Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
You have probably heard before, how important it is to brand your company and build authority through social media. However, some businesses are not ready or able to commit the kind of time and personnel it takes to manage a full-force online marketing campaign for their brand. There are also some barriers to internally managing these platforms; according to Towers Watson research, the main factors which prevent organizations from being able to implement needed solutions are:
- Limited Knowledge of Social Media
- Lack of IT Support or Technical Capability
- Limited Staff/Resources to Implement
- Restrictions imposed by The Company’s Legal Department
- Lack of CEO or Senior Management Support
- Lack of Metrics to Measure Impact
This is where out sourcing can help your brand reach its online marketing goals. At Integris Marketing, we are external experts with expertise in managing social media for business purposes. We know how powerful these platforms can be, but we also know that they must be customized to work well for your brand.
Our extensive social media knowledge and technical experience will ensure that we are able to advise you on the platform that will work best for you and your brand. Our resources are very flexible, which allows us to reallocate resources to projects as needed. We start every project off by looking at the current data for your brand, then crafting a plan that we can implement with your full support.
Some of the areas of social media that we can assist you with, include: Blogging (enhances all website content and drives internet search traffic by improving SEO); Social Bookmarking and News (can also dramatically increase website traffic by improving SEO); Social Networking (i.e. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn); Visual and Audio Social Networking (i.e. YouTube, podcasts, and photo-sharing); or even Building your own Social Network. Any posts we create for your brand will be subject to your approval in order to avoid any issues with legality and to maintain the tone that makes your brand unique.
To get started with your brand’s social media presence using a data-driven professional process, call us at (775) 322-3663 or (800) 233-0239, or contact us with your inquiry.
Tags: Branding, http www youtube, internet marketing, Local SEO, Marketing, Reno, reno marketing, Reno SEO Expert, Reno Social Media, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Local SEO, Online Advertising In Reno, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Recently, I came across a blog post that got my attention. 9 Ways to Keep Innovation Alive in Your Marketing Organization, posted by Matt Heinz from Innovation Excellence, he writes about Innovation and Marketing, two things I find very useful and interesting.
Several of the ‘9 Ways’ are things that most (successful) companies are already doing – things like tracking progress, predicting trends (or at least watching them), and focusing on teamwork as a way to brainstorm diverse ideas. My favorite, though, is number 5 – let everyone contribute, even (or especially) employees outside of the marketing department.
Why is cross-contributing so important?
Because, as Heinz describes, many of these employees have ideas about how to reach your audience. I would specify that the user-facing employees know more about what the customer is looking for or what things push them to buy your product over another brand than your marketing department. This is valuable information that is available to your company! However, the company culture has to be supporting it, asking for it, rewarding it and following through on the ideas they get for this to be truly successful.
As any good marketing professional would tell you – knowing what your target audience wants is imperative for creating a marketing strategy that will tell the story of how your product or service can fit into the lives of your consumers and why they need to purchase what you have to offer.
Innovation Speaks to All of Us
Innovation is something that speaks to all of us – we are all interested in the newest, shiny, tech savvy bauble; the more bells and whistles (or functionality as we have come to know it), the better. Humans are observant and have a relatively natural ability to look at something they are doing and see how it could be done better. Utilize these instincts and ideas to find new things that will resonate with your audience in a new way, or explain the use of your product or service in new terms.
What kind of innovation does your marketing need?
Give us a call at 775-322-3663 and we can help you find out!
For the full blog post from Matt Heinz, please click here.
Tags: blog, internet marketing, Marketing, reno marketing, Reno Social Media, Social Media
Posted in Inspiration, Online Marketing, Reno Marketing Meanderings, Social Media, Uncategorized | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
Personal Marketing that’s Still Viable After All These Years
E-mail marketing is one of your best, personal marketing tools on the Web. We integrate it with your marketing strategy to reach new customers, build customer connections and to create a one-on-one dialogue. We use it because it works, and when done right, becomes a valuable resource for both you and your customers.
Our Email Marketing Strategies Work to:
- Drive direct sales to your door
- Create a loyal customer base, and develop trust
- Develop relationships for long-term and repeat sales
- Customize your message to the various segments of your audience
- Integrate e-marketing promotions with corresponding landing pages on your Website
- Position yourself and your company as industry experts and leaders
- Support sales, market sales and events and drive traffic to your doors and your Website.
- Track your customers’ needs and desires, with detailed reports of open and click-through rates
No matter how clever we get with Twitter and Facebook and other public media, E-mail marketing remains the most personal tool in your Internet marketing toolbox.
How Do We Know that Email Marketing Works?
The Proof’s in the Documentation. We’d like to share some recent surveys with you.
- The Ad Effectiveness Survey commissioned by Forbes Media in Feb/March 2009 revealed that email and e-newsletter marketing are considered the second-most effective tool for generating conversions, just behind SEO (reference).
- A November 2009 survey of B2B marketers found that email marketing was likely to see more spending increase than any other form of online marketing, second only to Website development (report).
Modern Email Marketing Solutions
Email Marketing is a contemporary and powerful promotional tool that incorporates a ton of nifty technology. Here are just a few of the things you can do with email marketing:
- Database integration
- List segmentation
- Pre-scheduled delivery
- Analysis of open and click-through rates
- A/B testing
- On-the-fly customized email based on individual profiles
- And so much more!
Plus every email campaign you send out generates actionable data you can use to refine your approach to future messages. All in all, a pretty good way of going about your marketing business!
Ready to launch an effective email marketing for your business?
Contact us today at 775.322.3663 or 800.233.0329, or email us, and we’ll get you started.
Tags: Design, email marketing, internet marketing, Marketing, reno marketing
Posted in Online Marketing, Reno Marketing Meanderings, Uncategorized | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
In a recent blog posted on Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch, called “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I’m My Ideal Client After All“, the idea that we most want to work with customers that are like ourselves, is well stated. It isn’t just that we prefer people who think the way we do, or that have the same values and common definitions of customer service or partnership – it is also that we want to feel comfortable enough to be ourselves.
Tailor your business or brand to the niche that best suits you!
It is a good idea to put attention and thought into reaching your target audience. It’s a GREAT idea to know WHO your target audience truly is. In order to do that effectively, you have to have a clear vision of who you are (as a company or brand) and how you are going to use that special something to your customers’ advantage. So, what kinds of people do you want to have as clients?
Choose wisely!
We have all had those situations where you suddenly realize that while you and your customer are in the same book, there are pages between you, yet you were both under the impression you were communicating clearly. Much of this happens because of differing views on expectations. This can be greatly reduced by following the advice in the article mentioned above – make sure you match the needs and expectations of your customers or clients and they fit the client model you need to be successful.
Be True to Your Brand
The moral of the story is that you have to be true to the essence of who you are (as a brand and a person) and how you want to interact with your customers. As long as you keep your expectations in alignment with those of your customers or clients, you will not only be a choice with integrity, you will also be their number one choice – because they see themselves as ‘one of you’. And we all know we’d rather spend time and do business with people that are ‘like us’.
Tags: Design, Marketing, reno marketing, web design
Posted in Online Marketing, Reno Marketing Meanderings, Uncategorized, web design, Website Design | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
The Basics for In-Bound Link-Building
Easy enough. It just takes time & planning to manage your approach.
In-Bound Link Building is Important for SEO Success. Whether Your Business is Local (Reno), Regional or International, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing use this seemingly simple search engine ranking parameter as an indication your website’s relative popularity. This in turn influences the search engines decision in rating your relevance for search queries and ultimately affects your search engine ranking or opportunities for first page display.
In-Bound Link Bottom Line: If you don’t have inbound links and your competitors do, then to put it bluntly, you will not rank as well as them. (Want to learn about the top Search Engine Ranking Factors… then go here >)
Here Are 2 Things To NOT Do For Building In-Bound Links
It all makes sense if you think about it or understand the industry and the sophistication of Search Engine ranking algorhythms (Here is a link to an older March 2007 article but the thrust is a solid foundational concept for this).
It really boils down to 2 things of what not to do for inbound link building:
- Don’t Use Link Farms (See This Wikipedia Page for more information about Link Farms). According to Google, “a site that participates in a link farm may have its search rankings penalized”, and “Links from related sites carry more weight than those from irrelevant sites”.
- Try not to use Off-Topic Links (Relevant On-Topic Links build credibility in the eyes of Search Engines… And yes, they do know.)
Six Basic Strategies for In-Bound Link Building
Anyone and everyone with a website should make some effort to include these 6 Link Building strategies if you are serious about top performance for Search Engine Ranking.
- Make More Content! – Search Engines need content in order to deliver relevant and current results to search queries. Better results from search engines mean more people will use them. This in turn makes them a better platform for advertising dollars (This is America after all). The bottom line is search engines need the new content just as much as you need to generate it, distribute it and have it link back to you. The solution is to write articles, publish them online (on a relevant blog site or an ezine or article website – There are tons of them out there such as articlebase.com).
- Social Media – Serious about in-bound links? Then get serious about social media. There are lots of ways to leverage this. If you don’t know how, take a class, talk to some social media guru, or just dive in. Be conscious of the appropriate linking patterns and partners out there and be careful you don’t spend too much time doing this. It can be a real time sink. Think of it as something to adopt over time and that you will keep up with. It is better to do a little dribble consistently then do a lot and then burn out and drop off the map… especially as far as Search Engines are concerned.
- Relevant Online Directories – Online Directories are a great place for links. That’s what they are for… listing websites. Some are free and some are pay. Do what you can to get in them and have a budget (time and $$$) that makes sense for you. Here are the biggies: DMOZ (can take a while to get listed), Yahoo (Expensive). Some other well known online directories include: Business.com, BestOfTheWeb.com, GoGuides.com and MassiveLinks.com. There are many others that have narrow niche appeal. The best approach is to identify the best ranked ones and then submit your listing to them. Rinse and repeat.
- Online Video – First a quick question… Do you know what the worlds second most used search engine is? If you guessed YouTube you guessed right. So Videos can get you inbound links, visibility and some brand or service awareness. If you get it right it can even go “viral”! There are tons of video sites out there (YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo to name a few). If you do video then distribute them to different sources and watch and compare results and see which ones work best for you. And be sure to have some fun along the way. (Note: Professional Video production can be quite costly. You need to balance quality and budget to get the most bang for your video buck. And don’t forget, there is always the webcam on your local computer approach if you are on a shoestring.)
- Online Classifieds – Yep, this often overlooked little gem will get you inbound links. Think CraigsList.org or any of the other online classifieds (some are free and some are pay). And who knows.. besides the link you get, maybe someone will buy what you are selling!
- Online Press Releases – Huh? That’s right.. you can distribute your own online press releases. (But I recommend hitting your local news outlets first so they can get the “scoop” before it hits the big ol’ web. It’s a professional courtesy thing.) This is a great way to get in-bound links. You can use the paid versions such as as PRweb.com or go for the free ones such as PRlog.com. As with all things online there are lots of options so be sure to compare apples to apples when it comes to getting your press release sent out online.
Hope that helps! This is the basic approach that we offer clients as starting points for their in-bound link building campaign. And if you want to share a reciprocal link with us, just send us a note or give us a call, and we will see what we can do!
Tags: classified advertising, google search, inbound link, internet marketing, internet search engines, link building, link farm, Local SEO, Marketing, Reno, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, search engines, SEO, web search engine
Posted in In-Bound Links, Local SEO, Online Marketing, PR, Reno Marketing Meanderings, SEO, Social Media, Uncategorized, Website Copywriting | 24 Comments »
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
Hey Reno Businesses… Want a Cool WordPress Blog Design?
Who doesn’t… but what you need to know is that having a “cool blog design” is no longer enough.
An Optimized WordPress Blog Design needs to capture visitors, show value, sell products or services, capture leads and keep up with the latest web technologies.
In the old days of the web… having a website… any website, whether a traditional static website filled with words, or a site of pretty pictures or even Flash animations was enough. It had the “wow” factor… All just because you had the site.
No more… Websites have become a very sophisticated platforms that are an important part of the promotional and marketing effort. The artifacts of yesteryear, such as the notoriously expensive, sales-rep hyped, and ineffective Yellow Page Ads or other less-than-targeted marketing vehicles and publications are becoming increasingly less effective. This is especially true for businesses who are forward thinking in their promotional approach, or have more sophisticated audiences they need to communicate with.
What’s the solution? First let’s look at what a website needs to do and fast-forward to today’s website demands before we decide.
- A website needs to be able to be found by people who are searching for your product or service (Think Search Engine Optimized or Local SEO)
- Once they see your listing on Google (Hopefully first the page of Google or other search engine) it needs to be somewhat compelling in order for people to click on the link
- The website needs to be inviting once they get there and give them relevant options for interaction, sales or sign-ups
- Convey a sense of credibility and sophistication
- Provide a comfortable experience that delivers value
- Has ways for you to engage and track visitors
A tall order for any website no matter how big your budget is. Once you start considering the cost of website design, maintenance, updating and modification, content generation, software upgrades and you have the potential for a hornet’s nest of expense, complexity and less than optimal results.
The coolest, least expensive, most powerful, and highly customizable blog design platform that any business could hope for.
WordPress levels the playing field of the World Wide Web. The technology that WordPress uses, used to cost 10’s of thousands of dollars. But thanks to the WordPress and the Open Source community that supports it, WordPress has made the old expensive web paradigm a thing of the past. The powerful technology that is built into WordPress is free! And the plug-ins that support it… they are free too or are offered at a very low or modest cost.
A well executed WordPress Blog Design is the answer for what small businesses need to succeed on the web whether the need is superior design, uber-optimized SEO, or super-charged local search engine optimization.
In short, a well executed and well designed WordPress Blog embodies what the internet was designed for… optimized search engine results through relevant content generation.
If you need more information about how a WordPress Blog Design can help your business, you can give us a call (775.322.3663). But watch out, we love WordPress, so don’t be surprised if we talk your ear off.
Tags: Blog Design, blog software, content management system, cool blog, Local SEO, Reno, Reno SEO, search engine, selling products, SEO, SEO optimization, web design, web technology, WordPress, wordpress blog, Wordpress blog design
Posted in Blog Design, Local SEO, SEO, Uncategorized, web design, WordPress | 3 Comments »
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
Part 5 of 6 – Reno SEO Expert* Shares Some Phase 1 “Secrets of Local Google Dominance”
It’s Not That Hard If You Understand a Few Basic SEO Ingredients
The 5 Most Important Tips for the Do-It-Yourself SEO-preneur or Small Business Owner
For this mini-article, we will look at 5 areas of basic SEO concepts (Tip 5 below). These are important to business who wants a local, top-performing search engine presence. By faithfully following this approach you will improve your Search Engine Rankings giving you superior Local Search Engine Results.
Tip 5 of 6) Time and Commitment yields the best local search engine results:
It seems like all things in life take persistence and local search engine results are no different.
When it comes to improving your local search ranking or even regional search engine results, you need what I call the “Time-Drive Machine” and the “SEO Ranking Equation” to succeed.
Part “fire in the belly” and part commitment to your business or endeavor, you need to combine these 2 elements or passion and commitment to make progress and achieve a degree of success with local search engine marketing (SEM) to achieve local search engine ranking results. This is true whether you live and work in Reno, Nevada as I do, or want to attract local customers in your community in Seattle, Susanville or Salem… the same principles apply.
I have this little silly equation I like to use to demonstrate my point: C+Tx$=R (Commitment plus Time multiplied by Ratio of Resources equals Results). As you can see see it all adds up to results. The questions is how much time and commitment do you have? If you don’t have a lot Time but a solid Commitment then you need more Resources. If you have few Resources but a little Time and lots of Commitment you can still get Results, especially over a longer period (1 hour a week = 52 hours a year… you can get a lot done in 52 hours!).
So it’s pretty easy. Just like walking but you have to take each step to get to your destination.
Coming next: “Conclusion: Top Ranking Local Search Engine Results Are What You Want”. Date for next post will be June, 2010 (Assuming we don’t have any more health or business challenges that impede our flow… Keeping it positive.)
*Reno SEO Expert. A paid professional who can provide measurable results and demonstrate ROI for promised SEO services and also be able to share success stories for past clients they have worked with.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Reno SEO Expert* Shares Some Phase 1 “Secrets of Local Google Dominance”
It’s Not That Hard If You Understand a Few Basic SEO Ingredients
In most cities and towns around the world, including business right here in the Reno, Sparks, Tahoe area, the majority of businesses sell to the local customer base. This is of course as it should be because local business success is so vital to any regions economy. So with almost universal use of the internet to gather info about local businesses, it’s time for local businesses to to get savvy about how they can start to “show up” in front of local customers when they are looking to buy.
But it’s pretty clear that most businesses don’t have a clue about how do do this. More often than not, what I hear when I talk to prospective clients that are local Reno and Sparks businesses is the same question over and over:
“How to get to the top of Google… How, oh how, oh how?!” <insert much hand-wringing and sighing>
You have to wonder if there isn’t a straight-forward solution.
The good news is… There is! But first a little factoid for you (Source: Nielsen Online MegaPanel in October 2008):
“Though 63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the internet first for information about local companies and 82% use search engines to do so, only 44% of small businesses have a website and half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online.”
What you need to know is that getting to the top of Google or Bing (or Bing, or MSN or Yahoo which I think will all one day be one search engine) really isn’t that hard. All it takes is some, Time, Commitment, a little Knowledge, the Right Technology, with a healthy dose of Strategy.
(Stay tuned for Part 2 coming Mar. 5, 2010 with more info about the first of the 5 core elements, Time, Commitment, Knowledge, Technology, Strategy)
*Reno SEO Expert. A paid professional who can provide measurable results and demonstrate ROI for promised SEO services and also be able to share success stories for past clients they have worked with.
Tags: Getting to the top of Google, Local Google Dominance, Reno, SEO, SEO optimization, Sparks, Tahoe Area
Posted in Local SEO, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Reno Business & Reno Social Media…
Friend or Foe?
Is Social Media important to your customers?
Then use it (wisely)!
Social Media: Marketers love it, social butterflies love it, the cool and the hip love it, young people love it and traditional business models are experimenting with it, and trying to figure how, and if, they should love it.
As you can imagine, Social Media is not everything to everyone and there are definitely naysayers out there. But if you listen to the ongoing buzz of Social Media, it pretty clear there are a lots of reasons to embrace it and its not going away anytime soon. But like all things that are new, it is best to approach with patience, common sense, an attitude for learning and maybe a sense of adventure.
And if you have a tight calendar with lots of tasks and activities, then limit your time for engaging and be clear about your reasons for being involved. Otherwise you will drown in a seemingly endless sea of tweets, posts, tips, rants, links, “What I had for lunch” (Like I care), and thinly veiled self-promotional hype.
No Question… Social Media is here to stay
There are thousands of people, noted experts, self-proclaimed experts and social media minions, who endlessly preach and glorify social media while basking in its endless surge… yes endless.. (as long as we have electricity and the internet I guess).
But what about the rest of us?Does it really matter? Are customers listening? Well I think Social Media just a new way of delivering info and connecting with people? Just a larger scale of older technologies. that used to be the realm of real face-to-face interactions?
My Advise: Keep it Real, Honest, Inclusive, Enjoyable, and Value-Rich. And remember to get, or keep, you life intact… There is more to living than being online.
Social Media Basics: Tremendous and helpful information from Mashable.com
Start here for the basics on how and why your business should be implementing a social media campaign.
Sign up, stay on message, and utilize some leading sites and apps that can give your business a social edge.
These posts have real-world advice and examples of how businesses have succeeded on social networks. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn and beyond, here are the resources you’ll need to get started.
– Social Media 101: How to Avoid Alienating Your Customers
– Why Should Traditional Businesses Care about Social Media?
– 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs
– Putting Social Media in Real Life Context for SMBs
– Why Your Business Needs to Be on Facebook
– Making Social Media a Tool, Not a Distraction
– How to Use Twitter Hashtags for Business
– 5 Mistakes to Never Make on Twitter
– 5 Small Businesses Successfully Using Social Media
– 3 Great Social Media Policies to Steal From
– 5 Secrets From Social Media Insiders
– Social Media: What’s Next
Tags: Social Media, social media for business, social media for reno businesses
Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
You work hard, you learn things, and over time you get better at what you do… and there is a sense of satisfaction in that.
Sometimes clients rave, sometimes not, and sometimes things just click and you don’t even know it… all while you are busy in the trenches doing what needs to be done and busily doing the best you can.
Then something like this pops into our email “in box” that makes us all smile. It’s an affirmation of why we do what we do and why we do it.
The background is this: Client (Creative Coverings)had been doing some experimenting with some new shipping bags for returning fabric and linen rentals from large events. They were trying to lower the cost of the process as well as the carbon footprint of the return shipping process. Then voila! They came up with the idea of reusable Return Shipping Duffel Bags that could be easily reused and would still work with the UPS bulk processing shipping system. The light bulb went on and they roughed out an article and handed it to us for review. Well we took that article and polished it up so it was fit for media consumption, and then the buzz, excitement and kudos came rolling in! Here is what the client sent us to let us know what had happened.
I just wanted to say thank you to Christian, Judith and Blair for all of your efforts with the Green Shipping Service article. I sent out to NNBW, RGJ, Catersource, Rental Management, Special Events, ISES, and Entrepreneur this morning. The response has been fantastic. NNBW is running on Monday and complimented on what a well written article it was, along with mentioning that he (NNBW Editor) thinks we could get some national exposure with this one.
Lisa Hurley, the editor of Special Events Mag thought it was great and Rental Management is going to come by the ARA booth to see the bag. –
So this morning I sit a little higher and straighter in my chair with a sense that we do actually make a difference from time to time… Maybe more than we know.
Tags: carbon footprint, Green Shipping, Local Reno PR, return shipping
Posted in Company News, Green Biz Tips, Local Green, Uncategorized | 24 Comments »
