Moving Forward Marketing

Posted in: Blog, Marketing by KangoMedia on January 30, 2010 | No Comments

Every single Rio Grande Valley business that opens is headed for some trouble if they don’t have a marketing campaign. In order to make 2010 your year, you must focus on what your customers want. But wait! How do you get those customers in first place?

One of the biggest questions you must answer before you begin your marketing campaign is: Who is my target market? Consider the following:

• Are they male or female?
• What is their profession, entrepreneur, worker, manager, or a stay-at-home parent?
• What is their income bracket?
• What is their level of education?
• Will my customers be repeat or one time?
• Does my customer surf the web or read newspapers?

Once you have a good picture of who your potential customers are your real work starts. A website is a great marketing tool since you get more bang for your buck. Along with the help of an experienced web designer your campaign will be successful.

Remember the following before you go public with your Internet marketing campaign:

• Keep your campaign consistent with your company. Keep the same colors and logo. Remember, the big dogs in your industry never use different colors or fonts for their logo, it’s who they are and how we recognize them.
• When using banner ads be clear and to the point by using seven words or less. Lets face it, people don’t like to read anymore so let your potential customers know what your product or service is.
• Make friends. There are many social marketing sites that make this very easy such as Twitter and Facebook. Always remember, you are trying to make friends first, not sell them first. Think about how you would act in a social mixer, then apply those same rules to the internet.
• Try pay-per-click advertising. Google Adwords has mastered the art, so check out which keywords your want to appear on, set your budget, and start seeing results.
• Stay fresh constantly. By keeping your website updated and with fresh content, the search engines will see you as an authority with useful information for their customers. The result? You will rank better and increase your traffic.

In today’s market you have to evolve and adapt or get left behind. The Internet and a well thought-out marketing campaign will help you.  Remember who your target market is, understand what they want, and take action by catering to that need. This will make 2010 your year.

Why Your Small Business Needs a Website in 2010

Posted in: Blog by KangoMedia on December 22, 2009 | No Comments

In case you didn’t know, Yellow Pages are out. People are searching for solutions to their problems on the web. Think about it…the last time you looked for a restaurant, where did you look? My bet is that you went to Google, or Yahoo!, or Bing.

Where will people look for your small business? Answer: Online.

I read this post over at outspokenmedia.com that you might want to take a look at and answers the question – Why Your Small Business Needs a Website in 2010.

Contact Forms for Your Website – Why do you need one?

Posted in: Blog, Website Tips by KangoMedia on December 1, 2009 | No Comments

Contact forms are a common fixture on websites today. You probably fill one out at least once a week on other websites. I made a short video that explains what a contact form is, why it is beneficial for you business website, and a few examples on some of our clients’ websites.

Would You Like Flash with That?

Posted in: Blog, Website Tips by KangoMedia on November 19, 2009 | No Comments

While mapping out many of our websites with our clients we often get asked if we can add animation to the site. Many times the requests are for glowing menus, cars that zip by the screen, people that pop out from the corner of the screen to say something, and the list goes on and on.

My answer is always, “Yes, of course we can add that.” And we can. But the question I always follow that up with is, “Should we?”

Now I have nothing against using Flash. It has it’s place and purpose. But now let’s consider some of the pros and cons of using Flash on your website.

Pro: Interactivity

Personally I love visiting well designed and well presented flash websites because they can be so interactive. They can really draw you in with animation. Many times they can be very fun. They usually don’t have to conform at all to most web standards and can utilize all sorts of movies, animation, fonts, and music all over the site.

Pro: Multi Browser-Friendly

Your flash-based site will look the same on all browsers. You won’t have to worry if it will be compatible with all versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, or any other browser your visitors might use.

Con: Availability

A great majority of people on the web now have a flash player installed in their browser and are able to view flash-based websites. But what about those that don’t? Many people, even today, either do not have a flash player installed, or they purposely disable flash from playing in their browser at all. These individuals will not be able to see your site if it developed in flash.

Con: Search Engine Optimization

Search engines index pages based on the META tags found in the head section of a webpage and the content found on the page including headers, titles, and paragraphs. So until search engines are able to index and search content within a flash movie, your flash-based site will just be an empty domain name with a movie playing on it.

Con: Longer Loading Time

How long would you wait for a website to load before giving up and hitting the Back button? A few seconds? Flash-based websites take longer to load and could potentially cause you to lose customers. Keep in mind, there are a handful of people that still use a 56k modem.

Now I am not completely knocking the idea of having a flash website. If you want one, we can make you a very professional one. There are times when that is the best option, like when you absolutely need the interactivity and animation that come with it.

However, many times a similar look and feel can be achieved by mixing HTML with jquery, mootools, or another type of script that allows for animation. If necessary you can also add flash elements, such as a header, an advertisement banner, or a flash menu to the HTML page.

By doing so you will make it much easier for the search engines to find you and index you, and more importantly, for your customers to find you.

How Do You Measure Success?

Posted in: Blog, Website Tips by KangoMedia on November 10, 2009 | No Comments

What makes for a successful website? How do you measure success? What results do you need to see in order to consider your website successful?

These are just some of the questions that you need to have an answer for when considering a website for your business.

A website can be a very powerful marketing tool, but it has to be given a specific goal, or goals.

It can be used to create awareness for your company and establish your brand. Maybe you want to motivate visitors to fill out a contact form, schedule an appointment, call you by phone, or visit your physical location. Maybe you’d like to provide a way for visitors to purchase your product instantly via your website.

Any and all of these actions can be used to measure the success of your website. When these are clearly defined you are that much closer to creating a website that will yield your desired results.