Bush Branding & Marketing

100 Mile Lunch - Sunday 5 July

2009-06-29T07:47:00.013+10:00

It is encouraging to watch the ripples move outwardly when you chuck a rock into some water.

In this case the rock was a book that my daughter Kaleigh gave me a few years ago when I was visiting her at university in Vancouver. The book I refer to is the 100 mile diet , which is really more of a movement then a book, one could even compare it to the bible in terms of the lifestyle implications should one chose to follow the commandments of eating differently.

After reading through the 100 mile diet (no I have not read it from cover to cover yet, but one day I will) it came to me that I could bring the paradigm of eating different back to Australia with me and did just that by repurposing our annual Christmas party into a 100 mile soiree. We have had two such events now. Each a fabulous success. Our parties have even captured media attention and that has turned into another event that is happening this week. If you are still reading this is where the rock and ripples kick in. A long time business associate come friend contacted me about getting involved with a group she is a member in. Slow Food Australia.

And the 100 mile lunch was born. Here is a bit of information about the 100 mile lunch. If you are interested you better not act slowly because it will be sold out.

Byron Bay
100 Mile Lunch - Sunday 5 July
11 am-3pm
RSVP- grow@bushmarketing.com

This is something really special!! The lunch will be held at the Cromwell's Farm at Goonengerry- originally the Sheaffes Farm, circa 1900.

Due to the location we are limited with numbers. Members are invited to book first- $40 per head - and also will be invited to be involved with the food for the lunch. This is a function we can all take an active part in!

ALL ingredients, even spices, will be sourced locally. The event is BYO- that means wines from Tenterfield or maybe Sirromet at Cotton Creek (grapes must be grown in the 100 mile (160km) radius) and also plate, cutlery and wine glass!

THE MENU

On Arrival
Marinated olives
Chicken liver pate on cucumber slices
Cauliflower and blue cheese frittata
Pumpkin and bacon frittata

Main Meal
Baked glazed ham
Marinated Byron Bay Pork ribs
Byron Bay Pork chop casserole
Potato bake
Green salad with blue cheese and pecans
Sweet potato mash
Herbed tomatoes

Dessert
Citrus macadamia cake with yoghurt
Seasonal fruit platter

Tank water with citrus

Tea and Green Cauldron Coffee

By sourcing the produce for the lunch within 100 miles we are minimising the carbon footprint of the event. Additionally on your behalf Rainforest Rescue and Bush Marketing will be planting 100 rainforest trees to offset any additional emissions. Pictured below Rainforest Rescue founder Kelvin Davies inspecting a potential planting site on the Cromwell Farm.

100 Mile Lunch Supporters

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Chez Marston

2009-06-12T09:20:00.004+10:00

During our Sydney visit, we had the pleasure of staying with our good friend and client, Wayne Marston of Marston Properties. His fabulous house in Kensington served as the luxurious Bush base—a great place to start and end our busy days.

Jon Sturge began to do some real estate photography while we were there to represent Wayne's property management services.

Thanks Wayne, you are a legend!

Bush goes to Sydney

2009-06-10T17:59:00.007+10:00

Three of us Bushians went to Sydney over the Queen’s Birthday weekend, and boy did we get around.

One of our first stops was the Manly Sustainability Fair where we visited Red Earth Coffee, retailers of the Presso coffee machine. We helped do some demonstrations with the machine, a very green and unplugged way to make your espresso. After sipping a few sustainable Pressos we decided it was time to move on to a different kind of beverage—beer.

Bush is working on an article for BeanScene Magazine about the beer scene in Sydney (even a coffee magazine needs a little beverage variety). Combining the Bush techniques of chatting, writing, and guerrilla style photo-shooting we began to explore and document the pubs of Sydney. We met some lovely folks at the 4 Pines Brewing Company in Manly as we tasted some delicious homemade brews, and then we were off to the Lord Nelson Brewery in the Rocks to so some of the same.

And since we were in the neighbourhood, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to drop in on our good friends at Rockpool. We talked blogs and newsletters (their second newsletter was sent out yesterday) and set up a food photo shoot for our Bush photographer, Jon Sturge. Keep an eye out for Jon’s work popping up on the Rockpool website and the next newsletter.

It was a fun and productive Sydney trip. Go Bush go!

Transfer and Chillfactor Now Online

2009-06-10T17:49:00.005+10:00

Check out how Bush has been taking these magazines to the web: www.transfersnowboard.com and www.chillfactor.com. Bush designed these websites to co-exist with each magazine's publishing system using Confluence.

Rockpool Love

2009-05-05T10:12:00.004+10:00

In April, the first Rockpool newsletter was sent out successfully using Mail Chimp, a great piece of email marketing software. It looks great, and our friends at Rockpool were very impressed with the final outcome.

Here is some feedback from the Rockpool team:

“Dear Greg, Andrew and Nighean
We just wanted to send you a huge thanks for putting together both our Rockpool newsletter and blog. We are thrilled with the end result and you guys have been nothing short of sensational from the word go. You are quick, you are supportive, helpful, fun to work with and dead set unconditionally professional. So….thanks! We look forward to tonnes more work with you in the future.”

“Ditto - absolutely love working you guys on blog and newsletter bits and pieces. I've never learnt so much...and from such nice people. And thank you for never making me feel stupid!!!”

“Youse are soooooooo popular! Thank you as ALWAYS for a truly delightful, gorgeous, professional and delicious thingy that you have done for us.We love youse”

Click here if you would like to sign up for the Rockpool newsletter.

Bluesfest Saved By Blundstone

2009-04-16T17:19:00.003+10:00

There was good music and good heavens, there was mud. The 2009 Byron Bay Bluesfes t Festival went off as planned—five days of music, fun and rain, an excellent introduction to the Byron area for Jon and I, the freshest Bush recruits from Canada.

Ian Heaps, a Bush client from Tin Shack Canada (distributors of Blundstone and El Naturalista), came down to join in on the party too. Needless to say the music wouldn’t have sounded nearly as sweet if our feet weren’t dry and happy in our Blundstones.

The grounds of the fest were so muddy that the average shoe was quickly taken over by the bog. Abandoned shoes lay on the ground—their now barefoot owners braving the crowds (and the porta-potties) sans footwear. I believe Lieutenant Dan said it once, but I will say it again. Take care of your feet! I’m not sure we could have enjoyed bands like The Blind Boys of Alabama or Alpha Blondy without functional dancing feet.

Even though Ian spent most of his time Bluesfesting, there was a little bit of time to do some work and some relaxing at the Bush Headquarters on Mill Road with the Bush Team. In the photo above, see him bonding with Elmo the horse.

The Bluesfest was a great way to kick off our Australian experience, I think we'll be sticking around for a while. Keep an eye out for more of my words and some of Jon's images.

Coonabarabran Show

2009-03-21T08:25:00.002+11:00

Australia is blessed with many things: beautiful landscapes, great characters and country shows. A good friend of ours has gone a bit Gypsy and has hit the road for a year or so to see some sites and sell some leather. Here is a recent update from our mate Steve. There will be more posted here and in time we will be setting Steve up with his own blog.

Coonabarabran Show: words and photos by Steve Craigie
If you've all done as I have then you've always driven through Coonabarabran
without stopping because it's one of those in-between towns.
Last week I made up for it and spent seven days camped at the show grounds
and had the time to look about and meet the locals.
It's much like any other country town, full of friendly helpful people that
accept you as one of their own.
I was there for the show, as you would realize, and as always the same old
team put in the effort to make it a success. One of the characters about the
show grounds is worth a mention so I've included some pics of Jack and his
trick dog Molly.
Jack has spent many years in a circus but decided to go on the road with
Molly and start his own little show.
He's a reserved sort of a chap that doesn't really sell himself but once the
act starts and the microphone's on then look out, he's very good, and Molly
of course wins the crowd over in a big way, especially the kids.
Showman like Jack are two very different people rolled into one.
I first met Jack at the Glen Innes show; he was there with a character named
Bobby, a short foreign bloke who has more charisma than ever you could ever
imagine, he is also from the circus, some forty years of it in fact and has
more gold in his front teeth than I found in six weeks prospecting at Ora
Banda. He wears a constant smile and greets every body with a warm handshake
or a hug depending on your sex and will do anything it takes to make sure
you're happy.
Bobby drives a small train turnout about pulling six carriages. All the kids
have a ball as he winds his way through the show grounds and the odd parent
is aboard to keep the little ones from leaping off.
Bobby was a little worried about Jacks future so over a couple of beers I
said I'd email all the contacts for NSW, QLD, NT and WA. That same evening
they ask if I would like to have dinner at their camp as the food might be
going off because the ice had melted and they had lots of chicken legs to
get through. This was one invitation I was definitely going to give a miss.
Rather than eat with them I took around half a bottle of "Red" for pre
dinner drinks.
In the circus they had worked with lions, tigers and all that scary stuff,
even hanging from ropes and bars in the big top and falling down to safety
nets.
Having given all the information about where to go and what shows to do I
suddenly remembered that I still hadn't seen Jack's act.
Thank goodness he was performing at Coonabarabran.
The pics don't show the real crowd he had as I was one of them but the
locals were most impressed.
It is difficult for him to approach show committees in some ways because he
hasn't anything to sell but entertainment. The committee must there fore
decide whether to pay him as an entertainer or just fuel costs and then he
has to pass his hat around as the act finishes to earn his dollar. The
latter is what happened on this occasion.
After the show and over a beer he said that the crowd was extremely generous
and he'd made nearly two thousand dollars over six performances.
Unlike our business he doesn't have to replace stock when a sale is made, he
only needs to buy some dog food.
As time goes by I will introduce you to other characters that make show life
so interesting.
Pics-
Mad blokes on bikes.
An evening view from my back door.
Molly actually closes the suit case lid on herself at one stage.
Jack climbs the ladder in mid air and then juggles a large knife and two of
those other things.
My camera wasn't quick enough to catch Molly jumping through the hoops.
She also walks about on her hind legs then jumps along like a kangaroo.

Till next time.
Steve and Sass

Two Sheep Ugg Boots website is born

2009-03-18T17:22:00.002+11:00

Baaaaa

After many months of hard work we are happy to announce the birth of two sheep. Westhaven Association came to us over a year ago to help them name their line of Australian made Ugg Boots and design a logo and look and feel that could be used for their new brand. Working closely with Westhaven's Marketing manager Rochelle Satara who sums up her work with us...

The team at Westhaven Association two sheep would like very much to thank the team from Bush Branding and Marketing for their wonderful hands on and professional approach to developing our brand and website, all our conserns and questions where attended to and all the help and explaination we needed was provided in a fun and supportive manner. We would also like to thank Andrew Bleakley and Nighean O'Brian for their tireless web design & technical assistance and Brad Baker for his generosity in hosting our website. We have had fun working with all of you and the team here is so excited to see their products are going live to be seen all over the world. We can not thankyou all enough.

Email Newsletter Software

2009-03-16T08:34:00.002+11:00

Sending email newsletters has become a common practice for most businesses and organisations. As with most simple things that involve technology, design and content you will be confronted with many challenges. The biggest of which is picking the best technology platform based on your needs and of course budget.

One of our clients has asked us to help them get an email newletter system setup for them. It's one of our favourite clients so we have offered to send the first one for free (a one time offer not to be repeated)

Here is a short list 0f 3 we have put forward (there are about another 28 million other things you could check out on google...in fact 28,700,000 for email newsletter software.)

Mail Chimp

http://www.mailchimp.com/

-you can pay as you go about 3 cents and email or pick an unlimited plan (suggest you start with pay as you go)

Email Marketer

http://www.interspire.com/emailmarketer/

-$800 plus Aussie for the software and installation

PHP List

http://www.phplist.com/

-free open source software
-not as featured or elegant and you can run into problems sending if your mail host is strict

Yossi Ghinsberg in Mullumbimby

2009-02-17T09:27:00.001+11:00

International best selling author, Yossi Ghinsberg will be holding a talk starting at 7pm on the 5th March at the Mullum Civic Centre in Mullumbimby. Yossi's first book, 'Jungle' based on his harrowing adventures in South America was first published in 1986 and soon became an international bestseller. It has been translated into 10 languages and published in over 20 countries thus far. In the midst of the uncharted Amazon, after losing his three companions, one man was tested to the extreme, alone and bare to the bone, for three harrowing weeks of sheer survival against all odds. He lived to tell the amazing story as well as how the ordeal profoundly affected his understanding of himself and his life purpose. Ten years later Yossi returned to the Amazon and made it his home. Working with indigenous forest dwellers for three years they built Cha-la-lan, a model eco-tourism village that inspired the entire Amazon basin and the world. Yossi is a riveting storyteller and motivational speaker. There are limited seats, please register now to attend this event. [ Click here for more information ]

Proudly Presented by Bush Marketing and Rainforest Rescue

Presso Podcast Production

2009-01-17T10:02:00.002+11:00

When I was in Vancouver in last month my daughter and bush copy editor Kaleigh and I performed for this podcast. It was filmed and edited by none other then Jon Sturge. Looking forward to Jon and Kaleigh moving to Australia in April to join the Bush Marketing team. Here is the clip. Special thanks to Andrew Bleakley for crunching it down and introducing me to Vimeo.

How to make the perfect cup of coffee from Presso Australia on Vimeo.

Our new cows-meet the Dexters

2009-01-01T23:06:00.002+11:00

Wanted to share with you one of the best brands I have ever come across--no pun intended. Here is a video clip I discovered while doing post research on the cows we bought for Christmas. Gotta love the Wall Street Journal for their great content and for making it so easy to share. Moooo

Rockpool Blog for Neil Perry and Trish Richards

2009-01-01T11:22:00.005+11:00

We had the pleasure of finishing off the year with what was for me the high light of our 2008 web development and design work. One of my favourite sayings is that a client always get what the deserve. We served up Sarah Swan, Neil's PA an on budget and on time blog that is as tasty as the food rockpool serves up.

Our creative director Nighean took design direction from the recently updated Rockpool suite of websites (done by the littleirrepressiblewonton.com and mahonandband.com.au), Andrew worked his magic with Wordpress and I got to go to Sydney to do some training and take credit for the great work (as I do). This picture was taken at the Rockpool head office on George Street--yours truly with Sarah Swan and Luane Riley.

2008 Christmas Online Sales Success

2009-01-01T11:00:00.002+11:00

The numbers are in and it would seem that online sales finished up the year a bit flat for most of the big boys. Our web developer and online gezelsheist Andrew passed on this interesting article to me and commented that my boot business partners should be doing back flips about the work we have done for blundstone.ca and australianboot.com . Visits and sales on these sites is up on average 25% from last year. "We are happy to take the blame for bucking the trend and attribute this great result to good design and technology which has translated into more visits, longer time on site and serious sales increases.

Here is a link to the article that appeared on tech crunch.

100 Mile Soiree Friday November 28th

2008-11-21T07:56:00.005+11:00

Where has the year gone? It seems like yesterday we were organising our first 100 mile soiree to celebrate our new studio space in Byron Bay.

Last year's party was such a success. People loved the concept of eating and drinking locally based on the 100 mile diet concept I brought back with me from Canada. This year we are going to take it a step further and serve up food grown and raised on our 10 acre property. With only a week to plan and promote its going to be branding and marketing challenge. However, in my experience it's never too hard to get people to come out and celebrate, especially when they know there is farm fresh food involved.

Here is a great article about our party last year and background on the 100 mile diet.

100milediet_soiree-echo.pdf

Another article on this years party written by the lovely and delicious Victoria Cosford.

This%20little%20piggy.pdf

Halloween Happy Blundstone Customer

2008-11-02T09:20:00.006+11:00

My partner Ian sent this email onto me yesterday. When you read it you will understand why he was so elated. Happy customers, especially ones who have had an issue with your product, means you are in good shape from the ground up. It goes to show that the cost of replacing a product, regardless of the situation, is one of the best investments you can make. The value of a customer for life, and the word of mouth (in this case word of foot) has immeasurable value. Simply treat your customers right and good karma will come your way. Here is what our happy bundstone boot customer had to say...

I have to tip my hat.....to the craftsmanship....the service...and the warranty of the mighty Blundstone.This is my story.....My first pair purchased in 2004 after years of doc martins and such ....was the old school dark brown chunks that lasted 3 years....but I'm not the guy who just put them on every once and a while look I own a pair of blunstones.....I walk every day for hours..and kms close to 20 a day. I live in Canada...Toronto to be exact.....I taunt the winter...begging for a snow bank to keep me from crossing the road.....puddles. I love watching the suit and ties dodge them while I plow through. then the clean up.....a quick wipe of the cloth. ta-daa......that was my old pair with the warn to the bone soles...that sit under my work desk just in case .....not sure what for...I just can't throw them out. I guess if there is a ridiculous day of weather....that take my boots right off my feet I guess.

But that was My old boots....my newer boots that I bought last year( the newer version dark brown chunk)....were just now hitting there true groove. I had a winter with them.....and a summer with them.....my fall was going to make it to my winter when I was going to give them the clean-fixings for a deep freeze. then I hit a wall...almost cryed...sorta freaked out. there was a tear in the leather....right where little toe would be....right along the sole crease. MY frear that blundstone...was going to let me down....there was no way I can see it to be fixed....not there....I took them to my dealer ( October 28th) ....the Blundstone at 791 Queen Street West. Around the corner from the new condo we bought( still walk to and from work....year round ) ....and just two weeks after my marriage . the store clerk Matt was good......and when he showed Andria the Manager my boots she just said.....give him the new pair....explained that it does not happen often, but the machine may have pressed a cress into the leather right at the sole .... before I knew it I was sorta punch drunk with delight.....there was new boots on the counter.....then on my feet. I danced home and my wife was amazed..... that' the story of my boot #2...I Already.....vowed and live in the blunstone. today I can honestly say that there always be a pair of blundstones...in my life....I'm 40 now....and predict that by 60 I'll be on boot nuber 6...or 7. I still can not believe....such amazing customer service...and warranty. I'm blunstone guy for sure thank-you ...thank-you ...thank-you. Toronto Canada

Search Camp is in Session

2008-10-31T06:22:00.005+11:00

Kate Ramsay searching for SEO answers and Seach Camp Director Greg Cromwell pointing the way.

The sun is rising and I am getting ready to make sure all of our campers are going to have a very happy day playing with search engines. Our campers are all signed up and we are ready for them.

Kate Ramsay of And Consulting who is also bushmarketing's business leadership coach

Dainen Keough of wwwires.com a wireless internet provider

Scott Lutwyche from the www.fatherhoodfestival.com

Our counsellors have been working hard to get put together our introductory offering to the world of search through our unique camp like approach. We had hoped for a few more campers; however less is often more and it has been great market research talking to people about "why" they could not come to search camp even though they found it very interesting. The most common is with the down turn in the economy I really need to focus on selling; ironic that what we will be helping people bring customers to them in a cost effective and measurable way.

Better get the coffee on to fuel up our campers.

CMS-SEO shoot out at Search Camp

2008-10-30T07:48:00.002+11:00

One more day to go until our first search camp, a search engine optimisation workshop we are putting on.

Campers are bringing with them a number of different content management systems including joomla, contribute and Good Barry. Each of these systems will be scored by our counsellors based on ease of use and assessed for their effectiveness.

Based on my experience these CMS systems are way ahead of custom content management systems that I have used which don't deal with any of the more subtle aspects of seo.

In closing here are some tips from my Good mate Barry--who I think is an odds on favourite to take the award for best search engine friendly system.

The Top 3 Most Underrated Web Statistics

Let's imagine you're looking at your website's report card. It's easy to understand what visitors are, what your online sales figures mean and so on. But most business owners don't know that there are three not-so-obvious analytics that you should really be paying attention to.

New and Returning Visits. This comparision shows you something very important about your website - do people come back after they leave for the first time? You should be working to improve this ratio. The fact is that the more times someone returns to your website, the higher the chance they will buy. There is a high correlation between people who return to your site and people who actually pay for your product or services.

Top 5 Web Pages. Generally speaking, a list of your top 5 web pages will tell you the most likely path of users through your site. #1 is where they start. Those that click through will go to #2, and so on. Use this information to make sure that the most important information is on the right pages, and to make sure your customers are going in the right direction.

Top Search Phrases. How are people finding your site through search engines? This metric tells you exactly what brings people to your site. Use this information to optimize your site around those keywords to increase your traffic. Alternatively, you can use this to tell you which important keywords are under-used, and increase their usage.

Blundstone Boot it up 2008-city tv

2008-10-24T09:08:00.001+11:00

Tourism Tasmania Backs Blundstone Your Boots

2008-10-23T07:50:00.003+11:00

Blundstone Canada is holding a major competition to get pictures and stories about people and their blundstone boots. Bush Branding & Marketing stepped in a few months ago to help find sponsors to help promote the competition and to provide prizes.

Tourism Tasmania has signed on as the main sponsor providing an incredible walking tour of Tasmania for the lucky winner of this years Your Boots contest.

Get your boots shined up and your shutters ready if you want a chance to win. To find out more and to see some great blundstone boot photos visit blundstone.ca/yourboots

7 Reasons to buy SEO consultants brain power

2008-10-23T07:36:00.005+11:00

Low Hanging fruit. I love that expression. Here is a great extract from a leading search engine professionals website. $1200 for an hour-makes search camp seem like a real bargain for a whole day with four seo professionals for only $500.

7 Reasons Why Small Budget Consultations Make Sense

Many prospective clients contact SEO/SEM consultants trying to extract for free as much information as possible, without ever wanting to buy services. In response, many consultants have become conditioned to shield their valuable knowledge, by answering questions in a vaguepartial answers to SEO/SEM questions. manner, or giving

A one hour consultation is an easy way to avoid all that and learn what your site really needs, fast. Benefits to scheduling a consultation include:

* Minimal Investment: A great deal of time and effort is required to learn and stay in front of search marketing. The cost of a consultation pales in comparison to the potential rewards.
* Quick and Easy: A $1200 spend typically does not require major decision making or high level sign off. And we are usually available to consult your business within 72 hours.
* No Sales Pitch: Since we are being paid adequately for our time we don't waste your time by pitching services. We believe that if you find our knowledge useful and profitable to your business that if need arises again you will come back.
* No Shielding Information: Once you become a paid client our knowledge becomes your knowledge.
* The Right Answers for Your Business: Once we get on the phone with you, meeting your business objectives and increasing your ROI are our goals. This includes giving specific advice and action points geared to your business.
* Low Hanging Fruit: Is your SEO strategy holding your site back? Does your website have major structural issues? Is your linking strategy helping or hurting your site? Your SEO strategy might be perfect already, but we have yet to see a Web site that couldn't be improved. Typically there is low hanging fruit, and a consultation pays for itself many times over.
* No Risk: If you do not find the consultation helpful we offer a no questions asked 100% money back guarantee.

Search Engine Marketing Workshop-Oct 31

2008-10-15T13:06:00.004+11:00

Search Camp Wants You!

Book your place at Search Camp, a search engine optimisation workshop on Friday October 31st and start getting into search engine shape.

Search camp's team of search engine professionals will share their experience in the trenches to empower search campers with the tools and knowledge to enhance the search engine rankings of their own websites.

Redgate Consulting-Jan Dent-Business Coach

2008-10-01T07:41:00.002+10:00

Every once in a while a client comes along that puts a smile on your dial. A client that knows what they want and are prepared to participate and pay for the creative process. Jan Dent came to us looking for a logo, stationery and a website just over a month ago. She now has all three and we are working on phase two of her website.

Without hesitation I would recommend Jan Dent and Redgate consulting for anyone who is interested in a business coach.

Search Camp Australia October 31, 2008

2008-10-01T07:36:00.002+10:00

Bush Marketing is presenting a one day Search Camp. If you are interested in search engine optimisation and search engine marketing visit searchcamp.com.au

Stone and Wood Brew House Arrives from Canada

2008-09-10T07:37:00.004+10:00

The excitement is building at Stone and Wood Brewing in Byron Bay. Their brew-house arrived from Canada last week and is already set up. I had the privilege of being invited for a sneak peak.