Eastern CT – The Chamber of Commerce of Eastern CT has announced that it is partnering with Miranda Creative, Inc. to present a series of workshops and seminars that will help educate the region’s business community through 2017 and beyond.
Built around the theme of ‘Passport to a More Profitable Business,’ these workshops are ideal for small business owners and staff in marketing, advertising, public relations, and more to attend, covering a variety of topics relevant for many skill sets and experience levels. Each session is led by marketing experts from Miranda Creative, who will help your business reach new audiences effectively on a budget, as well as attract guests to attend events.
Destinations for the workshops include Branding, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Effective Graphic Design for Digital and Traditional Platforms, Website Best Practices, Web Content, and Digital Conversions.
The full workshop lineup includes:
- January: "BrAnD: 10 Things to Consider before Creating a Brand" with Carissa Decelles (Graphic Designer) and Kayla Hedman (Brand Manager). This presentation will cover design philosophy for creating a brand, how to create and manage brand standards, and things you should be researching before committing to a company name and logo.
- February: "FOUND: 5 Ways to be Discovered in the New Era of Search" with Brian Pearson and Kayla Hedman. This presentation will cover best practices for Search Engine Optimization on websites, Google search via Google My Business profiles, managing your profiles and reputation on review sites (Yelp, etc.), planning AdWord Search Network campaigns via keywords, and best practices for naming to remain consistent throughout search engines and social media.
- March: "SOC: Establishing Your Business on Social Media" with Kayla Hedman and Eric Tetreault (New Media Manager). This presentation will cover how to get a business on social media, what channels to consider for reaching your audience, completing profiles, how to grow a following, and how to create content for each channel. This basic Social Media 101 presentation will look at the breakdown of best practices for social media engagement, publishing, advertising, and measurement. No prior knowledge of social media is required. Many business owners and entrepreneurs know that social media presents a powerful opportunity for building their brand, but they often don’t know how to start or where to focus their efforts. This workshop aims to help local businesses reach their social media needs and goals.
- April: "WEB: Best Practices" with the Miranda Creative Web Team and Kayla Hedman. This presentation will focus on what websites require in 2017 to preform on desktop, tablet and mobile devices. Miranda Creative's web team will offer suggestions for best platforms, useful plug-ins, and what you should have on your website, specific to your industry. This case-study driven presentation will also highlight basics to use Wordpress.
- May: "WEB: Writing Findable Web Content" with the Miranda Creative Web Team and Kayla Hedman. This presentation will explain Inbound Marketing strategies that can be implemented on your website. Inbound Marketing is a form of content marketing that attracts customers who have already identified a "problem" that your product or service may be a solution to. You may offer answers to frequently asked questions, capture their information through forms and download offers, and are writing web content to be found by keyword searches in search engines.
- June: "WEB: Conversions to Capture Your Audience" with the Miranda Creative Web Team and Kayla Hedman. Conversions are simple engagements made by customers that help you reach your business goals. A conversion may be a capture of an email address, a click-through ad to bring a potential client to your website, a video view, choosing to take advantage of an offer or a download. Members of the Miranda Creative team will provide best practices for setting up places where conversions can take place - offers, forms, landing pages - on your website and retargeting these opt-in users on digital platforms.
- August: "Marketing on a Budget" with Eric Tetreault and Kayla Hedman. After various presentations on revving up a business, and investing in things like brand design and website development, let's slow down on the spending and see what we can do to give the wallet a break. Brand managers Kayla and Eric will explore social media marketing, utilizing a website to share refreshing content, public relations, and other more affordable, labor-intensive forms of marketing...sometimes known as intern labor.
- September: "Media Plans: Design and Why/Where to Advertise in 2017" with Carissa Decelles and Kayla Hedman. Graphic Designer Carissa and Brand Manager Kayla see two sides of every media buy: the strategy behind why an ad is placed in a certain space, and the effective design to capture the most attention. The two will explore best practices for digital and traditional advertising from a design, budget, and strategic standpoint.
- October: "10 Ways to Promote your Events" with Eric Tetreault and Kayla Hedman. This presentation will cover great ways to promote events digitally (from Facebook event pages to geo-fencing ads to custom Snapchat filters), utilizing ticket sites, video, and imagery to attract attendees.
- November: "Planning for a Successful Inbound Marketing Strategy for 2018" At this workshop, we'll recap all topics. The focus will be on measuring the results of these campaigns and adapting for the year ahead. Anyone can join for this Lunch and Learn workshop, but those who have attended other workshops in 2017 should strongly consider attending.
“I am incredibly proud of the scope of ‘Passport to a More Profitable Business,’” said
Maria Miranda, President & Creative Director of Miranda Creative. “These workshops offer a great value to the community and will have a tremendous impact on the economic health of our region as a result.”
“These workshops tie in exactly to the Chamber’s mission to create value for our members and enhance the economic vitality of the region,” said
Tony Sheridan, President & CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern CT. “By offering these workshops for free to the Chamber membership, and a small administrative fee for non-members, we hope to engage local businesses to stay informed of the latest marketing trends and increase their audience’s engagement through the promotional opportunities presented by Miranda Creative’s staff.”
Workshops will be held on the second Wednesday of every month except July and December at the Chamber’s office in Waterford (914 Hartford Turnpike, 2nd floor) unless otherwise noted. Workshops typically are presented 12-1 p.m. Guests are encouraged to bring their lunches along to these casual lunchtime discussions.
Register online, learn more, and find additional Chamber seminars, workshops, and activities by visiting
www.ChamberECT.com/events or calling (860) 701-9113. More details about the ‘Passport to More a Profitable Business’ series will be announced in early 2017.
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About the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut:
The Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut is a collaborative of business and community leaders dedicated to securing and enhancing the economic vitality of eastern Connecticut. The Chamber works to create value for its members and the region by providing forums for business networking, leadership and discussions of issues that affect the region; providing opportunities for members to showcase their products, services and accomplishments; helping small businesses succeed through educational programs; and working to reduce the costs of doing business in Connecticut. For more information, visit
www.ChamberECT.com.
About Miranda Creative, Inc.:
Founded in 1988 as The AD Agency, Miranda Creative, Inc. is a full-service brand management firm with locations in Norwich, New London and Guilford, Connecticut. The agency is run by a team of art directors, designers, web developers/programmers, writers and other “creative types” who support hundreds of clients across the United States, with a mix of traditional and new media services. With award-winning creativity, a dedicated team and core values that include respect, relationship building and transparency, Miranda Creative is celebrating 29 years of creativity in 2017. For more information, visit
MirandaCreative.com.
