The Story of Tim Absalikov
There are too many promotional channels. You need specialization
New York-based company Lasting Trend has been providing digital marketing services for over five years. The firm directs its main focus to the organic promotion of websites all over the Internet. In other words, a team of experts improve clients’ sites in such a way that they become popular without the use of paid advertising. It is not an easy task, but the company has chosen this path deliberately.
“Now there are many ways to promote online and each of them requires specific knowledge and skills. For example, a specialist who knows how to set up advertising on Facebook very well cannot always write content for Facebook and the website with the same quality. In both cases, we are talking about promotion on the Internet, but different professions are needed here. We at Lasting Trend are deeply convinced that in order to achieve success, you need not scatter your strength and not try to cover all the promotion channels at once, but to concentrate on one thing and hit exactly this target. In our case, this is organic website promotion, which is also called SEO,” – explains Tim Absalikov, the founder of Lasting Trend.
This is why approximately 90% of the services the company provides are directly related to SEO. There are several other marketing services that they perform at the request of their customers. At the same time, Lasting Trend positions itself as an outsourced marketing department, or in other words, as a marketing partner. This means that the company never imposes services to the client that will not be effective to what they need. The firm’s mission is to help solve problems and create an inspiring small business success story; not just sell a static, existing product.
“For example,” says Tim, “if the management of a restaurant comes to us and asks to create an effective website for selling, we will refuse. Of course, we can make a website and even promote it on Google. But it will be more of a business card site, rather than a place for active orders. In this case, the best solution for a restaurant is to focus on delivery aggregators and services. There, the efficiency of work will be higher and there will be more orders, and we will honestly talk about this to the entrepreneurs.”
Pros and cons of advertising agencies: an inside look
Tim Absalikov came to this system of values and views as a result of his 15 years of experience in marketing. He started his career with a small company, where he merely published various pieces of content on the company site. Fairly soon after, as a beginner programmer, he noticed that different content on the same site had varying degrees of effectiveness. Tim became interested in this and began to study this phenomenon in more depth. Through his personal studies, he gradually became an SEO expert. He eventually moved on to a larger company, where he worked hard and gathered five more specialists. Through this, he created a new marketing department.
After running the marketing team specifically, Tim decided it was time for a new experience. He decided to take on a job in a large agency that not only focused on marketing, but also dealt with SEO. It was during this experience that the pros and cons of large streaming ad agencies became apparent to him. On the one hand, working in this environment allows someone to quickly get a lot of new skills and experience. On the other hand, with such a high volume of work, a specialist at these agencies can only manage to devote no more than 2-3 hours a week to each client. This amount of time per week is too little to achieve real success and successfully help the client.
The next step in his career was a huge corporation with an office in Manhattan, New York. In conjunction with this job, Tim managed to freelance consulting small companies on advertising and running promotions on the Internet. When the number of clients began to grow, Tim came up with the idea to open his own digital marketing firm. In doing this, however, Tim was determined that his agency would not be streaming. Each Lasting Trend customer receives exactly as much attention as necessary to achieve their goals. Thanks to this approach, new small business success stories regularly and consistently appear in the company’s portfolio.
Having an online presence is an opportunity to save your business
Of course, there are many challenges facing business today. Many of those challenges are related to digital technologies and the Internet. Unfortunately, not all companies have time to learn and adapt to the new rules of the game.
“The COVID-19 situation has shown how important it is for firms to have their own website. Numerous entrepreneurs would be much easier to endure the period of restrictions and lockdowns if they had the opportunity to work with clients remotely,” says Tim Absalikov. “However, long before the pandemic, it was clear that online sales are our future. As an example, I will give the story about Toys “R” Us. The huge corporation has been successfully doing profitable business for decades selling children’s toys. However, it failed to see the potential of the online market in time – and as a result, Toys “R” Us could not compete with Amazon and went bankrupt.
But if earlier such threats were primarily in the hands of big business, now small and medium-sized businesses are in the risk zone. I am absolutely convinced that if a company is not currently using digital marketing for its promotion on the Internet, then in 5-10 years this company will be out of business. If you want to avoid this, then start working now. This is my advice for running a small business.”
Four big problems with digital marketing
As necessary as it is to have a digital strategy, at the same time, Tim Absalikov agrees that it is very difficult to quickly become successful and get to the first page in Google. According to the acting CEO at Lasting Trend, there are several challenges to overcome all at once.
1) Competition is increasing. More and more companies are realizing the increasing need for digital promotion. Because of this, the number of companies with their own website is continually growing. Getting to the first page on Google is getting harder.
2) Marketing gets complicated. Large companies are ready to pour huge amounts of money into their own promotion. The advertising market is growing, marketing technologies are developing, and there are more tools and channels for promotion. Especially if you don’t have access to large amounts of money, you need to have access to all the knowledge to navigate this vast amount of information.
3) Lack of qualified personnel. The market is large and can be easy to get into. On top of this, it remains a mystery to most people. In a huge market like this, there are always cheaters, scammers and non-professionals. There is a great risk of being deceived, it’s important to do your research.
4) The cost of services is growing. Professionals who have the necessary skills and know how to effectively promote clients on the Internet highly regard their work. Due to this, promotion on the Internet requires more investments.
Keep in mind, this is not a complete list of problems. As a result, small and medium-sized businesses are faced with two major problems: there really isn’t access to large budgets for promotion, and it is difficult to find good marketers for little amounts of money.
Where to start promoting? Pro tips from Lasting Trend
How can small business owners stay motivated with so many obstacles? Tim Absalikov recommends not to panic and to start with just a few simple steps.
1) Reschedule your ad budget. If there are currently no online promotion costs, add them. Let it be at least a minimal amount, but you need to move towards digital marketing immediately. Each small step brings you closer to your goal.
2) Register a new site as soon as possible. Even if it is not perfect and not very beautiful. You can always go back and solve the design issues later, but for now it is important for Google to see that your site already exists. Setting up your site establishes when the “age” of your site will begin to accumulate. It is believed that the older the site, the more credibility it generates from Google. The age of the site suggests that this company is not a one-day business, that it has come to the market for a long time. When you have more finances that you can dedicate for online promotion, you will already have a base from which to start.
3) Take basic digital marketing courses. There will be a lot of those who want to deceive and take money from you. Knowledge will help you to avoid that deception. Dedicate at least a few weekends to learning about SEO and other types of online promotion. If you have basic knowledge, it will be easier for you to weed out non-professional ad agencies.
“Of course, these are just the first steps at the beginning of a long journey. In the future, you will need the support of experts who, with the help of numerous special tools, will be able to propel you to the top of Google. You need to tune in to a long and constant competition.” advises Tim Absalikov, “But if you want to achieve victory in this fight, start acting now. Then there will be more chances of success. I think this is a good motivation for small business owners.”
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