We see ourselves as partners in business, not just a vendor.

This inherently requires a great deal of trust and confidence of our customers in our ability to deliver on our promise. Therefore, it is critical that we provide transparency and straightforward answers to some of the most common questions we face when working with new customers.

Here are some common questions and topics we get questions about regularly.

If you would like more information about us, our services, or to set up a no obligation consultation please contact us.

Consulting & Branding Questions

What types of marketing consultation services do you offer?

Our greatest benefit to your organization revolves around online marketing. Our depth of first hand experience in all modern day marketing strategies allows us to not only deliver and implement marketing services but help customers learn more about all available options that should be given careful consideration.

The majority of consultation needs we deal with cover the following:

  • Finding a competitive edge with their target markets
  • Creating long-term goals and strategies that are measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.
  • Uncover opportunities and potential threats hindering progress
  • Analyzing market data to get a true sense of what an effective marketing plan needs to look like to generate results

We also offer on-going consulting services which enable our team to periodically measure results and make adjustments to better suit your needs.

Are there benefits to agency consulting vs. a marketing consultant?

An agency such as Vinci Digital is not limited to advising and developing a strong marketing plan, but also implementing those suggestions into a living breathing marketing initiative.

Have you heard the phrase, “too many cooks in the kitchen?”

A consultant may have limited experience with implementation and therefore their recommendations may not truly reflect a strong plan for your business. Their recommendations may also conflict with the way in which an agency would implement the strategy which can hurt your overall expectations and the end results.

When working with an agency, consulting is one component within your overall marketing plan. Therefore, it would be in our best interest to ensure we make the best recommendations with your businesses needs in mind, and that we put your marketing plan into action to the best of our ability. We have nothing to gain by under delivering on either front, where a consultant may be less inclined to ensure their vision is implemented as expected. We see ourselves as marketing partners. Your success is shared and not delivering the best results within budget hurts all parties involved.

In addition, many consultants do not deal direct with agencies who can implement the strategies they recommend for your business. Therefore, it would require you to do the legwork and find a company that could successfully deliver the planned strategy.

What is brand positioning and why do I need it?

Brand positioning is the process of developing a distinct and differentiating position within your marketplace.

Most businesses are unable to easily identity what they do, why they do it, how they differ, and who their target markets are. Without this understanding and clear direction it can be difficult for an organization to develop a strong foothold in their market.

It also becomes difficult for customers to understand the value you offer or why working with your company would benefit them more than another. When a strong brand position has not been established it also becomes difficult for the key decision makers of the company to share the same vision and goals which ultimately affects growth and setting attainable goals moving forward.

Is brand identity synonymous with brand positioning?

While brand positioning helps your organization establish a clear and differentiating position in the marketplace, brand identity helps you establish a look for the company that reflects the value your organization is trying to bring to the marketplace. Brand identity typically encompasses the:

  • business name
  • tagline
  • tone or messaging
  • appealing to the needs of your target market(s)

Brand identity, outside of any positioning or messaging that is created will encompass how your organization wants to be perceived by consumers. This should also not be misconstrued with brand “image” which is term for how the brand is actually perceived by customers.

Inbound Marketing Questions

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods today which helps turn complete strangers into happy customers and promoters of your brand. Inbound is a methodology. It is a process that starts with understanding your business and who your potential buyers are to develop a plan and strategy that maximizes quality traffic to your website.

With inbound marketing we develop content that speaks directly to your target audiences pains, problems, questions, and needs and present them with informative, useful solutions and insight.

Inbound helps to establish your brand as a thought leader as well as a company looking to help those in need rather than just one looking to sell a product or service. By aligning the content you publish with your target customer’s needs you attract better leads, shorten the sales cycle, generate higher marketing ROI, nurture existing client relationships, and continue to delight new customers over time.

Inbound marketing also appeals to many companies who are looking to reach potential customers earlier in the sales process. As we all know, not all customers are ready to buy but most businesses only go after the ones who are. Inbound differs in this mindset and captures soft leads as well, which enables businesses to guide soft leads deeper into the sales funnel.

When a business is able to align their organization with prospects at the start of the sales process this enables them to continue on-going communication with prospects and develop good rapport from the start. And, by keeping the line of communication open and on-going, when consumers are ready to buy, your organization remains top of mind rather than just an afterthought. This on-going marketing approach helps to qualify leads along the way so that sales teams are not investing time and energy into prospects that are not ready to buy or may never buy from you.

Below is our Inbound Marketing Methodology. If you want to learn more about the benefits of Inbound Marketing visit our Inbound Marketing Service Page. 

Vinci Digital Inbound Methodology Infographic

How much does Inbound Marketing Cost?

Inbound marketing involves numerous marketing strategies which are implemented harmoniously around a common goal or goals. Therefore, cost is a direct result of the effort needed to deliver your desired result.

Inbound marketing is extremely measurable so estimating what your budget would look like and what type of results you can expect with some degree of accuracy is rather straight forward. For example, if you know today that you spend say $500 a month in marketing efforts and get 1-2 leads, but want to increase your leads to 10 or 20 per month, its easy enough to estimate what it would take to increase your leads 10-20x over.

As inbound is a multi-faceted approach, most businesses spend between $70k to $200k annually. Some do it for less and get great results while others choose to invest more heavily and have seen even greater ROI by doing so. Your marketing strategy, goals, industry, and target markets play a huge role in determining both costs and ROI.

Why is Inbound Marketing so effective?

There are a lot of reasons inbound marketing is successful. First we suggest that you fully understand what inbound marketing is. Refer to the preceding questions to learn a bit more or visit our inbound marketing page for a full overview.

Inbound marketing is so successful because:

  • Careful planning and marketing strategy are used to understand your business, goals you want to reach, and who your target audience might be. We create actual customer profiles that typically buy from you and use these personas to develop a strong plan that appeals to their needs most.
  • Content, email, and social media marketing as well as offers such as ebooks or other giveaways are developed specifically for those people who need your product or service the most. Many businesses generalize their content to appeal to a far greater number of markets or customers types than they should for fear of leaving money on the table. This lack of clarity or appealing to a particular audiences needs leads to poor results or no results most often.
  • Because all marketing efforts are directed at your target audience and you are clearly providing the exact solution they need, both lead and conversion rates are much higher.
  • It is highly measurable. Every click, form submission, email open, web page visit, is tracked and analyzed to help you make better marketing decisions.

Is Inbound Marketing right for my business?

We would not be able to answer this without having a deeper discussion about your business, your goals, your products and services, and your target buyers. In general if you are selling products and services that add value to people’s lives or businesses, inbound marketing is generally a good fit. For a small business that may not have the ability to follow up or engage with prospects that are not ready to buy at this very moment, inbound may be difficult to implement.

If interested in speaking further about inbound marketing request a free inbound marketing assessment.

inbound-assessment-cta-750

Can we do our own, in-house Inbound Marketing?

This is a Yes and No question and answer. Yes you can do your own inbound but it is rarely as effective as hiring a professional team to handle this for you. Reasons being:

  • Time and experience – we often spend no less than 40 hours per month running inbound campaigns for clients. Most businesses do not have employees they can task to take on this level of added work who would already have the expertise to get results.
  • Cost of software and marketing tools – businesses can spend thousands per year in fees or monthly service agreements to purchase a full-suite of marketing tools. When working with an agency those tools are in place already and your costs are associated with the marketing efforts rather than on tools and software.
  • Hiring a jack of all trades – finding a super employee who can do 10 things at once is rare. Even a professional inbound specialist might have strengths and weaknesses and hiring one means you are now susceptible to their weaker skill sets. Do you have someone in your company who can develop strong content marketing, email campaigns, social media marketing, landing pages, eBooks, and more? Also what happens if the employee is out sick or on vacation? Inbound is an all-out on-going effort and without a team mentality it becomes difficult to maintain.
  • Measuring results and adjusting your strategy – as an integral part of inbound marketing we examine the results of your efforts on a monthly basis and make periodic adjustments, recommendations, and revisions to the original campaigns. Most businesses would find this difficult as they have a hard time deciphering marketing data as well as knowing what types of adjustments to make to bring in better results.

Running your own inbound campaign is entirely possible however it’s often less successful with much smaller ROI. To learn more about the why running an inbound marketing campaign yourself is less effective check out our article: Can I Do Inbound Marketing Myself? 2 Reasons to Hire an Inbound Agency

Our Policies, Process, and Procedures

To learn more about our policies and disclaimers, please review our policies page.

What is your refund policy?

We deal with many different types of services so it is hard to generalize. In most cases, refunds are non-typical when providing creative services.

We provide an extensive portfolio on our website, which you can easily review before hiring us. We also provide a list of references as well as supply numerous testimonials throughout our website. In addition, the process of agreeing to work with us on a website project is very thorough and carefully outlined prior to any agreement being signed or payments being received.

Therefore, it is readily apparent the level and quality of work we provide and your expectations should be met based on doing due diligence.

For just about all services we provide extensive and detailed proposals and most services include an on-going open line of communication between our team and you during every phase of every project or campaign.

We feel confident in saying you will have a reasonable expectation before we begin what the end result should be or what the process for getting to final product will look like. Prior to making any payments we insist that you contact us with any questions or reservations. For our website projects as a courtesy to our customers, costs are handled by incremental payments. This way if you do decide to end the project early we typically consider what has been paid already our recovery fee for any loss on the finishing the project.

For larger projects such as a website, once the initial payment is made and the work begins, the payment is non-refundable as this would represent compensation for time and effort spent on the project thus far as well as all the work that goes into planning and strategizing the vision for the end product.

For Print work or non-web related projects design costs are also non-refundable as they are a labor related cost if the work has commenced.

However, printing costs paid to us may be refundable only if an at-fault printing error is found. But typically we will pay for the reprint, rather than issue the refund at no additional cost to you.

What types of payment do you accept?

We accept all forms of electronic payment such as Credit, Debit, Bank Wire, or PayPal. We no longer accept Paper Checks.

We also can custom tailor payment plans to your needs. Our standard payment plan is a 12 month payment plan for larger projects such as websites plus an additional one-time upfront payment to get started. This helps alleviate the burden of a website purchase and allows businesses to better budget for other marketing and advertising expenses.

For on-going monthly services, these are typically handled via auto-debit which is deducted from your chosen payment method once a month.

Pricing Questions

What should I expect to spend on marketing?

Our customers need a variety of services including consulting, planning, creative services, and on-going marketing initiatives to build awareness or generate new business. Its rare that one service alone will get the job done.

Because of this, pricing (or what you should expect to spend) is highly subjective depending on the type of engagement you need help with. Every market and the goals of each customer vary greatly.

While our minimum level of engagement for a marketing strategy is no less than $25,000 over a 12 month period, typical projects range from $50,000 to $200,000.

We also provide single service offerings such as website design for far less when the goals of the project and the needs of the customer can still be met. We take great pride in delivering solutions, not services. Therefore the services and level of engagement suggested directly reflect what we consider to be your best option(s) given the budget range provided.

Price is also a reflection of both our level of engagement as well as the value our marketing strategy will deliver to your business.

Marketing and advertising today require a variety of strategies to see positive results.  This blended approach is often why a longer-term engagement is necessary to see results. No matter your budget, we can help improve your visibility and appeal within any market for a fair price.

Should I have a budget range in mind prior to contacting you?

Yes.

Customers unfamiliar with hiring a professional marketing or advertising agency are often hesitant to disclose their budget. However, not doing so greatly inhibits our chances of developing a strategy that can get you results for a price within your comfort zone.

It is also good practice to develop realistic expectations on cost prior to contacting an agency. This way, getting a feel for what your budget range may or may not be able to deliver in terms of results is understood. For example, if you want a Ferrari but only budgeted for a used Honda, you clearly need to make adjustments to your expectations of what your investment might bring in.

Simply put, marketing is competitive and often an on-going, long-term effort. You have to “play” to “win” so the more flexible you are with your budget, the better opportunity we have to create a strategy that reaps greater rewards for your business.

For “new to marketing” customers, it is very common that you may be unaware of the full scope of services necessary to deliver certain marketing solutions. This can also increase costs considerably beyond your initial expectations. For example, when researching web design costs clients often neglect to consider what hosting, content creation, photography, and other additional features might do to the project scope and budget.

Understanding how these additional needs will affect your budget and expectations should be thought about prior to reach out to an agency.

Do you charge per hour?

Most marketing services and projects we involve ourselves with are based on a “project rate” which is established and agreed upon at the beginning of the engagement with our client. This means, based on past project experience, the costs we have developed cover the approximate amount of time and effort by all team members that is necessary to deliver the marketing solution promised.

This provides our team with the flexibility needed to maintain creativity and strategic thinking that best suits your needs without concerning ourselves with spending as little time as possible so we do not drive up your project costs to you per hour.

Project rates are also desirable for clients as the price quote is the price paid, barring any project scope changes that would require more effort, time, or planning on our part.

Do you have package pricing?

As most marketing initiatives require a blended approach we do often combine services into a more digestible package price. This is also preferred by our team since bundled services allow for more flexibility to adjust how your budget is broken up across different marketing initiatives month to month.

For example, over time we may find that content marketing is more effective to delivering quality leads to your business than social media marketing. Therefore, rather than increasing your budget to increase content marketing we may simply reduce your social media efforts to compensate for the additional content needs.

Marketing continues to be a moving target and with a flexible mindset we can deliver better results in a shorter period of time. Ultimately our goal is to continually deliver bigger and better return on investment as we learn more about how your audience(s) respond to your marketing efforts.

Search Engine Optimization Questions

What is SEO and why do need it?

There are billions of websites out there and most likely thousands of them offer similar products and services as you do. No matter how great your website is, if you cannot find it in the search results its lost to the world. Many businesses today have essentially flattened the globe in terms of how they do business. So many businesses are not relying on attracting customers in their local area alone.

Most businesses, if they have a well-built website will get “some” traffic but rarely is it quality traffic and probably not generating much business.

For example did you know that the first 3 listings in the search results receive about 50-75% of all clicks? (sometimes it’s even higher!)

By the time most search users get to page two of the search results their chances of clicking on your listing are as low as 1-2%. Without a well-optimized website, the odds are not in your favor. You also have to consider that most of your competitors who are ranking well are also implementing some form of SEO strategy.

Simply put, it is a MUST HAVE. No matter how great your website might be, if you can’t get people to visit… its as good as garbage.

SEO is also a highly specialized and ever-changing strategy. Sure you can learn to do it yourself but most likely your time is better spent doing what you do best. Good SEO gurus are proactive in their approach and stay on top of all the best practices to insure your site remains competitive.

To define SEO in its simplest form, search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a website so that it has better visibility to its intended audience in the search engines. This is done through:

  • Careful keyword and competitor research
  • Rewriting or refining content on your website to better appeal to your audience
  • Improving the website structure or usability
  • Creating ongoing content to further target your typical customer

Do You Guarantee Results?

We do not guarantee placement of any kind.

Search engines have unique and ever-changing algorithms that determine which webpages rank for which search terms. They control the search results. We can influence these results by optimizing your pages and content to best reflect the most popular keywords but we do not guarantee particular rankings.

However, we can guarantee a significant increase in quality traffic to your website as well as significant improvements in the search rankings for the keyword phrases we optimize for.

How Soon Can I Expect to See Results?

Depending on the type of website, amount of relevant as well as freshly published content, and the competitiveness of your target market(s) typically it can take 1-3 months before you really start to see some positive jumps in the numbers.

A key point to keep in mind,

SEO its not so much about boosting traffic as it is increasing quality traffic.

So looking at visitor stats alone can be misleading. For example, if only 25% of your traffic was on your website for the right reason before and we increase that percentage to 50 or 75% just imagine what that would do to generate more business, even if the overall visits to your site decreased. Quality is a key component to measuring results rather than quantity.

How Many Keywords Will I Rank For?

While we often have a definitive number of keywords we are targeting there are often hundreds more you will rank for as well.

Most search engines will rank your pages based on generalities. So if for example you are selling running shoes your website might appear for athletic shoes, running shoes, fitness apparel, red running sneakers, and many other search terms you were not even targeting.

Therefore, its best to choose a group of keywords that can expand and cover a larger possible target audience. Overtime as we add more keywords it will create an “umbrella effect” getting your site to rank for more and more keyword phrases.

A great example of this would be a law firm that is targeting a specific practice area such as divorce. While we may have around 50 core keywords we utilize and track, in reality their site is found for over 250 keyword phrases or more. And as we continue to develop better content and optimization the number of keywords they are found for will continue to climb as do their rankings.

Why Can't I Target the Largest Local City to Get More Traffic and Local Business?

When it comes to local SEO and local search, the goal is to improve visibility IN the location(s) where your business is actually located. If you wish to target a different city outside of your area, you will compete with all the businesses in that city along with your own local competitors.
A different city or targeting a location on the other side of town may have more competitors, larger competitors, tougher competition, or just be larger in population, etc. all of which can, and will, impact your ranking and visibility opportunities in your market as well as the other target market. Even if you are seeing fewer competitors in a different market, the simple fact your location is in a different city or location than where you are targeting will make it much more difficult to rank outside of your own backyard.
Below are brief descriptions of the three primary ranking factors for local search and how to utilize each of them when weighing your options to optimize for your local city or a neighboring community.

Local search has three main factors:

  • Proximity – How close is the search user to the search results shown? Depending on the type of search Google will display results it deems relevant.
    • For example, if showing you closer results would benefit you, Google would show you the closest results first, i.e. a Gas Station, Hospital, or Movie Theater.
  • Relevancy – How accurately do the search results match the search query? – If you are searching for a fine dining restaurant in Monterey, CA, the search results should show fine dining locations first (instead of fast food, etc) because a fine dining restaurant would be the most relevant option based on your search.
    • These search results will also factor “proximity” into the mix. If there are not many local fine dining restaurants in your area Google may show results that are further away because your local choices are not as “relevant.”
    • In this scenario, Google is making the assumption that when you are searching for “fine dining” you are: A) looking for local results and B) those results should be “fine dining restaurants,” not just food-related results that are “close by.”
  • Prominence – How well-known is your local business? – Business locations with a greater number of backlinks, more reviews, greater website traffic, engagement on social media, and many other factors will all impact how “prominent” one location is over another.
    • Prominence alone will never be used to show local results but typically helps shape the pecking order of which location shows up first, second, and so on.
Note: You’ll notice that having the most reviews in your Google My Business listing does not always ensure you get the top ranking spot in the local search results. Reputation is just one of many potential local ranking factors.

The majority of local searches today are done with the intent to purchase or inquire about purchasing or planning an in-person visit to a local business. Therefore in most cases, our best guess is Google is weighing Relevancy first, Proximity second, and Prominence third. The algorithm is ALWAYS changing and shifting so there is no way to know for sure.

Our best advice for improving your local rankings is to remain logical and realistic in your planning and how it may impact local visibility and SEO. If you know that when your target audience is searching in a specific location they want to see local results for that location, focus your optimization strategy on making sure you are as visible as possible within that area as well.

Website Design Questions

How Much Does a Website Cost?

This is the #1 most commonly asked question by our customers.

Websites are often too complex to generalize. We have to have a discussion with our client to learn more about their needs prior to coming up with approximate costs.

There are also many additional services needed with a website such as hosting, copy writing, marketing consultation, logo design, SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing and many other marketing services. These will all affect pricing.

As a responsible marketing agency, it is our duty to understand your needs fully prior to quoting so that there are no surprises or unmatched expectations once the project is complete or underway.

Learn more about our Website Services here.

What is WordPress and Why Do You Use It?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) designed for ease of use by even the novice end-user. It enables you to have full control over your website and to manage and modify all web page content including text, photos, news, blogs, and a myriad of other features. It is the most widely accepted and preferred CMS platform on the market today powering over 100 million websites.

WordPress is search-engine-friendly out of the box and also enables us to deliver a solid mobile-friendly website that performs well across both mobile and desktop devices.

WordPress also handles scalability well. So as your needs grow or your website increases in size, WordPress is the perfect solution to maintaining growth and manageability for your businesses website presence.

What is Responsive Web Design?

In its simplest explanation, Responsive Web Design means to build one website and deploy everywhere.

In the old days of web design we would build different versions of the same website for various devices such as tablet, mobile, and desktop versions. This became problematic for several reasons. First, the website owner now has to manage 3 or more websites instead of one. Second, search engines are seeing the same content on three different websites (duplicate content is bad!). Third, visitors were seeing different websites depending on the device they viewed it on which led to a “disconnect” in end-user experience.

Responsive design solves all three of these issues by serving up one website that is functional on all devices. The website adjusts its layout and functionality depending on the device viewing it. This leads to great customer retention and a much higher rated end-user experience. It also make it easy to keep users engaged in your content since its easy to read. In addition responsive design is the preferred and recommended method for delivering a mobile experience by leading search engines such as Google.

Why do you recommend WordPress?

It’s flexible, scalable, and very user friendly.

We’ve built just about every type of website imaginable on the WordPress platform. From e-commerce to attorney websites and everything in between. WordPress allows you to customize your site easily and gives you the ability to grow the website over time without having to rebuild or hire a developer every single time.

WordPress is also the perfect engine to power a Responsive Website like we describe in the previous question. It allows you to easily create and manage a great website that functions across every type of device (desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone).

WordPress is also an open source platform which means there are hundreds of reputable developers working around the clock to continually improve the platform. And as those new features and functionality are launched, your website will reap the benefits. So even a site built years in the past can maintain and highly-functional updated appearance and structure.

The WordPress platform allows us to also offer a specialized support platform for maintaining, protecting, and keeping your WordPress site running as great as the day you launched it. See our WP Support Plans for more information.

Can You Maintain My Website?

Yes, we have the capability to provide website maintenance services for any website, whether it is one we built ourselves or something previously built elsewhere. We also have a team of “full stack developers,” meaning we can manage websites written in a variety of programming languages. As websites become more robust and dynamic on-going maintenance its a critical component to keeping your website in good health.

For WordPress customers we offer a specialized service plan called WP Support. It is the only proactive WordPress support plan of its kind and covers all aspects of website maintenance such as:

  • Quick Fixes and Upates
  • Uptime Monitoring
  • Real-time backups (every 6-8 hours)
  • Restoring a broken site
  • Updating the WordPress platform
  • Updating Plugins
  • Updating Premium Themes
  • Malware and Security Scans
  • Performance and Site Speed Testing
  • SSL Testing
  • Monthly Reporting
  • And Much More

These monthly plans start at only $95 per month and have been extremely beneficial to keep our WordPress customer websites in good health and running as great s the day they launched.

What does 'Above the Fold' mean?

Above the fold is a concept derived from newspapers. The most important or visually appealing news story would typically be on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper since its usually folded in half, making only the top half visible on the newstand.

The same can be said for a website. Anything from the top of your browser window to the first visible 700 pixels (about 8 inches from the top of the browser window) are considered Above the Fold for websites. This is why the home page of a website will be visually engaging and present the most compelling image near the top of the screen. If you bury your most important message or offer further down the page, it will kill conversions or getting more leads. This is also why many websites today utilize a slider or “slideshow” on the home page, so they are able to include several messages or offerings right at the top without the user having to scroll to see them.