In 1984, Owens Sporting Goods became “The Team Specialist,” offering customized sports uniforms, apparel, footwear, and equipment for baseball, football, lacrosse, basketball, soccer, wrestling, volleyball, and softball teams. They have also become one of the Southeast’s Elite Nike Team Dealers. They also provide in-house designing, screen printing, and embroidery, proving that Owens Sporting Goods can truely outfit any team from head to toe!

The sight features a simple setup that will grow over time. For now, the site includes a exciting image viewer that helps capture the excitement of sporting events and games. It also features a dynamic calendar of events highlighting deadlines, holidays, and general information. There is also a blog area  that will feature a host of guest writing coaches to connect with other coaches all across the Southeast.

The New Brinson-Askew.com website

We are overjoyed to announce that the newly redesigned, Brinson-Askew.com has officially gone live.

The law firm of Brinson, Askew, Berry, Seigler, Richardson & Davis, LLP was founded in 1975 in Rome, GA. The Firm provides representation to regional and national business and individual clients based throughout North Georgia and the metropolitan Atlanta area, so it was important they they project a professional image and a site that can be found easily through search.

The Firm’s nineteen attorneys practice in all levels of State and Federal Court, with experience before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia located in Rome and both personal and firm accomplishments that went overlooked on their old website due to navigation issues.

This three-month journey resulted in a website transformation featuring an updated look and feel that is highly navigable and user-friendly. This multi-user, scalable, content management system highlights Attorney and Firm accomplishments, works with an extended web presence to reach greater traffic and increases findability through the use of optimized content and appropriate metadata.  We coordinated new and contemporary photos for the professional staff with the help of the lovely Sabrina Wilson of Blue Dawn Photography.

The old Brinson-Askew website

The site now features a highly functional news area that any of the attorneys can update with ease. We connected the news article categories with the Practice Area pages, so that when visitors are searching through the practice area portion, they can also find relevant news from the firm’s work in that area. This allows the newsworthy information to be found in many useful ways on their site.

With our extended connections, we were able to locate a writer with legal experience to update fifteen practice area pages that had lived without content for many years, saving our client time and optimizing content for search friendliness.

We built a custom blog area for the Worker’s Compensation Employee practice area. This is consumer-driven area of law, and the firm now has a more direct way to reach out to those who need information, education, and a trusted attorney to represent them well.

We consulted with interested attorneys on LinkedIn profile optimization so that each attorney is able to can be more easily found through search engines. We also built a contact form that can ensure we convert that increased web traffic into viable leads.

So visit their site, take a look around, and who knows… you might just find the lawyer you need today.

If you need anything during this time, please feel free to call and leave a message or email us at: info@steele-agency.com

Many thanks and best wishes for a most wonderful 2010!

JSI has been around since the seventies, founded by Samuel Dewey Jowers, Jr. The company as it is known today came together in 2003 when Marc Sklar (Dewey Jowers’ son-in-law) became part owner. Though their name has changed over the years, they are still located in the same location since its inception, 706 E 2nd Avenue, and still brag on high levels of customer service.

The site has many exciting features, including online quote requests, claims, and download-friendly applications,  but there’s one in particular that we’d like to highlight. We pride ourselves on not just building great websites, but building them in way that the client can continue to build it long after we finish.

Though there is already a large list of the types of insurance offered on the site, JSI has the ability to add additional products and pages with ease.  We even created some custom code to make it even easier. On every page, customers can click to know more about that particular type of insurance by clicking on an info tab on the side of the page. These change automatically from page to page depending on what product is being discussed, but we have gone a step further.  This area is also designed to automatically change when a new type of insurance page is created.  This “meta-programming” ensures that the site stays consistent, but allows our clients to grow and expand without having to worry about the finer details.

The area highlighted in green is the area that will always change, even when the business owners update the site themselves.

]]> http://www.steele-agency.com/2009/12/jowers-sklar-insurance-website-goes-live/feed/ 0 http://www.steele-agency.com/2009/12/end-of-year-email-marketing-special/ http://www.steele-agency.com/2009/12/end-of-year-email-marketing-special/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:47:11 +0000 admin http://www.steele-agency.com/?p=1121 We know there are plenty of businesses out there that have email marketing on their 2010 to-do list.  We’d like to give you a gift to get you started:

The first three customers that sign-up for paid Constant Contact services will receive our Quick Start package for free!*

This $159 value features:

• Account set up to send email.
• Upload your permission-based email list(s).
• Brand all automated contact forms with logo and colors including the email signup form, forward email form, and welcome letter.

You can sign up for a year, six months, or just a month-to-month subscription — it doesn’t matter. If you sign up through us, we’ll get you started on our dime.

Signing up starts at $15/month and increases for mailing lists over 1,000 and 5,000.  Paying in advance for six months or a year earns you a 10 and 15% discount, and non-profits always get 10% off.

Read more or sign-up here!

*Offer is not valid with the free 60-day trial.

How to businesses get started/avoid being overwhelmed by new technology?
Can every business use social media?
What about personal privacy and negative press?

The five minute interview is available uncut below:

WRGA Interview with Tricia Steele

To download the presentation, visit us on Slideshare or contact us directly.

Cornerstone is known for transforming the ordinary, and in addition to the new website, visitors can also find Cornerstone Concrete on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flikr for project videos, updates, pictures, and more.  Every page of the new website is capable of client updates and changes on the fly and visitor comments are automatically cycled to the home page as they are accepted.

Visit CornerCrete.Com today to see if they can meet your decorative concrete needs!

Contact us at Steele Agency if we can help you with a dynamic web presence.

The reception begins at 5:30pm with the show opening at 7pm.

All proceeds will be shared between the Rome Little Theatre Foundation, the Historic DeSoto Theatre Foundation, and the Magnolia Foundation, a newly created organization focused on underserved women diagnosed with cancer. It’s a night of relaxation, fun, and entertainment that supports three worthy causes and a celebration of women.

To download the poster in PDF format, click the image to the right. To become an event sponsor or buy tickets, contact the Box Office at 706.295.7171. Check out more information by visiting the Rome Little Theatre website.

We encourage all Rome ladies to consider attending, and local businesses to become event sponsors!

1. Experience, Insight and Strength

2. First in the Field and Extending Market Leadership Today

3. Easy to Use, Easy to Customize

4. Deliverability

5. Accountability

We can’t say enough about the power, flexibility, and technical dependability of this software.  We love working with customers to either build and manage a campaign or train and advise. Constant Contact users, what have you experienced with Constant Contact or email marketing in general? Feel free to share your successes or lessons below.

You can now find us near the heart of downtown Rome, across from the Rome Clocktower at 108 East Fifth Avenue (Suite B).  We love our neighbors already, and view is second to none.
View Larger Map

In an economic downturn, everybody shrinks. The budget dries up. Staffs are cut. Customers are lost. That’s why using social media sounds counterintuitive. How can a business master new technology and a new way of thinking while struggling to stay afloat?

Currently, companies respond to social media in two ways, depending on their size. Larger businesses do what they do best: create yet another department. Small businesses are already swamped: they simply ignore the new technology.

Neither approach works. Social media works best when integrated into many or all departments, particularly marketing and customer service. Within the company, unity flourishes, and from outside, new customers are found and the faithful are rewarded and empowered. All well and good in an ideal world, but what should companies do now, while social media is still developing?

Larger companies should resist the subdividing urge. By creating a new division, they must hire new staff, fill out more paperwork, and create new schisms in the company. In other words, they waste time and money.

Not only is it inefficient to create a social media division, but it hinders social media’s primary function. Applications such as Facebook and Twitter (and countless others) allow companies to know their customers, and vice-versa. Who better to have this knowledge than marketing and customer service personnel? By creating yet another go-between, companies risk distancing customers even more.

While larger companies can use social media, it’s even more useful for small business. Large corporations can’t turn on a dime: change takes time while the market passes them by. Moreover, small businesses can multitask, and learning new tasks is just part of the job.

For example, consider the famous demise of GM. Gas went up, the market responded, and GM made more SUVs. They failed to keep their finger on America’s pulse – consumers. Meanwhile, smaller companies (read: Honda and Toyota) sped ahead. What if GM had stayed in touch with consumers?

Consider your own company. What preexisting departments could use some help? Could customer service be more efficient? Do you want to reach a different audience? Need feedback on your product or service? Even if your company is doing better than most, there is always room for improvement, and social media could help fill the gaps. Ask the people already in those departments how greater contact with customers could be used, then make a social media strategy to boost your company’s position in the market – and your customers’ reach.

LOS ANGELES—June 16, 2009—As part of a plan to restructure itself into a more innovative, efficient, and entrepreneurial business, MySpace announced today that it will reduce its staff by nearly 30%. This restructuring plan crosses all U.S. divisions of the company and lowers the total number of domestic staff at MySpace to 1,000 employees.

“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” said MySpace Chief Executive Officer Owen Van Natta. “I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product.”

“MySpace grew too big considering the realities of today’s marketplace,” said Jonathan Miller, News Corporation’s CEO of Digital Media and Chief Digital Officer. “I believe this restructuring will help MySpace operate much more effectively both structurally and financially moving forward. I am confident in MySpace’s next phase under the leadership of Owen and his team.”

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Get more info and background on the company at CNNMoney

Google’s Android OS boasts great potential for application development and is a great tool for us multitaskers with multiple windows and fast movement between layers. At least, these are the reasons we decided to give it a try.

And thanks to one well designed app, this is the first web update made entirely from the G1.

What is “the stream”?

Depending on who you talk to, it’s the bane of business or a godsend. It’s the shift from article-writing to instant commentary, from teaching to “sharing” information via Twitter or Facebook. It’s a way of seeing information: as an ever-changing web as opposed to a simple paper trail.

It works like this. Your aunt Susan emails you a link to Liz Pulliam Weston’s financial advice on MSN Money. There, you watch a video on emergency funds. You add it to a live feed, where your co-worker hits the link and reads about credit counselors on scam alerts. He adds a link to his Facebook page, where 150 “friends” see and chase the link.

Let’s be honest: people with real jobs simply don’t have the time or patience to “jump into the stream” of social media, follow every hyperlink, or keep up with all the “real time” commentary on blogs and company websites.

But can they use it? Can you?

Take AT&T. Their Twitter updates are mostly answers to customer questions. This simple format does two jobs at once: it satisfies customer questions in real time, and it’s great PR.

Don’t fall into the trap of all or nothing. Share your successes, network, and find creative ways to do business using the stream – just don’t get swept away.

Find Thrive! on Facebook by clicking here:

Rome Boulevard is making the most of this phenomenon.  Check out 3-D animated drawings of Phase One: The Boardwalk on the Boulevard YouTube Channel.

To capitalize on the democratizing effect of Twitter and the accessibility of executives big and small, Rome Boulevard is now tweeting. By building a community of friends, media outlets, potential tenants, and similar projects, developers have access to an even more conversational medium,  a way to create buzz and generate potential leads, and a forum to receive information about the industry that may be helpful in decision making or sales pursuits.

If you’d like to watch this case study unfold, subscribe to the videos and you’ll be notified when there are updates,sign up for a twitter account (takes about a minute) and follow the Boulevard.

What is your business? Can it benefit from going social? What are you hesitant about?

Click: Twitter CEO tells his story.

And some facts about Twitter:

Neville Hobson on the Growth of Twitter
How Much Is Twitter Worth (in 2008)
Twitter in 2009

So, the question is, how does this work in Northwest Georgia? How do we encourage lucky accidents, patient investors, techno-social savvy?
Please feel free to respond.

The Agency announces its newest client, Northwest Georgia, LLC., the developers of The Boulevard.  Breaking ground in April of this year, this mixed use development will boast retail, restaurant, theater, and all the makings of a Live, Work, Play Community.  Stay tuned for the unveiling of the website and announcements of new tenants.

Look for links to current research, trends, and testimonies from “the big guys” as well as general information and opinions about various products and services.

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

And yet, business development took center stage at last night’s 98th gathering of the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce, and the night’s speakers slowly swelled in a call to the same vision: “a crisis is a terrible opportunity to waste.”

As is traditional, the night began with a slate of awards and recognitions of service. Notable among them were the Ambassador of the Year, Kay Chumbler of Greater Rome Bank, who “never met a microphone she didn’t like” and exuded the sort of bubbly, contagious enthusiasm that makes it obvious why she was chosen for the honor.

Small Business of the Year was R.L Jennings & Associates, whose time in Rome has meant a growth from two to 23 employees, multiple offices, over 2,500 clients across the globe, several previous Ambassador award winners, and a managing partner’s civic accomplishments and efforts that put many to shame. Upon accepting the award, Lee Jennings, encouraged all small businesses to “go for it” even in tough times saying that when he and his partners were “looking at the door, the Good Lord simply kicked us through.” Finalists in the award were Big Time Products, Midian Roofing, and Paula’s Silver & Gold.

After a full slate of recognition for participants in committees, boards, and chamber activities, Randy Quick prefaced his passing of the gavel with remarks highlighting the year’s accomplishments in business and capacity development. “This year has indeed been a year of growth for business and the community,” he urged, noting the $22.5 million in investments pledged by several local manufacturers, the 1-75/411 expansion project, airport enhancement, and enlarging of local education options in the form of Floyd College and Career Academy’s new School of Robotic & Engineering, Berry’s capital campaign to build two new dorms, Darlington’s new middle school, and funds allocated for the new Model High School. After many a heartfelt expression of gratitude for friends, colleagues, and family, he then passed the gavel of chairmanship of the Board of Directors to David Newby, General Manager of Profile Extrusion.

David Newby, an active Kiwanian, member of the Oak Hill Church of Christ, member of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association was introduced by Quick as “the right man at the right time.” His speech began modestly, but soon crescendoed into what will more than likely become the mantra of many a business leader or perhaps the Chamber itself: “a crisis is a terrible opportunity to waste.”

Newby became active in the Chamber’s GREIA after his company transitioned from being an asset of a large corporation with limitless resources to small, privately owned manufacturer. In this group, he found a network of like-situated business leaders who encouraged him to invest even in the uncertain time his company faced.  He did so, leading a multimillion dollar investment in new technologies that is now earning Profile Extrusion new and continued business. While recognizing the uncertainty and the challenge present in the current economic climate, he urged the room to consider that “it’s times like these where managers and community leaders matter most.”

His four hopes for the coming years are to add Georgia Highlands as a four-year limited mission college, the availability of an Associates Degree at Coosa Valley Technical College (now Georgia Northwestern Technical College), the building of an Angel Investor Network connecting investors with entrepreneurs, and acquiring more property and infrastructure to build the city’s capacity for development. Already underway is the release of a marketing plan aimed at attracting retirees and a series of small business seminars and workshops.

Later questions for Mr. Newby as well as Al Hodge, Chamber CEO, revealed that the Angel Investor Network is indeed becoming a reality with the chamber facilitating the organization of local investors and training in best practices from other successful networks.  This approach to investment is one aimed to encourage entrepreneurial and technological advances locally.
>Rome Retirement
>Profile Extrusion

“Email marketing and online surveys are proven tools that help small businesses connect with their customers and build successful customer relationships,” said Len Bruskiewitz, Director, Partner Programs, Constant Contact. “We are pleased to partner with Steele Agency to provide their clients with our products and services, and we look forward to working with them to help grow their clients’ businesses.”

Steele Agency can provide clients with e-mail marketing and online survey capabilities in addition to full design, distribution and analysis services.

“Small businesses are always looking for effective ways to grow their businesses,” said owner Tricia Steele. “Constant Contact’s customer communication tools give my clients a valuable addition to core marketing strategies. The ease-of-use and affordability make the partner program a great solution to meet the marketing needs within any industry.”

Opened in August, Steele Agency offers comprehensive marketing and promotion services and specializes in Internet marketing and the use of social media for business promotion> www.steele-agency.com.

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James McDaniel – a face you’d know from NYPD Blue, Malcolm X, Law and Order: SVU, L.A. Law, and countless movies, television shows, and plays – was a warm and reflective distinguished guest.  If one facet of the festival is about mentoring and relationship building, James made for a great story.  After majoring in large animal veterinary medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and deciding he was “just more of a city boy,” James walked into an audition in New York City and landed the lead role in A Soldier’s Play in 1981 at the age of 22. He didn’t offer deep secrets to break into the business, but instead the quiet confidence of a man who’s found the thing he both loves and does well, “it’s really just the only thing I’ve ever made a dime on.” He mused on the rarity of a person attaining success and satisfaction from the same venture and looked forward to the vacation with his family immediately following his trip to Rome.  From the looks of his current projects, it’s a vacation well-earned.

Experienced organizers and volunteers all indicated the way the festival has raised the bar from last year, and cited Harry and Laura Musselwhite’s energy and finesse as the reason RIFF is attracting higher quality films and award winning filmmakers and actors. It’s obvious the Rome is “on the map” nationally and globally in the film community.

Rome’s Own Siskel and Ebert
It’s more like Barr, Minor, and Mejia. After viewing every film and making award nominations, these three adjudicators and film buffs are willing to put their money on two films each you shouldn’t miss: Without hesitation, Mike Mejia recommended “The Wrecking Crew” and India-filmed, “Vanaja”.  Brian Barr was more than enthusiastic about “Franklin 13 vs The World’, the story of the paper-rock-scissors championship and a soundtrack every kid of the 80’s will love. He also joined in a vote for the short “Because There are Things You Never Forget” noting the one great punchline that makes the movie worth each of the thirteen minutes. Frank Minor suggested “Chickamauga” and “Things We Do For Love.”  Full schedule and descriptions are available at: http://rome.bside.com/2008/films

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