It’s Easy Going Green!

With fuel prices through the roof, everyone is working to conserve energy and resources.  Here at Omni, we’ve made our studio as energy efficient as possible by installing programmable thermostats, high efficiency air conditioning systems, compact fluorescent lighting and extra insulation in the attic.  So how did we go the extra mile?

Many of our customer convenience innovations are environmentally friendly as well, saving material, time and money:

• Online video proofing: Reduce turnaround time on your project by watching and reviewing your videos online. There are no overnight delivery costs or courier expenses, and everyone saves on the cost of gas normally needed to shuttle videos around for approvals.
• Less printed material: By switching our Omni Productions newsletter from paper to email, we can disseminate timely information even faster while saving trees, eliminating postage and the need to deliver paper copies. We have also replaced most of our printed marketing material–such as brochures and presentation folders–with online versions.
• If you come to our studio for a video shoot, you’ll notice that we have a water filter on the tap in the office so a cool glass of water doesn’t mean another plastic bottle in the trash.
• As another method of reducing waste, we also reuse the cases that CDs and DVDs come in.  You may have received one full of candy at the holidays!

Going green is good for the environment and good for business, and there are lots of ways to update your marketing tools to make them “greener” and more effective, too.  Give us a call to discuss ideas and innovation.

Build Your Own Bailout: Use E-Marketing Tools

(Part 2 of 5) There are hundreds of e-Tools that can help you find prospects and communicate with them, and you will have the best luck with the websites and e-services that have the most members and/or subscribers. It is one thing to cast a wide net when you are fishing for work—but it is even better to cast your net where you know the “fish” are biting.

Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com) can help you manage email lists, develop custom emails, track who opens them and when. This can become a terrific leads list as you learn who is actually getting your message. You can enhance it further by adding web links to your emails that offer readers more information they might be interested in. This will yield a list of contacts who are very interested in what you have to say. Make sure that the information is actually useful to them so you can build up a sense of trust and good will. If every e-mail is nothing more than a sales pitch, it will be viewed as spam and will likely be discarded.

Google AdWords – (www.Google.com) In essence, think of this tool as a Yellow Pages for the 21st century that’s set up like an online auction for prospects. The biggest difference is that it usually costs less, generally yields better results and you can directly track those results. At first, it looks daunting, but it’s actually less complicated than you might think. And with the resources of Google behind it, you can be assured that this method has some staying power.

LinkedIn – (www.linkedin.com) Having a good network is great—but what if you could be connected to all the people that each person in your network is connected to? Have you ever heard of the joke about “7 degrees of Kevin Bacon?” This is the power of LinkedIn and it’s very easy to use. Powerful search tools can tell you if someone you’re connected to works with or has influence with a client you want to do business with. You’d be surprised at how many people you know who are already on LinkedIn.

Keep in mind that all of these tools are most useful when you use them to supply useful information and build up business relationships. Your clients’ inboxes can get pretty full these days, so make sure that want you have to say remains top of mind for whoever reads it.

What is SEO and does it actually work?

If you have a website, you already know that the higher your site ranks on a search engine, the more visits you will get—and that translates into more business. You may have heard a lot about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but wonder if it is worth your time and money, especially if you have an existing site.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing using key words and phrases instead of paid advertising. A well-written, original article can yield search results that will drive customers to your site, while an awkwardly written article stuffed with key words or copy and paste text that plagiarizes another site can actually push your website further down the list of Google search results.

As the business of maintaining a website matures, quality content matters. Consider the following case study.  In 2010, Omni totally redesigned the MediaClone.net website for SEO and the results are telling!

Not only did traffic to the website double, Google searches for disc duplication, VHS to DVD transfers, CD and related searches in the Central Florida market routinely place MediaClone at or near the top of the list.

Since the redesign was installed, Media Clone’s business increased by 80% over the same period the previous year.  Relevant, well-written content is always crucial to a quality website, but there are plenty of programming aspects of SEO that most website visitors might not even notice.

Let Omni take the guesswork out of Search Engine Optimization so your company or organization can focus on the message you want to share with your website visitors. And keep in mind that even if your website isn’t Search Engine Optimized–there’s a good chance that your competitors’ sites are!

For examples of what Omni can do for your website, call us at (407) 281-9087 or click HERE.