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Posts Tagged ‘ROI’

Smart Business Owners are Marketing Online

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I’m currently reading a book entitled The New Rules of Marketing and PR that my friend and local business owner Brad Johnson of Lawn America loaned to me.  It’s quite good!  I came across a story about a company that we all know and can identify with, and I found it relevant to many of the business owners that I speak to every week.  So, I thought I’d share…

Century 21 Real Estate LLC is the franchisor of the world’s largest residential real estate sales organization, an industry giant comprising approx. 8,000 offices in 45 countries.  You’ve seen Century 21’s TV ads before, but you haven’t seen them lately.  In 2009, the company pulled its national TV advertising and invested those resources into online marketing.  That’s a huge move considering the amount of TV they were doing.

Bev Thorne, chief marketing officer at Century 21, stated, “we are moving our advertising investments to the mediums that have the greatest relevance to our target buyers and sellers, and to where the return on our investment is most significant. In 2008, we found that our online investments provided a return that was substantively higher than our more traditional TV media investments.” They turned to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube, to name a few.  Actually, YouTube is a large component of their activities, and they are putting a lot of their attention into developing that medium to promote their brand.

It’s easy to see the logic behind that. As a business owner, you should always go with the mathematical explanation to support why you make decisions like this.  What you think may happen and can’t be tracked or proven.  There is a lot of calculated data to support investing online and doing some Internet marketing. However, business owners are afraid to make even partial moves away from their comfort zones and into online marketing and social media.  But the evidence describing how people actually research products overwhelmingly suggests that companies must tell their stories and spread their ideas online, taking the content to the people.  It’s easier to do than ever before.  Ridiculously simple, in fact…it just takes some leg work.

I gotta be honest: it is exciting being a marketer right now.  There is so much un-chartered territory for small to medium sized businesses!  The little guy can make a huge mark in a very short period of time with some professional help!  But, sadly, the world of the unknown and unfamiliar will stop many business owners from making these investments online, and quite possibly miss the gold rush because of it.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is the newest fad.  No, this is how the world communicates now.  Bring your business up to speed and do it quickly before your competitors do.  It’s easier to get ahead now then play catch-up later.

Contact Innovated Media today – don’t wait!

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Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, advertising, marketing | No Comments »

Your Homepage No Longer Does the Heavy Lifting

Monday, January 25th, 2010

search engine optimization tulsa, internet marketing, innovated media tulsa SEO

Gone are the days of the homepage. True, every website has one, but the days when website owners expect their homepage to do all the heavy lifting are gone.

Thanks to the evolving science of search, the search engines have made our lives easier by providing the consumer with relevant search results for specific keyword queries. Visitors now stream directly into websites via side doors and back doors. They can magically teleport into a website without ever seeing the homepage; they are practically flying through the windows to land directly where they want to be.

For a consumer looking for a specific product or service, this is fantastic, but for site owners and operators, the importance of optimizing each and every individual page you would potentially want a searcher to visit is magnified considerably. When visitors can enter a site and land anywhere, there are brand implications. If it’s not immediately apparent where they are, and why, they might not stick around. The same thought and energy you put into the homepage of the site to brand the product or company must be put into each page that you intend to be searchable for the consumers that you want to be on your site.

Like I said, gone are the days when a website’s homepage could be counted on to do the heavy lifting. Now, all search-findable pages must be counted upon to do the lifting all by themselves. This involves a lot of research, work, and someone that knows what they are doing.

It is for this reason that my heart sinks when a growing business or ministry with lots of potential tells us “thank you for the proposal, but my nephew said he is learning web design and he is going to do our website.” BIG mistake. BIIIIIIIIG mistake.

I’m glad that your nephew is learning web design, but VERY rarely, and I do mean VERY rarely will you find a single person that is good at designing the layout of a new site, building it from the ground up using the most current and fastest-loading code, optimizing the site based on actual keyword and phrase research, and launching a full-blown internet marketing campaign based on the most current and ever changing search engine algorithms. This process is not one person’s job: it takes a team of people to pull this off and to pull it off well.

If you are a business owner, a ministry leader, an entrepreneur, or someone that needs to be visible on the web, don’t go cheap. You get what you pay for! Five years ago it may have been okay to just have a website by someone that just figured out how to do it. Having a website is no longer the goal – the goal is USING the website to create leads and sales.

** This content was adapted from The Truth About Search Engine Optimization by Rebecca Lieb

Innovated Media Tulsa, tulsa web design graphic design

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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO, Uncategorized, Web Design, advertising, marketing | No Comments »

SEO & Tulsa Internet Marketing

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Search Engine Optimization is the foundation, the bedrock of online marketing. It is the foundation of all Internet marketing.

Launching a website without actively marketing it properly (and professionally) is like buying a new car, never putting gas in it, and then complaining that it doesn’t work. The potential for leads and sales certainly exists, but without some direct focus on Search Engine Optimization and Internet marketing, you’ll never see those leads.

You see, search engines have taught consumers how to search. They have redefined how people shop and find the services that you offer. And when someone types a keyword into the search box and presses that search button, there are only two possible outcomes:

  1. They will find you.
  2. They will find your competitors.

You can’t afford to allow your competitors to hog all of the search results in Google, Bing, or Yahoo while you spend advertising dollars on avenues that cannot justify a positive return on investment.

That’s the beauty of online marketing! It’s not hit or miss like the phonebook, print advertising, or billboard advertisements.  We can see where your leads are coming from, who is searching for you and how, and make real-time adjustments to your website to provide your organization the most visibility in a current market.

Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing service ensuring that once we obtain a top ranking on a particular search for your services, every searcher will see your listing – all day long, all night long, every day, every week – it’s the visibility you need to increase leads and sales. This service keeps your website working for you while you sleep, and isn’t that one of the reasons you built your website when you began an online presence?

It’s not too late, but it won’t happen by accident. Contact us and we’ll do the rest. Don’t be left in the dust of your competitors.


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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO, Web Design, advertising, marketing | 4 Comments »

What is Your Money Doing for You?

Friday, September 21st, 2007

Clients ask me all the time how their money can best be spent among print, radio, television, internet, direct mail, etc. Since I find myself primarily staying busy doing web design and internet marketing, my answer is usually the same: stay away from print advertising in local newspapers and put the money to work for you on the web.

Why is this good advice? Because on average, for a decent print ad in a major newspaper, you are going to pay at least $400, and you may get to run the ad between 1 – 3 days. You don’t get to select who looks at the ad, how old they are, how much money they make, and the worse part of all, you have absolutely no fail-safe way of knowing if people even SAW your ad! (more…)

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Posted in advertising, marketing | No Comments »

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