A

Above the line: Synonymous to mass marketing – think World Cup commercial or Times Square billboard – above the line campaigns are typically tied to brand awareness and mass marketing. You know the drill - puppies and kittens; babes and beer. Although these campaigns are important in terms of mass reach, today's consumers are savvy – they know that we know they love kittens. We prefer to offer consumers the chance to respond to their own specific interests – see Below the Line.

Acquire Data: Something we do through a variety of programs, a keen eye and a lot of heavy lifting. When someone gives you permission to market to them, you aren't just hoping for a glance across the room, you're one step closer to a first date and, if you're lucky, even a kiss. The more information we gather, the better we can market to your customers individually.

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B

Below the line: These marketing campaigns are consumer and data driven. They include things such as direct mail, loyalty programs, events and contests. These action-based campaigns are an effective differentiator to impersonal mass marketing and offer a high degree of targeting and measurability. You may discover that your campaign is totally off-the-mark but, then again, you may find the holy grail of success, the beauty of below the line campaigns is that it won't cost you a fortune to discover the difference.

Blogs: Blogs are essentially a journal put online for the world to see – a far cry from the old lock-and-key diaries. We encourage our clients to start blogs and bring their personality to the forefront – good or bad! We also encourage them to visit blogs, make postings and start an online revolution!

Build Loyalty: Loyalty programs are more than just points and plane rides. Otherwise there really is no point. Not only are we dedicated to you, we help you build trust with your customers by engaging them with loyalty and incentive programs – and seriously, who doesn't love free swag. A loyalty to your brand and to your business means long standing customers.

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C

Continuum of marketing: Workin' hard or hardly workin'? Marketing doesn't stop with one poster or an email blast. Marketing programs continue throughout the year (sorry summer slackers) and cover a variety of mediums. We assist clients with seeing the short, and long, term goals and combine that with programs that take advantage of online and offline marketing tools. We truly take our clients through the different stages and formats of marketing from mass media to direct dialogue, and all the hard work in between.

Conversation: An informal talk with another person about opinions, ideas and feelings. Yes, I said "feelings" (gentlemen, stop cringing). Imagine what you could discover in having a genuine dialogue with your customers.

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D

Demographic targeting: Men, women, rock stars, teens, seniors, golden retrievers. You wouldn't sell music to a dog or rawhide to a rock star would you - or could you? We develop programs that speak to your audience, whoever they may be.

Direct audience share: There's no such thing as bad press? Wrong. In the online world, where your brand is negotiated and challenged by anyone at any given time, you need to be there to stand up for yourself. Take your piece of the conversation pie – the aggregate value of direct and interactive dialogue between individual people and content publishers/distributors.

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E

Empirical: In our opinion, the best company in the world... or something based on, or characterized by, observation and experience rather than theory. Our Empirical is experiential, traditional, observed, practical and experimental – or a bunch of Marketers who talk too much, will try anything once and love shiny things.

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F

Free Channel: Think of the web as College Radio: it's free, it's always available and you can't stop yourself from listening to it (you just don't need to be hung over to enjoy it). The web is populated with individuals who volunteer their time, voice and relationships in exchange for connectivity to communities, movements and content. It costs users nothing to be there and you a lot to not be there.

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G

Geo-targeting: Canada, Grenada, St. Louis, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!. Every place has its own unique way of communicating. Our programs take into consideration the lifestyle, colloquialisms and location of your target audience. We're like Big Brother with a dictionary.

Gizzoggle: You wizzle ta really know how crazy tha web really is? How we manage ta communicate wit today's teens with my forty-fo' mag. We have a shawty secret n its called Gizzoggle. We C-to-tha-izzan't explain it so bow D-to-tha-izzown ta tha bow wow . Relax, cus I'm bout to take my respect. You'll have ta try it out fo' yoself cuz its a doggy dog world. Try any one of our definizzles in tha Gizzolggle translator n see jizzay how off tha hizzle we really are.

Guerilla Marketing: Sometimes a banner just isn't enough to get the traffic you need. We aren't afraid to put on fatigues, head deep into the jungle of niche websites and become one with the wildlife, all to get you inside the online spaces you want to infiltrate. Leave the dirty work to us; we've got soldiers on the front lines.

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I

Individuals: Dear <Name>, we are happy to see you have purchased the <insert product here>. We've all seen "personalized emails" but they don't make us feel unique. You, me, Mick Jagger - we are all different. We help you move from the <generic> to the <targeted> with segmentation and algorithms that get you closer to your consumers.

Influence behavior: Life is a journey. Love is war. We are all predisposed to certain metaphors and emotions. You have the ability to change the actions of your customers simply by engaging them in conversations and speaking to the commonality of social behaviors and beliefs. Yes, there are some hippies on our staff, but its okay we pay them in granola.

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L

Long term profitability: The golden temple. The big kahuna. You define what long term profitability means to you and we help you ensure your money is working to get you there. We build programs that stand the test of time and provide data that will work for you over and over again.

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M

Marketers: One who loves to role play, dress like others, think like others, speak like others. At Empirical, we call ourselves dialogue architects because, in our minds, that is what every Marketer is (or at least should be). Not because we love to talk (which we do) or because we think of ourselves as talented visionaries (which we are) but because we honestly believe to be a Marketer is to be one who can build influential conversations, even if we have to dig into the tickle trunk and dress up.

Measurement: 36-24-36 is a thing of the past. Stats play a small part in measuring success in today's world. Engagement is the real measurement. Word of mouth; recommendations; cross linking; Google ranking; comments and postings – it's all good as long as it influences sales. We take all things into consideration when we measure the success of a campaign.

Merchandising and Fulfillment: Who hasn't eaten Sunday brunch in the tasting booths at Costco or hoarded sample shampoos for weekend trips? We step up traditional MDF with a combination of offline services supported by a technology platform. Our merchandising experience includes Retail Merchandising, product merchandising, shelf and inventory management and POS Installations in all classes and channels of trade. We make sure your products are re-gifted come Mother's Day.

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N

Newsletter: Headline reads – "Little Timmy made the baseball team!" There's a newsletter for everything. Why? Because people will read and sign up for things they care about. We'll help you develop an effective newsletter strategy to maintain communication with your clients.

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O

One-to-one: Two's company. Three's a crowd. Four's forget you were even there. Have you ever tried to get a phone number with a group of people skulking around? One-to-one marketing puts you in direct contact with your consumers so you can close the deal on your own.

Operating System: At one time your OS was a system that managed your computer. Something that crashed, lost your files and messed up your settings. We believe the web is evolving to become its own Operating System; one that users can manipulate, change and manage to customize their online experience. It puts the power in the hands of the driver and not the vehicle that gets you there.

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P

People-powered medium: The web consists of billions of people who participate on the internet, contributing and interacting with free information, content, software and communities. Without those people, the web is just a bunch of rotating skulls on fire and animated .gif guitars. These are powerful people with the world in their hands – and they know it. It's like a group of teenagers at an amusement park, you can try and slow them down but you'll have more luck running alongside them.

Promotions: An extra side of fries - who doesn't love free stuff? Promotions are really a commentary on the human nature of wanting everything for nothing. We help you develop programs that connect your many campaigns and gives out free stuff that truly leaves an impression.

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R

Registered users: These important users have agreed to be part of your organization; they are your bread and butter. We help you analyze and maximize the data you receive from users who have registered at your site. If you got it – flaunt it.

Reporting: We know you love it and we do too. The more we know about your stats -- responses to a direct mail piece, comments on a blog posting -- the more we know what to improve. We are as empirical about our reporting as we are about this year's hockey trades (and we LOVE hockey!)

Reward program: The more I feed my relatives, the more they come and visit. Wait, that doesn't work. The more treats I give my dog the more he'll behave. Reward your best customers and you will see more in return. We have a wealth of experience developing programs that reward your consumers, sales teams and similar.

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S

Segmentation: Think of it in relation to pizza preference. One pie has all the fixings, one is just pepperoni and one is all veggie. We help you take all that fantastic information you've collected and make sure you aren't selling pepperoni to the veggie lovers.

SEO / SEM: Wanna be on top? "Build it and they will come" doesn't equate in the online world – you need to help them find you. Perhaps the hottest buzz words of the last few years, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are tactics used to ensure your website is easily discovered. This includes improvements to the way your website is developed; creating good key words and meta-tags; online advertising campaigns and many other tips and tricks to get your website on the top of search engine results.

Social Activity: From cocktail parties to nightclubs, we are social beings. People interact on the web through popular social networking sites such as Flickr; YouTube and Facebook. Our job is to get you inside those spaces so you too can chew the bit with potential customers – so don't be a wall flower – get involved.

Social Media: The tools and technologies people are using to share in online communities and social networking websites. It's videos, photos, blogs, walls, chat rooms – it's Wikipedia, YouTube and del.icio.us. Get there or be square.

Social networks: People love to talk, especially my Aunty Brenda. We love to share, create and brag. Social networks bring people to a common place where they can connect. We help you make your brand part of that community (and if they talk as much as my Aunt does, we're ALL in for a ride!).

Stickiness: Gum on the bottom of your shoe. Some things just stick. Our tactics for keeping users on your website last an extra long time.

Strategic review: We can't pretend that you we know your business – not yet! When we begin a project, we do a review of your goals and intentions. We will get inside your business using our patented and proven methodology – we promise it doesn't involve Web 4.0.

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V

Vector Marketing Suite: Our flagship online marketing product VECTOR Professional includes a suite of marketing tools that define a new level of "self-serve" functionality. While we love to do the work for you, we aren't against putting the power in your hands. This suite of tools, properly named VECTOR Marketing Suite, is ideal for companies that run multiple online campaigns and have internal resources (co-ops) that can be leveraged to achieve maximum response time and cost efficiency. It delivers an email, contest and survey platform capable of content management, contest management, survey creation and administration, facilitating email campaigns and email-based newsletter distribution.

Viral Marketing: It's not a disease but it sure is infectious... you get the drift. Viral marketing happens whenever someone shares something they've seen or experienced. Every time someone talks about your brand – whether it's a stunning brochure or a memorable event, they are marketing for you. The internet is one of the most effective places for viral marketing because it's so easy to send a friend a website link, an intriguing photo, a funny video – tell my mother to stop spamming me.

Virtual world: Don't underestimate what an online alternate reality can do to put your brand somewhere fun. If this was my virtual world, I'd be scuba diving for business. If it was my co-workers virtual world his avatar would be a bombshell blonde. It's crazy, it's cutting edge and so are we.

Volunteered Interactivity: The internet consists of billions of permission based transactions including the three C's: communication, consumption and connectivity (no Corn Pops on this list!). People have decided to put their time into creating an online persona. You have all the chances in the world to be part of that persona. Want to borrow our tickle trunk?

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W

Waves of engagement: Our flagship online marketing product VECTOR Professional includes a suite of marketing tools that define a new level of "self-serve" functionality. While we love to do the work for you, we aren't against putting the power in your hands. This suite of tools, properly named VECTOR Marketing Suite, is ideal for companies that run multiple online campaigns and have internal resources (co-ops) that can be leveraged to achieve maximum response time and cost efficiency. It delivers an email, contest and survey platform capable of content management, contest management, survey creation and administration, facilitating email campaigns and email-based newsletter distribution.

Web 2.0: I actually bought a sandwich yesterday called the 2.0. This overly used and misunderstood term refers to the transition of websites from static HTML, brochure style pages to dynamic pages that incorporate web applications like modules, gadgets, Mashups, RSS and blogs. It describes a second generation of the web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online using those tools. It is not a sandwich.

Web 3.0: Don't underestimate what an online alternate reality can do to put your brand somewhere fun. If this was my virtual world, I'd be scuba diving for business. If it was my co-workers virtual world his avatar would be a bombshell blonde. It's crazy, it's cutting edge and so are we.

Web 4.0: The internet consists of billions of permission based transactions including the three C's: communication, consumption and connectivity (no Corn Pops on this list!). People have decided to put their time into creating an online persona. You have all the chances in the world to be part of that persona. Want to borrow our tickle trunk?

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