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March Madness? You bet…

The calendar says it’s March, and you know what that means.  Everyone will be talking about March Madness.  Typically that refers to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship (more on that below), but there are other things around here that contribute to March Madness too.

Work:  I suppose every month has some work madness built into it, and March is no exception.  Why?  Well Q1 is always one of the busiest times of the year for us.  We’re launching new initiatives to make our online and offline services more attractive.  We’re designing and implementing new marketing campaigns on behalf of our clients (especially the ones we picked-up in the beginning of the year).  We’re recruiting new affiliate marketing sources to run our performance-based offers in 2015.  It’s a busy time of year, but we’re on top of it.  When it comes to business, a little madness is a good thing.

Kids:  If you have children (particularly young children) then you already know that every month is chock-full of madness, but if not let me explain.  Fighting.  Sickness.  Ear infections.  Tantrums.  Attitude.  It’s not localized just to March, but since the weather is cold and the kids are indoors, you tend to notice it more this time of the year.

Basketball:  OK, here’s the real definition of March Madness.  The conference tournaments are beginning shortly.  After that, the NCAA selection committee will seed the teams and the national tournament will begin.  In our offices we have Duke fans, Maryland fans, and even a single Northwestern fan (yours truly).

Duke enters the month ranked in the top 4 in the nation and looking to punch their ticket to the Final Four.  Maryland enters the month ranked in the top 15 in the nation and looking to make a deep tournament run.  And Northwestern?  They’ll be sitting out the post-season as they do every year, but fear not, they’re getting better.  Another 2 or 3 years and my alma mater will be making their first NCAA Tournament appearance.

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How do you know which advertising channel is right for you?

Here at DanMatt Media we’re pleased to be able to offer our clients a wide variety of online and offline advertising and marketing solutions.  Our offline channels include print, radio, and television advertising.  Our online (digital) channels include SEO, SEM (paid search), IYP (Internet Yellow Pages), web design, and affiliate marketing (email, banner, and social media marketing).  But how do you know which channels will work well for your business?

The easy answer is to ask us.  A quick call or website submission is all that is needed to get the ball rolling.  We’re always happy to evaluate a potential client’s business and create custom quotes for them.  But as a general rule of thumb, the following guidelines tend to apply to most situations…

Radio and television advertising typically works well for most companies with larger advertising budgets.  These forms of advertising are effective but expensive, as you need enough budget to be able to saturate the air or radio waves with your message.  For example, a single radio spot once a week isn’t going to get you anywhere, but 6-8 of them will.  It typically takes at least $5,000 per month for radio and $10,000 per month for television to run an effective campaign.

Print advertising (yellow pages, magazines, and outdoor advertising) is our other traditional channel, and this medium works very well for service-based companies (plumbers, dentists, electricians, lawyers, etc).  It can work well for companies that sell a product too, but it’s variable.  Print also has the advantage of a performance-based offering, our pay-per-call option.  With pay-per-call our print clients only pay for the valid phone calls that they receive, so it’s risk-free advertising for them.  We were one of the very first agencies to offer pay per call to our clients, and it has worked beautifully for many, many years.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing works well for almost every client.  85% of all the search engine traffic on Google and Bing is routed to the organic side of the page, and that’s where SEO ads are found.  SEO ads run 24/7 and are highly effective ways to get your company in front of your targeted audience.  Best of all, with the addition of our new local SEO plans we are now able to help smaller businesses who service a single metro area.  Our SEO plans start at only $299 per month and there are no longterm contracts to sign.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is our other search engine offering, and it too works well for almost all business types.  Paid search is a highly effective way to advertise your product or service, it’s completely targetable to just about anyone, and typically generates results very quickly.  All of our SEM campaigns include monthly reporting at no additional charge, and can be fully customized to fit any business need.  SEM requires a larger budget than SEO, as paid search ads only run when there is enough budget to keep them up.  But when paired with SEO it’s an excellent one-two punch to give you a complete online presence.

Lastly, our affiliate marketing channel, which includes banner/display, email, and social media traffic, is an excellent performance-based offering that works well for online product sales and lead generation campaigns.  In other words, if you’re selling a product online, or you’re looking to generate leads through an online form, we can help you.  Many of these campaigns offer the advantage of pay-for-performance, which means our clients only pay us for the products we sell or the leads we generate.  There are no upfront costs and no longterm contracts to worry about.

We have a lot of services to offer our clients, and in many cases several of these options are used to create a comprehensive online and offline advertising campaign.  We specialize in bringing our clients increased business at the best rates possible.  If you’re looking to grow your company, give us a call or send us a website request.  We’re here to help!