In 1979, Meldrum & Fewsmith conducted a series of studies analyzing the way companies marketed themselves during the two year recession from 1974 to 1975. The studies concluded that “companies which did not cut advertising expenditures during the recession years (1974-1975) experienced higher sales and net income during those two years and the two years following than companies which cut ad budgets in either or both recession years” (emphasis added). In addition, Senior Vice President of Meldrum & Fewsmith said, “I have yet to see any study that proves timidity is the route to success. Studies consistently have proven that companies that have the intelligence and guts to maintain or increase their overall marketing and advertising efforts in times of business downturns will get the edge on their timid competitors.”

MarketSense studied the recession from 1989 to 1991. They surveyed 101 name brands. Kraft salad dressings and Jiff peanut butter both raised marketing budgets during this recession and increase sales by 70% and 57%, respectively. With increased budgets, Pizza Hut increased sales by 61% and Taco Bell increased sales by 40%.

So, in order to survive a recession, as a business owner you need to take 3 steps.

Step 1: Understand the value in marketing and do it consistently.
Since marketing is an essential function to any business it is also lifeline to surviving a recession. Through marketing, a business can reach new customers and gain sales from previous customers. Therefore, marketing is an investment not just an expense.

Step 2: Have the guts to be more aggressive during hard times.
Being aggressive does not mean throwing money at every marketing outlet available. It is important to take a strategic approach and spend more but spend wisely. It does take guts to spend more when the outlook is gloomy but it has been proven to pay off.

Step 3: Organize budget and resources strategically.
Below are tips to help you spend smarter.

Research
Research is the number one way to ensure marketing dollars are spent wisely. Online marketing requires two levels of research on a regular basis, competition and consumer. Through research you can determine which marketing outlets can be most successful. Start by asking yourself these questions:

1. What are potential customers searching for?
2. What websites are they using to find your products or services?
3. How is your competition reaching those customers?
4. What is your competition doing better than you are?

Outsourcing
If you are inexperienced in marketing or if you are looking to reduce fixed expenses it is best to outsource marketing to someone who is strategic, creative, and has proven results. By outsourcing you are changing a fixed expense into a variable expense. You also gain the outside knowledge of a specialist.

Key Tip: Ask if there is any leg work you can do yourself to save money. For example, tackling an SEO campaign often requires content writing. If hiring an SEO firm, ask to create your own content and have them optimize it. But remember, don’t commit to work you know you don’t have the time to do. It will only delay the positive outcome.

Closely Measure Results to Determine What Works
Measurable results are also a key component during hard times. Sorry magazines and print, but if you don’t offer reporting and tracking (call tracking, coupon tracking, etc) your ad budget will likely be the first reallocation that advertisers should be made. Find out what works by measuring each marketing tactic. Search Marketing is the most measurable form of marketing. When combining web analytics with tactics such as SEO and PPC, you are able to target your campaigns on a very granular level. This ensures each dollar is spent effectively. After measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns you will understand what works best for your business. You can then concentrate marketing dollars on that 20% of your marketing campaign which produces 80% of the results.

Diversify Marketing Spend
It is also important to take a strategic approach when you diversify your marketing budget. For example, if you are currently investing the majority of your marketing efforts in a Pay-Per-Click campaign, you may want to allocated half of that budget to an SEO campaign which, in the long term, can increase the return on investment and decrease dependency on paid search.

Key Tips: Advertisers with a solid PPC track-record have an incredible advantage for venturing into organic search (SEO) because the PPC data such as which keywords converted best and which led to the highest volume of sales or average ticket price can now be a major factor in prioritizing the SEO targets. Since SEO is long term you want to be absolutely sure you’re targeting the right keywords long before you reach the first page for them.

Below is a chart compiled by Forester Research (2008) based on a poll asking: “Assuming that the economy is in a recession in the next six months, how would you change your investment in the following marketing channels?”. This study poll interactive marketers with 200 employees or more.

Key Tip: Don’t rule out marketing efforts which promote your brand but do not necessarily lead to a sale immediately. Brand Advertising, such as Display Ads, is a key marketing strategy which will help your business in long run. A hybrid of traditional brand advertising can be using a pay per click display ad program such as Google’s AdWords. Clever creative can attract eyeballs and garner recognition while also enticing clicks from the right audience.

Focus on Improving Conversions
Increasing conversions is one step closer to increasing sales. Typically, increasing conversion rates from 1% to say 2% is much easier than doubling your traffic. If you are ready to invest in any significant marketing initiative the first thing to evaluate is whether or not your site is maximizing conversions. Get an expert to analyze and optimize all conversion pathways. That is – ensure it is easy for people to contact you or proceed through your online store and checkout system, remove possible hang ups or bugs in the system, and answer all questions up front.

Use these guidelines so that your business can weather the storm of a recession and come out on top. Remember, those companies that make it through tend to experience a significant upturn in revenue and growth as there will be fewer options remaining for customers to choose from.

If you’re interested in seeing how your marketing budget can be optimized, give us a call or let us call you.

The web is an ever evolving place and sometimes we, as a company, can become so caught up in the many ventures of our clients and ensuring their success, that we skip a beat with our own web assets. In this case, the MatrixMT website!

We’re proud to announce a fresh look for MatrixMT as we approach 2009. As our business is more than 80% referral based we’re extremely fortunate to have the added bonus of consistent web-leads and the great new opportunities that come our way through this channel, despite our under nurturing of the design this year. That said, we must practice what we preach, and evolve with the best practices we constantly test and measure on behalf of our clients. I am positive we’ll see increased lead volume and quality of leads as well.

Starting in October 2008 the team will be committing to a regular schedule of idea and innovation sharing. This means we are opening up the channels for dialogue and learning. We’ll uncover some of the strategies we put to work (don’t worry clients, we won’t give it all away!) and provide insight into time-sensitive marketing issues.

We have refreshed our company’s portfolio and case study sections of the site in order to highlight how we have recently helped provide solutions. As many of our clients are familiar, we work with a number of agencies as their backend SEO, link development, and strategic marketing arm so unfortunately we’re not able to share many of the awesome projects we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating on. Despite that, we’ll be working on creating more case studies on those projects we can disclose details on.

I invite any guests to the site to provide us feedback if there is anything we should be covering, anything you like or don’t like, if you’re interested in partnerships or joint ventures, or if you’re simply interested in becoming another successful MatrixMT client.

Please take a look around and let us know if there is anything you would like us to improve further and we welcome feedback on anything you would like to discuss.

Press releases are not to be overlooked as an Internet marketing tool.
Everyone knows media has a tremendous effect on client opinion. Therefore, if used judiciously, press releases are an economical way of increasing web traffic, enhanced trading, and gaining credibility and acknowledgement in the industry as well as by customers. They are also very useful tools for creating link popularity.

Reasons to Release Press Statements:
It is best to come up with a press release anytime your business adds to industry growth, or reaches a major milestone worthy of syndication. Some of the events that call for a press release are organizing seminars or workshops, holding tradeshows, coming up with new ideas and technology, re-launching your web site, promoting global causes, receiving an award, or bringing aboard new business partners or executives.

Press Release Optimization:
Although frequently overlooked, a superbly optimized press release in the form of full-length articles or even a one-liner can give a company an edge over its competitors. It is no wonder then that we pay special attention when developing a press release. Just like creating a successful advertising campaign, the content of a press release is noticeable, innovative, and resourceful to its readers. First, create optimized copy that immediately grabs viewer attention and is compelling enough to drive them to your web site seeking more information.

Not an Up-front Sales Tool:
Unlike a marketing campaign though, any inclusion of a sales pitch will mean omission of the press release from the media. Therefore follow the style that reporters adopt to develop their stories. First gather all the facts and detailed information about the topic for which you want to send a press release. Then, study this data carefully and identify its superiority in the industry and usefulness to the users. Now, use all this information to create copy, beginning with the most important information appearing in the first few sentences, followed by relevant supporting information or statistics. An extraordinary introduction is an instant attention grabber and makes the reader take notice of the remaining write up.

A remarkable beginning by itself is insufficient.
Readers start reading an article only when its headline generates an interest in them. Copywriters must ensure that once created, a press release has a creative headline enticing viewers to read the article. Gather all these different elements of the news release and put them together in a journalistic approach complete with additional information and impartial presentation of facts. To facilitate the readers to easily get in touch with you for more information or other queries, include your contact information. Including contact information has the additional advantage of representing the openness of a business.

Publishing a Press Release Online:
To publish a press release on the Internet, identify the web publication best suited to your business. For example, media release about a local mortgage company will generate maximum response if published in the local newspaper’s online real estate section or the realty supplement of a bigger periodical. In this manner, you will target an audience, which is already interested in related services and much more open to accepting the information you provide.

When creating ads, one needs to be extremely focused and consider several factors to come up with a winning creative.

Start by defining the goals of your ad campaign.
Clear goals will help you sort things absolutely necessary from several options available when actually creating the ad. Use these goals to identify your customer base and the sites that best satisfy their requirements. Study these sites and find out why they click (see conversion analysis). Identify the reasons that would compel users to visit your site and convert them from casual information gatherers to repeat customers.

Recognize the top sites where it will be profitable to place your ad.
Ad placement is as crucial as its design. It will be more worthwhile to put an ad about new yarns on knitting and craft-related sites than to advertise about them on Amazon.com. If your business offers a broad spectrum of goods, then it will be advantageous to take into account web sites that cater to a variety of consumers.

Popular ad campaigns are sensitive to their customer requirements.
Their exactness in addressing their shoppers’ needs makes them a winner. Focus a promotional by understanding your traffic and knowing precisely what the user wants. Utilize this knowledge in creating effective content for your ads. While a picture is worth a thousand words, steer clear of insensitive graphics. Come up with catchy phrases that clearly communicate your business goals and expertise.

Create several versions of your advertisement.
Customize it so it becomes a part of the web site where it appears. Different versions help you gauge public reaction, which you can use to further improvise the ad and make it more effective. Different adaptations of the same campaign are a necessity if you want to reach customers from different backgrounds. Consider cultural and socio-economic aspects when targeting consumers across the globe. What is considered humor in one country might be an obscenity in another. Put in the extra effort to understand their culture or hire local personnel to design the ad.

People hate to be forced into buying something.
Studies show that marketing strategies are successful when customers get an option of making a decision on their own rather than being told to buy a product. Keeping this in mind, prepare a web advertisement that highlights special features of your product and guides as opposed to forces the visitor into making a purchase. Also include plenty of useful information to help a prospective customer make an educated decision.

Best Friends Pet Care is the largest provider of pet boarding, grooming and training with over 40 centers in 19 states. Best Friends takes a different approach to pet care by providing state of the art facilities and 1 on 1 training for their pet clients.

The Challenge

Best Friends was starting with a static website consisting of a few hundred pages all with marginal search engine rankings. Their goal was to create a site that was manageable and would command top search engine rankings for keywords for which they are the industry leader; both in size and service.

The MatrixMT Solution

• Plan: Developed the strategy to integrate Search Engine Optimization research and implementation to build a content rich, database-driven site that has since grown from under 900 pages to over 17,000 pages indexed in Google’s search results. We ensured that the website would both rank for generic relevant terms (Pet Boarding) as well as city-specific searches (Houston Pet Boarding) in order to maximize exposure.

• Create: Our consulting services were partnered with a leading enterprise web development partner to ensure the large site was structured according to the most up to date SEO standards and would be indexed thoroughly by the search engines.

• Market: Implemented an aggressive SEO strategy with continued on-page optimization and high quality, relevant link popularity development.

The MatrixMT Advantage

• 1000% Increase in visitation: Visitation increased from 400 unique visitors a day to over 4,000 per day.

• Top 10 Ranking: Achieved Top 10 ranking for all major keywords across the major search engines.

• Notable Rankings:
  Google:

  • #1 Dog boarding
  • #1 Pet boarding
  • #2 Dog Kennels
  • #8 Dog Grooming
  Yahoo:

  • #1 Dog boarding
  • #1 Pet boarding
  • #2 Dog Kennels
  • #2 Dog Training
  MSN:

  • #1 Dog boarding
  • #1 Pet boarding
  • #5 Dog Kennel
  • #2 Dog Grooming

Dr. Miller is considered “one of New York’s top facial plastic surgeons… with a top-secret list of actors, models, and social elite” (Elle Magazine), and it begins with his artistic approach to achieving aesthetically-pleasing and youthful results for some of New York’s most prominent citizens.

The Challenge

Improve search engine visibility in a competitive space mostly dominated by large nationwide directories and other more established prominent local plastic surgeons. Combine search engine friendly design, a plan for greatly enriching the content and multimedia of the site in a search engine placement beneficial manner, and improve text link marketing – also known as link popularity – amongst popular, and relevant websites in the medical field.

We worked with, Surgeon’s Advisor, a web development partner, to create optimal results for Dr. Phillip Miller across all search engines.

The Matrix Solution

• Plan: Work closely with Surgeons Advisor, our on-going partners, to strategize a search engine friendly site structure, and develop a plan for creating informative, trustworthy content (SEO copywriting) that is also optimized for search engine relevancy.

• Market: Each new surgical procedure-specific page, and other prospective patient-focused page was optimized, including Meta-tag optimization, Title tag optimization, and much more, to help search engines understand the focus of the page. Optimized press releases, relevant directory submissions, and request for topical links from related sites were done in order to help search engines find, index, and rank Dr. Miller’s website.

The Matrix Advantage

• 784% Increase in visitation: From just 100 unique visits per day to 784 unique prospective patient visits per day.

• From 8% to 80% total Search Engine Visibility

• Top Ranking: Dr. Miller enjoys hundreds of top 10 rankings which have had a tremendous positive impact on branding, revenue, and even visibility amongst his peers.

• Notable Rankings:
  Google:

  • #1 New York Plastic Surgery
  • #3 New York Plastic Surgeon
  • #1 NYC Plastic Surgery
  • #1|#2 NYC Plastic Surgery
  Yahoo:

  • #1 New York Plastic Surgery
  • #1 New York Plastic Surgeon
  • #1 NYC Plastic Surgery
  • #1 NYC Plastic Surgery
  MSN:

  • #1 New York Plastic Surgery
  • #2 New York Plastic Surgeon
  • #8 NYC Plastic Surgery
  • #8 NYC Plastic Surgery

Testimonial

“Year-to-date revenues are up 550% over this time last year. Internet referrals are four times those of doctor referrals, and nine times those of patient referrals.”

“All in all I would recommend your services completely and would be happy to speak to any prospective clients on your behalf.”

-Dr. Phillip Miller

Please see our plastic surgery specific partner site for full details and an extended case study!
Cosmetic Surgeon Marketing Success

Pregnancy-info.net is one of the leading web portals related to maternity, pregnancy and birth, dedicated to helping visitors find information regarding pregnancy, infertility, and babies. The website is an invaluable resource that caters to over 1,000,000 people per month and offers a unique perspective and interaction that many other “big-brand” portals do not.

The Challenge

Rankings were starting to slip for targeted keywords due to algorithm changes, fierce competition and other technical issues that needed to be addressed. Visitation had fallen by almost 50% from 28,000 visitors a day to 15,000.

The MatrixMT Solution

• Plan: A thorough analysis of on-page and off-page indicators were performed in order to identify the issues causing the decrease in traffic.
• Create: On-page optimization consulting was implemented upon underlying structural issues within the site which helped indexing and proper conveyance of each page’s true focus to the search engines.
• Market: MatrixMT submitted Pregnancy-info.net into popular, trusted, and well managed directories (such as dmoz.org, Yahoo!’s directory, and MSN’s bCentral), to boost visitation and rankings.
• Market: A major linking development campaign was launched to acquire a large amount of relevant and high-quality links that were necessary to compete with multi-million dollar competitor brands in the search results, as well as drive targeted traffic.

The MatrixMT Advantage

• 100% Visitation increase: Traffic increased over 100% to 30,000-35,000 visitors per day.
• Top 10 Rankings: The site achieved Top 10 rankings for incredibly competitive terms, some having nearly 100,000,000 results returned Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

In 2002, Wade Capital Management, LLC purchased The Boxing Club Holdings and the two company - owned locations: The Boxing Club - La Jolla and The Boxing Club – Convoy. The Boxing Club has since grown to 6 locations and has became a leader in the Southern California fitness industry. The Boxing Club is a different type of fitness center focused on achieving set fitness goals.

The Challenge

The Boxing Club is expanding quickly and needed a complete online presence including a website redevelopment, Search Engine Optimization and lead tracking capabilities.

The MatrixMT Solution

• Plan: MatrixMT consultants developed a thorough understanding of the business model and The Boxing Club’s objective to build their member base through online marketing.
• Create: Develop a website for The Boxing Club that communicated the company message with high-energy, and that was very easy to manage. The new site allowed them to easily update class schedule, trainer bios and new events. This function saved them thousands of dollars in programmer maintenance fees.
• Market: Search Engine Optimization was achieved through building relevant links, optimization of text copy and html coding, and creation of a search engine friendly navigation that also was easy for visitors to navigate.
• Grow: Create a clear sales path to drive potential member inquiries. All inquiries are tracked allowing The Boxing Club to measure the effectiveness of their advertising and marketing. We also implemented an intuitive Contact Management System to effectively manage these inquiries.

The MatrixMT Advantage

• Branding: The Boxing Club received a website that strengthened their brand.
• 60% decrease in maintenance costs: The site empowered The Boxing Club employees to operate daily management, decreasing maintenance costs by 60%.
• 123% Traffic Increase: Visitation has increased from 80 unique visitors a day to 180 potential members a day!
• Top 10 rankings: The Boxing Club has achieved Top 10 ranking across all major search engines for their targeted keywords.
• Notable Rankings:
  Google:

  • #1 San Diego Gym(s)
  • #1 San Diego Boxing
  • #1 San Diego Kickboxing
  • #2 San Diego Fitness

Testimonial

Dear Nadav,

I am writing to thank you for your help in redesigning our website, significantly growing our web traffic, providing us with a platform to expand our business, and further strengthening of our brand. You and your staff at MatrixMT are a pleasure to work with. You created a plan for our online success and implemented it. I will strongly recommend your services to any potential new clients.

Sincerely,

Steven Wade, President
The Boxing Club

• Website and UI Development
• SEO and Link Building
• Viral Marketing
• Conversion Tracking
• Pay-Per-Click Marketing

The Company

Established in 1996, DiscoverSD.com quickly became a prominent San Diego city guide. However, since early 2000 the portal had been largely ignored by its owners, losing significant market share. In mid-2006 DiscoverSD.com was acquired and the new owners wanted to re-establish it as the leader in the San Diego luxury lifestyle marketplace.

The Goals Are Always Clearly Defined and the Results Follow

DiscoverSD.com had the following goals

• Establish a market reach of 80,000 unique visitors and 500,000 page views per month from organic search traffic within 1 year of launching
• Minimum 15% visitor return rate within 6 months of launching
• 4 or more page views per visitor to indicate stickiness of the site

The Results are in the Numbers

• 3,900% increase in organic search traffic: DiscoverSD.com was launched in Nov 2006 and within 8 months organic search engine traffic rose from 2,000 unique visitors a month to over 80,000 unique visitors a month through strategic link building and SEO.
• 30% return visitor rate was achieved
• Averaging 6.45 page views per visit
• Averaging over 500,000 page views per month

MatrixMt was contracted to:

• Web Development: Re-develop the website’s 10,000+ pages in a scalable manner from the ground up
• SEO: Build the site in an SEO friendly manner to ensure organic search traffic goals were met
• Usability: UI creation to ensure sufficient click thru to advertisers in order to meet revenue goals
• Link Building: Implement Link Building strategy to build visible rankings to drive traffic and assist in advertising sales
• Pay-Per-Click: Implement a Pay Per Click strategy to build added value for advertisers
• Conversion Tracking: Enable DiscoverSD.com to demonstrate measurable results for advertisers through sophisticated call tracking and lead generation solutions.

The MatrixMT Solution

In order to achieve the goals of DiscoverSD.com, MatrixMT performed thorough strategic and competitive analysis across the national city guide landscape. In order to compete in this highly competitive and saturated marketplace DiscoverSD.com had to completely differentiate itself from the competition.

Solutions for Success:

• The site was developed on a Microsoft ASP.NET platform in order to achieve scalability as new features were added
• Thorough keyword research was performed in order to establish the search volume and structure of the site to maximize rankings
• User-behavior and navigation-path testing was performed in order to maximize page views
• “Link bait” and Viral Marketing campaigns were created in order to catapult visibility and increase rankings
• A strategic pay-per-click program was set up to scale up as new advertisers were added
• Conversion Tracking through analytics, call tracking and strategic adserving

Viral Marketing

The Company

Established in 1917, Barnes & Noble is the nation’s top book seller brand for the fourth year in a row and sells just over 300 million books a year. Quamut.com is a division of Barnes & Noble selling their “How to Guides” in stores and online.

The Goals Are Always Clearly Defined and the Results Follow

Quamut.com had the following goals:

• Promote the website and guides through social media channels
• Increase traffic through search engines to lower advertising costs

The Results are in the Numbers

• 60,000+ visitors to the site in the first 4 days of launching the viral piece: http://www.quamut.com/sa/ipod_hacks.html
• #3 - #5 ranking in Google for the key phrase “Ipod Hacks” which continuously drives new traffic
• 832 back links established to this page
• Was made “popular” and achieved positioning on the homepage of one of the largest social media sites: Digg.com

MatrixMT was contracted to:

• Viral Marketing: Created a guide to Ipod Hacks that the audience of social media sites would respond to and vote up
• SEO: Optimize Ipod Hack url to achieve ranking for relevant key phrases
• Link Building: Implement Link Building strategy through viral marketing piece to achieve ranking

The MatrixMT Solution

In order to achieve the goals of Quamut.com, MatrixMT performed thorough analysis of Quamut.com’s topics to determine which were the most relevant to the social media users.

Solutions for Success:

• Research was done to find the most interesting and useful Ipod hacks available
• The information was packaged and designed as a Top 10 list making it more appealing to users
• The guide was promoted on our proprietary network of power users