PRG DESIGN Resources

StoneMarkets.com Beta Launch

2011-04-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

The New Way to Market Your Stone.

We have solved many problems with this solution that we see in the space.

Welcome to Stone Markets. Our goal is to provide a cohesive listing of products and services for the stone industry. See service guide. Stone Markets Provides a channel to publish your offers, products, services and also has many additional benefits:

Provides access to commercial listings.
Provides access to full project lists.
We send you project notifications that match your location.
Provides valuable links back to your website.
Promotes your products with like products
Indexes your products with geographic tagging
We reference images already hosted on your website
RSS feeds of inventory to incorporate into blogs and other applications
RSS feeds can be incorporated into your website to manage website content.
Can be used as a content management system for your products.
and much more.

Limitations:

Commercial distributors Retailers - Use is currently not open to the public.
Spam will not be tolerated - Spam is any content that we deem as spam.
This service is in early stage developemnt so we are not responsible for any interuptions in service
By completing the form below you waive any liability on the provider concerning stone markets without limitation.
The Limit is 5 product listings on the free accounts.

We are currently not providing automated registration. Please be sure to provide a valid email address so that we may setup your account per the details below and we will send you your unique login to the fuel Management system to start adding your content.

Members may list your Products and/or access to commercial listings and projects

Granite Countertop Online Marketing Solution

2011-03-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

Check out this video of our Online Marketing Results for our granite Marketing and advertising Vertical. FireUps.com is PRG designs Marketing Partner provide Local Online Marketing for granite Fabricators.

FireUps.com Lead Manager Released

2011-01-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

FireUps.com has added a robust lead manager to manage all your customers from Call-ins, walk-ins, and Web form leads form your website.

This lead Management system also can help to manage inventory and remnant stock to help keep your sales force as efficient as possible at driving the customer to your door.

Contact Us today concerning growing your granite fabricator business and driving that retail customer to your door tomorrow. 603 413 5393

We bring the granite counter top customer to your door with call tracking, web tracking and local online marketing based on a budget set by you on our proven model

Granite CounterTops Dream Kitchen Marketing

2010-10-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

Google Local Game Changer. SEO just took a back seat!

2010-10-28T04:41:00.000-07:00

Google changed how they show local search results. By putting in your area of service and state
name the first page of Google is now transformed into Google places market place. Now all that organic search marketing you've been working on just took a back seat.

If you are not on the first page for the map section for the granite countertops market we can help. We have the ability not not only boost your local listing but we can drive new business to your store in just a few short days.

Our approach is different in that we take a holistic approach to your online marketing efforts. we track the overall effectiveness of the campaign and we ensure through communication with your team that we drive results.

contact us today for a free consultation. www.fireups.com 603-617-3877

Lead Managment? Do you need it?

2010-10-20T03:34:00.000-07:00

You can, and have survived with out it.

The yellow sticky notes and the folders are stacked pretty high.

Now its time to get serious, calls happen and new business is driven to the store how can you track with yellow sticky's? do you judge your business by how big the pile is as to whether business is good?

We have developed a system that will track all your calls and internet leads through one source. We even went with a stick theme so its a familiar environment to work in. As calls happen details of the call are stored in real time. as customers fill out online forms the data is collected in real time in your lead manager account.

Why is this important? Now you truely know if that TV spot, or radio spot generated any business. its not just a feeling anymore, that we did that and business got better. you can attribute this piece of business came from this internet site or this radio spot.

And we will clean up that valuable desk real estate for kids soccer games and dinner with the wife sticky's instead.

We are currently working with the granite countertop industry as we like to work with the under served and help bring process, promotion, and profit to the table.

Contact FireUps.com fro more information.

Website Design Top 10 for 2010

2010-02-16T06:26:00.000-08:00

What's in a website design? In this article I talk about considerations for building or rebuilding your website in 2010.

Competitive Analysis Take the time to see what your competitors are doing. Define your Competitive Advantage and accent that in your online communications.
Keyword Analysis What keywords are you focused on for driving traffic to your website? Example a countertop company that is focused on granite countertops does not want to focus content around quartz and marble countertops in the URL for the website and content of the pages. Be sure that your meta title, description and keywords contain your target keyword for each page as well as be sure that the keyword is also in the H1 tag for the page.
Domain Selection having a domain name that contains the specific product you sell as well as your value proposition will help to achieve higher rankings in search than "stevesTops.com" a better choice would be
Affordable-granite-countertops.com
Call To Action Tell your visitors where to go. every page should drive the visitor to the next page the next page should be part of the "pitch" if your entire pitch is on the home page... break it up. You want to drive the user over 3-5 pages to track the effectiveness of your content.

define Value proposition
Validate your products/services with a gallery, pictures of your work.
Provide access to options and features
Provide access to specials or packages
Define what makes you different
Provide Contact information and ways to contact you

Social Media Strategy define how you are going to use social media within your website. Simply by linking people to your Facebook page and link your Facebook page to your website or incorporate feeds of relevant information and blogs into your website to bring that static website to life with fresh content.
WEBSITE DESIGN Now the actual Design.. Your website should be clean easy to navigate and have a clear hierarchy of information. In this day-in-age you have a very short amount of time to engage someone in your content. this is why you value statement and specials is first.. Define for the visitor your competitive advantage right away. Keep the amount of content to be consumed on each page under 1 minute with a clear action to reach the next page for the support information of your value proposition.
Online Marketing Strategy Put in your budget some marketing dollars to maintain and market your website. does not matter how much but when working with the right company this can take you from ordinary to extraordinary by simply keeping your website up to date and driving new potential customers to learn who you are and what you provide.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) This is the fast track to the top but it comes at a cost. you have to spend money to make money.. right.. you have heard that before. Well same rules apply here, connecting with a good firm will help you to learn more about your market and how to create a successful campaign. You should be able to be provided a cost to generate X number of visitors to your website. if you are able to monitor your conversion rate to sales then you will know the cost to generate new business. now your are just looking at a scaling issue.
Business Listing Submission Put your link everywhere. As the Internet becomes more Localized search engines are giving more relevance to business directories for providing results. Yelp.com(free), merchantcircle.com(free), Citysearch.com(paid) are all good examples of places you want your business name services and links to show up.
Linking is one of the hardest nuts to crack because its so time consuming. Automated services are sure to get you kicked out.. I have recently found that over 40% of what search looks at is the Link text of the link linking to you and the quality of the site that links to you. Keep those factors in mind when you link with another company. Another factor is the relevance of the content of the other site to yours. Search Engine Submission to the big 3 and other directories is also part of linking and although most directories are not part of your overall google Page rank they do add value with other engines link yahoo.com and Bing.com and potential traffic to your website.

don't forget ... Web Analytics Reporting Know what is going on. Have and idea of the traffic to your website, where its coming from and the quality of the visitors. Through some recent customer data I have found some interesting information. PPC traffic bounce rate is the lowest meaning the better quality. they stay longer and view more pages. Organic results traffic is not as good, the bounce rate is higher and they don't stay as long .. reason it is less targeted. you dont have control over where you organic results traffic comes from. traffic from the big 3: googles orginic traffic is the best bings is second and yahoos is the worst. this is all a foactor of targeting and the quality of how and when your organic links generate traffic to your website.

Feel Free to link to this article or post the content on your website but be sure to sight the source and links must be intact .

Paul Gallagher, PRG Design small Business website design specialist. 15 years of industry expertise for large and small companies leveraging the power of the Internet to drive new business.

Granite Makeover.com Launched

2009-11-08T03:39:00.000-08:00

Speed to market is the next phase of our granite countertops program. We have launched granite Makeover.com to handle Organic SEO nationally for our granite customers so that we may pull in clients faster for our fabricators.

Granite Marketing Plan

In this article we will look at parts of a granite marketing strategy that will help you to implement your strategy. Developing a marketing plan is a major step in starting a countertop business as well as taking your fabrication business to the next level.

How many installs can your current infrastructure handle?

To much business is measured by a decrease in quality of service, and reduction in profit due to sales force limitation, fabrication crews over worked and installs going bad based on teams rushing to complete work. Are you the one man shop, sales team with install crew and fabrication crew or are you bigger than this? If you can project out where problems begin with too much business you will have a realistic view of the top line for cost to do more business.

What is your competitive advantage and value proposition?

How will do we differentiate you in the market. Look at your competitors and see what they do. How they do it and see who is winning the work. Take this and apply it to your values and see if that lines up with your values and your message.

How many installs do you want?

If you know how much business you want this is the first step. By defining the amount of business you are looking to gain you now have a touch stone to measure success. We then attribute the cost associated to generating this business based on general market intelligence and we are then able to project your return on investment.

Where do I start?

Start on the Internet. Why? it is the best medium to test creative, define your competitive advantage, build you brand and effectively understand the specifics of your market. Learning so much about the customer by driving them to a well formed website will provide you insight into how to define your marketing strategy and provide you with more confidence as you build out your marketing mix(Internet, Print, TV, Radio, etc.) Granite Countertops and Stone Marketing is a great niche' to market online. Track all channels with tracking phone numbers and track-able call to actions. This is very cost effective way to monitor the effectiveness of one channel over another and manage where your money goes when advertising.

How much should I spend on adverting?

Zero. Spend your money on marketing. You can't measure what you don't track. Marketing is advertising but includes measuring and tracking effectiveness of every advertising dollar spent. Once you have tested various channels and have developed your message to drive new business your marketing budget typically reflects 15-20% of sales to sustain this flow of new business.

How do I manage customers effectively?

With a online CRM or lead management solution. You may be able to manage your current work flow in your head or in your day planner but you dont want to be the bottle neck in your business. by managing your work flow online certain aspects of your business can be managed for you to allow you to allocate more of your resources to other tasks like sales , process , and your competitive advantage. A Granite Countertop lead management system monitors the effectiveness of each channel and while you track the progress of each sale you will be able to see trends, monitor closing rations and truly measure the effectiveness of each channel.

Example marketing mix:

Internet buy: $2500 : 50 phone calls 40 emails 17 sales = $147 Cost per Install (CPI)

Radio buy: $2000 : 40 phone calls 2 emails 3 sales = $667 (CPI)

Print buy: $3500 : 60 phone calls 10 emails 12 sales = $292 (CPI)

Marketing Budget $8000 for 32 installs = $250 (CPI)

Projected sales $2500 x32 = $80,000 Sales per month @ 10% of sales

Who are you?

We are online Granite Marketing experts that focus on specific markets. We take these specific markets and take the best online marketing tactics and strategies and apply our knowledge of specific verticals to put together a program that can't fail. We do not take on every customer we don't work in every market. We pick specific verticals that we have a passion about and can make a difference for small to medium size businesses. We are online marketers that specialize in you, the Granite Shop.

FireUps.com Local, Regional Targeted Online Marketing

2009-08-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Providing Local targeted online Marketing Campaigns. FireUps currently has a turnkey program for Garniet Fabricators to market to retail customers. 7 Days from ordinary to Extraordinary. Local Targeted Online Marketing

FireUps.com Local, Regional Targeted Online Marketing

2009-06-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

FireUps is the source for instant exposure to your market with strategic Local Targeted Online Marketing Campaigns.

Results, Results, Results...nothing else matters!

FireUps will put your product or service on the virtual map and generate a buzz that you could never have imagined. We focuses on maximizing your return on investment through a clear understanding of your business objectives and value proposition. Partner with FireUps today!

www.fireups.com

Free Link Exchange, Link Swap and Link Trade Directory

2008-09-22T06:39:00.001-07:00

Link Market - Free Link Exchange, Link Swap and Link Trade Directory
Have you ever tried to exchange links, swap links, or trade links? Was it hard? Use link market instead; - it is easy to use, free and very smart. It will save you hours of work.

Merchant Circle: Promote Your Business

2008-08-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

Find new customers with high search engine placement Track what people are saying about your business Advertise online with coupons, ads, newsletters & blogs http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/full.html

Help customers find you on Google Maps

2008-08-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

Millions of people search Google Maps every day. A free listing on Google Maps makes it easy for them to find you. https://www.google.com/local/add/login

ClickState.com Free local business listings

2008-08-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

Find related information and resource throughout New Hampshire on New Hampshire directory with various categories such as art, shopping, business, sport, service, technology, finance, entertainment, real estate, education, travel, culture, health, history. http://www.clickstate.com/newhampshire/index.php?t=sub_pages&cat=2161