We are THRILLED to show you one of our newest projects: a web site we did with our client Jemz Foodz. Serving as a product portal for a line of fitness lifestyle nutrition products, we worked with our web partner to develop a site that will, over time,  become a living breathing entity to aid in the clients’ overall marketing and outreach strategy.

But enough about the back story; click on the image and check it out!

In 2012 we will continue to promote our “Do Good” outreach program (after all, life is much more than marketing, business development, web interfaces or social media!). Rather then lay it all out for you, we thought we would tease you with a sneak peak…. and yes… it’s kinda’ a big deal!

Slewhouse, Inc is an Orange County based construction consulting firm that works within the shelter arena. In addition to a basic brand revamp, The Cypress Group is working on recreating their internet presence.

So, stay in touch and stay tuned!

We here at The Cypress Group are stilling talking about – and working with our clients on – beneficial ways to use social media to grow a brand and/or business (Sorry, the fad didn’t die!). With that being said, it really does seem to change a lot doesn’t it? From Google + to Klout, business owners are a tad inundated with choices, options and tools.

Which brings us to the point behind this particular posting: one of the tools we have been following and watching has always been LinkedIn (Hey, what can we say, we love a good old school anything!) Just like everyone, be they small business or Fortune 100, the people at LinkedIn have been working to add depth and dimension to their product. As such, they have been working on fine tuning the company profile portion of their show.

Now, while we would love to review the demographics of LinkedIn with you and talk about how it’s a great platform to reach a wide range of business and professional people;  we are instead going to point you to our friends at The Social Media Examiner. They put together an overview on “5 Tips for Using the New LinkedIn Company Pages“, which is a great read in a semi-tutorial format. While it may seem a tad “logic and common sense” to some, it merely underlies the fact that marketing and business development is not a spectator sport.

For those who may want the high level view, we have listed the 5 tips out for you below. But in all honesty, we suggest you read the article HERE.

The Social Media Examiner’s “5 Tips for Using the New Linkedin Company Pages:

#1: Update/create and complete your company page.

#2: Build followers for your LinkedIn company page.

#3: Provide interesting and value-added company page updates.

#4: Engage and network with people from companies you follow.

#5: Monitor and focus your efforts.

Which got us to thinking: did we ever get back to you with a follow up to this preview? Well, in case we didn’t, here we go.

Below is a “work in progress” site for a client of ours in Orange County. Working with an existing IT department, we restructured their site to allow for more functionality within an overall marketing strategy. In doing so, we allow for a higher lever of statistics which allows for their site to serve as a primary hub for their corporate communications matrix. So, while it does look fresher and more contemporary, the goal for this particular project was to put their web presence smack in the middle of their marketing and business development plans.

But.. stay tuned; as with anything these days, this is less a final product and more a work in progress!

In doing some research – and by research we mean surfing our blog rolls and sources to see what the big new trends in marketing are looking like – we came across this great infographic about what Digital Marketing budgets are looking like for Corporate America. It’s from the folks over at Marketing123, and while you may not see yourself in it directly, rest assured; be it social media, print, event, educational sessions or any other number of programs, you can find something useful in this stuff as a tool to grow your business.

(shameless plug: If you can’t figure it out… well, that is where we come in. Feel free to call us!)

| Original Graphic via Marketing123 |

Like this one, from the folks over at KISSMetrics (who we follow quite closely, btw) about the ins and outs of email marketing. Now, as we here at The Cypress Group work email into our client marketing and business development plans, we aim to provide content that says “Open me”. The flip side of the equation is making it into an email folder and NOT junk mail.

So read on. You may just learn something! (and where we come from, learning something from experts and not paying for it amounts to free consulting. Now, who doesn’t like that?)

Rather than copy the article in its whole, here are the high level points. Feel free to jump to KISSMetrics and learn more!

Avoid Purchased Lists

Watch What You Say

Team Up With A Reliable ESP

Get Certified!

Avoid Dirty Tricks

Whitelist Me, Please!

It Matters Where You’re “From”

No Risk, No Problem

Monitor Your Deliverability

Stay in Touch!

Then again, if you want to know more about how this “stuff” may be able to help your business; well, maybe we can help with that. (Sorry, shameless plug required!)

Without stating the obvious (which is, this fiddling and perusing presents a great opportunity for marketing and business development on many levels – when used smartly), take a gander at this clever inforgraphic we found at Alltop. Presenting facts and figures in an amusing and clever way, the information just underscores the point: resistance, as they say, is futile.

| Original Content via @GuyKawasaki via www.Twitter.com  |

This time around, however, it’s not a tear down site. They have a very talented IT Department we are working with – almost as if we are an outside set of eyes – in creating a new vision using mostly existing content. After all, no need to recreate the wheel. Having been in business for quite some time, these folks are hardly lacking in original content. But, it does help to have some order to it all, don’t ya think?

So stay tuned folks, the best is yet to come!

Seeing as how we love a good “pass along” here at The Cypress Group, we thought it would be nice to mention the “Call for Designers” posting over at The Stonemill Design Center. They are looking for Orange County/Southern California Interior Designers who might want to be part of a “Featured Designer” feature.

If that sounds like you, jump on over to @Stonemill and see what needs to be done. (Think of it as free marketing!)

You can thank us later!