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Times Have Changed. Your Business Should Too.

by gaggarwal
Competition, Lifestyle, Marketing
April 20, 2020

Great West Digital helps you redefine your customer base and how you reach consumers, now and after the crisis. Businesses of all sizes across Alberta went from operating normally to being shut down or only able to operate online – and this happened in the blink of an eye. No amount of pre-planning, business insurance, or forecasting could have predicted how hard Alberta business owners would get hit by COVID-19. There is no more “normal.” There is only an evolving situation,...

Reach Your Customers in Times of Crisis

by gaggarwal
Employment, Lifestyle, Marketing
April 13, 2020

As COVID-19 continues to sweep over the globe, we are seeing a lot of positive collaboration among governments and nations. However, one of the (many) downsides of the pandemic is the effect it has on small business. With large gatherings prohibited and businesses of all sizes temporarily closing their doors, small business owners are turning to creative ways to reach their clients and keep their companies afloat. But how can you reach your customers and engage with them while they...

Meet Cheryl Fraser

by Great West Digital
Marketing
March 27, 2020

Great West Newspapers and Great West Digital Agency enjoy creating marketing strategies for a variety of clients and businesses, and we’re featuring some of the faces behind the brand’s most successful campaigns. Today we meet Cheryl Fraser, Media Sales Specialist at the Rocky Mountain Outlook and RMO TODAY Cheryl, who is always up for an adventure, once lived in Osaka, Japan. She’s adept in the art of calligraphy, but also shines in the art of digital media. Here are a few...

On – Network Community Display: What is it?

by Great West Digital
Marketing
March 3, 2020

Great West Newspapers has a network of print newspapers and digital news media sites across communities in Alberta.  You may recognize some of the digital media brands in our family, such as AirdrieTODAY.com, AlbertaPRIMETIMES.com, CochraneTODAY.ca, LakelandTODAY.ca, MountainViewTODAY.ca, OkotoksTODAY.ca, RMOTODAY.com, StAlbertTODAY.ca and TownandCountryTODAY.ca. Our On-Network Community Display ads appear across our network of digital media sites, connecting our audiences to local businesses in communities around Alberta. A Half Million readers every month turn to us as a source of news they can trust...

Meet Sara Deacon

by Great West Digital
Marketing
February 19, 2020

Great West Newspapers & Great West Digital Agency enjoy creating marketing strategies for a variety of clients and businesses, and we’re featuring some of the faces behind the brand’s most successful campaigns. Today we meet Sara Deacon, Media Sales Specialist for the St. Albert Gazette and St. Albert TODAY. Sara enjoys Trivial Pursuit, quizzes and documentaries. She doesn’t have a sweet tooth, preferring meat, cheese, chips and dip over confections. What else does Sara like? “Peanut butter!” she says of the staple item...

Meet Roberta Blake

by Great West Digital
Marketing
February 5, 2020

Great West Newspapers and Great Digital Agency enjoy creating marketing strategies for a variety of clients and businesses, and we’re featuring some of the faces behind the brand’s most successful campaigns. Today we meet Roberta Blake, Media Sales Specialist for the St. Albert Gazette and St. Albert TODAY. Unlike many people who embrace the oddity that is an oily fruit with the world’s hardest-to-remove-seed, Roberta would gladly give up avocados for life. When she’s not giving avocados the side eye, she’s...

Five Ways to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search

by Great West Digital
Technology
January 21, 2020

What is a Voice Search? See that little microphone icon on the search bar on your smartphone? That is the what enables you to do a voice search. Instead of typing your request into the bar, you simply tap the microphone and speak (voice input) your request. It’s not unique to Google. Voice search is available across several platforms and device types. You’ve likely used voice search recently; it includes Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Echo and Alexa, and, of course, Siri. Voice search...

Meet Sherri Provencal

by Great West Digital
Marketing
January 6, 2020

Great West Newspapers and Great West Digital Agency enjoy creating marketing strategies for a variety of clients and businesses, and we’re featuring some of the faces behind the brand’s most successful campaigns. Today we meet Sherri Provencal, Media Sales Specialist at the St. Albert Gazette and St. Albert TODAY. Sherri has been in advertising for 25 years, including running her own business, Uni Custom Advertising, for 21 of those years. After she sold her company, an opportunity opened with Great West...

Meet Sherry Banks

by Great West Digital
Marketing
December 13, 2019

Great West Digital Agency customizes smart and holistic campaigns for each client and can do so thanks to the creative team behind the brand. Today we have a conversation with St. Albert Gazette/St. Albert TODAY team member Sherry Marie Banks, media and sales specialist. Read on to find who’s on her playlist. Sherry has been in the print advertising business for 32 years and has witnessed it’s many evolutions. She was drawn to advertising because it met her need to be...

SEO Tactics for a Successful Website

by Great West Digital
Marketing
December 3, 2019

SEO stands for search engine optimization and it is one of the best and most affordable ways to direct web traffic to your website. However, it’s not enough to simply put keywords into your content. SEO works best when tactically deployed. Today we will discuss the tactics that make SEO work. Keywords Are…Well…Key! SEO is based on keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that people use on search engines to find products and services. Keywords are more effective than direct advertising because...

Tips for Creating Video Content for Social Media

by Great West Digital
Marketing
December 3, 2019

Videos on your business’ social media are great way to engage with your audience, but only if they are done right. Let’s explore how to create videos that drive sales and conversions, but first, which platforms are best suited for this type of media? Choosing Platforms for Videos Some platforms are deigned exclusively for videos, such as Tik Tok and the now defunct Vine. However, that doesn’t mean they are a good fit for your business. Tik Tok is more about sharing...

How to Win the Social Media Marketing Game

by Great West Digital
Marketing
October 30, 2019

Just how many social media platforms are there? The number is hard to pin down because platforms come and go with only a handful gaining international notoriety, but according to this list (which admits it is not an exhaustive list), it’s easy to see that the number of platforms you can post on numbers in the hundreds. What’s a small business to do? It takes time and money to socially advertise, let alone research all those sites. Today we will...

Why Your Business Needs A Digital Marketing Strategy

by Great West Digital
Marketing
October 8, 2019

You know that your company needs a digital presence in order to be successful, but do you know why? Today we will explore why your business needs a digital marketing strategy, and how you can get one that works. A digital marketing strategy for visibility Quick, go grab your Yellow Pages and look up…oh wait. You can’t. That’s because most people no longer use the Yellow Pages. They use Google or another search engine. Without a digital presence, you won’t be found...

Current Social Media Trends

by Great West Digital
Marketing
September 23, 2019

Remember when social media was limited MySpace? What a simple digital world it was back then! Now you have a choice of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest – and those are just the popular ones. There is also Flickr, Reddit, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Quora, Mix, Digg… we could go on, but you get the point. For a small business owner, keeping up with the plethora of social media and leveraging it for your business is absolutely daunting. The good news...

Digital Reviews: The New “Word of Mouth” Advertising

by Great West Digital
Marketing
September 6, 2019

What is the best endorsement for your brand? It’s the happy customers that tell other people about your products and services. Back in the good old days, that being the mid 1990s before the rise of the mainstream internet, those endorsements took place as people actually met face to face and had conversations. Today, however, in the world of Facebook viewing parties, in-person interactions have changed. Even when we meet up with friends, colleagues, peers, and family, there is little...

Social Media Advertising: The Pros, the Cons, and Why You Should Do It

by Great West Digital
Marketing
September 6, 2019

What is social advertising? Social advertising, or social media ads, are the sponsored content you come across when scrolling apps like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. The brand owner or content manager has paid the app to promote that specific post. How does social advertising work? For a fee, the advertiser directs the brand to expose the post to a certain number of people, for a certain number of days. The higher the fee, the longer and wider the exposure. Other customizations can...