- 2.1.12 - Webolutions Participates in 2nd Annual Grocery Cart Race for Charity
- 1.27.12 - Denver Social Media for Business Group Talks Sharing Across Social Networks
- 1.24.12 - Top 12 Free Mobile Apps for Business
- 1.19.12 - SOPA, PIPA and Your Website
- 1.9.12 - Three Search Engine Marketing Resolutions For 2012
- February 2012 (1)
- January 2012 (7)
- December 2011 (4)
- November 2011 (5)
- October 2011 (7)
- September 2011 (4)
- August 2011 (1)
- July 2011 (3)
- June 2011 (6)
- May 2011 (4)
- April 2011 (6)
- March 2011 (6)
- February 2011 (5)
- January 2011 (4)
- December 2010 (4)
- November 2010 (9)
- October 2010 (2)
- September 2010 (2)
- August 2010 (2)
- July 2010 (6)
- April 2010 (4)
- March 2010 (9)
- February 2010 (3)
- January 2010 (1)
- December 2009 (5)
- November 2009 (5)
- October 2009 (1)
- September 2009 (7)
- August 2009 (7)
- July 2009 (4)
- May 2009 (3)
- April 2009 (4)
- August 2008 (1)
- November 2007 (1)
- October 2007 (3)
Recent Posts
02/01/2012
Webolutions Participates in 2nd Annual Grocery Cart Race for Charity
Categories: Experience Marketing
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-styl …
Read The Rest of This Post01/27/2012
Denver Social Media for Business Group Talks Sharing Across Social Networks
Categories: Social Marketing
Social Media Marketing for Business - Join the Conversation!, kicked off its 2012 calendar with a discussion among attending business owners and executives about successes and risks of sharing content across various Internet social networks. Thanks to Dale Honning Videography, a complete chronology of the event is available on Webolutions' Facebook Page. Discussion highlights included: Definition of Social Media - The use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue regardless of time and geography. Should you share the exact same soc …
Read The Rest of This Post01/24/2012
Top 12 Free Mobile Apps for Business
Categories: Marketing Trends Social Marketing
I've been asked a few times recently what free mobile apps I find most useful for my business. Excluding the calendar, email, text, browser and camera, which have, I believe, become a minimum expectation for anyone carrying a smartphone, here are the tools I use and what I get out of them: QR Droid – Admittedly, most of my QR code activity is verifying the QR codes we create are routing and tracking correctly, but I needed to work it in here because a properly packaged QR campaign can be super for creating engagement and excitement around your business, and can provide valuable da …
Read The Rest of This Post01/19/2012
SOPA, PIPA and Your Website
Categories: Online Marketing
The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives could change the way the Internet operates. The goal of the legislation is to protect media companies against theft of their material. It ostensibly targets Websites hosted outside of the United States that infringe copyrighted material. The acts would force US Internet providers to block offending domain names. It also aims to cut off funding to infringing Websites by forcing advertiser and payment services to stop doing b …
Read The Rest of This Post01/09/2012
Three Search Engine Marketing Resolutions For 2012
Categories: Online Marketing
While you may be thinking that your New Year’s resolution should be to start working out, spend more time with your family, or take up a new hobby, you shouldn’t forget about your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) when making resolutions. Even if you’ve had a great 2011, here are three areas you can focus on to make sure you have an even better 2012 when it comes to your Internet Marketing efforts. 1. Create New, Quality, Optimized Content A stagnant site is not going to climb the search engine result pages (SERPs) for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Search engines lik …
Read The Rest of This Post01/09/2012
Experiential Marketing Agency Tip – Incorporating traditions into your experiential marketing
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experiential marketing, if done effectively, should deeply engage a business’s community in a very emotional and meaningful way. Over the holidays, I was thinking a lot about all the traditions we have as a culture and what these mean to us. The traditions in our lives create who we are, how we think, and impact our emotions at the deepest levels. Some of the traditions I am referring to include: Birthdays Christmas Anniversaries Coming of Age Ceremonies (Sweet 16, Bar Mitzvah, turning 21) New Year’s Eve While the religious nature of some o …
Read The Rest of This Post01/06/2012
Top Marketing Trends for 2012
Categories: Marketing Trends
Top marketing trends for 2012 predominatly revolve around social media and mobile devices. New mobile and social technologies continue to arise, thus the biggest trends for the year are all vastly interrelated in these two areas. Below are our top five trends for the year. 1. Social Media Marketing Because social is such a big focus for the year, we have broken social down into additional sub-categories. Social Mobile - With smart phone sales expected to surpass computer sales in 2012 (more than 450 million smart phones are expected to be sold this year alone), social mobile i …
Read The Rest of This Post01/05/2012
Social Media Marketing and Sales: Your Strategy Defines Your Brand
Categories: Social Marketing
You’re not the only person who receives Facebook “friend” and LinkedIn connection requests from people you’ve never met. Many have found your name among someone else’s list of Facebook friends or LinkedIn connections and seek to ply their wares upon you and your entire online network. You, and everyone online, are a prospect. In 2012, social media is a critical component of business marketing and sales strategy, this tactic is detrimental to the medium and the people and companies who use it. This action is coached by sales trainers who don’ …
Read The Rest of This Post12/12/2011
Experience Marketing Example - Customizing the Experience
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experience marketing involves taking your product or service, and turning it into a unique experience for your customers. In order to be successful, it is important to allow customers to truly “experience” your brand. Taking this a step further, rather than creating a set experience, why not customize the experience to meet the wants and needs of every customer? Defining and standardizing your communications with customers through professional and respectful interactions has long been used as a tool for creating good customer experiences. Companies …
Read The Rest of This Post12/12/2011
Current Marketing Trends: Mobile Websites a Must for Businesses
Categories: Marketing Trends
All marketing trends occur as a result of consumer behavior. Businesses must anticipate the consumer needs and react by meeting these needs (demands). This is certainly true when it comes to the consumer’s demand to access information via mobile devices. This is not a future trend. This is the here and now. Last quarter, for the first time, over 55% of all phones sold were smart phones. From January through October 2011 there were 1.2 million non-iPad tablets sold and Apple is on pace to sell nearly 40 million iPads in the 2011 calendar year (a 342% increase over last year). &nbs …
Read The Rest of This Post12/09/2011
Search Engine Optimization: What is "Quality" Content?
Categories: Online Marketing
One of the first things a Search Engine Optimizer will talk about when formulating an ongoing SEO plan is content generation. They will explain that search engines are looking for Websites that are continuously growing and published with content that is fresh and relevant to the rest of your site. Search engines are also putting more emphasis on the quality of the content, measuring this metric through the time spent on the page, whether they visit more pages on your website and whether or not they are sharing this content with their friends. So what qualifies as quality content? When it com …
Read The Rest of This Post12/08/2011
Denver Social Media for Business Group Now Top 10 in the World
Categories: Social Marketing
The December 2, 2011 installment of Denver's Social Media for Business - Join the Conversation meetup was a milestone. On December 1, 2011, the group acquired its 1,000th member. Denver's premier social media for business group is now, according to Meetup.com, the ninth-largest Business and Social Networking meetup in the world and seventh-largest in the nation. It is also the fifth-largest Business Strategy and Networking Meetup in Colorado. "This group is all about action, communication, involvement, leadership, and ROI," said John Brackney, CEO of the South Metro Denver Cham …
Read The Rest of This Post11/22/2011
Make a Google Plus Business Listing Part of Your Social Media Marketing
Categories: Social Marketing
On June 28, 2011, search engine giant Google launched Google Plus (Google+), an Internet social network modeled as an improvement on Facebook. By October 9, 2011, it had accumulated 40 million users. In November, 2011, the platform followed the lead of LinkedIn and Facebook, allowing businesses to have micro-sites (Pages) on the platform. Especially with the failure of Google Wave and Google Buzz—neither of which were actually intended to be the new Facebook but neither of which were ever really understood—and with time and financial budgets already allocated to existing s …
Read The Rest of This Post11/14/2011
Search Engine Optimization: The Ever Changing World
Categories: Online Marketing
In the world of technology everything is evolving. Rest on your past success and you will be left in the dust. This is just as true for Search Engines as it is for TVs, computers, and smart phones. In effort to always bring better results to their billions of searchers, Search Engines are constantly updating their algorithms, forcing search engine optimizers (SEOs) to adapt. Let me take a step back and explain how search engines work for anyone who is thinking, “Wait, what algorithms?” The goal of a search engine is to bring people the most relevant results. Search Engines send ou …
Read The Rest of This Post11/08/2011
Current Marketing Trend: Consumers Demanding Value
Categories: Marketing Trends
Marketing trends occur as a result of consumer behavior, and with the new trend towards value, businesses are being forced to take notice and act accordingly. Consumers are not just expecting affordable prices, they are demanding good quality at a good price. The value of a product isn't just in its price. While a low price is important, consumers expect the kind of quality they used to get in the pricier products, simply at a more attractive price. As Americans are struggling to pull out of the recession, they have adopted a post-recession mentality. In reaction …
Read The Rest of This Post11/05/2011
Relationships: A Timeless Marketing Trend
Categories: Experience Marketing Marketing Trends
Each year, on the Friday before Halloween, you'll find Webolutions at the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce's Annual Business Expo. This year, the "Webolutions Marketing Speakeasy" was voted Most Creative Booth. Visitors to the "Bootleg Candy Bar" took a quiz that asked, "What era is your marketing in?" and CEO John Vachalek delivered a seminar on Mobile Marketing. The "speakeasy" theme for the Webolutions booth reflected the 1920's theme for the Expo. "We chose the 1920's theme," said John Brackney, CEO of the Chamber, "to highlig …
Read The Rest of This Post10/27/2011
Facebook Advertising, Online Reviews Lead 2011 Holiday Marketing Strategies for Retail
Categories: Marketing Trends Online Marketing Social Marketing
According to recent studies by BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, 97 percent of all purchases have an Internet component. 90 percent of all purchases are researched, at some level, on search engines. The average American uses 7.9 media sources to research a purchase…and most purchase at a local business. Combine those facts with the growing use of social media, especially Facebook, among demographics with purchasing power and the time for retailers to push social media to the marketing fore is right now. Online Advertising is Effective for Driving Offline Sales • Online a …
Read The Rest of This Post10/26/2011
Denver Social Media for Business Group Hears Online Reputation Management Solutions
Categories: Social Marketing
On October 21, 2011, Denver’s premier social media for business meetup group gathered to discuss changes, best practices and tools for social media monitoring. Items discussed included: What are Social Media Marketing Channels? • Twitter • Blogs • Facebook • LinkedIn • Mainstream News Sources • YouTube • Reviews Why Listen? • Reputation Management • Sales Opportunities …
Read The Rest of This Post10/14/2011
Search Engine Optimization: Tracking Your Progress
Categories: Online Marketing
Gone are the days of guessing what return your marketing investments will bring in. If you have a website and are using internet marketing, you can now track how many visitors are visiting your website, how they found it, what they are viewing, how long they stayed, and whether or not they converted (filled out a form, bought a product, signed up for the newsletter, etc.) Here are some important metrics to look at beyond the number of visitors and how you can use the information to maximize results. One of the most telling metrics for your online marketing and search engine optimization effor …
Read The Rest of This Post10/14/2011
Experiential Marketing Example - The Webolutions Experience
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experiential marketing is a creative approach to the marketing world. Creating exceptional experiences and evoking positive emotions is at the heart of experience marketing. Webolutions promotes Experiential Marketing to our clients, but do we practice what we preach? We sure do! That’s where I come in as the Experience Coordinator at Webolutions. We take Experiential Marketing so seriously, that my job is dedicated to creating memorable and exciting experiences for our guests. It is my responsibility to ensure that anyone who walks through our doors has a stimulating experience w …
Read The Rest of This Post10/13/2011
Current Marketing Trends – Transparency of Your Brand
Categories: Marketing Trends
Transparency is still a relatively new notion for many businesses. However, this idea is critical for all businesses to understand and carry forward with them on a daily basis. As one of the current marketing trends, it is a fundamental marketing concept that can have an extremely powerful impact on your brand. So, what do we mean when we say transparency? Transparency is the notion (fact) that we live in an age where your customers and everyone else with whom you interact have the ability to publically share their experiences with your brand. This can be done through reviews, blog post …
Read The Rest of This Post10/11/2011
Social Media and Mobile Marketing Still Gaining Importance in Company Marketing Plans - Nielsen
Categories: Marketing Trends Social Marketing
The Nielsen Q3 2011 Social Media Report confirms that businesses wanting to go where the customers are, will beat a direct path to social media, understand who is using the medium and how, and consider how they are accessing it. Attention Share: Follow the Fingertips Social networks and blogs account for 23 percent of total time Americans spend on the Internet—more than twice as much as the #2 category, Online Gaming. Time spent on the 75 “other” categories accounts for 35 percent of Americans’ total Internet time. Nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visi …
Read The Rest of This Post10/06/2011
Creating a Great Internal Experience - Webolutions Lunch Club
Categories: Experience Marketing
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt;"Times New Roman","serif";} Webolutions® is all about experiencial marketing. We live and breathe experience marketing. For our clients, we help them create an experience around their brand – some companies need help with their internal …
Read The Rest of This Post09/21/2011
Denver Social Media: 10 Steps to Creating a Successful Social Media Marketing Plan
Categories: Social Marketing
On Friday, September 19, 2011, Denver's premier Social Media for Business Meetup group discussed Creating a Successful Social Media Marketing Plan. In addition to free treats from My Favorite Muffin and Peet's Coffee Southglenn in the comfortable confines of the new South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, guests engaged in tips group discussions led by Denver Dataman and heard a presentation from Webolutions CEO John Vachalek. The outline of John's presentation is below. Overview The key to generating ROI from your social media marketing is by making the most of the time that you contribute …
Read The Rest of This Post09/19/2011
Webolutions And Kickball For Kids
Categories: Marketing Trends
For the second year in a row, Webolutions will be participating in the annual Make-A-Wish Kickball Tournament. The event will take place on Saturday, September 24th at 8am at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, CO. Webolutions believes in giving back to the community and working with local charities to make a difference in the lives of others. The Colorado Make-A-Wish Foundation grants the wishes of Colorado children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. Webolutions supports them in this mission. Weboluti …
Read The Rest of This Post09/19/2011
Experiential Marketing Example – Continued - Glenwood Canyon Brewpub - Case Study
Categories: Experience Marketing Marketing Trends Social Marketing
Experiential Marketing and the impact it has on your social media (thus your overall reputation) is replacing the attention most businesses paid to their conventional advertising strategies. This series of posts will serve an interactive case study in the areas Experience Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Marketing Trends and more. Read on and see what you think. On 7/26/2011 we published a post outlining the experience I had on 5/30/2011 when my family visited the Glenwood Canyon Brewpub at the Hotel Denver in Glenwood Springs. As part of this …
Read The Rest of This Post09/10/2011
Social Media and September 11, 2001
Categories: Social Marketing
Webolutions uses Meetup.com for our monthly Social Media for Business Group and finds it an effective marketing tool, when supported and used correctly, for local businesses using event marketing. We have a New Media Strategies team focused on staying "in the know" on all developments touching the increasingly dynamic field of Internet marketing. Sometimes, we learn something new that puts it all into perspective. The text below is the body of an email we received from the CEO of Meetup.com. I don't write to our whole community often, but this week is special because it's the 10t …
Read The Rest of This Post08/24/2011
Denver Social Media: Defining and Measurement of Social Media ROI
Categories: Social Marketing
On Friday, August 19, 2011, Denver's premier Social Media for Business group welcomed over 100 business leaders to the new South Metro Chamber of Commerce Center, enjoyed peer networking and breakfast fare from My Favorite Muffin and Peet's Coffee Southglenn and generated group discussion focused on measuring Return on Investment (ROI) from social media. Highlights of the discussion included thoughts on a matrix used to determine ROI . Reach / Exposure – Brand Awareness (Opportunity) Visits to Your Website Phone Calls / Emails / Submissions / Purchases Conversion …
Read The Rest of This Post07/29/2011
Denver Social Media: Webolutions Klout Nets Metromint Perk Experience
Categories: Experience Marketing Social Marketing
Dear Influencer, A little (bird) told me you've got a ton of Klout! Your audience trusts you to create great content, and you tell it like it is. Your influence has earned you this Klout Perk! Enjoy and let us know if you have any feedback. Thanks, Joe Fernandez, Founder & CEO and the Klout team As per Klout's clearly stated Influencer Code of Ethics, it is incumbent upon us to disclose we received a sample of Metromint water. We received the product because we, "are influential and have authority on topics related to the product." We are also, "welcome to tell the wor …
Read The Rest of This Post07/26/2011
Experiential Marketing Example – Glenwood Canyon Brewpub - An Interactive Case Study
Categories: Experience Marketing Marketing Trends Social Marketing
Experiential Marketing deals with an overall customer or client experience. It focuses on how the customer feels and what they experience during their entire engagement with your business. This engagement might begin to occur before they actually meet with you via the correspondence you have before they come in. It occurs while they meet or visit with you and it has the ability to continue as long as the communications continue. This continuance of the communication provides a huge opportunity for businesses to stand out and keep the experience of their brand alive in the custo …
Read The Rest of This Post07/22/2011
Denver Social Media for Business Group Packs Marketing Tool Kit
Categories: Social Marketing
Conversation at the July, 2011, installation of Denver's premier Social Media Marketing for Business group centered around the tools we use to manage time and succeed in the medium. Highlights of the interaction included: Definition of Social Media - The use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. (Wikipedia). Should we also add, “regardless of time and geography” to this? How do you determine the best social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube) for your company? B2B, B2C, Professional, Age, Gender, etc.. …
Read The Rest of This Post06/28/2011
What Is Experiential Marketing?
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experiential Marketing seems to be on the forefront of minds anymore, as the "way" to market their products. But what IS experiential marketing exactly, and who is doing it well? Experiential Marketing is more than simply "event marketing", which it can often be confused with. Rather, experiential marketing is a way to engage your consumers with your product, allowing them to "experience" your product, utilizing as many senses as possible. In this day and age, consumers are skeptical of the "traditional advertising" methods, such as radio and tv, …
Read The Rest of This Post06/28/2011
The Impact of Quality Websites on SEO
Categories: Effective Design & Usability Online Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has always been a balancing act between writing for search engines and writing for users. In the early days, stuffing keywords into your content and across your site was rewarded with top rankings in the search engines. As Google and other search engines strive to bring people the best results in the top positions, the push has been towards high quality Websites and content. Have you ever clicked on a search result and seen something like this (forgive my shameless keyword stuffing; it’s in the name of science!): “Webolutions is a Denver search eng …
Read The Rest of This Post06/22/2011
Microsoft AdCenter: A B to B Social Media Marketing Success Story
Categories: Social Marketing
Microsoft Advertising, the Pay Per Click search marketing arm of Microsoft Corporation, is a prime example of B to B social media marketing success. This innovative company started using social media platforms in 2006, well before many B to C's had started delving into this realm. It started simply enough: Web developers from Microsoft sought out and participated in existing online forums pertaining to their recently launched Microsoft adCenter product. From there, they started one blog, then turned it into an actual network of blogs devoted to clients, marketers, developers and a population o …
Read The Rest of This Post06/22/2011
Denver Social Media: Privacy and Copyright Considerations
Categories: Social Marketing
On June 15, 2011, Denver's premier Social Media for Business Group asked and answered questions about current laws, trends, expectations and what is in and out of bounds with regards to ownership and rights of content we find and place on the Internet. We also ate delightful muffins from My Favorite Muffin and sipped gourmet java from Peet's Coffee Southglenn. If you add these places to your purchase patterns, it will quickly become permanent. Yum. Some of the discussion points were: Copyrights and the Internet When can I use something that I find online on my website? Is giving cred …
Read The Rest of This Post06/13/2011
Effective Web Design and Content - Utilize A/B Testing
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
How are you measuring the results of your website? If you aren’t measuring the effectiveness of your design and copy choices, you could be missing out on conversions. A/B testing is a cost-effective way to make sure you are making the right copy and design decisions. Take a look at some simple A/B tests that garnered improved results for these companies. Can you guess which version performed better? You might be surprised in some cases. Copy testing example - http://whichtestwon.com/archives/11405 In this A/B test the only difference between the two landing pages was the text used …
Read The Rest of This Post06/08/2011
Current Marketing Trends: QR Codes and Your Business
Categories: Marketing Trends
Marketing agencies like Webolutions help clients determine what marketing trends would be most beneficial for their businesses. QR codes can be helpful in many industries; connecting with your consumers is essential in today’s business world. A Quick Response (QR) code is a 2-D barcode that can be scanned by a smart phone’s camera and transfer information to the user via cell phone. QR codes have been used widely in Japan for over a decade, and the technology is now gaining popularity in the United States. QR codes were created in 1994 in Japan by a Toyota subsidiary, Denso-W …
Read The Rest of This Post05/26/2011
Pay Per Click Marketing: How to Create a Successful PPC Campaign
Categories: Online Marketing
It should go without saying that the easier you make it for your Website visitors to become customers, the higher percentage that will convert (buy a product, fill out a form, sign up for a newsletter, etc.) Unfortunately, that simple logic is easily forgotten if you are overwhelmed setting up your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. Having a clear, consistent message throughout your campaign will help you maximize your conversion percentage and minimize your cost per conversion. There are three areas you need to be aware of with regards to your messaging: your keywords, your ads, and your Website. …
Read The Rest of This Post05/24/2011
Denver Social Media: Creating Content that Gets Shared
Categories: Social Marketing
Facebook claims 5 billion pieces of content are shared on its network every week. 23 percent of social media messages include links to content. Neilsen and AOL conservatively estimate 27 million pieces of content are shared daily. 23 percent of all messages are shared; 47 percent of industry-specific messages are shared. 60 percent of those include a product or brand name mention. The most popular way to share content? Email leads social networks by 66 percent to 28 percent. 99 percent of people who share via a social network also share via other platforms...like email. Overall, peop …
Read The Rest of This Post05/24/2011
Denver Social Media: GroupTargets Local Online Marketing
Categories: Social Marketing
On Friday, May 20, 2011, Denver's premier social media for business group enjoyed structured interaction around a topic critical to any business: Social Media Marketing to a Targeted Local Audience. Important discussion points included: Google & Local Search Results Creating the right information, reviews, consistency across all resources & monitoring this on a regular basis. Geo-Targeting on Facebook and Other Tools Creation of content for specific geographic areas (states, cities, etc..) Local Check Ins (Yelp, Facebook, etc..) What do you want to see? Where should you c …
Read The Rest of This Post05/09/2011
Effective Web Design: 5 Key Elements
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
Keep It Simple - One of the main keys to great web design is keeping the design simple. If the site is too complicated or too much of a hassle for the user, they won't hesitate to simply leave and find a more usable site. A simple, easy to use site keeps users engaged in your site. Simplicity comes in many forms - one of which is getting the user to the information they desire in as few clicks as possible. Another form of simplicity to focus on is the background of the site. Loud or extremely busy backgrounds tend to detract users from the main purpose of the site. Too much going on with …
Read The Rest of This Post04/22/2011
Denver Social Media: Social Marketing for Business Group Focuses on Video
Categories: Social Marketing
77 percent of companies plan to increase the role of video in their online marketing in 2011. During January, 2011, 112.8 million unique U.S. Viewers watched video content on YouTube using computers from home and work. These facts started a lively conversation among video producers and business leaders at the April, 2011 installment of Denver's Premier Social Media Marketing group . Top Online Brands by Unique Viewers (Jan. 2011, U.S.) Video Brand Unique Viewers MOM % Change in Viewers …
Read The Rest of This Post04/05/2011
Current Marketing Trends :The Evolution of Business Marketing
Categories: Marketing Trends
Marketing agencies like Webolutions ensure our clients connect with customers on a more personal basis. We create true engagement between the brand’s marketing and the marketplace. In an era of social media marketing and extreme word-of-mouth connectivity, this is critical. In 1859 Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species. Over the next few years, the general public came to accept evolution as scientific fact. However, not until the 1950s (nearly 100 years later) did natural selection become recognized as the basic mechanism of evolution. Current ma …
Read The Rest of This Post04/05/2011
Experiential Marketing Examples :The Las Vegas Coca Cola Experience
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experiential marketing agencies like Webolutions help clients connect with customers on a more personal basis. We create true engagement between brand and its customers. In an era of social media marketing and extreme word of mouth connectivity, this is critical. Coca-Cola is consistently ranked as the most recognized brand in the world. As well, Diet Coke recently became the 2nd most globally consumed soft drink, beating out Pepsi. In case you have missed our previous posts about experiential marketing, success in this marketing discipline demands a change in your advertising and marketin …
Read The Rest of This Post04/05/2011
Experience Marketing Example: Adding the Wow Factor
Categories: Experience Marketing
Demand for "Experience" is Increasing It's just a fact - consumers are demanding more out of their money; more bang for their buck; more value for their dollar. In order for businesses to keep customers happy, and to not lose these customers alltogether, companies need to deliver more than just what is expected. They need to raise their offering past the basic "service" and turn it into an unforgettable, "wow" experience. One such company that is changing their business model into more of an experience than a service is Wow Events Denver. Aptly …
Read The Rest of This Post04/04/2011
Engaging Website Users to Experience your Offering
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
What increases engagement? This is kind of a million dollar question these days. So many companies still just want a "Web Presence" with simple brochure information, and proceed to tap their IT department to slap their info onto a page. They then wonder why they are not seeing any web leads. What if you intimately know your audience and reach out and engage them, give them what they want right away, and make it a great experience? What would happen then? Whether you want a user to sign up for your service, buy your product, or simply listen to what you are saying, if your Website …
Read The Rest of This Post04/04/2011
Denver Social Media: New Rules for Facebook Marketing, Part 4
Categories: Social Marketing
How often should I post? Not all social networks are the same. When I speak to groups, I talk about this in the context of "culture." In this post, we'll focus on the practical, matter-of-fact stuff, but it still makes sense to address, briefly, the nature of how people use the network. Constants in the Equation Very few of us interact on Facebook with a primary goal of selling something, and those who project that are broadcasting to an empty channel. We use Facebook for entertainment and keeping in touch, and we make time for this on weekends. We've seen recent data that says …
Read The Rest of This Post03/29/2011
Online Marketing: Optimizing for Local Search
Categories: Online Marketing
Google’s local and organic search results are now combined. This elevates the importance of local search for location-based businesses to be on par with organic Denver SEO. The Fundamentals Haven't Changed. Effective online marketing remains anchored by your Website, which should be designed for conversion and optimized, structurally and content-wise, around a Keyword Strategy. The importance and coherence of your efforts outside of your site are increasingly important. As usual, we look at content and architecture. Content: Clear Market Positioning with Information Consistency …
Read The Rest of This Post03/29/2011
Denver Social Media: New Rules for Facebook Marketing, Part 3
Categories: Social Marketing
How does Facebook decide what goes in the news feed? First, let's define the term: "News feed" is the chronological list of posts from your friend and Pages you "like." It's the stream of information you see when you log into Facebook. Anymore, this works (links) the same when you're using Facebook as yourself or as your business Page. Just like Google and other search engines, Facebook uses an algorithm--Facebook's is called EdgeRank--to determine what "news" it "feeds" you. If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach (and even if it isn't) t …
Read The Rest of This Post03/29/2011
Denver Social Media: Using Video in Social Marketing
Categories: Social Marketing
In April, 2011, the monthly topic for Denver's premier social media for business meetup group is Utilizing Video in Your Social Media Marketing. We'll discuss: How quality standards and consumer expectations for online video are changing. How the increased use of smartphones and tablets is impacting the proliferation of online video. Decision points for when it is worth the expense of having a video professionally produced and when "homemade" is good enough--or better. The pitfalls that will render your video unwatchable and what triggers might make it " …
Read The Rest of This Post03/24/2011
Denver Social Media: New Rules for Facebook Marketing, Part 2
Categories: Social Marketing
In Part 1 of our series, we tackled a couple of fundamentals. Now we'll tackle some FAQ's about the most recent changes to Facebook Pages. Do I love or hate the new Facebook Page? You love it. First of all, I can't help but notice Facebook changes stuff frequently without asking us, so if we decide to embrace the changes, we'll spend more time smiling about them. If we don't, we'll just be a bunch of grumps sitting by ourselves in the break room and later we'll come around to realizing just how silly it was to get grumpy about Facebook instead of all the really good reasons life provides f …
Read The Rest of This Post03/24/2011
Denver Social Media: New Rules for Facebook Marketing, Part 1
Categories: Social Marketing
First, let's cover a couple of old rules that remain the same, only because we see some otherwise-savvy businesses missing them: 1. You want a PAGE for your business, not a PROFILE. A Profile has "friends," a Page has "likes." "Friends" require mutual acceptance, the Page assumes anyone who "likes" it is welcome until an administrator says otherwise. Pages provide analytics and allow for custom tabs; profiles do not. If you're a business, you should demand analytics and...we'll talk about custom tabs later in this series. The easiest way I've fou …
Read The Rest of This Post03/24/2011
Denver Social Media: Social Media’s Role in Your Search Engine Placement
Categories: Social Marketing
On Friday, March 18, 2011, Denver's premier Social Media for Business Meetup group explored exactly what social media can do and should not be counted upon to do for your company's search engine optimization rank and Internet presence. Here are the highlights: The Goal of Every Search Engine: Provide the most relevant search results possible! That’s all. Key Factors Determining Your Search Engine Placement Site Saturation – The number of indexed pages at your Website Inbound Links & Relevancy – The number of “good” links to your Websi …
Read The Rest of This Post02/22/2011
Community Involvement as a Part of Doing Business
Categories: Marketing Trends
More and more companies today are including community involvement as a normal part of the way they do business. Consumers respect companies that give back and contribute to making their local communities a better place to live, work and play. People want to support these companies because it shows they are invested in the local community they share. Letting the public know you care about and support your community is a great way to improve your reputation with consumers. You don’t have to spend a lot as a company to become more involved in the community. You can set aside a budget for d …
Read The Rest of This Post02/22/2011
Denver Social Media: 10 Tips for Creating a Successful Content Generation Plan
Categories: Social Marketing
On Friday, February 18th, Denver's premier social media for business Meetup group confronted strategic content generation. Here is a summary recap: Overview What is “successful content”? This is content that achieves your goal of engaging your target audience(s) and succeeding in achieving your social media marketing goals. Creating a Successful Content Generation Plan 1, Clearly define the results you expect to achieve through your social media marketing activities Contacts Awareness Sales Brand Engagement Referrals Etc. 2. Clearly d …
Read The Rest of This Post02/10/2011
Denver Social Media: Social Marketing for Business Group keeps growing.
Categories: Social Marketing
The Denver Social Media Marketing for Business Meetup group surpassed 800 members last month and we expect an energetic turnout for networking, structured knowledge sharing and, of course, free breakfast at our next meetup February 18. In January, Webolutions CEO John Vachalek led a discussion about ROI measurement in social media. If there is one hot button issue with social media marketing right now, it's measuring the returns. But in fact, there are at least two hot button issues in this area, and we're tackling Content Generation on Friday, February 18, 2011. Our December, 2010, this Me …
Read The Rest of This Post02/03/2011
Denver Social Media: Super Bowl XLV to be Social Media Marketing's "Coming Out" Party
Categories: Social Marketing
This article is not about how smartphone gamers will be watching attentively for the secret code for "Angry Birds." It's about Audi's CMO stating that the effect of a Super Bowl TV commercial, "can only be sustained by social media." Some facts about Super Bowl viewers age 18-34: 66 percent will be using a smartphone while watching 59 percent will be sending texts and/or emails about the game 18 percent will be checking out ads online from their phones (and before we decide that 82 percent will not, let's remember phones get passed around. "Here …
Read The Rest of This Post02/02/2011
Marketing Trends 2011: The Shift to Online Continues.
Categories: Marketing Trends
B to B marketers are placing more and more confidence in online marketing and less and less in "traditional media." That's not just an agency with "Web" in its moniker talking. Its the result of a Marketing Sherpa survey, released February 1, 2011. As the attached graphic indicates, budgets are increasing for Web-based efforts and decreasing for print and broadcast. Direct mail is a wash. Why? Among our beliefs and observations are: We like what we can measure. No tactic is more trackable than Internet advertising. Increasingly, our online activities d …
Read The Rest of This Post01/21/2011
Denver Social Media: Change your Facebook Page name...quick!
Categories: Social Marketing
Your friendly neighborhood social media marketing geek here with a bulletin on a couple things you may have wanted to do with your Facebook Page but couldn't until now. Change the Name of your Facebook Page Until recently, when you created a Facebook Page for your business, Facebook warned you to be sure it was what you want it to be before you publish it to the world. And yet, somehow, we still ended up with "social media experts" with pages trumpeting themselves as "Markeitng" consultants. Well, fear not, "markeitng" gurus: Facebook now allows you t …
Read The Rest of This Post01/10/2011
Pay Per Click Marketing Basics, Focused Keywords
Categories: Online Marketing
The most important aspect of your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign is always getting conversions whether they are direct sales, leads, or even views of a key page. Without properly focused keywords you are probably throwing a lot of money away. Here are some tips to help you start your campaign with a clear keyword list and continue to refine it into a well-oiled machine. Your initial keyword research should revolve closely around your products and services, the more focused the keyword is the more likely it will lead to a conversion. Lets say you are an animal shelter with puppies for adoption b …
Read The Rest of This Post01/10/2011
My Experience Marketing Experience - Grease Monkey
Categories: Experience Marketing
Does a Great Experience ALWAYS Justify the Extra Cost? For the past 3 years, I have gotten my oil changed at Grease Monkey, mainly due to the fact that it is walking distance from work, and I can just run over on my lunch break for an oil change. Up until this last oil change, I was always forced to get Synthetic Oil, thanks to the demands of my needy luxury vehicle. For anyone that uses synthetic oil, you know that when it comes to oil changes, Synthetic Oil = WAY MORE MONEY. Needless to say, I was excited to drive my new Toyota to Grease Monkey the other day, knowing that …
Read The Rest of This Post01/10/2011
Designing for Different Browser Experiences
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
The old school thought was that all websites should look exactly the same in every browser but times they are a changin’. Different browsers have different capabilities. Now there are four major browsers available, plus a number of not so major ones AND each of those has different versions. Some of those browsers came out nearly a DECADE ago (IE6 cough, cough). A decade is a huge amount of time in the internet world. The difference in capabilities between modern day browsers and those born a decade ago is massive. For instance, newer browsers have better security features, run much fa …
Read The Rest of This Post12/23/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: Apps we'd like to see
Categories: Marketing Trends
Part I of ?? Inspired by this Pete Blackshaw blurb from Ad Age, we decided to take a peek inside the minds of some Webolutions' staff members. Turns out we think we're pretty clever. What app should be invented in 2011? Responder: Erik Landru, IT App: iHysteria What it does: Shows countdown to next Apple media event with links to discussions and media posts on what the Apple genies will release next. Sez Erik: "I am a bit of an Apple fanboy so if this were actually real and free - I would have it." Responder: Patrick Yuan, Online Marketing Coordinator Mobile App: iCanCa …
Read The Rest of This Post12/17/2010
Denver Social Media: Survey shows perceived social media marketing priorities
Categories: Social Marketing
Social media changes all the time and provides endless opportunities for new perspectives. Last Friday, our Social Media for Business meetup group embraced the dynamic nature of the medium by creating a "VIP experience" and directing the majority of the action to the balcony. Many of us stuck around to network and collaborate in rather comfortable and unique environs. Prior to the event, Webolutions emailed a survey to those who had RSVP'd, "yes." It asked recipients to provide their top social media marketing priorities for 2011. Here are the results of that survey: …
Read The Rest of This Post12/14/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: Merging Search and Social Media
Categories: Marketing Trends Social Marketing
One major area of our business is achieving optimal position for relevant Internet searches for our clients. Another is improving online reputations. It's not difficult to see how the two complement each other. The pursuit of positive comments, "check-ins," the change in Websites from billboards to interactive information hubs is evident in the marketplace of nearly every industry, especially in the B to C sector. Just outside of the mainstream media, but easy t …
Read The Rest of This Post12/09/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: Financial Services Enters Social Media Marketing
Categories: Social Marketing
I like Genworth Financial. I mean this in the sense that I "like" their Facebook Page, as well as in the sense that I like what they do with it. Genworth ran an ad during Super Bowl XXIV asking viewers to visit its Facebook Page and make a brief post honoring someone special in their lives. The accompanying screen shot here is from their Genworth Celebrates Parents Page, which is an upshot from the still-thriving Genworth Celebrates Page, which provides an outlet for people to honor heroes in their …
Read The Rest of This Post11/29/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: Advertising Becomes Personal with Billboards that See You
Categories: Marketing TrendsThe following is re-posted from July 27, 2009. We live in a “me” society, where everything is on demand, and customized and personalized just for me. I have MySpace, iGoogle, my Yahoo, my iTunes – everything directed towards me, in the way I choose to consume it. I no longer read a print newspaper; instead I simply log onto my Google desktop, and can see my top interest news, specifically in the way I have decided to filter it, and specifically in the order I want it displayed. I no longer listen to the radio, I play my iTunes, which are songs I have chosen …
Read The Rest of This Post11/26/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: 3 Factors to consider for Email Marketing Tools
Categories: Marketing Trends Online Marketing Social Marketing
I was recently part of an online discussion in a LinkedIn group about Email marketing tools. Recommendations and insights were sought to aid the comparison of ExactTarget, Constant Contact and MailChimp. (Disclosure: Webolutions uses ExactTarget. We also manage client accounts on ExactTarget and Constant Contact.) All of the responses were thoughtful and each endorsed a service based on ease of use and design options. Choosing an Email Marketing Tool Especially if you're doing it yourself, ease of use is essential. We wouldn't be much of a design company if we didn't stress the i …
Read The Rest of This Post11/23/2010
Denver SEO Resources: A few of our favorite blogs
Categories: Online Marketing
Following on from the tenet posted in a previous post that we want our clients and partners to be savvy, here's a quick list of some of the resources we use to stay on our game: SEO Blogs These are our favorite Internet resources to stay on top of the constantly shifting landscape of Search Engine Optimization: Search Engine Land Search Engine Watch Broader Topics These sites have a larger scope than SEO--Social media, Internet advertising, mobile marketing, programming development and more. We recommend them for everyone from neophite to geek: Hubspot SEO, Bl …
Read The Rest of This Post11/19/2010
Denver Social Media: 4 alternatives to Facebook "unfriending"
Categories: Social Marketing
This past Wednesday, February 17, 2010, was late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel's first annual Facebook "National Unfriend Day." Anthropologists tell us that each of us can maintain a maximum of 150 personal relationships. From this, we learn: The majority of "friends" we have on Facebook are not, by this definition, friends. Anthropologists don't have sales quotas. Therein lies the rub. Many of us employ Facebook, actively and conscientiously or otherwise, to build our personal brand. Since our friends and family don't care about such things, this is a …
Read The Rest of This Post11/16/2010
Internet Marketing Trends: Will new Google popups change Web design?
Categories: Effective Design & Usability Online Marketing
(Or: Google changes aren't permanent; but change is.) Must be a day with a "y" in it. Google changed something. And once again, they didn't call first to ask if it was okay. Harumph. A few weeks ago, most users started noticing the merge of local and organic. Notice how, on the picture, the map thumbtacks accompany the organic listing. That's pretty cool. All that much more important now to have a Google Places page for your business. Where's the big map, you ask? It's on the right column, hidden behind the popup window showcasing the Website. See what I did there? So, now, …
Read The Rest of This Post11/12/2010
Denver Internet Marketing: 3 Critieria for Choosing an SEO partner
Categories: Online Marketing
"We usually start these conversations with a lesson on how your Website is not up to our SEO standards." That's the modus operandi of a national firm with whom Webolutions is considering establishing a strategic partnership. With our site, they didn't have anywhere to go, but that's not the point. Here's the point: Just because a Website has "Internetmarketing" in its URL does not mean they are your best choice for an Internet marketing partner. Water cooler talk in this office is loaded with comments like, "It's surprising that greater standardization doesn't ex …
Read The Rest of This Post11/10/2010
Internet Marketing Example: The Dallas Cowboys and the Importance of Domain Renewal
Categories: Online Marketing
At the risk of piling on or hitting after the whistle...how 'bout them Cowboys? The story so far: The 2010 NFL season began with extroverted owner Jerry Jones, Sr., boasting that the team he owns, the Dallas Cowboys, expect to be the first team to play a home game in the Super Bowl. (For those of you who are late to the party, the Cowboys are one of the more storied and popular franchises in all of American sports.) That same team started the season one and six, losing their star quarterback to injury in the seventh game. Fans, followers, sportswriters, radio and TV pundits, blogg …
Read The Rest of This Post11/09/2010
Denver Social Media: Better online marketing through "listening."
Categories: Social Marketing
This month's Denver Social Marketing Group Meetup focused on listening. The first phase of a company's social marketing is almost always, as it should be, listening (monitoring) its reputation online. As we often say, "You can't choose whether or not people are talking about you online. You can choose to engage in the conversation about you." Social listening is a necessary "defensive" tool, but businesses of all sizes are using it for "offensive" purposes, as well. Tapping into conversations can provide insight to opportunities and trends within your industr …
Read The Rest of This Post11/05/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: Webolutions at the South Metro Denver Business Expo
Categories: Experience Marketing
Webolutions was a proud exhibitor at the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce's annual business expo on October 29, 2010. We were proud to receive several awards, including "Best in Show" for our "Planet Webo"-themed booth. Our CEO, John Vachalek, was honored with the Chamber's Leadership in Motion Award for his activism in the Denver business community. John's seminar, Top 10 Keys for Successful Marketing in 2011, was praised as providing "spot on," immediately applicable information. This month, our events include a November 9 International Breakfast …
Read The Rest of This Post10/27/2010
Denver Social Media: The rapid and inevitable evolution of college athletics
Categories: Marketing Trends Social Marketing
Today, John and I addressed a gathering of about 50 coaches, administrators and marketers of the athletic department at the University of Denver. Our message: In the near future, a university's approach to social media will be the differentiator in recruiting, marketing and alumni/booster relationships. As marketing professionals and sports fans, we observe with great interest the developing relationship among student-athletes, their programs and social media. The landscape is littered with young people in high profile positions sharing the consequences of poor decisions. North Ca …
Read The Rest of This Post10/12/2010
Denver SEO - Three Tips to Choosing Your Keywords
Categories: Online Marketing
Things to Keep In Mind When Choosing Your Keywords While it can be easy to overlook something as simple as choosing keywords, it is one of the biggest blunders you can make in an internet marketing campaign. Ranking for the wrong keywords doesn’t do any good. They may bring you traffic, but if they are not relevant you will be increasing your bounce rate instead of your conversion rate. Here are some basic things to keep in mind when choosing your keywords. Relevancy - While it isn’t rocket science, choosing relevant keywords seems to be a difficult task for people to …
Read The Rest of This Post09/07/2010
Experience Marketing Example: LEGO - Creating an Experience with Intention
Categories: Experience Marketing
The Lego Experience LEGO is quickly becoming more and more known for the “LEGO Experience." Hot off of their latest “LEGO Experience” tour, LEGO set out to let children and adults alike immerse themselves in the experience, and all that the LEGO brand has to offer. This ranged from hands-on experiences, minds-on experiences, family games and challenges, video games, and even inspiration models. The LEGO experience spans wider than just their recent tour, however. In fact, at every touch point, they focus on delivering a very specific, intention …
Read The Rest of This Post09/02/2010
Denver Social Media Marketing: Breaking through the Clutter
Categories: Social Marketing
Let’s face it; more isn’t always better, and the Internet is the epitome of more. While the web is a platform for posting pretty much anything and everything, that doesn’t mean your social media marketing strategy should be to post just anything. Successfully creating and promoting content can directly draw visitors to your Website, help your search engine rankings, promote your brand, and create lifelong customers. So what is it that you are trying to say with your social media? Are you making posts to try to draw attention to your company, or are you saying something beca …
Read The Rest of This Post08/23/2010
Denver Social Media: Foursquare for Business - What, Why and How
Categories: Marketing Trends
I’m sure by now you have heard of Foursquare, and know a lot of people using it. If you’re anything like me, you have yet to get on Foursquare, and are unsure as to why you would want to in the first place….”Why do I want people following me around knowing where I am every second?” Well, I’ll tell you why… What is Foursquare Foursquare is a service that allows you to “check-in” to different locations you visit, using your phone. You can check into pretty much any location – bars, restaurants, parks, golf courses, …
Read The Rest of This Post08/18/2010
It’s Time to Move Mobile to the Front Burner
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
A lot of companies come to us with the desire to redesign and rebrand their online presence. There are already so many things to consider: • How will we manage content? • Should we start a blog? • Should we consider expanding into social media? • How can we make sure people find us on the search engines? All of these are important. But there’s one giant item to consider that often gets overlooked or moved to the back burner…what about mobile? …
Read The Rest of This Post07/15/2010
Denver SEO: Explaining SEO Through Analogies – Weight Loss
Categories: Online Marketing
Search engine optimization is a great way to place your company in front of your target market and increase your business. SEO can place you at the top of the search results for the keywords that your target market is using to find your services. What a lot of companies don’t like to tell potential clients is that getting to the top of the search results takes time and work. In this blog post I am going to compare SEO to weight loss in hopes that the analogy will help you better understand SEO without boring you to tears. Now, I’m not saying you are out of shape but for the sake …
Read The Rest of This Post07/12/2010
Denver SEO - The Web 2.0 Convergence of Tools and Tactics
Categories: Online Marketing
Web 2.0 meets SEO In 2007, Google announced its Universal Search capabilities. It changed the way search results are displayed when doing a query. Universal search integrated images, videos, and results from other search verticals directly into the web search results. This has proven to be a huge driver of traffic to sites because their images, videos, news, local search information are displayed and easily accessible to the searcher. Now, with the incorporation of indexable content from Twitter and Facebook, online marketing has become even more important. Users are looking to c …
Read The Rest of This Post07/08/2010
Denver Social Media: Content Sharing - What, How, and Why?
Categories: Marketing Trends Social Marketing
What is Content Sharing The sharing of all content across social media; general information, pictures, audio and video content. “ShareThis” is one such tool that allows for the sharing of social content. Now when you see a blog post or a piece of content that is enabled with “ShareThis”, and you can choose to share the content on the media of your choice. Choose to share it with your Facebook friends by posting it on your Facebook wall, or via your Twitter account, Delicious, text message, Stumbleupon, etc. Whatever social media you are a part o …
Read The Rest of This Post07/07/2010
Denver Social Media - LinkedIn Greatly Enhances Groups
Categories: Social Marketing
LinkedIn, now with about 70 million members, is finally taking a big step to compete with the other large social media marketing sites. Recently (June 22nd, 2010) LinkedIn greatly increased the functionality of their groups. LinkedIn currently has over 650,000 groups on varying topics. These groups are now a perfect way for individuals and companies to stand out as experts on specific topics and in specific subject matter. The new group functionality includes: • The ability to share links • Profile pictures for associated comments – personalizing the experien …
Read The Rest of This Post07/02/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: HTML5, the future of the dub-dub-dub
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
The web is rapidly evolving at a pace that most can't keep up with, or even know about. New and exciting innovations are being created every day, pushing the boundaries of what we know in every possible way. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the core language of the web and HTML5 is the fifth revision since it was developed in the early 90s. HTML5 will attempt to solve known issues in previous versions of HTML and will try to address new web applications, something that has not been appropriately covered in the past. HTML4 has been in use for over 10 years now. Since then, developers hav …
Read The Rest of This Post07/01/2010
Experience Marketing Example - "Blue One" The Slug Bug Game
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experience Marketing transforms a product or service into something which engages people’s senses and reaches them on an emotional level. It connects people to a product in ways beyond the use of the product itself. The Punch Buggy game surrounding the Volkswagen brand is a great example of this. To play, whenever someone sees a Volkswagen Beetle (some play by qualifying all Volkswagens) you shout out “Punch Buggy” and gently punch the other player in the arm, thus scoring a point. Recently, for further proof of the vehicle spotted, many players are simply saying the c …
Read The Rest of This Post04/13/2010
Marketing Trends 2011: 5 Ways to Grow Your Business
Categories: Marketing Trends
It is possible to grow your business while taking the environment into consideration? Companies all over the globe are thinking about ways to save money in their businesses while increasing their revenue. It is definitely possible to do; a little creativity is all you need. Consumers appreciate when companies give back to the community, actively participate in creating a better society and consider the environment when making business decisions. Consumers also want to know that the companies they work with are cutting edge, use up-to-date technology and can get the job done well. Some …
Read The Rest of This Post04/12/2010
Marketing Trends: Experience Marketing Defined
Categories: Experience Marketing
Experience Marketing or Experiential Marketing can be defined as: Intentional activities which immerse people within your brand through the stimulation of their senses, which results in a positive, emotional tie to your company. Some great examples of Experience Marketing or Experiential Marketing include: Disney World® - An interactive playground to promote the product of movies & entertainment. This is “The most magical place on earth” where customers are called “guests” and employees are called “cast members.” Starbucks Coffee – A tota …
Read The Rest of This Post04/06/2010
Marketing Trends: Is It Time for a Redesign to Your Website?
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
The marketplace is continuously evolving. In recent years, the number of purchases made online has sky-rocketed. Considering this change, it is essential for companies to have a well-functioning Website for their audience. According to a study done by Nielsen, “the average person in the United States visits 2,614 Websites per month.”* The convenience of providing your company product, information and brand online can help draw in users that are spending those lengthy hours online. To not have a properly working or up-to-date Website can be detrimental to your profitability. This …
Read The Rest of This Post04/02/2010
Does Twitter Have New Social Media Competition?
Categories: Social Marketing
Recently in Austin, Texas the SXSW® (South by Southwest®) convention was held. This is a conference that offers unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies. The three sections of this conference are spread out over a period of days, each having their own set of dates for attendees. What does this have anything to do with Twitter and social media marketing? What they call the “interactive” section of the conference features cutting-edge technologies. This symposium brings together, “the world’s most creative Web develope …
Read The Rest of This Post03/30/2010
Create a Blog and Post Often
Categories: Online Marketing
Recently, Webolutions had a blog post about the 7 Benefits to a Business Blog. To follow it up, we wanted to emphasize the importance of creating a blog and posting often. Most people know the more back links your site has, the higher you'll go in the search results page. Technically, the quality of the links is more important than the actual quantity. If authoritative sites link to you, Google determines that you must be important. One of the easiest ways to generate links to your site is to start a blog. A blog is a great way to keep your site full of fresh content and attract users …
Read The Rest of This Post03/29/2010
7 Benefits of a Business Blog
Categories: Marketing Trends
With the dramatic increase in popularity of Twitter and Facebook, it seems blogs are getting lost and forgotten in the mix. Don’t dismiss blogs as part of the past just yet. They are still an incredibly useful tool, and when used correctly, can be a great asset to your overall new media strategy marketing plan. While blog use as a purely “social” medium is down, blogs for business are doing very well. In fact, 70% of bloggers are now organically talking about their brands on their blog, and 38% of bloggers post brand or product reviews. This means that if you don’t hav …
Read The Rest of This Post03/26/2010
How To: Create a Username for Your Facebook Business Page
Categories: Social Marketing
This task is much simpler than it sounds. Once you have the proper URL and know what to look for this shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes to create. Keep in mind that this post has been written to help you assuming that you have already created a Facebook page for your business. In addition, as a rule of Facebook, you must have at least 25 Fans in order to claim a username. If you are eligible to claim a username, simply follow the steps below. 1. Once logged onto your Facebook Profile enter the URL of: http://www.facebook.com/username This will bring you to a …
Read The Rest of This Post03/17/2010
How To: Set Up Google Alerts & Your Google Reader
Categories: Social Marketing
One of the most basic and easy forms of tracking your social media marketing is by setting up Google Alerts. In fact, Google Alerts are something that every company should have set up in order to effectively manage your marketing efforts online. What are Google Alerts? Google Alerts by definition are “email updates of the latest relevant Google results (Web, news, etc) based on your choice of query or topic.” Google Alerts are useful for monitoring news about your company, keeping current on a competitor in your industry, staying on top of industry new …
Read The Rest of This Post03/07/2010
2010 Marketing Trends - Why Social?
Categories: Marketing Trends
In our Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2010 blog post last month, we named social marketing among the top 5 marketing trends for 2010. Everyone hears about Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on a daily basis. However, most businesses are not making the connection between these tools and good old fashion word-of-mouth marketing, which has been a key to successful marketing for decades. We all know that a word-of-mouth referral to our business is almost as good as a check in the bank. This potential client will ask less questions, and the relationship will begin on a more personal level. In mo …
Read The Rest of This Post03/06/2010
Experience Marketing Example - GM Test Track Ride
Categories: Experience Marketing
The GM “Test Track” ride at Disney World® is a thrilling Experience Marketing example. The ride introduces visitors to the world of automotive safety testing. During this GM (General Motors) sponsored experience, visitors learn about and participate in the rigors of automotive safety testing. This 5½ minute, fast moving, test track ride exposes participants to freezing temperatures, hairpin turns, high G forces and speeds up to 60mph, which makes this the fastest ride at Disney World®. This experience attracts over 7 million visitors a year and is sponso …
Read The Rest of This Post03/05/2010
Webolutions Top 10 Link Building Strategies
Categories: Online Marketing
How can I create a powerful link? Unless you know the search engine algorithms or you are an engineer at Google, the solution to this question may be difficult to answer. Here at Webolutions, we like to focus on these 10 factors when we develop a linking strategy. Here is our guide of the 10 things to look for in a link-building campaign: It occurs naturally, or at least appears that way. It is one-way (non reciprocal). It uses the main keyword(s) for the page that it links to. It is from a site that is related and not off-topic. It comes from a Website wi …
Read The Rest of This Post03/05/2010
Social Media: A Growing Marketing Trend for Businesses
Categories: Social Marketing
Go to a frequently visited Website: CBSNews.com, Time.com, WholeFoodsMarket.com, and NBA.com. What is one thing they all have in common? Links to their social media sites! It seems that the number of businesses adopting social media practices continues to grow. In fact, according to a study done by the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, one in five business owners are integrating social media into their business processes. Social marketing is a trend that business owners need to pay attention to. For all of those claiming social media is a fad, you are wrong! Business …
Read The Rest of This Post03/04/2010
How To: Build A Facebook Landing Page
Categories: Social Marketing
Creating a unique, noticeable Facebook Page can be difficult. In a market that is being swarmed with social media, it is essential to stand out in the crowd. By developing a landing page for users to see upon arrival of your Facebook Page, you can generate more interest and excitement around your brand. Some companies that are generating very unique landing pages include: Pepsi, Victoria's Secret, and Buffalo Wild Wings. All of these pages bring excitement and uniqueness to their Facebook Pages. Creating your own landing page is very easy to do, simply follow the steps below. 1. Add th …
Read The Rest of This Post02/08/2010
Twitter & Social Marketing - SEO Forces to be Reckoned With
Categories: Online Marketing Social Marketing
Twitter now part of Google, Bing and Yahoo Search Results As of recent, search results are showing real-time Twitter results in the organic search results. Google and Yahoo made the announcement on the same day, paying Twitter $15 million and $10 million respectively, to index Twitter’s tweets. Twitter’s search results display the most recent five tweets for your search query, and it will always match the language in which you are searching (i.e. – If you are in Italy, only Italian tweets will show.) Currently, Twitter results are included only for the most …
Read The Rest of This Post02/08/2010
Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2010
Categories: Marketing Trends
Webolutions is a fully-integrated, strategic marketing agency specializing in helping our clients optimize the highest impact areas of their marketing programs. Below is our list of the Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2010 1. Value – Thought, Leadership, Help, Innovations, Green After a year like 2009, all businesses need to be able to define the value they provide to their customers. Are your prices in line with the value that you provide to your clients? Are you sure your competition has not snuck up on you and is offering somethin …
Read The Rest of This Post02/08/2010
Using Experience Marketing - Selling Your Bouncy Ball
Categories: Experience Marketing
During a recent trip to Disney World®, I saw many great examples of experience marketing. At Webolutions, while working with our clients, experience marketing seems to be one of the more difficult concepts for people to truly understand and it is definitely one of the more difficult marketing practices to implement. Why? The fact is, that this is something that hardly any businesses understand or are willing to do. So, it is more difficult, There is no roadmap. Creating unique experiences around your brand is not like any other form of marketing. It involves truly changing the wa …
Read The Rest of This Post01/26/2010
The Importance of Actively Managing your Online Reputation
Categories: Social Marketing
It is a well known fact that negative word-of-mouth spreads quicker than positive word-of-mouth. With Internet tools such as social media sites and blogging, negative word-of-mouth has more power to influence than ever before. According to the Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study in 2006 done by the Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative, only 6% of customers that experienced a problem with a retailer physically contacted them; however 31% went on to tell friends, family or colleagues what happened. As social media becomes a more prevalent way to communicate with friends, family and colleag …
Read The Rest of This Post12/23/2009
Disney: An Experience Marketing Example
Categories: Experience Marketing
During a recent visit to Disney World, I saw some great examples of Experience Marketing which I will be covering in this section of our blog over the next few weeks. After all, Disney’s theme parks are one the ultimate testaments to the concept of Experience Marketing. If all entrepreneurs could somehow capture the passion, vision, imagination and determination of Walt Disney, we would live in a truly amazing world. Let’s break this down a little bit. Disney was first recognized (after several failed business attempts) as an innovator in the world of animation and movies. …
Read The Rest of This Post12/22/2009
Website Redesign SEO - What You Need to Know!
Categories: Online Marketing
If you are considering the redesign of your Website, it is critical to consider the impacts this could have on your existing and future search engine positions. In many cases your business will have an established Website with some decent search engine positions. In order to update your site to a new or fresher look and to include more functionality, you may be considering investing in a Website upgrade. This will usually be a more expensive Website redesign and functional upgrade which includes a CMS, maybe a blog, some sort of Social Marketing and other substantial functionality upgrades …
Read The Rest of This Post12/21/2009
Go Green and Save Your Business Money
Categories: Marketing Trends
Greening your business is easier than you think. By doing a few small things you can save energy and resources and save your company money. The economic and business climate has changed over the past few years. Much emphasis has been placed on the downward spiraling economy and how this affects business owners today. Many small businesses and even corporations are closing their doors after years of hard work and dedication. There are several small steps your business can take to save a few dollars here and there; this will help improve your bottom line. There has also been a lot of …
Read The Rest of This Post12/07/2009
Website Easter Eggs - A Little Can Go a Long Way
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
Not everyone has the budget or the cause for an uber creative Flash site like EinsteinBros.com or the visually stunning JonathanYuen.com but that doesn’t mean your site needs to be dull. Don’t be afraid to spice it up and add little surprises for your users. Take your Website one step further by offering users just a little bit more. Perhaps you can add a little personality like the flying “W” that lives in the Webolutions.com header? Yahoo.com has a hidden gem. Click on the exclamation point in the logo and you’ll hear the Yahoo yodel. …
Read The Rest of This Post12/07/2009
Customizing Products & Brands for Social Media - The Motorola Cliq
Categories: Social Marketing
The holiday season is upon us and electronics are constantly being advertised to consumers as the perfect gift. There was a particular electronic gadget that caught my eye in a commercial being titled as “the first phone with social skills.” I had to check it out for myself. The next day I was at TMobile looking at the brand new Motorola Cliq phone. Being a Social Marketing Coordinator at a strategic marketing company, Webolutions, I was highly intrigued by the socially advanced phone. Only a few short days after seeing the advertisement, I purchased this phone. As I began to p …
Read The Rest of This Post11/17/2009
Giving for Free - Strategic or Silly?
Categories: Marketing Trends
You always hear people say, "there's no such thing as free..." While this may be true in some cases, there are a multitude of exceptions to this antiquated rule. When you're in business, sometimes giving things away for free is beneficial. In fact, many times, giving something away for free can actually save you money. We are fast approaching a time where the consumer expects to get a lot for free. iPhone apps are free, blogging is free, consuming blog content is free, consuming online newspapers is free, tv shows and songs can be downloaded for free, you can …
Read The Rest of This Post11/11/2009
Transparency in Marketing
Categories: Marketing Trends
There is a lot of talk today about transparency in marketing and what this means. A blog post that I recently read defines transparency as, “the degree to which a company shares its leaders, employees, values, culture, strategy, business processes and the results of those processes with its publics. It’s the opposite of opacity, in which companies operate behind closed doors and shuttered windows." (By Shel Holtz of Shel Holtz PC , http://blog.holtz.com/index.php) This definition is as good as any for this post on why marketing transparency is so important for your busi …
Read The Rest of This Post11/09/2009
Online Search Reverse Engineering for Success
Categories: Online Marketing
The successful Online Marketing of a Website requires a very different approach than the conventional marketing techniques used to market most other products and services. Historically products were made, perhaps based on some level of market research, and then they were taken to the marketplace and mass-marketed. To successfully plan, develop and market a Website to the search engines requires a completely different approach. Many factors play a role in where your Website shows up on the search engines. This positioning is critical to most businesses’ success or failure. W …
Read The Rest of This Post11/03/2009
Your Employees are The Brand
Categories: Experience Marketing
Company heads and CEO's nationwide spend hundreds of millions annually, "branding" themselves. They collectively sit and decide who they want to be. They come up with this great idea on exactly who they want and need to be, an idea that is guaranteed to set them apart from the competition. They may even go so far as to redesign their Website and create new collateral materials to show off their new flashy brand. However, when you sit down to brand your company, if this brand is not communicated to, and lived out by each and every single one of your employees - …
Read The Rest of This Post11/02/2009
Usability Testing: Do it Early and Often for a Great Website
Categories: Effective Design & Usability
Usability testing is imperative if you want to take a good site and make it a great site. It will often reveal usability issues that designers, developers and clients will never discover because they are too close to the project and too familiar with the content. Typically, a usability test involves one user who is shown a site or a wireframe and asked to do something or explain what they are looking at. It’s not too complicated. However, usability testing is often cut from Web design budgets for largely two reasons: It’s too expensive It takes …
Read The Rest of This Post10/22/2009
Getting the Most Out of Twitter - A "How To" on #hashtags
Categories: Social Marketing
As social media takes the world by storm, many are feeling left in the dust. Social media continues to influence the world of marketing, and it can be very overwhelming trying to keep up. From a business standpoint, it seems to be difficult to stay ahead of the game. There are many ins and outs to social networking sites which can help you progress in the realm of social media marketing. One of the Websites that continues to remain in the forefront of social media is Twitter. Twitter has created a way to tag your tweets and group them together easier. Much like tags on other social net …
Read The Rest of This Post09/24/2009
Personalize Your Business Communications - Thank Your Clients
Categories: Experience Marketing
Let your clients know you appreciate their business A few years ago, I moved back to Denver and was looking for a beauty salon that would service all of my beauty needs in one location. It can be challenging to find a full-service salon to meet all of your specific beauty needs, so I asked around for recommendations. I got a personal recommendation from my mom; she really liked the hair stylist at this particular salon, so I went to try it out. Wow, was I impressed with the experience! I walked into the salon, which was located right off of a very busy street in town. …
Read The Rest of This Post09/16/2009
Don't Make Me Think! (Book Review)
Categories: Effective Design & UsabilitySteve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think was popping up in so many “must read” lists, I couldn’t pass it up. This book outlines Krug’s “common sense approach to Web usability,” and is indeed a “must read.” Don’t Make Me Think does not cater only to Web usability professionals. Anyone who manages a Website will find the material to be easily digestible. You do not need the vocabulary of a seasoned Web professional to get value out of this book. The book’s title is also what Krug refers to as, “Krug’s First L …
Read The Rest of This Post09/15/2009
Using SMS Text Messaging for More Than A Good "LOL" - A New Social Marketing Strategy
Categories: Social Marketing
A New Use for SMS Text Messaging: Over the weekend, I helped out at an event in Downtown Denver. This event was a scavenger hunt to win a $15,000 engagement ring donated by a local jeweler. Over 250 couples showed up for the race in hopes of winning the ring. The key to winning the ring was to receive the highest amount of points by a certain time in the day. Now you may be asking yourself, what does this have anything to do with Social Marketing? It is important to note that when couples registered for the event that were required to enter their cell phone number and cell phone car …
Read The Rest of This Post09/14/2009
Call Tracking Services Improve ROI Measurement
Categories: Online Marketing
Most Onlin Marketing initiatives include some sort of Web analytics. However, many people overlook the critical measurement of the telephone calls received as a result of these efforts. Webolutions’ call tracking solution allows businesses to add a new dimension to their online and offline campaign ROI measurement. Some of this service’s features include: Unique campaign-by-campaign call tracking numbers Dynamic population of tracking numbers throughout your Website, based on the originating campaign Call recording for the monitoring of call conversion quali …
Read The Rest of This Post09/14/2009
Client Relationship Building - Critical to Your Long-Term Business Success
Categories: Marketing Trends
Changes in the world have made Relationship Marketing to your existing client-base more important than ever. Some of these key changes include: Unlimited access to information and options Decreased overall brand loyalty Perceived and actual commoditization of products and services Blogs, rating systems, and other consumer-driven publishing platforms The downturn in the economy The trend towards the personalization of all products and services Never before has the consumer had so much influence over the products and services they purchase. Previously, bu …
Read The Rest of This Post09/14/2009
How Much Are Your Bananas? – An Experience-Based, Pricing Model Case Study
Categories: Experience Marketing
Whether you are selling bananas, professional services, or manufactured goods, the client experience you create dictates the price that you can charge and your overall level of client satisfaction About a year or so ago, on my semi-daily visit to Starbucks, I noticed that they started selling bananas. The cost was .90 each. This seemed pricey especially since bananas are available at every grocery store for quite a bit less. I began to notice that some mornings there were no bananas. When I asked why, they told me that on many of days, the bananas sell out early. Starbucks also has c …
Read The Rest of This Post09/10/2009
When Customer Incentives Become the Expectation
Categories: Marketing TrendsA friend of mine recently moved to Denver and bought a new house. Being new to Colorado, she was unfamiliar with American Furniture Warehouse. As she was perusing the ads a few weeks ago, she was absolutely elated to see that AFW was having a huge Labor Day Sale. I just sort of chuckled to myself, and went on about my day. I figured I would let her stay excited; she'd learn soon enough. What she will come to know, is that AFW is ALWAYS having a sale; there is nothing really special about this particular "Labor Day Sale." Last month it was a "Back t …
Read The Rest of This Post08/19/2009
Is Your Website Usable?
Categories: Effective Design & UsabilityNowadays everybody has a Website. You have to do more than just throw up a site with good content to stand out. You’ve got to start by making your site usable. There is more to Website usability than just ensuring you do not have any broken links. Usability is all about getting your site visitors to the content they are looking for in an easy and intuitive way. You can have the best content in the world but if users have to think too much to move around and find what they want, they will be dissatisfied and go elsewhere. Evaluating Your Site’s Usability Your site is usable if i …
Read The Rest of This Post08/19/2009
Social Marketing: A Channel for Success
Categories: Social Marketing
Social Marketing is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s society. Many companies are beginning to direct their entire marketing campaigns towards Social Marketing. As a Social Marketing Coordinator at a Marketing/Web Design company, I am very drawn to social Websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Just the other day I was at home cleaning with the television on for background noise. I heard some catchy music coming from the TV and looked over at it. On the screen, was a commercial where a series of dancers doing different moves and then pausing several times when they …
Read The Rest of This Post08/13/2009
Increase your Sales by Caring
Categories: Experience MarketingEverybody wants to increase their sales, and is looking for the secret on how to do so. Well, the secret is, there is no such thing. The best way to increase your sales, in my opinion, is really quite simple: CARE; Genuinely Care. Care about your customers. Care about your company. Care about your products/offerings. Care about your coworkers. Simply care. When you truly care, people will know. People like to do business with people that care, bottom line. I went to GNC yesterday to buy a multi-vitamin. I normally don't even shop at GNC, as it seems a little …
Read The Rest of This Post08/10/2009
Efficiency vs. the Experience & Increased Profits
Categories: Experience MarketingWhen evaluating the overall experience you provide to your clients, there is a fine line between the efficiency and speed at which you deliver your products and services vs. the overall interaction you provide. More interaction could lead to a better overall client experience as well as vastly increased profits! Case Study: Lunch at Chipotle I am always amazed at the speed at which the line at Chipotle moves. Like McDonalds, they have a simplified product offering (limited menu and options) and one …
Read The Rest of This Post08/10/2009
Connecting Your Business One Social Network at a Time
Categories: Social Marketing
At this point in time, it is probably safe to claim there is a world-wide obsession with Social Marketing and its importance on daily life operations. It is difficult to go anywhere in today’s online marketplace without noticing a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Flickr icon. As businesses switch to aim their marketing campaigns through social media, they are trying to use all available networking sites. Most businesses are not just on one of these social networks, but rather as many as they can get their hands on. It is becoming continuously easier to manage the various social network …
Read The Rest of This Post08/08/2009
Product Customization – Are You Keeping Up?
Categories: Marketing TrendsMany companies are finding ways to customize their products and services. This customization allows them to provide an individualized experience for every customer. Customization adds to the novelty of doing business with them, which helps them stand out from their competitors. Below is a list of products and services which illustrate this trend towards increased customization: • Nike & Converse – Design your own shoes …
Read The Rest of This Post08/05/2009
Web Analytic Software - Only Useful if Actionable
Categories: Online MarketingThe key to successfully using Web analytics is ensuring that whatever you are tracking is actionable. It is easy to get bogged down in a huge amount of information provided by these tools. As well, all this information can be manipulated dozens of different ways. Without a plan, it is not uncommon to sit down in a meeting to review your Website analytics information and have everyone heading off in different directions, based on the numbers they relate to in the report. This is complete waste of time. The only informat …
Read The Rest of This Post07/29/2009
Online Design, Evoking Emotions and Influencing Decisions
Categories: Effective Design & UsabilityEvoking Emotions through Effective Design When it comes to our interpretation, "pretty" or "ugly" is determined by many factors. We are not usually aware of them as they influence our sub-conscious reactions. Certain triggers or "aesthetics" in everyday life evoke emotions in us that influence our choices, decisions and reactions. These triggers are not limited to just our vision, but appeal to all of our senses and they happen every minute of every day. To go even further, they can then tap into a personal experience and can influence our emotional responses. I …
Read The Rest of This Post07/27/2009
Social Responsibility - A Growing Marketing Niche
Categories: Marketing TrendsThe world as we know it is changing. The current economic situation has people changing their lifestyles to match these challenging times we are in. Unemployment rate is high and it continues to rise, people are cutting back in a variety of ways, and are conserving in areas of their life that they never considered conserving in before. People are re-evaluating their priorities and consumers are changing their buying habits. Companies that are quick to embrace these changes are going to be more likely to prosper in a difficult economic climate. Today many people are losing their jobs, taking pay cuts and as a result, they are learning to reduce their personal spending. Over time, people will become accustomed to this and eventually learn to appreciate and value a more simplified lifestyle. Living more simply will happily coexist with living smarter. Consumer trends drive profits and shape the marketplace. There is a $230 billion marketplace that exists for products and services that meet the needs of consumers who buy based on their personal, social and environmental values. What can your brand do to ensure it will still be relevant in the changing times? …
Read The Rest of This Post07/21/2009
We Choose The Moon – A Social Marketing Mission
Categories: Social Marketing“We Choose The Moon” is an interactive Website built by the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of NASA landing on the moon. This site displays a real-time reenactment of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. It went live on July 16th, 2009 at 8:02am and followed the launch at 9:32am. The site is divided into 11 different stages which the Apollo 11 spacecraft went through. It provides a to-the-minute representation of the historic Apollo 11 mission 40 years ago. After July 20th when the Apollo 11 lands, you can re-visit the site and travel through t …
Read The Rest of This Post07/15/2009
Foundations are to Houses what Information Architecture is to Websites
Categories: Effective Design & UsabilityInformation architecture (IA) is where it all begins. It is critical to the success of your new Website. Everything done to build your site is heavily influenced by what is discovered and determined in the IA process. Without these fundamentals, your site will be built on shaky ground. Step 1: Define goals and success metrics All Web projects have to start by defining goals. What do you want your new site to do? Sell more products? Generate interest in your services? Establish your company as a leader? How will you measure the success of your site? …
Read The Rest of This Post05/31/2009
Business Profile vs. Personal Life – For Social Marketing is there really a Difference?
Categories: Social MarketingWith the advent of Social Marketing, more people are asking us where the line should be between their public business profile and their personal online communications. Over the past few months, several people have told me that they have a LinkedIn business profile that they use to post and befriend business colleagues and associates online. They also may have a Facebook page. But, they reserve this for close friends and family. The approach you take to using social networks really just depends on your goals. If you use these social mediums to casually communicate with …
Read The Rest of This Post05/22/2009
Twitter Tips
Categories: Social MarketingTwitter is undoubtedly the fastest growing social medium on the Internet today. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter grew an average of 1,382% from 2008 to 2009. In February 2008, Twitter averaged 475,000 unique visitors; February 2009, it grew to an astounding 7 million unique visitors. As you can see in the graph below, the amount of user’s interacting with Twitter is growing. It now surpasses both MySpace and Facebook. Tips to Marketing on Twitter Twitter is growing at an exponential rate and businesses are beginning to see its value. Itemized below are examples of …
Read The Rest of This Post04/08/2009
Push the Reset Button on Your Marketing Initiatives
Categories: Marketing TrendsThe markets are topsy turvy. The employment and business landscapes have changed. Everything seems to be in somewhat of a state of flux. I heard once that the Chinese word for crisis is, “Opportunity Riding the Dangerous Wind.” I always remember this. I am truly of the opinion that when drastic change occurs, great opportunities arise, at least for those who are looking for them! Are you someone who stops growing your business when times change or someone who refuses to be beat, no matter what? In a recent South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce (www.bestchamber.com) m …
Read The Rest of This Post04/07/2009
Social Marketing with Facebook
Categories: Social MarketingFacebook is steadily becoming the largest social network on the Internet, with over 175 million active users. Consumers are turning to Internet resources, such as Facebook, when searching for feedback on a company’s products and services. Facebook allows businesses the chance to build customer evangelists, connect with new or existing customers, promote products, participate in conversations, establish credibility in their industry and create brand awareness. Best of all…it’s free! How Do I Use Facebook as a Viral Marketing Resource? Personalize Your Business - The first …
Read The Rest of This Post08/03/2008
Starbucks Marketing Observations
Categories: Marketing Trends
Starbucks current branding, marketing and advertising seems to focus on a “return to our roots” effort. They are refocusing on what has made them such a huge success in the world. Using this as an example, we can identify some keys to marketing success in today’s marketplace. This video focuses on the experience of Starbucks. At Starbuck"s website select, “Discover Our Heritage” then, “In The Beginning”. As you watch this video, pull yourself away from the company itself and focus your attention on the messaging, and the specific language t …
Read The Rest of This Post11/20/2007
When you compete on price you lose
Categories: Marketing Trends
Creating unique, relevant and memorable marketing experiences attract new customers, reawaken the interest of existing customers and generate additional demand for products and services. …
Read The Rest of This Post10/08/2007
The more you give away the more clients you get
Categories: Marketing Trends
When people are shopping for a new product or service they want to make the best choice. They are likely thinking: …
Read The Rest of This Post10/07/2007
The most important question in marketing
Categories: Marketing Trends
In a previous post I talked about asking questions as a way to stimulate ideas. Questions open your mind to possibilities. One question in particular, when asked over and over again, can dramatically improve your company"s long-term profitability. That question is: …
Read The Rest of This Post10/06/2007
People never buy your product or service
Categories: Marketing Trends
Many business owners don’t know what they are “really” selling. Once you understand what your customers are “actually” buying, you have a much better chance of selling them. …
Read The Rest of This Post
