With the holidays upon us, we wanted to take a few minutes to wish all of our clients a happy and healthy New Year. This newsletter will take you down memory lane as Webconsuls turns 10 years old, spotlighting those clients who have been with us for those 10 years, welcoming new clients and sharing some milestones.
Webconsuls turns 10!
Dick and Dennis actually met at an ARCO Business Seminar in June 1981; however, their careers took them on different paths. It was not until October 1999 when Dick and Dennis met again and decided to form Webconsuls.
Dennis likes to recall how Webconsuls came to be...he was recently interviewed by http://www.arcoalumni.com/ and here is their article:
ARCO Alumni Dennis Helfand and Dick Fay built entirely new careers post ARCO. Their focus is to help commercial clients "generate new and/or additional revenues through web presence marketing." Says Helfand, "We transitioned from a 'hobby' to a serious business enterprise very quickly. Webconsuls currently has about 90 clients across the US and a few based in Asia and Europe".
Having been Director of Public Affairs and Field Operations, at ARCO, Helfand took the 1985 Early Retirement Package at ARCO Alaska, "my wife and I bought a 120-bed country inn resort in New Hampshire's White Mountains National Forest area, which we operated from 1986 until 1997. In the mid 1990's, while at the inn, I became interested in learning about marketing the property via the Internet and pursued this activity with great interest. When we sold the inn, we were already realizing quite a bit of revenue from internet-generated leads."
After relocating to Newport Beach, CA, a number of my former NH-based competitors (friends nonetheless) contacted me to market their facilities over the internet. This became a sort of hobby, earning a few dollars here and there in the process. Then two serendipitous events occurred.
1.An inn owner and close friend had been trying to sell his property through Realtors. There were very few prospects and not a single serious buyer. I suggested selling his property over the Internet for a "marketing fee." This was in 1998 and I believe it may have been one of the first commercial property sales via the Internet. Best of all, my web marketing fee amounted to just about one percent of the total sales price!
2. The second fortuitous event was meeting my former Crude Supply Manager for lunch in 1998. I asked him about Dick Fay (W. Richard Fay) from ARCO Transportation Company. He said Dick recently retired and was looking to do something new and interesting.
The rest is history. Webconsuls.com was established in 1999. We formed an LLC and got serious very quickly. On-Line courses and technical publications gave us new skill sets and we gradually acquired outside specialists to assist us as our business grew. My wife Judy, a business analyst in the information technology field joined Webconsuls in November 2006.
We have seen our business thrive and look forward to continued growth and new experiences.
Clients come and go...
Over the past 10 years Webconsuls' team has had the privilege to work with over 300 clients in a variety of industries. Each client is unique and that is what makes web design, SEO and SMO so interesting and vital. Judy recently looked back to see which clients started with Webconsuls in the Fall of 1999 and of those which ones are still our clients. Interestingly enough, there are four! They are New Hampshire Campground Association, Motorcars East, Newport Channel Inn and Edna Deeb Law.
Here are some interesting facts from Webconsuls first business quarter: 22 clients, nine California clients, nine New Hampshire clients, four Connecticut clients, 31 invoices!
New Clients round out our base...
We are happy to introduce you to our newest clients and we invite you to check out their websites.
Dick Fay remembers how when they first started in 2000 Webconsuls could make some small changes to a site and viola!the site would be on the first page of Alta Vista. The number of competitors to most sites was measured in the hundreds, pay per click was in its infancy with something called Overture, Google was an upstart, and no one had heard of Social Marketing. Potential clients were trying to decide if they "needed" a web site. Websites themselves were usually static and straightforward.
Now some clients face thousands or millions of competitors for key terms, Google has about 70% of the search engine marketplace, pay per click is huge and requires expert management to be successful. Clients are deciding when to redesign their web site to keep it up to date with the available technology. Facebook, Twitter, blogs and video are staples of many successful businesses whose owners work hand in hand with Webconsuls to grow their business.
Webconsuls Grows and Evolves
Webconsuls has also grown and evolved over the last 10 years. We have added a third partner, Judy Helfand. The entire team keeps up with the latest in Search Engine Optimization. We have added specialists in web design, pay per click, social media, and link building. We have redesigned our web site several times to reflect our growing business. We have added a blog and links to news feeds on Search Engine Marketing and Social Media. Check them out:
Let us know if you have a twitter account and would like us to follow you.
Webconsuls' Team News...
As most of you know Malik Moosa-Soomar, our web development specialist and designer, was married to Zaheen Allibhoy on April 11, 2009. Dennis, Judy, Dick and Fran were happy to attend their wedding celebration in Austin, TX. Speaking of weddings, Dick and Fran were married February 20, 2009. Keith Hansen, our pay-per-click specialist, and his wife, Diana, welcomed a baby boy, Layne, on April 26, 2009.
We are happy to welcome Alycia Kaczuwka as our new Social Media expert. Alycia is working with our clients focusing on brand-building using tools like blogs/RSS, Facebook, Twitter and social bookmarking. She brings her extensive background in audience development and website design to social tools to keep the SMO process in focus as an integrated part of a web-based marketing plan. In addition, Alycia has a comprehensive background in web analytics using Google Analytics and Omniture to measure campaign performance and return on investment.
Happy Holidays
This year rather than send a small gift to our clients we are making donations to the following:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Midcoast Maine The vision of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Midcoast Maine is successful mentoring relationships for youth in Knox, Lincoln and Waldo Counties, contributing to better schools, stronger communities and brighter future.
The Promises Foundation Miriam's House
The Promises Foundation is committed to restoring hope for families by creating a safe environment for mothers and their children to grow and develop the tools they require to live meaningful and self-sufficient lives.
The last few weeks your Webconsuls' team has been busy and our blog has been quiet. I don't know about you, but it is amazing what you can learn in a month's time. Here are this month's five most interesting bits of information that I learned and I want to share with you:
1. Did you know that Gmail has a send limit? About a week ago we received a call from our client saying that she was sending out an email broadcast to her customers asking them to participate in a fundraiser for the victims of the earthquake/tsunami. All of a sudden she noticed that she could not send any email or receive any email. She called us and here is what I learned:
"In an effort to fight spam and prevent abuse, Google will temporarily disable your account if you send a message to more than 500 recipients or if you send a large number of undeliverable messages. If you use a POP or IMAP client (Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, e.g.), you may only send a message to 100 people at a time. Your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours." (Go here to learn more and keep in mind that many email services have a send limit, this is why some clients like to stay in contact with their clients by a newsletter service like or similar to Constant Contact.)
2. Twitter 2.0 seems to be just around the corner. Rather than have me rehash what someone else has discussed so eloquently, I will point you to the article. "Are We Ready for Twitter 2.0?"
3. Blogger does provide great on-line support. The other day I was on their site and I saw a section called "Recommended Articles and Discussion." One of the discussions was entitled "Too Many Good Bloggers are Giving Up" . Now, this caught my eye!!! So I clicked on it and enjoyed the conversation. If you have a blog and you have given up or you are thinking about giving up, I invite you to read the posts and join in the discussion. You might just refresh yourself enough to keep on BLOGGING!
4. During the past few weeks our team has been discussing the nature of our Webconsuls' blog. The questions raised are these: Should it be more technical? Or, do our readers want to learn more about the team as people and read anecdotal stories, as well? I will tell you that the team was split on this, but today I read an interesting article on an SEO/SMO newsletter. The article had to do with Social Networking pitfalls the 4th pitfall to avoid was this: "It's not about sell, sell, sell! If all you're doing when you visit the various sites and post your updates is pitch your latest program, product or service then it's no wonder you're not seeing results. Share information with your network, whether that's your own information or you're passing along information from clients and colleagues. The more you share, the greater your results will be. Whichever social networking arena you're active in (and it may be more than one) remember the "social" in social networking - it's to build relationships, make new contacts, and socialize. Inform your network, not sell to them." I think based on this guidance and our own practical experience from being part of Social Networking sites, new clients may come to you naturally.
5. Finally, as this Columbus Day Weekend gets underway, I know that our New England innkeeper, hotelier, restaurateur, livery, and entertainment clients will be busy beyond belief as the autumn brides and mountains blush and foliage season peaks; but won't they be surprised to learn that Tucson, AZ has its own foliage season! And yes, Mt Lemmon is 2869 ft taller than Mt. Washington!
This week's photos are from my days in New Hampshire. The one of the children is of Aaron and Dan enjoying a "Tom Sawyer" moment with children who were guests at the inn. Aaron and Dan were "teaching" them how to rake the autumn leaves and make Leaf People!
"Teach Us to Delight in the Simple Things"...Rudyard Kipling
Let me know what you think of Judy's "bytes"...see you next week.
The Oxbow World Longboard Tour came to town last week, And Webconsuls was there to cover the show. Surf legends and 44 of the worlds top longboard surfers were treated to hot and glassy surf for the entire contest. This year the event was located on the historic Surf Beach at San Onofre, the heart of Aloha on the US mainland. The winner, Bonga Perkins, was kind enough to sit down and answer all of the tough questions for our littlest interviewer. For more from the Oxbow World Tour 2008 San Onofre Championships please visit, LBChampionship.com. Video By Ella G. McClure, Questions By Ella G. McClure
For help with getting your live event on the internet,
Via Blogs, Youtube, Twitter, and other social media venues please contact us here at Webconsuls.
It's an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people.
The addiction has worsened for decades and now it's reached a point of crisis.
In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil.
Today it's nearly 70% and growing.
As imports grow and world prices rise, the amount of money we send to foreign nations every year is soaring. At current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone — that's four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.
I am one of those people who need to justify most purchases. When that iPhone came out my creative juices started flowing. Hmmmm ... how can I convince myself that phone is vital to my existence, maybe not vital, but how can it help me? Sometimes you just need a little inspiration. The iPhone is a powerful tool and with every update new functionality is added.
Social Media takes time. Some say it takes more time than they can fit into their hectic lives. What if all you needed was a mobile phone? You could promote your business in your down time, those frustrating times when you can't really do anything productive, the commute home, waiting for doctors appointments, waiting in line at the grocery store, you could even use that iconic device to open up conversations about your business.
Here is a list of the ways I have used the iPhone for social media optimization.
1. The dynamic duo "photos" and "camera" turn you into a photoblogging superstar! Take a picture and upload immediately to your blog. Get more bang for your post and cc your social sites while you are at it. Setting will have to be preloaded and the contact for each social site added to your contacts for easy and immediate access. Once settings are in place shoot your tantalizing picture and post. Be sure to add a compelling title. 2. Find the videos you have loaded up on YouTube and watch them, send them to social sites, email them to contacts, or make the person in line with you at the grocery store watch it. Bookmark your videos on your iPhone. Depending upon your industry and chattiness you will find opportunities to share your videos. 3. I was never a text message sender before the iPhone, but the iPhone's large (by mobile standards) qwerty keyboard makes it easy and accessible. Combine your iPhone with a microblogging client such as Twitter and there are a variety of combinations to utilize. For example: Monitor your keywords and find the conversations as they happen. Using Twitter you can add 'bots' to search conversations which have your keywords in them. These messages containing your keywords can be sent directly to your phone and then your conversation begins. IMPORTANT POINTER: Be sure to adjust your text messaging package to insure your keyword alerts do not exceed your current text messaging package.
Buy technology you love and optimize your settings, bookmarks and features to remove all obstacles to using that technology.
Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends, colleagues, and current events, no matter where you are or what you're doing. For some friends or events you might want instant mobile updates for others, you can just check the web. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.
During the recent Earthquake and California Wild Fires Followers Set Twitter Ablaze: "Twitter users Nate Ritter and Viss have been busy posting rapid-fire updates of the current wildfire situation in Southern California. Both of them are on the scene in San Diego, and they are doing an excellent job of providing information and news about evacuations, meeting points and anything important that local residents would need to know."
Quite simply: There is nothing more important to teach educators (and the rest of us) about technology, than how to network.
Putting out a fire? Escaping an Earthquake? Planning a class? meeting? Lunch? Conference? and need to be able to update (and update your site?) and be updated via your mobile device? Twitter is how you can do so.
About a month ago I sat in on a Social Marketing Optimization (SMO) Training Seminar. The obvious purpose of this seminar was to teach a company's employees the importance of SMO, which is how to get involved by setting up a Stumble Upon account, becoming a regular user of Stumble Upon, writing blog entries, posting comments to blogs, etc.
The trainer took a few minutes to explain that Social Marketing or Social Media is not a new convention, in fact all of us have and continue to participate in Social Marketing activities in our everyday lives; however, this participation traditionally may not have occurred on the web, but instead in our daily contacts with friends, neighbors, co-workers, storekeepers, etc. As the trainer explained this phenomena, if you need a recommendation for a plumber you might first call your trusted next door neighbor, before searching the web for plumbers in your neighborhood.
At the time I thought that this was a clever analogy, but it came to me later that a closer analogy to the anonymity of web SMO might be the traditional Service Station proprietor.
Do you remember the old-fashioned Service Station owner? I have fond memories of a particular Service Station owner ~~ my father, Joe, who owned a Service Station from about 1955 until 1963. When my father first leased the station it was a Wilshire Service Station located at the corner of 7th and E Avenue in National City, CA.
Looking back I now realize that Joe was an original and natural social marketer. How he came to own the service station is another story, but suffice it to say the service stations, as we knew them then, offered anyone, who ventured into the station, a wealth of assistance and information. And while my father had a good number of regular customers, for the most part the daily customers were strangers to my father. And yet these strangers, not unlike today's web social group members, depended on him for more than gasoline.
If the customer needed driving directions, no Mapquest, just ask Joe or one of the service station attendants. If you needed a local or state map, they were provided by the service station at no cost! Need a suggestion for a good restaurant, again no IPhone with Google maps, just ask Joe and he might send you to the El Juan Cafe for Mexican cuisine (still in business) or Keith's Family Restaurant (still operating) for home-made fried chicken. Looking for a particular church, Joe only had to point you across the street to St. Mary's Catholic or just down the street to St. Matthew's Episcopal. Need to know what was playing at the local movie theatre, Joe could tell you the current film and show times at the Bay Theater (built in 1944, the building is still there but for sale for $2.7m.)
And let's not forget that service stations in years past did not have mini-marts, but they did offer you a clean restroom, a soda machine, they could fix a tire, tune your car and if you needed a phone, just come on in and you were given the opportunity to use the business phone. No payphone on site and certainly no cell phones.
One of my favorite memories of Joe, as a social marketer, was him serving as an impromptu employment agency. Frequently local people would stop by looking for work and if Joe didn't have an opening, he would know which businesses in the neighborhood were looking for employees. Over the years, Joe employed many family friends, offering them part-time positions to help make ends meet. No Hot Jobs or Monster.com...just stop by and talk to Joe. And there were even days when a complete stranger would come into the station, ask for a fill-up; however, when payment was requested suddenly they would indicate they had no money. These strangers would then barter with my father leaving a watch or something else of value promising to return later with cash to redeem their item. I don't know, you might call this a little credit union, pawn shop, or even pay day advance.
Sometimes the service station would serve as a small used car lot. Local people would ask to park their cars with a "for sale" sign posted on the car. My father bought more than one of these used cars over the years, the most memorable being a seven+ passenger Cadillac Limousine, circa mid 1940s. (see the photo of my dad in front of the black Cadillac taken in 1960, wearing his Wilshire shirt, with my then four year old brother, Michael, sporting his own Wilshire shirt.) Could this have been the precursor for CARMAX?
I like remembering my father and his service station. He took good care of his customers and he was always willing to provide recommendations, not unlike today's blogs, and other on-line social media and marketing vehicles.
What is a blog? The term blog is short for web log. A blog is a journal which is kept on the internet and continually updated with new posts. Post generally consist of text and photo entries, posts can also include audio and video. Blogs have emerged as one of the leading venues for internet marketing.
The Importance of Blogs Blogs provide an unprecedented ability to develop a community, build authority and extend a familiar and credible face to your internet presence. Blogs are the perfect venue to share your knowledge with your customers and potential customers. Information rich content focusing on and around your business niche will establish you as the “neighborhood specialist”. As your blog develops you will be creating a rich knowledge base for your customers to reference. A regularly updated blog with strong informative content will draw traffic, encourage search engine spidering, enhance your search engine rankings while building an ongoing relationship with your customers.
Follow us on
