Excerpt from new decor blog: “All of the new art work in 2012 will have copper paint and some even with copper leafing, to mark the end of one period and the beginning of a new era of consciousness. Ancient Egyptian artists used copper bronzes for statues long before Europe entered the Bronze Age. Copper was also used for statues in ancient China and Thailand. Then Copper was revived in European art during the Renaissance by sculptors. As a modern usage, copper paints and copper leafing, along with verdigris colours are applied in various art mediums. Verdigris is the green pigment that forms when copper is weathered or exposed to air or seawater over time. Therefore, my 2012 paintings will contain greens, blues, turquoises and coppers in natural settings that denote the passage of time. And technology will help make these 2012 art shows happen, just when I thought I can no longer do art shows…” Read more at my newest blog www.LJLDecor.com.

The above image is one of my favourites where I’ll be recreating the colours for 2012 from 1998. It is a nostalgic and surrealistic representation of a real place along Point Grey Road and Trafalgar Street, Vancouver. The area is known as Kitsilano and is still one of my favourite communities. The painting style references Naive Art, “often confused with Outsider and Visionary art, this term refers to untrained artists who depict largely realistic scenes, often in minute detail, with people, animals, and other aspects of the observed world, sometimes combined with fantasy images. They often aspire to normal artistic status and are usually very different from the visionaries to be found in the pages of Raw Vision, and may often be seen as quite sophisticated amateurs verging on professionalism. Examples of Naive Artists include: James Crane, Grandma Moses, Ivan Generalic, Joseph Pickett, Douanier Rousseau and Germain Tessier.”

John Maizels, Raw Creation art and beyond, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1996.

www.rawvision.com/outsiderart/whatisoa.html

“The Hungry Lion” by Henri Rousseau, Naive Artist

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Another tip about leveraging social media is to find Twitter handles for marketing, communications and creative work in your location, as well as following their Twitter handles for even more resources. That way you can learn about opportunities before your competition. Here are a few examples for marketing, communications and creative work in Vancouver:

@FreshGigsca
FreshGigs.ca is Canada’s #1 Jobsite for Pre-Screened Marketing & Creative Professionals.

@smartsavvy
We find high calibre marketing, sales, communications, and creative professionals with proven track records and in-demand skills for companies who need them.

@BestJobsInVan
Follow me for the best communications, design, marketing, PR jobs and internships in Vancouver!

@Jobsprout
Where smart people meet smart careers (includes marketing, sales and social media).

@smeivancouver
A chapter of Sales & Marketing Executives International, the worldwide professional association for sales & marketing.

@bcama
Official twitter account for BC Chapter of American Marketing Association. We provide the BC marketing community with valuable programming and events.

@AllianceArts
We represent over 350 member organizations from across the artistic disciplines in BC.

@vancvr
Open directory for Vancouver creatives of all types. Designers, web developers, writers, photographers, videographers and everyone in between.

@604freelancers
Vancouver Freelance Camp is a place to discuss and explore the different approaches to running a successful freelance business / service company.

And of course, you can follow me and check out who I’m following which includes the above Twitter handles at:

@LizajleeBlog
Integrated marketing communications: branding, advertising, sales promotion, PR, direct and inbound marketing.

www.Twitter.com/LizajleeBlog

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List of Top Vancouver Advertising Agencies and Digital Agencies

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You can find the top companies that could be hiring in the Financial Post annual listing of the top 500 (FP500) and the next top 300 (FP300) revenue-generating companies with head offices in Canada. Almost half of the FP500 companies in Vancouver are part of the resource-based economy of BC, which includes mining, gas, energy and forestry. All FP500 companies earn over three billion dollars in 2010.

47 out of 500 FP500 companies in Canada (9%) have head offices in Metro Vancouver with the following summary:

• 17 of the companies are in primary resources, representing 43%
• 10 of the companies are in distribution of goods, representing 20%
• 7 of the companies are in finance, representing 15%

I have experience working with four FP500 companies in integrated marketing communications: TELUS, Best Buy, ICBC and HSBC.

Source: http://www.financialpost.com/news/fp500/2011/index.html

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You can also find the top mining companies in the Financial Post annual listing of the top 500 (FP500) and the next top 300 (FP300) revenue-generating companies with head offices in Canada. With half of the FP300 companies in Vancouver being in primary resources, this is reflective of the resource-based economy of British Columbia, Canada. Primary resources include mining, gas, energy and forestry industries.

38 out of 300 FP300 companies in Canada (13%) with head offices are in Metro Vancouver with the following summary:

• 18 in primary resources, representing 50%
• 6 in the distribution of goods, representing 16%
• 5 in finance, representing 13%
• 4 in the manufacturing of products, representing 11%
• 2 in technology, representing 5%
• 1 in media, representing 2%

Source: http://www.financialpost.com/news/FP500/2011/next-300.html

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To attract the right traffic and convert sales leads on your website or WordPress blog, you’ll need to incorporate SEO and copywriting into your selected webpages or blog posts. SEO is the active practice of optimizing your site by improving internal and external aspects to increase the traffic that your site receives from search engines. This report outlines various simple SEO tips, which will help you reach your online goals effectively by optimizing your website with SEO copywriting. Without the right keywords with integrated SEO copywriting, you will not attract the right traffic to your website or WordPress blog. All that effort into a well-designed site will go to waste. But help is on the way!

After reading this document, you should be able to write copy with the correct keyword strategies. As well, you will be able to optimize those keywords and create benefit-driven titles for your website or WordPress blog to increase your visitor traffic and customer base.

Read on to learn “Choosing the Right Keywords” for your website or WordPress blog.

Choosing the Right Keywords

First you’ll need to choose the right keywords for organic or free search traffic. So make sure you have your main keywords on your chosen webpages. Each page should be around 300 words. You should place your page’s main keywords in the first and last 25 words on that page. To find what other keywords Google has associated with your main keywords, here are two methods:

• Use the tilde “~” command to find associated phrases in Google. Just type into Google search: ~keywords. Variations will be highlighted in bold print.

• Or visit Google Insight at http://www.google.com/insights/search/ and type in your selected keyword and URL. You’ll see a list of the top 10 associated keyword searches from Google for the last 90 days.

Once you have your right set of keywords, you’ll need to select your best 10 webpages or blog posts to optimize to attract relevant and targeted traffic to grow your business. And each page or blog post should contain only one set of keywords. You cannot mix them up or you will not get any or good results from search engines!

Read the “Steps to Optimize Your Webpage or Blog Post” by opting in at www.LJLCommunications.com.

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This special report is called “SEO, Copywriting & WordPress Secrets” – To Grow Your Business with the Right Traffic for Sales Leads – SEO, copywriting and WordPress secrets so all that effort in your well-designed site does not go to waste.

This valuable report to grow your business includes:

1. Introduction to WordPress
2. Introduction to SEO and Copywriting
3. Choosing the Right Keywords
4. Steps to Optimize Your Webpage or Blog Post
5. More SEO Copywriting Tips
6. Final Words About SEO, Copywriting and WordPress

I also added a BONUS! Over 20 Social Media Videos – Step-by-step videos will show you how to use Twitter, Facebook and WordPress to grow your business 24/7.

Here’s the introduction to the report:

As a business owner, you may want to also install a WordPress blog to your own website as this makes it easier and faster for you to add fresh content regularly. That’s because you don’t need to know any coding or how to use special software to add new pages. Google and other search engines like sites that have new content and, if it is optimized well, you are rewarded with relevant and targeted traffic to grow your business.

WordPress is a free blogging tool and publishing platform and is often categorized as a content management system (CMS). WordPress has many features including a plug-in architecture, a template system and, as of August 2011, it is the platform for 22% of all new websites, making it the most popular CMS in use on the Internet.

If you want to read the rest of the report, visit www.LJLCommunications.com.

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Whether you develop a Reciprocal, Ambassador, or Client Referral Partnership, there are six key factors that need to be present for a successful referral partnership.

Sue Clement’s Referral Success Formula:

K + L + T + O + M + U
(Know + Like + Trust + Opportunity + Mindset + Understanding)

Know, Like and Trust

These three go hand in hand with each other. Receiving a referral is like receiving a gift. What will it take for someone to Know, Like and Trust you enough to send you a gift of qualified referrals? Are you likeable? Are you doing things to deepen relationships? Think about what you need to be more likeable and trustworthy. Sue recommends the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie as a good resource for this. Trust is hugely important and includes having an honourable word, great service, integrity and high business standards. You also need to be able to effectively communicate why you are better than your competition for your unique specialty.

Opportunity

Your referral partner must be presented with opportunities to come in contact with your ideal prospects. The more your partner is presented with these opportunities, the better it is for you. A good starting point for developing referral relationships is to ask your favourite clients what other services they buy. You want to find out what interests your clients, what other needs do they have and how do they fulfill those interests / needs. According to Sue Clement, the number one rule in business / marketing is this: For people to give you referrals, they need to know WHO your ideal customer is.

You may know your target market or niche market, but this needs to be narrowed down even more to find WHO your ideal customer is.

For example, PCIS provides IT consulting and web portals for large enterprises. Therefore, let’s do some marketing research on the TOP 100 enterprises in Metro Vancouver [Google search http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/profiles-and-spotlights/businesses/bc-top-100-biggest-companies-by-revenue-2011] and look at WHO our ideal contacts may be, from C-level to IT Managers. We can then look up the IT staff on Linked In to fine tune what we know about WHO our ideal customers are. The findings should be communicated to the referral partner, which will allow them to better recognize opportunities for sending you business.

Mindset

It’s important to find a referral partner with an abundance mentality or you are wasting your time with them. For example, someone who thinks in limited terms may think of prospects as having limited funds to spend, and may subsequently end up keeping those prospects entirely to themselves. Your referral partner must have an abundance mentality and a genuine intention of helping you get more clients.

Understanding

Each partner within the referral relationship offers different types of services to different target customers within the same industry. For successful reciprocal referral relationships, both businesses need to understand each others ideal customers, key competitive advantages, price points, business processes and standards, unique selling points, and method of passing referrals. It’s important to remember that your referral partner is not your salesperson. They provide warm introductions and help prospects see the value in your business, before sending them over to you. Understanding your business will greatly help them in this process.

Developing a solid and successful referral partnership takes time. In Sue Clement’s book, she describes 18 things to do to develop the referral relationship. One thing she talks about is how to nominate your referral partners for awards, creating motivation and referral success.

How to Get Started with Building Your Business With Referrals

Take the formula K + L + T + O + M + U, think about where all of your referrals in the past have come from, and think of how to continue growing your business from that. Take your referral sources or partners for coffee or lunch, and find out how to leverage opportunities with relationships you currently have.

To learn more about getting referrals to build your business, visit www.SueClement.com. And if you are looking for a referral for a website design starting from only $499, visit www.lizajlee.com/wordpress.html.

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Developing an effective referral strategy takes time, but can make a huge difference for your business. Your referral strategy should not be one where you have to chase clients month to month for more business. A system needs to be in place in order to consistently receive high quality referrals. We need to shift away from looking for prospective clients in the short-term and start developing long-term relationships with referral partners.

The first step is to understand the difference between a referral source and a referral partner. A referral source is anyone who sends you prospective clients. These are often random referrals without consistency, and are not necessarily of the best quality. A referral partner has the INTENTIONALITY of helping your business and is a formalized source of receiving referrals. Seeking referral partners is a good start towards receiving warm referrals in a consistent manner. There are three different types of referral partners:

1. Reciprocal Referral Partners

In order for both parties to benefit with equitable referrals, each partner must have the same opportunity for sending referrals and must be non-competing industries. For example, realtors partnering with mortgage brokers, interior decorators with artists, or IT consulting, such as PCIS with IT vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Bell.

2. Ambassador Referral Partners

In this type of relationship, the partners do not have similar expectations of receiving equitable referrals. The “Ambassador” partner is expected to send referrals over to the other partner, but does not expect as many (or any) referrals in return. The partner who sends referrals is usually a hub or centre of influence that comes in contact with a lot of people within a specific target market that fits with the receiving business. For example, a hair-dresser can be a great Ambassador Referral Partner for a Beauty Salon if they see and talk everyday to clients who would be ideal for manicure or pedicure services.

3. Client Referral Partners

Your own clients, especially your “raving fans”, can be an excellent source of endorsement for your business. The key to an effective client referral partnership is to develop a system that is “top of mind” and encourages collaborative effort from your existing or past clients. Think about what you need to do differently to get your clients to refer you business. Do you keep in touch with your clients by inviting them out for lunches? Do you use email newsletters to keep your clients up-to-date? Do you reward them with a gift card or some other form of recognition for their referrals?

To learn more about getting referrals to build your business, visit www.SueClement.com. And if you are looking for a referral for a website design starting from only $499, visit www.lizajlee.com/wordpress.html.

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Vancouver, Canada – The Artistrun Collective QR Code Art Show takes place during the second annual Culture Days to raise community awareness, accessibility and public engagement through the use of QR codes. This show will be promoted on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and unique QR codes to encourage the viewer to obtain the location of the Old Foundry Building for the free reception on Saturday, October 1, 2011 (3 pm to 9 pm) at 1790 Vernon Drive, Vancouver across from Unitow.

At the historic Old Foundry Building, the public will also meet the diverse Artistrun Collective: Liza J. Lee, Carolyn Kramer, Stacy Sakai, Rojia Dadashzadeh and James Landecker. The group will unveil four newly commissioned collaborative art works on wood panels to demonstrate the “mashup” of individual art styles and mixed media, along with over 40 original art pieces. Auret Esselen will provide a live singing performance during the reception. Sponsors include Fuzion, Vancouver Foundation, Prosyna Communication, Pacific Coast Information Systems (PCIS) and Sound Therapy Radio.

In addition to the sign-in book on October 1, guests are encouraged to scan the Artistrun Collective QR Code on location for a chance to win free art and prizes. People of all ages will also enjoy the antiquity of the Old Foundry Building, once accessible by boat a century ago. Over the decades, it has been the manufacturing hub for marine parts, wood processing, railway parts, mining supplies, as well as cast steel, cast iron, bronze and copper products. It is now the location of several artist studios, ranging from stone sculptures, to paintings and costumes.

About QR Codes

The QR (Quick Response) code is two-dimensional and readable by QR barcode readers and camera phones. It consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background with encoded information of text, URLs or other data. The QR Code contains information in both vertical and horizontal directions, whereas a bar code contains data in one direction only. Therefore, the QR Code holds considerably greater volume of information than a bar code. Although popular in Japan, the adoption rate has been much slower in Canada.

However, the aesthetic appeal of QR codes, the rise of smartphones and call to actions with incentives is furthering its adoption rate. Also, the ability to measure click-through rates, while capturing temporal, geographic and demographic data make QR codes a rising interest among advertisers. QR codes connect the physical world of print, from newspapers, magazines, business cards, clothing, signage, or other materials to the virtual world of the internet. PCIS will use a soon to be released social media analytics web application to track QR codes on posters in Vancouver to measure the adoption rate of QR codes.

About Artistrun Collective

The Artistrun Collective (ArtistrunCollective.org formerly known as Artistrun.org) was involved in the inaugural 2010 Culture Days for the “Craftivism Show”, which was promoted as one of 4500 events in over 700 cities across Canada in the Globe & Mail. The show featured 20 local artists who exhibited 60 art pieces that utilize found materials and recycling due to the theme of sustainable community including anti-consumerism, slow time, geo-social networking, environmentalism and sustainability. The “Craftivism Show” reflected the Culture Days (www.CultureDays.ca) value that a vibrant arts and cultural sector contributes directly to a healthy and stable society.

The Artistrun Collective was co-founded in 2000 and coined after the “artist-run centre”, a term for artist-initiated and artist-centric approaches to promoting art events. It is also an artist collective, where its members work together and share social media assets: Blogger, Twitter and Facebook to announce the upcoming Artistrun Collective QR Code Art Show for Culture Days.

Media Contact:

Liza Lee
1.604.844.7558
LLee@PCIS.com
www.PCIS.com

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