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By Rick Griffin

The San Diego State University Aztecs have switched their radio flagship affiliation from Broadcast Company of Americas, operators of XPRS 1090-AM The Mighty 1090, to iHeart Media San Diego, operators of  101.5 KGB and XTRA 1360-AM, beginning with the 2017 football season. A multi-year agreement was announced.

iHeart stations will broadcast the SDSU Aztec football and men’s basketball games through the Fox Sports College Properties Network, the multimedia rights holder for SDSU athletics. Fans can listen to the games locally on 101.5 KGB-FM and XTRA 1360-AM in San Diego, and on Fox Sports 1350-AM in Riverside, as well as iHeartRadio’s live streaming radio service nationwide. Ted Leitner will continue as play-by-play announcer for football and men’s basketball.

In addition to the pre-, post- and in-game broadcasts, iHeartMedia will produce and air a weekly “Coaches Show” with football head coach Rocky Long and new men’s basketball head coach Brian Dutcher. In addition, iHeart said select SDSU baseball and post-season women’s basketball games will be heard on XTRA 1360-AM.

BCA previously held the radio broadcast rights to SDSU Aztecs football and basketball. BCA operates three radio stations in San Diego, including XEPE-AM ESPN 1700, XPRS-AM The Mighty 1090 and XPRS-FM 105.7 MAX-FM. Before BCA, iHeart’s Newsradio KOGO 600-AM held the broadcast rights for SDSU athletics from 2007 to 2013.

“We are very excited about partnering with iHeart Media San Diego for our radio rights,” said John David Wicker, SDSU athletic director. “The success of not only our football program, which has won consecutive conference championships and finished in the top 25 last season, our men’s basketball program, which has won an unprecedented 10 Mountain West conference championships, but of all of our sports, which have combined to claim 34 team conference titles since the beginning of the 2012-13 season, is something in which the university and the entire San Diego community can take great pride.”

“We are thrilled to welcome back the San Diego State Aztecs to the iHeartMedia family,” said Melissa Forrest, president, iHeartMedia San Diego/Riverside Region. “The partnership is a natural fit, given our past broadcast history with SDSU, our unparalleled reach through our multiple platforms and the widely popular Sky Show association for the past 13 years. We can’t wait for the season to start.”

Listeners will get their first chance to hear the new broadcast when the SDSU football season opens against UC Davis on Saturday, Sept. 2. The game at Qualcomm Stadium also coincides with the 42nd annual KGB Sky Show, billed as the “biggest fireworks show west of the Mississippi.”

iHeartMedia’s cluster of seven radio stations in San Diego include KGB-FM 101.5, KHTS-FM Channel 93.3, KIOZ-FM Rock 105.3, KLSD/XTRA-AM Fox Sports San Diego 1360, KSSX-FM Jamn’ 95.7, News Radio 600-AM KOGO and KMYI-FM Star 94.1.

IABC Selects Lisa Hunter as Communicator of the Year

San Diego’s International Association of Business Communicators chapter has selected Lisa Hunter, lead associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, as its 2017 Communicator of the Year award recipient. Hunter will be honored at a networking reception and ceremony starting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 24, at Karl Strauss Brewing Co.’s Garden Room, 9675 Scranton Road.

Hunter has provided strategic communications and project management services to various government organizations for more than 11 years at Booz Allen Hamilton. She also leads Booz Allen’s communications community in San Diego, helping practitioners incorporate best practices and identify opportunities to address clients’ communication challenges.

“I am honored and humbled to receive this award, especially among so many talented communications professionals in San Diego,” said Hunter. “I am so appreciative of IABC for being such a great resource for me to expand my professional network and continue to learn and grow in the communications field and in my career.”

In addition to her involvement with IABC, Hunter serves as president of the San Diego chapter of Women in Defense, which supports the advancement of women in national security. She also serves on the board of the San Diego Diplomacy Council, a group that connects global leaders with San Diegans to address common challenges.

Recipients of the IABC award are nominated by their peers. Judging is based on leadership, management and communication skills, strategy development and communicating to diverse audiences.

Cost to attend the award ceremony is $25 for members, $35 for non members. For event information, visit http://sandiego.iabc.com.

San Diego AMA to Discuss ‘Power of Social Strategy’

San Diego’s American Marketing Association chapter will host “The Power of Social Strategy in a Digital World,” a program presented by Sharp HealthCare, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Monday, May 22, at the Sharp HealthCare corporate offices, 8695 Spectrum Center Boulevard. Speakers from Sharp HealthCare will include: Jennifer Balanky, manager of digital content; Rachel Martin, social media specialist; and Pam Hardy, managing editor.

Topics will include how Sharp HealthCare manages its social media and digital content to deliver on its brand promise, plus ideas on how to pump up the volume on social and content marketing programs. The event includes a tour of Sharp HealthCare’s Customer and Media Engagement Center. Cost to attend is $30 for members, $60 for guests. To RSVP and for more information, visit www.sdama.org/events.

Direct Marketers Generate Leads with Video

SD Direct will host “How to Generate Leads with Video,” a program on simplified video marketing that works for business, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 16, at UCSD Extension, Room 317, 6256 Greenwich Drive. The speaker will be Owen Hemsath of Owen Video and founder of Video Masters Academy, an online video marketing academy for small business owners.

Topics will include practical tactics for using online video to accomplish business objectives, how to make videos that convert leads and drive sales, and how to build a loyal audience of qualified prospects. Cost to attend is $20 for members, $40 for guests and $12 for students. Lunch is included. To RSVP, visit www.sddma.org/events.

Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly on Mondays in Times of San Diego.

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Another major cyber-attack could be imminent after Friday’s global hit that infected more than 125,000 computer systems, security experts have warned.

UK security researcher « MalwareTech », who helped to limit the ransomware attack, predicted « another one coming… quite likely on Monday ».

The virus, which took control of users’ files, spread to 100 countries, including Spain, France and Russia.

In England, 48 NHS trusts fell victim, as did 13 NHS bodies in Scotland.

Some hospitals were forced to cancel procedures and appointments, as ambulances were directed to neighbouring hospitals free from the computer virus.

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Saturday that all but six NHS trusts’ systems had been restored, but that « there’s always more » that could be done to protect against computer viruses.

‘No reason to stop’

After taking computers over, the virus displayed messages demanding a payment of $300 (£230) in virtual currency Bitcoin to unlock files and return them to the user.

BBC analysis of three accounts linked with the global attack suggests the hackers have already been paid the equivalent of £22,080.

MalwareTech, who wants to remain anonymous, was hailed as an « accidental hero » after registering a domain name to track the spread of the virus, which actually ended up halting it.

• Blogger halts ransomware ‘by accident’
• The ransomware causing chaos
• Analysis: How it started

The 22-year-old told the BBC: « It’s very important that people patch their systems now.

« We have stopped this one, but there will be another one coming and it will not be stoppable by us.

« There’s a lot of money in this. There’s no reason for them to stop. It’s not really much effort for them to change the code and then start over.

« So there’s a good chance they are going to do it… maybe not this weekend, but quite likely on Monday morning. »

Fellow security researcher Darien Huss, from tech firm Proofpoint, echoed MalwareTech’s view.

« I highly suspect that, with the amount of coverage that this incident is getting, there are probably already people that are working to incorporate the exploit that was used for spreading, » he said.

Investigators are working to track down those responsible for the ransomware used on Friday, known as Wanna Decryptor or WannaCry.

‘Bring them to justice’

The virus exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows software, first identified by the US National Security Agency, experts have said.

Europol described the cyber-attack as « unprecedented » and said its cyber-crime team was working with affected countries to « mitigate the threat and assist victims ».

Oliver Gower, of the UK’s National Crime Agency, added: « Cyber criminals may believe they are anonymous, but we will use all the tools at our disposal to bring them to justice. »

Update not applied

In the UK, critics said the government had known about the threat of a cyber-attack for some time, but hospitals had not made the right upgrades to protect themselves.

A security update – or patch – was released by Microsoft in March to protect against the virus, but it appears many NHS organisations had not applied it or were using an older version of the operating system no longer supported – namely Windows XP.

Kingsley Manning, a former chairman of NHS Digital, claimed that several hundred thousand computers were still running the out-of-date operating system.

Mr Manning told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: « Some trusts took the advice that was offered to them very seriously and acted on it and some of them may not have done.

« If you’re sitting in a hard-pressed hospital in the middle of England, it is difficult to see that as a greater priority than dealing with outpatients or AE. »

NHS Digital said that 4.7% of devices within the NHS use Windows XP, with the figure continuing to decrease.

The Liberal Democrats and Labour have both demanded an inquiry into the cyber-attack.

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Sony has had a bumper year thus far with the PS4 with titles like Gravity Rush 2, Tales of Berseria, Yakuza 0, Persona 5 and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Meanwhile, the number of high-profile releases found primarily on Xbox One has been rather sparse. Microsoft has reassured fans that it’s committed to new experiences heading into E3 2017 and that could be truer than we thought.

According to industry insider Shinobi602 on Twitter, Microsoft has marketing on a “major unannounced AAA” title. He then says “Bring on E3”, thus indicating that it will be showcased at Microsoft’s E3 presser.

It should be noted that the “major unannounced AAA” doesn’t mean “exclusive”. Instead, it could be a situation similar to Destiny where Sony has handled the lion’s share of marketing as part of its timed exclusive content deal with Activision. This unannounced title could very well be a timed exclusive for the Xbox One or even have a significant portion of timed exclusive content for Microsoft’s platform.

Either way, we’ll know for sure at Microsoft’s E3 presser on June 11th so stay tuned for more details.

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EarningCoach Marketing LLC, a digital marketing agency based in Lakewood, New Jersey, announced video reputation marketing services for local businesses looking to improve their online presence and connect with potential clients. The company produces and distributes professional video commercials highlighting positive customer feedback.

Lakewood Township, United States – May 13, 2017 /PressCable/ —

EarningCoach Marketing LLC, a Lakewood professional digital marketing agency, launched video marketing and online reputation management services for local businesses interested in professional video commercial production, social media marketing and distribution, and reputation management for improved online visibility.

More information can be found at http://ecmvideoproductions.com.

Online marketing has seen a tremendous growth in recent years, as more and more people routinely use online resources to find business information. With surveys showing that more than 90% of all clients have used Google searches or online reviews to find information on products and services, online visibility has become crucial for overall business success.

EarningCoach Marketing LLC is a professional digital solutions company specializing in state-of-the-art video marketing services. The company offers comprehensive video production and distribution services to help local businesses promote their products, services or industry expertise to potential clients across a variety of platforms.

The Lakewood video marketing company has recently announced an update of its video marketing services, offering reputation marketing videos. The company works with the client company in choosing a sample of positive customer feedback and featuring it as part of a compelling short video commercial that is then distributed across a wide range of social media, business review and various other platforms.

„We understand the immense impact positive customer feedback can have on a business’ reputation, and we want to help local businesses leverage state-of-the-art video resources to solidify their reputation”, said Marvin Drobes, founder of EarningCoach Marketing LLC. „Professional video marketing is much more than just video production, so we will optimize our client’s reputation videos and advertise them all around the internet where potential clients are likely to search for them. Essentially, our mission is to connect high-quality local businesses with prospective clients through professional video reputation marketing strategies”.

Interested parties can find more information by visiting the above-mentioned website.

Contact Info:
Name: Marvin Drobes
Email: mdrobes@earningcoachmarketing.com
Organization: EarningCoach Marketing LLC
Address: 1257C Argyll Circle, Lakewood Township, NJ 08701, United States
Phone: +1-201-365-7860

For more information, please visit http://www.ecmvideoproductions.com

Source: PressCable

Release ID: 199318

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Ordering federal prosecutors on Friday to crack down on drug offenders, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions made clear he wants the Justice Department to turn the clock back to an earlier, tougher era in the four-decades-long war on drugs.

In a memo, Sessions said federal prosecutors should “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” in drug cases, even when that would trigger mandatory minimum sentencing.

Mandatory sentencing laws for drug users have been controversial for years, and many Republicans as well as Democrats now oppose them as unfair, ineffective and too costly.

The new Justice Department policy cancels the Obama administration’s attempts to pull back on harsh sentencing strategies, which had produced a huge growth in prison populations. It restores some language from a 2003 memo written by then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.

President Trump’s promise to keep America safe,” linking drug trafficking to increased homicide rates in some cities.

“We are returning to the enforcement of the law as passed by Congress — plain and simple,” Sessions said.

Sessions rescinded policy memos signed in 2013 and 2014 by then-Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. that instructed prosecutors to reserve the toughest charges for high-level traffickers and violent criminals.

Since then, the number of drug offenders given mandatory minimum sentences has dropped dramatically, contributing to a 14% decline in the total federal prison population, with 188,797 inmates this month.

The new policy threatens to halt a push for bipartisan criminal justice reform that has been led by some of Trump’s closest advisors and embraced by key Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.) criticized the new policy Friday, arguing that mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately targeted minorities because of how different drugs are categorized under the law.

The “new policy will accentuate that injustice,” Paul said in a statement.

“Sessions is an outlier in his own party and even among many of his own colleagues in the administration,” said Inimai Chettiar, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law in New York. “A lot of Republicans support reductions in sentencing.”

Indiana, for example, implemented a comprehensive criminal justice reform package when Vice President Mike Pence was governor.

“I would say that we need to adopt criminal justice reform nationally. We have got to do a better job recognizing and correcting the errors in the system that do reflect institutional bias in criminal justice,” Pence said in a campaign debate last year.

As governor of Texas, Energy Secretary Rick Perry guided his state through a major shift in sentencing away from the kind of harsh penalties that Sessions seeks to restore in federal courts.

In those states and others, alarm at the escalating cost of incarceration helped drive calls for reform.

But Sessions, a former federal prosecutor in Alabama, was never on board with the push.As a U.S. senator from Alabama, he helped kill a proposed sentencing reform bill, warning the legislation could lead to more felons on the streets. He also helped block a 2016 bill that would have eased federal sentencing for marijuana use.

Since joining the Trump administration, Sessions has reversed an Obama administration attempt to phase out federal contracts with private prisons, saying the cells will be needed for the boost in inmate population he sees coming.

Under mandatory sentencing laws, judges have little discretion on how to sentence drug offenders. Prosecutors’ decisions on charging often determine how long offenders will spend in prison.

For example, if federal prosecutors include the amount of drugs in their written charges, that can trigger a mandatory minimum sentence.

They also can file motions for so-called sentence enhancements, which can effectively double drug sentences for repeat offenders, or put them in jail for life.

Some prosecutors use these tough tools as a hammer in plea negotiations, or to force offenders to cooperate.

In his memo, Sessions said prosecutors must disclose “all facts” relevant to a sentence, like drug amounts. He also canceled a Holder policy that said prosecutors should not use sentencing enhancement motions to coerce guilty pleas.

“Drug trafficking is an inherently violent business,” Sessions said. “If you want to collect a drug debt, you can’t file a lawsuit in court. You collect it by the barrel of a gun.”

He said heroin is cheaper, purer and more easily available than ever. Advocates of sentencing reform say that the opioid crisis is evidence that tough policies of the past have failed.

But Sessions said that tougher enforcement could “reverse that trend.”

One former federal judge from Tennessee said he was forced to sentence a low-level drug dealer to life in prison. The defendant refused to take a plea deal for 20 years in prison and was convicted at trial.

“Under no circumstances was this sentence justice,” said the former judge, Kevin Sharp, who has become an advocate for sentencing reform. “We ruined his life.”

In drug cases, Sharp said, the judge’s role in sentencing is dramatically reduced. “I have yet to talk to a judge who says mandatory minimums are a good idea,” he said.

Caption

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Comey:  ‘Was he fired? You’re kidding’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Comey:  ‘Was he fired? You’re kidding’

Caption

Students at Bethune-Cookman University booed and turned their backs while Donald Trump’s education chief Betsy DeVos gave a commencement speech on Wednesday.

Students at Bethune-Cookman University booed and turned their backs while Donald Trump’s education chief Betsy DeVos gave a commencement speech on Wednesday.

Caption

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the presidential election at Wednesday morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called for a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the presidential election at Wednesday morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. 

Caption

Former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper explains unmasking.

Former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper explains unmasking.

Caption

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responds to reports that President Obama had warned Donald Trump about hiring Michael Flynn two days after the election.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responds to reports that President Obama had warned Donald Trump about hiring Michael Flynn two days after the election.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @jtanfani

ALSO

LONDON/MADRID A global cyber attack leveraging hacking tools believed to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency has infected tens of thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries, disrupting Britain’s health system and global shipper FedEx.

Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.

The ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments of $300 to $600 to restore access. Security researchers said they observed some victims paying via the digital currency bitcoin, though they did not know what percent had given in to the extortionists.

Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries, with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets.

Asian countries reported no major breaches on Saturday, but officials in the region were scrambling to check and the full extent of the damage may not be known for some time.

China’s official Xinhua news agency said some secondary schools and universities had been affected, without specifying how many or identifying them.

The most disruptive attacks were reported in Britain, where hospitals and clinics were forced to turn away patients after losing access to computers on Friday.

International shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also infected. « We are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible, » it said in a statement.

FROM ARGENTINA TO SPAIN

Only a small number of U.S.-headquartered organizations were hit because the hackers appear to have begun the campaign by targeting organizations in Europe, said Vikram Thakur, research manager with security software maker Symantec.

By the time they turned their attention to the United States, spam filters had identified the new threat and flagged the ransomware-laden emails as malicious, Thakur added.

Infections of the worm appeared to have fallen off significantly after a security researcher bought a domain that the malware was connecting to, by chance undermining the malware’s effectiveness.

Making the domain active appears to have stunted the spread of the worm, Thakur said on Saturday.

« The numbers are extremely low and coming down fast, » he said, while cautioning that any change in the original code could lead the worm to flare up again.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said late on Friday it was aware of reports of the ransomware, was sharing information with domestic and foreign partners and was ready to lend technical support.

Telecommunications company Telefonica was among many targets in Spain, though it said the attack was limited to some computers on an internal network and had not affected clients or services. Portugal Telecom and Telefonica Argentina both said they were also targeted.

Private security firms identified the ransomware as a new variant of « WannaCry » that had the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

The hackers, who have not come forward to claim responsibility or otherwise been identified, likely made it a « worm », or self spreading malware, by exploiting a piece of NSA code known as « Eternal Blue » that was released last month by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, researchers with several private cyber security firms said.

« This is one of the largest global ransomware attacks the cyber community has ever seen, » said Rich Barger, director of threat research with Splunk, one of the firms that linked WannaCry to the NSA.

The Shadow Brokers released Eternal Blue as part of a trove of hacking tools that they said belonged to the U.S. spy agency.

Microsoft said it was pushing out automatic Windows updates to defend clients from WannaCry. It issued a patch on March 14 to protect them from Eternal Blue.

« Today our engineers added detection and protection against new malicious software known as Ransom:Win32.WannaCrypt, » Microsoft said in a statement on Friday, adding it was working with customers to provide additional assistance.

SENSITIVE TIMING

The spread of the ransomware capped a week of cyber turmoil in Europe that began the previous week when hackers posted a trove of campaign documents tied to French candidate Emmanuel Macron just before a run-off vote in which he was elected president of France.

On Wednesday, hackers disrupted the websites of several French media companies and aerospace giant Airbus.Also, the hack happened four weeks before a British general election in which national security and the management of the state-run National Health Service (NHS) are important issues.

Authorities in Britain have been braced for cyber attacks in the run-up to the vote, as happened during last year’s U.S. election and on the eve of the French vote.

But those attacks – blamed on Russia, which has repeatedly denied them – followed a different modus operandi involving penetrating the accounts of individuals and political organizations and then releasing hacked material online.

On Friday, Russia’s interior and emergencies ministries, as well as its biggest bank, Sberbank, said they were targeted. The interior ministry said on its website that about 1,000 computers had been infected but it had localized the virus.

The emergencies ministry told Russian news agencies it had repelled the cyber attacks while Sberbank said its cyber security systems had prevented viruses from entering its systems.

NEW BREED OF RANSOMWARE

Although cyber extortion cases have been rising for several years, they have to date affected small-to-mid sized organizations, disrupting services provided by hospitals, police departments, public transport systems and utilities in the United States and Europe.

« Seeing a large telco like Telefonica get hit is going to get everybody worried. Now ransomware is affecting larger companies with more sophisticated security operations, » said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer with cyber security firm Veracode.

The news is also likely to embolden extortionists when selecting targets, Chris Camacho, chief strategy officer with cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, said.

In Spain, some big firms took pre-emptive steps to thwart ransomware attacks following a warning from the National Cryptology Center of « a massive ransomware attack ».

Iberdrola and Gas Natural, along with Vodafone’s unit in Spain, asked staff to turn off computers or cut off internet access in case they had been compromised, representatives from the firms said.

The attacks did not disrupt the provision of services or networks operations of the victims, the Spanish government said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle, Eric Auchard, Jose Rodriguez, Alistair Smout, Andrea Shalal, Jack Stubbs, Antonella Cinelli, Dustin Volz, Kate Holton, Andy Bruce, Michael Holden, David Milliken, Rosalba O’Brien, Julien Toyer, Tim Hepher, Luiza Ilie, Patricia Rua, Axel Bugge, Sabine Siebold and Eric Walsh, Engen Tham; Editing by Rob Birsel and Mike Collett-White)

At this year’s annual Infusionsoft user conference, ICON, I had the opportunity to speak to the finalists for the 2017 Small Business ICON award. The finalists include:

• African Leadership University
• Dierks Farm
• Kickstagram

While each of their stories are unique and compelling, they all share a commonality of how marketing automation positively impacted their business success. Which is why we’ll share some of their stories here, starting with the eventual contest winner, Dierks Farms.

Dierks Farms’ Marketing Automation Success Story

Pam Dierks, VP of Dierks Farms, discussed not only how using Infusionsoft’s marketing automation platform enhanced their 137 year old farming businesses, but it created a path that allowed their sons to follow in their family’s tradition of cattle farming. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. The full conversation can be seen in the embedded video below.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Maybe you could tell us a little bit about you, your background, and a little bit about the business.

Pam Dierks: Our farm has been in our family since 1881. We farm and raise cattle on the same land as my husband’s great grandfather who came over from Germany. He also raised cattle, so cattle have been raised on this same land. We raise grass fed cattle, and we just feel like we raise them the way our ancestors did; We don’t give any antibiotics. We feed no grain. No steroids. It’s just completely natural, clean meat.

About two years ago, we had sat down with our son who was in college, and we said, “Lane, what do you want to do with your life?” And he said, “All I want to do is farm.” Well, you know, Mom and Dad we want our kids happy, so we really wanted him to farm too. We want the farm to go on.

We decided that we were already growing grass fed beef, and people were so interested in knowing where their food comes from and interested in our product because grass fed beef is very high in omega three and six. It’s got great cardiovascular effects, things like that. So we just started marketing direct to the consumer, and it took off like wildfire.

We have an online store that we ship anywhere in the continental US, and we use Infusionsoft for our online store, our eCommerce, all our follow-up emails, all of our opt-in process for our database. It’s just pretty well the back end of our whole business.

Small Business Trends: Now before you got to that point, did you have any experience with automation? Any experience with online eCommerce?

Pam Dierks: We also own an advertising agency, so we’ve owned that for about 22 years. So I did have a marketing background, and that really helped, and that was probably another good thing about making the decision. But one of the best things is when we got into Infusionsoft, we were using it just to the bare minimums really, and any small business owner knows, you’re busy, you just don’t have time to do everything.

So we attended Infusionsoft Accelerator, which was a great experience. It set up all of our campaigns. While we were at Accelerator, we were paired with a great certified partner, Daniel from In The Mix Marketing out of San Diego, and he set up a lot of campaigns, started our indoctrination campaign which we still use now, and launched it while we were there. We got our first order from it before we left, and we got 12 orders on it that week, which was amazing because before we went to Accelerator our online was pretty nonexistent, but we set up follow-up campaigns, all kinds of different things; it just was the turning point for us.

Small Business Trends: I got a chance to hear you onstage, you were telling a little bit more of your story. Talk a little bit about the campaign you guys ran around the holiday season.

Pam Dierks: We started planning our Black Friday out about six weeks before, and we started with Facebook ads to add to our database. We upped our database by about 33 percent, and then we started sending out feeler emails saying, “What would you like to see on sale?” And some people would send back, “Well, we like rib eyes. Put your griller’s bundle on sale.” “Put your ground beef on sale.” We took all of those and incorporated those ideas into our sales, and then we sent out a series of emails of saying, “It’s coming.” “Mark your calendars.” “Go out and enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family, and at seven o’clock our specials will be live.” And we ran those specials all weekend. We didn’t do just Black Friday.

Then we came back with another complete set of specials on Monday for Cyber Monday, and ran those, and our orders were up about 1,000 percent over the previous week. So it was very monumental to our farm. It made a big difference in our holiday season, and then going into the next year, and it also built our database, and we also sold several subscription programs of buyers clubs which people can subscribe and have an order sent to their house every month. We still have several of those that are going out every month. We haven’t had any cancel since that time, so it’s just been ongoing income for us.

Small Business Trends: It sounds obvious that automation has changed your business, but just how much did it change it, and did it meet expectations?

Pam Dierks: Oh, it exceeded. Even being in marketing, I didn’t really realize how much Infusionsoft can do, and I’m actually getting some of my other customers involved in it now. It is a huge difference. For years and years, I preached not one ad, you need a series, and all of that. Well, that’s exactly the same way with emails. You can’t send out one email, you have to have several. It has to have the follow-up, and things like that, and that’s what Infusionsoft is based on.

So it’s made a huge difference, and it has helped us reach customers from New York to California. We shipped a whole beef to Texas. It’s amazing really. Here we are a little family farm in middle America, and we’re getting known from coast to coast. So that’s all thanks to the Internet and Infusionsoft, and to be able to get our name out there.

Small Business Trends: But it also has a special role, because like you said before, it allows you to have your sons grow and work in the business.

Pam Dierks: It made a difference of if they were going to work on the farm or work off of the farm, because the way our farm was structured, there was no way we would have enough income to have them both work with us on the farm. So this made a huge difference.

I mean, that’s a big problem with farms nowadays of even surviving and if they do survive, the generations move off of the farm. And once they move off the farm, very seldom do they ever come back, and I’m so happy to have my children close to me. I have a new granddaughter, she’s four miles away from me and is with me every day. That’s also thanks to Infusionsoft that I can have her there and still run a successful business.

Small Business Trends: So where can people learn more about Dierks Farm?

Pam Dierks: You can just log into dierksfarms.com. It has our story, it has pictures of our family, it has our video, and we have a complete online store and can ship anywhere coast to coast; an insulated box with dry ice, and it will be frozen at your door.

This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it’s an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher.

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While YouTube has emerged as a marketing juggernaut for security dealers, many are also discovering that the free video-sharing service has scores of other uses – all of which are also free for the taking. Employee recruiting, client communications, product/service how-to’s and dissemination of news are all increasing in popularity on YouTube, as security dealers and transform the medium into a Swiss Army Knife of business communications.

“If you’ve never visited YouTube, you have missed out on the hottest thing on the Internet today,” says Michael Miller, author of ‘YouTube for Business,’ an excellent guide.

Unquestioningly, one of the major reasons security dealers and others are flocking to YouTube is its unbridled popularity. Just a blip on the Web a half-dozen years ago, the video-sharing service has rocketed to one of the most visited sites on the Internet.

Unprecedented Reach

YouTube currently boasts “more than a billion users,” according to former Google CEO Larry Page, who is now the CEO of Alphabet, which is described as “a collection of companies…the largest of which, of course, is Google.” Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in Nov. 2006, and it now operates as one of Google’s subsidiaries.

Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Plus, the online video-sharing service has been localized in 75 countries and made available in 61 languages. Moreover, half of all YouTube views now take place on mobile devices, according to the company. More than a million user-created channels in dozens of countries are generating ad revenue from the service.

Indeed, among consumers ages 13-24, online video is now more popular than traditional TV, according to a recent study by Hunter Qualitative Research. The group studied – also known as Millennials – spends 11.3 hours/week watching free online video, as compared to 8.3 hours week watching traditional TV.

Besides its unquestionable popularity with young people, YouTube’s ease of entry and low cost makes it hard for security dealers to resist. Virtually anyone with basic PC skills can upload a video to YouTube at no cost in a matter of minutes.

Since YouTube’s videos are generally watched on a relatively small viewing screen, there is no reason for security dealers to endure painful budgets for video production costs; in fact, the subtleties of high-end video production are generally lost on YouTube, according to Miller.

Cost Savings

Security dealers can save significant coin using YouTube by shifting hosting responsibilities for their online videos to the service. Ordinarily, a security dealer needs to pay bandwidth transmission charges any time a Website visitor views a video hosted on the dealer’s website.  

When that same video is uploaded to YouTube’s servers, a business never pays a bandwidth transmission cost – no matter how many times that video is viewed.

All told, it is a frothy mix of remarkable popularity, ease-of-entry and virtually non-existent costs that have the wheels of innovation spinning for security dealers as they continually find new uses for YouTube that go beyond traditional video marketing.

10 Ways to Leverage YouTube

Here are the top ten uses security dealers have forged leveraging YouTube:

Promo Marketing’s Video Battle pits two industry videos against each other for the chance at the ultimate bragging right: Being declared our readership’s absolute favorite. (Next up: Happy Mother’s Day to all the awesome moms out there!)

Last week, HALO Branded Solutions won, and now will face off against TechnoMarketing Inc.

The winner will be decided by a simple poll. The poll will close the morning of Friday, May 19, the same day a new challenge will start.

Companies whose videos win for four weeks in a row will be retired to the Video Battle Hall of Fame and General Awesomeness, forever enshrined in internet glory.

Click here for prior video battles. Have a promotional product video you’d like to submit to PM’s Video Battle? Send suggestions to bmenapace@napco.com.

The Promo Marketing Video Battle is brought to you by SnugZ USA.

A mother of three was attacked while wading at San Onofre Beach less than two weeks ago. Quick-thinking beachgoers likely saved her life by using a surf leash as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from a massive thigh wound. The woman, Leeanne Ericson, 35, is reported to be in fair condition at a La Jolla hospital after multiple surgeries, according to KGTV in San Diego.