Where to begin, what a busy fall. From the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation’s Green Summit to working with Cal Ripken, Troy Aikman, and Joe Buck on creating a national cause-marketing platform for lung cancer awareness. As we come into the holiday season, don’t forget that it is time to start reflecting on the successes and failures of 2006 and start marketing plans for 2007.

Sincerely,
Taylor G. Abbett
President

We would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest clients: Nike, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, Lung Cancer Alliance, Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, Bunnell Athletics Consulting, HRH Affinity Marketing Group, and River City Brass Band.

We would also like to welcome our newest member of the team Jamie Bauman as our Marketing Coordinator. In addition, we thank our fall interns Cristy Koebler and Susan Strailey who both attend the University of Pittsburgh. Congratulations to Cristy on her recent graduation and good luck to Susan on her last two semesters.

Light Up Night - November 17 - Downtown Pittsburgh
www.pittsburgh-downtown.com/events/
Light Up Night Pittsburgh events include Art Gallery tours, the official lighting of the Christmas Tree and other Trees around the City at 5:10 PM, Ice Sculptures, Musical Performances, the unveiling of Holiday Display Windows at Macy's and fireworks display at Point State Park at 9 PM.

Friday Night Wine Tasting - December 1 - 2013 Penn Ave
www.dreadnoughtwines.com    412-391-8502
If you have an interest in wine this is the event for you. Come on out and join Palate Partners to taste the many varieties of Dreadnought Wines.

Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation was established in 1964 and has been responsible for the renewal and preservation of the historic buildings in Pittsburgh. Tailored Marketing assisted with branding the National Summit on Greening of Historic Properties and the Old House Fair.

The Foundation hosted the National Preservation Conference that was held in Pittsburgh from October 31, 2006 to November 4, 2006.

Projects included:

• Design of various collateral pieces
• Creation of promotional webpages
• Coordination of printing
• Signage production
• Community outreach

Sammy Fars ran a successful restaurant for seven years in San Bruno before opening Café Grillades in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley last spring. Fars planned to introduce the café gradually, opening with a small staff and working out the kinks before starting to advertise or even putting up a sign. That kind of soft opening has traditionally worked well in the restaurant business, because professional reviewers often don’t visit a new place until it has been open a month or more. But from it’s first weekend, Café Grillades attracted a different type of reviewer – average customers who posted their opinions on a web site called Yelp. And, to Far’s dismay, some of them slammed it mercilessly.

For consumers, online review sites offer a valuable storehouse of information to help with daily tasks such as choosing an electrician or dinner venue. For small businesses, these sites have the potential to revolutionize marketing and promotion – creating unprecedented opportunities but also, as in the case of Café Grillades, some unfamiliar risks.

Len Handeland, owner of Utopia Salon near Union Square, revamped his Web site to allow online appointment booking and started advertising on CitySearch in May. He estimates that the hair salon is getting five or six new clients every day from online review sites – enough to hire three additional stylists.

Some business owners are finding online reviews far more useful than the traditional print yellow pages. Luxas, the Seattle window cleaner, has picked up 28 customers this year from Judy’s Book and Angie’s List – nearly equal to the 22 she got from the yellow pages. “The yellow pages are going extinct,” Lucas said. “In 10 years you won’t have the yellow pages anymore.

The downside for business owners is the review that is critical or outright hostile. Despite such reservations, Betty Marcon, owner of Mistral Rotisserie, takes online reviews seriously and uses them to improve her service. The most savvy business owners have figured out proactive ways to use online review sites. They encourage regular customers to post reviews. They print positive reviews and hang them in the window like a Zagat’s listing. They advertise on the review sites and sometimes get spectacular results.

As review sites become more established, they’re likely to become more useful to customers. Today many businesses remain unreviewed, or have only one or two reviews – not enough to make a reliable judgement about them. Eventually the number of reviews will grow and provide a more solid information base.

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