Marketing Strategies by Studio98

According to Technorati (a blog search engine), in 2008 there were over 112 million blogs.  More than 2 blogs are created every second of each day (circa 175,000 new blogs a day) and there are about 18.6 posts per second (1.6 million per day).

A blog is a Content Management system where you can post small articles called “posts”.  There is usually a feature within blogs that allows commenting.

“Blogging” and “Blog” can also be used as a verb to mean updating or writing new content in a blog.

The word “blog”  (commonly misinterpreted as coming from “business log” etc. ) was originally a contraction of “weblog” which was coined in December of 1997.

Blogs usually focus on a particular subject but can be used in multiple ways, such as:

A personal diary
An internal communication point in businesses
A interface that interacts with current and future prospective clients at a personal level

When you write a blog you don’t want to write it in a sales pitchy way, they are meant to be written in a more personal manner.  People usually read blogs to get information on some subject or your company, they are going there for solid information, not to read a sales pitch.

It is also a good idea to make the blog comments required to be approved.  This will allow you to monitor any comments before they are posted and help keep out spam.  Negative comments from customers, etc. that are real should be handled personally and not filtered out, unless they become disruptive in manner.

There are many websites out there that offer the service of hosting your blog for free and no technical knowledge is required to set one up.  The best one from our experience has been Wordpress.com.  Although these services are free, if you are planning on starting a company blog  you may want to hire a professional to brand and put it up on your website.

Jack Napier
Production Manager

When I was growing up, several of my friends always considered me lucky. I don’t exactly know what they were looking at but it felt kind of good to be considered lucky, like there was some guardian angel looking over me. Well it didn’t take long in the real world to find out that relying on luck alone was not only foolish, but it was not going to get you in the end zone. It can be a great morale booster when it happens, but you can never count on it – NEVER!

Looking for a further insight into the question “how much does luck play in one’s life?” I once asked a preacher what is the biggest problem he has with his congregation. I expected to hear something profound but instead heard something very simple, but true. He thought for a minute and said, “I can say it in one word. The most powerful little word you ever heard” – my interest was piqued, “It’s not luck, it’s not fate, it’s USE! “Use?”, I said in a somewhat disappointed tone of voice. “Yes, USE”, he said. “You see people know what they should do but they very often don’t do it. Do you see that little old lady in the second pew”, he asked? “Yes”, I said. “She always sits in the same place and fights with anyone who dares sit in “her” seat. The problem is she has been coming to this church for the past 10 years and her behavior has never changed. Why? Because she has never bothered to use the wisdom I’ve been preaching. Now do you see why I say USE is the most powerful word in the English language? You see knowledge is only valuable if it is USED. Only then will it come alive in your own life”.

I walked away feeling that I’ve just met a very wise man.

Well, if you can’t rely on luck then it makes sense that you USE what you KNOW to succeed in life. Here’s something to KNOW:
250 million people use the web every day.

83 million of those use the web to start the shopping process.

In 2008 consumers purchased $204 billion dollars worth of goods on the internet, just in the US.

And 73% of all adults now use the internet – 1.7 billion Worldwide. Now that you KNOW, you need to USE this data and act on it.
A sound and effective marketing plan can be brought into fruition if you act. You know your job, we know ours – effective internet marketing that gets results. If you USE what you KNOW and ACT on it, this may very well be your lucky day and your lucky week and your lucky month and your lucky year and your lucky….. You get the idea. Good luck!

Robert Cook
Co-founder of Studio98.

In a world where the internet is rapidly becoming the largest mass-media advertising platform, you need to consider the participation of your company. The question is, where to start.

The two main forms of advertising online are, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click). Below are their respective definitions.

“Search Engine Optimization” is defined as:
The process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from a search engine via ‘natural’ or un-paid (’organic’ or ‘algorithmic’) search results as opposed to search engine marketing which deals with paid inclusion.”
www.wikipedia.com

And “Pay Per Click” is defined as:
An internet marketing model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market.
www.wikipedia.com

PPC is good for your company if you want to start selling fast online. You can have an ad online and running within 15 minutes. The problem is that when you stop paying for this ad or your credit card gets declined, your ad instantly stops, which means your sales stop. Everything you invest in PPC stops the second the campaign stops.

SEO on the other hand takes a bit longer to set up and can be more costly at first, but all of the actions you do to get on top of the search engines will drive customers to your site, afterwords – i.e. article distribution, niche directory submission etc. And your ranking is not attached to a credit card – it will stay there until Google decides otherwise.

One great strategy to determine which are the best keywords for you to use is to first test them out in PPC. By using PPC to try out keywords you can rapidly discover the most effective ones that are converting your customers. After that you gear your SEO campaign to target them.

To end things off, the question is “which is better?”  I believe this is a subjective question.  In my opinion SEO is better in the long-run, but if you want to get rolling right away, go ahead and dive-in with PPC.  Or even better use the two to support each-other.

Jack Napier
Account Rep

There’s nothing more aggravating to an executive than to be surprised to find that something he thought was being done was not. How do you avoid such surprises?

Well, one way is to statisize on a piece of graph paper all important functions in the organization. Prepare the graph by listing time across the bottom of the graph and quantity up the left side. This gives the executive an instant visual idea of past and present production, if targets are being met and if the company is delivering valuable products that customers are willing to pay for.

Studio98 is in the business of internet marketing. We build and maintain websites; we do pay per click and SEO services, and we create systems for other marketing companies, to name a few. In our weekly staff meeting, Rafferty Pendery, the CEO of Studio98, wants to see the stats for that week. As an example, Gross Income (GI) is a stat that most companies keep. It’s a good one because it can tell you a lot about production and the quality of the products within the company at a glance. If the products of the business are moving through the various steps correctly, then they will come out the other end a product the customer is willing to pay for. A rising GI indicates that competent services are being performed by competent staff members. It also indicates that products are being finished on time.

But that’s not the only stat. Each employee has a job. He’s producing something or should be. He should have a stat graph to log his or her products. This has been found to tremendously help employee morale. His individual contributions to the overall goals of the company are there in black and white. It’s also a good defense against a crazy manager.

A graph showing the relative rises and falls is a bold visual representation of the condition in present time of any given area of the company. To a trained eye it can impart a wealth of information

For instance, if a statistic is higher this week than last, it indicates you are doing something right so don’t change anything just continue doing what you’re doing. If it’s down this week from last week it tells you something is awry so you need to act to reverse the statistic.

As obvious as this sounds, few companies know what to statisize or how to interpret the trends once statisized. The result is that the company is not doing as well as it could be and there are a lot of key personnel keeping a lot of data rattling around in their heads.

The statisizing of the various jobs within the company is one of the simplest ways to increase productivity that you’ve ever seen.

Try it out and let me know what happened.

Bob Cook
Co-founder Studio98, LLC

After you plan out your website, design it. Promote it, then what? You need to maintain it.

You have to control the website by having it function the way you designed it to function. You want it to be updated periodically to incorporate new content and changes. If the site is being maintained properly then it will be doing what it’s supposed to do.

The internet is a dynamic and ever changing animal. A rather large animal at that. Browsers change and are constantly being updated. Websites come and go so your links to other sites can be effected.

Part of web maintenance is to assure changes are made in a timely manner to keep the site functioning as you intended. You don’t want your customers inconvenienced with discontinued products or information that is irrelevant, outdated or incorrect.

When they link to a site from your site you want to know that your web maintenance company checks these links periodically to assure that they are working properly.

Website maintenance is a necessary action in today’s business world. The first impression that a customer gets of your company is often your website. You want it to reflect a professional image.

Outdated or irrelevant text, discontinued products that haven’t been removed or non-functioning links can refect badly on your business image.

So maintaining your site or having someone else do it is like having the supermarket shelves stocked and the isles labeled so the customers can find what they are looking for.

Bob Cook
Studio98

How wonderful to live in a country where you can speak up without fear of reprisals. Your free speech rights are protected by the courts and the power of the Federal government. It’s a beautiful thing – or is it?

If all things written or spoken were actually and factually true, then yes, free speech is a beautiful thing. But when it’s used to damage with lies it’s not so pretty.

Take for instance the internet, a vast communication avenue. Is what you read on the net true? If you haven’t already found out, not everything you read on the internet is true or accurate. Yet many people use information from the net without taking the time to check out the source or accuracy of the information.

For example, a few years ago the members of the U.S. Congress bowed their heads in silence to reflect on the passing of the great patriot and comedian, Bob Hope. When Bob Hope’s publicist told Mr. Hope about it, he was rumored to say, “Gee, I didn’t know I was dead. I’d better check my pulse.”

Someone had put this out on the internet and not even the U.S. Congress took the time to verify the story.

A person’s reputation can be destroyed or badly hurt by a negative article that comes up whenever his name is Googled. Welcome to the 21^st Century of the internet. Take as an example, Sam’s Super Subs has franchises all over the country. A franchisee violates the franchise agreement and buys cut rate meat from a local butcher friend in violation of the quality standards that Sam’s has set. The franchisee loses his license and is not happy. Disgruntled, and without a leg to stand on the franchisee decides to take his revenge by using the internet to post negative blogs and articles on numerous websites. Because of the high ranking of these sites these negative posts are the first things that appear when someone Googles Sam’s Super Subs.

The executives at the Sam’s home office now have a PR nightmare to try to handle. One way they can fight back is by using an internet service called Reputation Management. This employs a systematic approach that will slowly but surely relegate the negative posts from the first page on Google to the tenth page where it’s very unlikely that they’ll be read by anyone.

Reputation Management can be the fastest, most economical way to handle negative blogs and articles about you or your company. It’s worth knowing that there’s a service available that can allow you to control what people say about you or your product or services on the internet.

Ah, those were the days. Being in business used to be so easy. Promoting my business used to be easy too.  I was a painting contractor in Los Angeles in the 80’s. The competition was fierce but I knew what to do. To get my business going in a certain area I would drive around, find a good area and start door knocking. Personal contact was my forte. I never went more than an hour before I had a job. Another thing I did was to have my local flyer distribution service pass out a couple of thousand flyers and voila – WORK! It was that easy and that predictable.

But times have changed. If you don’t have a presence on the internet you’re nothing – second rate, behind the times. So you make the investment in setting up a web site. It feels good – hey, look at me I’ve now exposed myself to millions of potential customers. This is going to be easy, I thought. Welcome to the new world of the Internet. After the initial excitement of having my beautiful web site floating somewhere in cyberspace, I wondered why I wasn’t getting any calls. After all, I just spent $4,000 for this beautiful web site; the jobs are just going to start pouring in. Right? WRONG! It just doesn’t work that way, as I came to find out. Because of the staggering number of people searching the web, it has tremendous potential BUT you’re just a drop of water in a huge pond.

How do you stand out? How do you get them to come to your site over all of the others vying for their business? It takes a strategy to create links that point back to your site from hundreds of other sites related to your product. And you have to keep it up. One of the main ways of creating traffic to your site is through the use of article submission. For example, you write a short article about how to handle peeling paint. You then submit it to an article directory so others can find out how to handle peeling paint. They see your site listed on the article so they come to view your site as being an expert on what to do about peeling paint. And so it goes.

But don’t expect people to come flocking to your site immediately. You have to be committed and to stay the course. After all, you are competing with thousands, if not millions, of other people in your line of work and they all want to be in the number one spot when someone searches for a painter, florist, etc. in their area. If you can persist in writing and submitting articles that are relevant to your field, you will see your name moving up in the search engines. It’s wonderful to see your website show up on the first page of a search – and how profitable. The fact is that after the first page of a search most prospective buyers have found what they were looking for and the number of buyers who search the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th pages drops off dramatically. So what do you need to do? It’s obvious; get your site on the first page. If there was a magical way of doing this everyone would be doing it no matter the cost because the return is big! How big? As big as the web itself.

 If you have not yet researched out article submission as one way of gaining exposure for your product on the web then you should consider it in your marketing budget. It’s a long range strategy that has proven to work time and again. If you can talk about your business for just a couple of minutes, then you can write that same thing down as an article and have an article submission service submit it so it gets out to hundreds of sties that all point back to you as the source. People like to know about things that concern them. If the paint kept peeling on my house, I’d like to know why and the fix for it. So your hard won knowledge earned over the years is important to people. Let customers know you’re the expert and you’re the guy to call to get the job done. It’s not enough anymore to put a sign on your truck and drive around. To be credible, you have to have a web presence.

For me, I rather liked walking up to someone in the neighborhood, introducing myself, handing them my business card asking if they would like to get an estimate on getting some painting done on their house. It seemed much more personable and a much easier sell. But that was then, things change and you have to know how to play the new game without dropping out things that already work.

You can bet that your competitors know how important a high ranking website is to a prosperous future. From my perspective, marketing today is not as simple as it once was. There’s a new game in town and its here to stay. Part of your marketing budget has to embrace this new media. Its’ potential is immense! It would be difficult to over state it. It used to be so easy. But, why not, I like challenging new adventures in my life even if I have to change some old ways of doing things.

Did you know that Wikipedia is the second most visited site from Google Searches? Add to this knowledge that more searches are conducted on Google than on any other search engine and you soon realize that there is some serious traffic moving through Wikipedia and for good reason. Consumers turn to Wikipedia as a reliable source of information and more often than not, the online encyclopedia has got the information searchers are looking for.

Now, have you ever noticed that Wikipedia often appears in the top search results from Google for keywords related to your business? If so, I am sure you have wondered how to get that search result action for your business by utilizing Wikipedia. It is possible, but in order to be part of the vast information of Wikipedia, you must first respect the knowledge they share and fully understand the benefits of getting a listing with them. Then be prepared to monitor your listing as you do all portions of your online reputation.

There are multiple benefits to becoming part of the enormous human edited online encyclopedia. Having a listing with Wikipedia adds value to your business reputation and a transparency that can actually be a little scary for some companies. Having a listing can also provide added exposure for your business, as access to Wikipedia is not limited to PC and laptop users. Wikipedia is available on many mobile devices as a source for endless information for masses on the go. Then of course, because Wikipedia is a website with an outstanding page rank, a listing with the encyclopedia giant can add tremendous value to your search engine marketing campaign. Wikipedia should not however be considered part of a link building strategy. In an attempt to thwart the masses of spam and poor quality entries being made to their site, Wikipedia placed a ‘nofollow’ tag on all external links.

If you are interested in promoting your business with Wikipedia, you need to go into the project with the goal of adding value to the information source, not just using the website for gaining links and generating traffic to your website. You can’t or shall I say, you shouldn’t write your own Wikipedia listing and for good reason, there should be nothing self-serving and nothing self-promotional in your article. The best approach to getting a lasting listing with Wikipedia is to request a third party to write an informative biography, so to speak, of your company. To fully ensure your work doesn’t get the boot from the experienced volunteer Wikipedia community, make sure your content is full of quality sources and utilizes great references from credible media sources.

Subsequent edits to your Wikipedia listing need to be unbiased as well. The addition of the WikiScanner has provided the public with the ability to see exactly who is doing the editing, adding a whole new level of transparency that is not entirely loved by all. A great way to ensure a quality Wikipedia listing is to inspire others to add to your listing for you. A great way to do this is with some positive improvements in your company. Whether they are improvements in your products or services or making huge environmental changes to your industry’s operations. Events like these can literally move consumers to go to a Wikipedia listing and add the news in their own words for you. Always bear in mind, anyone has access to seeing who is doing the editing on your Wikipedia listing and if you are constantly “editing” your own page, it will raise suspicions and probably some criticisms.

The consumer trust in Wikipedia as a valuable resource is built largely from the transparency that Wiki encourages. By writing a quality listing about your company that actually adds value to the encyclopedia, you can help strengthen your online reputation, increase your business exposure and reinforce your search engine marketing strategy.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

The rumors around the Facebook water cooler were all true and last night the games began as Facebook users could start claiming their very own vanity URLs. Choosing a username was first reserved for businesses and partners of Facebook with more than 1000 fans, but the doors were opened to Joe Public and as of midnight, the regular folks can claim a username that will become the URL for their Facebook profile.

Once again Facebook listened to its users and heard the high demand for the vanity URL request. The introduction of vanity URLs will make connecting on Facebook easier for individuals and businesses. Instead of having to search through hundreds of possible name matches or distribute the current numerical id used by Facebook, you can simply distribute your personal URL for the site. Usernames are being distributed on a first come, first serve basis and must be a minimum of five characters (they may include letters, numbers and periods only-no special characters). If you have the perfect username in mind for your account, you will want to move quickly to claim it.

What do vanity URLs mean for search engine marketing? Traffic via natural search for one thing. As Facebook is one of the largest networks on the web, when you do a name search, you will usually see a Facebook result in the top ten (if anyone by that name is a member of Facebook of course). With the inclusion of vanity URLs, Facebook will likely become one of the top two search results for any person or business. Not to mention the possibility of adding Facebooks high page rank value to your SEO campaign.

There are ground rules in effect. For starters, you should pick your username carefully, because it is for life. If you do change your mind about your username selection, your only option will be to start a new account. Unfortunately, Facebook is not letting new accounts select specific usernames. Or at least for the time being. So individuals should choose carefully and businesses should choose relevancy.

In addition, generic usernames will not be available. Generic usernames would include pizza or cheese as a username. Facebook is encouraging individuals and businesses to select a username that is specific and relevant to their own identity or business. This is the smartest choice for businesses if they want their vanity URL from Facebook to add value to their online marketing campaign. There is a form available to prevent trademark infringement as well.

Usernames are filling up fast and if you want to be part of the Username Land Rush and add even more value to your Facebook Business account. Log on today and claim your name.

I had written a blog post about branding your business through building a Ning community. For the beginner-level website owner, this is still a great option. Recently another option emerged which is by far the best free option for building a community.

BuddyPress.org. This is a plugin for the well known Wordpress blog platform that turns your blog into a full social networking platform. Studio98 was recently hired by a client to build a Home Staging Community for them, we did this with BuddyPress. The system is 100% customizable (open source) and coded well for search engine optimization.

The plugin is newer so further developments are still needed, but it has a great base for a start. If someone wants the flexibility, I would definitely recommend BuddyPress over Ning.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98