Stevens 470 News

New Website for Mason Wright

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:49:00 -0500

Mason Wright

Mason Wright is senior community that combines the comfort and security of a small town neighborhood with the conveniences and attractions of the Springfield area. Mason Wright also has a proud long-standing commitment to excellence in affordable assisted and independent living.

Stevens 470 worked with Mason Wright to create a website to highlight their Assisted Living, Assisted Memory Care and Independent Living services. The website also houses the Mason Wright Foundation, a donor supported foundation with more than 100 years of service. The Foundation's mission is to provide quality housing and daily living services to support the dignity and independence of seniors without regard for their ability to pay.

Content Management System

The website supports the latest web standards and is build within a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that allows Mason Wright to update their own content with a simple backend editor similar to a word processing program.

Responsive Design

The new Mason Wright website is built with a responsive framework that automatically adjusts the website to the screen it is presented on, so viewed on a desktop, smart phone or a tablet, it will always look its best. Stevens 470 now builds all of our websites within the responsive framework.

www.masonwright.org >

January Coffee Hour at the studio

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:31:00 -0500

This Tuesday we had a full house at our Coffee Hour! Once everyone had a chance to get coffee and some breakfast, Tina began this month's presentation "New Year's Resolutions for Your Website." Tina reviewed a variety of website topics including: ensuring your website accurately reflects your business, using social media to drive consumers to your website, making your website mobile friendly, and understanding search engine optimization (SEO) and how to use it to your advantage. Throughout the presentation Bob shared real-life examples to help clarify each point. Our guests asked great questions and added their own perspectives on managing their websites and online marketing.

Clockwise from left: Marlene Desmarais of Columbia Manufacturing Inc., Bob Burch of Stevens 470, Tina Stevens of Stevens 470, Don Bozek of Strathmore Artist Papers, Chip Costello of the Irish Cultural Center at Elms College, Ron Cote of The Creative Group, Prob Reshamwala of Mina's Wine and Spirits, Patti Conroy of Westfield BID, Dave Felty of 5 Star Building Corp., and Moe Belliveau of Optimum Health Therapeutic Massage.

Clockwise from left: Don Bozek of Strathmore Artist Papers, Chip Costello of the Irish Cultural Center at Elms College, Ron Cote of The Creative Group, Gail Yarmesky of the City of Westfield, Sandy Sorel of Hogan Communications, Prob Reshamwala of Mina's Wine and Spirits and Patti Conroy of Westfield BID.

(L to R) Prob Reshamwala of Mina's Wine and Spirits, Patti Conroy of Westfield BID, Dave Felty of 5 Star Building Corp., Moe Belliveau of Optimum Health Therapeutic Massage. Not pictured: Nicole Hill of National Association of Power Engineers.

December Coffee Hour at the studio

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:46:00 -0500

Tuesday, December 13th, we hosted our holiday Coffee Hour here at the studio. The presentation was “Is your marketing ready for a new year?” Tina reviewed how to use marketing to reach your business objectives as well as key steps in the process of generating a multichannel plan. We enjoyed a light breakfast and shared our experiences using various media tactics, as well as ideas for using social media to get your message out.

Coffee hour attendees (L to R) Elaine Formica of Ride Noho, Bob Burch of Stevens 470, Rick Doiron of Westfield Contracting and Property Services, Sandy Sorel of Hogan Communications and Tina Stevens of Stevens 470.

(L to R) Rick Doiron of Westfield Contracting and Property Services, Cal Annino of Annino, Draper & Moore, P.C., Stephen Monroe of Community Staffing, Elaine Formica of Ride Noho, Dave Felty of Five Star Building Corporation and Susan Gorman of Jockey Person to Person.

Sandy Sorel and Dave Felty.

Is your marketing ready for a new year?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:49:00 -0500

Use Marketing to Reach Your Business Objectives

If you know us here at Stevens 470, you also know what big fans we are of multichannel marketing. So with the new year just around the corner we want to remind you to get your marketing plans in order.

Given that we all have limits on our time and resources, deciding among all the available marketing channels can be a challenge. Online advertising and social media continue to evolve and offline channels are changing as well. You can start planning by defining your marketing objectives and clarifying the most important goals for the coming year. Here are several core questions to ask when doing a marketing review:

what are my major business objective for 2012?
how is my brand doing in today's economy?
what changes in the marketplace are affecting my product/service?
is my current audience the same?
are there new audiences for my product/service?
what message will ring true and show the benefits of my product/service?
what media channels will best reach my audience?

Make Your Marketing Plan Multichannel

Developing your plan will include defining your objectives, analyzing the marketplace, finding an audience, creating a strategy and effectively implementing that strategy. Using every available marketing channel will help you reach your current clients and target audience. Take the time to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each channel. Take advantage of every channel opportunity and be sure to have a presence in all the channels that your customers use.

Use Push and Pull Marketing Activities

When developing your strategy, include both push and pull marketing activities. Push marketing refers to pushing your message out to your target audience. You take an action that puts your message in front of them, for example you send a postcard, run a radio ad, or send out a broadcast email. Pull marketing activities are used to draw your target audience into your major marketing channels so you can have a larger dialogue with them. Social media is a powerful pull marketing activity that continues to grow.

Allocate Your Resources

With a plan in place you can allocate your resources to the projects of greatest priority. Having determined and visualized the end result, you can plan the steps needed to get there. Each marketing decision can be made within the framework of “does this marketing activity bring us closer to our business goal?"

I encourage you to start on your marketing plan today. It doesn't need to be a fancy document but it does require serious thought and evaluation. Take the time to gain clarity and purpose for the year ahead.

To learn more tips, come to our next Coffee Hour:
Is Your Marketing Ready for a New Year?
December 13, 2011 | 8:30 - 10:00am | Stevens 470
register today >

November Coffee Hour at the studio

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:52:00 -0500

From the left, Tina Stevens and Bob Burch of Stevens 470, Mary Beth Morris of Tighe & Bond, Dave Felty of Five Star Building Corp., Lisa Lococo of American Eagle Cycles Division of Berkshire Group and Susan Martin of Southworth.

On Tuesday, November 9th, we held our monthly Coffee Hour here at the studio. The presentation topic was “How to Improve Website Traffic.” During a light breakfast, Tina and Bob reviewed organic, paid and local search options and how to improve web traffic using pull marketing methods. We received great questions and had an open discussion about tracking your website with the use of analytics.

From the left, Dave Felty, Bob Burch, Susan Martin and Lisa Lococo.

Stevens 470 Creates “Say it with Print” for Hadley Printing

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:49:00 -0500

Hadley Printing is featured annually on the back cover of the BusinessWest Resource Guide. Stevens 470 created an ad to highlight the beauty, versatility and immediacy of printing. Just like sending flowers, saying it with print allows Hadley's customers to make a lasting impression with their printed materials.

Stevens 470 created the concept and design, hand-crafted the origami flowers from Hadley's printed samples, and art directed the photography by David Stansbury. The eye-catching ad has been well-received, and Hadley Printing now has a permanent bouquet for their office!

For over 100 years, Hadley Printing has been providing high quality printing and exceptionalservice throughout New England. Their commitment to quality, service and technology gives their customers a great print job every time.

5 Search Optimization Tips

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:49:00 -0400

stand out in the crowd

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of analyzing and updating the content on your website so it ranks higher in a search engine listing. SEO has grown into a science that evolves and changes as rapidly as the search engines. With more websites being created all the time, a good SEO plan is needed to keep up with your competition. Here are a few things to consider when starting a new website or working to improve your current website's search engine ranking.

1. does your CMS incorporate SEO tools and functions into its architecture?

Content Management Systems are database driven systems that allow website owners to login and easily edit content on their website. Using a CMS is highly recommended so that you can easily manage your own website. When choosing a Content Management System it is important to pick a system that features SEO tools like inputs for meta information, options to allow or disallow search engine robots on selected pages, automatic creation of an XML sitemap file and a place to embed analytics tracking code.

2. write new and relevant content with SEO in mind

On the internet, relevant content is king. When writing content for your website use keywords in your headings and paragraph text that people would use in a search. Stay away from general keywords like shoe store, where you'll be competing with large international companies like Zappos.com and instead be more specific. For example, Athletic Shoes in Westfield, Massachusetts, adds the location and the store specialty to help set it apart.

3. redirect pages from your old site to your new one

If you're building a new website make sure that your web developer creates redirects. That way, when search engine robots check pages from your old site (that no longer exist), they will be redirected to corresponding pages on your new site. Redirects aren't just for search engine robots either, they are important for redirecting people that may have bookmarked pages from your old site.

4. XML sitemap submission

An XML sitemap is a file containing a list pages from your website located on your website server. This file and can be submitted to search engines and tells search engine robots what pages to crawl looking for updates.

5. setup and look at your site analytics

Choose a web developer that sets up an analytics account for your website. This will help to track visits, page views and search terms that people are using to find your website. Google Analytics is free and easy to set up.

To learn more tips, come to our next Coffee Hour:
How to Improve Website Traffic
November 8, 2011 | 8:30 - 10:00am | Stevens 470
register today >

Online Marketing for the Western Mass Business Expo!

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:49:00 -0400

The Western Mass Business Expo is the region's new B2B trade show and will feature hundreds of exhibitors, free educational seminars, business resources, and must-attend networking events – all in one place for one day!

Stevens 470 is managing the show's online marketing including their website, broadcast emails, and social media. Stevens 470 developed and designed the Western Mass Business Expo website to showcase and provide information about the event. The website is built on a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that allows Expo organizers to make updates through an easy-to-use text editor. The website also features a banner ad tool, that allows Expo organizers to see stats on how many views and clicks the show sponsors receive from their banner ads on the website.

Stevens 470 is proud to be a Silver Sponsor of the event and will be presenting a seminar titled, "Driving Traffic: Using Your Website to Drive Sales", at 9:15 am. learn more about the seminar >

The Western Mass Business Expo takes place on October 18, 2011 and starts with a 7:30am Associated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield Breakfast and ends with an After Hours Social from 4:00 - 6:00pm. We hope to see you at the show, please come by our booth #321 to say hello.

September Coffee Hour at the studio

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:52:00 -0400

From the left, Elizabeth Bonney of American Benefits Group, Marc Belanger of Historic Deerfield, Robert Burch and Tina Stevens of Stevens 470.

On Tuesday, September 13th, we held our first post-summer hiatus Coffee Hour here at the studio. The topic was "Email Marketing Essentials." While enjoying a light breakfast, Bob reviewed some useful email marketing tips, and talked about ways to help get your email noticed. He also reviewed tips on improving list management and choosing an email broadcast provider like Constant Contact and MailChimp. Tina spoke about segmenting email lists to provide more relevant content. She also reviewed some statistics supporting the importance of list segmentation.

The final messages of the morning were that emails have to be relevant to your contacts and that we all need to keep on marketing!

From the left, Robert Burch, Tina Stevens, Kathy Asinas of CheckWriters Payroll and Marc Belanger.

Here are some quick stats on how the use of email continues to rise:
2008 - 210 billion email messages per day
2009 - 247 billion email messages per day
2010 - 294 billion email messages per day
royalpingdom.com

Customize Your Email Messages for Greater Response

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:57:00 -0400

Why is email list segmentation important?

Most companies have been doing email marketing for some time. It is quick, inexpensive in relation to most marketing activities, and keeps you in front of your customers. By now, you may have a fairly large email list and yet you are sending the same message to everyone.

A relevant email message can get your recipient's attention, increase your open and click-through rates, and result in higher conversions. You should go through your email list and find the best way to categorize your contacts so you can fine tune the messages they receive.

Once you have decided what categories to segment your list into, it is important to keep the categories up to date and assign new people to the appropriate category. You can also let people choose their own category when they sign up to be on your list.

Here are some criteria you can use when segmenting your list. Not every item will be appropriate for your business, but the categories will get you thinking about the different needs and behaviors of your contacts.

Prospects

The messages and offers we send to prospects are more often sales oriented and may have a discount or reward for making that first purchase.

Customers

Your customers expect you to talk to them like you know them. Get specific. Perhaps your list can be segmented by types of customers.

VIP Customers

Your very best customers are worthy of special offers and exclusive information. Remember that 80% of your business may be from 20% of your customers.

Average Purchase Price

Track what people are buying and how much they spend – you can start to make them offers that match their needs.

Purchasing Frequency

Knowing when a customer purchases lets you time your emails to maximize their order size. You can present new items in their purchase categories, offer related products, send coupons, etc.

Most Recent Website Visit

If someone has just visited your website you can assume they have an interest or a need. Follow up quickly to stay top of mind.

Customer Interests

You can fine tune your email messaging to appeal to your customers' specific interests. Do they have a dog and buy dog related items? Then what can you send them to peak their interest?

Geographic Location

You can target customers based on where they live. The lifestyle in a cold climate is very different than in a warm climate. Think about what your customers are doing at different times of the year.

Demographics

If you are gathering information about your customers (age, interests, income, etc.) then you can create messages that target their interests, needs, lifestyle, and more.

Inactive Buyers

For customers that have not purchased in a long time, send an email with a nice discount to encourage a current purchase. Even better – a discount on something they have previously purchased or a related item.

Stevens 470 Designs New Labels for Ava's Dried Fruits and Snacks

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:50:00 -0400

Stevens 470 has designed package labels for Ava's Dried Fruits and Snacks latest product offering. Ava's is introducing a new selection of natural and organic fruit and nut mixes. The labels were designed to reflect the high quality of the fruit, nuts and snacks. This is a large product line and the labels need to clearly differentiate the snack categories, while providing flexibility when adding additional items.

Look for Ava's delicious snacks in supermarkets throughout the northeast. We have already seen them at area Big Y supermarkets.

New Website for Art Alternatives

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:49:00 -0400

Art Alternatives is dedicated to providing affordable, quality art supplies. For everyday essentials, they're the smart alternatives to high-priced name brands.

Stevens 470 worked with Art Alternatives to design and build a website to promote their products and provide product information. The new site has many features including an events calendar, a frequently asked questions section and a section for downloading art project instructions. The site also provides a retail store locator that connects Google Maps with Art Alternatives' retail store database, allowing visitors to enter their zip code and quickly find a local store and get directions.

The new website is built on a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that allows Art Alternatives to make their own updates through an easy-to-use text editor. The website also seamlessly integrates with their product database to pull and display new products.

www.art-alternatives.com >

Stevens 470 Updates Johnson & Hill Brand

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:56:00 -0400

Stevens 470 has been working with Johnson & Hill to update their brand and develop new marketing materials. The goal for this rebranding is to showcase Johnson & Hill's cutting edge employment technology and personalized service. Projects included a new logo, business collateral, consumer materials, advertising and trade show graphics. Stevens 470 provided graphic elements to Spec's Design to incorporate into the office renovation at State Street in Springfield.

Johnson & Hill Staffing Services specializes in temp, temp to hire and direct hire, with a focus on administrative and professional staffing. With their unique screening process, they attract the area's most sought after applicants.

The Garden is Growing

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:39:00 -0400

The studio garden has been planted, and we are looking forward to another summer full of fresh veggies and herbs. We enjoy watching the growing process as the little seedlings turn into large plants overflowing with veggies. We have some new items this year, including cucumbers, Swiss chard and yellow and orange peppers. Here are a few photos from our planting day.

Powerful Online Marketing Seminar

Tue, 24 May 2011 08:49:00 -0400

Tina Stevens talks about online marketing and your website's job in making a powerful the first impression.

Justin Friend talking about current web standards and the benefits of using a content management system (CMS).

Justin Friend discussing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the differences between paid and organic search.

Bob Burch presenting the benefits of email marketing and how to make it effective.

We had a great time presenting our seminar "Powerful Online Marketing" last Friday. We had a full room at the MassMutual Learning and Conference Center in Chicopee. We reviewed today's web, email and social media standards, all from a marketing perspective. The seminar included an overview on each topic and provided valuable tips and information for attendees to apply to their websites.

Stevens 470 would like to thank all the attendees for joining us at the seminar. We would also like to thank the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce for presenting the seminar. We would also like to thank the seminar sponsors, Elms College, NetLogix, Health New England and OnSite Computer Repairs of Westfield.