As for the second opening?  Well, let’s just say we’re casting a very wide net for new talent. This would be an investment hire (or two) based solely on the need to keep our bench deep as we continue to grow.  Talented people get absorbed quickly around here, and we are always looking for marketers who bring new ideas and experiences to our shop.  Perhaps you’re an account planner looking for a new opportunity.  An interactive developer searching for more interesting projects.  A social media maven eager for a bigger stage.  A creative director ready to take it to the next level. A media relations expert ready for a new adventure. All of the above?  When can you start?  Our list of services can be found here.  Take a gander and tell us how you think you can help us continue our momentum. We’ll create a position if we can find a superstar to fill it.

We value initiative, a sense of humor and curiosity.  Our culture is loose, flexible and extremely fast-paced.  Sound like a place where you or someone you know could thrive? Please direct resumes to Jorg Pierach at info@fasthorseinc.com. In the meantime, we’ll start a discussion tab about our latest talent search at the Fast Horse Experience on facebook. Join us there if you have questions or ideas about where we might find great candidates.

Somewhere out there is a marketer who does only one thing. But I’ve yet to meet him.

The range of marketing channels continues to grow, and it sometimes seems like a full-time job just to stay abreast of the options for reaching consumers and influencers, much less actually execute a program using any of them.

In the last few months, my Fast Horse agency colleagues and I have used these methods to reach people with our clients’ messages. In most cases, we used several of them in conjunction:

• YouTube videos
• E-mail campaigns
• Search engine optimization
• Trade shows
• Print op-eds
• Branded entertainment content
• Web microsites
• Social media outreach
• ”Earned media” coverage in traditional print and TV
• Planned events
• Guest bookings on TV and radio shows
• Blogging
• Twitter

That’s just what I came up with off the top of my head. And I don’t think we’re at all unusual. Anybody working in today’s marketing business has to carefully consider the best methods for getting out a message.

The choices were easier when there were fewer channels. The great old-media trifecta of print, TV and radio still can be useful, but its members are all crumbling to one degree or another. Magazines and newspapers are shutting down or slashing newshole; TV stations are cutting back on editorial and production staff in favor of infomercials; and radio (with the exception of the public variety) long ago abandoned any pretense of providing locally originated information.

The new marketing channels are full of possibilities, but they also require a long-term commitment. Starting a blog, for instance, is an effort that will pay off only if you can provide interesting and relevant content over time. You can’t expect 10,000 readers your first month. But the readers you get over time are more valuable because they’ve chosen to be there.

The same holds true for other Web-based marketing vehicles. Every company needs a strong presence on the Web, and that means more than just creating YourCompany.com. Individual brand marketing efforts may work best with separate microsites devoted to them, but you’ve got to have a plan for driving traffic to those sites.

It’s a fascinating and challenging time to be in the business. I’ve always been interested in the early days of TV, when the medium was new and people were making things up on the spot.

That’s the situation marketers face today. Old ways of doing things are giving way to the new, and the possibilities are endless for those creative enough to see them. It’s exhilarating, it’s exhausting, it’s rewarding and it’s maddening.

And it’s our business.

You’re a large corporation. Your local newspaper, business publication and TV stations are hemorrhaging revenue. They’ve made multiple staff cuts; they don’t devote the same amount of newshole or air time to covering your business or your market as they did a few years ago.

The reporter who used to cover your company now is picking up the work that used to be done by three people. She has no time to talk, no time to pay attention to your company unless there’s huge news– and even then, probably only if it’s bad news.

The blogosphere has exploded, but there may not be an influential blogger who writes about your business or market sector. You can– and should– reach out to bloggers, but the return on effort may not always be as big as you hope.

You need to find a new way to communicate news and information about your company and its products, along with market trends and consumer tips, to customers and potential customers.

Why not do it yourself?

The time is ripe for businesses to get into Web publishing. Not just a static Web site with bare-bones product information and news releases, but a rich, engaging source of useful content– a place people will want to visit even if they don’t use your products.

You don’t need to wait for a magazine or a newspaper to do a story on your company– you can do it. For the cost of a few glossy magazine ads, your business can operate a full-time, regularly updated Web site that will capture eyeballs and loyalty– while allowing you to control the presentation of your products and services.

There are thousands of talented ex-journalists who are dying for free-lance assignments. Sign up a few of them to provide regular content. Engage credible third-party experts to offer tips and trends. Design and edit the site with an agency or in-house. Become the go-to source for information on your market segment.

Make it exciting, not dry. Have a point of view. Offer video, podcasts, quizzes and calculators. Fill it with beautiful photos and sharp writing. Make it fun and smart, rich and engaging.

The old media model is dying. The new model is being born. The media corporations that have provided our news and information for the last 50 years are out of ideas. Why rely on them to tell people about the business you know better than anyone else?

The opening is there. Charge through it.

Agency rankings are worthless.  Indulge me a moment on my soapbox.

I received an email yesterday morning from a well-meaning researcher at the Business Journal,  asking us to update our agency profile and revenue numbers for possible inclusion in the ranking of Twin Cities Top 25 Public Relations Agencies.

“How do you define public relations?” I asked.

“We don’t have any hard and fast definitions of PR for this list,” she wrote back. “It is basically self-defined and general consenus defined. Sorry we can’t be more clear.”

Therein lies the problem with these agency rankings. There is no general consensus. Fact is, the rise of the Internet has fundamentally changed the agency landscape, and the once thin line between what’s PR and advertising has been blurred.

That’s why we’re suddenly seeing traditional PR firms competing against traditional ad agencies, usually on non-traditional ground.  For that reason, it no longer makes sense to rank them separately. We, and others in the market, risk our integrated and non-traditional positioning by lumping our revenue into undefined, traditional boxes for the benefit of inclusion in these sorts of rankings.  We wish it weren’t so, because we’ve certainly seen value in being included in these rankings in the past.

Twin Cities Business Monthly and the Business Journal need to get with the times.  Their rankings are deeply flawed and outdated measures of what’s happening in the agency and marketing worlds.  My solution? Combine the advertising and PR agency rankings into one. Let the agencies include a brief descriptor of range of services (media relations, social media marketing, copywriting, brand strategy, etc.).

Such a list would take a lot of the guesswork out for integrated shops, like ours, that blend traditional and non-traditional marketing approaches. It would also give marketers a better snapshot of the Twin Cities agency landscape, allowing those drawing up shortlists from such a resource to get a more accurate sense of relative size and scope, for whatever that’s worth.  It’s not a perfect solution,  but certainly a big improvement, IMHO.

Weigh in, agency and marketing types. What do you think of agency rankings, and do you have other suggestions for how they can be improved?