Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

This morning Schrock Innovations issued a press release about what the company is doing to help businesses use their websites to weather the Great Recession.

Here is the text of the release:

Schrock Bets on Lincoln’s Digital Recovery With Hire

With the prospect of a double-dip recession looming, Schrock Innovations is betting Lincoln’s businesses will turn to the web

Lincoln, NE, March 29, 2010: Although Lincoln’s economy is the nation’s second best for its size, that doesn’t mean local businesses are escaping the pinch of the Great Recession.

Schrock Innovations, a local Lincoln computer company, has hired Brian Augenstein to captain the company’s Web Development Division as demand for their local web-based services grow in the face of a recessionary business environment.

Thor Schrock owns Schrock Innovations and he believes that businesses are turning to the web because, when used properly, it is less expensive to generate leads, sales, and profits online. Schrock has been buying media in Lincoln for 11 years and he is seeing the signs of a business environment that is scared to take chances.

“When I can buy commercials during the NCAA Final Four for $10 per spot, that speaks toward the business climate,” Schrock said. “Couple advertising cuts with layoffs, outsourcing, and rising taxes and the result is a timid business environment that is fearful for the future.”

For what it would normally cost to run a single television commercial, Schrock Innovations is redesigning websites to make them more efficient at delivering information, generating leads, and bringing shoppers through the doors of Lincoln businesses.

“For many businesses, their website is an afterthought in the marketing budget. With marketing dollars becoming scarce, tweaking a company’s web presence is becoming more attractive because local businesses see immediate returns that go on over time without continued investment.”

Schrock points out that many businesses have all of the information they need right now to boost sales and profitability through their websites, but simply don’t know how to do it. Rather than designing a website for a client and walking away, Schrock Innovations helps its clients see the potential in the present and the future.

“In the past it was enough to know who your customers were,” Schrock said. “In today’s web world you need to know who they are, where they are coming from, how to reach them, and what they want. If you use your website to get that information, sales and profits are a natural conclusion.”

Schrock’s team of internet marketers and designers evaluate a company’s web presence based on three criteria. If a client is missing any of the three, Schrock shows them how to claim the business they are missing out on:

1. You don’t know how many of your customers or clients come from your website. There are numerous free online tools that allow you to track how many customers search for you, find your website, and then what they look at before they leave.
2. Your website has few visitors. Many of the websites designed between the late 1990’s and the mid 2000’s were designed as an online brochure rather than a marketing piece designed to attract visitors and convert them into paying customers. If you didn’t own the company, what is the #1 reason you would go to your website?
3. Your website is not reflective of what you do. Companies are necessarily focused on the day-to-day activities of running a business. Over time, businesses can evolve to offer new products, services, and even change their look. Does your website represent where your brand is today, or where it was 5 years ago?

“If a company’s website has traffic, tracking, and conversion that means they are making money. A website is more than a billboard. It should work for your company day and night. If it is not, your business is missing an opportunity to make money in the toughest of economic times.”

Big Dog Wraps & Graphics came to Schrock Innovations looking for a website to sell their unique graphics and provide their customers with the ability to upload their own designs.

More importantly, Big Dog wanted a site that would stand out from the competition and show off their products. After some preliminary design meetings, Schrock presented a proposal that featured dynamic image rollovers inside a Goth/Skater styling using a dark gray & burgundy color layout.

Brad in our development center worked closely with Jana of Big Dog Wraps & Graphics to create the style and coloring scheme they were looking for.

To improve the site’s scalability, we created a flexible CSS design to work with the multiple page layouts. A main menu was created alone with a side menu to showcase products, make navigation easy and help customers she how easy it is to have unique graphics printed and applied to their vehicles.

Once the styling was done we designed and coded their online shopping cart. The shopping cart was designed to make purchases simple for the customers and to be easily implemented on the back-end.

For all of you graphics guys in the house, check out the video here. It pretty much sums up any situation a graphics guy has been confronted by and the idiot business owners who employ them (like me).