Rediscover Your Brand

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m host Mike McCormick. For the past couple weeks we have kept our focus on the internet and different strategies and marketing tools that will help push our organizations into the right path for the future. Last week I talked about e-Mail promotional and how it will help your organization receive more business this holiday season. This we are going to steer clear of the internet into a more broad topic, now I do not want to make anyone disappointed for not talking about their Internet but their a couple other topics that will help your business that rely outside of the internet. This week we are going to cover visual branding. Since the beginning of the year is upon us figuring out your new branding steps will help your business grow in the year 2013, today we are going to discuss: What visual branding is Why we should be utilizing Brand consistency How visual branding can help your business   Well that’s it for episode 46 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick, and this has been brought you by ArtVersion interactive agency, you may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/ArtVersion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/ArtVersion, or just at ArtVersion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 46 – Visual Branding Podcast appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick. For the past couple weeks we have kept our main focus on the internet and different topics, many fun and it has been a blast. Well to move on we are going to keep the same internet presence going with a fun, new and exciting topic this topic will cover a lot of stuff that we can reflect back on to with the holiday season. This week we are going to cover e-Mail Promotional Marketing. You may ask why we are going to cover e-Mail promotions, and it is because it is the holiday season and we should send them out to all of our target audiences just wishing them a happy holidays. Now we all want to know what is going to be covered in today’s podcast so let’s go over that right now! e-Mail Promotional Marketing is a way of emailing someone a card to express a particular event or holiday. e-Mail promotions within business can become fun and exciting because they open a door for any type of campaign we choose to put on to be acted like a holiday. There are just a couple of aspects every business and/or organization needs to take and implement into their e-Mail Promotional Marketing to present successful e-Mail Promotional Marketing to their target audience, who will accept the offers presented with the cards. If these steps are not taken accordingly they might have as much success as you would like. Now I am not telling you that you have to do these, I am going given proven suggestions that have worked, but are up to you to take these steps on your own, and mostly you must always KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR. And before we get into everything it is the holiday season so you may see more success this time of the year just a helpful hint. Let’s begin talking about a couple of tips we should use when putting together e-Mail Promotions. First, don’t go to simple on the graphic design elements, no one really likes to just read text they need something that will draw them in wanting to read your e-Mail Promotions, having graphic design elements that are visual appealing will draw in your target audience wanting to look at what you have to say. Next, make sure it always reflects your brand, your brand is the most important part of the of any promotion you put out, remember this is your brand that is doing that, so why not reflect brand, it is pretty much a no brainer, but should always reflect all the brand elements you present to your audience. Third, you should try to present an offer of some sort; your audience is always looking to get something out of what they are doing for them so try to present them with something useful within the card to keep them coming back for more. Fourth, always make sure they are able to unsubscribe from your list, you do not want anyone to think your e-Mail Promotional are spam, so allowing them to be taken off your mailing list will help. Fifth, use more informal language that includes humor, our audiences want to know that we can communicate on a more friendly level. Sixth, track all the emails that are forwarded from your audiences to others not on your current mailing list, this will allow you to see how many more people are seeing your offers, this will help to grow your business. Seventh, keep it simple and straight forward to the point; we want to direct our audience to our site from the promotion we don’t want them to delete it because there’s too much content, so less is more when creating e-Mail promotions and the content inside them. Eighth, keep it personal; try to always use the audience’s members name within the e-Mail promotion, this will help them to believe that you truly care about them, wanting them to come back again. All of these tips should help you create the perfect e-Mail Promotions for your business, and there is so much more you can do to make them better, you just need to adventure out and try, and with the holiday season upon us it is time we start to push more and more e-Mail promotions and promotions to get audiences to our websites. The post 45 – e-Mail Promotional Marketing appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick! For the past couple weeks, we have kept our focus on the internet and it has been a really awesome adventure, so why not keep going on that adventure as they say. Last week, we talked about a topic that is extremely important and will not go away. Content strategies and SEO are extremely important topics, and will be affected by the topic I am going to cover today. Although, I am not going to specifically bring them up everything I say today will reflect content strategies and SEO in more than one way or another. So now since we have already decided to stick with the internet as our main focus we may be wonder what that topic is, is it going to be broad, and is it going to specific, will it only affect a specific group or will everyone is affected by it.  Well today we are going to be talking about e-Commerce. We are going to discuss what e-commerce is, why we should be utilizing it, and give you a couple inside benefits of e-Commerce. And once again when it comes to the benefits I will give you an inside look, but I am going to leave that door open so you can go and adventure out for yourself, and see how and what benefits work for you and your organization. So let’s now get rolling and start talking about e-Commerce. To start, we all want to know what e-Commerce is, well e-Commerce stands for internet commerce, taking your business to the next level outside of the store and online, allowing you to expand your target audience all over the globe. Now, let’s get into the fun part and talk about why we should be utilizing e-Commerce sites for business, now I do not know if your business is small, medium, or large, but for whatever size your business is there is a pretty solid good reason why would be utilizing them. To start we should first think about our current target audience, although they may be every loyal to our business, the internet has helped to provide the tools that allows us to grow and reach broader audience at the click of a button. The real reasons why, is to improve your business with the tools the internet offers and to provide a stronger target audience around your products and to sell to a larger number of individuals. The reasons why we should utilize e-Commerce sites for our business are simple, but it takes a look into the benefits we can receive, from them to really realize why we should utilize them in our everyday business. The benefits of e-Commerce are enormous, there are many benefits that we can cover, but I am only going to cover a couple, the ones I feel are most important, this because if I covered all the possible benefits we would be sitting here for days, and secondly I want to leave that door open for you to adventure out and see what works best for your organizations brand. To start out, let’s start with the basic benefits, which are expanding your business and target audience, as of today most of your business that do not provide e-commerce sites, we only service an audience that goes to our store locations and possibly mail order, but mostly our store locations, with e-commerce sites we are able to provide our amazing products to people all over the globe, anywhere in the world, allowing us to sell more products which will help to expand our business and grow our current economy, by employing more individuals to help services our every growing target audience. Now the next benefit comes from KNOWING OUR TARGET AUDIENCES AND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR FROM US, I have said this in every podcast and will keep saying it, because knowing what they want will help achieve more benefits than we can imagine. If we provide our target audience with the tools and aspects they are looking for, they will be more willing to come back again and again for fast quick purchases, as well as tell their friends and family, which will help spread the word and grow your target audience. Another benefit is being able to provide your target audience with fast quick information about your products, many times when individuals go to stores it takes more time getting all their small questions answered than purchasing the items, which limits the amount they will purchase. If we provide all the information up front, they will be able to get everything they need to know right away, and have time to purchase more items on the site. Now there are plenty more benefits from e-Commerce sites, but I am going to leave that door open for you to go out and adventure to find them for yourself. Well that’s it for episode 44 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick! And this has been brought to you by ArtVersion Interactive Agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/ArtVersion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/ArtVersion, or just at ArtVersion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 44 – e-Commerce appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick.  For the past couple weeks we have pushed our focus mainly on the internet and have provided you with great marketing strategies, to help promote your brand in new and exciting ways. We have also taking that internet focus further into strictly talking about the mobile web on some, and others integrating the mobile web into other awesome internet strategies. Now talking about the internet has been fun and it has been really exciting, but sometimes we need to focus on other subjects in this similar field, now I would like to do that but I would also like to keep that internet flow going, so I picked a topic that is pretty diverse it is mostly for the internet but can also help you in your other creative aspects as well. Today we are going to talk about SEO with your current content strategies. Now I know everyone is excited that I am bring the topic of content strategies, it is a fun and amazing topic, but last time we had more of a broad focus and talked about many different aspects in content strategies. Well this week we are going to push all our focus on the SEO aspects of content strategies. SEO, just like content is one of those topics that is always going and evolve with new trends, and it is also one of those topics like content again that I will slightly refer to more in other future podcast. But, for now I believe it is appropriate for this topic to have a podcast all to its self. Now today we are going start our discussion by talking about what SEO is, how it works, and why it is important, to go on from there we will talk about benefits along with useful tips to use when refer your content strategies to SEO, and finally we will end the discussion with a quick refresh on why content strategies are important. Now I hope everyone is as excited as I am for this topic, so let’s get this ball rolling and get started with SEO and content strategies! To start I want to talk about what SEO is. SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is a concept based around how high your page will be placed on different search engines, such as Google and Bing. The steps that go into making your website on the top of the first page are based around multiple aspects that go into your site mostly including your content. Content plays a huge role in SEO, you content is what is being pulled in from search engines when users are searching for specific things. Like I have said in the past and I will say it again know your target audience and know what they are looking for. This is extremely important when dealing with SEO, because giving your audience what they are looking for will help move you to the top of the page when searching specific things that your organization offers. Having strong SEO behind your website will help grow your target audience. Now let’s get down to the reasons why content is extremely important to your organization’s website, and the tools you can utilize to boost your SEO performance. Within your industry becoming an industry leader can be simply achieved today through the internet. When it comes to content and SEO the first thing you need to know is what your audience is looking for and how they would be searching for. Specific topics, products and services are a couple of the things that come to mind when people are looking for certain things. Being able to push material on your site that fully reflects how people would be searching will help your organizations SEO performance. Utilizing other tools in your site, like blogs and podcast, where you talk about information about your service will help boost your SEO as well. You must remember to keep up with your blogs and podcast, and post often, because that will show search engines that you are an industry leader, you may be thinking that you do not want to do this to much because you will be overwhelming your audience, which can be true depending on your audience, but providing a substantial amount of information will push you to the top of search engines and prove to your audience that you know what you are talking about that you are proven industry leader. So posting often on blogs and podcast will help your search engine performance. Next providing information within the same industry group will help too, re-posting the same exact information twice and penalize you, but being creative and writing information on your current trends and applying them to your organizations  service will help show search engines that you are on top everything that is going on.  Recurring links throughout your whole site with multiple pages of various content will also show that you are a diverse company, but you need to be careful in your content and make sure everything is focused around your organization and the services you offer within your industry market.  And remember to always provide a strong call to action within your content, your call to action shows that you have a purpose, if it is clear and understandable the search engine will be able to pick it up fast. SEO is always changing daily, so you need to always be on top of the action you use on your site. SEO is based off of text and links, which are highly embraced within your content. Content is the strongest provider, for your SEO performance, being on top of it and knowing what you are doing along with knowing who your target audience is and what they are looking for will help you boost your current SEO.   Well that’s it for episode 43 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick and this been brought you by ArtVersion Interactive agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/ArtVersion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/ArtVersion or just on ArtVersion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 43 – SEO and Content Strategies appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Open Source Platforms Podcast Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick! For the past couple weeks we have kept our main focus on the internet and different strategies that you are able to utilize to improve your business.  We have spent a huge portion of our internet focus on the mobile aspects and have given you some pretty good reason why your organization needs to become part of the mobile world. Now today I would like to talk about a topic that is extremely important. This topic is about your website and there are arrays of reasons why you need to be utilizing this. Today we are going to talk about open source platforms. Now there are many open source platforms out there, and they all have different advantages and disadvantages for using them, and that would take up a lot of time to go through that, and I want you to go out and see which one will work best for your organization. So today we are going to keep it pretty simple, I will discuss and bring up a couple of the well known open source platforms, but I want you to go out see them for yourself, I today I want to talk more about why you should use Open Source Platforms, because that is the most important thing, to get out of this podcast today! So today we are going to cover: What open source platforms are Compare them to closed source platforms The benefits of utilizing open source platforms And Open Sourced Platforms in the long-run   Well that’s it for episode 42, of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick! And this has been brought you by Artversion Interactive Agency. You may contact us Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, or just on Artversion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 42 – Open Source Platforms appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick.  Last week we talked about the mobile internet and we compared Dedicated Mobile Sites to Responsive Web Design, we covered a lot of aspects of these two platforms and to move on from there, mobile and the mobile is just one of those topics am not really to leave yet, but the topic I am going to talk about today can also affect the desktop user as well, so this is not going to be primary mobile based but I will cover a lot of the mobile benefits you can get. So today let’s talk about Interactive materials, brochures, magazines, flyers, pretty much anything that used to only be used for print items, which can now be used as interactive material. Well today we are going to discuss what interactive brochures are, how they work, and the benefits you can achieve from using these interactive brochures. Let’s first talk about what interactive materials are, in the past many times these were print materials that organizations would put out to display their current portfolio, or advertisements or just promotional material. These print items were just straight content information. As we moved into the digital age many organizations started using these just on digital platforms but were not made to be interactive with the user. Now these can be used as interactive materials allowing your audience to become involved with the material you are presenting to them, these also allow your audience to jump around at any given point to give the sections that interest them the most. Now we all want to know how they work. Now these interactive materials are designed in a matter strictly for the digital realm. On the mobile use these interactive materials can be down loaded as applications or into e-readers that allow your audience view and interactive with them. They may be designed on templates which allow you to just plug and play with your content or you can design them from scratch, having them be one of kind. There is an array of benefits that these interactive materials offer.  Having these on a digital platform will allow your user to spend more time by going through more than one of the promotional materials that you offer. They also take away the pain of having to spend the mass amount of money on print materials. These also allow for your user to spread your word faster on the go with mobile devices by just popping it open whenever they please. Most of the benefits that come from these interactive materials are mostly cost effective and will help grow your target audience. Well that’s it for Episode 41 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick, and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive Agency! You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, or just at Artversion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 41 – Interactive Materials appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’M Your Host Mike McCormick! Last week we decided to talk about microsites and how they can benefit your brand. Well I decided that for this week I want to keep that Internet focus going, I know we drifted away for a couple weeks and focus on topics that were appropriate for the time. Now I want keep the internet focus going this week.  When deciding on a topic to cover, I wanted a topic that is relevant to today’s standards and something that will be beneficial for all of your organizations.  So I figured that talking about the mobile internet world would be an appropriate topic to cover. However we have already someone covered this topic but since it is a pretty big and there are new aspects to it every day, it is even more appropriate to keep covering it. So today we are going to discuss Dedicated Mobile Sites VS Responsive Web Design. We will cover what both, Dedicated Mobile Sites and Responsive Web Design, are, we will also cover the benefits of both, and I’ll give you some inside tips when it is appropriate to use one or the other. Now like I said last week, I will provide you will insight, tips and advice on Dedicated Mobile Sites and Responsive Web Design, but I am going to leave that door open for you to choose which one is best for your organization and your brand. To start Dedicated Mobile Sites are a way of designing for the web that is strictly for mobile web browsers. Dedicated mobile sites are simplified versions of your main website, this means they present a similar look and feel but are completely different from your main website.  Dedicated Mobile sites are designed strictly for mobile web browsers, providing an experience that is comfortable to use and not frustrating, such as sites that are not dedicated or responsive which apply extra effort of pinching pulling and zooming to view content. Now to move on lets discuss what Responsive Web Design is. Responsive Web Design is a new advance in the web design world. Responsive Web Design is also referred to as RWD, so if I say RWD you will know what I am talking about. So RWD is a pretty interest concept. It basically is a way of designing for that web that allows you to just design one single site that will adjust its size and visibility to the screen it is being displayed on. This is connected to mobile because the site will reformat its self for any web capable device. Now both of these concepts present different point of views of how a site will be viewed on a mobile device but have similar concepts, which are to provide websites to mobile users in an appropriate manner. So since we have established what both Dedicated Sites and RWD are, let’s get into the fun stuff and talk about the pros and cons for both. This part is going to be really fun because just like every other podcast the most important piece of information I want you to get out of this whole podcast is, know your target audience and know what they are looking from you! Now in this podcast you might be wondering why I am always starting with dedicated mobile sites instead of responsive, and it is not because Dedicated came first or one is more important than the other, I am simply just going in alphabetical order to make it simple and interesting at the same time. Dedicated mobile sites are a method of designing firmly for the mobile web. Dedicated mobile sites display a user interface that is suitably demonstrated for a mobile device. These sites are usually not as large as your regular website and cannot enclose as much content as a desktop site. Many organizations get unenthusiastic about dedicated mobile sites, when they find out their content gets narrowed; however these are actually really wonderful for microsites.  At times your target audience will agree with your decision for a dedicated mobile site, because it will offer just amount of information they are looking for. Now on the other side of the situation, responsive web design (RWD) is the latest, ground-breaking, means for designing not only for the mobile web; it is also for the desktop web. RWD is a way of designing for the web that manufactures a website on a flexible grid pattern, and allows the site to regulate its size properly, to the screen size it is being shown on. With RWD organizations only have to construct and uphold a single website across all web capable platforms, RWD also permits your audience to acquire their experience everywhere they go. On the advantage, RWD will not limit any of your organization’s contemporary web content. With the shortcoming, RWD carries all that large content across all platforms, making load times considerably time-consuming compared to dedicated mobile sites. Sites assembled on the RWD platform will provide an astonishing user interfaces, along with the unchanged, superlative user experiences, across all web capable platforms. Knowing your target audience and applying what they would like to see from you to your brand, is the best way you will find out which platform will have that perfect fit with your organization’s mobile presence. There are assortments of benefits you will achieve from either Responsive Web Design (RWD) or Dedicated Mobile Sites, and I could talk about them all day, but I am not because I want you to experience them for yourself. Well that’s it for episode 40 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick, and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive Agency. You May contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion and at Artversion.com. Thanks for Listening!  The post 40 – Dedicated Mobile Sites-VS-Responsive Web Design Podcast appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your Host Mike McCormick! Last week we had a pretty awesome conversation about annual reports and how your organization can design a stellar report, which will even amaze your competitors. Now we have drifted away from talking about the internet for a while, but it is such a huge topic and has so many different elements and aspects to it, that I decided it is something that we just cannot forget out, even if we move on to other topics for a while. So today I am going to bring our focus back to the internet and talk about a pretty Interesting topic. We are going to discuss Microsites. Microsites are pretty awesome, and I am going to talk about them because they are more than just an exceptional way to expand your brand. For today’s discussion we are going to cover what Microsites, why you should use them and the benefits of using Microsites. To start lets go over a brief description and over view what Microsites are. Microsites are smaller websites designed to be their own entity from their main website. Microsites are allowed to have their own domain name but must always lead back to your main site. It is a pretty simple concept to understand they are mostly use to promote campaigns, programs and products, to expand your organization’s brand. Before I get into the why you should use Microsites and the benefits of them, these two topics go hand-in-hand so I will be covering them together, I would like to briefly discuss why you should be thinking about using Microsites, instead of just landing pages. Landing pages are easy to make and maintain because they are just additional pages to your website which is nice for just brief descriptions of products and events. When it comes to Microsites over landing pages, Microsites are more appropriate to use because first they are built so your audience will focus all their attention on the particular item you are pushing to promote. This is an exceptional to keep audience attention because the sites are built around one solid topic of your brand and not your entire brand, where on your website your audience comes to learn about the brand as a whole and may not focus all their attention on one item. Secondly Microsites allow you to provide much more content about this item of your brand that would not be able to do on a landing page. Adding more content on a particular item, of your brand, will ensure users to stay on the site longer and most likely link back to your main site to learn about the other aspects of your brand. Microsites provide more flexibility than just landing pages. Now let’s talk about why you should Microsites and this will tie in with all the benefits you will receive from using them. I am adding the benefits into the reason why you should so these Microsites because every reason why you should use them is actually an added benefit for your organization, they are that AWESOME! First of all Microsites are a great way to expand your brand! When I talk about expanding your brand, I do not mean change or image or who are. I am talking about your sub brands that make up your brand has a whole. Bring those sub brands out by giving them their own space. Many may not see promoting your larger brand as smaller brands as a good thing, but actually it is a huge benefit because it will help boost your sales on those products you want to run larger campaigns on.  So they allow you to extend the image of a particular item you are selling and would like to promote more. Microsites are also good for SEO purposes. Now there are a lot of rumors out there saying that these extra sites do not help your SEO and that you need to do even more work for the SEO then, which is actually not true at all. Microsites will always link back to your main site, which will help bring in more traffic boosting your SEO in an organic method. They will also boost your SEO for having similar content on these sites as you would on your main site. Now I say similar, because you should never have exactly the same content and that is how it would not help your SEO at all and you would be penalized for it, but if the content is similar than your SEO will get boosted for your main site for talking about related topics. Microsites provide an array of benefits that I could talk about all day but I really want you to expand your horizons and find them for yourself. Well that’s it for Episodes 39 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, or just at Artversion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 39 – Microsites appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover your Brand Podcast! I’M your host Mike McCormick. Last week we took a stroll down content strategy lane, during that podcast I spoke about how the ideas of content strategy and how it can be connected to pretty much all of my other pod casts, and it is such a huge topic it will not be last time you hear about it. Now with content strategy still fresh in your mind I wanted to cover a topic that presents the ideas I said last week and the previous weeks but from a different angle. You probably have noticed that over the a past couple weeks our main focus has been about the internet, along with content, and how you can utilize these tools for your benefit, well I wanted to say these topics are extremely important but since the year is winding down, I wanted to cover a topic that is appropriate for this time of the year. For today’s show we are going to discuss annual reports. Now I know that for many of you listening, the idea of annual reports is something that you do not want to hear just yet but to have a well established and extraordinarily designed report, this is the time you need to start thinking about it. Today we are going to discuss a lot of different aspects pertaining to Annual Reports and we are basically going to cover what annual reports are, why we should utilize them and a bunch of different CONTENT STRATEGIES that will your report be better than the best that is out there. Now I may move fast because there are a lot of aspects we are going to be covering today, so let’s start out by giving a brief overview and explanation of Annual Reports.  To start I want to say that annual reports are an extraordinary way to connect with your stockholder and investors as well as give them an inside look in to how your organization is running. Well these reports are simply away to report all your financial information that you have collaborated throughout the year and a way to compare it this year to past years and to predict your future financial status. Why! We all want to know why we should present annual reports to stockholders, investors, and futures stockholders/investors. It is simple we all invest in different things because we see potential gain from them or it is something that we truly believe which is awesome but at times many of us are truly unaware of what is actually going on and sometimes we also forget the reason why we invest in something and annual reports do just that. Annual reports bring investors and stockholders up to date as well as give an actual inside looks to see how an organization is performing. Annual reports give stockholders and investors a reason to stay with your organization, now we all know that sometimes we may have a rough year and putting out a report sounds discouraging, which is sometimes right but on the other hand you can use these reports to your advantage and build up a solid structure on what went wrong and how you are going to not only repair the miss haps, but also strive to the future. This will help recognize that you are not giving up and you have a solid plan to get back on top. There are so many reason I could talk about on how you can benefit from annual reports but frankly that would take up to much time, now on the other hand there really is not a reason why should not put some kind of annual report. Alright now it is time to talk about the content strategies annual reports, I know this is what everyone has been waiting for and it is going to be exciting. To start I want to talk about balancing your content on your annual reports. When comes to balancing your content, your audiences does not want a bunch of pages with straight text followed by another group of pages will just numbers. Integrate your text and number content together so it is easy for the reader to understand exactly what they are looking at in terms of numbers.  But also balance out how you design and create each page to keep the readers experience a more enjoyable and interactive. Now I would like to talk about explaining the concepts behind your products, your business, pretty much your livelihood within the reports. Everything your company does it great, but remember these reports do not always have to be about numbers , you are giving stockholders and investors an inside look into your organization so why give them a brief glance at how things are done, what goes on during all stages of creating your products, what makes your product so strong. Showing your audience these factors will help bring them in more, wanting more and help bring others into your organization. To add on to this an important thing to note is to not be afraid to get personal. And when I say do not be afraid to get person, I am not just saying a letter from the CEO or President because those are a give every annual report should at least have something from the CEO or president in it. What I am talking about when I say do not be afraid to get personal is to go interview your employees the ones who work hard every day to keep your brand alive, the ones who are pushing to assemble parts for your products, talk to these employees, interview them and release their stories to the public, take significant quotes and put them in sections of the report that reflects off of their attributions to the company its self.  Now you may be wondering why I am telling to put these employees’ stories’ and quotes into your reports and it is because it establishes an emotional appeal for your audience. It is always more than exceptional to display numbers and explanations along with detail time lines of how your company does business and those are things that are important but to create a real connection with your stockholders and investors throughout these reports you should add an emotional appeal to create that emotional connect with your organization. Now let’s talk about your envelope and packaging design. First I just would like to clarify that print materials are still appropriate to use when establishing your annual report. Even though many organizations are strictly using digital reports, it is appropriate to provide both for your target audience.  Since we have established that both print and digital materials are both appropriate to use when pushing your annual reports, let’s start talking about the envelope and packaging design that goes into your annual reports. Now you might think that the design of the packaging that my report comes in is not really important and I should probably just use a plan package because the most important stuff is on the side, well this is not always the case. Your package design is one of the most important elements of your annual report because it is the first thing your audience will see before jumping into the report, so you will want a design that grasps your audience in wanting to report your report as well as reflects your organization’s brand and style that the report is designed in. Annual Reports can be fun and exciting so why not go out and produce a product that will is more than just numbers on a piece of a paper. Well that is it for Episode 38 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast, I’m you Host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive Agency! You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, or at Artversion.com. Thanks For Listening! The post 38 – Annual Reports appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick. Last week we took the path of photography and grasped a good amount of elements to help your organization advance into the photography world. This we are going to set our focus on content strategies. This is one of the most important topics we are going to cover and will include an overview of previous topics. I am pretty much going to go over what content strategy is and then go on to a how and why while relating content strategies back to previous topics throughout today’s show. Let’s start out by talking about what content strategy is. First content is all the material that you make public, pretty much can be anything from articles, pictures, products, rants, raves, pretty much anything that you desire and you want to be known to the public is content. Now the strategy behind your content is really important, as much as you may want to make something public your target audience may not want to know that information, it may be unappealing as well as provide a lack of importance. The idea of content strategy comes from knowing your target audience and what content they want to see, hear and even feel from your organization. Creating content that you believe in and is relevant to your audience is the best way to start your strategic planning. When wondering why we need to push different strategies comes down to the simple answer of how you want your brand to be viewed. Our image and our brand is what make our organizations stay alive, they giving meaning and life to outsiders. Knowing how you want your brand to be viewed is the whole purpose behind content strategy. Our target audiences want to see specific things from our organizations but they do not know exactly what those things are yet because we have not created them. Our brands are viewed in a particular way because that’s how we want others to see them but we must remember that our audience is only going to see it that way if it is something they are looking for. However this all comes down to making our content something that we believe in. It is easy to just give our target audience whatever they want, but if your organization does not really believe in what they are saying, you are not going to fool anyone. If you believe in everything you say your audience will believe in it too. Knowing your target audience on all different media platforms has become crucial in today’s world. Content strategies must be applied on social sites also and not only on your website. Each social site provides your organization with a different target audience and knowing exactly what each audience is looking for, is what our organizations need. When you post content on a social site such as Facebook you will know that the Facebook audience is looking for a more out of the box simple experience that does not apply much effort but is still fun and different while those posts are awesome in their own right, they are not always appropriate for your LinkedIn audience, on LinkedIn they are looking for more of a professional tone with helpful tips in the business world, which may also lead over into your Pinterest page because your audience on Pinterest is usually looking for how to and help tips but more on at home manner than in office. Now you see that all these sites are similar but different in their own way so finding out which site has what type of audience will be crucial for your existence on the social web. Now your main site should have content for all users because you will want to bring back all your social followers to your main site and tailor to one community on your site may push other target audiences. So when it comes to content strategy and your target audiences remember to tailor your social sites to specific audiences and when it comes to your main site remember to have content that will connect all those individual audiences together. Recycling and repackaging old content is not always a bad thing. You must remember that you control all your content and bringing items back in style is up to your own discretion. You may wonder sometimes or think about how you are going to be able to always come up with new exciting content that will amaze your audience and keep them in tuned.  Well you already have had amazing content and expanding on what you have already is never a bad idea. Repackaging old content, bringing back to life, and taking a new angle will keep your audience coming back and back again and again. Remember that content brought them in and has kept them involved with your organization since, you do not have to keep re-posting the same content you and take different angles on it, expand it into a new topic and also view it from a different light. We all know users like new things but if it cannot be connected to your already existing brand you will lose audience members. Your past is a path way to the future for any organization and it works the same for your content, look at what you have done already and package or repackage new content with a similar feel to keep your audience coming back for more. Lastly before I wrap everything up I want to talk about SEO and how it is applied to your content. More SEO is an important topic and I briefly want to talk about it because there is an enough material for another podcast show. Now SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it basically is idea of raising your search engine ranking through your content. Now content is very important to SEO because of what you post will affect the ranking you will receive. Now with the new rules of SEO for a high ranking you must obtain social sites and post content that reflects your organization. When building content for SEO purposes you should find out what is trending in your industry and build your content around it. Having content that reflects current trends will boost your SEO and boost your online traffic providing your organization with a much wider target audience. Content Strategies is an extremely important aspect to an organization’s brand. These strategies help grow target audiences and help to raise awareness of how your organization is behaving in society. Having well established content that truly believe in will keep organization ahead of the game. Well that’s it for episode 37 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive Agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion or at Artversion.com. Thanks For Listening! The post 37- Content Strategy appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your Host Mike McCormick. For the past couple of weeks we have kept our main focus on the Internet and have discussed different tools your organization can utilize to help your business grow in this technological world.  Now this week we are going to steer away from the internet focus and talk about a completely different subject. We are going to discuss photography, now this is one of my favorite subjects so I am going to make this episode a lot of fun. Photography is also a one of my personal hobbies and I like to very much use is it for professional as well as personal use. Now there are a lot of different topics we will be covering this week and they consist of: beauty, architecture, product and photography for social media use. With all the topics we are going to discuss today, our main purpose is to show how these different types of photography are useful and will help you organization. To start let’s just talk briefly on why your organization needs photography. When marketing your organization’s services or products, photography tends to be something individuals do right away to help get visuals out right away but it is also something that tends to be forgotten about after being done the first time. I may stress this point a lot but it is something I really want you to remember and that is that photography is the visual aspects that clients, customers and users remember when really thinking about your brand, products and/or services. Keeping up today date with new photos of your services, products, and other organization materials will give your target audience an inside look into what organization is doing, how you are growing and what you are planning to do next. I want to first start talking about beauty shots within a photo shoot. Beauty Shot are usually interpreted as complex photography. Many individuals believe that it takes constant movement of studio gear to get the perfect light, which isn’t always the case. Beauty shots can actually be captured in a simpler way. Beauty shots are about capturing the beauty of the model, well it is for an advertisement or a public service announcement, that beauty is what draws people in. Capturing the picture in a more complicated manner can actually just become more frustrating and may lose the focus of the original shot. If you can find your main point of focus, try to make the shot as simple as possible to capture the beauty. Architectural photography is actually really fun to shoot and is very appealing to the eyes. When capturing different architectural pieces remember that lines are very important, lines create different paths for the eye to follow and this also helps to create a story. While keeping lines in mind remember that it is not always about the straight lines. Many times the eye will get bored of just staring at straight lines and will drift away from the photo, although lines are important, look for more intricate designs that allow the eye to follow a particular path. Product Photography is one of the most important aspects for any company to have to display their products. Since the early days of advertising product photography has played a huge role with allowing consumers to see products before they are able to purchase them. In past at Artversion we have out sourced our photography needs to outside organizations but recently we have stepped through the door of photography and started offering product photography as a service to our past, current and future clients. Within the past month we have had two clients in two different industries come to use with their product photography. Product photography is a huge aspect for any organization and is key to keep up with when updating or producing new products so customers know exactly what they are getting when they purchase items. Social Media and photography are becoming the forerunner for internet advisement. New mobile photography applications that are social media based, such as Instagram, are popping up everywhere. Instagram is a mobile photography application that is completely social media based. It allows you to capture, edit and plush photos on a social Instagram page and allows other users to comment and interact with your photos. Instagram is even moving into business platforms, allowing brands to create their own pages for quick easy advertisements. Brands like Nike, Starbucks and MTV are utilize Instagram to take photos of relevant events that are going on with their campaigns to keep their target audience aware and involved.  Social media photography is the fastest way you can move your new products and programs to a larger audience in the simplest way possible. Photography is a great passion and hobby for any person and/or organization to utilize to promote their brand. Well that’s it for Episode 36 of the Rediscover Your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought you by Artversion Interactive Agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, or at Artversion.com. Thanks For Listening! The post 36 – Photography appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover your Brand Podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick. For the past couple weeks we have been talking about the different types of Internet marketing and how you can effectively use them. Well this week we are going to steer into a slightly different direction but keep the same Internet focus, just go into a little more specific subject. This week we are going to focus mainly on Mobile Commerce. We are going to cover what Mobile Commerce is, how it is related but also different than e-Commerce and why you should be using it. To start let’s talk about what Mobile Commerce is. We can say mobile commerce is still kind of in its early days, but I am here to give you a brief explanation. Well first mobile commerce is being referred to as m-Commerce in most instances so if you see or hear m-Commerce you will know they are talking about mobile. m-Commerce is the idea of creating mobile sites where users can go a purchase your products. Basically it is just having a site where users can use their smart phones, tablets and other mobile web capable devices to purchases products off without having to fire up their computer, call or go into one of your store locations. The idea is really simple and it is basically just expanding your business to mobile users. Now there are a couple different platforms you can utilize when establishing your m-Commerce site. These platforms consist of mobile applications, dedicated mobile or responsive web design – know as RWD. If you choose the take the route of mobile applications you will design an application different from your current E-commerce site that users will download straight to their mobile device. These applications will allow users to bypass their mobile browsers by opening the application straight from their home screen. Mobile Applications are perfect for frequent customers to purchase their products in logical manner. To move along you can also go down the route of establishing a dedicated mobile site. Dedicated mobile sites tend to have the same look and feel of a mobile application but can only be viewed on a mobile web browser. With dedicated mobile sites users will avoid having to downloading sites along with always having to download new updates whenever you decide you need to update. Dedicated mobile sites and applications have similar aspects to them and they both limit the content you are allowed to have them. We all know that content is the most important aspect of a site and we never want to limit our existing content. With this thought in mind comes responsive web design, which will never limit any of your content from your large computer screens all the way down to small cell phone screens. Responsive web design allows you to establish one site based on a flexible grid pattern that adjusts to the screen size it is being displayed on. RWD cuts down on the cost as well as the time of maintaining multiple websites that help you reach your target audiences. With RWD you only have to maintain one site that will not lose any content when moving from one platform to another. With all the different mobile platforms and designs you can choose from, you should look for the one that is a perfect fit for your needs. Each one has different pro’s and con’s to them and each target audience also likes a different set up, so knowing your target audience will also help when deciding which type of mobile commerce site is best for your organization. Since we have established the different platforms and designs for m-Commerce sites now let’s talk about how m-Commerce is related to e-Commerce. We all know that e-Commerce stands for electric commerce which is the selling and purchasing of products and or services through electronic formats such as the internet or other computer sharing networks. With this idea in mind we have just established that m-Commerce is a subsidiary or e-Commerce. They both come from the same notion of ideas that allows users to purchases items over the internet. Now they differ from the idea that e-Commerce sites are strictly for computer use and m-Commerce sites are strictly for mobile web use. But there actually is not really any difference at all to them. M-Commerce sites actually just allow mobile users access your e-Commerce site in appropriate manners. This actually clears up a lot of confusion when thinking that that they may be related but are two different things is not true, they are definitely related and m-Commerce is put in place to help e-Commerce out in the mobile world. Now! Why and how do we use it are huge questions to ask when thinking about m-Commerce, and I am going to answer both those questions. First we all want to know why we need to utilize m-Commerce and bring them into our e-Commerce family, well first of all 28% of the U.S. population use their mobile device as their primary way of accessing the web. In 2010 8.4% of individuals used their mobile devices as their primary way of purchasing items, within two years that number has jumped 9.9% to 18.3%. Everyday more and more people are just using their mobile devices instead of firing up their computers and these numbers may seem low now but they are rising as the mobile world continues to grow. With the idea of mobile web use on the rise, it is becoming more and more appropriate that organizations’ that have e-Commerce sites jump into the mobile world. When it comes to the how, it pretty much is establishing and designing a site for the mobile web. Users do not want to be frustrated when interacting with your site on a mobile device, they want to navigate, find what they are looking for and purchase those items without going through the trouble of zooming, pinching, pulling and extensive scrolling to find or view what your products or services. It comes down to finding that perfect mobile site that suits your organizations needs as well as your target audience needs, whether is a mobile application, dedicated mobile site or responsive web design site your organization will gain more attention if its accessible on mobile devices. There are multiple reasons of how and why to utilize m-Commerce, but explaining them all would just take up to much time, so simply all you need to know is that m-Commerce is the way of the future and utilizing it right now will benefit your organization in more ways than you can imagine because you will be the forerunner in your industry. Well that’s it for episode 35th, I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by Artversion interactive agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, and at Artversion.com. Thanks for Listening! The post 35 – Mobile Commerce appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand pod cast! I’m your host Mike McCormick. Last week we talked about email marketing and how your organization can utilize it. Well this week we are going to stick with the internet marketing genre and talk about social media marketing.  We are going to cover the different types of social media, how to effectively use it, the benefits of social media, and integrating social media with your already existing website. To start I am going to give you a brief overview and explanation of what social media marketing is. Social Media marketing is a marketing strategy of using social sites to advertise, promote and receive audience feedback. Utilizing Social sites to market your organization can become pretty simple and cost effective once you learn how to use it. Social networking sites have been around for over a decade now. More and more keeping popping up every day and the more and the more they become popular with online users the more you will want to utilize them. Now since with all the different types of social sites out there it is easy to say they all do different things. For instances both Facebook and Twitter allow you to post statuses and pictures, but Twitter only allows you to have 140 characters while with Facebook you can put as much content as you want in a Post. Along with Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest allow each user to different things. Utilizing these five social sites along with the many others you have to choose from will help your business grow tremendously in today’s world. Now that we pretty much know what is out there in terms of social sites and many of us already have them but do we really know how to effectively use them to benefit our needs.  Well first when occupying more than one social side we need to know our target markets for each site.  Each social site attracts a different audience. People use particular sites that suits their needs and wants and do not choose to participate in others because they do not see a need. Sites like Pinterest and Facebook tend to have a more laid back atmosphere where people pretty much post anything and are a more welcoming community unlike sites like LinkedIn which present a more professional outlook, which business are looking to approach more professional candidates or other business. Keeping your content consistent is a sure plus to gain more attention but should always be tailored to the audience on each page. Followers on Facebook are looking for more out of the box, innovative, outrages, fun posts while followers on LinkedIn are looking for a strict, professional post, both of these posts can represent the same campaign and have the same message but are just presented in two different manners.  Now many organizations tend to use third party sites that will take one message and filter it out to all your social pages. These sites are very useful; they take less time to use and are very cost effective when trying to get your message out across multiple social sites. Yes these sites are great to use but are not always the best in certain situations. Remember like I said before every social site has a different  type of audience compared to another, so you might see that you have less followers on one site compared to the other and that is because your message is not tailored to the audience you want from that site.  When using a standard straight forward message that you need to get out to the masses right away using those third party site will come in handy.  The main point I am trying to get across is “know your target audiences for each social site.” Every social site has a different audience and to get the best use out of each social site you need to tailor it to that audience. Social media just like another marketing strategy is designed to help you and organization gain benefits. Well we all want to know we can utilize social sites to our advantage to gain more benefits from them. Well first you need to remember that social media is very and I mean “very” cost effective.  You are able to create an array of different advertisements and push them out to millions without the costs from media providers.  Among the many different finical benefits you may bring in comes the benefit of knowing what your target audiences want when they want it. Knowing how your audience feels about a specific campaign you are running at a particular time without having to spend the money on constituent client survey research is a huge benefit for any company. Client surveys alone can be very costly in a campaign but being able to get your research done for free over social sites and knowing it whenever you feel like you need it without having to plan ahead of time can help make any campaign stronger and more successful in the long run. Social media also allows for real feel back, getting to know really how people feel and not some generic answer you usually hear in a focus group. Now social media is a great tool and helps to raise awareness for any campaign. We all have main websites and we want people to see those as well, so it is necessary for your site to your social pages vice verse. Many people may only know about your site and linking your social pages to it will help them interact with you more, but this also goes the same for people who found you on your social pages they will want to know more about what you offer and your website will be able to provide that information. Having your target audience be able to share pages, articles, products etc, that are posted on your site to their social pages is also huge this allows your target audience to grow by having others share your information to others for you. Adding social tickers to your website will give a quick insight to your sites users on what you are posting on your social pages, this will make user wanting to see more and like your social pages, establishing more followers and feedback which will help your organization grow.  Different audiences will choose different social sites to view your material but integrating them all with your main site will ensure that all your audiences are aware of the current programs and campaigns you are running. With all the social media outlets out there you just need to adventure out and find the ones as well as those ways that will be a perfect for not only your organization but your target audience as well. Well that’s it for episode 34. I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion or at Artversion.com. Thanks for Listen! The post 34 – Social Media Marketing appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the rediscover your brand pod cast. I’m your host Mike McCormick and today we are going to discuss email marketing. We will cover the ins and outs of email marketing, how it will help your organization and a couple things in between. To get started most of us already know what email marketing is, but  for those of you who don’t I am going to give you a quick explanation. Basically email marketing is the way of creating a message to advertise to a mass amount of individuals in a cost effective way through email. It’s pretty simple, just interacting with your target audience through email. Now usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think about email marketing is junk! most of think it is just junk and spam in our inboxes and we want nothing to do with it, so why would we want to utilize it. Well it can actually be an amazing way to pull your target audience in for any campaign you are running, if planned and executed right. Throughout all the right ways of planning and executing email marketing platforms  there are the same amount of wrong paths you can choose to follow. So lets talk about the do’s  and don’ts of email marketing. The biggest thing you want your target audience to steer clear of is thinking your emails are junk and spam. Most of these thoughts come from overwhelming your target audience with to many emails. It is great that you are pushing to get your message across, but the more you send the less people will want to interact with your organizations campaigns. But on the other hand not having enough emails will keep your audience unaware, which is never a good thing. Right now we are working with a client who would like to boost their sales but hasn’t attempted email marketing, which has led us to create some awesome email marketing ideas for them. Pretty much you just need to find that perfect medium that keeps your audience aware and involved without overwhelming them. To create an exceptional email marketing platform you must have a combination of stellar design mixed with solid message content. Stellar designs draw people in, having a design that is appeal and can communicate your message is key. Everyone wants to be amazed so why bother boring them with unattractive messages. Now your platform needs solid message content. Your email marketing platform maybe very attractive, however, if your audience can not distinguish your message, within the first couple seconds of viewing the email, your platform is not going to work. When designing and creating email marketing messages remember to make it attractive enough that it is appealing as well as simple enough that everyone will understand. Try testing your messages on co-workers, family and friends to see if it works. Email marketing can work for any size organization, you need to take the challenge of trial and error to find that perfect fit for your organization and target audience. Well thats if for episode number 33 of rediscover your brand pod cast, I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by Artversion Interactive agency, you may contact us on facebook at Facebook/artversion, on twitter at twitter.com/artversion or at artversion.com. Thanks for listening. The post 33 – Email Marketing appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome to the rediscover your brand podcast. I’m your host Mike McCormick and today we are going to discuss responsive web design. We will cover what responsive web design is, how it works, how we can benefit from it, as well as compare responsive web design to other mobile design platforms. To start we all want to know what responsive web design is. The actions are in the title, responsive web design is a process of designing one website that adjusts to the screen size it is being displayed on. We all wonder how new technologies work and I am here today to tell you how responsive web design works. Responsive web design is based on a flexible grid pattern and with the use of HTML5, CSS and media queries, it creates and easy, friendly way for websites to have viewable content across all different platforms without the hassle. Responsive web design is making your website more comfortable for the end user without making them do any work. When working with new technologies we always want to know how this will benefit us in the long run as well as  what are the short term benefits. Responsive web design has many benefits for both short term and long term processes. The first benefit is that responsive web design will eliminate the time and costs of building a separate mobile website. With responsive web design you will only build on website and it will adjust to any screen size your site is being displayed on. The second benefit of responsive web design is that your site will not loose any content, unlike other mobile websites designs that make you pick and choose what you want your mobile users to view, responsive web design allows you to keep all of your content, let it be copy text or media images, and will also adjust the size of them to the screen they are being displayed on. Now there are plenty more benefits of responsive web design, you just need to go out and explore them. In the United States 28% of the population use their mobile devices as their primary way of accessing the web and that number is growing each and everyday. With the large number of people using web capable devices comes an array of new web capable devices.  Along with smart phones and tablets, individuals now can access the web through e-book readers,  smart TVs, smart refrigerators and even your cars dashboard while your are driving down the road. With all these web capable devices in mind , this has opened the door to multiple different web designs. It has become a common misconception that those utilizing mobile websites are creating and using them as applications, which is not always true. Sites can be created on dedicated mobile  platforms strictly used for mobile web browsing access. Dedicated mobile websites and applications may be  an exceptional way to go but  they also limit the content you may provide on it which is not always the best for the end user who is looking for a specific page or time that did not make the cut. Many other do not even have a mobile website and just stick with the same site they have now. This actually becomes very frustrating for the user because they will have to do extensive pinching, zooming and scrolling to view content. Responsive web design give you the best of both worlds; a site that contains all your content and is displayed accordingly on all different screen sizes. Responsive web design is taking off fairly quickly and is being used by companies like Sony, The Boston Globe, Artversion Interactive Agency and even President Obama’s campaign site. Well that’s it for episode 32 of rediscover your brand I’m  your host Mike McCormick and this had been brought to you by Artversion Interactive Agency, you may contact us on Facebook at facebook.com/artversion and on twitter at twitter.com/artversion  or at Artversion.com. Thanks again for listening. The post 32 – Responsive Web Design appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

There are two kinds of search: organic search and paid search. Organic search is based on unpaid, natural rankings determined by search engine algorithms, and can be optimized with various SEO practices. In contrast, paid search allows you to pay to have your website displayed on the search engine results page when someone types in specific keywords or phrases. The fee you pay is based on either clicks or views of your ads. The questions we are often asked by our clients is “what we should be doing organic SEO or Paid.” The answer always is both but for many companies it’s determining the amount of each they should be committed to performing based on their budget, work force, time and talent. So let’s guide you through this process starting first by identifying your goals. The advantage of organic search marketing is that organic listings are more trusted by searchers than paid listings. Most searchers are savvy enough to realize that Google has a say in what shows up in their searches, and that paid listings are more about who has the deeper pocket. Top organic positions also attract 50% more attention than top paid positions. The disadvantage of organic search is that it can be tricky to get top rankings if you don’t know what you are doing. Search engine optimization services base their entire businesses around raising their clients’ rankings. SEO services are highly valued by companies because a top position in Google for a competitive keyword can skyrocket leads and sales. These companies improve their clients’ rankings via proper search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the act of optimizing a website to be more search engine friendly and increasing its perceived importance in the eyes of a search engine. Google uses complex ranking algorithms to determine which websites will be listed nearest the top of the page. If your website isn’t properly optimized, you could be losing out. Paid Search The obvious disadvantage of paid search marketing is that you have to pay for it. Paid search marketing is also commonly referred to as pay per click (PPC) marketing. The rate you are charged per click varies upon your market and your preferred ranking. A company paying $0.30/click will likely not rank above a company paying $0.40/click (there are some exceptions but for simplicity sake, this holds true). The advantage of paying per click is that you have complete control over which terms your website will be listed under– in real time. This is especially useful when you aren’t sure about which keywords yield the highest returns. Using PPC management tools, you can easily determine which keywords are working best for your website. The right choice for your website depends on your particular needs and desires. Most websites benefit most from utilizing a combination of these two approaches. Using PPC marketing can help you quickly identify your best performing keywords, while implementing a longer-term SEO strategy will increase your chances of ranking well in the organic listings. Your Goals The objectives you have for your Web site will influence your search strategy. For example, if your main goal is to drive high volumes of traffic to your site, then organic search might be the most cost-efficient option, as you have to pay each time someone clicks on a paid search ad. However, if your goal is to drive a specific action on the site, you might benefit from the direct response nature of paid search. In paid search, you control which keywords you bid on, what appears in your listing, and which page you drive traffic to. You have greater ability to influence user action than with organic search. In addition, paid search enables flexibility you don’t necessarily have with organic. If you find certain keywords or content aren’t converting, it’s harder and slower to effect changes to your Web site than it is to adjust your paid search campain. Your Industry Are you in a highly regulated industry that provides strict guidelines about direct-to-consumer advertising (e.g., pharmaceutical industry)? In such cases, paid search may pose some challenges and force you to be more inventive to ensure regulatory guidelines are met. Organic search isn’t paid media, so it isn’t considered advertising and the same rules (in theory) wouldn’t apply. That means you may be able to get your brand in front of consumers in a more meaningful way through the organic listings than through paid listings. If you’re in a highly competitive industry or category, investing all of your resources in organic search likely isn’t the best approach. For example, in the travel, gaming, or health information categories, it’s often extremely difficult to get anywhere near the top of the organic results for competitive keywords. Therefore, paid search may be your only option if you want to have visibility in the results. Also, remember that you’re at the search engines’ mercy with organic search. Therefore, if you have a seasonal product or offering and your key time of year is quickly approaching, paid search may be the quick win you’re looking for to capture prospect leads. The advantage of paid search is that once you develop the campaign, it can be launched right away and your listings will start showing immediately. Search engines can take weeks to re-index your content, and it may take months for you to see a perceptible difference in your rankings (if any). I hope these few considerations will help you determine the best approach for your search marketing program. Whatever you choose, always make sure you have a strong measurement program in place to evaluate campaign effectiveness and make the case for future investment. Kip Russell @artversion facebook.com/artversion Contact Us   The post 31 – Organic vs. Paid SEO appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome back brand builders. Review this check list below before you listen to this podcast. Is it in keeping with your business plan, strategy and sales logic? Does it inform, educate, enlighten or entertain your prospect? Is it both well planned and well designed? Does it offer a solution to a prospect’s problem? Will it reach the right audience at the right time with minimal waste? Is it a partial campaign, and does it have consistency with collateral materials? Does it explain why your company is different than your competitors’? In the long run, will it bring in at least twice as much revenue as it costs? Is it different from your competitors’? Knowing the answers to these hard questions will result in a finished product that is well thought out and effective. This applies to websites, facebook, twitter, new branding, logo design etc. Make sure to ask yourself the hard questions. Kip Russell @artversion facebook.com/artversion contact us The post 30 – 9 Tough Questions To Ask Before Your Build A New Website, Etc. appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome back brand builders. This is episode number 29 of the rediscover your brand podcast. The week we talk about the 10 reasons you need to update your website in 2012! Website Impossible: Here is the list we will be discussing during the podcast. 1. Your website is over 5 years old. 2. You can’t view your website on your smart phone. 3. Your company staff has changed 4. Your website was built with over 50% flash 5. Your photo’s were scanned in from the early 2000?s or the 90?s 6. You have no access to your website only your web designer can update it. 7. Your not ranking well on search engines. 8. Your site has grown and grown and now its difficult to use or find content. 9. You have no social component to your website 10.  If you want to change how you manage or update your website. 11. (Bonus) If your sick of looking at your own website or you know in your gut your website is hurting your business. -Kip Russell @artversion facebook.com/artversion contact us The post 29 – Website Impossible: 10 Reasons You Need To Update Your Website! appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome back brand builders. This week on the rediscover your brand podcast we are talking with you about 9 ways to create an effective google adwords campaign. This week at the ArtVersion offices we have been setting up several google adword campaigns for our clients. As a full interactive agency we offer many services and one of them is setting up and maintaining our clients adword campaigns. When done correctly google adword campaigns can be one the best ways to spend your marketing dollars giving you great ROI and flexibility with your investment. On this podcast we will going into detail on these 9 best practices that create effective google adwords campaigns. Be Specific: Don’t forget your keywords Highlight your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) Include A Call to Action Stand Out from your Competitors Get Right To the Point Ad Formatting is Vital Your Display URL is a part of your Ad Copy Test…Test & more Tests ArtVersion Agency: Bonus Tip **Correlation between Your ad copy and your Landing Page** Contact us if you need help setting up your google adword campaigns. Kip Russell @artversion facebook.com/artversion contact us   The post 28 – 9 Way to create an effective Google Adwords Campaigns appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.

Welcome back brand builders. This week on the rediscover your brand podcast we are talking with you about youtube marketing and creating website commercials. Watch this website commercial before listening to this weeks podcast. I’ll give you a few examples on how to use youtube, how to get started and what to do as a brand, personal brand, small biz and more… @artversion facebook.com/artversion Contact us now if you want us to create a website commercial The post 27 – Youtube Marketing & Website Commercials appeared first on Rediscover Your Brand.