The ReLaunch of Raise: Raise Small Business Marketing
When we started Raise Interactive we had a goal, use all our marketing experience to help small businesses perform and track online with all the tools and proven strategies of big businesses. We have been successful with this strategy so far, helping small businesses get online, gain Search Engine Rankings, and keep in touch with clients. We are working with restaurants, vacation rentals, mechanics, hospitality businesses, online and offline retail stores and many more. But there is still something missing and that is why we have expanded our scope and added to our services.
One thing we realized quickly is that many small business owners don’t always know their own brand and customers. This is very important information to have. Also, we found many business owners treat their marketing one of two ways:
1. They have marketing out there in different places but really didn’t base their media buys on any kind of empirical information or demographics but rather on rates and intuition. They might have different ads in different places and no real way to track them.
2. The other small business owner does what is called “ostrich marketing”. Burying your head in the sand and hoping the marketing takes care of itself will not work.
That’s when we decided to really use all of our experience including over 10 years working in print media, branding experience, understanding competing media, and demographic research. We also know that all your advertising needs to work together to advance your brand. It is the only way to move forward.
We decided to become full service marketing agency for our customers including demographic research and media buying. We design brands, write copy, plan, institute and track full advertising campaigns. We make sure that online and offline work together to increase new business and and keep customers coming back.
We know small business owners are busy! Your number one issue is sometimes time. Our goal is to make marketing easy. We want to take it off your plate and really cut down the time you spend on marketing while increasing the effectiveness.
As part of our re-launch we want to offer a free analysis of your current marketing efforts. Just a no hassle, no obligation review of your current marketing. Trust us; it will be worth your time.
New Product Friday!
We’ll be going into detail more on this later and as we update the web page but Raise Interactive is pleased to announce some new services that we are offering mainly due to customer demand.
1. Social Media Marketing
This is something that we have always been doing but wanted to make official; Raise Interactive provides Social Marketing for businesses. This includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other online networking venues. Everybody is talking about Social Media marketing, but does it make sense for your business? If so, how? Nothing is more annoying that the person on Facebook who continually posts links about their business. Nobody likes that and you will soon see friends start dropping. There is a right way and a wrong way to use these powerful tools and Raise will help you develop the plan that makes the most sense for your business, implement that plan, and track results. At that point we can either turn the plan over to you or handle the work ourselves with your input. If you are interested in learning more contact us today.
2. More Traditional Agency Services
The more time we spend talking to clients the more I realize that there is a real need for qualified, affordable marketing advice. From Brand Management to Advertising Budgets, we have come to realize that most small businesses just don’t have the time or the expertise to effectively institute a “marketing plan” and follow it. This leads to wasteful spending or missed opportunities. We ask clients where they are currently advertising and they either don’t know, or name a bunch of different venues many of which don’t make sense for their customer. As I said, I will get into exactly what this all entails in more detail in the future, but basically this will allow us to service all of our customers so much better, bringing online and offline together effectively.
If you would like to learn more please contact us today through our online form.
Raise Newsletter 1.3
Search Engine Optimization 101
In the last newsletter we defined terms and discussed three methods for driving traffic to your website through the search engines, natural rankings, paid search marketing and local results. This article will narrow in on natural rankings, how to achieve them, and what they mean. (Read the last newsletter here)
How do Search Engines Pick Their Results?
You type a phrase or question into Google, the results come up and you pick a page to view. How do Google, Yahoo or any of the other engines figure out which sites rank highest for the search queries?
They actually have a very complex algorithm that takes many factors into account. These algorithms are tightly guarded secrets and constantly, but we do have some ideas of things that the search engines look for. One very important aspect that the Search Engines need to see is keywords on the site. This makes website design and copywriting very important. Another factor that can make a big difference is your url name. Putting keywords into the url can be a quick way to get a new website ranked. Inbound links from relevant authority sites are what separates big players from small players. These links back to your site make all the difference and this is what most Search Engine Marketing Consultants provide. The more links back to your site, generally the better the site will rank under a number of keywords.
1. Why do Search Rankings matter?
A website’s ranking in the Search Engines can absolutely make or break a business. Websites that rank in the top three for heavily searched keywords bring in more customers that are actively looking for their product or service. This type of pull marketing can help businesses sell more products, gain more clients, or sell advertising on their web site.
2. So how do you move up?
That’s where a company like Raise Interactive can help. We help companies improve their rankings in the Search Engines but we do a lot more as well. It is important to have a smart strategy when starting a Search Engine Optimization Campaign. You have to pick keywords carefully, and find relevant reasons for people to link back to your site. We monitor traffic to your site and make sure that the traffic that comes to your site is qualified and acting the way we want them to you. It’s important that people don’t come to your site and leave instantly. This is where a consultant like Raise Interactive can really help your site.
Please contact us today for more information:
The Alpacas of Spring Acres
Raise Interactive is pleased to announce the launch of springacresalpacas.com. The Alpacas of Spring Acres is a a suri alpaca farm located in Zanesville, Ohio. The site features pictures of the animals, a blog and other news from the farm. Check it out here:
The Alpacas of Spring Acres
Small Business Websites: Often The First View Into Your Business
Living and working on Hilton Head island, it always strikes me how many businesses in the Travel and Tourism Industry either don’t have a website or have a dated or poorly built website. I look around Hilton Head and Savannah and see these sites everywhere, including Hilton Head’s own site. I think it must be a fear factor in undertaking the project. Just the idea of being online scares these businesses so they ignore it. Either that or they don’t see the value in an effective web presence. But it is very important.
Tourists are not leaving their computers at home anymore and when they come one vacation they use the computers to make decisions about where they are going to spend money. The Internet allows visitors to quickly compare charter boats, jet skis, or restaurants online. It is imperative that these businesses provide decent pictures, the benefits of their service, rates and directions or they will lose business to companies that do have that on their website.
It isn’t neccassary to have the greatset site ever with super flash movies and music and video (although video used properly can be VERY effective). We need to take brochures and marketing materials and put them online. For example, I recently completed a site for a Hilton Head Island Mechanic, Island Motors. This site is not fancy, and doesn’t even have an email form on it. The owner doesn’t have time for that time of thing and doesn’t want to let emails sit and get stale. But, when a tourist is in Town and there car is overheating, when they don’t go to the yellow pages, or even if they do, his site is going to let people know what he does and where he is. This online brochure is not expensive, as a matter of fact at raise Interactive we usually charge around $600 for a site like this, not thousands, and we keep them online for $15/month. Its effective and it works. I have another client, a Hilton Head Island Vacation Home, who needed an attractive web prescence to drive traffic to through such sites as VRBO and Craigslist. Again, simple and easy, it gets 100s of hits a day and its rare that a day goes by without the contact form filled out.
So we encourage people, if youb have questions, fill out our form. We are happy to work with you to build your business online. We don’t double talk or use crazy buzzwords, we just build effective websites.