Employment Opportunities

This is a blog post for a previous posted position. For the latest career opportunities at redwall LIVE, click here.

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redwall is seeking a full time Marketing Coordinator:

redwall LIVE is seeking a driven and studious candidate for a marketing coordinator role.

Compensation:
Base salary plus monthly performance bonuses
Approximately $25,000 +/- based on experience.
Successful candidates will add an additional 20% in bonuses and have further advancement opportunities.

Position Requirements:

• Eager to learn and grow
• Understanding of written marketing strategies
• Manage, proof and/or write marketing and PR copy
• Monitor account activity and measure marketing results
• Active and skilled in social media and social marketing
• Detailed project management using internal project management software

Skill Set Requirements:

• 4 year degree or equivalent professional experience
• Strong interpersonal skills (both internal and external)
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Proficient with a keyboard and mouse and aspects thereof
• Comfortable with a Mac
• Highly motivated
• Detail oriented
• Copy writing experience
• PR experience desired
• Creative thinking and problem solving skills
• Experience in MS Office Suite, Google Apps, Wordpress basics
• Experience in Adobe Creative Suite a plus
• HTML and CSS Basics a plus
• Ability to work in fast-paced environment with a team
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

What is Marketing 501?

It sounds like a few steps above marketing 101 but it’s actually a great way to increase ROI.

As a digital marketing firm, just like the cobbler’s shoes, our marketing has been less than it could be because of our preoccupation with clients. In june we had a record month. Sales were higher than ever, but they were $501 away from a perfect round number… so we decided we would create an email campaign based on that number to cap off the record month of sales.

In only 2 hours – with 3 hours left to spare to the month, we ended up designing an original email, coding it and sending it out to our database. This flash marketing campaign resulted in one (1) response from a startup that purchased the offer and several positive responses from customers and contacts congratulating us for our growth.

We decided that each month (for a little while) we would do a 501 deal to end the month out with a special limite time offer. In july we featured a simple video we did for a sponsorship with Indy Partnership. Here’s why we believe this works:

1. We get a chance to highlight a project we did and show our work

2. We connect with our customers and contacts in an interesting way

3. We give the small budget biz the opportunity to try our services

4. We received 4 new projects from the one we released this morning!

Click here to learn more about this campaign.

SEO and Search Marketing: Is it broken?

There’s no questions that good Google rankings are valuable, not to mention other search engine results. Since the rise of search ranking as one of the primary ways that people find places to spend their money, so has the business of “SEO” risen. The search engine marketing business consists of companies that specialize in just search. A recent blog from Roger McNamee pointed out some interesting facts about the world of social media and search marketing.

Google is a victim of its own success: its search has become polluted by SEOs. What shows that Google has failed is all those “non-search” services that really solve a search problem, like Match.com or Realtor.com. If you add them all up, they account for 50% of searches.

-Roger McNamee (on Business Insider)

Consider this point – search is so cluttered with people aiming for rankings, based on their ability to spend, that search by itself is broken. What to people make their buying decisions based on? And if thinking ahead is at all important that where is search going? Consider the following:

1. A “search engine” is not the answer to everything. Consider Foursquare and Angie’s List as examples. Customers are looking for trusted reviews from their friends. They are asking for recommendations online. They are searching specialty sites that features the specific category, in the specific geographic area. They are using mobile apps in many situations that help them find their choices. These may be commerce driven, but they are not search engines.
2. Effective conversion with Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing is more critical than ever. When you rank and so does another company, how do you compel the buyer to choose you? What value are you providing (prior to the sale) that is useful in driving results? You must provide (1) organic social media results (2) organic search results (3) attracting buyers to opt in when they find you. (This point is mind blowing. For a free report on this click here.)
3. Communities are where the highest level of transactions happen. When people become a part of the same group or community, their purchase intent goes up. It’s no secret that marketing to people will always pay more for something if they have a meaningful connection. Why would you not focus your marketing efforts on this community?

5 marketing tactics to avoid

Marketing is an extremely broad term and also very subjective. In the end, it’s about results. Marketing must have results, or it is spending that is un-needed. It’s unfortunately not uncommon for companies to implement marketing tactics that have very little strategy, or none at all. In business today you are expected to do certain things, like “have a website”. Again, if a website does not enhance how effective you are as a company, consider not doing it at all. Here are five specifics I want to mention.

1. Creating a website with no conversion strategy: Why bother having a website? They can be expensive and time consuming to build and maintain. You don’t just want to merely have a presence on the web, when you can actually have a plan to attract response through your site.
2. Email blasts: The term “blast” suggests that you are sending a single email to your entire list. This approach suggests that everyone on your list is the same type of person, at the same stage in the buying cycle, and responds the same way. If you want to market to many for a minimal return, how about trying billboards. Otherwise, consider segmenting and targeting your email marketing communications.
3. The old “we’re on Social Media” line: Yes, so are your competitors, but if they have a professional marketing consultant helping them to establish a stronger and more engaging presence, your twitter account is not enough. If you are not practicing improving engagement, response and conversion, then being there is possibly meaningless. It is critical that companies have a strategy for social lead generation. Social media is not only about content driven campaigns, it’s also about responding to people with a point in time need.
4. Focusing on strangers and forgetting customers: Your most loyal customers refer you the most business, they are the most likely to make a repeat purchase as well. Why don’t you spend more dollars marketing to keep them? How about providing more value to them for a higher profit? They will pay more, and their loyalty will lead to new customers as well.
5. Listening without responding: People are talking about “listening” on social media. Seldom do companies establish a meaningful response plan for what they are listening to. We recommend you contact LeadJen, a pioneer in social lead generation. The fact is, in most industries, customers are seeking for or reviewing products and services online. The opportunity is there.

3 BIG Ways that new ICANN top level domains will change marketing

Recently ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that internet users will be able to purchase top level domains with new suffixes. This means that internet domain names are no longer limited to suffixes like .com, .net, .org and the several others that have been in action for some time now.

“ICANN has opened the Internet’s naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today’s decision respects the rights of groups to create new Top Level Domains in any language or script. We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind,”

-Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN.

I believe, and judging by the above quote from ICANN’s CEO, they believe that this will make a dramatic change to the internet. I will take it further to say that it will even change marketing in other mediums as well. ICANN’s new provisions for top level domains is going to dramatically shape the way search engines handle search ranking. In turn this will shape the way companies use search marketing, and with nearly all marketing efforts being tied to the internet, marketing as a whole is going to go through an evolution of sorts. The days of having one website may no longer exist.

Since the cost is $185,000 to have your own top level domain, you will see big brands establishing their TLD as well as investors and special interest groups. Here’s 3 big ways that I believe this will change marketing:

1. BIG BRANDS OBTAINING BETTER OWNERSHIP: Coke (and other big brands) will be able to diversify their online marketing by offering segments to their online presence like products.coke and contests.coke. Furthermore they might open up the opportunity for brand advocates to get more connected socially by creating my-name.coke where you can create your own persona within a brand that you are specifically fond of. Coke sized brands will be able to connect their audience in a more clear way to special offers or products because there won’t be competition for  cool-idea.coke anymore. Offline materials can get more specific and be very memorable with their brand embedded.

2. SEARCH MARKETING IS DIVIDED: If you are in home remodel services, you no longer need to rank only for home services but now you need to rank within the domain.home field of domains. There will be internet investment companies building sites to focus on industry topics so that anyone looking for anything.home can go to the central .home hub and find other home service companies. This will create specialized search engines that essentially combine the concept of search with the function of organizations like Angie’s List or The Better Business Bureau.

3. ONE WEBSITE IS NOT ENOUGH: Your ranking is now likely going to depend on more than just how you rank on the web in general, but also how you rank in industries. It may become increasing important to establish a web conversion strategy that varies based on different inbound paths. If you’re ranking well for searches of “Indianapolis home remodeling” in the general search, that doesn’t mean that you will the same for a search isolated to the .home TLD. You also will be dealing with different types of customers at a different level, with different preconceived expectations. It’s plausible that the site and conversion strategy will need to be different too. Think of it like the difference of your Facebook site vs your home site. You are not expecting the same results and appearance as your home website, in fact it is not an option. While the two work together, they are not the same.

What would you add to this discussion?

5 or so things we know about the internet

In the world of the internet, we are one of the old dogs (not saying much). As an Indianapolis marketing company, we’ve helped businesses to increase customer retention, strengthen brands experientially, and drive new customers… using the internet. Here’s a little video we made explaining what you need to know about the internet.

Living In High Def Contest

Project: Interactive Marketing Campaign
Company: RevolutionEyes

CHALLENGE:

Creating an interactive campaign to drive awareness and sales for the Izon brand of “high definition” lenses for children.

SOLUTION:

A contest that invited parents to give their children the chance to win the “high definition experience” by experiencing three extraordinary events (flying a helicopter, swim with dolphins, VIP hockey game). The contest attracted 60 entries, bringing 1000 new email subscribers and massive web traffic.

Branding The Wetlands Co.

Project: Logo creation
Company: The Wetlands Co.

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION:

A branding solution that accommodated both the corporate and community vision.

Refresh Leadership Live Event Contest

Project: 2011 Refresh Leadership Live event engagement
Company: Express Employment

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION:

Chick-Fil-A Event Marketing

Project: Event social media content
Company: Chick-Fil-A Indianapolis 

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION: