Autumn Consulting

How to Spot Poor Ads: A Marketing Review

Nathan Misirian — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:00:41 +0000

In case you didn’t hear, the New York Giants became world champions early last week during a popular program called the Super bowl. “Popular” may be the understatement of the year, as this year’s Super Bowl was watched by 111.3 million people, beating out last year’s Super Bowl to become the most watched television show ever.

Many Americans tuned into the Super Bowl, not to see the epic battle between the Giants and the Patriots, but to see rival companies compete for the most meaningful, funny, and, above all, most memorable advertisements.

How do you make your advertisement and marketing messages stand out and be memorable to a variety of viewers?

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, most Super Bowl ads tend to either focus on making viewers laugh or having honest conversations with Americans about their brand. Both of these approaches can have serious downfalls. It’s easy for funny advertisements to become all about the laughs and not about the relevance. Viewers may remember the punch lines of the jokes, but have no idea for whom and why they were delivered. On the flip side, the “honest conversation with America” approach can be a problem if no one in America cares about the brand. These ads are only memorable to a very small amount of people, usually people who work with or for the brand.

Is there any formula for success and can it be adapted for emarketing?

There is no specific formula for advertising success, but all successful advertisements have the following traits in common. They are sincere, smart, entertaining, and, above all, original. Companies can adopt the same traits on the web by implementing them in their marketing messages and strategic emarketing content strategies.

Want to make the elements of your emarketing campaign memorable and effective? Autumn Consulting can help. Our team’s expertise in web-related marketing strategies can help your company provide memorable and effective content for qualifying prospects and engaging customers.

Brand M Website Revamp: From ‘Under Construction’ to Clear eMarketing

Nathan Misirian — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:57:54 +0000

“We needed help with marketing in general… We were a Tabula Rasa and only marketed through word of mouth.”

Original Website

Permanently Under Construction. That’s how Prem Mansukhani describes his former website.

The Autumn Consulting team recently had the opportunity to work with Prem and his family on the website for their family-owned business, Brand M.

Founded in the 1980’s by the chemist who formulated the first commercially viable high solid inkjet ink, the Brand M team wrestled with specializing in a niche industry—inkjet ink creation and printing solutions—and reaching qualified prospects.

“We needed help with marketing in general–having a message and a way of talking to people. We were a Tabula Rasa and only marketed through word of mouth,” says Prem, who serves as Sales and Marketing Coordinator for Brand M.

Autumn Redesigned Website

The plan was simple: Create a customer-focused website with a new look and keyword-rich marketing content to help qualify prospects and engage with customers. Creating an integrated marketing plan that allowed Brand M to create a symbiotic connection between their website and paper-based marketing was the first step. Next was taking this integrated package and using it to speak with new prospects and build business.

Through a series of interviews and working sessions, the Autumn team worked with Brand M to clarify marketing messages and create a revamped website with customer-focused sections for greater viewer engagement. Examples include:

• Who We Are explains Brand M’s rich history, which includes expert knowledge of ancient Indian ink creation methods and a unique biographical description of each team member.

• Solution Center features common ink and printing problems paired with expert observations and the Brand M diagnostic process.

• Knowledge Base provides a brief and helpful history of hardware manufacturers, inkjet/printing challenges and a listing of compatible equipment systems.

The difference is clear. “I recently had a meeting with a potential new customer who credited the website’s focus on quality and technical expertise as to why they contacted us,” says Prem. “And this potential customer has all the features of the qualified prospects we designed the site to attract,” he adds. Mission accomplished.

Do you think it’s time to update your current website for better company branding and improved search engine optimization visibility? Reach out to us with your current issue and we’ll tailor a unique web marketing plan to help get you moving. Our team of specialized marketers, sales experts, journalists, writers and web/design professionals makes up a Milwaukee web marketing agency that works with different businesses and non-profits.

How Facebook Can Help Boost Your SEO

Nathan Misirian — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:33:30 +0000

Who knew, but what you put on your social media can directly aid your website’s SEO. By using strategic keywords on your company’s Facebook page and making them hyperlinks, you show Google that links with these keywords drive traffic to your site, which, in turn, boosts search rankings for those keywords.

Sound complicated? It’s actually pretty simple. Google cares about hyperlinks, which are underlined words in your web content that contain links. Google likes them because people tend to pick keywords as hyperlinks and indexing them creates an accurate indication of how a website relates in relation to them.

And if that still sounds too complex, let’s try this equation: Regular Facebook posts + Consistent use of hyperlinked keywords that link back to your site = Improved SEO.

Now that we have established that hyperlinks and keywords can make a big difference when used well on Facebook, here are some practical tips:

Devote each day of the week to a keyword. For example, if you are in the career consulting business, choose “career consulting” on Monday, “career advice” on Tuesday, “resume writing” on Wednesday, etc.
Always make these keywords hyperlinks to your website. To be even more effective, create landing pages for each keyword hat you can link to directly.
Mix in Facebook posts that are humorous, inspirational, or other forms of web content that appeals to large audiences. This will make it more likely for your audience to share the post. Build hyperlinked keywords around the link to the content you want to share.

Autumn Consulting is a Milwaukee web marketing agency. Our staff’s expertise around search engine marketing, email marketing, social media, and many other web-related marketing strategies can help your company assert itself in an internet-driven world.

Marketing Your Business on Facebook: Part 1

Nathan Misirian — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:05:28 +0000

Many companies have made the leap into Facebook marketing, but few small businesses in the B2B or local B2C world have seen satisfying results. That’s because Facebook is a great tool for marketing to prospects and current customers alike, but few companies have discovered the simple and effective ways that can lead to web branding success.

If you have not yet started to market your business on Facebook, here are some reasons why you should start:

Facebook helps with qualifying prospects because it can introduce your business to web users who would otherwise never have heard of you.
Facebook helps with engaging customers because it can show those that already know you all that you do and how you do it well.
Facebook helps with clarifying messages because it allows you to illustrate your products and services with engaging stories and examples while adding a human and interactive touch to your marketing.

With nearly 800 billion users, Facebook is definitely a place where people spend lots of their time. If you know how to use it as a marketing tool, Facebook can give you access to your target demographics and psychographics and help you build satisfying customer relationships with them. In a series of eight blog posts this February, the Autumn team will walk you through important Facebook marketing strategies to help you grow your web marketing.

5 Web Marketing Strategies for Mobile Devices: Part 2

Nathan Misirian — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:33:10 +0000

In Part 1 of this post, we examined eMarketing strategies for effective mobile device. Part 2 looks at more technical recommendations for better mobile device viewing and engagement.

In the past, business professionals needed only to focus on writing effective web content and reaching their target audience when writing emails. Now, emails also need to be tailored to a specific screen size and additional specifications. According to Email Marketing Reports, a 2011 study sponsored by Google found that 82% of smartphone users check and send emails with their device. Internet service use with mobile devices is growing exponentially. This is why it’s crucial that a company’s emails are not disregarded by customers and prospects because of poor formatting.

Here are 5 tips for creating and writing email messages with mobile device accessibility:

1. Use the media query CSS style. This will allow companies to create HTML versions and smartphone versions of emails all in one template.
2. Consider carefully the color and type of font of the email message; some colors are harder to see on a small screen.
3. A smaller size font will be necessary, but don’t make it so small that it becomes difficult to read.
4. Scale down any images in the email message.
5. Spread out text with spacing; this will make the email message easier to read and will allow readers to click on any links in the content.

Interested in making sure that your company’s marketing messages are accessible on mobile devices? Our Autumn Consulting team can help your business clarify messages to create web pages and emails that are effective and accessible to mobile device users. We’re a web marketing agency serving Milwaukee and other Wisconsin/Chicago area clients. Contact us today to get started.

5 Web Marketing Strategies for Mobile Devices: Part 1

Nathan Misirian — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:19:41 +0000

Did you know there’s an app for Twitter, Facebook and basically any other social networking channel out there? The reason is simple: Companies know that their tweets and Facebook posts can easily be read by the “on-the-go” American using their smart phone or tablet; however, companies can run into mobile device accessibility problems when their customers and prospects try to access websites and emails that aren’t properly configured to be viewed on mobile devices. The result? Less user engagement and more user upset.

So if your company wants more customer engagement and prospect attraction, be advised: Emails and websites that don’t show up or seem broken can severely lower interest and cause frustration for viewers.

According to Time magazine, global mobile data use nearly tripled between 2009 and 2010 and is expected to increase by a factor of 26 by 2015. This means that people are using mobile devices to access the web more than ever before.

To help you create mobile web pages that allow your company’s eMarketing messages to be read easily on mobile devices, here are five tips:

Avoid requiring users to do a lot of typing and instead, provide large, actionable, clickable features.
Put most of the important information at the top of the web page.
Use images and graphics as little as possible and only when contextually relevant in the web content.
Keep the web page size small (maximum page size is only 20 kb).
Provide links to your other web pages and back buttons for ease of navigation.

Understand Your Web Marketing with Google Analytics

Nathan Misirian — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:29:49 +0000

Google Analytics is a free tool that helps website owners understand their traffic and click-through data. It is a great service, but many companies find it hard to use Google Analytics to create better web content down the line. Autumn Consulting provides its clients with a comprehensive, quarterly Google Analytics report and attaches custom recommendations for more web marketing success.

Our analysis includes:

Traffic Overview. We tell you how many unique visitors your site had, how long they stayed on the site, and how these numbers related to past quarters.
Search Traffic. We show you what percentage of your visitors came through search engines, what percentage through direct traffic, and what percentage through referrals. This will tell you where your web marketing is strongest.
Geographies. We show you a breakdown of where your visitors are from by country, state, or even city. This will help you target your search marketing through paid Google ads or ramp up your sales locations offline.
Keywords. We track your keywords’ performance in Google and show you how they place. This will help you create more exact phrases around the competitions’ language.
Recommendations. Based on a custom-analysis of your site, we tell you where there is room for search-engine boosting strategies.

Autumn Consulting is a Milwaukee web marketing agency with a proven track-record of using the web for qualifying prospects, engaging customers, and clarifying messages.

Twitter Tips for Engaging Your Customers

Nathan Misirian — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:32:29 +0000

A 140 character phrase may not seem like it can considerably impact and engage current customers of your business; however, when tweets are strategically positioned to be part of a social media marketing campaign, they can prove to be an “effective way to reach younger consumers and to help build a brand,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

On the flip side, tweets can poorly represent your business if done incorrectly or without careful consideration.. Tweets can also become a public complaint line for customers, so understanding how to avoid Twitter pitfalls, while engaging customers is crucial.

Here are three crucial ways to avoid Twitter pitfalls:

1. Decide how many people in your business should be authorized to create and produce tweets.
2. Know your customers on Twitter.
3. Write and schedule your tweets ahead of time (using a tool like Hootsuite) to maintain brand consistency and stay current.

If you spread authority too thin by not appointing enough people to the task of tweets, the burden can be overwhelming; however, if you authorize too many people, the risk of mishaps and mistakes multiplies.

Decide what’s right for your business according to the proposed number of tweets per week and who you would like to respond to customer questions and complaints.

The people appointed to create tweets for your business should also have a good understanding of the customers they’re speaking to on Twitter. For example, Michael Bepko, global online community manager for Whole Foods Market, spends a third of his day on Twitter and 90% of that time is dedicated to speaking with individual shoppers.

Now, not every company needs to have someone spending a third of their day on Twitter, but it’s important to find out how much interaction with customers on Twitter is necessary to make your Twitter account a success.

Clarifying marketing messages is the final ingredient for creating effective content marketing. If you’re struggling for where to start, remember: less is more. Focus on one key point and capture it in a short sentence.

Want to learn more about how Autumn Consulting can help your business construct an effective twitter and social media Milwaukee campaign? Contact us today to get started.

Boost Your SEO with Fresh Content Every Month

Nathan Misirian — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:25:52 +0000

Stagnant websites lose out when it comes to impressing Google. The search giant gives preference to sites with a consistent stream of fresh material that prevents the content from becoming outdated.

What qualifies as fresh content? You can take many approaches; from adding paragraphs to your existing copy or updating your marketing language to adding brand-new pages, pictures, and video content, Autumn Consulting recommends that you update your website content on a monthly basis.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few ideas:

Start a YouTube Campaign. Pick your three most important marketing messages and create brief videos around them. Make the videos available via YouTube and also embed them on dedicated new webpages as well.
Do a Competitor Analysis. Do a Google search around your most crucial keywords and analyze the top three web results. What kind of content and language do they offer? Find out what works in your field and write your new marketing language around it.
Take New Pictures. Be creative and update your key pages with fresh and engaging pictures. Think about adding a human aspect to pictures even if the content focuses on equipment.

Autumn Consulting is a Milwaukee web marketing agency that helps with qualifying prospects, engaging customers, and clarifying messages.

Good News: Revamped FISC site grows customer engagement

Nathan Misirian — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:11:19 +0000

Autumn Consulting is pleased to announce the launch of the new FISC (Financial Information and Service Center) website: http://www.fisc-cccs.org/

FISC, a program of Goodwill NCW, is a keen leader and quality provider of financial services for people seeking help, counsel or direction on how to manage their finances.

While FISC’s team of financial experts knew how to counsel customers on making wiser financial decisions, they were also looking to incorporate more user-friendly features for engaging customers who visit the site.

FISC’s Old Homepage

“We wanted to improve the readability of the site and make it easier and quicker for people to find the information they were looking for,” explains Alan Prahl, FISC’s Education and Marketing Leader.

Their vision: A revamped site with new brand messaging, helpful resources and a clean design.

Passionate about working with a nonprofit and growing their marketing message to engage current customers and reach out to new qualified prospects, our Autumn group teamed up with FISC to recreate a site that serves customers from a financial and a usability perspective.

Through a series of collaborative meetings and interviews, Autumn helped create an integrating branding experience through a new content managed system to attract new prospects and further engage existing customers. Content was also rewritten to be more prospect-focused. The homepage is also split into three segments to better meet audience needs: Ask a Financial Counselor, Get Started Now and Learn More.

“The new site is much easier to navigate and more intuitive,” says Prahl. “And visually, it’s much more attractive,“ he adds. A great start to a New Year.

FISC’s New Homepage

Do you think it’s time to update your current website for better company branding and improved search engine visibility? Reach out to us with your current issue and we’ll tailor a unique web marketing plan to help get you moving. Our team of specialized marketers, sales experts, journalists, writers and web/design professionals makes up a Milwaukee web marketing agency that works with different businesses and non-profits.

Click here to view the website revamp we also did for Goodwill NCW.