My mind is racing a mile a minute and I am unsure as to why. I am trying to get everything as organized a possible so that while I am out of the office next week everything runs smoothly. I have composed a rather detailed email that explains everything that is going on from my perspective and someone has been assigned to check my email and handle my responsibilities for me.

Every time I take a moment to stop and think of what I may have missed I realize how silly this seems. Here at DDA, we have a system in place that keeps everyone who is involved with a project in the loop as to what stage that project is on and everyone here is more than capable to assume someone else’s responsibilities with ease.

Every evening after leaving DDA, I pull into my driveway at 6:20 p.m., give or take a few minutes, and the first words out of my mouth are “What’s for dinner?”

Usually I receive a blank stare from my fiancee and a “I don’t know, what are you making?” It may seem silly but condsidering that he is usually home 2-3 hours before me I don’t think it would hurt for him to cook some dinner. When I have to make dinner after getting in from DDA we are lucky if we eat by 7:30 p.m.

On one hand it bothers me that we eat dinner so late, on the other there are days where I wish I got home earlier. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t want to give up our 4-day work week and having off on Fridays.

I get the majority of the house chores out of the way on Fridays. Without having off on Fridays my home would be very chaotic. Four days is just enough to handle a weeks worth of production coordination, print production, SEO reports, SEM campaigns, and invoicing.

I will be out of the office next week, which means I am spending this week getting everything in order to make sure that all goes smoothly in my absence.

Print Production. We have projects that are in the proofing stage. I need to make sure that any proofs that come in next week are forwarded to the client promptly. Also, if approval is received on any proofs, I need to ensure that production is notified promptly to proceed.

SureThing Ranking Reports. I am checking and double checking on what optimization reviews may be coming up. I need to make sure that their ranking reports are completed and sent to our SEO team to be posted for the review. I also have web updates to complete for clients that need to be live before the week’s end.

Production Coordination. I am reorganizing my notes to assure that everything is up to date and clear so that I can pass the responsibilities over while I am away. Everything is fairly straight forward and any questions can be addressed to the project coordinator.

I feel as though I have a good handle on everything at the current moment and that nothing catastrophic can happen. No one will even know that I am not here next week!

Generally I do not have the opportunity to see the finished product when it comes to the tradeshow graphics that we design and produce for our clients. Usually trade show graphics are shipped direct from production to the client.

We just completed a pop-up for a new client and they wanted to pick up the booth from our office. This morning I received the pop-up from production, exactly when they had said I would.

What an exciting moment, I was going to get to see the finished product of our work. I unpacked the collapsible pop-up from its carrying case and laid it out on the floor. Beautiful!

After being involved in the process up to this point, it was pretty amazing to see the final outcome. The client will be coming by this week to pick up the booth. I look forward to seeing their reaction when they see the finished product for the first time.

Everyday when I sit down to write my blog I always think about what it is that I do, so that I can create a relevant post. And everyday I think about how much easier it would be to write about what everyone else does.

I have the same reaction when I am asked by someone about my job. Somedays I feel as though all I do is shuffle papers even though I know this not to be true. My days brings about such a variety that I don’t get to spend long periods of time focused on the same thing, this is probably the reason for the lack of things to write about.

Truthfully I know I am responsible for a great deal; production coordination, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay Per Click (PPC), invoices, print estimates, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reports. It is just difficult for me to put what I do into words.

Everyone at DDA plays multiple roles. One moment I may be a Production coordinator, or a SEM specialist, perhaps a print project estimator, and in my “down time” I am responsible for invoicing completed projects. To assure that we stay on track with our estimates and billing everyone at DDA logs their time spent on a project into the DDA TRAC (time and resource accounting).

As a member of DDA prepares to work on any project, they must first log in to the appropriate TRAC. Each individual project is assigned its own TRAC. The TRAC will log in all time spent on a project, a description of what was done during each time frame that the project was worked on, and what type of work was done. Once a project is complete, all TRACs associated are closed and printed. All TRACs for the same project are put together and the invoice is written up.

Since everyone is responsible for multiple types of work, the TRAC assures that time is billed appropiately for the work. With the Type of Work column, I know what each person did during their time with the project. Invoices are as accurate as possible and there is no chance that you are paying for time that was not spent on your project.

When we moved into our house just before Christmas there was not much that we wanted to change with the landscaping.

As the weather gets nicer, we keep finding things that we want to change. We have removed a garden area and yard space in order to widen the driveway, took down a large Holly tree on the side of the house, and just completed pulling the English Ivy from a large portion of the front yard.

We are slowly making the space ours, rather than someone else’s. Next on our list is to have the large, over-grown, diseased Spruce tree that stands 15 feet outside our front door taken down and hauled away. As we search for the best price, I am amazed at the lack of customer service that these tree service companies offer.

On Friday, an estimator from one of these companies came to my house. As he was inspecting the tree and doing what it is they do to price taking a tree down, he kept asking me questions about the other estimates that we had received. I was not going to lie to him so I told him what the ballpark price was of the estimates. As I said the price he stopped everything he was doing, looked at me and said that he could not beat that price so he was not going to give me an estimate. With that, he got back in his truck and pulled away.

Customer service is usually someone’s first impression of a company. At DDA, we put our prospective and existing clients at the top of the list. We take pride in our quick turn-around time for estimates as well as our attention to detail. DDA offers an array of services to meet your marketing and advertising needs. Whether you are looking for website design, video, illustration, print design and production, or SEO services we can answer your questions and meet you deadlines.

What does your tradeshow booth say about your company? At a tradeshow, your booth is your first impression to potential clientèle. You should be able to attract attendees and encourage them to purchase your products or services with ease.

So needless to say, a booth with a six-foot table and a table cover will most likely convert to a few select leads with a good sales person on site. On the other hand, a booth with custom designed banners, tablecovers, video, graphics and a great sales person will convert a greater number of leads simply because your booth will be making a solid first impression.

Along with the design and development of your booths presentation there are many components “behind the scenes” of exhibiting at a tradeshow. There are numerous rules and regulations that you must follow; these differ between locations.

Many shows require approvals and samples prior to allowing your booth be displayed. How are you going to get everything to the show and then back into your possession? DDA can help you with all of these items. We would be glad to organize your tradeshows for you.

I had mentioned previously that some clients choose to use paid search as a method of bringing prospects to their website.

Is paid search right for you? There are many who will debate what is better - organic or paid search results. While organic is free, it takes a good amount of hard work, research, and time to achieve quality results. With paid, your high ranking results can be immediate as long as you are willing to pay the price.

DDA will gladly handle either or both of these tactics for you. We are constantly designing and developing optimized state-of-the-art websites for companies so that they can gain quality rankings on search engines organically. DDA also handles Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns for clients who wish to pursue that method.

Before you decide which method is best for you, you should know that they each require attention and on-going support.

Below are some terms related to pay per click programs.

Impression - the number of times an ad is displayed.

Click - A click (sometimes called a clickthrough) occurs when a user sees your ad and clicks on the title of your ad, leading them to your website.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR) - the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown (impressions). Your ad and keyword each have their own CTRs, unique to your own campaign performance.

Cost - the amount spent during a selected period of time. For every click, your account is charged an amount to show your ad.

Average Cost Per Click - the amount you pay each time a user clicks on your ad.

Conversion - When a user completes an action on your site, such as buying something or requesting more information.

Conversion Rate - the number of conversions divided by the number of ad clicks.

Cost Per Conversion - The total cost divided by the total number of conversions. This statistic gives you the amount spent per conversion. The cost-per-conversion is adjusted to reflect only the cost of ad clicks on which conversions are tracked.

I have been reading up on one of my newest roles at DDA! I have been spending some of my free time at home reading about the different approaches of search engine marketing, so that I can gain a better understanding.

This is where I came across the two different definitions of search engine marketing. When I read that SEM was search engine optimization and Pay Per Click placement I was boggled. Here at DDA we practice the second definition of what SEM is, the practice of buying pay per click positions.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of marketing via the Internet to build a website presence in search results. Some feel that SEM includes methods such as search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click placement. Others believe that search engine marketing is only the practice of buying Pay Per Click positions.

Dyanmic Digital Advertising has a team that focuses strictly on the search engine optimization and achieving organic search results. We also have a team that focuses on the paid results for the clients who are interested in pursuing that avenue. I am a part of DDA’s SEM team. On a daily basis I monitor our clients PPC campaigns.

How Search Engine Marketing Works…

An advertisier will bid on the keywords that they are interested in within their target market. Should a searcher use any of their key terms, their ad may be displayed in the sponsored ad section of the site. The advertiser only pays when a searcher clicks on their paid ad to visit their site.

That doesn’t seem to complicated, right?

There is much more to managing a paid search campaign, but for today this will have to do!!