Our marketing director thinks the latter. Find out why on her most recent blog post.

That’s why we’re so happy to have been awarded the “Achievement In Marketing” (or AIM) award for Web 2.0 by the Columbus American Marketing Association. The Achievement in Marketing awards focus on what is behind the creative: the behind-the-scenes strategy that creates awareness, customer attention and, most importantly, results.

It’s the second year in a row we won the award. This time it was for our work with the Arnold Sports Festival, creating their website and promoting it online through search engine optimization. The selection committee chose People To My Site based on the site design and the strong results generated. Overall traffic to the site increased 60% during the 7 months of the campaign, and visits to the site from the search engines increased 75.95% in the last month when compared to 2008 metrics.

Jim Lorimer, co-producer of the Arnold Sports Festival said, “[We] had a record year in 2010 and it would not have been possible without the work of our partners at People To My Site, who helped us attract record traffic to our Web site. We look forward to working with People To My Site as we continue to build our online marketing efforts.”

We are privileged to be the exclusive internet marketing partner of the Arnold Sports Festival, which provides economic sustenance to Central Ohio and promotes a healthy lifestyle through its competitions and educational seminars. Receiving the “Achievement in Marketing” Web 2.0 Award is a testament to our efforts in making an event with overwhelming success even more impactful through digital media, and for that we are grateful.

For more information on the AIM awards, visit www.columbusama.org.

To continue our growth trend, we are seeking a detail-oriented, organized, and ambitious individual to sell online marketing services and strategy, including search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and web analytics consultation. The ideal candidate will possess previous sales experience (industry experience is a plus) as well as polished communication skills and a hunger for “the close”.

As a Sales Associate, the ideal candidate will contribute to the overall success of the company and will be rewarded with:

• salary + commission
• a generous health insurance plan
• paid time off (PTO)

Requirements for the Sales Associate position:

• A strong interest in Interactive Marketing and the Internet
• Proven success in sales
• A copy of your resume, including salary requirements and a cover letter, sent to the email address provided in this posting
• Post-secondary degree or certificate
• Ambition
• Detail oriented
• Excellent communication skills (verbal and written)

Location: Columbus, OH
Compensation: Salary + Commission
Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Send resumes to:  info@peopletomysite.com

Our Chief Information Officer writes the fourth of his articles on Content Management Systems – and how to be sure you’re picking the right one for your website in his blog. Be sure to check it out.

The series starts here. It talks about the various kinds of CMS, the pros and cons of each. Check it out!

Thanks-Giving by *Fede* via flickr

The holiday season commences with Thanksgiving – which helps to put us in the right frame of mind for giving.

When we’re thankful for what we have, we’re more inclined to want to give to others.

Have you considered how you can give this holiday season? Need a few ideas?

Here at PTMS, we’ve partnered with two local charities to give as much as we can – and help others to give, too!

First, Directions For Youth & Families helps families at the holidays and throughout the year. Here at this promotional holiday site, you can help by providing gifts to those in need, adopting a family to help them have a happy holiday, buying youth art, or by just donating to the good works they do.

We’re also working with the Mid-Ohio Foodbank to feed the hungry right here in Columbus. Our goal is to get $1000 in donations. That translates to 100 people donating just $10.  And if you can’t donate yourself, you can still help by becoming a team-leader and sending the word to 10 of your friends. That way, even small donations will soon add up. And remember, with MOF, every $1 donated equals about $8 worth of groceries that feed the hungry.

Are you giving? Let us know where, so others can join you in your efforts as well!

Happy holidays!

shoppers by bensonkua, cropped, via flickr

In reality, this is a question that probably should be asked of businesses in July. Not 1.5 weeks out from Thanksgiving. We are just 9 days away from BLACK FRIDAY!

So most companies are at that point in their planning where they’re starting to sit back and just hope they made the right strategic decisions.

But it’s not too late to come up with something to boost your sales. Are you monitoring every day? Are you noticing any trends?

And, possibly more importantly, have you been seeing anyone ELSE doing anything that’s likely to capture attention and sales?

Personally, I haven’t. The only thing I’ve seen so far this year has been: Elf Yourself from OfficeMax. And this is what? The fifth year for that?

I challenge my readers to post some great online holiday promotions. Show us what’s good out there.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to our CSR/SEM team – from ElfYourself.

We are currently seeking a detail-oriented, organized, and ambitious individual to sell online marketing services and strategy, including search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and web analytics consultation. The ideal candidate will possess previous sales experience (industry experience is a plus) as well as polished communication skills and a hunger for “the close”.

As a Sales Associate, the ideal candidate will contribute to the overall success of the company and will be rewarded with:
- salary + commission
- a generous health insurance plan
- paid time off (PTO)

Requirements for the Sales Associate position:
- A strong interest in Interactive Marketing and the Internet
- Proven success in sales
- A copy of your resume, including salary requirements and a cover letter, sent to the email address provided in this posting
- Post-secondary degree or certificate
- Ambition
- Detail oriented
- Excellent communication skills (verbal and written)

* Location: Columbus, OH
* Compensation: Salary + Commission
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Send resumes to
info@peopletomysite.com

110m Hurdles by totwawki via Flicker

Technology advances in fits and starts, leaps and bounds. There’s so many cool new tech applications out there, available for your use.

New tech can help your company appear on the cutting edge and help you better connect with your targets leading them to a better, more personal connection with your company. But at the same time it can trip you up and cause you to fall flat on your face if you try to do too much.

You want to add social media – everybody’s doing it! – and you know you have to have video, and your website needs more bells and whistles to generate excitement, and, and, and…

The fact is, not every cool device fits YOUR business model. Don’t let yourself get distracted by the OOOH, SHINY factor. It’s more important thing to understand your brand, your target, and what’s going to work best to create a genuine interaction. You don’t have to stay at the front of the implementation wave to be innovative. Instead, try slowing down and conducting planful review, ensuring your new tech is on strategy before you implement it.

Some of the questions that need to be asked include: Can we do this ourselves? How much time and energy is this going to take? Would it be more cost effective to outsource it entirely? Are there any other options?

Well, in terms of outsourcing it entirely, there are companies that do that. And while there are a lot of good people out there with a lot of advice on social media, if you’re considering hiring a company to completely take on your social media tasks – provide them for you outsourced, do everything for you, so that you can get the benefits of social media without expending internal effort, without making the social media expert a part of your company team – there are so many ramifications that I’d say: “Don’t do it!” After all, the very idea of social media is against outsourcing. Social media is about RELATIONSHIP building. Can a third party provider build the relationship between you and your customers? That’d be like having someone else date your prospective wife to build up the relationship, and then expecting the marriage to work. It’s just not going to happen.

But where does that leave you? Can a savvy business that understands the limitations of your staff’s available time, yet still wants to run a campaign, do so affordably and with a lessened risk of being “outted” for using outside help?

I see five Social Media options available:

Option #1: The Learning Path
This is where you run a SM campaign, but understand that you’re dabbling. You’re not intending to really get a lift, you’re just putting your name out there so that you can say you’re doing something. Your goal is not to go all out, but to slowly work your way in – kind of like the swimmer who starts by just letting his feet get hit by the waves. Then slowly works up to the ankles, and so on. The goal is that as you learn the venues available, you can start to see what’s working well for you and then begin to expend more time and energy there.

Upside: you won’t have to expend a lot of energy right away.

Downsides: you may get distracted and forget all about maintenance. Plus, it will take a long time to get any results at all.

Option #2: The Intern
In this option, you hire an intern to run your social marketing for you. The intern won’t expect a lot of pay and will enjoy being able to play online as their job. You’ll need to be careful in the hiring to ensure you get someone who is already savvy about the benefits of SM. That way they’ll know where to start you off. An intern who is studying marketing or PR is a good choice. And you’ll need to make sure to train the intern on everything your business does and your corporate culture so that s/he can represent you appropriately.

Upside: Cost is fairly reasonable and you get a full-blown campaign.

Downsides: You’re putting your reputation into the hands of an intern. This could work well if you hire the right one, or horribly if you don’t.

Option #3: Part-time Staffer
Similar to The Intern, in this case, you just hire someone part time.

Upside: Cost is reasonable, full-blown campaign.

Downside: Part-timer are less likely to feel loyalty, so the vibe from your campaign might not be as strong as it could be.

Option #4: Outsourced, but YOUR staff
In this option, you’re hiring a professional social media company to run your campaign – BUT the person who runs it is actually your staff. Okay, that sounds a little confusing, but it’s not. What happens is that the social media company, understanding the need for transparency and relationship building, hires staff that are accountable to YOUR company. They go through your company training. They’re expected to attend your company meetings. They understand your culture and products. They’re an extension of your company – an offshoot. But they work at the social media company’s office. Chances are the person who becomes your social media liaison is liaison to one or two other companies as well. It’s like they’re a shared part-timer. The other companies should not, in any way, be competitive to your industry. Because this person is a full-time employee, they won’t be distracted by the need to find a full-time position, so they can show the dedication you’ll need. And you won’t have the burden of paying them for a full-time position. Also, because they’re in a company dedicated to social media, they’ll be on top of the latest trends and can provide you with better service.

The caveats are that you’ll need to make sure you’re transparent about the arrangement, so that no one can call you on it later. You’ll also need to be sure that your in-house staff is willing to provide excellent communication, never forgetting that your SM specialist is a part of the team. If you leave them out of important discussions or forget to connect the full marketing plan, that’s when everything can fall apart.

Upsides: Reasonable costs, full campaign, staying on top of trends.

Downsides: Need for transparency & superior communication.

Option #5: Dedicating the Time with Internal Staff
And the final option is to just bite the bullet and determine that you’re going to get your staff the training to run a SM campaign, and allow them the time to do it.

Upsides: Full integration of marketing efforts, no new staff

Downsides: Time to run the campaign may eat into other efforts.

Those are the 5 options as I see ‘em. Anyone have ideas for other options?