Internet Marketing Firm

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. We work with our potential customers to identify potential marketing techniques that will drive new customers, and offer return on investment, in order to provide a custom proposal.

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. You get what you pay for. We're a full service firm with in house production. We're here M-F, are "A" rated with the BBB, and members of multiple chambers of commerce, and Google Adwords Certified Partners, and hold many other distinctions and accolades. We have the tools necessary to produce quality work, with a good turnaround time.

Q. What questions should a consumer ask to hire the right service professional?

A. Here's what to ask potential Marketing Firms:
1) Can I see your portfolio? (A Quality firm should have excellent work to show, and happy customers to give references). For Internet Marketing, you should ask to see results. (If they don't have impressive SEO results from other customers, don't expect them to get any for you!)

2) Can I visit your office? (If they aren't running a real full time operation with different team members to complete work in-house, quality control goes out the window)

3) How long have you been in the field? (You don't want to be a guinea pig, you want to be a client!)

4) What paperwork will you provide me with for my marketing campaign? (If they don't have formal proposals and contracts, how do you know what you'll get when the job is done?)

5) How easy is it to contact a firm if you need them? Do they pick up their phones when you call?

6) What forms of payment do they take? If they don't take credit card, why not? Do they offer financing terms, such as 6 month contracts?

7) How are they rated with the BBB? With their Google Local page?

8) Who will you communicate with? Be wary of companies that send out sales teams, but that don't offer communication with an account manager, creative director, or other staff that know the details of the operation.

9) Will you own the work? There's nothing worse than leasing/renting. At the end, you have nothing, and it winds up costing more in the long term.

10) How long do you have to stay with the firm? Commitments of over 6 months are unusual for most work. What if you're not happy? The firm should have a chance to meet their commitments, but you don't want to over commit. We've all seen a bad breakup when two parties don't know how to call it quits.

11) What programs do you use for design and development? (In order to invest wisely, your marketing pieces should be made using top industry standards.) For instance:

Logos should be Vector files that can be stretched to any size, in case you need them for signage, trade show displays, or other large format printing

Graphic Designs should be created in Layers at High Resolution in Adobe software, such as Photoshop.

Web Designs should be in Adobe software, and should be coded into the newest version of HTML

Programming should be in PHP/MySQL for the best search engine results.

If you want a Content Management System to allow you to easily update your website, you should choose one before starting a design. It's not easy to implement a CMS afterward, and may cause you to need to have the entire site rebuilt.

You should always have a marketing plan before you begin on a website. How do you plan to make money from the website? How will people find it? Is my website designer/developer going to build it in a way that will help it get to the top of Google and the other search engines?

For printing, how experienced is the marketing firm? How many printing vendors do they work with? A good firm has a wide network of printing resources, since different print jobs are better suited for different equipment. It's the best way to make sure you get top quality work at a fair price. Better to have a pro take on the responsibility, because once it's printed, it's printed.

For search engine optimization - do they use Black Hat Techniques? These can actually lower your rankings in the long run. What is the long term strategy of success? If there isn't one... run!

For search engine marketing, who picks the keywords that will be focused on? If you're not in the loop, how do you know that they're the right keywords for your particular business?

These are some of the most important questions to ask, but others are important depending on your particular needs.