Signals from the Field

Online marketing is our area of focus and when given a limited marketing budget, online is where we'd choose to spend it. But that's not to say offline/traditional advertising campaigns are obsolete or don't produce a return. How much of a return isn't always clear, but with the ability to measure online engagement, we can start to get an idea. That is to say in 2010, most offline brand and promotional campaigns will have a great impact online. By using the proper methods and techniques, we can measure these online impacts, developing an understanding for how effective our offline campaigns really are.

Richmond, VA—October 8, 2010—WebStrategies, a local internet marketing agency, recently won an End Client Marketing Excellence Award for their search engine and social media marketing strategies provided to Giroud Tree Service. The award was presented at the 2010 WSI global digital marketing conference.

During my many years in the marketing business and through my involvement with the American Marketing Association I've been exposed to several people from ad agencies. Nearly all are bright, motivated, talented people and the work they produce is often awesome. Their capabilities are broad but one area that's seldom an agency specialty is web analytics data, and unfortunately many don't utilize the power of this valuable resource.

Richmond, VA – September 15, 2010—WebStrategies, a local internet marketing agency, has obtained a company certified partnership with Google recognizing them as offering top-tier Google search engine advertising services to the marketplace. WebStrategies is one of about 20 companies in Virginia that holds a company certified partnership with Google for pay-per-click services. This certification is utilized when handling clients’ search engine marketing dollars and enables them to get the best results for their marketing dollars.

Whether your business sells to consumers or other businesses, Twitter represents a real marketing opportunity. This amazing communications platform has grown from non-existence to 125 million users in about 3 years. Many people have experienced the “dribble” of Twitter and there’s even a TV commercial that pokes fun at the senseless things people say on some of the popular social media platforms. Others however, have found marketing success using Twitter – but you have to have the right expectations and something meaningful to offer.

Richmond, VA – August 17, 2010—The WSI Network of Internet Consultants announces Neal Lappe of WebStrategies Inc. as an advisory council member for their international network. The focus of the advisory council is to pursue standards of business efficiency and continually implement effective solutions to the marketplace. Lappe is one of four representatives from the United States.

As we talk more and more with businesses trying to get serious about using social media in their day to day operations, we begin to see trends and hear the same questions from different people. The business owners I speak with are all very intelligent individuals and have proven their understanding and competence in business. Yet the questions I hear and the mistakes I've seen still pop up. To me, this is a matter of perspective and understanding than it is a matter of competence. To help put some more perspective around these mistakes and my observations, I've assembled the following list of the top five things I see businesses doing wrong and how these mistakes would fit into the context of an offline social interaction.

If you are a small to mid-sized business (SMB) in the B2B (business-to-business) arena you are likely wondering how to hop onto the social media marketing wave and ride it to success. You are not alone. B2B clients nationwide are listening to the hype, asking tons of questions and seeking guidance on how to take advantage of this emerging trend. There is little doubt that social media is taking the Internet by storm but so much of Facebook, Twitter and others seems to be focused on personal interactions. But most in the SMB B2B space don't have promotions every week, don't hold special events every month and aren't generally doing special marketing blitz's on an ongoing basis. That being the case, what on earth does a SMB marketing to other businesses do with social media marketing?

Richmond, VA – July 27, 2010 – Effective July 1, 2010, the Richmond Chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA) announced Neal Lappe of WebStrategies Inc. as their President-Elect.