As a part of our ongoing initiatives to help local charities, Sanctuary Media Group has developed a website and logo identity for The Kaderly Foundation. The Kaderly Foundation was established to honor the memory of a beloved husband, father, Manchester High School Football Coach, Councilman and long time Board of Education member, Rick Kaderly. The foundation currently awards two scholarships annually to local Ohio students. The Kaderly Foundation also donates items to the youth programs of the area to help enhance the participant’s experience.

Both Kelly Brown and Chris Auman (CEO and President of SMG) attended Manchester High School and graduated in 1989. Although they were not actively involved with youth sports (they were involved with band and activities related to the arts) they believe that youth sports plays a very important role in the lives of our youth and the Kaderly Foundation and Mr. Kaderly specificially deserve our praise and support for their past and current efforts.

I’ve been asked many times regarding my opinion on whether a client should develop an app. Apps are all the rage and the buzzword doujour.

When I’m approached to provide advice on the subject, my questions are usually “why” and “what are you trying to accomplish”? Usually the client’s answers lead me to tell them that developing an app is not worth the time, money, ongoing headaches and support issues. There are times where developing an app makes sense, but for most small businesses an app is not the best first step. Actually for most businesses, an app is the wrong choice.

To illustrate and support my argument let me simply go through the important points and compare and contrast the benefits and issues as I see them. To confirm, I plan to be completely fair to both sides, but in the end I think you’ll believe that developing an app is not the best choice for your business. Read more

We have a couple open positions and are looking for great people. Have mad designs skills? Or maybe you’re interested in becoming an Internet marketing genius?

Learn tons. Work hard. And have fun doing it.

Contact us today and we’ll tell you where to send your resume.

Ok, so over the years we’ve learned a few things about web video. We’re by no means experts but here are some basic 101 tidbits of advice that we can pass on for those who are just starting out. The advice below will help you kick your bland boring videos up a few notches and maybe you’ll stand out among your competition. Read more

For consumers, local search is a near-daily ritual – 4 in 10 individuals use local search once a day, while two-thirds use local search at least 3-4 times per week. - Findings from a recent YP study

Local Search is, well, many things. But if you’re a local business, I would define local search as “Anyone trying to find a local service provider (YOU) within a specific geographic location online or on a mobile device.”

The person doing the searching may have different intentions, but ultimately they know what they want and they’re looking to fulfill their needs locally using a search engine or app. The search could take place on a computer, tablet device and of course “on the go” on a smartphone.

If you don’t have a strategy to position your local business online, consider that local search is “an enormous market”. Read more

I recently took part in a very lively discussion on LinkedIn where someone posed the question: For a small company, are cold calls effective?

Well this spurred quite a lively debate. ‘Not too shocking, considering it was posted to a group focused on Inbound Marketing.  The discussion started off simple enough. With people sharing their experiences and how they’ve effectively been able to use cold calling vs. the content marketers in the group who advocated an end to cold calling entirely.

What struck me though was that after a few volley’s back and forth someone asked: What’s a young sales person or company to do when they are not well established in their industry but need to grow their network? Rely on luck? Magic? (I’m paraphrasing).

I realized that’s the real problem, isn’t it? As a local North Canton business, we see our customers in the Akron, Canton, & Cleveland areas all facing the same truth — ‘Traditional’ marketing methods aren’t working like they used to.  But at the same time all this ‘fluff’ about content & internet marketing seems like a stretch.

So what are we as business leaders to do?
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I was on Quora other day and saw that someone had posted the question: Google+: How do you link your Google+ profile to WordPress blog content?

For content marketing, Google+ is increasingly important for both search credibility and there’s been recent evidence to show increases in click-through-rates and other hidden benefits of having authorship credit.  That’s why more and more people are seeking to link their Google+ Profile Page to their blog.

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What volume of your business comes from someone searching on a mobile device?

If you’re a local business owner in the Akron, Canton or Cleveland area, you may be surprised by the answer.  According to a recent a recent study completed by Google, 94% of smartphone users have looked up local information and taken action as a result.

That’s a huge number. It begs the question – Is your Website mobile ready?

Maybe it’s time you (or your friendly neighborhood Internet Marketing firm) performed a Local SEO Audit.

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According to a recent study, by the Content Marketing Institue and Marketing Profs 64%  of marketers believe that producing enough content was their number-one challenge.

As marketers, we realize it’s ‘publish or perish’ when it comes to plotting out a successful Internet marketing strategy.  

And as companies ramp up their content marketing efforts, it’s tempting to buy in to the belief that ‘more’ is better. My competition is posting on their blog 3 days a week? Fine, I’ll do 5. They share 10 tweets a day? I’ll do 20.  And while I’m excited to see that marketers are getting onboard with the concept, I fear they may actually be doing more harm than good.

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