For more than 10 years, the Bergman Group has functioned as a living laboratory of new media. We have studied the business-to-business and consumer marketing challenges the Internet poses, and we have learned to seize for our clients the immensely rewarding opportunities it presents.
This is no easy task. In the last two years alone, the universe of Internet marketing has expanded exponentially and, for clients, this expansion has taken place in ways that are confusing and, for that reason, intimidating.
There are today, for example, more tools available than ever before for marketers to reach highly targeted consumers. But there are also too few marketing partners that truly understand these tools and can put them to effective use. Because we have been working with these tools for so long, we do understand them, and we know how to use them to great effect.
Unprecedented Convergence
For marketers, the Internet offers an unprecedented convergence of written material and video content. It is also one—at a time when traditional media is struggling to survive—that can reach specific segments of consumers in ways that far exceed the capabilities of newspapers, magazines or television. New-media technology also makes it possible for these audiences to respond and interact with advertisers—but only if the advertisers are working with a knowledgeable new-media marketing guide.
The opportunities presented by these new capabilities fall under the categories of search-engine marketing, search-engine optimization, banner ads and the design and development of Web sites and their content.
Within the last decade, Google and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo have changed forever how consumers and businesses search the Internet. In light of this change, the most pressing challenge all marketers face is to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that when a relevant Internet search is conducted, their Web site will be found. The Bergman Group's new-media team is constantly studying the analytics of Internet searches to increase the likelihood that our clients' Web sites will indeed be found—and visited by carefully selected, highly targeted site users.
SEARCH-ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
There is a science to the ways that a Web site can be designed to boost its performance when searches are conducted, and the Bergman Group's new-media team understands the technology involved. There are two aspects to this design. There is the use of the technology itself—the back-end coding of a Web site—and also the development of the Web site's content and its distribution through different Internet channels to build credibility with search engines.
On the technology side, our on-staff programmers and designers use meta-tags and title-tags, for instance, so that when Google spiders crawl a client's Web site, its performance is increased. For example, we've recently achieved significant success boosting Sandler Training's site ranking.
On the content side, we develop viral videos and interactive flash-based banner ads that are a generation beyond GIF animation techniques. We also produce stories for Web sites—stories that include key words that increase Web ratings—and press releases that are sent to others' Web sites. We've designed, produced and distributed viral videos for Martha Jefferson Hospital and Beth Sholom as well as banner ads for Sandler Training and Audubon Magazine.
Because we can respond to the ever-changing algorithms that search engines employ, we make sure our clients' Web site rankings are continually strengthened. We are serious students of analytics, and we fine-tune our own methodologies whenever persuaded by new performance indicators that changes are warranted.
These techniques strengthen the “organic,” or natural performance of a Web site, and we consistently deliver for our clients higher search rankings.
SEARCH-ENGINE MARKETING
It is no longer enough, of course, for a company to drive consumers to its site in these “organic” ways. Advertisers must also be present on sponsored links, and the Bergman Group has developed a genuine expertise in the purchase, through Google and Yahoo, of words and phrases that, taken together, micro-target carefully selected segments of consumers. We also create copy that supports these sponsored links, and we develop intermediate (“gateway,” “landing” or “interstitial”) pages to collect information or that market specific products or services on the Web site itself. For TAP-IN, we created a landing page for that client's physician-recruitment efforts.
BANNER ADS
For almost a decade, we have been concepting, designing, creating and distributing banner ads, and doing so exclusively with our on-staff programmers, designers and writers. As mentioned earlier, we routinely produce “rich media” that incorporates streaming video for commercials and that serve as 15-second video pre-roll with supporting banners. (See, again, our banners for Sandler Training and Audubon.)
WEB SITE CONTENT: ITS DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND DISTRIBUTION
We also possess a wealth of experience designing, developing and hosting Web sites ourselves—in one case, as early as 1995. In this, we employ the most up-to-date techniques, adhering in all cases to the latest Web standards.
We have discovered, however, that many companies invest considerable sums of money in the creation of their Web sites but give little attention to keeping its contents updated. They forget, all too often, that they must continually provide new and compelling content—which we also provide. This can include written text, obviously, but also viral video. We've created online publications for the American Enterprise Institute, Marts and Lundy, and the Henrico County (Va.) Economic Development Authority. Our improvements to the American Enterprise Institute Web site, for instance, resulted in a threefold increase in traffic.
Establishing and maintaining a successful marketing presence on the Internet is no simple undertaking. A satisfactory engagement often necessitates a strategic assessment of a client's existing Internet marketing program and the ease of use and functionality of its site. But in every case, success on any level requires expertise on the part of the new-media marketing guide and also a serious commitment on the part of the client. It requires usable, properly functioning Web site design, the creation of compelling Web site content, and the support of that content through strategically driven search-engine optimization and search-engine marketing.
The Bergman Group possesses the expertise necessary to accomplish all this and more for our clients, and we are eager to put this expertise to work for you. Contact Us Today.
