SEO/Search Engine Optimization

What is it?
Search engine optimization is a comprehensive technique to move a website “up” in search engine results pages for certain queries or phrases. The vast majority of search users never move past the first page of results (usually 10 listings) – for example, Coca-Cola being listed on the 4 th page of results for the search “best soda pop” would obviously limit their reach & visibility to potential customers. SEO work involves, among many other things, making a site simultaneously user-friendly and “search engine friendly.” Use caution! Some firms or individuals offering SEO services often make guarantees or promises that seem too good to be true – choose wisely.

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Ideal for:

Businesses seeking high visibility & credibility in the minds of potential customers
Companies attempting to gain long-term visibility, especially in a highly competitive market
Firms interested in being viewed as an authoritative source in their field or industry
Can be deployed on both national and regional scales

Other Resources:

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Avoid partnering with the wrong web marketing firm with BĒM Interactive’s free guide to choosing a web marketing partner.

Email Marketing & Newsletter Campaigns

What is it?
Email marketing & opt-in electronic newsletters boast some of the highest purchase rates amongst online shoppers. When customers make a purchase or visit your site and sign up for your company’s newsletter, you immediately have a highly-interested segment of potential customers. By harnessing graphic-rich messages, dynamic content and advanced segmenting tools, newsletters can deliver the right content to the right people. BĒM Interactive’s best-of-breed email management tools boast extremely high deliverability rates and provide a great deal of power & flexibility while still remaining extremely user-friendly.

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Ideal for:

Businesses that want to engage customers and encourage repeat purchases
Maintaining “top of mind” in potential customers
Companies that want brand consistency and close contact with subscribers
Businesses seeking a powerful, CAN SPAM compliant newsletter management system

Other Resources:

BĒM Interactive offers solutions scalable to each client’s needs, from budget friendly small-business services to enterprise-level campaign management.

Mobile Marketing, SMS / Text Marketing

What is it?
As the two worlds of desktop computing and mobile device converge, businesses are taking advantage of consumers’ “need it now” usage of cell phones & smart phones. SMS or text campaigns can alert subscribers of special offers or deals, or provide reminders, news, or other information sent directly to cell phones. Like social network marketing, companies can build brand identity with contests & games, or gather market data by allowing subscribers to vote for their favorite products. BĒM Interactive’s strategic approach to mobile site design, mini-site design, mobile-friendly PPC advertising, and SMS campaign management ensures that your customer base receives the right information and message.

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Ideal for:

Attracting customers through the use of easily-digestible, informative or entertaining content
Maintaining contact with interested subscribers via a SMS or text campaign
Promoting user-friendliness to encourage purchases (IE, a grocery store offering a mobile site where users can shop, choose items, then pick up in-store)
Businesses wanting to promote brand awareness, credibility, and close connection to customers

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PPC Pay-Per-Click Bid Management

What is it?
Pay-per-click (also called “PPC” or “ CPC ” for cost-per-click) advertising is based around sponsored links to your site that typically appear alongside “natural” or “organic” search results in search engines such as Google and Yahoo. These links can consist of a few lines of text, or can include images and even video. Companies bid on which search queries they would like their ads to appear, and are charged every time a user clicks on the ad and arrives at their site – hence the “pay per click” name. However, this relatively simple bidding system can get very expensive when inexperienced advertisers bid on the wrong keywords or don’t craft their ads properly.

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Ideal for:

Quickly gaining visibility near the top of search engine results pages.
Seasonal products or time-sensitive campaigns where SEO may not be effective
Like SEO, can target customers on a national level, down to an individual city
Often used in conjunction with SEO services to extend reach

Other Resources:

Check out BĒM Interactive’s free white paper. Contact us for a free quote.

Social Media & Network Marketing

What is it?
First, some numbers:

MySpace boasts over 200 million users – greater than the population of Russia or Brazil
It’s not just for college kids - currently, Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is the 35 – 55 age group.
An amazing 120,000 blogs are created per day

As everyone knows, community-driven sites like YouTube, Twitter, & Digg have exploded in popularity lately – these user-focused sites, blogs and online profiles, and many other similar portals are referred to as “social networks” or “social media,” and they’ve become an important part of maintaining a cohesive and strong brand identity on the internet. Many companies tend to farm out one person to create a Facebook page or LinkedIn account, but few understand the strategy or techniques behind operating a successful social networking campaign. While it may take a while to see an impact on the bottom line, many companies know that their current customers and millions of prospects use these sites; this is an invaluable and low-cost link to market research & customer feedback.

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Ideal for:

Businesses seeking to build and/or maintain their reputation across the internet
Driving traffic via a frequently updated company blog
Helping move customers from simply being a user of your product to an advocate (the brand is internalized, becomes part of their lifestyle & personality)
Maintaining direct contact with current customers – this connection to the market provides research, ideas, opportunities, and challenges
Attracting new customers and brand followers
Firms willing to invest time into becoming part of a community by offering interesting, exciting, or usable content

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Comparison Shopping Engine Mgmt. & Sites

What is it?
Sites like pricegrabber.com, nextag.com, or Yahoo! Shopping are often referred to as shopping engines, online malls, or price comparison sites. Typically, these sites are not retailers, but aggregators – that is, they accept product listings from multiple retailers and direct visitors to those specific sites, usually charging the retailers using a pay-per-click model. Different shopping engines target different product segments and demographics, so picking the right ones can be difficult. Additionally, most sites require retailers to submit their product listings via a specialized template file – and, of course, each site requires a different format!

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Ideal for:

Online retailers looking to broaden their reach through an already established outlet
Obtaining highly qualified traffic through product listings in extremely specific categories
Online merchants with a medium- to large-product selection that don’t have the time to devote to researching & selecting comparison shopping engines, creating accounts, and formatting a product file for each site