platform is a clear indicator of its transformative potential, making it a model for economic rejuvenation post-pandemic.

About Communication Works RI

For over three decades, Communication Works, Inc. has been at the forefront of multimedia, integrated marketing, and public relations. Under the visionary leadership of Founder/President Debra T. Morais, they have championed building lasting relationships with clients, ensuring meaningful engagements that transcend mere sales metrics. Deb’s illustrious career has seen her being conferred with titles like “Ad Person of the Year” and “RI Small Business Development Center Woman in Business Advocate of the Year”. Her contributions to academia, media, and public outreach, such as “Law Matters”, make her a stalwart in the industry.

About The Netty Awards

The Netty Awards are the gold standard in the digital world, spotlighting unmatched excellence in creativity, innovation, and execution. As one of the most trusted award organizations in the industry, these accolades champion pioneers who redefine the digital landscape, be it through web design, e-commerce, or standout marketing campaigns. Gaining recognition at The Netty Awards is not only an honor but also a testament to a project’s significance and influence in the competitive digital realm.

Congratulations to Communication Works RI on this well-deserved recognition at the Netty Awards. ShopLocalRI.com stands as a testament to their dedication, creativity, and commitment to community empowerment. We eagerly anticipate more groundbreaking projects from this dynamic team in the future.

By admin| 2023-10-16T12:52:18-04:00 September 27th, 2023|News|Comments Off

Distrust in Media and Advertising

Trust in the media has always been an issue; imagine rebuilding trust in the digital world.

Imagine this: the digital media that launched a million leaks, unverified information, and outright lies could be the source of rebuilding trust between the consuming audience and media outlets as well as brands.

When newspapers ruled the earth prior to the digital age, reporters checked their facts before submitting their news stories and editors vetted the information before ink hit the page. Digital editions of newspapers pushed deadlines to not just a given hour but to the minute, every minute of every day. Being first matters more than being correct. And, breaking news is often neither.

Many know that “truth in advertising” has been a long-standing mantra; just as many believe that truth in advertising is an oxymoron, at least at times. In traditional print, broadcast and now digital media, creative license grants leeway to undeserved superlatives, hyperbole, and poor grammar. Photographers and videographers capture reality, and myriad digital programs easily and instantly alter it at the designers’ whim as they create effective messages.

Photographs for news or editorial support and for advertising currently suffer the same fate in the digital world. In both instances, the use of Photoshop prompts questions of the source’s integrity, and images’ authenticity. After all, it is used for more than merely a digital photo’s color or exposure correction.

Once upon a time, truth in the news was not disputed, and now it is daily. Advertising was held suspect, and with good reason. As a result, advertising was not usually trusted, but news was. Now, neither is trusted.

Information is collected from nearly every keyboard and mouse click, and from every news outlet, industry organization, and online retailer. Yet, even digitally collected data, big data, can go globally awry, leading to ads being served to highly targeted audiences in the wrong language. How likely would you be to believe the news report or buy the product if you cannot trust what was presented?

And yet, it is digital technology that is also the source of restoring confidence and rebuilding trust. Technological advances that empower the consuming public to control their experiences by virtual reality, wearable technology, and responsive devices are game-changers. As they use these and other yet–unknown opportunities to build connections to its audiences, it also creates an opportunity to build trust based on that personal experience. While technology may never replace human intelligence and insights, each iteration has the potential to build that bond incrementally.

By admin| 2017-06-19T12:30:01-04:00 June 19th, 2017|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Social Media Marketing and Pinterest
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Social Media Marketing and Pinterest

Social Media Marketing and Pinterest

In the world of Social Media Marketing, Pinterest is an interesting beast. Corporations and more conservative organizations (banks, law firms, etc.) are typically under the impression that it isn’t the outlet for them. And on the face of it, that’s true. If your site or blog isn’t the type to generally include a lot of images then you may think that Pinterest is no place for you. After all, Pinterest is essentially an image search engine.

However, there are ways to make Pinterest work for your organization, regardless of your type of business.

This first step may seem obvious – but you’ll need to add a few images to your website and/or blog. Even if your subject matter is very technical or clinical, you can still find stock images to use online and create a Pinterest-worthy image. Using free programs like Canva.com you can create and edit images to add to your blog posts. Canva even has a helpful feature that will allow you to create images in the size that typically get the highest engagement on Pinterest.

Once you’ve created your image, you’ll want to upload it to your site or blog, making sure to give it a name and alt tags that will be helpful to search engines.

Pinterest Strategy

If you aren’t already using Pinterest you’ll want to create an account and begin following other users. Then create boards of your own. For example, if you handle marketing for a law office you will want to create one board for your organization’s blog posts (“XYZ Law Blog”) and then create boards for other topics that might be of interest.

A law firm that handles family law, for example, may create boards (and re-pin content from other users) about parenting and weddings. This is because your blog posts may touch on topics such as how to handle custody situations or how to effectively blend families (parenting), or perhaps you’ll be blogging about broaching the topic of getting a pre-nuptial agreement before a wedding (by the way, the answer is: very delicately). These are posts that may seem a bit sterile for Pinterest at first glance, but if you’re re-pinning content about those broad topics (parenting and weddings) from other users, your posts will blend right in and be considered a great resource.

By admin| 2017-05-22T09:53:12-04:00 April 18th, 2017|Digital Marketing, Social Media|Comments Off

2017 Digital Marketing Trends
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2017 Digital Marketing Trends

2017 Digital Marketing Trends

We’re just a couple of weeks into 2017 and it’s becoming clear that there are some major digital marketing trends that will carry over from 2016 and drastically affect the industry’s landscape and methodologies for the year. These trends aren’t necessarily surprising – marketing automation has been huge for a couple of years and Facebook has been promoting their video feature for a few months – but they’re certainly going to be making a much larger impact on the marketing landscape and the way marketers do business over the coming months.

Facebook Live

Attempting to increase organic reach on Facebook is every marketer’s Achilles Heel. With updates to the algorithm so frequently that it can be a job in and of itself to stay on top of the changes, many brands and organizations have resigned themselves to simply paying to boost posts and giving up on organic reach all together – but there’s a better, or at least another, way.

Last year it became apparent that Facebook was trying to get into the content game – not by creating their own content, but by becoming the go-to destination for users to view content across a variety of sources. With this shift came significant changes in the algorithm, including a huge bump in video posts. This is because Facebook wants users to remain on their site for as long as possible, and people are much more likely to watch the duration of a 2-minute video than they are to click away from the site to read a 600-word article. As a result of creating a piece of content that keeps users on the site, Facebook rewards those content creators with a higher reach on that particular piece of content.

The next phase of the video evolution on Facebook has been, of course, the push to Facebook Live – if a pre-recorded video does a good job of attracting viewers, a livestreaming event will theoretically keep their rapt attention (due to ever-present social media dilemma of FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out).

Facebook initially limited the success of Facebook Live by having it available only on the mobile app – but they’ve since rectified that by releasing Facebook Live for Desktop at the end of 2016.

Working with Co-Creators and Influencers

In a time when marketing every brand is trying to increase their reach and brand recognition, one of the best ways to do this is by partnering with co-creators or influencers. If you can afford it, partnering with influencers is a great way to accomplish this goal. Influencers are influencers because… well, they influence. They have a developed audience that trusts their recommendations and, depending on who you’re working with, their audience-base can range from devoted to downright fanatic in their loyalty. However, that loyalty comes at a price, and the larger and more devoted their audience, the more it will cost you to work with them.

Another option is to work with co-creators. One of the ways that brands are beginning to effectively utilize the co-creator method is to run contests where fans of their brands use their products to create something unique and then ask their personal network of family and friends to vote on their contest entry. By doing this it costs the brand next to nothing to have their product – and a vast array of uses for it – promoted to thousands of people.

Cross-Medium Marketing

Finally, one of the trends that digital marketers will be diving in to in 2017 is working to seamlessly use their data and content across various mediums, and then segment their audiences. By this we mean ensuring that they have email addresses for their social media followers (so that they can send them newsletters), and social media handles for their email subscribers (to keep them engaged with daily content). Many will be segmenting their audience based on traditional demographics or by trigger-events.

Expect that much of this work will take place with marketing automation tools that will capture when an email is opened, what data is already on file for the contact, and continue to populate their profile. From there, automation tools will allow marketers to analyze what types of content resonate best with each specific audiences.

By admin| 2017-05-22T09:53:12-04:00 January 16th, 2017|Digital Marketing|Comments Off