Scorpion Wins 11 Internet Advertising Competition Awards, Named Outstanding Advertising Developer

  April 05, 2016 --

Valencia, CA (PRWEB) April 05, 2016

Internet marketing company Scorpion swept the 2016 Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) Awards, receiving 11 awards for websites it designed and developed. As the honoree with the second-highest number of awards, Scorpion was named one of IACs Outstanding Advertising Developers for 2016. The winning entries and information about the competition can be viewed on the IAC Awards website (http://www.iacaward.org).

The awards recognize excellence in online advertising, particularly in the areas of creativity, innovation, impact, design, copywriting, use of the medium, and memorability, according to the IAC Awards website. The entries, which spanned all forms of online advertising, were reviewed by independent expert judges. This is the fifth year in a row that Scorpion has been honored with Best and Outstanding website awards in the IAC Awards.

Here are the 11 IAC awards Scorpion received for 2016:

Best Health Care WebsiteDeer Lodge Medical Center - dlmed.org

Best Legal WebsiteBailey Peavy Bailey Cowan Heckaman, PLLC - bpblaw.com

Best Medical WebsiteTurning Point, Inc. - turningpointnj.org

Outstanding WebsiteThe Buncher Law Corporation - buncherfamilylaw.com

Outstanding WebsiteTutor Doctor - tutordoctor.com

Outstanding WebsiteFive Star Painting - fivestarpainting.com

Outstanding WebsiteDavid Finn, P.C. - dallascriminallawyer.com

Outstanding WebsiteDobrish Michaels Gross LLP - dmglawny.com

Outstanding WebsiteSchimmel & Parks - spattorneys.com

Outstanding WebsiteWildlife Lawyers, a Division of Feldmann Nagel, LLC - wildlifelawyer.com

Outstanding WebsiteMountain View Regional Hospital - mountainviewregionalhospital.com

In addition to being beautifully designed and expertly branded, Scorpion websites are also built to include optimal speed, functionality, and search engine-friendliness. Scorpion combines its expertly designed websites with competitive Internet marketing and advertising campaigns to help clients improve their online visibility and attract more business.

Other awards that Scorpion has received over the years include WebAwards, MobileWebAwards, The Communicator Awards, W3 Awards, AVA Digital Awards, and eHealthcare Leadership Awards. In addition to that, Scorpion is one of less than 35 companies to be selected as a Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner, meaning it has been identified by Google for its expertise in assisting small and medium-sized businesses with their AdWords campaign management.

To learn more about Scorpions awards, visit http://www.scorpion.co/awards.

About ScorpionScorpion provides award-winning websites and Internet marketing campaigns that help clients reach the right online audience and attract more business. Scorpions services include website design, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, online reputation management, social media marketing, video advertising, and more. Over the past 15 years, Scorpion has managed thousands of campaigns and delivered millions of leads across North America. As one of Americas fastest growing private companies, it has been named on the Inc. 5000 list each year since 2011. The company has also among a small group of companies to be chosen as a Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner. For more information about Scorpion, visit http://www.scorpion.co.

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Source: Scorpion Wins 11 Internet Advertising Competition Awards, Named Outstanding Advertising Developer

Xcellimark Launches Custom MLS Real Estate Marketing Website System for Real Estate Agents & Brokers

Xcellimark launches the ultimate real estate marketing website

(PRLEAP.COM) April 4, 2016 - Orlando digital marketing agency Xcellimark recently launched a robust custom MLS real estate marketing website system for real estate agents and brokers that includes more powerful search features than other real estate marketing sites on the market.

The website system allows real estate agents and brokers to build out individual area, community, and neighborhood pages that feature properties within specific locations in the city they primarily sell in. These pages offer buyers and sellers more information about properties for sale in the area (than most of the other large MLS websites on the Internet) and are optimized for search engines.

This helps the real estate website have a better chance of coming up in search results when buyers are searching for properties in particular communities and neighborhoods.

Additional features of the custom MLS system include:

Mobile-friendly layout for easily viewing properties on your phone or co ntacting a real estate agent on-the-go

Customizable city, community and neighborhood website pages and property listings to increase SEO exposure while also providing a better search experience for the user

In-depth information on each property, including fees, pet rules, community features, amenities and more

Larger property photos to give potential buyers a more detailed look at the property

Detailed advanced search capabilities

Ability to organize property listings by categories such as communities, cities, neighborhoods, golf, condo, waterfront, new communities, etc.

MLS listings that update everyday and include sold properties to help give buyers and sellers an idea of what is selling

Integrated blog to publish helpful articles about the area

•Integrated analytics that shows real estate agents exactly which pages and listings a visitor who has filled out a form is viewing and how they came to your website – providing you with a more complete profile of the potential client before you even talk to them

Ability for website visitors to save their favorite properties and share, print or email them as a custom portfolio of homes

Integrated mapping and directions to homes in the MLS

Ability for real estate agents to customize which areas, properties and property details are listed on their website

Optional integrated marketing automation, email marketing, social media publishing integration, and CRM

"We built a real estate marketing administration system that makes it very easy for realtors to add the information their buyers and sellers want. Agents have the capability to add community pages, PDFs, blog articles, and content offers such as guides and eBooks for visitors to download. The website visitors get more detailed information on the properties and communities than other MLS systems including Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, and Homes.com. The realtors get more actionable intelligence on the people using their website and the tools that help them market, sell and support their buyers and sellers more effectively," said Scott Lambert, President of Xcellimark.

A real estate agency that has experienced stellar results from this real estate website marketing system is Melinda and Paul Sullivan's BonitaNaplesRealEstate.com. After going live with their new website, their community and neighborhood pages began ranking on the 1st page o f the search results for Google, Yahoo and Bing. They receive leads every week and have converted 95% of the qualified visitors to real estate clients.

"Xcellimark listened to what I needed in a website and created ways to actually make that happen. Everything about the site had SEO in mind. My site is now making it's way up to the first page and the top of the first page on most search engines," said Melinda Sullivan, Sullivan Realty's Owner and Lead Realtor.

To learn more about how to benefit from the most comprehensive real estate marketing website available, contact Xcellimark for a tour of the system and discover the robust marketing, sales and administration capabilities available to you.

About XcellimarkXcellimark is an award-winning digital marketing agency that focuses on growing their clients business through an inbound marketing approach that includes custom web design and integrated search engine optimization, social media, email and content ma rketing solutions. The result is a more impressive brand image, higher inbound traffic, more qualified leads and greater customer growth.

Source: Xcellimark Launches Custom MLS Real Estate Marketing Website System for Real Estate Agents & Brokers

4 Reasons Ecommerce Marketing Campaigns Fail

Not every social media post, or email message, or advertisement will perform. In fact, marketing campaigns and tactics often fail. So the goal is not necessarily to avoid failure. The goal, instead, is to learn from failures.

To paraphrase a famous line from a nearly 250-year-old Robert Burns' poem, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." You might have had the most creative content, the best pictures, maybe you even had some compelling data backing up your strategy, but marketing still fails sometimes.

In this article, I will list common reasons an ecommerce marketing campaign might fail. As you review your own marketing, look for these mistakes, and avoid them.

1. You Expected Too Much

"There is no business function top executives worry about more than marketing," wrote author and professor Thomas V. Bonoma in a 1989 Harvard Business Review article. "Most of them look at the marketers in their companies as something between vacuum-cleaner salespeople and saviors….Performance is not an absolute thing. The success of a marketing campaign has a lot to do with the top management's expectations versus results obtained."

This is, perhaps, true even for small ecommerce businesses wherein the top executive is also the chief marketer. We sometime set up our marketing campaigns to fail. We set expectations that might be unachievable.

This Shopify tale of marketing success is a good read and an inspiration, but be careful that you don't set your marketing goals so high that you cannot help but fail.

Last year, the folks at Shopify published a post about an online business they started. Shopify's marketing department was able to pick a product, build a site, and generate more than $900 in sales in just three days.

This is a good example of what can be done. But at the same time, do not set your expectations quite this high if you are starting a business. Part of Shopify's success came from a personal connection that would be hard to reproduce in a typical marketing campaign.

"Fortunately for us, one member on the team had a friend who is a curator at Product Hunt. By reaching out to them, he was able to get Hello Matcha [Shopify's product] out of moderation and on the site for voting. This proved to be extremely impactful as Product Hunt drove over 900 visitors to Hello Matcha," Richard Lazazzera wrote in the Shopify article.

For your marketing campaigns, set realistic expectations that match real business goals.

2. You Had the Wrong Product or Offer

Imagine a national, omnichannel retail chain based in Tennessee, where on a typical morning the humidity is above 80 percent. This retailer gets a terrific buy on small, lightweight dehumidifiers. The retailer launches a national email campaign, including sending about 10,000 messages to customers in and around Yuma, Ariz., where, on a typical morning, the humidity might be as low at 20 percent.

This campaign, or at least the portion of it aimed at Yuma, is likely to fail because the retailer is offering a product that doesn't make sense for the target customers. Folks in Yuma are more likely to buy humidifiers, not dehumidifiers.

You might have similar failures if the offer price is wrong, the season of the year is wrong, or even if the way a product is presented is wrong.

Remember that the advertising, the emails, and the social posts can get a potential customer's attention. But you must make a compelling offer to close the sale. Folks tend not to buy bikinis in the dead of winter or umbrellas when the sun is shining.

3. You Did Not Reach Your Prospect

If you shout in an empty room, you may make an echo, but you are not communicating.

Sometimes ecommerce marketing campaigns fail because we fail to share them with our customers and prospects. We fail to put the message in front of the right folks. This can happen in a few ways.

You advertised in the wrong places.

You picked the wrong keywords.

You did not run the campaign long enough.

Part of the challenge with marketing is putting the message in front of the audience. Make certain that your campaigns properly target your best potential customers.

4. Your Tactics Did Not Match Your Goals

If you visit the Lane Bryant website, you might encounter a modal popup. Recently, this popup described a 20-percent off a future purchase when you subscribed to Lane Bryant's email messages.

This modal ad is, perhaps, a great marketing tactic if your goal is to get new email subscribers, but it might not work so well if your goal is short-term sales.

This tactic, seemingly, will increase the number of email subscribers on Lane Bryant's list, which is good, if, in fact, that was the goal. Instead, what if Lane Bryant's marketers had said that the goal for this tactic was to boost sales by, say, 40 percent in the next three days. Would that make sense? Probably not.

The point is that sometimes marketing campaigns fail because we use the wrong tool or tactic for the job.

Source: 4 Reasons Ecommerce Marketing Campaigns Fail

Rhode Island marketing official resigns over botched tourism video

PROVIDENCE, R.I. –  The state's top marketing official, who oversaw the disastrous rollout of a tourism campaign that included a video mistakenly featuring a scene from Iceland, resigned on Friday.

Gov. Gina Raimondo said she accepted Betsy Wall's resignation and added that the state would drop part of a new logo, the tagline "Cooler & Warmer." The tagline was designed by Milton Glaser, creator of the iconic "I Love NY" logo, but it left many people scratching their heads.

Raimondo, a Democrat, said it was unacceptable how many mistakes were made in the tourism campaign rollout and people need to be held accountable.

"As I dug into it a little bit and realized just how poor of a job was done, I got pretty mad myself," she said. "These were sloppy, just unacceptable mistakes."

The video was part of a $5 million integrated campaign to attract tourism and business.

The video, which briefly showed a skateboarder in front of the Harpa concert hall in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, was mocked on social media and made international news. Embarrassed state tourism officials quickly yanked it off YouTube on Tuesday.

The Iceland mistake was one of several controversies that dominated discussion in Rhode Island since the tourism campaign rolled out Monday. The scrutiny of the video led to the discovery of numerous errors and outdated material on a newly redesigned tourism website that said Rhode Island is home to 20 percent of the country's historic landmarks — instead of less than 2 percent.

Raimondo said the state was getting back $120,000 spent on the campaign: $100,000 for work by a marketing firm that has coordinated the effort and $20,000 for the cost of the video by a subcontractor.

Many residents also were unhappy about the new state logo and the "Cooler & Warmer" motto. Raimondo said the motto would be dropped because it "seems to not ring true for the people of Rhode Island."

But she defended Glaser's visual design and praised how Rhode Island residents have been adapting the sail-shaped logo with their own interpretations, many poking fun at the campaign or making earnest nods to favorite local places or products.

Raimondo had picked Wall just over three months ago to lead the campaign.

Wall lives in Massachusetts and led its tourism bureau until last year. She made an embarrassing admission during an interview with WPRO-AM during the week when she acknowledged she was unfamiliar with Gaspee Days, a popular local festival.

Wall earlier this week said she took primary responsibility for the rollout mistakes.

"These are small elements of a large marketing program," she said. "I know it's creating a lot of laughs and emotion, but this is a 2-second error. This was not an attempt to deceive people or embellish. This was a mistake."

The video editing company took responsibility for the Iceland mix-up. The state's economic development agency, the Rhode Island Commerce Corp., said it shared the blame since it hired the vendor.

Two of Raimondo's communications officials said they noticed an unfamiliar scene in the video before the rollout but were assured all scenes were filmed in Rhode Island.

Source: Rhode Island marketing official resigns over botched tourism video

Adobe unveils cross-device marketing, tie-up with ComScore

That opens the door for cross-device marketing from a centralized solution.

Adobe has launched a membership network for brands to share ideas about understanding their consumers, and delivering personalized experiences across devices at scale.

Today's digital marketing efforts focus on IP addresses and Internet cookies and have failed to establish authentic and intelligent connections with every consumer.

Discover New Customer Insights: With call intelligence in Adobe Analytics, including what's said in conversation, what Web pages are driving calls, and what campaigns are converting via the phone, marketers can discover new insights about what's working to drive customer engagement. The research found that nearly 90% of millennials switch devices when engaged in an online activity, while 66% of device owners find it irritating when content is not synchronised across their devices.

Adobe now has similar partnerships with both of the giants in TV and online video measurement, something that would seem to cause a little friction.

All co-op members are required to link to an Adobe-created centralized privacy tool to allow users to opt-out their devices.

Co-op members will give Adobe access to cryptographically hashed login IDs and HTTP header data, which Adobe says hides a consumer's identity. This new network will help the globally well-known brands to work in harmony in order to identify customers across various digital touch points. She searches for hotels on the Acme app on her tablet, arrival date May 1. Consumers will have privacy controls that exceed industry standards. "Visualizing customer behavior has always been at the heart of what we do, and our bi-directional Adobe integrations enable brands to analyze underperforming segments, fix leaky conversion funnels, and increase customer loyalty and lifetime value, to name a few examples".

"The challenge was connecting and integrating those APIs and enhancing them", said Mellor. The offering combines "Adobe's advertising, analytics, data management, ad campaign, and personalization engines with the video playback, ad insertion, and DRM capabilities of Adobe Primetime", says Jeremy Helfand, vice president of Adobe Primetime.

Asa Whillock, product manager, Adobe Marketing Cloud, said Adobe functions as a steward of data in the co-op and each member has a piece of the data puzzle. Adobe offers a unified approach in creating a direct relationship with the consumer.

Vidyard, the leading video marketing and video analytics platform for business, today announced a new suite of integrations with Adobe Marketing Cloud to help the companies' shared customers expand their use of video content and audience engagement analytics to attract, engage, qualify and convert more customers.

Adobe's Marketing Cloud Growth Partner of the Year award recognizes a top-performing partner for their success in driving joint opportunities, year-over-year growth, and commitment to technical innovation.

The company, which will outline its enhancements at its Summit conference in Las Vegas, is also pivoting the Marketing Cloud to focus more on customer experiences.

Source: Adobe unveils cross-device marketing, tie-up with ComScore

Internet Marketing Company fishbat Discusses Facebook Instant Articles For All Publishers And Brands

TRIBECA, N.Y., April 1, 2016 /PRNewswire-iReach/ fishbat is a leading Long Island marketing company which combines proven digital marketing strategies that include search engine optimization (SEO), digital ads, and social media optimization (SMO) to help businesses increase profits and expand brand awareness.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160331/350183

The need to have the latest news right at our fingertips is increasingly prominent in today's society. The integration of social media with news outlets is a great way to help keep users connected no matter where they are. To better accomplish this, Facebook opened up their Instant Articles feature from a select group of brands to all publishers.

Instant Articles allows publishers to post directly through Facebook's own network rather than simply sharing something as a link on their timeline, which ultimately results in rapid loading speeds. Because of this increase in speed, users don't have to wait for articles to load and can read them faster than ever before.

Publishers are also given full control over the content, including the look and style of the page, custom advertisements or endorsements, and access to analytics tools. All of these features combine to make the new distribution platform a highly viable one for any brand to utilize in order to maximize exposure and share content to a social network full of potential consumers.

As this feature continues to expand, eventually personal sites, blogs, and even other social platforms will be able to publish through Facebook's built-in News Feed. For brands, this increases reach to Facebook users and non-users alike as anyone can share the instant articles to other channels.

How can your brand benefit from the new Instant Articles feature? Find us on Facebook and let us know!

fishbat is a full-service online marketing company and social media agency dedicated to connecting all types of businesses with their target audiences in the most effective and efficient way. Through innovative strategies in social media management, search engine optimization (SEO), branding, web design, reputation management, and public relations, fishbat promotes a consistent and professional online voice for all of its clients.

Media Contact: Morgan Mandriota, fishbat Media, 855-347-4228, [email protected]

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

SOURCE fishbat Media

Source: Internet Marketing Company fishbat Discusses Facebook Instant Articles For All Publishers And Brands

What’s the Secret to Marketing Success? Keep It Integrated

By Jessica Arey

There are lots of different marketing tactics you can use to promote your financial services firm—from social media, to direct mail, to your website, to seminars, and even radio. But what's the best approach? The answer is all of them, and none of them. There is no single tactic that will allow you to reach your ideal clients where they are and encourage them to work with you. No, the real secret to marketing success is using a combination of tactics (i.e., an integrated approach) to target your desired audience. How does it work? Let's take a closer look.  

What Is Integrated Marketing?According to a 2014 Society for Marketing Professional Services blog post, the concept of integrated marketing can be explained as follows: "instead of simply using various media to help tell a brand's overall story [the old way], with [integrated marketing] the marketing leverages each communication channel's intrinsic strengths to achieve a greater impact together than each channel could achieve individually."

But what are the channels and media involved with such an approach? Typically, these terms refer to the following two categories: 

•    Traditional: Print, television, radio, and direct mail. These methods have been around from the beginning, and we tend to generalize them with one word—print.•    New media (or nontraditional): Website, social media, e-mail, and multimedia, such as online videos and podcasts. We can sum this all up as online.

As the graph below illustrates, the intersection of these methods is where the magic happens!

  How Do You Implement It? 1) Keep your messaging consistent. The first step in implementing an integrated and more effective marketing strategy is to take an objective look at everything you're doing and ensure that your messaging is consistent across all of the methods you use. For example, if you place ads in local publications that speak to your expertise in retirement income planning, but your website doesn't mention this specialty at all, you have an issue. Worse, if you're using print material that does not reference your website—the method most people, regardless of age, use today to learn more about you—the consumer is sure to notice this oversight.

2) Combine various approaches. Next, consider whether or not you have a mix of marketing "levers" working for you.

•    Do you have a social media presence (if it makes sense for your target market and your brand image)?•    Do you also have some print advertising for brand awareness? Local brand awareness is easier to achieve than is national awareness, and it is in line with most advisors' strategies.•    How about targeted e-mail or mail campaigns for a specific type of client or a particular need you can fulfill? Is that campaign tied to your website? For example, is there a promotional item on your homepage or a link to more information?

For any one activity you undertake, consider whether or not there may be a complementary activity on the opposite side of the fence; in other words, match a traditional tactic with a new tactic (see table).

3) Do a trial run. You don't have to do everything all at once; you can step your way in to diversifying and integrating your activities as you get more comfortable. Try focusing on one initiative and see how many cost-effective and time-conscious ways you can market the messaging, combining both online and print methods.

For example, say you're presenting a short seminar on diversification. You could: 

•    Advertise the event on your website.•    Create a postcard/mailer about your event or on the subject matter to garner interest.•    E-mail the invitation to a predetermined attendee list and encourage recipients to forward the message to a friend.•    Include a button on your website so participants can register/reserve a spot.•    Conduct an e-mail campaign around diversification for a set period of time.•    Post a follow-up piece on the subject on your website for attendees to reference.•    Write an article on diversification for your e-newsletter.•    Share details on your LinkedIn and other social media sites.•    Ask participants to tweet the event to their followers.•    Share photos from the event (with appropriate permission) on your website and/or social media sites.

The good news is that most of your online media activities will be free; the only spend is on your (or your staff's) time.

The Secret to Marketing Success? Incorporating different tactics into your marketing plan can actually be fun—if you let it be! And the benefit to using an integrated approach is that it will present your brand in a seamless and consistent way, using various channels and media to more effectively reach your ideal clients and prospects. Is it the secret to marketing success? Give it a shot and see what happens.

This post originally appeared on Commonwealth Independent Advisor, a blog authored by subject-matter experts at Commonwealth Financial Network®, the nation's largest privately held independent broker/dealer–RIA. To subscribe, please visit http://blog.commonwealth.com/. 

Jessica Arey is manager, advisor marketing projects, at Commonwealth Financial Network®, member FINRA/SIPC, an independent broker/dealer–RIA. 

Source: What's the Secret to Marketing Success? Keep It Integrated