The Seattle Seahawks are doing something right. This NFL team, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has a marketing strategy that has proved to be incredibly successful – here’s why. 

When it comes to marketing, it is imperative to create a community around your brand. Whatever your brand stands for, you must run with it and create a following of dedicated customers along the way.

Getting ready for the artic freeze with a 12 degree chill expected tomorrow, I am gladly sitting in my warm office in Atlanta.

The team is fired up for the start of the new year. At this time of year, many people rethink where they sit in this world; life, work, health. I for one, have been doing a lot of that lately.

As I embark on the next phase of our global expansion, I am left with some thoughts on the people I employ and those who would best suit our company going forward.

 Chase Performance has created successful business solutions through an award-winning combination of consulting and services. They work across a wide range of industries, developing the expertise required to deliver the most premium consulting services available.

Marketing maven, Tegan Addinsall, a senior marketing manager at Marketing Eye Melbourne came rushing through the front door of the office today with the biggest smile on her face. It was 7.30am in the morning, and although I was at work, I hadn't even put my makeup on and certainly hadn't finished my first cup of coffee.

"I love my job!" rejoiced Tegan. Indeed she does. Every day she enters work with the greatest smile on her face. She is incredibly smart, and knows her "stuff" better than most. Sometimes annoyingly, she laughs and smiles so much that I want to bump her over the head with a book, so she can come down to my level (not really!).

A few years back, I heard of a character called Hannah Montana from one of my nieces who desperately wanted her album. I couldn't be bothered going out to buy it, so I simply gave her money so she could do it herself. Sitting in the car, she sang songs from Hannah Montana, mimicking her teenage idol.

All fairly harmless stuff - after all, Hannah Montana was a Disney brand, wholesome and pure that teenage girls the world-over could relate to.

Then something happened. She grew up. From teen idol to woman and that's where it all began.

Like Madonna before her, and Kylie Minogue for that matter, Miley Cyrus, the former sweet teenage girl that played Hannah Montana wanted to evolve her brand image and take it to the next level. If she would have kept up the wholesome image, it probably would have ensured that her brand diminish over time. Instead, she reinvented her brand. First it started with a number of selfies in proactive poses creating headlines. Then it was the picture of her smoking pot which  I would imagine was not by accident - instead just part of a brand evolution.

From Marketing Eye's website, we had a lead last month from Industrial Maintenance Group. They were interested in our industrial marketing expertise and were looking for a refresh of their brand and website, as well as ongoing marketing.

Industrial marketing is very different to traditional business to business marketing. It is very important to think about who is receiving everything from a business card through to a direct mail piece or a visit to your website.

When we looked at Industrial Maintenance Group, we realized that they stood out in the industry. The owner, Wes Schollian, works on the tools while his senior management team does most of the business side of things like bringing in new clients and marketing. 

The reason Wes does this is to ensure that the best possible job is done every single time for his clients. 

Our job is to get this act of "precision" out into the market place and communicate why Industrial Maintenance Group is the number one choice for fabrication, industrial services, recycling services and the purchase of balers, screw conveyers and recycling equipment. 

Industrial Maintenance Group Brand

Marketing Eye's brief was to create a brand that ignites the sense of perfection in the fabrication, industrial maintenance and services, and recycling products and services.

There are so many Apps around today, that it is hard to know which one's to download and take up space on either your smart phone, tablet or computer.

As a marketing agency, we use a number of "must have" apps to ensure that we are regularly monitoring our clients performance online and ensuring that we are abreast of their competitors movements, campaigns and conversations as well as leveraging industry news and developments to bring their brands to the forefront.

While we continue to grow audiences, increasing our clients brands within the circles in which they trade, it becomes increasingly important to utilize Apps that cut-through the clutter and help ensures that we don't waste time on social media where possible.

Here are 8 of the most efficient analytical Apps that Marketing Eye uses:

1. HootSuite: If you don't use this, then you have not only been hiding under a rock, but you are missing a valuable tool. HootSuite is a social media management solution that enables teams to collaborately execute social media campaigns across multiple platforms from one single view point - a dashboard. HootSuite includes audience identification tools, the ability to streamline workflow and customize reporting. It is perfect for managing Twitter accounts.

A few weeks ago, we met with the delightful Jack Rehm and Karen Larkin of Midsouth Planning in Atlanta. The first thing that struck me about both Jack and Karen is how nice they are. Now, nice isn't a word that many people would like associated with themselves because of the connotations that it has, but its true. They are smart, thoughtful, considerate and nice.

It was a big step for both of them to take to hire a marketing company as it isn't something that they had done before. 

Over the years, I have been dumb-founded by what former employees have written on their LinkedIn profiles about what they did while working at Marketing Eye.

The first one that had me gob-smacked was a French assistant, who wrote that she had developed and managed the Marketing Eye brand, building the company’s marketing strategy and executing it.

In reality, she was a personal assistant, who had poor English and was struggling to do any task at all from an administrative perspective. She didn’t write anything, had no contact at all with design or branding but was excellent at organizing my dinner appointments, assisting me with my wardrobe and in general being a great personal assistant, albeit one that could not write on an email on my behalf because of the poor English factor. She worked for me for a few months only which I did it as a favour for her boyfriend who was a good friend at the time. In the end, I had to tell him, that her English was so bad, I couldn’t afford the luxury of her impeccable taste in clothing, makeup and picking restaurants at that stage of my life.