12.27.06
Posted in General at 11:28 am by Christine
Another Xmas has come and gone. The year is drawing to a close and most companies in Cape Town are on leave this week.
Generally the online world experiences a bit of a lull in January post holiday shopping, but I believe December and January are the ideal times to give your campaigns a little extra boost to ensure a successful February!
I have had a new recruit with me since mid November and will have a bright new star starting with me from January. They will enable me to focus on improving and expanding the AlterSage service offering and delivery for 2007.
To briefly recap the services currently being offered:
- Search Engine Optimisation – helping you reach natural listings on search engines that your market may find you more easily
- Paid Search Marketing Management – an extra boost during holidays, or for competitive terms on the right hand side of search engines. Recommended when you’re running a hard-sell / specific product focus campaign
- Copy writing – Get the professional touch for your website, newsletter, press release
- Usability – Is your website easy to use, and do your visitors find what they are looking for?
- Conversion Analytics – helping you sell more. Do your visitors find what they are looking for and once they’ve found it, are they following through?
- Online PR – Press releases and brand exposure
- Online Reputation Management – tracking what people are saying about you and / or your brand on the web
- Affiliate Marketing - Build relationships with like-minded websites from which you will have the most to gain by advertising on their sites.
- Email Marketing & Newsletter Management – From creating or editing your newsletter copy, all the way to database (list) management and its timely distribution
- Viral Marketing – Are you running a promotion and need it to spread like a virus?
I am always open to providing feedback as to how to improve your return and show the promise that is gained by Online Marketing! So don’t hesitate to contact me to chat about your current online marketing campaign.
I plan on launching the commercial AlterSage.com website with an overview of all service offerings early in 2007, which I am very excited about!
For those of you that are closing laptops, switching off your desktops and taking a well deserved break over this festive season – be well, unwind & recoup coming back recharged for what promises to be a very eventful 2007!
There is a lot to look forward to in 2007, not only in terms of business, but also on a personal level for me. My big day is fast approaching on the 3rd of February, on which day (for those not in the know) Joey and I will tie the knot! 
Keep safe and happy holidays!
Christine
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12.20.06
Posted in General at 10:13 am by Christine
I’ve been off the radar a bit of late, well to be exact, wow – just over a month!
Incredibly bad for a blogger!
In my defence, taking AlterSage from a part-time to a full-time has kept me busy to say the least. I love it though, even though I don’t get to Blog as often as I would like to.
With the impending New Year comes pending resolutions and I for one am adding “blogging regularly” to my (very long) list…
2007 holds lots in store – not only for me personally with the wedding around the corner and achieving some solid goals for AlterSage, but generally for the Online marketing community or anyone interested in it.
For South Africa specifically in 2006 we had
- the BarCamp sessions
- Geek Dinners hosted by Stormhoek
- Kicked off a few Online Marketing Seminars which were well attended by the more traditional media agencies and had some great speakers covering exciting topics
Apart from continuing the above in 2007 it will predominantly be the year for Consumer Generated Media (CGM) to take the SA market by storm – properly….IMO of course
Given that we are already starting to see it break into our everyday lives more and more…what with the “revolutionary” Stork advert…
The transcript:
Blogging… blogging. On the Internet, Mikey set it up for me. Kids these days know everything. It’s like your own website where you can speak up, play, inspire. I know, I used to find the Internet intimidating too. But this is amazing. It’s… my space where I can just express myself and when you sit back and read what you’ve written its like, Wow! This is me. My creativity.
All good and well, but searching I could not find a Blog for Stork anywhere today (and the ad has been circulating for about a month now)! Now I must congratulate Stork (Unilever’s) agency for recognising the phenomenon, but one would have thought that deciding to go down that path they would have set one up at least! Follow through….?
CGM is not just for the web savvy, it is for everyone and by everyone, young and old – which makes it so powerful…and that is what the advert is trying to bring across. Discovery, creativity and newness…should not be feared, but embraced.
I am not the only one that has commented about the Blog factor either, and as a prime example, this is where CGM plays an enormous role…well in terms of Reputation Management…online. It is relatively easy to track and the great thing is that you can always do something about it, therefore if set-up property you can, to a certain extent, control what people are saying about your brand or person.
If Stork’s agency is keeping an ear to the ground (or at least an eye on their monitors) with regards what consumers are saying…we should be seeing a Blog relatively soon…
The NY Times posted a very interesting article on just that called Brands for the Chattering Masses. With new surveys showing that 90 percent of consumers trust word-of-mouth suggestions, and that some make purchases based on such guidance this is definitely a space that everyone should be playing into.
To all my readers: Have a splendid Festive season!!
And if I don’t post before – fantastic New Year celebrations!!
Be safe, and if you’re taking a break rest well and come back refreshed for what promises to be quite a year 
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