Lately I’ve found that Big Black Pencil is becoming the Second Agency for many Marketing Agencies in the second city. Frankly we’re flattered to help out other agencies help out their clients. After all some of the smarter agencies in Chicago seek us out for SEO and SEM services for their clients and themselves.  All [...]

When was the last time your Chicago marketing company walked you through the analytics for your Chicago business website and discussed marketing strategies to improve your business. Apart from the analytics you view in Google analytics for your website are analytics for Adwords. The statistics they provide are Clicks, Impressions, Click through ratio (CTR), [...]

Sometimes the so-called experts are more interested in finishing your website and moving on to the next. When that happens, your site most likely will get lost in the shuffle.
At Big Black Pencil, we have a process that guarantees that your Chicago business gets the recognition it deserves. First we start with a discovery process [...]

I went to the Disney Institute for a seminar and they had some exercises for group decision-making. Being part of a Chicago Marketing Agency we like to keep on top of strategies that make our partners more successful. It was all about inspiring creativity. It was all about capitalizing on the diversity and depth [...]

You might be curious how your marketing project might be handled at Big Black Pencil? That’s a good question and probably one your customers are wondering about too. Here are some of the tools and tasks we used to manage our website relaunch…
Outlined below is the strategic planning and management tasks for the Big Black [...]

Welcome to the sandbox. Take a look around and post your comments. We want to learn more about you as we share information about successful strategies for marketing your business in Chicago.
Your feedback is welcome. Our website will evolve to meet our customer’s interests. Yours should too. Send along your website URL along with [...]

Paid Placement programs are the microwaves of the Internet. Google Adwords can literally thrust your website to the front of the search engines. Google provides you with a captive audience and displays a list of their selected advertisements on the top of their search page. These ads link directly to your website or landing page [...]

When I search I try to be as specific as I can be. I regionalize my search if it is applicable, and identify my search criteria by a branded search term or a product specific search key phrase. But everyone searches differently so here are some things to remember when you are looking to [...]

Speed up sales when your small business sales are slow. Make your Chicago-based small business more profitable by communicating with your past customers. Turn to the customers that trust you most. Here are 3 easy ways.

Create special offers or incentives for bulk or repeat purchases for past customers only in a letter or post card.
Pick [...]

This year, don’t fall into small business marketing hibernation!
As seasons change, sometimes your business marketing requirements change.
The beauty of being a small business in Chicago is, that customers use seasonal triggers to start new purchase decisions.
Russo’s Pools and Spas does great business in the early spring thru late summer with their swimming pool and spa [...]