Want to enhance your presence in the search engines? Establishing a Google+ Business Page, and creating your own personal Google+ account, has become a necessity. In early November, Google launched Google+ Pages, which effectively allowed businesses to participate in the ever-evolving Google+ social network. Now Google is placing an even higher emphasis on social search with the introduction of “Google Search, plus Your World” just last month. Here’s an example of the impact that social search and Google+ Pages have on search engine results: When a search query is conducted for the term...

Photo by VERN UYETAKE / LAKE OSWEGO REVIEW Lisa Sienkiewicz shows off the result of a remodel that expanded The Pearl at Kruse Way rehab health center. Fish Marketing recently coordinated a PR project for Avamere Family of Companies. The Avamere story appeared in the print and online editions of The Lake Oswego Review. The article also appeared in the online edition of the West Linn Tidings. About the story: The Pearl at Kruse Way Rehabilitation Health Center and Memory Care Residence - a facility managed by Avamere - has expanded its rehabilitation unit by over 50% from 29 to 45...

Two established Portland-based marketing firms, Fish Marketing, and MBT Marketing Communications, today announced the formation of a collaborative. Both firms remain separate companies with their own slate of accounts, and will occupy suites 620 and 635 in the Olympic Mills Commerce Center at 107 SE Washington. Fish and MBT have deep retail roots, and are about equal in billings, but earn revenue differently. Fish with a staff of ten, has a well-established digital marketing capability that contributes about 55% of revenues. The remaining revenue comes from brand strategy, traditional advertising...

LaRog Brothers of Portland came to Fish Marketing to bolster their digital marketing presence. We created a comprehensive solution that included a new website, designer gallery, blogging, social media integration and Club LaRog —an email marketing program. Their new digital footprint is promoted through local & organic search marketing, pay-per-click advertising and social influence marketing. The results blew LaRog away and we're now working on similar campaigns for jewelers in two top 30 markets. We invite you to explore the new www.larog.com . While you're there, check out some of the...

As you may have noticed, Facebook has made some significant changes to the layout and functionality of facebook pages. Some of these changes have been long overdue, while others are a bit surprising and may change the way Fan pages are built and used by businesses and fans alike. Up until today, switching facebook pages to a new design layout is optional. However, now the new layout is mandatory. Here’s a brief overview of the changes and what they mean for businesses and fans: 1. Tab Application Menu has moved to the sidebar: Users can now view different tabs on the...

You’ve implemented keyword rich title tags, Meta tags, image alt text, and other search engine friendly tactics. Your website has keyword rich optimized content. Where do you go from there? Off-page is the answer. One of the major factors that the search engines take into account when they calculate site visibility rankings is the number of inbound links a site has. For example, let’s say on one hand you have a website that is relatively optimized but has zero inbound links. On the other hand you have a website that is somewhat optimized but has a large amount of inbound links from relevant...

More than a year ago we wrote a post titled Local Search Marketing: The “10-pac” which touched on Google’s announcement that it had become more local. By matching a user’s IP address to a geographic area, Google was now able to generate local results based on a search query. For example, if an internet user in Portland search for the keyword “Chinese food”, then a list of Chinese restaurants in Portland would display. Each listing would contain the name of the business, address and a phone number. Fast forward to the presence and local listings have turned out to be a valuable tool...

Inter-active “Allowing or relating to continuous two-way transfer of information between a user and the central point of a communication system, such as a computer.” Source: Dictionary.com Ground Zero for Small Business Marketing: The Website What makes a “good” website? Marketing strategy, graphic design and technology must come together to make a website that gets results for a small business. Some websites have really cool designs that make them interesting to look at. Others have special affects and cutting edge technology that make them fun to play with. Small businesses need...

Most photosharing websites like Flickr , PhotoBucket , or Picassa offer xml “feeds” . With PHP 5’s SimpleXML and Flickr’s XML Photostream is is easy to pipe a photo gallery onto your website. For example, The Willamette Valley Dog & Cat Motel takes pictures of all their “guests” at play, and they wanted a way to show all the latest photos from their Flickr gallery on their home page. We This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of PHP and XML, and a photo sharing account. Here, we are using Flickr, but most other photo sharing sites can be parsed with the...

Fish recently launched a campaign to promote the Oregon History Museum's newest exhibit: T all in the Saddle: 100 Years of the Pendleton Round-Up . Promotion included PR, direct mail, print advertising, social media, and this radio spot. Download the 30 second spot here. (mp3) The Script Share the excitement of Oregon's iconic Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo by visiting the Oregon History Museum’s newest exhibit Tall in the Saddle: One hundred years of the Pendleton Round-up. Imagine riding the parade trail in an authentic stage coach, visit the Native American village or ponder the daring...

If you are looking to buy a condo in Newport, Oregon , then check out www.ShorelineRidge.com . This magnificent beach front property has redefined luxury living on the Oregon Coast. Fish Marketing helped Shoreline Ridge with a new website version , logo update and sales brochure. The website now features a content management system, search engine optimization, full screen landscape background and a transitioning Flash header.

Pastini Pastaria is an Oregon based Italian bistro with a passion for pasta. Pastini knows that local means fresher and fresher tastes better, and their customers could not agree more. As agency of record for Pastini's eight restaurants across Oregon, Fish Marketing developed a comprehensive marketing strategy that included a new brand position, search engine marketing, social media, traditional media, and database marketing. Fish Marketing helped Pastini with an email marketing system capable of delivering segmented and personalized communications. The most exciting feature about the...

Keep Oregon Cool is a collaborative Oregon website sponsored by The Oregon Global Warming Commission (OGWC). Fish Marketing helped the OGWC with a new logo design, concept and brand of 'Keep Oregon Cool' and a new website designed and developed with the Drupal platform. From KeepOregonCool.org: "The Oregon Global Warming Commission (OGWC) created this site as a collaborative work-in-progress with Oregon citizens, businesses, communities and scientists. Our collective task is to inform and educate ourselves on climate change: the science, the economic choices and opportunities, strategies to...

Are you familiar with those massive fishing trawlers that head out to sea for weeks at a time? They trail huge, miles-long nets behind them and haul in everything that swims, keeping only a few choice specimens. That's how advertising used to work. We'd cast a huge net over the entire market and then wait for a few fish to walk through the door. Remember the old phrase, "Only half my advertising is working, I just don't know which half." Thankfully things have changed. Digital marketing techniques have made fishing much more efficient. Now we can stand on the back of the boat with just a...

October marked Portland's first month under the new PPM (Portable People Meter) radio ratings system. PPM participants wear an electronic meter daily for eight months to two years (vs. a one week survey period for the former Diary system) and listening is recorded automatically from an encoded digital signal in radio broadcasts. This eliminates human error inherent in the old diary system that required participants to recall what they listened to that day and then record it later. PPM also picks up stations overheard by participants in public places such as stores, offices, taxis, etc. The...

Most economists, the government and my optimistic mother in-law all predict that 2010 is going to be better than 2009 1 . It can't be worse, right? Predictions are tricky when it comes to the future, but if you believe there's an economic recovery coming, you need to prepare now. There's going to be market share up for grabs in every category of business and the Share Wars of 2010 begin in January! Today is when you should be planning how you're going to increase your market share one year from now. Here's a checklist of things you can work on over the next six months that will put you in...

Google dropped a bombshell in April when they formally announced: Google Becomes More Local . If you do business locally, this is the possibly the best search engine marketing opportunity ever. It’s free, it’s at the top of the search page, and it’s so new your competitors have no clue about it. Suppose you search for something locally like [ Dry Cleaning ], [ Mexican Food ] or [ Advertising Agency ]. Google will read your IP address and match it to a broad geographical region. The results return in the form of a mini-map with 10 business listings close to you—the “10 Pack”....

Fort Vancouver National Site is the only national park in the Vancouver/Portland metropolitan area. Fish Marketing helped Fort Vancouver with a redesigned website that merged content from several existing web sites. This website features a design inspired by the fort, a robust content management system, an events calendar and an interactive map . See the site at http://www.fortvan.org/ . When you are finished, go ahead and pay a visit to this incredible Historic Site.

There are a lot of misconceptions about branding that are floating around the marketing stratosphere. So, we decided to do our part to dismiss some of the more common advertising myths. Below is my Top 10 list as well as the corresponding branding realities.There are a lot of misconceptions about branding that are floating around the marketing stratosphere. So, we decided to do our part to dismiss some of the more common advertising myths. Below is my Top 10 list as well as the corresponding branding realities. If your company could benefit from the healing powers of Fish Marketing Brand-Aid, just...

The amount of TV commercial time has been on a steady upward tick since the advent of the medium, so if you feel you’re watching more ads than ever before, you’re right! The average amount of commercial time per hour in 1952 was 13%. As of last year, it was up to 32%. Now when you sit down to watch your favorite hour-long drama you could be taking in 19 minutes worth of ads along with your 41 minutes of programming. Nothing quite hampers the action of Jack Bauer pursuing a terrorist or the Oceanic 815 survivors running for their lives like a four to five minute block of ads. With so many...

The Oregon Historical Society catalogues 2.5 million photographs in its vast collection. In order to improve public accessibility and revenue, Fish Marketing produced a complex web application to sell prints from the Society's collection. The application was custom engineered with Microsoft technologies ASP and MSSQL. The result? Choose images of the beautiful Pacific Northwest landscape and rivers from some of the Pacific Northwest’s most famous photographers including Carleton E. Watkins, Fred H. and Oscar Kiser, and Benjamin Gifford. Support OHS buy purchasing your print today »

Every time I turn around I hear nothing but economic doom and gloom. But no one seems to be talking about a basic fact of any recession: consumers and businesses are still spending tens of billions of dollars…EVERY DAY. And do you know who’s going to benefit the most from all that spending? Companies that make a commitment to marketing during this economic downturn. I know it sounds like, another pitch from a pitchman but it’s true. When the economy slows and the market “pie” shrinks, the only way to maintain our revenue is to capture a bigger slice of the pie. The best way to do that is...

SEM Ad Placement “Relax. Enjoy the ocean breeze. Let your inner tube bob gently in the surf, tips of your toes touching into the cool ocean water. Inky black shadows muscle through the depths beneath you, but with Shark-Be-Gone shark repellent spray it’s nothing but another relaxing afternoon in the sun.” Although the above radio campaign is convincing, using radio to reach a niche market is a bit like William Tell shooting from the hip with a sawed-off; we need a little more precision. The CEO of our fictional fish-phobic company, Scared Surfless LLC, knows she can’t afford to...

2009 Mt. Hood Skibowl Photo and Video Contest Mt. Hood Skibowl, America’s Largest Night Ski Area, chose Fish Marketing to design an online photo & video contest for their 2009 season. The resulting website is a was made with mobileme , PHP5’s Simple XML , Jquery Thickbox and a YETI. Together they mashup a fun, friendly and competitive photo / video contest. Visit the ‘Yeti’ and Skibowl’s 2009 photo / viodeo contest.

There aren’t a whole lot of similarities between a Heavy Metal Musician and a Search Engine Optimizer. One dreams about super stardom while the other dreams about limitless web traffic. Arena rockers jam the Keytar while SEO specialists master the Keyword. The Headbanger blows out stadiums of thousands with distorted bar chords. The SEO guru tweaks META Tags, H1’s, Robots.txt, and backlinks. Still, there are a few things they agree on. Just like the main riff of Megadeath’s “ Addicted to Chaos ” search engine optimizers utilize harmonious algorithms to do their work....

With the ever-changing communication environment, news doesn’t stay around for long. Broadcast media is a blitz of information for its audience. Now with its online counterparts, print media changes faster than one can take a breath. So how does a company leverage its earned media coverage? Third-party credibility is a crucial vehicle for telling your story and requires companies to use additional means to communicate its ambassador’s expertise to its direct target audience (clients, prospects and constituents). In order to do this effectively, the company’s website must have the necessary...

Is your company positioned for success? by: Nate Parr Are you building a strong brand for your company? While your name, logo ad and packaging help initiate consumer trial, it’s ultimately the customer experience that validates and sustains your brand. What keeps your customers coming back and recommending you to others? It’s your company’s brand position and it’s an extremely powerful and often overlooked element of branding.   Your brand position distinguishes you from your competitors. It’s a single, clear and concise message that describes the benefit that customers...

Compelling logos create a memorable impression to clients or customers and, if done correctly, will encompass your company’s atmosphere, purpose and specialty. The creation of a logo for a company is the jumping point for all following creative and therefore must be fit all requirements set by your client. This checklist will help you and your client choose a successful logo. - Design a logo that stands out no matter what context you place it in, for example if it is embroidered on a sweatshirt or embossed on a folder. - Don’t clutter your logo with fine details. It should be as easy to...

Like so many, you may be wondering how to best utilize the internet for an effective interactive media campaign. You’ve probably heard that newspaper circulations are on the decline, while DVR (Digital Video Recorder) usage continues to rise, further reducing the time spent viewing TV commercials. Radio is now more compressed than ever, and switching to a new measuring system like PPM (Portable People Meters) in local markets will have a significant impact on how audiences are measured. The evolution of social media and newer technologies like smartphones continues at a breakneck pace, rapidly...