Competitive Intelligence Backbone
We see too many small businesses waste resources pursuing their market the wrong way, or even pursuing the wrong market altogether, that’s why we encourage the use of Competitive Intelligence as the backbone of any marketing strategy.
It’s not a new concept, most people in business have put together either a business plan or a marketing plan at one stage or another, and will remember a portion of the process where they went and collected as much information on their competitors as they could. Usually the information gathered was focused on Product, Price, Distribution, and Promotion (the traditional marketing mix) which was used to form an analysis of their competitors and determine where exactly their company (or project) fit in. This process was often a time-consuming, but rewarding activity that provided valuable insight.
At Evolve Creative Media, our full service marketing and design firm, we use competitive intelligence and analysis as the backbone of our branding and marketing strategy. With a focus on data, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing Communications resources are a part of the process that we regularly use to help businesses understand market trends and opportunities in their area.
Our market analysis expertise allows us to evaluate a client’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and competition to identify gaps within their target market. This insight is used in evaluating marketing, search engine optimization and advertising opportunities. Armed with this information, we can better align our client’s design and communications to focus directly on profitable gaps or neglected areas of the marketplace. I thought I’d prepare this article to provide some insight into the rationale behind this. Read more
SEO Keywords
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web page organically.
An estimated 80% of internet users find web resources through organic search results using search engines (Google, and Yahoo), 15% of internet traffic comes from people typing in the specific URLs in their web browsers (direct traffic) while 5% comes from other sites through other, generally speaking, paid advertising like banner Ads etc. So the importance of showing up in search results is very clear, as is the value of good SEO.
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Social Marketing Madness
It’s not new, although you might be new to it. Social Marketing is networking, that’s it. It’s simple, just be a part of the community when you have a chance. Join in on the conversation.
Social marketing is important, if for no other reason it’s a way to let your business out of the house to run around, meet other businesses and get some well deserved stimulation. Actually, it doesn’t even need to be all about your business. Social marketing can equally be about the individual.
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Hosting companies we recommend
There are a lot of Hosting companies out there to choose from, and we’ve worked with several in one way or another. Tired of dealing with sub-standard hosting, I decided to put this short list together so that our clients can save time shopping around and just use one of the better companies from the get go.
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WordCamp Toronto 2010
The last time I attended WordCamp Toronto was in 2008 and I was terribly disappointed, no – not with the swag but with some miscommunication and unfortunately a fair amount of boredom. I did, in fact end up leaving a few hours early on the first of the scheduled two days and didn’t return. At the time, it made more sense for me to get my sleep at home rather than at a public event.
I skipped WordCamp Toronto ’09.
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