Santa Rosa digital marketing agency, Abra Marketing is proud to be locally focused in Sonoma County. Abra was founded in Santa Rosa in 1999. Founder Kurt Hoffmann had worked in marketing since 1989 before starting the agency. Our initial services focused on website design/website development and graphic design, however having worked in marketing for 10 years prior, we quickly found that the value we brought to our clients was not just in providing great website or graphic design projects, but the strategic marketing insight we brought to the table.
We helped clarify the purpose of the project and how it should be executed to help drive business for the client. To this end, we’ve never just built websites produced ads, but always have viewed projects as part of our work to help the client drive sales.
Janae Lloyd of World Centric provides insight into B Corporations in Sonoma County, specifically the rigorous B Corp certification process.
World Centric
World Centric is based in Petaluma, California and has been a certified B Corporation since 2010. World Centric is a socially responsible company that provides zero waste solutions to reduce environmental impact.
This video is part of a series looking at the B Corp movement and how it is manifesting itself among the B Corporations of Sonoma County, California.
Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the founders of B Lab, explains what a B Corp/B Corporation is. B Lab was founded on July 5, 2006 to provide a framework and community of support for B Corporations.
B Lab provides a process by which companies can become Certified B Corporations through a rigorous certification process.
This video is part of a series looking at the B Corp movement and how it is manifesting itself among the B Corporations of Sonoma County, California.
Ethical And Conscientious Businesses
There is an increasing movement of businesses working to achieve higher standards: how their products affect the world, how they support their workers, how they affect the environment, how they support the communities where they live, etc. At the same time there is a negative “greenwashing” where some companies try to take advantage of the buzzwords of these efforts.
B Corp certification helps provide a transparency and official measurement of these efforts to help consumers more effectively determine which companies truly are doing the good they purport to and to help companies who are sincerely pursuing this path to gauge their efforts and improve.
— Abra Marketing is a digital marketing agency based in Santa Rosa, California and serving clients across the greater Bay Area and beyond. We make the world better through marketing.
In December 2014, Abra Marketing developed the branding for Sonoma West Medical Center in Sebastopol, California.
The Sonoma West Medical Center branding development was a particularly interesting project because it was part of the effort to reopen a closed hospital, something that is rarely successfully done.
The Sonoma West Medical Center rebranding presented an opportunity to connect to the extensive history of Palm Drive Hospital while communicating the new beginning that included important changes in the organization.
The very brief background of Sonoma West Medical Center is that it opened as Palm Drive Hospital in 1939. It served the West County community for many years before financial challenges led to its closing in 2014 after a 2nd bankruptcy.
Rebranding can be an important part of taking a company in a new direction. And in this case, rebranding was a critical part of the strategy needed to overcome the enormous challenges of reopening a hospital.
Starting with the existing Palm Drive Hospital brand, we had the strengths of a long history and connection to many in the community. However, given the years of financial difficulties, there was a lot of negative connection as well. This included a great deal of opposition to reopening efforts.
Abra Marketing has managed many social media marketing programs as part of our online marketing services. Abra has been managing social media marketing programs since 2009 (the first page we set up is still active for Nor-Cal Think Pink, now with over 4,000 followers). Back then it was a tough sell for most of our clients to try this new medium.
We had early successes that helped reinforce the ROI benefits of the new social media marketing.
How did we achieve ROI from Social Media Marketing?
Most of all we stuck to the fundamental principles of marketing. We’ve been in marketing for a long time and every time something new comes along (the web, Web 2.0, social media, etc.) there’s this delusion that it’s going to be a magic marketing pill. Just put up a website and the customers will come flocking.
How do we as a company achieve the best web design and development for our clients? Below is a brief history of how Abra has evolved as a web design company.
It started with a foundation in programming way back in the 1980s. Abra Marketing founder Kurt Hoffmann was fortunate to be able to take programming classes in high school starting with punch card programming. Next he learned programming on the first Macintosh computers when they came out in 1984, which inspired him to major in computer programming in college before switching to marketing his junior year.
Fast forward to 2000 and a brand new Abra Marketing was launching its first websites.
We pride ourselves on keeping up with the latest design trends, and following best practices.
While web design and development has changed considerably over the years, the three things that defined our quality from beginning is what drives our web design projects today:
a solid architecture that supports fast loading, user experience, and search engine optimization
award-winning web design
web design projects that are guided by solid marketing strategy to support our clients’ business goals
Some milestone web design projects from over the years:
» Nor-Cal Think Pink Since 2004, Abra has donated all web design and online marketing services for Nor-Cal Think Pink, a Northern California non-profit dedicated to raising the awareness of the importance of early detection in the battle against breast cancer.
» Saab99Turbo.com The Saab 99 Turbo Registry was developed as an in-house company web development project to build our experience building a member-driven online community. The website remains the number 1 resource on this topic.
» Petrific.com Petrific was a unique project that combined a full-range of our company web development talents, from branding to web design to sophisticated web programming.
Abra Marketing is proud to be a leading Santa Rosa web design company, and has been providing web design and development in the Bay Area since 1999. Contact us to learn more or visit our Web Design page.
Is Sonoma County “The Fermentation Capital of the World?”
Sonoma County is “The Fermentation Capital of the World” according to Jennifer Harris, Fermentation Consultant and Coordinator of the Farm to Fermentation Festival. In the second video in our Culture of Good series, Jennifer provides insight into the Fermentation Movement in Sonoma County and an introduction to the wonderful world of fermentation.
Some of the Sonoma County fermentation companies featured in the video include:
Learn more about the Farm to Fermentation Festival and fermentation in Sonoma County at FarmToFermentation.com.
Sonoma County Culture of Good is a series looking at companies and organizations doing good in Sonoma County. The series is produced by Sonoma County ad agency Abra Marketing.
Way back in Marketing 101, I was taught the 5 P’s of Marketing. As I’ve worked in marketing since 1989 (over 25 years now), I’ve refined the list and am now updating it to include 10 P’s.
The 10 Ps of Marketing (a.k.a. P’s of Marketing X) 1. Product 2. Price 3. Placement 4. Promotion 5. People 6. Positioning 7. Packaging 8. Persistence 9. Parasitism X. Partnership
The purpose of the P’s of marketing is to help us analyze areas of our marketing efforts to determine what is or isn’t working.
An interesting aspect of the 10 Ps is that a company does not have to perform well in all P’s to be successful. They might have achieved success through just one or a few of the Ps. Likewise, a company might be doing well in most of the P’s, but fail because of an insurmountable problem with one of the P’s.
The Ps – and more effectively, this full list of 10 P’s – provide a complete framework to assess our marketing programs.
More details on the 10 Ps coming soon.
Marketing Ground Zero is the marketing blog of Abra Marketing, a full-service ad agency based in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California.
“Sonoma County Culture of Good” is a series of videos exploring people using business for a greater good in Sonoma County, California.
Abra Marketing was started in November 1999 in a home office on Burnside Road in Sebastopol, California. For family reasons, the agency moved to Redding in 2000. When we returned in 2010, we were particularly excited to be part of a community where there is a heightened set of values: the quality of the food, the local focus, sustainability, humane treatment of farm animals, commitment to community, and using business for social change.
We created this video series to showcase this aspect of our home, Sonoma County, while shining a light on the many great people and companies who strive to achieve something else in their daily work.
Drake Sadler, Traditional Medicinals Using Business for Social Change 9/8/2018 TraditionalMedicinals.com
World Centric The B Corp Movement in Sonoma County 3/23/2016 WordlCentric.org
Jay Coen Gilbert, B Corporation What is a B Corp March 21, 2016 Abra had the incredible opportunity to interview Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the founders of B Lab. bcorporation.net
Bryan Welch, CEO of B the Change Media What is a B Corporation? March 3, 2016 As part of our exploration into the B Corp Movement in Sonoma County, we had the great opportunity to interview Bryan Welch. BtheChange.com
Plum Blossom Farm Sustainable Farming and the Humane Treatment of Animals November 28, 2015 plumblossomfarm.com
Jennifer Harris, Fermentation Consultant The Fermentation Movement in Sonoma County October 2, 2015
When it comes to marketing videos – or any online videos for that matter – one of the questions likely on everyone’s mind is “Will it go viral?”
I have a simple point to make today and it’s this: a marketing video does not have to go viral to be a success.
The attraction of viral videos obviously is the reach – all those eyes on your video. But it’s more important to understand the quality of those eyes.
A lot of viral videos are like a car wreck – people can’t help but look. But is there really quality content there that they are connecting with? Will there be a useful relationship established? Will the view generate a result that supports marketing strategy?
