2018: Year in Review
Have you heard about hybrid blogging? Hybrid blogs were created to engage our customers in what we're doing: it gives you a behind the scenes on how we make it all happen. In this video, Ted and Dan discuss the improvements we've made in 2018 that will have an impact in 2019. Watch or read the transcription below!
Have you heard about Do you want to have a great 2019? Do you want more customers? Now is the time to start setting your marketing and sales goals, and creating a plan for success.
When it comes to planning the year ahead, we want you to think about the following things:
- Your budget
- How you spent your money last year
- How you're going to get noticed above the competition.
Standing Out from the Competition in 2019
We're bombarded every day with so many marketing materials: images, social media postings, advertisements and videos – how do you break through the noise? Virteom has the recipe to stand out and we've got the tools and some technology to help.
How does Virteom stand out from the crowd?
To demonstrate how we can help you stand out ahead of the competition, let's take a look at all we’ve done in 2018 that are the biggest differentiators:
TouchConvert v2We've upgraded our customer relationship management (CRM) sales platform, TouchConvert with new features and a whole new look. TouchConvert v2 is currently in beta. Our customers are testing, making feature suggestions and providing us with much needed feedback. Some of the upgrades we’ve made include:
- The ability to attach files
- In-line editing
- Smart Lists
Those are some of the really cool features in there, so far - but there are lots of updates coming down the pipeline in 2019.
Virteom CMS
Our content management system, customers call it Virteom CMS, is the content management system that actually powers our web sites. As of November 2018, we have sped it up to be eight hundred times faster.
While the speed upgrade is great, what we’re really excited for in 2019 is that our CMS “Virteom CMS” will actually get a name! Virteom CMS has been around for about 15 years now, and it’s been powering our customers websites that whole time. In 2019 “Virteom CMS” will be formally named RocketSites. A large majority of our customers are already running on our RocketSites platform, but not in all it's glory. Be on the look out for more information about the upgrades you'll receive and look for RocketSites.com.
Where are my marketing dollars going?
Your budget is obviously an important piece in planning your marketing strategy for 2019. That's why we've started offering booster packages.
Booster Packages with Virteom
What is a booster package? This year we took the time to productize our services. We actually patched up all of our services into nice little package with pricing - what we call Boosters. In doing this, we've been able to remove the convoluted questions like, “Oh my gosh what am I paying my marketing firm for?” Boosters explicitly define what the deliverables are each month for your account, and how much you're paying for each service.
Productizing our services has not only helped our customers, but our team now knows exactly what you want every month. We know how to execute each package, and know the steps it takes to deliver.
Our productized services are called boosters. We are currently offering booster packages for:
Hybrid Blog Boost
The product we've really seen take off this year is our hybrid blog boost. The hybrid blog boost has been extremely popular with our customers - and helps them stand out from the competition. The hybrid blog booster package only requires a 1-hour interview in our video studio every other month.
During the 1-hour interview, we can knock out about 8 two minute videos, and gather valuable information for your customers about your services and products. After the interview, our marketing team transcribes those videos into written articles, and embed your videos along side the text. Your 2-minute videos are released as blogs once a week for about two months. Alongside the blog article, and uploading your video to YouTube, we blast it out on social media. It is ON FIRE 
. If you're not already utilizing our hybrid blog service - we highly recommend it. This is a great SEO tactic, and our customers really seem to love it.
Want to know more about our Booster packages? Call us today. We've got a great sell sheet that really details out all of these service offerings.
Aside from creating a whole new version of TouchConvert, making upgrades to our CMS, productizing our services and the new hybrid blog boost, we've really just focused on having the right team members in the right seats. Our team has grown, and really exceled this year. We've got some rockets who are really working to make our technology amazing, and simple to use.
This 2018 Year in Review is really meant to let you know what's been going on behind closed doors. We know we've been quiet, but you'll really start to see the fruits of our labor in 2019.
We want to leave you with one thought - If you could double your business in the next 12-18 months, would you be able to handle that? Because that's something we want to help you do. We have the tools, team and technology to support your growth.
Own Your Own Content
In case you were not aware the next big buzz phrase is 'Original Content'. In fact some have come forward and claimed this to be a bigger moment than SEO. So what does it all really mean to you? Let's take a closer look at what is meant by owning your own content. Most of this movement stems from Google. Google is basically dinging websites if it finds duplicate content on the web. So if you are just borrowing someone else's content and placing it on your website you may not be doing yourself any favors. Try and place your content within a domain that YOU own and with hyperlinks that YOU control. Are you the Owner? Why did I underline and stress YOU? There is this trend or should I say movement where persons and organizations are utilizing third party blogging services to store their original content. In some cases persons or organizations are spending hundreds and even thousands a month to store this newly created
Ecommerce site Jennyspopcorn.com launches
Virteom launches new eCommerce website for Jenny's Popcorn. Not only does Jenny's sell something delicious, but they are in for a treat themselves. A website that is powered by Virteom and the eCommerce component will allow Jenny's to effectively measure their online store and marketing initiatives all in one spot. If you've ever visited Jenny's Popcorn you would instantly know that these people are very busy popping popcorn. To find the time to market their business effectively can be a struggle. Isn't that true of most medium sized businesses? Virteom will help Jennyspopcorn grow their online presence quickly and effectively. Jenny's popcorn came to Virteom because they knew that we were the experts who could create a safe PCI compliant environment for their customers. They also knew that they could offer a better service to their customers by having Virteom connect their shopping cart directly to Fedex to create real-time shipping for
