New Jersey Marketing

Your full service ad agency might explain to you a handful of social media tactics that they will claim you should use employ as a strategy. However, its usually more of a bunch of tactics that they want to be paid for rather than a strategy.

But it should always come back to answering why you should be doing this.

Social media strategies involve much more than just putting the accounts together. The members of social media communities want valuable and quality content. If you have that, you will be a trusted source of information for your service/product.

So what exactly does a social media strategy involve? Here are some simple questions you should consider before wildly deploying social media marketing tactics.

• Answer the Question of "Why?": Your social media strategy should fully tell you why you're using a particular tactic. Is it because your audience is there and interacting already? Is it because the potential for branding and exposure is there?
• How to Deploy a Strategy: How do you gain respect in social media? Do you go in guns blazing, or do you sit back and get a feel for what you're about to embark on? Is it an approach of asking questions first and then offering advice? Do you want to ask for submissions from the audience or start by writing valuable content? Your strategy should fully answer these questions before you start.
• Defining Your Goals and Measuring Analytics: How do you know your efforts are doing anything? What is your company expecting as a return on your time and resources spent on your marketing efforts in social media? If there isn't a clear set of goals to be measured for your efforts, how can you justify your tactics? Do you have clear ROI for your social media efforts?
• When to Should You Re-evaluate?: Some New Jersey marketing companies sometimes forget to define when they should re-evaluate their efforts. But what if something isn't working, and you aren't meeting your goals? What if something else is working really well? Set points in your strategy for re-evaluation. Remember, nothing is ever set in stone when it comes to social media marketing.

It's very common to create a MySpace account or Facebook fan page because it's free, easy, and everyone else is doing it. While New Jersey marketing companies should secure accounts on social media sites for their clients or brand names, they shouldn't just devote massive amounts of time to one particular social media marketing tactic just because of the above three reasons.

Implementing social media marketing tactics for any reason without a good strategy in place will ultimately lead to confusion and disappointment in your efforts in the social media game.

If any full service ad agency, public relations agency, or search marketing firm comes to you and says that you need a Facebook fan page without any reason other than that it's new, you need it, and they know how to do it for you, then you might want to stop and ask yourself why you're using that advertising agency.

Sports radio ratings aren’t as high as many people thought.

For big games, ratings shoot way up. But there are only a handfull of big games in any season. For other games, ratings drop way down.

As a result, the radio advertising rates that stations used to get for their live sports coverage have gone down significantly, by about 20% to 30%. Industry sources reveal that some stations radio advertising rates have dropped even more than that.

Some people think that the more accurate the ratings data is, the better it will be for everybody, even if it means stations having to reduce their radio advertising rates.

One such person is Bob Snyder, founder of Beason Broadcast Partners, which consults with sports radio stations and sports franchises on ad sales. He thinks that the more reliable ratings data serves to build credibility with New Jersey marketing companies, advertisers, and retail advertising agencies, making sports play-by-play broadcasts that much more attractive for advertising.

However, others think that the numbers don’t tell the whole story when it comes to play-by-play sports.

Tim McCarthy, senior vice president of radio at ESPN, says that overworked media buyers, who face tons of pressure from clients to get the best deal, only look at the numbers and without taking into account the unique, passionate audience that radio broadcasts deliver.

“What’s the value of a Yankees/Red Sox game or a Bears/Packers game? These are rivalries that have packed arenas for years. They have value. To say no one cares is not true.”

The problem is that radio stations are seeing less radio advertising revenue from broadcasting rights they agreed to pay big dollars for before the more accurate ratings data was released.

Those deals, since they are no longer profitable for the radio station, create a problem for the station's bottom line. However they are still valuable because they set in place a station's position in the market.

Now is the time to invest in radio advertising since the rates have become incredibly low. You can get more air time and reach more people with the same amount of investment, thereby drastically increasing your ROI.

What do you want your online New Jersey marketing campaign to accomplish for you? Are there any reasons why you would not want your pages to be found for your targeted keyword phrases on page 1?

Here are 3 reasons as to why that may be the case.

Is there intent for actual commerce?

Let's say you are the first result.

You should be asking yourself, what is the intent of this keyword phrase? Do the words contained in the keyword phrase give any indication of someone getting ready to spend money on a product/service that you offer?

For example, consider three keyword phrases we would use: Britain O'Connor, co-op advertising, and automotive marketing ideas. The latter 2 phrases give an indication of someone who is getting ready to spend money. The first phrase does not.

If you are targeting a keyword phrase that has questionable intention, there really shouldn't be any reason to be found on page 1. It would be better to target more appropriate phrases instead.

If there's no intent for actual commerce then that keyword phrase isn't helping your online New Jersey marketing efforts.

Traffic Really Matters

If you can have a first page result in position 4, or a second page result in position 12, which would you choose? Is this an obvious choice?

What if the first page choice has 3,300 monthly search queries for its keyword, but the second page choice has 22,200 monthly search queries for its keyword.

Would you still believe that the best choice in this example is the first page result?

According to numbers from Aaron Wall's site, approximately 6% of search users will click on the number 4 result in Google. That's 198 visitors in a month.

And over 1% will click on the number 12 search result. That's 222 visitors per month.

The second choice is now the obvious choice. The higher traffic volume will result in a higher percentage of online conversions.

Smart Searchers Bring Value

The people that click the first result in the SERPs are more often that not less serious than people who go through the first few results or who continue searching onto the second page.

There is something to be said about avoiding people who almost randomly click the first result and who may have impulse control issues.

These may not be the best potential clients for your products/services. For an automotive ad agency, retail advertising agency, or public relations agency like us, we like our clients to be a bit more informed so we can be on the same page when it comes to performance. The searchers who don't just click on the first result but read through a few are usually the more informed people.

A second page result could bring you more serious potential customers, people who are more likely to actually read your website content, understand your products/services better, and be more likely to become a traffic conversion.

This is another example of one of our cable advertising spots. This one is for a local New Jersey car dealership, George Wall.

This spot proves a couple of things. First, not all cable television advertising spots need to have one person screaming over another about their amazing deals in order to be effective. Second, not all cable advertising spots need to cost alot of money. They can be made by utilizing a minimal amount of resources, both human and other. Third, your company's daily business doesn't need to be interrupted with a film crew on site.

Finally, it is a buyer's market in the worlds of both online and traditional media. This small dealership, by adding a 3rd franchise, is expanding, and it needed an affordable way to get it's message out to the local market. In the example of this cable advertising spot, visuals play a vital role in attracting customers to the business. And it is all done at an affordable rate.

Here is the spot:

According to a new study, mobile marketing budgets are going to increase dramatically over the next year. 31% of New Jersey marketing companies anticipate a budget between $100,000 and $250,000 on mobile marketing in 2010, compared to only 22% of New Jersey marketing ccompanies a year ago.

About 13% of New Jersey's best ad agencies plan to spend from $250,000 to $500,000, up from 4% of New Jersey's ad agencies in 2009. More than 15% will have a budget of more than $1 million for mobile marketing campaigns, compared to only 11% a year earlier. 23% are budgeting less than $100,000 and 10% don't even know how much they are going to spend on mobile marketing.

The study also showed that 60% of full service ad agencies that aren't doing mobile marketing yet plan on buying mobile marketing in 2010.

30% of best ad agencies say that mobile marketing has become an integral part of the advertising media mix. Among full service ad agencies that have run mobile marketing campaigns, 78% said that they met campaign goals, while 80% said that they developed internal resources to support mobile efforts.

The proliferation of Google Android-based devices, such as smartphones, should help full service ad agencies, such as a retail advertising agency, an automotive ad agency, or a public relations agency more easily run campaigns across different smartphones.

For many online New Jersey marketing companies, online conversion rates are alot less than what they used to be. But simultaneously there are also some online marketing consultants who have experienced no significant drop in traffic conversions. This is because they have built exceptional subscriber loyalty over some years.

For many online New Jersey marketing companies, the biggest problem is email advertising deliverability. Email advertising is being filtered so heavily today that often less than 20% of a large mailing list gets delivered.

However, there are a few ways you can improve your email deliverability. One such way is to run it through a spam checker before sending it out. The best email advertising programs have built in systems that give you spam scores before sending your email out. So, for example, let's your email scores higher than a 1 on a 5 point scale, you should probably revise your email.

Also, a business totally dependent upon email advertising is not a very solid business. Businesses need a database that has not only names and email addresses, but physical mailing addresses as well. That way, if something apocalyptic ever happened in the world of email or the internet, they could just start using direct mail and still be in business.

Many ISP's now monitor email delivery rates, bounce rates, and even open rates. They use readily available data, and if a given ISP or third party list host has a dismal record, they may block all emails from that source.  If ISPs are blocking sources that send out alot of emails that have very poor open rates, some online marketers may have to move to a different outlet.

For example, a business could start marketing through various social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace, and even build a larger email database. Businesses could use these social networking sites in much the same way that email is used. They can send direct communication messages with product/service offers, discounts, value deals, etc. And, since social networking sites are free to use, businesses will save money.

In the last post, I wrote about optimizing your website to tell Google and your visitors where you are and what you do. But another important online place where it's absolutely critical to clearly identify where you are and what you do is your local business profile on Google Maps, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local.

Your Categories

In Google Maps, you can categorize your business in up to 5 categories. They may be standard categories that are provided by Google Maps or those that you can create yourself. Use 1-2 of the standard Google Maps categories that best fit your business, and then create 3-4 that contain your best keyword terms plus the geography terms for which you want to be found.

For example, as a New Jersey marketing company, we classify ourselves in the already established categories of Advertising, and Marketing. For our other four categories we use the top keyword phrases for which we want to be found, such as cable advertising, outdoor advertising, radio advertising, print advertising, traditional media advertising, or automotive ad agency.

The categories you choose may be based on any criteria that are important to you. Some suggestions are your most profitable procedures or the categories in which your strongest competitors have categorized themselves. The categories may also be based on some other criteria known only to you.

Use geographic terms in your categories in order to make it completely clear to Google where you do business. Using the names of nearby areas may also help your site rank better for those searches. For example, our office is in Westfield, NJ, but most searchers use "New Jersey" or "NJ" in their queries, so we use New Jersey terms in our categories instead of Westfield terms.

However, Yahoo Local and Bing Local do not allow you to create your own categories. So you must choose as many categories as you are allowed, picking the most appropriate and most important first.

Your Descriptions

Also use geography terms within the description area of your profiles, where you have complete control of what is written. These descriptions are crawled and indexed by the local spiders, so make certain they find your most important geographic terms within them.

Your Attributes

Attributes (only in Google Maps) allow you to go crazy with terms to tell spiders and humans what you do and where you do it. You can, in essence, create and name a field whatever you want and then populate it with terms describing that property.

Almost every business pulls people from both its immediate location and surrounding areas. So, you could create a field named Locations Served and list the towns and neighborhoods near you and from which your business typically draws customers.

Some business, like plumbing, carpet cleaning, lawn care, and pet sitting go to the customer instead of customers coming to them. For a business like this, you could title a field Service Areas and list the places where you are willing to travel to provide your services.

You can also include attributes that allow you to use keyword terms that contain geographic modifiers. For example, if you have an advertising agency in New Jersey, you could create a field titled New Jersey Marketing Services and populate it with terms like "New Jersey marketing", "traditional media in NJ", "best ad agency NJ", "online marketing consultants NJ", "public relations NJ", and "New jersey retail advertising agency". This is an effective way to help you rank for long-tail terms that apply to where you are and what you do.

Your Coupons

Although not every business type has been traditionally associated with coupons, creative entrepreneurs are finding ways to use them to their benefit. Nearly every business can offer some sort of discount or value-added coupon for its goods or services. For inspiration you can look around to see what your competitors are doing with coupons. Then, when you create your coupons, include your best keyword terms plus your location in the offers.

It's highly likely that attributes from Google Maps Local Business Listings and coupons from all of the platforms are pushed out to other places on the Web, such as Google Base and coupon Web sites, so the impact can be very far-ranging.

Local business listings are designed to help searchers find businesses in particular geographic locations. Make it easy for Google Maps, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local to tell where you are and what you do to increase the odds they will find your business when a relevant search is made.

What and where? These are the two big questions that must be answered over and over again in local SEM.

Local searchers ask these questions implicitly and explicitly. In some cases, geo-terms are used and in other cases they aren't. For example, search queries can be "best ad agency in NJ," "cable advertising NJ" or simply "best ad agency" or "cable advertising."

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo want to know the same things about your business that searchers want to know. Where is it and what products/services does it offer?

Are you answering these critical questions for your potential sales leads as well as the search engines?

Many times local businesses choose online marketing consultants based on the attractiveness of the websites they create without giving any thought to SEO. Even those website designers who know how to help with search rankings are rarely knowledgeable enough about the specifics of ranking for local search. As a result, the local business owner ends up with a beautiful website that never ranks for competitive keywords or attracts any new customers.

By following a few simple tips and tricks, you can prevent this from happening to your online marketing investment.

Your Home Page

You need to make it clear to people who land on your page what you do and where you do it. Simply because everyone in New Jersey knows where Broad Street is, it doesn't mean that everyone who sees a Broad Street address on your website will know that you're in New Jersey. The searcher may be entirely new to the area or just passing through, which may be the reason why someone may be searching for your business in the first place.

So, if you're a New Jersey marketing firm, don't expect people to look around to find that information on your site. Say it clearly near the top of the page and do it in text form, that way it is unmistakable to the search engines as well as to the searchers. Don't assume anything! It's important to make this information so clear that it can't possibly be misunderstood.

Your Page Title

This is the most important ranking factor for SEM. And if that isn't enough of a reason, then think about it from the human point of view.

Google displays the page title as the headline in the listing that appears for your pages in the SERPs. If someone is for searching for "marketing companies new jersey" and the headline they see in the search results says "THE Best of the Best Marketing Companies in NJ," it'll grab their attention much better than a headline that says "marketing company".

Google will also bold the words that were in a search query in the title when it appears on the page. So, for example, if a searcher in Central NJ asks for "co-op advertising" and your page title says "The Co-Op Advertising Professionals in Central NJ", then your title will look like this to the searcher: "The Co-Op Advertising Professionals in Central NJ".

Your Meta Tags

Along with your page title, these are also displayed in the SERPs. Meta tags are like the ad copy that entices people to click on your listings and go to your website.

Much like the page title, if your meta tags have the terms used in the search query then Google will bold these words on the SERPs. If the tags don't contain the keyword phrase that was used in the query, then Google will pull a snippet off the page that contains that phrase.

It's important to use your best keyword terms in your meta tags because, even though they may not help your pages to rank, they will likely encourage searchers to click through to your site.

In my next post, I will give more tips and tricks on how to clearly tell the search engines and the searchers where you are and what you do.

There are many advertising agencies out there.  Some are industry specific agencies, such as an automotive ad agency, or a retail advertising agency.  Others are agencies that work in any industry.  Depending on your preferences, you can go with either one.  But finding a full service ad agency with good online marketing consultants should be a little bit of a process.  It is a lot like shopping for a car.  You definitely don’t buy the first car that you see.  You shop around, look for the best deal, the best prices, and the best product.  Well, you should go through that same process for hiring the best ad agency as well.

First of all, you should find out whether the advertising agency actually does search engine optimization, or if they just claim to do so but do something else in reality.  I know that some New Jersey marketing companies claim to perform SEO services, but instead they just buy the sponsored links at the top of the search results page.  Anyone can do that, you don’t need an SEO consultation firm to do that for you.  The whole point of SEO is improving organic search results, that is to say, all the search results that come underneath the sponsored links.  Improving organic search results has nothing to do with buying sponsored links from Google or Yahoo.

Secondly, you’ll want to find out if the full service ad agency only offers SEO services, or if they also offer all other types of internet marketing services.  The other types of online marketing are SEM – search engine marketing (that’s where the buying of sponsored links comes in), email advertising, website design, website development, and pay-per-click (PPC, sometimes referred to as CPC, or cost-per-click).  The best ad agencies even do their own website hosting.  A great internet marketing campaign will utilize all aspects of internet marketing, not just one.

Your website will probably be the most important and powerful marketing tool that you’ll have, so make sure that your advertising agency is on the same page as you when it comes to long term success.  And as when dealing with any salesperson, pay attention to how your questions are being answered (are they actually answering your questions or just beating around the bush), ask for references, and most of all, trust your gut (human intuition exists for a reason).

Local SEO – search engine optimization is much simpler than general SEO. Here’s why. Take for example our company, BOC Partners. We describe ourselves as a New Jersey marketing firm rather than just simply a marketing company. This is because it is much simpler to win local keywords rather than generalized keywords for which there is much more competition.  The number of marketing companies in the world is much greater than the number of marketing companies here in New Jersey.

If you own a mom and pop pizza shop, there is no way in hell that you are going to win the keyword “pizza”. The huge corporate chains will always have monopolies on those words. So, your goal must be to win the keywords that are specific to your locale. After all, if you’re located in Central Jersey, then someone in Northern California will not care about your pizza shop. You should try to win over the keywords that specify your locality so you can bring in new business from around your area. But the challenge here is to define your parameters.

In order to define your geographic parameters, you should identify where you are already getting business from. Let’s say that everyone in your town already comes to your pizza shop for all their pizza needs. But if you go one level broader, let’s say your township, you can still do much better. So you should then run your SEO campaign for your township. You should simply run your marketing campaign for the market that you are not winning. In our case, we try to win the keywords with the localities of New Jersey and Central Jersey.

Of course this means that your website will receive much less traffic than if you were to win the keyword “pizza”, since “pizza” will be utilized by everyone in the entire country, or maybe even the world; but the rest of the country is not your concern when it comes to selling pizza. You’re trying to win over you own geographic location. So the overall general traffic to your website might be less, but the precision of targeting your locality will result in more business.

Co-op advertising has been around since there has been print advertising, and it remains strong even in today’s world of television advertising and online marketing.  Co-op advertising is a common advertising practice used by manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers and distributors.  It enables products/services to be highlighted in regional and local advertising. 

Think of amusement parks, like Six Flags here in New Jersey.  They always have some sort of promotion through Coca-Cola, such as "buy one get one free" or "half-price tickets" with a coke can.  Coca-Cola enjoys the endorsement of its products by Six Flags, while Six Flags get extra special pricing on product purchases. More importantly, since the advertising specifically mentions both Six Flags and Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola will help offset the cost of the co-op advertising campaign by jointly paying for the co-op advertising with Six Flags.

As traditional media marketers and online marketing consultants, we run both traditional and online co-op advertising campaigns.  Don't have the capital or resources to advertise the way you want to?  Sign up for our mutually beneficial co-op advertising program.  We'll offset your advertising costs while also advertising your business.

For more info on co-op advertising, click here.

Call us at 877-876-2995!  Or visit our website or our other blog.

Everybody these days is jumping on the “green” bandwagon.  Want to save a tree?  Want to contribute to saving the rainforests while still being able to market your business with the targeting precision of direct mail campaigns?  Then how about email advertising.  Email advertising has all the targeting advantages of direct mail, but it’s completely paperless and even more precise.  As such, it costs a lot less and reaches a much greater targeted audience, maximizing your ROI.  And our email advertising techniques make it easy to build lists of potential customers who either respond to your emails or fill out forms on your website, allowing you to bridge the divide between marketing and sales.

Advertise through email with us!  Call us at 877-876-2995, or visit our website, or our other blog.

Our advertising agency is one of the only New Jersey marketing firms that doesn't just advertise to anyone and everyone.  We target specific people, such as the people that would be interested in your product/service.  This way you can maximize your ROI.

Direct mail campaigns are another great marketing strategy that target your specific customers, but based on a different concept.  You can target previous customers for repeat business, or you can target entirely new customers based on the psychographics and demographics of your existing customers.  This way you can target the direct mail to potential customers who are almost exactly like your past customers, so you know that they’ll be interested in your product/service.  And the vast amount of bulk direct mail also allows you to perform a statistical analysis of responses, allowing for even better and optimal targeting in the future.

Thinking of running a direct mail campaign?  Call us!  877-876-2995.

We consider ourselves one of the best, if not the best ad agency in New Jersey.  This is because we are able to utilize our tried and true methods that have been around for a long time while still adapting to the changes brought about with the onset of the future.  One of our tried and true marketing campaigns is print advertising.  How many people read newspapers/magazines/periodicals each and every day?  You guessed it, a whole lot. 

Print media is the oldest form of communications technology and as such it is also the oldest medium for advertising.  Through print advertising the targeting of your customers becomes incredibly easy.  All we have to do is place your ads in any print medium which your customers specifically read, or any industry specific magazines such as Car and Driver (for car nuts) or Game Informer (for video game jocks).  And our in house artists can create any advertisements that are to your liking.

Want your business to be advertised in a print medium?  Call us at 877-876-2995!

When it comes to broadcast communications, we’re very well vertically integrated.  We work with all broadcast media such as radio advertising, cable advertising, and general television advertising.  We have connections with many different radio stations and cable stations to get any ad placed.  We also create commercials and advertising that can be seen or heard on any TV station or radio outlet.  And even though we're located in New Jersey, we do alot more than just New Jersey marketing.  We can work with anyone, anywhere in the country.

Advertising on mass media outlets serves an important function for any business, and that function is branding.  Branding gets your name out there and adds legitimacy to your business in the eyes of the public.  Are you looking to be branded through top-notch commercials?  Want more people to know about your business? Give our full service ad agency a call (877-876-2995) and we'll figure out a plan for you.

BOC Partners, Inc. is a privately held advertising agency located at 1030 South Ave West, Westfield, NJ.  For the most part, we act as an aggressive retail advertising agency and provide marketing solutions to the most demanding of advertisers. One of our areas of expertise is the automotive sector as we work with many large retail automotive dealerships. For 25 years BOC Partners has been winning over the likes of this category of business, which provides BOC the resources to handle just about any advertiser for any industry. The volume of work and demands of "turn on a dime" deadlines gives BOC Partners the skill set to handle almost any task.

In the past 3 years BOC Partners has been called upon to provide its experience to other retail markets including professional services, consumer electronics, home improvement and real estate, financial institutions, as well as B to B (business to business) accounts. We specialize in both traditional media (print media, direct-mail advertising, broadcast communications, etc.) and online marketing (search engine optimization and marketing, email advertising, web site design, traffic analysis, etc.).  Both our internet marketing campaigns and traditional marketing campaigns serve one end goal, increasing our clients’ sales; because as we all know, at the end of the day, sales are the only thing that matter (well, to businesses anyway).

Need assistance with your advertising strategy?  Call us 877-876-2995!

Welcome to BOC Partners, Inc.  A unique advertising agency that specializes in both traditional media and online marketing. We consider the term “Ad Agency” a little outdated …like a description used 10 to 20 years ago (think Daren Steven in Bewitched). Our focus is on building traffic, be it showroom traffic, phone traffic, or online traffic. But traffic is only the beginning. We not only practice the art of traffic building, but also the art of increasing conversions while focusing on quality. Located right in the middle of New York City and Philadelphia, we are sitting in two of the top markets in the country, but our great ideas and the best tracking techniques will work anywhere. 

Our agency principles have been around for 25 years and that kind of tenure brings the tried and true type of experience that your business can benefit from.  We’re not like most marketing companies; we’re more like a consulting firm.  We don’t advertise in all arenas just because we can.  We’ll figure out what’s best for you, where you can reach the most potential customers, and attack any target marketplace for maximum return.  We’re like the military of the marketing world.  Research, strategy, planning, and execution…mission accomplished.

BOC Partners provides marketing management, creative design, media buying, SEO, and a lot of other proprietary cool things to make your business successful.  We focus on all the primary advertising verticals such as outdoor advertising, print advertising, radio advertising, and television advertising.  We're even online marketing consultants.  Best of all, all of our solutions are measurable and chances are they out perform 4 of the 5 techniques that you are currently using.  We don’t like tooting our own horn (as you can tell by this paragraph), but we are the best at what we do.  Everybody seems to be blogging these days, so we figured we’d start too.  Besides, we think we have a lot to share with the world, well at least the business world anyway.  If you would like to consult with us, call us at 877-876-2995.