Two ETSU Public Relations majors were awarded scholarships from a well-known local public relations professional. Mary Ellen Miller, president and founder of MarketingMel, has funded the scholarship for many years. Bridget Leary, a May 2023 ETSU graduate and Cooper Reeves, a rising senior at ETSU were each awarded the MarketingMel scholarship. They were selected, based on merit, by a panel of ETSU faculty.

“As faculty we were delighted to select these two rising stars as recipients of the MarketingMel scholarship. The ETSU Media and Communication Department greatly appreciates the support MarketingMel has provided to our students over the years,” said Megan Fannon, master lecturer in Advertising and Public Relations. “She always takes time to meet the scholarship recipients who enjoy the interaction with a long-time professional in the field of public relations.” 

Bridget Leary who moved to Nashville immediately following graduation to pursue work in communications, said, “I’m so grateful to my professors and Mrs. Miller for awarding me this scholarship. I’ve had a wonderful experience during my time at ETSU and through the support of these people I have been able to surpass goals and expectations I had set for myself.”

Cooper Reaves, who is on track to graduate in May 2024, “I am thrilled to be selected as a recipient of the MarketingMel Scholarship. The scholarship not only alleviates some of the financial burden of pursuing my education, but it also gives me a friend and a mentor in the PR field who believes in my potential and my future,” Reaves said.

“It makes me feel so good about the future of the public relations profession when I meet these outstanding students,” said Miller. “I am very appreciative of the faculty for their wonderful selections.”

The post Two ETSU Media and Communication Majors Awarded MarketingMel’s Public Relations Scholarship first appeared on MarketingMel.

The following is an article I wrote for the April 2023 TriCities PRSA newsletter.

By Mary Ellen Miller, APR

It’s spring and for many students nearing graduation, it is time to find a job. And it’s not just college grads planning changes as the flowers start to bloom. According to Zippia, 65% of people currently employed are looking for a new job. While it’s easy to chat with your friends about your job search, you may want to think instead about your network of acquaintances.

            In a landmark study, sociologist Mark Granovetter found that people were 58% more likely to get a new job through “weak ties” than “strong ties.”  In other words, your friends may not be aware of jobs that your acquaintances may know about. According to LinkedIn, 85% of all jobs are filled by networking. Here is a local story that illustrates the power of networking.

            Just recently, a talented, soon-to-be-college graduate, with whom I am acquainted, reached out to me on LinkedIn and asked if I knew of any job openings in his chosen field (graphic design). I, in turn, reached out to two people who work in the field. Both were eager to speak with the young designer and one knew of a local job opening. Bam! He had used the power of “weak ties” and “networking” to learn of a job opening. (I’m waiting to hear if he got the job!) As one of my favorite authors, sociologist Malcolm Gladwell says, “Acquaintances, in sort, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.” Our TriCities PRSA chapter presented a workshop for college students with tips to help job seekers. My part was “Interview before the Interview.” We will talk about that next time!

The post How to Find a Job: Network with Acquaintances first appeared on MarketingMel.

This fall the ETSU Mass Communication department awarded the MarketingMel Mass Communication scholarship to ETSU senior, Elyse Batista.

As a transfer from North Carolina, Batista, a senior, maintains a 3.77 grade point average, leads the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) as president, and has been awarded the Dean’s List certificate since her arrival at ETSU in 2012. She will be interning with MarketingMel for the 2015-2016 academic year.

MarketingMel, founded by Mary Ellen Miller, is a creative firms that offers marketing, public relations and social media strategies. “The MarketingMel internship has propelled me into the communications industry,” says Batista. “From networking, researching and attending events to one-on-one mentoring with Mary Ellen (Mel), I’m able to put classroom lessons into action.” Batista says that the scholarship is a great bonus to a great program.

Originally, the scholarship fund was established by Miller in honor of the fifth anniversary of MarketingMel. She began the internship program as a mentoring opportunity for young women aspiring to work as communications professionals and the scholarship was a natural outcome. Over the years, the internship has come to be known as a great opportunity for students.

Since the start of the mentorship program six years ago, MarketingMel interns have experienced a 100 percent employment rate upon graduation. These interns have moved forward in the communications industry and have found their niches within a variety of specializations including public relations, marketing, sales, and advertising.

Miller enjoys mentoring young professionals. “I feel it is my duty to give back to the community that has been so good to me,” says Miller, “What better way than to mentor the next generation of PR professionals?”

When have you mentored or been mentored by another? Please share your experiences with us. 

The post Elyse Batista Awarded Second Annual MarketingMel Scholarship first appeared on MarketingMel.

MarketingMel talks LinkedIn with Tim and Carl on WJCW Radio

Recently I had the opportunity to go “on the air” with Carl and Tim on their “Thinking Out Loud” morning program on WJCW Radio. We covered everything from trends in social media to LinkedIn tips for business people.

Here’s our podcast link: click the audio link at the top of the page.

I’ve also copied my notes below for those who prefer reading to listening.

The post MarketingMel’s LinkedIn for Business Podcast with WJCW’s Carl and Tim first appeared on MarketingMel.

Wynne Tyree, CEO of Smarty Pants, tells working women to “Put on Your Big Girl Pants.”

Wynne Tyree is CEO of an internationally known children’s market research firm. Her clients are some of the largest companies in the world (Think: Lego and McDonald’s.) She’s also a wife and a mom (which is how I know her; our kids are in Tae Kwan Do together.) When it comes to inspiration for other business women she’s full of practical advice.

Here are twelve success building tips she presented to the “Women Empowered” gathering sponsored by the Bank of Tennessee. 

1. Know your WHY. Wynne actually had us take a few minutes to write down our personal “whys.” After thinking her son was developmentally late at crawling, she placed a red toy just out of his reach in front of him. Guess what? He crawled! What moves you forward?

2. Specialize. Be an expert at something. Take a cue from the medical world and specialize. “Tell me why you’re awesome in 60 seconds.”

3. Take Calculated Risks. This was my favorite visual as one fish jumped from one gold fish filled bowl into a bowl of water with no fish in it. Be willing to do what others won’t. “99% of Americans swim in the same bowl,” she said. “You don’t regret the things you do. You regret the things you don’t do.”

4. Be Passionated and Contagious. Tell yourself you’re great and you will be!

5. Get Uncomfortable. Sometimes we have to move outside of our comfort zone in order to really grow, learn and succeed.

6. Surround Yourself with Amazing People. Nobody succeeds alone. Move with the people you want to be, not the people who you used to be. Move toward the people who are where you want to grow. Along with that, be slow to hire and quick to fire.

Wynne Tyree (an amazing woman!) and CEO of Smarty Pants and Mary Ellen Miller of MarketingMel.

7. Demand Excellence. Wynne said if you’re concerned with an employee who’s turning in less than excellent work, role play with a trusted companion/spouse. If they’re not performing up to par they may not want to be in your company.

8. Know your value and ask for it. Wynne said women often won’t ask for their real value whereas men will ask for “another $10,000 and then go out and play golf together two hours later.” She asked each of us to actually put a pencil to paper and calculate own net worth as we considered the many facets of our work and home careers. Add up the value of each job and then divide by two to get our real hourly rate. When she looked at life like this, cleaning the living room wasn’t quite so important. What is the best use of our time?

9. Stop Multi-Tasking. Learn to Compartmentalize. Multi-tasking is a lie. We actually need to create walls, structure and time frames. Set boundaries with e-mail (and with our kids if we work from a home office.)

10. Be “Selfish.” While that may sound strange, Wynne said we have to first put on our own air masks before we can start saving others when a plane is going down. What “fills our bucket?”she asked. Do more of that to save our own sanity, first.

11. Say “No.” “Remember the trampy girl in high school?” Wynne asked, as chuckles filled the room. “When you’re not so accessible, you have more value. It ups your ante,” she said.

12. Reassess and Course Correct. Check where you are and be willing to make a detour. For example, if after three years your original business plan didn’t work out, let it go and move on.

Which of these tips resonates with you? How will apply them in your business or every day life?

For more information about Wynne’s fascinating market research business visit www.smartypants.com.

The post “Put on Your Big Girls Panties:” 12 Success Tips for Working Women first appeared on MarketingMel.

On the home stretch after swimming 300 yards, biking 5.8 miles and running a 5K.

Recently I heard a Millennial state that her generation now outnumbers Baby Boomers in the workforce. “The Boomer generation is dying,” she added. Really? As a member of that generation and someone who just competed (and won my age group) in my first Sprint Triathlon I take exception to that statement. Dying? I pondered my recent mile swim, six mile bike ride and four mile run (and that was just training over three days!) Immersion Interactive, an agency specializing in the 50+ consumer, says Boomers are the most health conscious generation ever. We’re eating healthy and competing in  sports. (Been to a 5K lately and looked at the huge age spread of participants? I met a fabulous 85 year old woman competing at two recent 5K’s who’s my new hero! I want to be active like her when I get to be that age.)

Now that my first Triathlon is over, I reflected on what I learned from this competition. These tips translate well from sport to business to life.

1. Encourage others along the way – I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to hear the experienced cyclists encouraging me as I peddled my way up the course’s steep hills. Biking is not my strong suit at all (I was still figuring out which gears to use and when) but a kind word here and there from the experts kept me going.

2. Transitions are inevitable – Life is about transitions. We move from one family formation to another (my husband and I are now parents of a teenager. Before long we’ll be “empty nesters.”) We change jobs and careers. In Triathlon, while speed of transition is key, it’s also an opportunity to take a breath and look forward to the change that lies ahead.

3. Play to your strengths – I swam collegiately for Cornell. So you can guess which sport is my strength. Five years ago I took up running. When it comes to biking, however, I’m a complete newbie.  Sure, I will work to improve my weakness but I know where I have my greatest degree of confidence and strength. It felt great to hit the first leg of the race,(swimming) at a sprint pace.

4. Stay positive and visualize – At one point in the run we were confronted with the steepest hill I had ever seen in a 5K. There had been a guy near me throughout the entire race.  We’d encouraged each other all along the way. This was our big chance. “We’re at the beach… it’s flat” we said aloud pretending between gasps. “We can almost see the finish line,” we said, huffing and puffing up the seemingly never ending hill. It worked. The visualization and positive support got us through that hill. After the race we introduced ourselves and fist bumped. Just an hour before, we were complete strangers. Now we’d been through athletic torment together and survived!

Won my Age Group

5. Set a Goal and then go for it – I wrote down my time goal in my personal prayer journal and in my running journal at least three times. It gave me something to focus on. What did I need to do in order to achieve those goals for each sport? When I was training I knew what the end game was. I was delighted when my final time was actually three minutes faster than my goal time.

6. Celebrate your victories – Whether or not you walk away with a top place medal, you celebrate when you reach a major milestone, like finishing the race! That in itself is worth celebrating. What victory have you had (small or large) that you and your team can celebrate today?

Which of these tips resonates with you for sport or for business?

The post Transitions: Six Tips Learned on my Triathlon Journey first appeared on MarketingMel.

MarketingMel’s Mary Ellen Miller talks about the benefits of using LinkedIn for business owners.

Last week I was delighted to present a shortened form of my LinkedIn for Business Professionals workshop to the Business Planning Workshop put on by my fellow Morning Rotarian Curt Henry and his colleagues at Summit Companies. The event, held mainly for Curt’s small business owner clients, emphasized the importance of regular business planning and goal setting. I honed in on the importance of making business connections through LinkedIn. A few of the evaluations were as follows:
“Very interesting to learn the value of LinkedIn. Communications is so important and learning ‘pitfalls’ of poor communication is important as a leader and owner.” (Local small business owner)
“I learned LinkedIn may be useful. Communication is very important.” (Local small business person)
Recently I have put on a similar workshop in a less compressed time frame for the Northeast Tennessee Association of REALTORS and for Milligan College’s graduating seniors. (Seniors don’t usually use LinkedIn but one Milligan senior who attended my session USED the tips taught during that workshop to find a job at Baylor! He kept me updated throughout his job search and then wrote me a thank you afterward!)
Here is the small business presentation on SlideShare. What would you add? (We only had one hour total including questions and answers so we squeezed in a lot!) I would love to hear from you.

The post What’s FREE and Helps Small Business Professionals? LinkedIn Tips first appeared on MarketingMel.

Jake as a puppy

Is taking a pet to work more likely found in Hollywood Hills than the Blue Ridge Mountains? Actually, we found plenty of four legged friends making their way into the hearts and offices of workers right here in Northeast Tennessee.

One such pet is Jake, a 6 ½ year old, 80 pound Golden Retriever with a soft, well-groomed coat. Jake is the self-appointed doorman and greeter for Stowaway Storage on Browns Mill Road in North Johnson City. As this writer entered, Jake approached carrying a soft, red child’s toy in his mouth and wagging his tail. By all appearances he is both welcoming committee and chief public relations officer.

“From the very beginning when my youngest son pushed me to get another puppy (after the family’s previous Golden passed away), I said, ‘OK he has to learn to ride in the car, he has to learn to jump in and out of the car, and he has to go to work with me every day,’” said Jake’s owner and person, Barbara Allen. “I picked him up on a Monday and he was just about 10-12 pounds. Tuesday morning at 8 AM he was in the office and Friday of that week he shot a TV commercial for the Dogwood and Cattails Ball.” Jake has been the mascot for Stowaway ever since.

“There are a lot of people who want to do business with somebody that is a dog lover,” says Allen. “Some people bring their kids and time their visit to be sure that Jake’s here.”

Barbara and Jake the puppy

Allen says Jake considers his co-workers an extension of his family and when the tenant, who lives in an on-promise apartment, stops home for lunch, Jake believes it’s his lunch break too. “Jake rushes over to greet him and keep him company through lunch and then the tenant leaves and Jake comes back to work,” says Allen. Jake knows the UPS and FedEx truck drivers and is excited to see them because they are regular visitors at Stowaway. (Note: The well-mannered Jake does not bark at these uniformed guests.)

Allen says that taking a canine to work involves a lot of prior planning. “You always have to be thinking ahead. You can’t run errands after work and you have to adjust your timing,” she says. Thankfully, Jake feels so at home at Stowaway that he is completely at ease when Allen says “I’ll be back,” during work hours.

“He is featured in all our advertising and believe it or not, he is responsible for lots of rentals,” adds Charles Allen. “Although Barbara didn’t take him to work for that reason, it (taking a dog to work) is probably one of the better marketing moves we have made.”

Now age 6 1/2, Jake guards the front door before taking his daily nap.

Just like a small child, Jake’s regular nap time rolls around each afternoon between 3 and 5 pm. That’s when people know to step over the sleeping pooch who’s generally sprawled out in front of the door. His rest routine; look outside for a few minutes and then nod off to doggie dreamland.

“Dogs have to be at the right place at the right time and Jake’s perfect for here because he gets to interact with lots of different people,” says Barbara Allen.

Mary Ellen Miller writes, walks and works with her dog Lucky, a nearly five year old Jack Russell Terrier mix. Do you have any working dog stories to share with us?

The post National Take Your Dog to Work Day: On the Job With Jake, The Stowaway Dog first appeared on MarketingMel.

Take a healthy dose of sociology, psychology and marketing, mix them liberally and serve up a marketing presentation to the Northeast Tennessee ADFED.  That’s exactly what Bite Interactive’s Chief Technology Officer, Brant DeBow, did recently in talking about his company’s “Jobs to be Done Theory.” He used the professor’s quote above to introduce the concept of discovering what consumers really want. Focus groups are not always the answer. Neither is blanket targeting of demographics. Instead his team uses a system of in-depth interviews to determine the functional, social and emotional reasons for purchasing a product. “When you purchase a product you change your behavior,” he says.

“People are bad at knowing the future,” he said. “But they are good at telling you what’s going on now and about the past,” he said. “Correlation is not causation.” His example was the Motorola 2007 Razor phone. SMS was barely on the scene and that slim, little phone did its job as a telephone extremely well. Who would want something bulky with a large screen back then? (Little could they imagine the iPhone!)

Netflix vs. Blockbuster was another example. Blockbuster mowed down the Mom and Pop video stores offering a better in-store experience. Netflix however offered a completely different model; what the customer really wanted — entertainment in his/her own home.

DeBow said four forces are involved in purchase decision making: push, pull, anxiety and habit.  The first two move us toward the new product and the second two keep us maintaining the status quo.

DeBow’s team launched a clever campaign for Snickers after determining that Snickers, unlike Milky Way, was used to curb hunger. They deliberately mis-spelled words related to Snickers in their online ad campaign and then purchased associated mis-spelled keywords, attempting to gain the hungry and tired 3 PM-need-a-candy-bar crowd. “Snickers is now the most successful candy bar as a result of the Jobs to be Done reorganization of the brand,” said DeBow. “Who do you compete with? For Snickers it was hunger, so it was actually other snack foods. It was not Milky Way, as they originally thought, because Milky Way was perceived as a guilty pleasure, a reward and something people didn’t want to share.”

What examples have you experienced where a company has completely met your needs as a consumer? When did someone serve you the “quarter inch hole?” instead of making you buy the “quarter inch drill”? Please comment below.

The post What Consumers Really Want: Snickers! The Jobs to be Done Theory first appeared on MarketingMel.

Instagram How-To

How are you/your children using Instagram? For business or fun? (Note: My tween LOVES Instagram and uses it daily to communicate with friends and even share homework!) Please comment!

The post Trends: A How-to-guide to Instagram first appeared on MarketingMel.