Marketing « Integris Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Our Industry Partners: Strategic Essentials

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

Our partner, Strategic Essentials, provides comprehensive organizational development training and consulting through the unique Leadership Management International, Inc. (LMI) Strategic Development Process ™. This is training that has really led to our success and continues to add value to our bottom line.

No One Succeeds Alone

In our many years in the marketing business in and around the Reno area, we have learned that success comes easiest when you surround yourself with like minded business partners /alliances which strengthen all parties involved.

Our Partner – Strategic Essentials

We have several local businesses that we partner with to help us continue to grow; they keep our wits sharp and our skills up to date. Learning is an ongoing and ever productive part of life and business. As marketing professionals and designers, our expertise may not have always been in managing and running the business side of things. We learned some hard lessons, before we realized that if someone else excels at these things, why not learn from them? That’s where Valerie Cardenas, owner of Strategic Essentials, came in and improved the way we were running our business, ultimately helping us to define our success.

If you are finding that some of your entrepreneurial hats fit better than others, call Strategic Essentials to discuss “What Matters Most” for your organizations development. They will custom tailor your plan with measurable goals and a timeline for improvement. Ensure that employees (and yourself) are successful in navigating all areas of your organization with this award winning development program.

Since partnering with Strategic Essentials, our business has benefited from improved sales procedures, productivity across the team, clarity of business goals, team morale, cash flow, and an increase in billable hours. We have also been able to streamline our invoicing and estimating processes. Learn how you can make your team more efficient and productive while creating a results-based, goal-oriented culture focused on “What Matters Most” for your organization.

Tags: blog, Inspiration, life, Marketing, pivotal points, Reno, reno marketing, Reno Networking
Posted in Company News, Inspiration | 73 Comments »

Pinterest: the New Social Network

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012

Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections and/or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting” via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing. It is one of the “fastest growing social services in the world.”

Make your Content Visual

The brilliance behind this new social network is that it only works with visual posts or content– photos and videos. We often fail to realize that we have the ability to change our content into visual posts by using word art, pictures to say the same thing, or creating an image that includes the words we want to convey.

Why would we want visual content rather than just plain text?

Because we are human beings – we want things to be pretty and interesting, we want to be surprised and engaged, we crave something new to share with the world (or our part of it) and most of all – we want to express ourselves; this new social network is just one more way to do this. Sharing (or pinning as Pinterest calls it) allows us to show the world things we find interesting and connect with others who share the same opinions and interests. Visual posts on social media sites go viral more often, last longer, and have more shares than plain text or links – period. Pictures and videos are the mediums we crave; they frequently move us and inspire sharing visual posts with our friends, especially on this new social network, Pinterest.

How can I get on Pinterest?

This new social network has made their site an invitation only affair. This may at first make you think they are trying to limit the number of people adopting their social network – but it is very similar to “friending” someone on Facebook. You just need an in with someone who is already on Pinterest (chances are, one of your current Facebook friends is already on this new social platform and excited to extend you an invite – just ask).

If you are interested in more about this new social network, or visual posts on other networks, drop us a line at 775-322-3663 and we can chat about it or send you an invite to join in the pinning fun. Go, be social; share what moves and inspires you.

Tags: blog, internet marketing, Marketing, Reno, reno marketing, Reno Social Media, Social Media
Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Email Marketing – Strategies for Success

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Successful Strategies for Email Marketing

If you don’t have a plan, then how will you know that you are getting the results you really want from your email marketing? You need to know where you are heading and how you are going to get there in order to set up targets to aim for with each email marketing campaign. A roadmap to your email marketing will help you to decide what needs to be changed in order to make your efforts more effective.

7 considerations while you are setting up your strategy:

You are only as good as your list.(see our 3 ways to increase the quality of your email database, below)
Mobile devices are on the rise and more and more people are using their mobile devices to view their emails – including yours. So make it easy for them to see, read, click, and integrated for quick and easy social media sharing to be ahead of the pack.
Keep your call to action ABOVE THE FOLD – or up to 70% of your audience may never see it.
Mix up your email marketing with a direct mailing campaign to increase your response rate to the overall campaign.
Promotions that are limited in time or availability always increase response rates.
Link your email broadcasts to online interactions or call to actions – even if it is just a landing page where they can get more information (make sure your website works in mobile too if you are going to do this).
Incentive focused subject lines are a great way to increase open rates as well – just remember not to use words like “free” since they often trigger the spam filter in email accounts.

3 Ways to Increase the Quality of your Email database

Reward your opt-ins with a bonus or freebie (by AR) of something YOU can offer for signing up with you (this helps you make sure the things you offer are things your database are interested in receiving).
Measure the activity of your list over time and send out updates or special AR’s for those who have been inactive to keep your database filled with real contacts that are interested in your services or products.
Integrate your opt-in with social media so that it is easy to share to others and your offerings get more awareness and notice across platforms and the holy ‘share’ to others who may be interested in signing up with you.

These tips and best practices can change your email marketing efforts into ordered, cohesive campaigns. Metrics and tracking will define adjustments needed to your methods and drive continuous improvement on successive campaigns until you are effectively utilizing email marketing to further your business.

Call us today if you’d like help with your specific email marketing needs – we can help! 775-322-3663

Tags: blog, internet marketing, Marketing, Reno, reno marketing
Posted in Online Marketing | No Comments »

Use Video Marketing to Grab Your Customers Attention

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

Almost everyone in America knows what YouTube is and that you can find almost anything on it to entertain yourself. What you may not know is that it is becoming the new search tool of the Millennials (Generation Z); rather than words, they want video answers to their questions.

Why Video Marketing?

If we think about our past, it isn’t surprising that we are drawn to the visual relay of information – a picture paints 1000 words, right? So a video must communicate a million, easy. It is one of the fastest ways to share and ingest pieces of information between human beings. It’s why commercials cost more than other forms of advertising. Technology has allowed each of us to share our own personal cave wall art with everyone in the world who has access to the internet. What IS surprising is that although this powerful medium has become advanced enough that you can make a video from your phone and post it online in mere minutes; there are few businesses that have truly committed to using it to its full potential.

It’s Easy to Use

It is an amazing time to be a business – especially a tech-savvy one! If you have a marketing department or an advertising agency that is already creating fantastic commercial quality videos for your company, feel free to repurpose them and upload them to a company YouTube channel or a Vimeo account, which both offer easy sharing options to social media platforms. If you don’t have access to commercially produced video footage, there are dozens of options for video recorders that are relatively inexpensive, simple to use, and a breeze to upload.

How do I make it Effective?

If you are making the video, or you have the ability to give direction to those who are, remember that online there are many distractions and it is important to grab your audience’s attention immediately and then keep them watching your ad. Recent research, by Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Thales S. Teixeira, shows that the best attention capture is achieved when there is:

… a quick element of surprise at the beginning of an ad, followed by a longer period of joy…

Now that you know the formula, you can get busy making surprising, joyful videos that capture the attention of your audience. Just remember it is always important to be authentic and real about your product or service, even while you make viewers feel good.

If you would like some help in your video marketing endeavors, feel free to call us at 775-322-3663 today.

Tags: blog, Branding, http www youtube, internet marketing, Marketing, Reno, reno marketing, Reno Social Media, Social Media
Posted in Online Marketing | No Comments »

Top 5 Reasons Why Proprietary Websites are Bad News for You

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Proprietary Websites

Proprietary websites are everywhere; they offer cheap website designs and often, cheap hosting as well. However, there are free or open source options that provide much better benefits. There are a multitude of issues that come with this type of website platform – our top 5 are below:

Limited Design & Branding Options
No Ownership or Flexibility
No SEO Options
No Search Engine Respect
No Support

1. Limited Design & Branding Options

You are limited to the color palates, lay out templates, and widgets that they have available.

There are thousands of websites out there – and probably hundreds of businesses that do something similar to yours. So how do you stand out? Being online is important – including social media (but we’ve gone over that before); however, it doesn’t help to distinguish yourself when your website looks like everyone else’s. Your business is unique in some way, shape or form – show that to your clients!

2. No Ownership or Flexibility

You do not own your proprietary website – the creator does. If you want to move your site or use a different designer, you have to start from scratch. This is frustrating and costly as the services you have already paid for basically disappear and are wasted. You cannot take it with you when you leave – and if something happens to the business that created your proprietary website – you lose everything.

3. No SEO Options

Most websites are being created so people (clients or customers) can find them and buy the service or product you sell. The way a website is found by most people is through searching. We enter keywords or terms we think apply to our topic and a list of relevant websites is returned to us. These keywords or terms are coded into the back end of every webpage. Without them, your website can only be found by someone who has the exact address – so they already know you and your website.

These proprietary websites often have no way for you to set up your SEO (search engine optimization), which means no one will find your website unless you tell them how to get there. No searches will return your company and your website is pretty much useless for bringing in new clients.

4. No Search Engine Respect

If, by some miracle, your proprietary website has a special upgrade or ‘pro plan’ that will give you SEO options (for a price), you need to know one last thing: Search Engines can tell who built your website, and they don’t love proprietary site builders. If your search engine doesn’t respect your website, you are not likely to end up at the top of your target client’s search results; which means unhappiness for your business rather than increased sales and a bright new outlook on the future growth of your company and cash flow.

5. No Support

Let’s face it – things go wrong- and when they do, a great portion of our satisfaction with a service is the ability of the offender to make it right again. Most of these proprietary websites have clunky forms, round-a-bout ways to contact them, or no human response whatsoever. When your company reputation or your personal one depends on how you respond, you need to know that you have fast, reliable support available. This is usually not the case with a proprietary website – if you can find a way to contact them, they are not usually very efficient and an emergency on your part does not an emergency on their part make.

Our Recommendations

We have been designing and developing websites for many years – and we have learned that open source platforms are the most user-friendly, wholly owned, SEO ready, massively supported and unique option for websites today.

Platforms like WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal make creating a customized, branded experience for your customers a simple, straight forward, and effective process for your business.

Call us today at 775-322-3663 to learn more about how Integris Marketing can help your website work for you!

Tags: Branding, content management system, Design, Hosting, internet marketing, Local SEO, Marketing, Reno SEO, Reno SEO Expert, Reno Social Media, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, search engines, SEO, SEO optimization, Social Media, web design, WordPress
Posted in Local SEO, SEO, web design, Website Copywriting, Website Design, WordPress | 23 Comments »

Social Media – In or Out?

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 »

What Marketing Efforts are Wasting Your Money?

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

With the plethora of choices in today’s marketing arena, our clients often ask us, “what works?” We have a straightforward answer. It depends. Return on Investment (ROI) in the various marketing venues depends on your business and more specifically, on your customer.

You’ll find when you work with us that one of the first things we’ll do is gather data. We want to know what’s working now, and what’s proving to be a waste of money. We will use this data to find the path ahead and to provide the most relevant and accurate suggestions for your hard earned dollar.

We also pinpoint your potential customer. You’ll hear us talking again and again about who your customer is. We’ll be marketing directly to those customers, both current and potential. Your customers determine the venues we choose to market your company. Your customer, in fact, is king and queen of almost all of the decisions we make – even down to the color of your logo.

The most important thing for you to know about marketing your product in the many available venues is that the whole is greater than the parts. The aggregate solution for you is almost guaranteed to be a highly custom mix of marketing venues.

When we build your brand, we build it like no other.

You’ll find that when we build your brand, it is uniquely yours in look, feel, voice and in choice of venues.

So if you are looking for a cookie-cutter type website, we may not be the choice for you – but if you want to stand out above your competitors, and get the customers you know you can impress – then we are looking to help you build your brand. Call us today at 775.322.3663, or fill out our request form for more information. We look forward to hearing about your brand and your customers.

Tags: brand building, Branding, internet marketing, logo design, Marketing, Reno, reno marketing, Reno Social Media, search engine optimization, Social Media, web design
Posted in In-Bound Links, Online Advertising In Reno, Online Marketing, Social Media, web design | No Comments »

Company Website Boring Visitors to Death?

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

Tired of your company website?

Is your company website boring even to you? People are more and more obsessed with flashy, bright, shiny objects and websites are no different. Yes, you will need to have killer content on your website that is easy to understand and explains your product or services in a way that will make anyone want to buy it, but first – you have to get their attention – and in a positive way.

A Website is an Experience

As you browse through a site, you experience layout, colors, fonts, photographs, and content until you begin to feel a certain way. Of course, when it comes to your customers, you want that ‘certain way’ to be a positive one, one that converts to sales. Creating those positive experiences through design is what our team does best.

Remodelling: Ideas and Considerations

If you were to think about your website as the large billboard that everyone will see as they sit in a movie theatre and wait for their film to start – what would you want them to see? I use the theatre example because, in this instance, you have a somewhat captive audience and the time frame is relatively lengthy. Your website IS a marketing piece and it should fit with your branding as well as your vision and mission for the company.

However, you want more than a brochure or a static, unchanging picture as your website – you want to engage the audience and make them feel that you are right there with them. This can be done with a custom layout that makes finding information for your users simple and almost automatic, it can be done with content that makes them feel instantly at home and trusting, it can be done with colors that evoke the emotional response you ultimately want your customers to have, and it can be done with images, videos, and sharing options where they can find out what their friends think of your product or service, and inform the rest of their friends of their opinions about you as well.

Your Website is the First Touch

Your website is the first touch you have on your customer; it is extremely important for it to be a positive experience and that it entices your target audience to take that next step and contact you. Ultimately we have websites to initiate a customer relationship and to sell something, whether it is advice or kitchen spoons, we are all in a business to make some kind of money – whether sales or donations for a non-profit to support a meaningful cause, the desired result is the same. As you have probably heard in business, it takes money to make money. Designing your website is not free – but if it is done correctly, it IS worth it.

Think about it – if you wouldn’t stay on your company website for more than 2 minutes, then why would anyone else? You have a lot of competition in the online world, so make yourself stand out. If you need ideas or a quote, check out our web portfolio or call us at 775.322.3663 or 800.233.0239

Tags: blog, Design, graphic design, internet marketing, Marketing, reno marketing, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, SEO optimization
Posted in Blog Design, Design Meanderings, Online Advertising In Reno, Online Marketing, Reno Marketing Meanderings, Typography, web design, Website Copywriting, Website Design, WordPress | 144 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Our Industry Partners: Strategic Essentials

No One Succeeds Alone

Our Partner – Strategic Essentials

Email Marketing – Strategies for Success

Successful Strategies for Email Marketing

7 considerations while you are setting up your strategy:

3 Ways to Increase the Quality of your Email database

Company Website Boring Visitors to Death?

Tired of your company website?

A Website is an Experience

Remodelling: Ideas and Considerations

Your Website is the First Touch

Web Support Services

Online Marketing

Graphic Design Services

Strategic Marketing Services

Recent Blog Posts

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