Demand for Jason Kocina’s time is greater than ever. As a strategic Internet marketing expert, Jason frequently meets with local mid-sized businesses that are often either entering into social media marketing for the first time or are making a fresh attempt after trying to do it on their own with limited success. Companies that once didn’t see the need for social media marketing are now beginning to reap its benefits.
“The best way to drive sales is through a simple marketing program including blogging (search engine optimization), social media and email communication,” says Jason, president of Burnsville-based Checkerboard Strategic Web Development. “The problem for many companies is two-fold: first the tool set they are using is outdated and often inefficient; second they don’t know how to get organized to deliver the steady stream of fresh content that connects with their customers and prospects.”
Busier than ever
Kocina’s team once specialized in creating custom websites for its clients. But as the need for social media marketing has grown, so has the demand for websites that don’t require an IT professional to manage them. Kocina’s solution was to change his product. “Marketing, sales, PR, customer service: these are all getting closer together. More than ever, it is important to have a communications tool set customer facing employees can manage.”
Calling their product MarketSmart Powersites, instead of trying to immediately construct a full content-rich website, Kocina’s team helps businesses set up a process to gradually add content that is of value to their customers and prospects. “This allows you to build that resource over time with every new update you make. You control the speed of growth and your web marketing budget.”
23,000 visits per month during peak times
One of the first local businesses to get a Powersite was Pahl’s Market, a garden center, market and landscaping company based in Apple Valley. “We converted Pahl’s Market’s existing website into a Powersite, and it became a content distribution machine!” says Kocina. In the first year after adding social media to its marketing mix, the Pahl’s Market website experienced a 78 percent increase in traffic from search engines, and 23,000 visits a month to its website. Its email subscriber list has almost doubled to an astounding 9,000 names.
“Our website traffic is now competitive with some of the larger nurseries in town,” comments Pahls Market Marketing Associate Jason Himmelwright, who credits his frequent blogs, Facebook posts, emails and Tweets with creating connections, especially with younger customers. “Nowadays you’ve got to do social media. But you can’t invest the time and money into a blog, for example, and think you’re done. You’ve got to continue to post regularly for your customers take notice.”
Himmelwright says maintaining his blogging schedule is easy. “I can write one post in WordPress, and it automatically gets sent to our website, Facebook and Twitter. I can even have it send emails. It definitely saves time. Plus I can schedule posts ahead of time. I can be fishing in Canada, and post new information while I’m away.”
Attracting national attention
One of Checkerboard’s projects for Pahl’s Market was to build an online plant library that features more than 1200 different species. “We now have people contacting us from across the
U.S. because we often come up higher in the search engines than the companies that created or grow the plants,” says Himmelwright. “We haven’t had to do a lot of promotion for our plant library because of the way it was created. Now because of our success, our competitors are playing catch-up, trying to create the same thing.”
Explains Kocina: “A lot of the credit for the success of the plant library goes to WordPress, and our ability to utilize all of its best capabilities to communicate with search engines. Because we now work almost exclusively with this toolset, we know how to take full advantage of what it can do.”
Free classes and local seminars
These days, Kocina spends much of his time meeting with marketing managers of large corporations, as well as local mid-sized companies, helping them to strategize about their Internet marketing. His free class on Creating a Social Media Plan, held at least monthly, is always filled to capacity. He is also a frequent expert panelist at marketing industry events, such as the upcoming panel on Monetizing Social Media, sponsored by Sales & Marketing Executives International of Minnesota, which takes place on March 29, 2012 at The Woman’s Club.
“Thinking your company isn’t applicable or relevant to the Internet, for example if you are a small local grocer, is growing into a bigger and bigger mistake,” says Kocina. “In the coming year, if your business isn’t running a website and getting found in search engines, then you won’t exist in the minds of your consumers. You should also claim your company in Google Places, Google Maps, Bing, Yelp and other local directories, and make sure all the information on these sites is correct to increase the volume of customers finding you.”
For additional information about Powersites, visit www.MarketSmartSites.com. For class information, visit www.Publicity.com.
