envisionit media is proud to announce that once again we are looking to add new members into our team. We turn to our friends, clients and partners in efforts to help place talented individuals into our agency. We welcome any referrals you may be able to provide!

Listed below are the descriptions of each position:

Senior Interactive Producer (Sr. Project Manager)
Senior Account Manager
Website Developer

envisionit media is an interactive agency that drives action for its clients through the strategic integration of online and offline tactics.

Last week we attended a great CIMA dinner here in Chicago (fyi, CIMA = Chicago Interactive Marketing Association) with several speakers from large, nationwide brands like Kmart, Sears, etc. One comment stood out more than anything and it’s one we preach to our SEO team and clients alike that is very important – OPTIMIZE FOR THE CUSTOMER!

What exactly does this mean? Too many times when clients are incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) techniques into their website and marketing strategy, they focus more on what the search engines are reading on their site and less on what their own website visitors are reading. What the search engines can read is, of course, important, as ensuring they are able to find and index your site for relevant content. But you should always build and optimize your site for your visitors first, search engines second. Never sacrifice user experience for the search engines.

Here are some quick tips for doing just that:

1. Do keyword research prior to the restructure of your website and determine what keywords visitors are actually searching on in your industry. Phrases you may use to describe your business or product internally may be completely different than what your customers use to describe you. And don’t be afraid to poll your customers for ideas!

2. Plan out your site in a way that is easy for a visitor to flow from categories, clearly highlighting products or services. Don’t plan for whatever way is easier for your company to organize your data. If you think you have this issue with your current website, install heatmap software like ClickTale that will allow you to monitor visitor actions and engagement on your website. Then you can determine the best layout for your site from your visitor’s POV.

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When you think of foursquare, the first thing that might come to mind is a game you played at recess when you were in elementary school. Well, times are changing, and the next time you hear someone talking about foursquare, they’re probably talking about the ever-growing location-based social media tool.

How it works for users:

Foursquare is a social media tool that allows people to post their location from GPS based smart phones, or via text from a regular cell phone. This is called “checking in,” and the more you check in, the more “rewards” you can earn. There are two different types of rewards: badges and mayor-ships.

There are many different ways you can earn a badge on foursquare, but it will always involve checking in. One example of this is the “explorer” badge, which you earn after checking into 25 different locations. Foursquare also has badges that are location and event specific. Recently, they teamed up with SXSW (South by Southwest), a 9 day music, film, and interactive event in Austin, TX to create a cornucopia of badges a user could earn while “exploring” the event.  To earn mayor-ship of a location, you must have the most check-ins at a specific location in the past 60 days. Once you’ve achieved this, you become the undisputed mayor of that location…that is, until someone else frequents that venue more than you and steals the crown.

How it works for businesses:

Foursquare is a great way to get people to visit your business, post about their experience, and create an interactive community. Foursquare works well for places like restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, bars/clubs, gyms, hair salons, and other venues that people visit regularly.

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We’d like to put a bug in your ear about our newest client, H.D. Hudson. envisionit media has partnered with H.D. Hudson as their interactive agency. Here’s the “buzz” about them:

H. D. Hudson Manufacturing Company is a long-standing, global company specializing in consumer and professional sprayers and dusters since 1905. The Hudson brand is recognized and known for quality, service and value throughout the world. H.D. Hudson’s company headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois with products distributed and sold worldwide. The lady bug sure can travel!

We would like to welcome the H.D. Hudson team to the envisionit family. You have inspired a new passion for our gardens this year!

We are very excited to announce that NTN Bearing Corporation of America has retained envisionit media as their interactive agency!

NTN Bearing Corporation of America manufactures and distributes throughout the U.S. a wide range of ball and roller bearings, serving the automotive, industrial and recreational markets. In addition to bearings of all sizes and types, NTN is also one of the largest producers of constant velocity joints for automotive front-wheel and four-wheel drive applications. Over 70% of the bearings sold by NTN in North America are manufactured by one of the seven manufacturing plants the company operates in the USA and Canada. The company maintains their primary website at www.ntnamerica.com.

Needless to say, we’re excited to get our ‘bearings’ around this new relationship!

If you’re a marketer that does not live under a rock somewhere, chances are you are migrating (if you haven’t already) your marketing and media plans to the online space. Print ad budgets are getting nixed for a shot at AdWords, websites are getting revamped every couple years to keep up with the growing technology and search engine changes.

Since my agency, envisionit media, is in the online arena, I wanted to do a little research and see what we’re calling “online marketing” these days. Our office throws around several terms – interactive marketing, emarketing, digital. Why do I want to find that out? Well, I want to make sure our website is optimized for the terms that people are actually searching for in Google – not just our opinions of what they’re searching for.

So, I used this fabulous free tool called Google Insights that we use a lot when researching keyword themes for our clients.

I typed in the following terms – interactive marketing, emarketing, website marketing, online marketing, and digital marketing – into the tool; set the parameters for Web Searches in the US in the past 12 months, and Voila! I was served this lovely little chart that showed me what terms were being used more frequently.

In looking at a quick glance of the outcomes,

It appears “online marketing” is the winner and one we should test creating some website pages around, optimizing them, and determining what traffic it brings in. In fact, we should also test “website marketing” and “digital marketing” to determine if each key phrase brings a different level of qualified traffic. We may be able to bring in a lot more traffic on “online marketing”, but maybe the visitor is not as sophisticated or as qualified to work with our agency as one who types in “digital marketing”….

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Ready or not, the mobile web will surpass desktop in less than three years. As users flock to new devices and capabilities, businesses are racing to meet a whole new set of needs and expectations. And mobile is proving to be a boon to businesses that are quick on the uptake.

Leveraging the platform
It may well be the Year of Mobile, but it’s also the Year of Budget. Fortunately, mobile is shaping up to be an extremely cost-effective channel for expanding the reach of your brand and driving some serious sales.

For starters, consider the inherent characteristics of the mobile platform:

• Sophistication. Mobile phones are getting better operating systems and longer battery life. Other devices—the iPad, for example—will follow suit in their race to center stage. Whatever the latest device, people are ready and eager to adopt.

• Applications. Sleek, user-friendly apps are giving users familiar interface cues. No more clunky WAP-based sites.

• Instant access. High-speed networks are bringing online interaction to life everywhere. Not to mention that, these days, you can find a Wi-Fi hotspot pretty much anywhere you go.

• Location. Location-awareness is becoming the gold standard for mobile devices, and users are embracing its capabilities at breakneck speed.

As rapid-fire innovations and sweeping user adoption continue, the mobile space will bring you closer than ever to your customers. You’ll soon be able to reach your customers wherever they are, and—perhaps most importantly—you’ll be reaching them through their preferred channels.

Entering the arena

You’re ready to go mobile, and there’s certainly no shortage of solutions and opportunities at your disposal. So where do you start? Your website. It’s the first touch point most people have with your business. Here are three smart things to think about as you enter the mobile space:

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If you are currently managing your organization’s paid search campaigns on Google, you may or may not be familiar with the latest and greatest improvements made recently to encourage visitors to click on your ads and continue on to your site or landing pages.  If you’re not familiar with the changes, here is a quick explanation of some of the new features, called Ad Extensions.

First off is your Location Extension. A location extension pulls in and displays a local business addresses that is associated with an account when your ad is shown, in order to make your ads more relevant. You can manually add an address in the Settings section, or associate it with your Google Places account. Location extensions are by default set at the Campaign level, but can also be set at the Ad level if you have, for example, specific promotions running at certain locations. Below is an example of a location extension.

Google Location Extensions

Next, and most recent, is a Phone Extension. This is where you can associate a phone number with an ad that allows a visitor the ability to click to call right from the ad. These phone numbers are displayed on computer or mobile devices with full Internet browsers. These are great for businesses, like attorneys, that rely heavily on phone calls for lead generation.

The last extension is the Product Extension. This is most relevant to ecommerce sites and business that have products listed on their site. You first need to create and upload your products to a Google Merchant Center account, and then you can link the two. Your ads will then display your products underneath them if you are listed in the top bid position. Below is an example of how Skechers uses product extentions.

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A few of us envisionites thought it would be a good idea to make our company more environmentally responsible (because greener = awesomer). Our recycled notepads are one of the ways we are reaching this goal! Instead of tossing out all the paper we inevitably go through during a day of work, we keep it, cut it to size, and assemble it into notepads. This is a great project & practice because we save money by needing to buy less notepads, and we get more out of the paper that we already purchased.

It’s actually really easy and pretty quick to do. If you are interested in trying this out at your office, check out this downloadable PDF for notepad-making instructions. You’ll also need to pick up your padding compound (the glue that you’ll need); one bottle will seriously last you forever.

Stay tuned for more ecoco (short for “eco committee”—aren’t we cute?) updates and follow our efforts to be greener!

Coming soon: our participation in Active Transportation Alliance’s Bike to Work Week in July!