SimpleImp - Online Marketing Agency
By John Evans
SimpleImp presents itself as "An online marketing agency that
delivers results". They offer services dealing with graphic design
and copy writing, as well as online marketing techniques such as search
engine optimization and viral marketing.
SimpleImp is, simply put, a marketing agency for the Internet. They
have a lot of experience marketing on the net, as well as lot of market
research backing up their designs. Aside from providing online marketing
services, the SimpleImp site also serves as a good introduction to
those who don't know much about marketing strategies used on the net.
The SimpleImp site has a section for each of the services they offer.
Each service has an online form which can be used to submit requests
or proposals to the company. The sections also have subpages explaining
the process and reasoning behind each particular service. SimpleImp
will submit a client's web address to carefully chosen and targeted
online directories and search engines with the "Directory Submissions"
service. As a companion service, SimpleImp offers web design consultations
to help websites score highly in search engines, a process called
"Search Engine Optimization". Another marketing tactic,
"Online Publicity", involves the use of third-party sources
such as news and technical sites to produce features and reviews of
the client's web site. This increases the website's exposure and recognition
with little cost. SimpleImp will also provide the much-vaunted "Viral
Marketing", which they define as marketing messages that customers
pass on to other people they know. SimpleImp's marketing personnel
have apparently researched a large number of discussion groups, mailing
lists, bulletin boards and other forums which can be used for free
marketing exposure. More about SimpleImp's design services can be
found in the "Graphic Design" and "Copy Writing"
sections, and a treasure trove of marketing information can be found
on the FAQ and Links pages. Oddly, these last two pages are not part
of the site's navigation bar, and can only be found by scrutinizing
the links on the subpages. Last but not least, SimpleImp provides
"Affiliate" and "Partnership" programs, which
go something like this: if you provide a link to SimpleImp's site
and a customer uses it to buy services, SimpleImp will pay you a fee.
I was quite impressed with SimpleImp's website. There is a lot of
information, and the whole site gives the impression of being well
researched and professional. I really got the feeling that my money
would probably be well spent buying SimpleImp's services. That may
be a testament to their ability in itself. The strange thing about
the site was that it advocated all the techniques many web users might
consider "annoying". Taglines added to emails, banner ads
and possibly "spamming" of discussion boards are some of
the techniques described. With the web becoming both more competitive
and more commercial, however, I feel these techniques will become
more widespread and also more accepted. Users already have accepted
banner ads as standard procedure for websites, and it's "pervasive
but not intrusive" strategies like this that will really be important
if online marketers hope to avoid consumer backlash. What's for certain
is that online marketing is a growing field, and SimpleImp looks poised
to take full advantage.