VIDEO: Quick SEO Tips for Speedy Ranking Success

By on   /   Blog, Education and Training, Interactive Media, Marketing, SEO, SPOKE News, Strategy, Web Video  
SEO tips marketing des moines iowa

Are there SEO tips for better search rank that actually work? For a lot of marketers, search engine optimization (SEO) is a mystery. From small businesses looking to make a bigger impact through SEO to mega-corporations doing their best to dominate search position, just HOW to achieve better search rank in Google, Bing and other search engines is often a challenge. SPOKE Communications works with clients to achieve the best success possible through content marketing strategies and organic search engine optimization. We’ve seen some tremendous successes as well as experienced the challenges mentioned above, but through some tried-and-true SEO practices,

More Marketing News →
Back to Top

Playing Like The Big Dogs – Make Marketing a Priority

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Branding, Education and Training, Marketing, Strategy  

What’s the difference between your brand and that of, let’s say, Coke? Size? Sure, but you don’t think Coke has always been a billion dollar a year company do you? What else? Budget? Staff? Investors? All acquired through growth. So maybe the question should be, “Why aren’t you as big as Coke?” What would be your answer? Without a lot of drama and fanfare, the answer is simply marketing. Coke made (and still makes) Marketing a Priority. (Here’s their 2013 annual report just to verify.) And you can look at the annual reports of Pepsi, Doritos, General Motors, IBM, Apple,

More Marketing News →
Back to Top

10.5 Tips: Social Media Etiquette

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Interactive Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy  

Blogs, microblogs, social networks like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn are popping up daily.  Their availability to the masses is exciting and fun, even educational and inspirational.  Never before has it been easier to share knowledge, express creativity, build personal and business brands, and connect with others in your industry and around the globe. Because these social media channels are still fairly new to most, guidance and best practices are often shorted – to the detriment to the users as well as those within their network. So as a “Public Service” of sorts, I’ve put together a quick, 10.5

More Marketing News →
Back to Top
Back to Top

3 Easy Steps to Better Marketing Communications

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Education and Training, Marketing, Strategy  
better marketing communications plan

Listen, marketing communications isn’t rocket science. While I’ve seen CMOs and and entire Marketing departments wringing their hands over the most inane of situations, I try to explain, “If we do a bit of strategic thinking to create a program that uses dollars efficiently and produces quality leads, we’ll be well on our way to being a marketing communications stud-bolts.” So below are three easy steps to building confidence in your marketing communications efforts as well as your team, your company, and your customers. 1) Define the Players The primary step in shaping a successful marketing communications plan is to

More Marketing News →
Back to Top

Beware The Social Media Spell

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Branding, Education and Training, Interactive Media, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Technology  

Unfortunately, this is Social Media Marketing for many: Look deeply into my eyes… you are feeling veeeery sleepy… sleeeeepy… deeeeper… deeeeeeeeper… relax and let the social media mystique take you to a happier place. Deeeeper… Dee… Yeah, sometimes I feel like social media has cast some kind of spell over businesses, specifically throughout the marketing departments of some companies. It’s easy to be seduced. It’s easy to be swayed by viral videos, tweets, and blogs with thousands of readers. It’s easy to think that social media can be the magic pill to fix marketing mishaps. But in our passionate pursuit

More Marketing News →
Back to Top

Five Web Marketing Questions You Need to Be Asking

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Branding, Education and Training, Interactive Media, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy  

Okay, this set of five questions starts with one MAJOR Web marketing discovery question: “How successful is your Web site at accomplishing your marketing goals?” If you don’t know the answer, you need to stop reading now and set proper goals goals.  Only through goal-setting and tracking will you know if you have an effective strategy in place. Once you have that established, work through the following five simple questions to gauge the effectiveness of your Web marketing efforts. When your visitors see your site (and your business) as value-added then doing business with you is an opportunity, not a

More Marketing News →
Back to Top

The Entrepreneur Brand

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Branding, Education and Training, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, SPOKE News  
branding entrepreneur des moines iowa marketing communications

I had the honor of heading down to southern Iowa last night to talk to the Entrepreneurship students at South West Iowa Community College (SWiCC). My charge was easy enough; explain the steps I’d taken through entrepreneurship and how branding affected my decisions and the development of my business. But then I thought a bright-eyed group of burgeoning entrepreneurs deserved more than my typical “TRUE Branding 101” spiel. This presentation required a little “from the heart?” A little “I’ve been in your shoes?” Maybe this needed to be a little more personal. Of course, branding for entrepreneurs is paramount. “Without

More Marketing News →
Back to Top

Happy GOOGLE Mobile-Friendly Day!

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Branding, Design, Education and Training, Industry News, Interactive Media, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, SPOKE News, Strategy, Technology  
rank for mobile search des moines

Mobile-friendly? What, you say? Yes, over night, the powers at Google changed their algorithms for search to require all sties to be “Mobile-friendly” or be excluded from mobile search. You can read more about their changes here: http://cre8wow.me/1yLU6XM This change is a great advantage to you and all of those that keep their sites current with search compatibility best practices. As Google enacts these changes, sites NOT mobile-friendly will no longer be indexed for mobile search results. Yes, you heard right… NON MOBILE-FRIENDLY SITES WILL NOT SHOW UP IN MOBILE SEARCHES AFTER TODAY! While standard desktop search will not be

More Marketing News →
Back to Top
Back to Top