Special Focus Sets E-Maginition Apart

The term niche marketing has become ubiquitous in many circles. Usually, it refers to the practice of marketing a product or service to a specific audience in a precise manner.
So it would follow that the very agencies working tirelessly to reach niche audiences would in turn market themselves as such.
Fort Smith-based marketing firm E-magination Group would certainly fit into this category.
Although the company has a variety of different clients across the business spectrum, it specializes in three areas: luxury retail; banking and financial services; and the poultry industry.
The firm began in 1989 as Advertising Plus Inc., but when Mark Myers, chairman and CEO, bought the company two years ago, he sensed a need for change.
Advertising Plus had been a successful regional firm, winning numerous awards for advertising and marketing projects. But Myers wanted potential clients to know that his company wasn’t a small-time operation.
He decided to re-brand the firm, and changed the name to E-magination, a move he said evokes the idea of the Disney Corporation’s Imagineers.
The agency does quite a bit of business outside of the Fort Smith area. This includes a lot of marketing work in much larger markets such as Houston, Oklahoma City and even as far away as New Jersey.
Though many of E-magination’s clients are financial institutions, none of those are based in Northwest Arkansas. In fact, none of them have any branches in the area. Myers would like to see that change.
One of the advantages of being based in Fort Smith is that overhead costs are lower there, as opposed to the slightly larger markets of Little Rock or Northwest Arkansas, Myers said.
“It’s a good place to be located, because the cost is less per square foot than Northwest Arkansas or Little Rock,” he said.
At the same time, those areas are a relatively short drive away, so potential clients are within a reasonable distance.
E-magination was ranked number 14 on the most recent Arkansas Business list of the state’s largest advertising agencies. The firms were ranked by number of employees.
At the time, E-magination employed nine, but Myers has hired one more since. Revenue for last year was $2.5 million, Myers said.
The firm offers a wide variety of marketing services, including ad design, copywriting, direct mail, Web services, cold calling, TV and radio production, public relations, photography and publishing.
E-magination recently finished a catalog project for Weatherford International, a Fortune 500 company based in Houston, which offers drilling and other oil-related services.
Some of E-magination’s Arkansas clients over the years have included First National Security Co. of DeQueen, Petit Jean State Bank in Morrilton, First National Bank of Hot Springs, Newton’s Jewelers of Fort Smith, Zero Mountain Inc. and the Fort Smith Parks and Recreation Department.
One area in which Myers wants the agency to expand is public relations work. To that end, he hired Stephanie Malone, who was formerly with the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce.
For the most part, Myers himself handles PR work, but said Malone would take on any work he can’t fit into his busy schedule.
Another marketing avenue E-magination is exploring is search engine optimization.
Web companies such as Google use complicated algorithms to dictate which sites pop up when certain terms are entered on their Internet search engines. Marketing companies can increase the chances of their clients’ sites showing up at the top of search results by determining which factors cause a site to come out on top.
Until a few years ago, there weren’t many firms utilizing search engines this way.
“It’s really blossomed recently,” Myers said of the Web search optimization.
One of the components in Google’s algorithm is the number of times a URL has been visited, Myers said.
But the company is constantly tinkering with the formula, so if a client’s result ranking suddenly drops four or five places, it is likely the algorithm has changed, he said.