Blog
Building an Effective Online Marketing Approach – Part One
This is the first of a series of blog articles where I’ll write about what needs to be done to effectively market your business online using a systematic approach based on fundamentals we all know. My goal is to package this approach in a way that helps you build an effective online marketing approach that delivers results.
There has been so much written about social media marketing. It seems so many people think it’s the silver bullet that will take your business to the next level. It’s not. In order for social media marketing or any other online marketing to work effectively, it’s critical to think of the entire structure of your online marketing efforts. As with every structure, you need a strong foundation in order to be successful.
The foundation of your online marketing, is your Web site. More specifically, your Web site design. Is your Web site designed and built as an online brochure where you talk AT your customers and clients, or is it built in a way that will educate them and entice them to contact you? Take the HRB Web site for example. Our site isn’t overly flashy, and it doesn’t have a lot of text on most pages. People simply won’t read a Web page that is text heavy and image light.
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Instead of using a lot of text, we briefly explain most of our services and rely heavily on our portfolio section to show examples of our work. We rely on the HRB Blog as a means to educate our audience and provide insight into our expertise. Both of these serve to begin building a relationship with potential clients and hopefully building trust in our ability to help them. If people like our work and trust in our expertise, then we remain top of mind and are included in the conversation when they are in need of the services we offer.
If you look at our site, you’ll notice we have icons to our social media sites and an icon where people can subscribe to our blog. Another thing you’ll notice is the ability to subscribe to the HRB newsletter. In all of these cases, we are simply providing a way for our audience to receive information from us using the media of their choice. We’re not pushing our articles on people, but rather providing them with choices on how they prefer to receive our message.
On some of our blog articles, we provide an opportunity for people to download white papers that provide in-depth information on a topic. One example is our white paper titled “Learn how to avoid the 15 biggest marketing mistakes in 2010.” You can see an example of how we worked this white paper into our content in this article:
How to Work With a Marketing Agency
Finally, you’ll notice each page of our site has a link to Contact HRB. In the footer of the site, you see the addresses and phone numbers (mobile device compatible) for our locations in the Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids. Those are two items that virtually every Internet user has grown accustomed to. If you don’t deliver these elements, then you’ll quickly lose the user.
Hopefully it goes without saying that the HRB site is programmed to meet the very strict standards of the World Wide Web Consortium with search engine optimization built into the foundation and added to each new blog post and page built.
In summary, your Web site is your foundation. Be sure to offer multiple ways for your audience to engage you. Offer promotions and information that prompts the user to engage you further, or at least keeps you top of mind. Once this foundation is strong, you can begin some marketing efforts to test the effectiveness of your Web site design.
Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations
Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron
Related Services:
- Website Design Quad Cities
- Website Design Cedar Rapids
- Email Marketing
- Internet Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media Marketing
Henry Russell Bruce is a full-service advertising agency and Internet marketing firm that focuses on branding, developing and executing marketing roadmaps, and growing companies.
Are You Practicing the Art of Filling Holes?
Well, it’s that time of year again … when we’re blessed with countless potholes left behind on our roads by winter’s many freezes and thaws. Playing “dodge-the-pothole” can make driving a real adventure. Soon the road crews will be out with their trucks and shovels, dutifully filling those tire and suspension-killing craters with steaming asphalt.
I’m convinced their task is not unlike how some companies approach their advertising efforts. At least, that’s how it so often looks. On their “to do” list is an ad schedule, probably a few brochures, a monthly calendar of direct mailers, maybe even a Web site design their sales department has been begging for. Those are the “holes” they have to fill. Important holes, yes … still holes none-the-less.
But what happens when that road crew fills a pothole? People drive right over it and never notice it. They keep on their merry way with their eyes open, watching for the road signs, traffic signals and looming landmarks which tell them they’re near their destination. Those filled potholes are now totally invisible in the rear view mirror.
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Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it looks like work.” Those words ring true to me when I see some of the work that looks like yet another advertising “hole” has been filled. An ad that’s crowded with more copy than anyone would ever read. A brochure with lame photographs that fill every millimeter of white space. A web site with a huge “don’t forget who brought you this boring message” logo put on every page. They’ve totally missed the opportunity to build a bridge to their audience.
Why? Because it takes work to actually build something. Thinking, planning and understanding how their brand really resonates with their audience. It’s work that’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it.
Take the opportunities you have to build something your audience can see from a distance. Something that steers them in the right direction and tells them they’re closer to their destination. Something they remember later. Your brand.
In the meantime, look out for those nasty potholes!
Henry Russell Bruce is a full-service advertising agency and Internet marketing firm that focuses on branding, developing and executing marketing roadmaps, and growing companies.
This Week at HRB: March 12, 2010
What a busy and uplifting week it has been at HRB as we finalize trade show booth plans for a Connecticut client preparing to attend the National Agri-Marketing Association convention in Kansas City, April 21-23.
We’ve published the schedule of our 2010 seminar series for Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities on our Web site so you can see what’s coming and sign up at any time. The subject matter includes topics on Web and social media, public relations, branding, media buying, strategic planning and more.
A large media outlet client is getting plans together to launch its new brand internally and externally, so we hosted an office brainstorming session to generate ideas.
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Much PR work being done for several clients – generating media lists and researching editorial calendar opportunities on our Web-based Cision PR software.
Three new TV spots for our Mexican restaurant client were wrapped up and distributed to all stores nationally and will begin airing locally next week.
For our rugged tablet PC client, we finalized banner ads targeting applications and product features.
A save the date email went out for an April seminar being planned for our subsoil stabilization client in Iowa City. Invitations are being printed and will drop early next week. Brand identity package (letterhead, biz cards, envelopes) are being finalized. Brochure is in client review. Web site design is in the works – design is approved. They are very happy with their new look.
No, we’re not in trouble with the law. But we’ve been interviewing and meeting with law enforcement training officers for the past two weeks in order to develop a strategic marketing plan for a training client in the Corridor. Also researching trade pubs, trade shows and associations to prepare for our upcoming client presentation.
We’ve almost got final approval for a new animated video for a medical devices client.
For our large engineering/architectural client, we are finishing the templates for the new brand look. Working on a corporate brochure and presentation folder as the next step in the re-brand process.
Want help with a marketing project or campaign, please contact HRB.
Jim Thebeau
Partner/CEO
Follow me on Twitter @JimThebeau
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jimthebeau
Featured Services:
Building a New Web: Software Standards
The key element in building the new Web standard is making it so that every computer and every mobile device sold will be capable of displaying the same content without making any compromises in quality (while keeping the ability to customize / optimize the interface for specific devices). The posts I’ve made over the past few weeks have been covering website design technologies that will be able to do just that.
If you look at the design of the iPhone (and many devices since it’s release), it really focuses on taking your attention away from the actual device in an effort to draw your attention to what’s actually happening on the screen. There are so many choices when purchasing a device that there’s no way to really go wrong in terms of the hardware’s capabilities. The number one aspect that really makes a device great is the software that’s available, and how you actually use it. The iTunes App Store really locks people into purchasing the new iPhone when buying a new phone, because you can’t use any of the apps you’ve purchased through the App Store on any other phone. If they choose to buy a new phone, then they’re forced to re-purchase similar apps to ones they already had.
AT&T just announced that they have a new phone that’s using Android (Google’s Phone OS) that will have a locked down App Store that they have full control over. Mobile devices are currently dividing and controlling users’ software experiences. Meanwhile, personal computers have 3 choices for software compatibility (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and those are becoming more cross-compatible every day. There’s software that you can run that simply takes an application written for one of the other operating systems and makes it so that it runs on your computer as if it were made to do that from the start. There’s this trend in the emerging technology where the manufacturers and carriers are trying to make as much money as possible as people jump into a category of technology they haven’t dealt with before so they’re not sure what to expect in terms of pricing and experience. Once people realize that this simply isn’t what they want, the market will have to change to a new model, and that might be the personal computer’s model of a few major competitors with separate purposes, the unified standard of Web site technologies, or something we have yet to see.
The one choice that I currently see being the best option is to use web standards. The Internet isn’t new so why haven’t we seen any of the cool stuff I’ve talked about yet? One of the primary issues with web development in the past is that the Web sites out there have had to build sites for web browsers that just don’t have the same capabilities as the browsers today so it’s limited by the least capable, but most common, browsers being used. Hardware manufacturers are constantly making and improving upon these really great devices, and the software needs to be able to adapt and make the best use of the new devices. Modern web browsers have also changed the way that they update themselves so that making sure users have the latest version will be more obvious if not automatic. This is good news.
Kurt Zenisek
Web Developer
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kzeni
Henry Russell Bruce is a strategic marketing and Internet marketing firm that uses research, brand-building, advertising, media buying and planning, design, public relations, Web design and strategies to help clients grow market share, generate new business, create brand loyalty and measure marketing results to build and support its clients' brands. HRB, founded in 1973, has offices in Cedar Rapids and Davenport, Iowa. For more information, contact HRB.
PR Best Practices Set Good Example for Social Media Strategy
If businesses and marketing managers would approach social media the way public relations professionals approach developing a story and pitching it to editors, they would get a much better return on their investment.
So what do I mean by that? In marketing and advertising you can say whatever you want, however you want, because you’ve paid for the right to do so. In PR, you have to say what the editor wants to hear and ultimately what the reader or viewer wants to hear to get your message across. We use talking points and corporate speak, even though we try to limit that, so we’re not completely “pure.” But we are trying to tell a story and engage the reader in a thoughtful and helpful way. In social media, key messages, blatant boasting (even not-so-blatant boasting) are killers to the conversation.
And that’s what social media is really… a conversation.
No matter who we are, where we work, we all have agendas and topics we are passionate about. We all have opinions. So ultimately, we all have conversations we want to join. If you’ve already figured out why you should be involved with social media, the next step is creating a strategy. Think about the outcome and decide what types of questions you will need to ask yourselves to make that a reality. Some examples:
- What types of people would be interested in our conversation?
- Where are they at?
- What are they talking about?
- Is it appropriate for us to join that conversation and, if so, when?
- How do we provide value to the conversation?
- What is the best way to get their input into our product or service without offending?
What PR and social media should attempt to do is earn trust. When credible and transparent you can do this. If you think about your social media tendencies and what keeps you following someone or removing them from your friends list, you can create a strategy that is right for your business…and not offensive to potential customers.
Shelby Kraus
Vice President, Public Relations
Account Manager
Henry Russell Bruce is a strategic marketing and Internet marketing firm that uses research, brand-building, advertising, media buying and planning, design, public relations, Web design and strategies to help clients grow market share, generate new business, create brand loyalty and measure marketing results to build and support its clients' brands. HRB, founded in 1973, has offices in Cedar Rapids and Davenport, Iowa. For more information, contact HRB.
