Maria Kuznetsova, Graphic Designer

It’s clear the universe wanted Maria to join the envisionit team. Before she even applied for a position, she saw the office and liked the whole open creative collaboration-deal we have going on. As it turns out, she also designed the website for Blokes & Birds, where we had part of our 2010 holiday party. And now, she’ll be designing logos, websites, and print pieces for us.

Both form and function are equally important in her work. Her fine arts background in painting and studio drawing shapes the former, and her consideration for a user’s goals and overall experience is what leads the latter—so the result is a calm, aesthetically sound interactive experience. Win.

Tyler Beth, Web Marketing Manager

A connoisseur in the realm of SEO, Tyler came to us by way of organic search. Fitting. He looks at SEO as a big puzzle—putting the pieces together to raise rank so you can find it. But he’ll be exploring all of the pieces of SEO to do more than just optimize a site. Think social search, local search, mobile SEO, and social media strategy.

When he’s not SEOing websites, Tyler’s likely snowboarding down a mountain, following the ventures of the Cubs and Bulls, or going to a concert.

Those of you who follow envisionit media on Facebook know that we had an agency-wide potluck lunch a couple weeks ago. We all like to eat, a lot of us love to cook, and we happen to enjoy spending time together. So a late summer, mid-week food fest seemed like a lovely way to combine all of these things. There was quite a spread–enchiladas, pasta salad, sloppy joes, bruschetta, watermelon salad, mac & cheese, fried chicken, something called bread salad, and some subtly-sneak-seconds desserts. We’re still full. For a Friday treat, we thought we’d share a few of the potluck recipes. Click the thumbnail below to download the envisionit media potluck pdf! Happy weekend!

As envisionit media grows as an agency (one of the fastest growing privately owned companies, in fact), expanding our portfolio and building our roster of talented, creative, strategic thinkers, so grows our space. We’ve expanded into two levels at our abode on Ohio Street, and are quite enjoying the leg, elbow and thinking room.

Opening up the upstairs office space has helped us improve collaboration, not only with our internal teams, but with our clients. Dedicated working spaces in this now 15,000 square foot office make quick meetings, video conferences, and working sessions easier than ever.

Take a look!

The Porch, below, is a sunny meeting room overlooking Ohio St., with plenty of seating space.

The Card Room seats about seven. It’s perfect for smaller meetings—or even the occasional game of lunchtime Hold’em.

The spaceship-looking Den is the latest in futuristic working sessions!

With our new space all set, and plans to grow to 45 full-time employees in the next year, we’re excited to continue expansion, collaborate with our clients, explore new business, and everything else that’s coming up!

You know what they say, “All good things must come to an end…” While I’m sad to say that next week marks my last week as a web marketing intern here at EIM, I’m proud to say that I’ve truly enjoyed my time here over the past few months. To say I’ve learned a lot during my summer internship here would be more than an understatement.

Working at a small interactive agency like EIM really gave me the opportunity to gain a lot of hands-on experience. I got to work on several client tasks such as search engine optimization, pay-per click ad management, social media management, and weekly / quarterly reporting. While working closely with the web marketing team, I’ve learned all about the different aspects of search engine optimization including keyword analysis and research, meta-tag writing, content enhancement, video optimization, and link building as well as how to effectively utilize various online marketing tools and resources like social media, keyword tools, and Google Analytics. In addition to learning more about interactive marketing, my internship at EIM has also helped me develop my skills in collaboration, time management, internal communications, and problem solving.

Overall I feel like my time here at EIM has been a great success. I came into this internship as a fresh college grad with very limited knowledge and experience in interactive marketing and now after spending my summer here at EIM, I feel confident and well-prepared to take on the interactive marketing world as a full-time professional! Thank you to everyone at EIM for making my internship here a great experience…I will be sure to keep touch!

…And to close out my last blog post as an EIM intern, I’ve compiled some helpful tips for students or recent grads looking to make the most of their internship with an interactive agency:
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We’re proud to announce that we’ve been nominated for an OMMA Award! Our favorite restaurant that serves malt crust pizza is one of three finalists in the Web Site Excellence Food and Beverage category.

Winners are announced September 26—but you can register to vote for Roots Handmade Pizza for a Member’s Choice Award.

In the meantime, we’d like to congratulate all of the nominees, and the envisionit Roots team! This just might call for a malt crust pizza party.
 
 
 

We’re pleased to announce that envisionit media is on Inc. Magazine’s 5000 list for 2011! That means we’re one of the fastest growing privately owned companies in the United States. Pretty big deal, huh? And it’s an even bigger deal that it’s the third year in a row we’ve made the list.

So like our annual holiday party gift exchange, signing the conch shell after you get hired, and getting cookies on your birthday, getting on the Inc. 500|5000 list might just be a new company tradition.

Congratulations are in order to everyone who made the 500|5000 list—and a big hat tip to our employees, clients, and Inc. Magazine for making this all possible.

It hasn’t even been a month since I started interning here at EIM, yet I feel like I’ve already learned so much. Prior to arriving at EIM, most of my experience with digital media involved managing social media accounts for various local events and businesses and maintaining my own personal blog. As a recent college graduate who studied media and communications for four years, I felt very much aware of the power of social media and how sites like Twitter and Facebook have been reshaping our lives and the way we do business.

But while social media channels can certainly play a great role in things like brand management and customer engagement, it is really just a piece of the marketing puzzle. It’s not enough to just make a Facebook and Twitter page for your business and wait for fans and followers to roll in. It is very important to make sure your social media efforts line up with your overall marketing strategy. It’s also useful to find ways to integrate your social media pages into other channels such as your website, newsletters, mobile apps, print ads, and even TV commercials (see: American Express)

As social media strategist Jay Baer puts it, “Social media is not a solo act. It’s best as part of a jazz combo.” And one very important player in that combo that I knew very little about before coming here was “search marketing.” While working closely with the Web Marketing Team here at EIM, I’m really starting to recognize the importance of search marketing. SEO, SEM, paid search, and search engines in general all play huge parts in gaining traffic to your company website and reaching your marketing goals, whether that means increasing product sales or raising brand awareness.
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Curious to see how we go about our days? Take a peek into the world of your favorite interactive agency—in haiku form.

So many divs here
Hey you, will you do these mods?
Fixed it, you’re welcome

Need to call client
How is the ______ job going?
How are you on time?

I need a print quote
This font is not web friendly
Bigger logo here

Optimization
Your dreams are organic search
Analytics, please

Delete, edit, write
Serial comma or no?
Copy decks, always

This month Google released “Adwords Call Metrics,” a call tracking service for Adwords campaigns. The service is free for Adwords account holders and integrates a Google Voice number into ads on both computers and mobile devices. Google Voice is the free service that allows Google account holders set-up a phone number from any area code in the United States. For the purpose of Adwords, users can set up either a local phone number or a toll-free number. Users are then able redirect the number to any phone. The total number of calls and average duration of the calls can be tracked in the Adwords dashboard.

The same Google Voice number used in Adwords can also be used on other marketing materials or a website for increased tracking through Adwords, although we recommend setting up a separate Google Voice number for each campaign. Separate numbers allow for more targeted conversion tracking.

Although this service is still in BETA, there is an incredible amount of potential for the Google Voice/Adwords integration. First, “Adwords Call Metrics” creates another way for Adwords users to reach customers, track offline conversions, and measure the success of their ads. Also, there is a lot of speculation that Google will introduce a pay per call metric, very similar to the pay per click metric. In the future Google might also offer increased call metric capabilities for Adwords, such as recording, transcription, and enhanced analytics capabilities.

Currently Google is offering the service to a limited number of customers, but as they test the service and refine the features it will be released to more customers. You can tell if you have the option of “Adwords Call Metrics” by looking under the Ad Extensions tab in your Adwords account.

To read more about “Adwords Call Metrics” from Google click here or here.
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We moved into our River North address two years ago. Since then, our team and our business have expanded to an extent that our one mere floor of offices can no longer contain us. So, we’re doubling our workspace by adding the floor above us! We just started planning the layout, and we’ve set a move-in date for early Q4.

this photo shows the new main level office space as it is prepared for construction

The new, street-level space is pretty much everything a thriving interactive agency like envisionit media could want. Exposed brick walls, wooden beam ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, a combined 11,000 square feet of open space—y’know, the whole agency nine yards.

Now, we just have to figure out where to put the foosball table. Priorities.