Jena Stauffer, Marketing Specialist at The Simon Group, is now Individually Qualified in the Google Adwords Certification Program for campaign management with a specialization in search marketing optimization. Certified Google Adwords Professionals must show a proficiency in Google Adwords by passing the Adwords Fundamentals exam as well as advanced knowledge by passing another exam in a  specialized area of Adwords.

Jena’s Adwords search marketing optimization expertise includes best practices for ad text, ad formats, keywords, language/demographic/geographic targeting, keyword bidding, conversions and other Adwords tools to best optimize campaign settings for the greatest return on your Adwords investment.

Contact us today to see what we can do for you to help start, optimize or overhaul your Google Adwords campaigns!

Learn more about the Google Certification.
Learn more about Jena’s qualification.

TSG Updates Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Measuring ROI, Paid Search, Web

By Marty Simon, CEO and Rhythm Guitarist

Wow! Twenty five years??!! Could somebody please tell me where that time went…and how it went by so fast!?

OK, so I’m thinking back to March 17, 1986…yes, St. Patrick’s Day. Karen, my partner and administrative assistant for four years at our previous agency,  and I laughed that first day and said…”well, this is a fine time to start a new marketing communications agency!” I guess we were right. The fates were with us…the fates and a couple of great clients who chose to come with us when we started this crazy business.

In the beginning, it was exciting and fun (and, believe it or not, it still is!!)…and maybe just a little scary although neither Karen nor I remember being scared…I guess we didn’t know any better. We started in my basement…just the two of us, a phone, a beat-up 1982 Compaq “transportable” computer and dot matrix printer. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of my amplifiers and guitars…for stress relief, of course.

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TSG Updates Advertising, Branding, Integrated marketing, Marketing, PR, press release, Web

Aries Electronics: a Marketing Communications Success Story

Frank Folmsbee, Aries Electronics

Aries Electronics does a lot of things very well.  One is the way they design and manufacture interconnect components and assemblies for the electronic original equipment manufacturers market.  Another is the way they market their products and technologies. Adhering to an age old, time-proven adage, and guided by their close and long-term relationship with The Simon Group, they do it with consistency…in good times and bad.  And, as a result, have had very few “bad years”…even during economic downturns, such as the last one.

Aries was founded in 1972 by Bill Sinclair who remains at the company’s helm today, both as chief executive officer and chief new product designer.  The company has had only two marcom agencies in its 41-year history. Aries reluctantly moved on from its first agency, recognizing that they had outgrown what that agency could provide.  Several of the area’s leading media reps had talked to The Simon Group about Aries…and  to Aries about The Simon Group.  And, in 1991, Aries president Bill Sinclair and sales and marketing manager Frank Folmsbee made a visit to The Simon Group farmhouse.  The rest, as they say, is history.  We’ll let Frank tell the story…

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Articles, Business, Integrated Marketing Advertising, Branding, Integrated marketing, Marketing, Media strategy, PR, press release, Social Media, Web

The same holds true for every company’s marketing plan. Each is unique, so why wouldn’t you create an integrated marketing communications plan customized to match your products, markets and objectives?

One mistake we, as an agency, see over and over again when it comes to marketing communications is that people like to stick within their comfort zone, unwilling to deviate from the tactics that may have worked before.

Of course, there are many timeless marketing principles that will hold true regardless of the delivery method, but try getting a publication to provide you with bingo card leads on pre-printed labels…

Sure, I could lament about feeling old…but I like to look at it in a different light. This evolution keeps us marketing folks (now there’s a dated term) on our toes and on the lookout for new ways to promote our clients’ products.

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Articles, Integrated Marketing Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Media strategy, PR

The Simon Group has been hired by Applied Energy Systems (AES) of Malvern, Pa. to develop and implement an integrated marketing program for both AES as well as its Semi-Gas line of ultra high purity gas delivery systems.

The campaign will focus on total brand management as well as strategic market analysis and planning for the company and its products. Tactics used to educate the semiconductor market and related industries on the complete solutions provided by AES and its Semi-Gas product line will include both print and online advertising as well as public relations and direct marketing. This combination will ensure that AES gains widespread company awareness in relevant industries as well as targeted reach to key influencers.

Read the full press release

Public Relations, TSG Updates Advertising, Branding, Facebook, Marketing, PR, press release, Social Media, Twitter, Web

By Dennis Brennan – Sr. Art Director

Everyone talks about corporate identity (well, not everyone…but those of us in the business do!). But just what is corporate identity?  Well, what it’s not is merely a company’s name or logo.

Corporate identity is a strategy that defines a company’s values, its personality…its brand. Done properly, it accurately communicates these elements to a company’s customers, providing a clear image that helps set the company apart from its competitors.

With the advent of the internet and its global nature, corporate identity has become more important than ever in ensuring that companies present a consistent image throughout all of their marketing materials. Consistency needs to carry through in the use of the logo, tagline, color, typography and a well-conceived system of design for all “promotional” materials.

This includes websites, direct email, banner ads, social media venues, etc. in addition to more traditional printed materials such as letterheads, business cards, sales brochures and catalogs, signage, packaging, investor communications, promotional items and magazine advertisements.

The logo is, of course, the anchor design element that visually identifies a company. It should be distinctive, uncluttered, easily recognizable and should attempt to graphically reflect the nature of the business.

Attention should be given to logo design to be sure it reproduces correctly in any application, from printing it on a ballpoint pen to huge trade show booth graphics. Today’s online uses can present specific challenges due to the resolution and limited color restrictions of computer monitors.

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Articles, Collateral & Printing Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Web

The rapidly expanding spectrum of available online marketing tactics can be overwhelming. The best way to determine the most appropriate methods for your marketing goals, aside from asking the experts, is to have a basic understanding of what each method is capable of achieving and what each can’t do efficiently.

What is Paid Search Marketing?

When you use a search engine, chances are you’re looking at paid search or pay-per-click (PPC) programs without even realizing it. The ads that show up to the right of the search result list in Google, for example, are the paid placements that appear based on the keywords typed into the search.

When we searched for “EMI filters” in Google, the top three organic searches are Wikipedia, EngineersEdge.com and EMIFitlerCompany.com. However, the sponsored links at the right are EESeal.com, DigiKey.com and CoilCraft.com. These companies have paid for their ad to appear on (ideally) the first page of search results even though the company might not be listed on the first page of the organic results.

Read the post Google Instant and You! for more info.

So how is this helpful? You have the ability to increase the public awareness of your website in search results directed towards specific searches (and therefore searchers) related to your products and services.

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Marketing, Paid Search, Web

There’s plenty of buzz – both positive and negative – about the new Google Instant (it launched September 8^th). To experience Google Instant, you have to go to www.google.com, not your browser’s tool bar, and perform a search.

For some time now, Google has “auto-completed” what we enter, provided it had some relevant search data pertinent to what we are typing. Well, Google Instant goes one step further and offers up complete search results, editorial and paid, as you type.

When we type an “a,” we get AOL, Amazon, Apple and Amtrak as immediate results. We typed “simon gro” and The Simon Group came up third in the search engine result page (SERP, as a search maven would say). Try it on yourself and see what happens.

We have two concerns with this regarding our clients’ online marketing programs – both for paid and organic search.

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Paid Search, Search, Web

So, it has happened…online BtoB advertising has recently surpassed print advertising in overall revenue dollars. Even in the high-tech and industrial markets, where there is an older engineering demographic that prefers print, online advertising still makes up a significant percentage of media spending.

But this shift isn’t necessarily bad news.  As media data has shown, most BtoB pubs have two sets of readers: those that go online and those that still like to flip pages, and the overlap is very minimal.  Online advertising not only provides the exposure to the segments of our target markets that tend not to read print magazines, but also can generate pretty heavy-duty leads, depending on the publication…an integral feature we use in our comprehensive media analysis.

So, just like in the good old days of bingo cards (any of you youngsters know what they are?), we can measure our return on investment for a given advertisement based on how many readers respond for information.

And the news keeps getting better – more publishers are taking advantage of advancing tracking technology to capture more detailed prospect information.

When banner ads started popping up on the Internet, measuring results was limited to the number of times an ad was viewed on a website (impressions), and the number of times someone clicked on the ad and went to the advertiser’s site (click-throughs).

When e-letters started making their appearance, we received similar information – how many recipients opened the e-letter, how many bounce backs occurred and how many recipients clicked through to the advertiser’s website.

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, leads, Marketing, Measuring ROI, Web

Thought online advertising meant just web versions of print ads? Think again!

Although print advertising is still effective, it’s important to tap into the new world of online advertising, since this is the prime source of information for some market segments.  And, research from various sources (Nielson, MRI, eMedia Strategist, and our own analysis of media kits and publication data over the years) repeatedly shows there’s minimal overlap between people that get their information from the web and those that obtain it from print, so if you want to reach your entire target audience, you need to use both advertising channels.

Online advertising takes many forms – e-newsletters, banner ads, webinars, white papers, virtual trade shows, videos, podcasts, social media, pay per click…the list goes on.  With all the technology available, an advertisement can be much more than just words or an image.  Online ads can incorporate motion and sound—something a print magazine ad is incapable of doing.

Online Advantages
A major advantage to online advertising is accessibility.  Unlike print, where the ad reaches only a certain amount of people, online ads have virtually no limit and can reach anyone in the world around the clock. Long after the advertisement is posted it can continue to brand your product or company.

Online advertising also provides something print advertising could rarely deliver: information about the people who are actually responding…clicking on your ads, downloading your whitepapers and tuning in to your webinars. While print advertising can provide you with circulation data and readership details, it can’t provide the names and contact information for the last 10 people who really, actually viewed your information (though the amount of data provided varies by publication).

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Advertising, Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Analytics, Facebook, leads, Marketing, Paid Search, Social Media, Twitter, Web