Help a Rising Star! CMA Internships Now Available

Creative Marketing Alliance is currently accepting resumes for full time or part time interns to support activity within its art/design, marketing, public relations, association management and financial departments. Depending upon the area of concentration, the candidate will assist our staff in a support role and will be given opportunities to observe and participate in the day-to-day operation of a full service marketing and communications firm. Please send resumes to Melanie Kotsonis, mkotsonis@cmasolutions.com. 


Business Development Intern

The ideal candidate should possess the ability to connect and integrate strategic initiatives’ goals and objectives, strong database skills and familiarity with programs including Excel and Access. The candidate should also possess the ability to meet deadlines while managing several projects and willingness to learn and share opinions. A major in Marketing or Business is preferred.

Responsibilities include participation in team planning efforts, coordination across cross-functional teams, management and compilation of data sets and marketing models and lists coordination.

Finance Intern

The ideal candidate should be attending a four-year school, majoring in finance or accounting, and preferably be in his/her junior year. This will be an unpaid internship. The candidate will assist our staff in the areas of accounts receivable, accounts payable, and billing.

Public Relations Intern

The ideal candidate should be attending a four-year school, majoring in public relations or communications, and preferably be in his/her junior year. This will be an unpaid internship. The candidate will assist our public relations staff with press releases, news releases, case studies, database management, and client support.

Marketing Intern

The ideal candidate should be attending a four-year school, majoring in marketing, and preferably be in his/her junior year. This will be an unpaid internship. The candidate will assist our staff in coordinating ad campaigns for existing clients: emphasis on business to business accounts, industrial and commercial.

Graphic Design Intern

The ideal candidate should be attending a four-year school, majoring in art or graphic design, and preferably be in his/her junior year. This will be an unpaid internship. The candidate will assist our staff in the areas of creative concept, direct marketing and design.

Association and Event Management Administrative Support Intern

The ideal candidate should be attending a four-year school and preferably be in his/her junior year. This will be an unpaid internship. The candidate will assist our association executives in coordinating activities for non-profit and trade associations. Duties may include maintenance of databases, supporting membership services programs and membership payments, and assistance with event planning. Individual must be computer literate, particularly in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access are a plus.

CMA Gives Thanks Through HomeFront Food Drive

CMA Director of Marketing Services, Erin Higgins (left); PR Manager, Kaitlin Friedmann (middle) and Administrative Services Manager, Melanie Kotsonis, drop off Thanksgiving food baskets to HomeFront.

CMA donated eight baskets of non-perishable food to HomeFront as part of their Thanksgiving food drive.

A non-profit organization located in Lawrenceville, HomeFront provides emergency shelter and support services to help Mercer County homeless families get back on their feet. Each year, the organization strives to meet its goal of providing Thanksgiving meals to over 1,800 homeless families in the area. For over a month, CMA employees collected and donated canned goods and other non-perishable items for the drive. 

“Year after year, our staff joins together to help local families in need for Thanksgiving,” said Jeffrey Barnhart, President and CEO of CMA. “We hope these baskets will brighten up their holiday.”

CMA Gives Thanks

Every once in a while, CMA takes a break to celebrate and give thanks. Last week was no exception, as CMA staff members took a moment to reflect on what they are most thankful for this holiday season. 

No Flash for Mobile Web Signals New Era

Software developer Adobe announced last week they will cease production on mobile versions of Flash…so what’s the big deal?

Essentially, this move signals the end of an era. Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. For nearly 15 years, it has been one of the mainstays of web-based animation. Now, tech-savvy insiders are saying Flash will be deemed irrelevant and that the influence of the late Steve Jobs of Apple cut mobile Flash’s chances of success very short. 

According to CMA Interactive Designer, Matt Kulcsar, designers stopped using Flash for full site development about 3-4 years ago because of technologies like jQuery. In the past year, it was widely believed Flash would not survive the transition to mobile platforms simply because of its unstable nature and intense battery drain.

“When I heard the news, I thought ‘happy days are here!’ From a designer’s standpoint, Flash was just a resource hog and was becoming more and more cumbersome to use,” said Kulcsar.

“Opting to use Flash would be like saying you don’t care if any Apple users can see your content. After a certain point, no one was willing to exclude that audience,” he added.

Kulcsar says HTML5 is the emerging Web language that many developers are using, even Adobe is leaning this way for its non-mobile software development. There’s no doubt Flash will continue on in some form or fashion but designers say it will not be branded in the same way that Flash used to be, or carry as much weight as it used to.

“It’s an exciting time of transition where within the span of just about a year, we are seeing tablet usage skyrocket—not just the iPad, but the Samsung Galaxy and the Kindle Fire have gained traction in the marketplace. We’ll start to see the stripped-down net book laptops also really takeover in the next two years or so,” said Kulcsar.

Let us help you adapt to changing technology. Give us a call today to discuss cutting-edge web strategies to grow your business.

Groupon: What’s Behind this Retail Sales Bonanza?

Once again, we know you’ve heard about it, and we want you to be in the know.

Groupon (group coupon) has recently emerged as a popular social media site that is essentially a group buying service that offers one deal a day within the markets it serves. It offers deep discounts to all retail establishments it screens. The key is that enough people have to buy into a deal in order to make it a profitable venture from the start for all concerned.

What’s it all about? What are the pros and cons of participating from a business perspective? Allow us to shed some light on this new phenomenon.

Deep Discounts

Retail businesses offer, through Groupon, deep discounts on products and service-up to 90% off. Groupon will tell the potential buyer via email that a particular firm is willing to offer 50% on a particular day on particular items and the buyer will use his or her credit card to purchase the certificate. Coupon deals have expiration dates as noted on the website.

A Group Effort

Groupon will send an email certificate to the buyer which they can redeem at the store. Say the merchant is a restaurant, and they are offering a $40 discount on two meals complete. So the price to the consumer is $20 Groupon keeps 50% of the revenue.

In this case the customer remits the discounted price for the meal to the establishment and Groupon keeps 50% and the establishment keeps 50%. It should be noted that Groupon’s major market is female customers meaning that health, fitness and personal care items are their primary offerings.

Each such offering is a one day only deal and Groupon only goes forward with the deal if they get enough participants to tip the balance and make it worthwhile to Groupon, the merchant and the buyer. Once they have enough takers the offer is open to anyone who wants to participate.

Pros and Cons for Businesses

On the plus side, Groupon is an excellent way to drive traffic to a particular business or service and catch the attention of thousands of buyers who otherwise may not have known about you. It also helps to sell slow moving inventory—Groupon offers an excellent way to get them out the door. In many cases, Groupon helps to generate new relationships. Although you may be providing a one time offer, a simple coupon can bring in repeat business if the coupon holder likes what they see.

There are also several potential pitfalls to consider. You could have a disaster on your hands if you don’t plan on having an onslaught of new customers. Running out of inventory or not staffing appropriately will send customers away with a poor impression of your business. Also, since price is the driving force behind this service, you need to choose those items and services that have the highest margins. You can actually lose on the deal if you are discounting a low profit margin product or service.

Your business and CMA

What does this mean for your business? CMA knows social media, and is ready to help you navigate through all the new digital developments. Give us a call.

Kaitlin Friedmann

PR Manager

kfriedmann@cmasolutions.com