We are committed to finding new and innovative ways to help our clients creatively market their business. By attending the AppForum we gain the knowledge of the latest exciting ideas and tactics in marketing. Our team thrives on continual learning and the AppForum provides a power packed 3 day event to not only introduce and educate on the latest technology but how to utilize best practices for implementation.

We are very aware that in today’s world you have many options for connecting with your clients or prospective clients. Direct mail, Email, Broadcast, Print, Web, Mobile and more can be combined, tracked and measured for accurate determination of ROI.

We would love the opportunity to assist you with improving your marketing efforts and share with you why tracking and measuring your results is so important in these times.

So, we are very happy to announce our 1st annual Holmes Gives Back campaign, where we will select a few local and national deserving charities and allow you to cast your vote for your favorite charity, for which we will make a donation to. Once we compile the results, we will make the donations and you will know that you had a part in making a difference in all those lives that will be impacted.  We appreciate you just as much as ever before and we thank you for your loyal patronage over the last 37 years and we welcome those that are learning about the new Holmes for the first time as we just completed our rebranding campaign. Without the relationships we have built with our clients, none of this would be possible and so we are very grateful. We hope this inspires others to think about all the little things we could do to make a big difference.

Look for our Christmas card coming your way soon with your personal invitation to cast your vote!

“From a little spark may burst a mighty flame.” Dante Alighieri

(Springfield, Ohio November 2, 2011) Carisa Holmes-Peters, co-owner of Holmes, announced today the launch of a new client communication, the Holmes Marketing Minute.

Distributed twice a month, the Holmes Marketing Minute is a personalized and relevant communication for senior executives and marketing professionals that can be read in less than a minute, yet provoke strategic thinking about business development and marketing objectives.

“The Holmes Marketing Minute focuses on innovative strategies used by a wide variety of organizations to grow and solve specific strategic challenges. With our move into more cross-media services, it’s a very exciting time for us to share best practices that can help our clients grow. The design is short and sweet so leaders can quickly and easily gather great ideas for their organizations. We hope it will help people think about what they could be doing and not the limitations they are living with during this sluggish economy,” said Holmes-Peters. The new Holmes Marketing Minute will be distributed twice a month via email and available through www.thinkholmes.com beginning this month.

Founded in 1974 as a printing company, Holmes has developed into a cross-channel marketing and technology solutions provider. Holmes offers branding and concept design, relevant direct mail, print procurement, and promotional marketing. Clients include national franchises in the health and medical industry, as well as regional clients in Springfield, Dayton, Urbana, and others near its Springfield headquarters.

We are proud to say that we just unveiled our new brand at the end of September. This was a journey started many many months ago. It started within the organization, explaining to the members of the team what this change would mean, how we would talk differently and engage in new conversations with our customers. Then comes the creative part where you start to picture what the name, the logo and the colors will speak about your company. This was actually a fun process to do for ourselves.

What does our new brand mean to you? With the same dedication and commitment Holmes can now help you plan, execute and track your marketing strategies. We improve your results for campaigns done via websites, postcards, smart phones, or all of the above.

Think you may need help with your brand? We have a creative design team with a passion for company branding ready to assist you on this journey.

In times of economic difficulty many success stories arise from those that took the opportunity to fill a need and reinvent themselves. Are you holding on to your old brand just because it has always been that way. Maybe it is time to freshen up your brand and feel the rejuvenation and passion that can be created by going through this process all the while helping you get noticed by your customers.

Check out our new website at thinkholmes.com!

The evolution of Holmes….

Many times it all starts with an idea, a need, a way to help someone else. Try and remember what it was that started you on your career journey and find that passion once again to overcome any obstacle put before you….and look at those obstacles as challenges. If we can retrain our minds to think positive rather than negative we have a start on the path to greatness!  America needs to get back to what made us what we are….our optimism and ideals make this country great!

Here are some tips to retrain that negative voice in your head….

• Surround yourself with positive people. The ideas that can be shared between professionals is limitless!

• Make note of the positive things that have happened for you and keep that list in front of you. Recall what success felt like, so you stay motivated to feel it again.

• Find a symbol that keeps your eye on the goal and post it in your work space to serve as a constant reminder to stay positive in everything that you do.

• Focus on the opportunities that lie in front of you.  Too often we think only about what we can’t do or our own limitations we set for ourself. Instead make a list of the opportunities that you do have and set mini goals to try and achieve 1 of those at a time. One step forward is better than two steps back.

• Try to picture yourself succeeding again. Any success you have had can be a catalyst for another. Always try to envision what success will feel like if it happens again. This will help keep you focused on the positive images rather than negative ones we create in our minds of failure.

• Lastly…never ever give up! Sometimes you are one failure away from a success and how would you ever know if you gave up too soon.

Here at Holmes we have always been open minded to seek out professionals in our industry that will push us and challenge us to constantly strive to be better. Can you honestly look at your organization and say that you need to change NOTHING? If so, then most likely your not pushing yourself to be better.

Sometimes seeking help and advice from outsiders is a good thing!

Andy’s specialty is in creative conceptual design. He enjoys using creativity to problem solve by creating images and visual solutions to achieve an end goal.

We are very excited to have Andy on our team and are confident that he will enhance our menu of services with his creative talents and assist our clients with achieving their goals.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you better market your products or services.

This is where Holmes can really shine. Sure…..in our business of manufacturing a product there is a process to creating and producing your marketing materials but we have the unique power to come through on short notice when you really need it. It’s just one of those strengths we have as a team. It requires great communication and for everyone to be flexible. We genuinely care about our clients and their success, so we greatly believe in the motto “whatever it takes”. On this hectic Friday, we received the call for the urgent need, we very quickly set a plan and we met the clients need, all in a couple of hours. We sure do love it when a plan comes together!

It’s vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, abiding by these 10 laws will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand and — perhaps most importantly — your bottom line.

1. The Law of Listening
Success with social media and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important to them. Only then can you create content and spark conversations that add value rather than clutter to their lives.

2. The Law of Focus
It’s better to specialize than to be a jack-of-all-trades. A highly-focused social media and content marketing strategy intended to build a strong brand has a better chance for success than a broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people.

3. The Law of Quality
Quality trumps quantity. It’s better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.

4. The Law of Patience
Social media and content marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. While it’s possible to catch lightning in a bottle, it’s far more likely that you’ll need to commit to the long haul to achieve results.

5. The Law of Compounding
If you publish amazing, quality content and work to build your online audience of quality followers, they’ll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs and more.

This sharing and discussing of your content opens new entry points for search engines like Google to find it in keyword searches. Those entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find you online.

6. The Law of Influence
Spend time finding the online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them.

If you get on their radar as an authoritative, interesting source of useful information, they might share your content with their own followers, which could put you and your business in front of a huge new audience.

7. The Law of Value
If you spend all your time on the social Web directly promoting your products and services, people will stop listening. You must add value to the conversation. Focus less on conversions and more on creating amazing content and developing relationships with online influencers. In time, those people will become a powerful catalyst for word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

8. The Law of Acknowledgment
You wouldn’t ignore someone who reaches out to you in person so don’t ignore them online. Building relationships is one of the most important parts of social media marketing success, so always acknowledge every person who reaches out to you.

9. The Law of Accessibility
Don’t publish your content and then disappear. Be available to your audience. That means you need to consistently publish content and participate in conversations. Followers online can be fickle and they won’t hesitate to replace you if you disappear for weeks or months.

10. The Law of Reciprocity
You can’t expect others to share your content and talk about you if you don’t do the same for them. So, a portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing and talking about content published by others.

Entrepreneur Magazine