What We Do
The growth of the Internet as a business platform is hardly a secret, but a look at the numbers is still eye opening. E-commerce sales in the U.S. totaled over $200 billion in 2009. There are over 200 million active home Internet users in the U.S. and almost two billion worldwide. Those numbers keep on growing.
Obviously, the opportunity is enormous. However, everyone knows this now, and the day is long gone when a business could launch a website knowing that “if you build it, they will come.” Today, if all you do is build it, they will leave for the greener pastures of another site - that is, if they find you at all. The web has become its own competitive universe, playing by its own rules, constantly evolving and rendering short-term strategies obsolete almost as soon as they appear.
That is where we come in.
Our business is the web and we do it full-time. We know how to make the web do what our clients want it to do. We're not just talking about flashy sites or gorgeous graphics, although we can do those, too. Instead, we focus on long-term strategies and we expect your web presence to more than earn its keep now and in the future.
To get there, we combine a variety of powerful tools to build a comprehensive Internet strategy.
Market Research
People are looking for you right now and finding you should be as easy as possible. Your potential audience is doing over half a billion searches every day, but you need to know who these searchers are and how they are trying to find you. Market research finds the people behind the numbers.
We use sophisticated analytical methods to identify this audience, translating the raw data into useful information. We get to know your business by investigating market trends, products, services, pricing, competition and all of the conditions that affect your market. We study differences in gender, demographics, geography, psychology and anything that can tell us more about the people who are trying to find what you have to offer.
In short, we are the matchmakers between you and your potential customers.
In order to make that match, we focus on a simple question: How do people try to find what they are looking for?
We have learned that there is no simple answer to this seemingly simple question. Real world behavior often defies expectations.
Simply put, this happens because real people cannot be counted on to make obvious, logical choices when they search. The language they use and the terms they employ are often unpredictable. Their search methods may not even make much sense to someone who lives and breathes a product or service every day.
We approach this problem without preconceptions. We do not care how people “should” be searching. We care about, and study, how people actually search. We focus on the data that comes from in-depth market research. That data allows us to see what is actually happening and how your audience is behaving, and we can then replace guesswork with real world knowledge. With that objective, data-driven knowledge, we tailor your strategy to fit reality, so that your audience finds you quickly and easily, and a successful match is made.
Website Analytics
Website analytics are market research applied to your own website. Rather than examining the world of Internet users, they focus on your visitors and prospective customers. Clearly, the more you know about those people, the more you can make your site work for them.
We monitor your site in detail to get answers to critical questions: How do people find you? Where are they from? How long do they stay? At what point do they leave?
Website analytics gives us the behind the scenes picture of how people use your site and whether it functions as it should from beginning to end. Site search analytics (SSA) gives us valuable information as to how people use your site search.
Once we understand what is working and what is not, you have a sound basis on which to make informed decisions about how to move forward. We use website analytics to further optimize your site to better meet its goals, for example by looking closely at individual pages that are underperforming but that could be improved. If changes are implemented, we continue to monitor and analyze the site’s data. As a result, there is no guessing about the benefit of a change. You can see what works almost as soon as a change is made.
Usability Testing
People come to your site to accomplish a goal and the job of the site is to make it easy for them to do so.
Many individual elements contribute to usability, but some general principles always apply. Users should be able to accomplish basic tasks without a struggle from the first time they visit the site, and they should be able to perform tasks quickly once users have some familiarity with the layout. User error should be rare and the user should be able to recover from an error easily.
While some aspects of usability can be evaluated subjectively, we add a measure of objectivity. We test a site’s usability and quantify the results in order to pinpoint areas of site design that interfere with a user’s progress toward the site’s goal. Now that we understand your market and your audience, we use that knowledge to devise a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy that works. We look at the myriad of Internet marketing resources available and narrow that list to the options that we know will pay off.
Ethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When confronted with a page of “natural,” or unpaid, search results and a column of paid advertisements, people click on the ads only 14 percent of the time. We want you in those natural results, and we want you at the top.
SEO is the process of optimizing your position in search results to capture as much of that Internet search traffic as possible, and to do it without relying solely on paying for ads. The process is so valuable that SEO has become an industry itself, but the industry is rife with SEO “secrets” and tricks supposed to fool the search engines. Google, for example, has teams of people dedicated to keeping search honest by detecting tricks as soon as they appear and penalizing people who try to game the system.
We do SEO the way it should be done. We do not depend on fooling a search engine algorithm that is likely to change next week.
Instead, we focus on strategies like keyword research, market research, established, reliable and ethical tactics that perform in the long run and do not leave you wondering if your strategic web investment will stop performing tomorrow. We approach optimization organically, as a natural part of your business that should be integrated into your web presence as a whole, and that will produce a sustainable improvement in your search rankings.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
The social web has come on strong and has continued to grow. At its heart, it is about online conversation and connection. A business needs to be aware of the conversation and to be able to join in and make use of its potential.
SMO is our method of leveraging the increasing power of the social media platforms like Facebook, MySpace, Digg, YouTube and Twitter in order to increase visibility and traffic. SMO begins by uncovering information about your audience as never before possible. We learn what people like or dislike, what trends are developing and how people are responding to you. Armed with that information, you can respond in turn and connect to your audience in new and much more effective ways.
We do not view social media in isolation. Instead, this new platform must mesh seamlessly with the goals of your site. Our approach uses the growing power of social media to extend and reinforce your entire campaign of online public relations, fully integrating the social web into your strategy as a whole.
Pay-Per-Click Management (PPC)
Yes, there is still a place for paid advertising, but only if done correctly. PPC yields an excellent return on investment when seen by the right pair of eyes, but targeting ads to those eyes requires more than signing on to Google Adwords, Microsoft adCenter or one of the many other available services. We have learned over time the many ways in which the advertising services encourage customers to spend as much as possible even if the results are mediocre.
We have a better approach.
We work toward efficiency in PPC so that you achieve maximum results at minimum expense. We create campaigns from scratch after doing in-depth research into effective keywords and related factors that influence the success of a campaign. We employ sophisticated analytics to monitor and track your results, and we use that information to refine and improve the campaign so that it meets your goals.
Local Internet Marketing
The Internet is a global phenomenon, but a business or organization with a local physical presence needs a specifically local web presence as well, and needs to rank high in the results when people are searching for a local provider.
We work with local search engine listings and local directories to establish, maintain and reinforce that local presence so that you stay in the minds of your local customers and so that people easily find you when they are looking for a local service or product.
Online Reputation Management (ORM)
As life has moved online, the Internet has increasingly shaped individual and business reputations. The growth of social media has only accelerated the trend, and businesses ignore this phenomenon at their peril.
We monitor search results, social media, blogs, review sites and forums to keep you aware of what is being said about you, your company or your brand. We can help to counteract negative information and to protect your online reputation as soon as it is threatened.
Viral Content Campaigns
Content goes viral when people spontaneously pass it along to each other until it seems to have a life of its own. Viral content can spread a message or publicize a brand, and it can drive enormous amounts of traffic.
We have studied viral campaigns and we understand their common themes. By applying what we have learned, we can help design and develop viral content that increases exposure exponentially.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing entails an arrangement with other sites to market your product or service in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by traffic they drive to your site.
An affiliate marketing program should be assessed by evaluating the affiliated sites, the network involved and the structure of the particular program. We look at the program from its inception and monitor results continuously so that you can structure the right kind of arrangement and get the best possible results.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has been around for many years because, when done correctly, it works. We can help you build a database of email addresses or help you communicate better with an existing list. We have many effective techniques that help increase the proportion of messages that recipients open and read, along with the number that elicit a response from the reader.
Website Design
Visitors judge your site within four to ten seconds of landing on your home page, and, if you have not engaged them with your first impression, you will not get a second chance.
We can build a site from scratch or redesign an existing site. We draw visitors in and encourage them to stay through a combination of good design, clarity, ease of navigation and a consistently professional look. As part of the development process, we build wireframes or website blueprints that are extensive and reduce costs and time. We also incorporate elements of your marketing strategy to present a consistent, recognizable face to the world and insure maximum results.
Website Development
If 10 seconds sounds like a very short time in which to judge a site, consider this: Visitors are likely to give up on a site if it has not loaded quickly. Slower sites are abandoned and may not get a second chance. It is vitally important that your website be fast, coded correctly and secure.
The Internet now reaches people in many different ways. Devices like web-capable phones, smart phones, and tablets like the iPad, along with the growth of 3G networks, the imminent arrival of 4G and the increasing presence of wireless hotspots have all contributed to the enormous growth of the mobile web. New ways of connecting are encouraging more frequent web access along with different ways of using the Internet. Television sets are incorporating Internet capability and Google TV is on the horizon. When new devices and services seem to appear on a daily basis, keeping up can be a challenge. We closely monitor industry trends and we know how to optimize your strategy for each new platform.
We put your website on a secure content management system (CMS) so that you can make periodic changes and keep the site up-to-date easily. We can set up or improve your e-commerce platform. We setup sites that search engine friendly, accessible, W3C valid, table-less, semantic and compatible with all modern browsers and popular mobile devices. If you need a special program created for your website, we will build it for you in a timely and efficient manner.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
People visit your site, but only a small percentage are buying, filling out your form or doing what you want them to do. This behavior is the bane of thousands of websites. Visitors load a shopping cart and abandon it. They complete a detailed form and click “cancel” rather than “submit.” They leave the site when asked for shipping preferences during checkout.
There are innumerable ways in which sites fail to convert those visitors into customers. If the overriding goal of your site is that very conversion, how do you increase the conversion rate?
We start by examining the site in detail, from the ground up, and studying how users navigate the site. We pay special attention to problem areas that are disclosed only by a fresh look at the site’s inner workings, and we test our hypotheses against real-world user behavior.
Once we understand the issues, we implement CRO to improve the entire process, from the time a visitor first lands on your site to the moment when they make a purchase. We achieve this by split and multivariate testing, usability testing, e-commerce simplification and more, and we continue to analyze and improve the process in response to real-world results.
Video Production
Video increases the length of time visitors stay on your site by approximately 45 percent and simultaneously increases your conversion rate.
We can help you design, develop and produce compelling video that gets those results for your website, and we focus on video that is especially valuable as an integral part of your marketing plan.
Brand Strategy
Online or offline, for an individual, a product or an organization, your identity is represented by your brand. That brand is the face you show the world, your image and your reputation. It is your “vibe,” and it is made up of all of the associations, thoughts, expectations and feelings of everyone who meets you.
A brand is a powerful thing and, like many powerful things, it calls for careful handling.
However, a brand does not have to be created deliberately. It will materialize without your intervention from every point of contact between you and the wider world. Clearly, a brand that is allowed to develop by chance is far less likely to be the brand you want than one that is actively managed to meet your goals.
We pay enormous attention to your brand and to the many details that define it. We study the look and feel of your site, the user experience from start to finish, your marketing strategy and tactics, and the style and content of your communications in every sphere. To optimize your brand strategy, we apply the expertise we have gleaned in every area of the online world, including site design, usability improvement, online reputation management and social media optimization.
Our goal is threefold: consistency, clarity and connection.
First, we see to it that your brand image is consistent everywhere it appears, in all contexts and across all platforms. We insure that your brand delivers the message you want to send at every touchpoint.
Second, we strive for clarity. We get your message noticed. We make it stand out amid the clutter created by thousands of competing messages and we speak to people clearly and meaningfully.
Third, we are devoted to connection. We make sure that your brand complements all your strategies and that your strategies complement your brand. Each piece of the puzzle must make an organic contribution to the whole.
A brand is not built from an idea alone or from a nicely designed site. We build your brand by applying great execution to great strategy, so that all of the pieces work in synergy and the whole becomes much, much more than the sum of its parts.
Display Advertising
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that display advertising is as old as the Internet itself.
Today, display advertising may not be at the forefront of "cool" technology, but it remains an effective tool in the right hands. First, though, old approaches must be brought up to speed.
We apply current best practices and advanced tactics to unlock the potential of display ads. We know how to use new techniques to cut through “banner blindness,” the tendency of the audience to stop seeing banners at all.
Our goal is to get you noticed by the right audience and for the right reasons. We tailor ad placements to fit your strategy and your goals. We then make sure that those ads bring visitors smoothly to a useful page that, in turn, encourages your visitors to take the actions you wish them to take.
We take a fresh approach that makes your ads stand out and connects them with your audience in new ways. For example, we design, develop and implement video placements that are polished, immersive and informative, offering an experience that engages people more than ever before possible.
