Seeking new paths to success - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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A marketing firm has decided it’se time to market itself. A chemica manufacturer sees potential in environmentallyfriendlg products. A fitness club chain that’s alreadyu doing well still sees a chancr to perform even better by forging partnershipas withhealth insurers. And an area bank is findinf that the financial crisis has created a new playing fiels inits industry. Maybe it’s all but the economic downturn appears to be spurrinfgsome innovation. Dyvig, Driver, Devine Inc. Fred at marketing firm Dyvig, Driver, Devine Inc., has been telling clientsx for months that a recessioh is a time to spendr moreon advertising, not less.
Now Driver and his Megan Devine and Maureen are putting their money where theirmouthu is. The firm, which does business as d.tripo marketing group, has spen t $7,000 to market itself to prospectivwe clients. “If you’re a marketingh company, you sometimes forget to market yourself,” Driver “You’re so focused on doing what your customersw need that you forget to follow your own And we try not to fall intothat trap.” The Minneapolis-basedx firm stepped up newspaper advertising (including in this and launched a direct-mail campaign to abouf 1,000 Twin Cities-area businesses.
“We did get responsesd from boththe [ad] and the mailing, and we’rwe following up on those right now. So marketing works! Imaginew that,” Driver said. So far this year, revenue is down compared to wherd it was ayear before, but Drive r has noticed that the difference is less in receny months. Even as business Driver sees the firm needing to make astrategiv choice. Much of dtrio’s business involves direct-mail and e-mail but more clients are expressinyg interest in onlinesocial media. Drivefr and his partners are debating whether they should hire socialo media experts or partner with another firm that already has experience inthe area.
“We will be more integrated. We will be more The question ishow far.” Sales at Delano-based Seacole-CRC are stilpl down compared to where they were a year ago, but CEO Greggf Elliott has noticed the gap narrowing over the past There’s been an uptickm in some business sectors. One area has been strong for Seacole-CRC: environmentallh friendly products, especially industrial cleaning, automobile maintenancs and railroad maintenance products that areless toxic. “We’v e been working on those productsfor years, but recently it seema there’s been a real need in the marketplace for Elliott said.
“We go in and show our sales literaturer to some of the customersand they’re very anxious to know aboug it and very anxious to try Elliott thinks the increased interesgt in such products may be the resulg of manufacturers taking a second look at their processes and finding that there are more environmentall friendly chemicals that also save them mone y in the long run. “They’re less hazardous to the They don’t have to maybe do as much wast treatment. You have less exposure to employees inthe Overall, there’s a lower cost of usintg these products.
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