New Shoes

It only took six months longer than we planned, but Milestone’s new website went live on Saturday. I’ve asked Spencer to write our website launch press release with the headline, “This cobbler’s kid just got a new pair of shoes!”

For the past year we’ve referred to this project at “phase three” because this is the third generation of our company website. I vaguely remember the first version being a down-and-dirty job that only existed for about six months.

The second generation of Milestone’s online presence was a significant step forward for our young business. It had a travel-related design theme with a promotional video on the home page and a few examples of our work. While it served its purpose for a year or so, by 2012 our business had evolved and we needed to make some significant changes.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the new website is our team. We have a group photo on the home page and professional headshots of each associate on the “Who We Are” side of the site. Shout out to Alex Stafford Photography for make our team look great!

We were reluctant to show the whole team in previous iterations because of the freelance arrangement with our associates. However, our core team has not changed over the years, and our goal from the beginning was to bring everyone onboard as the business grows.

We’re closer to that goal now so we felt it’s time to let clients know who’s working behind the scenes at Milestone. It also differentiates us from all the one-man bands and small agencies in town that offer similar services, but don’t have the breadth of resources to offer integrated marketing solutions.

While the people at Milestone have remained the same, the way we present our services has changed dramatically in three-and-a-half years. From the perspective of our target audience, we no longer focus solely on software companies as a way to differentiate our business.

We still love to work with technology companies, but in reality our business has grown locally by working with a much wider range of businesses. In part that’s because there are only a handful of software companies in Sarasota, but mostly it’s because we’ve relied on a grass roots marketing strategy that includes word-of-mouth, public relations, and networking.

Like the “What We Do” side of phase three that describes inbound marketing services that revolve around a company website, we too have expanded our strategy to take advantage of the online tactics we provide for our clients.

There you can see how traditional marketing services like branding, public relations and print collateral work together with digital marketing services like search ranking, social media, and email marketing to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, and nurture opportunities for your business.

The bottom line is Milestone is growing up. We’re out of our diapers now and putting our big-boy pants on one leg at a time. Exciting times indeed…

Until next week,

Matthew Anderson, President
Milestone Marketing Associates, Inc.