Quotes to Live by..

Capabilities

The following is a short list of my most valuable capabilities and expertise. When you hire me, I arrive prepared with powerful specialized knowledge ready to share and help you take action.

Advanced Applied Experience

Internet Sales & Marketing Systems
When you think of it, opening an Internet store and one on a street corner, have a lot in common. The most important thing they both need is good planning and some way of letting the world know they exist. Most people (amazingly even business owners) believe that all they need to get their business on the Internet is a web site. Ironically, these same individuals would never think of opening a brick and mortar storefront business without carefully thinking through the design of the store, putting up signage, advertising or having a grand opening sale. The marketing of a business - either an Internet store or one that is a physical one - starts way before the actual building process. Important thought is first given to what the business is all about, the target client/customer and the product and how the store will look, feel and attract buyers who will pay the price of the products or services offered. Once this is clearly understood, the storefront can be designed and built to achieve the desired goals.

Internet Sales and Marketing Systems are complete business solutions that act similarly to a regular storefront, but with lots of added things you could never do with a physical store. For instance, a good system will allow you to easily measure what parts of your store are visited most, where the visitors are coming from and how they got to you, which products are viewed and for how long and the average length a visitor stays at your site. A good system will also have multiple ways for you to communicate with visitors and for them to communicate back. It will have an effective rich product catalog integrated with an efficient shopping cart to quickly close the sale. And wrapped all around these core components is good rich content. The kind of content that drives sales and search engines love.

I have designed, built and even operated rich and full-functioned Internet Sales and Marketing Systems for a variety of businesses. Not only have I done the planning, design, building and deployment of such business solutions but also the branding and marketing needed to let the world know that they exist. I offer complete solutions that work.

Review some examples of our vertical business experience, in the Industry Solutions section.

Search Engine Optimization / Marketing (SEO / SEM)
A lot of people and businesses already have web sites and now they are realizing that they need something extra so that customers are able to find them. Search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.) are the primary tools people use to perform research on the Internet. Your web site must be tuned to the words your target customers will enter into search engines, otherwise you will not show up when they perform their search.

What is Involved with SEO / SEM?

• Competitive & Product Research
• Keyword Research
• Page Optimization
• Site Submission
• On-going Analysis & Tuning
• Pay-per-Click Risk/Reward Testing & Analysis
• ..and much much more

Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing specialized analytical and tuning process that is absolutely critical to the success of ANY Internet business - you just cannot succeed without it (period) .

I have been doing Internet site optimization and marketing since the early days of the public Internet - way back in 1995. My approach is whollistic and methodical in that I take a complete view of your business, step-by-step from understanding it's intention, target and then develop a Marketing Position Statement that acts as a beacon for all work that follows. There are no shortcuts, but the results can happen quickly and in some cases be quite dramatic. The important thing to remember is that SEO and SEM pays for itself. Yes it does cost money and time to do and it is an unavoidable ongoing expense, but the Return on Investment (ROI) is positive. Moreover, the ROI can sometimes be incredibly huge!

Printed Marketing Collateral Design
Although there was once a lot of talk about the future paperless office and business, this really never happened. Not surprisingly, a lot of people still like the practical portability and durability of paper. That is not to say that a lot of money has not been saved by letting the Internet play the role of the fancy color brochure. Indeed, with the Internet, there can be tremendous savings, but marketing material produced on paper remains a powerful tool for business communication and getting people to your Internet storefront - as well as your physical one. The key to efficiency is to integrate your printed material message with all other aspects of your business.

I regularly design and produce printed marketing material for my clients, including business cards, postcards, brochures, sales sheets and full color sales booklets. I design everything with an eye toward brand consistency and with the aim of driving customers to your Internet and physical storefront.

Internet Communication & Feedback Systems
When your business is on the Internet, a whole set of advantages exist that are almost impossible to achieve in a physical storefront. The ability to write articles, distribute newsletters and offer audio or video are powerful speaking tools that can position you as the business to do business with in the eyes and mind of the buyer. But communication is a two way street and listening is just as important as speaking. Offering convenient multi-faceted ways for the buyer to communicate back to you is absolutely essential to building loyalty and capturing new business.

And as a business owner you want an ability to visualize what parts of your store are visited most, where the visitors are coming from and how they are getting to you, which products are being touched, how long they are being viewed and the average length of a visitors visit. With this information, you can tune your site and product offering for maximum sales.

I have created rich communication and feedback systems that allow businesses to uniquely visualize their sites. Systems that allow businesses to speak clearly and be heard and that allow prospective and existing buyers to speak back to them. My involvement has spanned the full spectrum of content management - from assisting with writing actual copy, publishing articles, audio and video capture and editing for deployment on web sites, BLOGs, PodCASTs and Newsletters. I know how to set up and integrate everything (web sites, BLOGs, PodCASTs, Newsletters) so that the message gets out there loud and clear. And for feedback systems, I specialize in forms design that is used extensively throughout a web site, allowing buyers to efficiently request information about products or services as needed. Buyers and prospects can also become a part of your community, sharing their thoughts and comments about your publication, product and company on your BLOG and PodCAST. And when it comes to gathering specific information about your audience, nothing can replace a well constructed on-line survey or questionnaire - and I have done that too. I can do all of these things and more - and I can do them for you.

Technology / Tools Summary
Here is a summary list of some of the tools I use to make it all happen.

Contact me for a review of your specific project!