2012-02-22T21:35:31Z Web Design, Advertising & Branding in FL & LA | Kerigan Marketing Associates urn:uuid:60a76c80-d399-11d9-b93C-0003939e0af6 newsid:43 2011/12/15

See below for a few points from our presentation, The Brand Called YOU. Or just Click here to download a PDF of the presentation. 1. What is a Brand? To “brand” means to distinguish; to impress indelibly. A brand is an identity... A brand should be memorable. If you can’t communicate what makes you different, you’ve got a big problem. To stand out in today’s competitive marketplace, your brand needs to be consistent- in person, online, everywhere! Just as companies brand themselves for consumers, a small business or even an employee needs to brand themselves to show why they offer a superior product versus the competition. Marketers call this “product positioning.” When you have the opportunity to communicate your skills, what will you be remembered for? 2. Creating Brand YOU Step 1: Know Your Customer- Candidates who demonstrate knowledge of a company and the specific position being offered, in resumes, cover letters and interviews tend to get noticed. A recent CareerBuilder.com survey found 71 percent of hiring managers pay more attention to resumes and cover letters that are customized to their open positions.   Step 2: Get Your Customer to know YOU- The second step in making yourself relevant is creating an advertising campaign for your brand. Ask yourself how your product – skills, experience and education – enables you to serve your targeted audience better than the competition and convey that through any advertising, resume, cover letter, etc.   Step 3: Define your brand- More than a mission statement, but not for public consumption, your COMMUNICATIONS BRIEF answers the 7 most important questions that will define your brand.   Step 4: Apply your brand- Every place that your prospect encounters your brand affects your image, either positively or negatively. Where does your brand get recognized?

newsid:39 2011/10/06

See below for a few points from our presentation, Technology & Netiqette for Experienced Job Seekers. Or just Click here to download a PDF of the presentation. Get to know your customer. Research companies you would like to work for and apply. Websites, industry sources and social pages of key hiring managers help you customize your efforts. Research companies you would like to work for and apply. Websites, industry sources and social pages of key hiring managers help you customize your efforts.   Get your customer to know YOU. Resume: Show results & experience. If you don’t have relevant work experience you need to relate how project or class work directly applies to the company and position available. Customize your resume/application to each position   Cover Letter: Resumes sent via email should go to only one company at a time and have the subject line reference the position you are applying for. In your cover letter tell the company why you would like to work for them and what you have to offer. The body of the email should contain a brief (2 to 3 lines) reason you should be considered for the position.   Online Personality: Linked-in page needs to feel more professional. Facebook page should be consistent with your professional personality and use Twitter jobs/hash tags.   Final Nuggets: Be realistic on salary. Do research on salary being offered for positions you are qualified for and interested in. If the position requires 2 to 4 years of experience and it pays $36,000 per year you should expect less.  Look for advancement opportunities within a company rather than more salary in the beginning.  Get in, get experience and advance.   Follow up with a phone call and email.   Be persistent.   Remember, it’s not about you. It’s about what you can do for them.    

newsid:38 2011/09/28

Did you know that Facebook can make reservations, generate appointments, reserve tee times, create sales, and much more? The September 16, 2011 article in USA Today on “Facebook for Business” explains the powerful role of this medium. See what we are doing for businesses below. Atchafalaya Golf Course Spine Center of Baton Rouge Steinhatchee Landing Resort Veteran's Day Beach Sweepstakes NASCAR Talladega Sweepstakes Royal American Hospitality City of Chattahoochee Please help us by completing the survey question below. 1. How important is Facebook in your marketing? not really somewhat important it may be increasing very important So we can better detect and block spam, please enter the text from the image at left:     (not case-sensitive)    

newsid:37 2011/09/23

Here's a quick article where you can fast forward to learn our best practices from almost 10 years of email marketing and nearly 2.0 million eblasts we've sent out for a wide variety of clients. We've made mistakes, learned some tricks, figured out times, designs and subject lines that work, and more. This would be my Top 10 list of things you really need to know, but click here to download our complete presentation, Email Marketing Success: Tools of the trade. Subject Line is Critical. ALL CAPS, words like FREE and exclamation points are sure to send more of your messages to the spam filter. The most effective subject lines don’t exceed 25 characters. Consistency is King. By far, the biggest mistake we see is businesses biting off more than they can chew. Many start a "monthly" newsletter but barely get one out quarterly. Credibility suffers immediately. Be consistent and stick to a schedule you can make. Design matters! Does the graphic theme of your eblast fit your business? It should. If someone clicks from your eblast to enter your website, do the two fit together? Does your design confuse the customer or reassure them they are getting credible information. Connect back to your site. While the promotional offer seems to be the sole focus for the eblast, an ancillary benefit is when someone "clicks-thru" to your website to learn more, or find out info on another product. Easy links help to deliver click-thru rates of 4%+ which is what we like to see. Consider the source. Use a valid and accurate email list. We prefer authenticated, opt-in subscriber lists we've helped our clients build, or helped them put together. Rented lists are much less accurate. Call-to-Action. What do you want the reader to do? That should be apparent and easy to find within 5 seconds. Make your offer clear. Synchronize with Social Media. Easy links allow advocates to "Like" you right away, or post your messages allowing your campaigns to spread virally. Grow your database; because right now it's shrinking! Consumers move jobs, email accounts, etc, and as a result email databases degrade at 25% per year. You need to constantly be adding to generate net growth. Beyond the offer. Email marketing offers so much more than a promotional offer. It's a great way to do an electronic survey to determine their likes and dislikes annually. Study the stats. We study "open rate" as the most important measure of eblast success. Open Rate is the percentage of those that you sent the email to that actually open it. A good average is 15-20% but depends on the offer and database quality. Our program has many other measures such as specific links clicked and how many times a particular person opened it.

newsid:30 2010/12/11

Lines of type that are too long, or too short, make reading difficult. Even worse, they may cause your prospect to just skip over your important message, completely. When text stretches too far across your website’s home page it makes it hard to return to the next line. And, tall, arrow columns of text can be painfully slow, causing your reader to move on after just a few lines. You can optimize readability by following a few simple guidelines we use.  1. Apply the alphabet-and-a-half line length rule. The alphabet-and-a-half rules places the ideal line length at 39 characters regardless of type size. 2. Apply the points-times-two line length rule. Take the type size of your body text and multiply it by two. The result is your ideal line length, in picas. For example, 12 point type would have an ideal line length of 12 x 2, or 24 picas (approx. 4 inches). 3. Compare the line length measurements for methods 1 and 2. Set a column width, in your ad / web page, etc that falls within the range established by each formula. Keeping column widths and line lengths within this range will help insure the most readable text. These formulas are a suggestion only; a little less or a little more in either direction is probably not going to adversely affect the appearance or readability of your text. But text that falls too far outside the optimum range can make your message awkward and too difficult to read. Learn more...

newsid:27 2009/10/15

You responded. We surveyed* thousands of small business owners and employees about their web sites to learn how often they make updates, check visitation reports and get a general idea of what they expect to pay for hosting. Respondents agree on some consistent patterns. Your web site is one of your most valuable assets and our survey revealed that business owners have clear ideas about what’s important and what that should cost1. How often do you update your web site? Over 50% now make updates at least monthly. Weekly    40% Monthly  16% Quarterly 22% Yearly      15% Other       7% 2. Do you monitor visitation statistics on your web site? 70% currently view the traffic reports for their web site and over 50% look at them at least monthly! Weekly                         32% Monthly                       22% Quarterly                      9% Less than quarterly    7% Don’t check statistics 30% 3. What’s most important to you… rank the importance of Design, Updates, Hosting Cost or Search Engine Ranking. Nearly 50% rank Design as most important. See breakout below. 1. Overall design and layout 2. Search engine ranking 3. Ability to make updates yourself 4. Annual hosting cost 4. What do you feel is a fair amount for the web hosting services you receive? Most small businesses expect to pay between $100-$200 per year, with less than 20% spending more than $400. Less than $100 / yr. 23% $100 – $199 / yr.       30% $200 – $299 / yr.       11% $300 – $399 / yr.       17% $400 – $499 / yr.       13% *SOURCE: Kerigan Marketing Associates Inc. email survey, sent June 12, 2009. If you simply desire bare bones web site hosting, there are plenty of reputable services well under $100 per year you can move your site to. Site transfer has gotten as easy as moving your cell phone service (see link to recommended hosts). If your goal is to strengthen your business image thru your web site, whether you need a design makeover, a user-friendly statistics program to measure traffic, or search engine optimization — or, frankly, you’re just embarrassed by the current state of your site and know it’s time to update, here are some ideas. View our clients, or an easy-to-understand chart of our hosting packages, most at just $13.75 per month / $165 per year. Contact Us to discuss what we can do for you.

newsid:28 2009/10/10

Despite elections and Olympics, 2008 has been a down year for traditional media, according to an article in the Financial Times published last week, with economic slowdown cited for marketing cutbacks at Coca Cola and General Motors. However, many Fortune 500 and small businesses are seizing competitive opportunities by maintaining, even increasing their advertising budgets, with the goal of continuing consumer awareness through electronic marketing. Recent surveys point to organizations balancing traditional media by increasingly turning to relationship marketing with electronic newsletters, community sites and eblasts for these new economic times. We’ve been pioneering email marketing for over five years and we’re constantly attending seminars, working with consultants and, generally, just testing new opportunities to improve every day.  We’ve found that business managers like it because they can measure effectiveness with open rates, click-through rates and sales! We design and deliver many eblasts each week. Here’s our Top 5 list you can use: 1. Update your database- keep it current, including adding new relevant addresses (always with opt-in) and removing addresses that are no longer valid. Industry experts agree that email databases degrade at a rate of approximately 25% per year, due to people changing emails for new jobs, new internet service providers, etc. We highly recommend opt-in databases, and we’re in the process of updating our online sign-up systems to operate with double opt-in confirmations for even higher security. 2. Avoid certain keywords, messy code, too many images, and even poor grammar that immediately set off red flags for spam filters. Spam filters are becoming much more sensitive, making it difficult for you to ensure that you’re receiving all of the emails you’ve asked for. Their main purpose is to protect you from perceived unwanted content, so even the slightest suggestion that an email may be unwanted will cause it to be flagged as spam — and never delivered to your inbox. Poor grammar may not get your emails trapped in spam filters, but it may hurt your image if the eblasts or enewsletters you are sending are not consistent with company’s quality. We always strive to create organized content — both text and images — and we focus on keeping emails informative and interesting to the reader. 3. Make sure your web server has a good record with all of the major Internet Service Providers (ISP’s). This isn’t always a sure bet, but it certainly helps in maintaining your true credibility with intended recipients. The best way to make sure that unprofessional and fraudulent email marketers don’t drag you down with them is to set up a dedicated server solely for your email marketing. If you’re on a shared server, their bad reputations are automatically attached to you in the eyes of spam filters. 4. Put serious thought into your subject line. The goal of your efforts is for your recipient to OPEN your email, and your subject line is usually the determining factor if that will happen or if they will hit DELETE. The 5-7 words you chose for your subject line are important. What got you to open this one? We closely monitor “open rates” for the eblasts and enewsletters we send and we’ve learned which terms work better than others. 5. Use email marketing to drive readers to your site. One additional benefit of email marketing is to direct recipients to your web site via links placed throughout the body of the email. It’s a commonly used marketing tool used to increase web site visitation. You should monitor your web site visitation on the day you send your eblast and days immediately following and “should” see significant spikes in visitation. If you would like a price quote or more information on an email marketing program, please contact us. We’ll gladly share options with you and supply client references. If you are interested in switching your hosting to us, or improving your site thru a design makeover, take a look at our work, and send us an email.

newsid:29 2008/05/28

The more I become involved with day-to-day business here at Kerigan, the more I learn about marketing versus just web site developement — and that means the importance of statistical analysis for your web site. It’s great to have a web site, but it is becoming increasingly important to know how to use it. When the Boss suggested that I attend a webinar for Google Analytics, I wasn’t sure how much I’d walk away from it with, but now that everything is said and done, I’m very glad I did. Google Analytics is a tool provided by Google to track visitation, hits, downloads, and other useful bits of data about your web site. It is a very powerful tool, and many webmasters swear by it; it will work with virtually any site on any server. And the best part is – IT’S FREE. You gotta love Google. Though a server-side analytics program (such as your basic Webalizer program many sites use) is a must, in my opinion, Google Analytics is a great supplementary tool. I say this because, though Google Analytics doesn’t have access to your server’s logs (and therefore cannot be as thorough as a server-side program), it gives you an interesting perspective on how search terms affect your web traffic. Not to mention, it is fairly common for server-side programs to crash or malfunction. So, when that happens you can then rely on Google to provide your visitation data for the down time. OK, I know most managers prefer the quick bulleted version, so here’s why Google Analytics could be important to you: Assuming you’re not yet checking your web site stats – and these days you really should be – you might as well begin with this simple program. Google Analytics is aestheticly pleasing and very user-friendly. It should take only 15-20 minutes to set up (or at least for your web host). It’s password protected. IT’S FREE! With that said, the biggest benefit of using Google Analytics is its integration with Google AdWords. Adwords is a “pay-per-click” ad program that will show your site as a “sponsored link” on the results page of keywords specified by you. You just select the key words you think people will use when searching for your site. Then, when a user searches for that term in Google, your link will show on the results page. See example results page here. The attractive feature of pay-per-click ads is, you only pay when a user clicks the link. Your site may be too new to rank high or otherwise outrank bigger, more important sites in the main organic ranking area. AdWords allows your web site to be viewed high on the first page, and you only pay when people click your link! If you’ve never done this we can help you pick the right words. If you have an AdWords campaign for the site you are monitoring, Google Analytics makes it very easy to see quick, helpful AdWords statistics from your dashboard. This can be very useful in telling you where your money is wasted – and where your money is well spent. I look forward to using this great technology to better observe site traffic, patterns, and to ultimately better serve our customers in the future.

newsid:31 2008/01/17

Listen to consumers for a Great 2008 From school kids to CEO’s, the environment has become a hot topic. My Google search of “Florida Ecotourism” yielded 250,000 results where just two years ago I found little info for a client research project. Whether you consider yourself a tree hugger (I bet that image ain’t what it used to be) or just a business manager who needs to understand consumer desires, now may be the time for you to lift a finger to test the winds of change. We just completed a web site for a new home builder with a specialty in green-building under the new LEEDS certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Another recent project included a new active-adult community based on environmentally-friendly construction that results in substantial energy cost savings for homeowners. One of our golf course clients just asked us to increase the prominence of the Audubon International designation on their web site. And, kayaks have replaced powerboats in our recent tourism design graphics. Those are just some of the trends that have impacted my work life. The ‘green’ agenda has become a hugely important one for many businesses. Consider the evidence. GM reported that sales of its Suburban SUV model declined by 24% for the month of December, 2007, while this week's Detroit Auto Show debuted an ethanol-feuled Ferrari and a plug-in electric Maserati. J.D. Power and Associates projects steady growth for the hybrid segment for the coming years. CNN.com recently featured a report on new tourism trends stating, "We've started to see more and more companies that traditionally offer just sun and beach kind of packages embracing eco-tourism concepts." So, how can seeing the world with ‘green’ eyes help your business? Consumers are increasingly searching for green alternatives and as a result they’re  typing these terms into search engines. It may be time to think about how you can leverage this opportunity with some updated copy on your web site’s home page. Here are some examples, with links, of environmentally-friendly solutions we’ve created to help our client’s assist their customers and employees: For destination marketers, integrate relevant popular search terms into your home page like “walking trails,” “birding” and “pet friendly.” Golf Courses can promote their Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary status, or eco-friendly practices. Realtor web sites can offer easy links to nearby parks at the communities they are promoting. Employers create online employment applications reducing paper and fax power costs. Physician offices implement downloadable patient registration forms. Construction companies integrate customer project update links on web site. Establish a green policy at work which might include: Turning off monitors, printers and lights after work. Try cleaning out files and recycle papers you no longer need. Many organizations sponsor cleaning weeks. Use spell check and proofread before you print or copy. Print double sided whenever possible. Minimize the amount of paper you use. Buy reusable office supplies instead of disposable supplies. Set up an area to store and exchange reusable office supplies, such as binders and hanging folders The EPA offers a range of helpful ideas at  http://www.epa.gov/epahome/atwork.htm While we don’t punch out hundreds of cookie-cutter sites, we’ve designed and built a wide variety of successful custom web sites for our clients, including many ADDY Award winners. As marketers we approach web site design differently than internet-only firms. We see web sites as one [important] component of your marketing package, yet the site must be consistent with the overall design of your other marketing materials, including a familiar advertising look that led customers to the site in the first place. View samples of our integrated marketing campaigns

newsid:26 2007/12/23

Some media are apples and others are oranges. What works in one medium may not work inanother. Here's a brief primer, assembled by Guerilla Marketer, Jay Conrad Levinson, 2004: 1. The power of newspapers is news. Marketing that is newsy gets noticed because news is on the forefront of readers' minds. 2. The power of magazines is credibility. Readers unconsciously attach to the advertiser the same credibility that they associate with the magazine. 3. The power of radio is intimacy. Usually radio is a one-on-one situation allowing for a close and intimate connection between listener and marketer. 4. The power of direct mail is urgency. Time-dated offers that might expire before the recipient can act often motivates them to act now. 5. The power of telemarketing is rapport. Few media allow you to establish contact in a give-and-take situation as adroitly as the telephone. 6. The power of brochures is the ability to give details. Few media allow you the time and space to expand on your benefits as much as a brochure. 7. The power of classified ads is information. Nobody in their right mind actually reads the classified ads except for those in a quest for data. 8. The power of the yellow pages is even more information. Here, prospects get a line on the entire competitive situation and can compare. 9. The power of television is the ability to demonstrate. No other media lets you show your product or service in use along with the benefits it offers. TV is still the undisputed heavyweight champ of marketing. 10. The power of the internet is interactivity. You can flag a person's attention, inform them, answer their questions and take their orders. 11. The power of signs is impulse reactions. Signs motivate people to buy when they are in a buying mood and in a buying arena. Signs either trigger an impulse remind people of your other marketing or both. 12. The power of fliers is economy. They can be created, produced and distributed for very little and can even bring about instant results. 13. The power of billboards is to remind. They rarely do the whole selling job but they're great at jostling people's memories of your other efforts.