Thursday, September 18, 2008

Working the Streets

For the Past few weeks I have been visiting a number of businesses from Atlanta back to my office here in Provo. Through my travels I have discovered a few things about the functions of what I do and how they play a part in the online world. I don't claim by any means that I know all about online marketing. But really who can? I do consider myself a professional in what I do and have a great knowledge of putting the correct budget with the correct marketing in any business. Most companies that I visited seem to have a confusion on what the difference is between what is done online and how is places an effect to their bottom line. Unfortunately I can't tell you how much money your company will get from online marketing. This is impossible to calculate. I like to compare the online world of business to the stock market in most cases. It is constantly changing. That doesn't mean that it is a risk. There is a risk involved with discovering the pattern. You have to put something out to get something back. When a company decides to put themselves out on Google AdWords or takes the plunge of doing SEO (search engine optimization) they take the risk of how the market looks at them. What they assume they will get the highest return for may not be what they have properly designed their site for. I had a business that sold design furniture and did custom interior design. What they really wanted to do was sell their furniture. But when you went to the site you saw one picture of a couch and then a large paragraph of all the things they carried. This doesn't work! You can't expect that your descriptive paragraph is going to drive people into your store to look at it. If they are looking on the Internet then that is what they are doing looking. If they can't see then they can't be sold. The owner for this store looked at me when I told him this and he says, "Well, isn't that what I'm paying you for?" NO, you are paying me for the traffic or the people looking for your business. I'm not the creator of how you sell. My job is to point those people who want furniture toward your site. After this encounter and many others I realized that small business owners get a website and get traffic, but don't get proper information on how that traffic needs to interact with the website. Most large marketing firms do this for their clients. But as more and more small businesses enter into this vast market they don't know how to make it work. So, I decided that I could offer my knowledge of experience in sales and online marketing to these few that need help in getting a website that "sells" to the traffic visiting their online business.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Our History


Almost two years ago a buddy of mine and I worked months on a project to facilitate college students with jobs that focused on their majors, while they were still in college. We entered a business plan competition that involved not only our unique business hiring structure, but focused on an online store for 72-hour kits. During our creation of this plan I worked to give ourselves some sort of name. While spending an evening at an old associate’s home in Rexburg, Idaho, I noticed a statue of a horse drawn chariot. It intrigued me and for some reason stood out. I said to my friend that was with me, "That's it! Chariot Marketing! I'll call our company Chariot Marketing." I later revealed to my partner my discovery who agreed to the name and so the company had been formed.

Most of those beginning months were served towards learning online marketing and how to form a business properly. Over time and because of circumstances the plan was put to the side and left alone.

Then in January 2008 I began a job at a company called OrangeSoda.com. I learned more than I could imagine about online marketing. So much, that had my partner and I gone forward with our plans to use PPC in our online campaign the year before we were sure to have failed.

Because of the understanding I have now of SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click) advertising, I decided to create a few other solutions and launch back into owning my own business. I left Orangesoda as an employee and have partnered with them to sell their products; which are the best on the market right now as it pertains to small businesses. Our other solutions for businesses include online marketing consulting, and web solutions. All of this makes a complete solution for a business just starting out. Customers can have a website designed, have traffic flow to it and have all of that being analyzed and function together properly through Chariot Marketing.

This blog not only serves as a way to tell about our company and what we do and what ways you can improve your online marketing; but it is a journal of the adventures and growth that is occurring in our company. Enjoy!