The ReLaunch of Raise: Raise Small Business Marketing
July 30, 2009
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!
May 22, 2009
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.
Small Business Marketing vs. Large Corporate Marketing through TNT
February 3, 2009
I watched the TV show Trust Me last night. It is a good show and I recommend it. I’m a big fan of Tom Cavanagh, he was great on Ed and Scrubs, and I like Eric McCormack fine. The show hits home too, as they work in an advertising agency which I have some experience with. While it is fiction some things that happened last night rang true and reinforced to me both the difference between big business marketing and small business marketing and some of the advantages that small businesses actually have over the big boys.
Tom Cavanagh and Erick McCormack from the TNT show "Trust Me"
The storyline revolved around a tagline and whether it was stolen and how it tested in focus groups. It just made me think how old and inefficient the advertising process of large companies is. Focus groups? Taglines? These are not the most important things to bringing new customers to your business and actually improving your bottom line. It used to be the only way but with the tools to track everything. The punchline of the show was that two people were able to torpedo a good tagline in a focus group. That is not efficient! Why use a focus group when the entire world can be your focus group, or at least the world that we are able to drive to your website. You can see, almost in real time how visitors are reacting to offers on your site, the layout and the structure and if they are buying or filling out your contact form. And the best part is that online we can change on a dime.
That is where I feel small businesses have a major advantage over larger competition. Speed and flexibility. If a strategy isn’t working, change it. Now. Small business don’t need to run ideas through commitees, deal with internal politics or focus groups. If we are smart, we can use the tools available to make decisions based on what our customers want, not what we think they might want six months from now. So use those advantages, be flexible and quick. It is how David beat Goliath…
Small Business Internet Marketing in a whole new way
December 10, 2008
Raise Interactive aims to bring big budget, proven internet marketing strategies to smaller businesses by leveraging offline and online marketing knowledge and cutting edge technologies, keeping overhead low and scaling services to meet any budget.
Raise Interactive will design sites and strategies to improve your business and your customer satisfaction at a fraction of big budget agencies costs. We are excited to be open for business and we look forward to hearing from you!