Frequently Asked Questions
We get a lot of questions, because we work online and deal with a bunch of acronyms and other confusing stuff. Here’s a few of our favorites, and we’ll be adding more:
Many online site or people can build me a website/blog/etc for free, or my neighbor’s kid will do it for me for a Wii game. Why pay?
Yup. They can. But you get what you invest in. With Portage Media, you’re buying years of experience and knowledge in user experience, internet marketing, content creation, design, and strategy.
There are various reasons why you should have your own content, including the fact that you wholly own it and you will benefit from the search ranking. It’ll match your brand, be on message, and be the right solution for your particular situation.
We’ll train you on how to update your site, write blog posts, garner traffic; as well as share with you and implement the most up-to-date online marketing practices. Reading a book or blog may give you a general idea; but there is a lot more to being successful online than first appears. Benefit from our successes and mistakes, and save you and your organization time and headache as well as protect yourself against making destructive decisions.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch; it takes work to get the 10x-25x return on investment we can get our clients. If you want real results, you need to be prepared to invest something to make that happen.
Why do I need you to create a podcast for me?
You don’t need us to, but you may want us to. If you’re in a situation where you want or need to communicate with people more effectively, you may not have the hours to devote per episode to creating a quality podcast, the team in place to produce it or the countless dollars buying and trying gear. We’ve produced over 100 hours of content in the last six months in studio and on the road, getting hundreds of thousands of downloads. We have a list of qualified, talented people to host or add their voice if needed. We’re really for the busy professional or organization who wants top-notch quality content and wants to produce something that truly compliments their brand.
Your hosting solutions are a bit more than a lot of deals I find online. Why do I need media hosting or website hosting that’s more expensive?
When it comes to web hosting, everything may look the same. But they’re really not.
The reality is that with the cheap plans, you may have a hundredth or a three-hundredth of a server and their resources. That’s fine if you have a couple visitors at a time.
However, our clients are successful and have tens, hundreds, or thousands on a site or downloading a podcast simultaneously. Budget hosts will shut you down or charge large overages; and even then, they might crash under anything but a very light load.
Both our website hosting and our podcasting hosting are on separate, special networks designed to handle high loads. Think of it this way - a thousand cars come down the freeway in two minutes. Do you want to have a one-lane residential street, or a six-lane freeway? Which one will give you the best opportunity to serve as many of those people as possible?
The six-lane freeway you buy at Portage Media Solutions.
You talk about “defending the brand” and “making smart decisions relating to your brand.” Why does that matter?
Your brand - your reputation - is everything to a business. Whether it’s something basic like the look and feel being professional and coherent, or using social media to improve the standing and positioning of your company as expert, there needs to be consistency and a solid message. The “workmanship” of your companies’ media & marketing should also be excellent. However, if your company’s image or brand is not important to you, we’re not the right people for you to hire.
What’s different about being an “Interactive Media and Marketing Agency?” Aren’t you just a company that makes websites or videos?
That’s where we’re different. The reason we chose to call ourselves an agency is because we have always served our clients in a 360-degree manner; very rarely did we just “create a website.” There are programmers in India who you can get to just be code monkeys; but we’re much more than that. We’re product AND strategy, because we’re filling a niche where a lot of folks need their internet marketing and online presence to make them money and go to work for them instead of just being a couple (or in some cases, hundreds) of ineffective pages in cyberspace.
Do You Do Spec or “If-Come” Work?
We have people & dogs to feed and bills to pay - so we do not, under any circumstances, do spec or “if-come” work of any sort. We can only provide you the attention deserved if we are compensated properly for our efforts, and it’s also only fair to you and our other paying clients.
What Are Your Normal Payment Terms?
Either 40% up front, 30% at a 2/3 milestone and 30% upon completion or a monthly retainer with service payments spread out over time. No work will begin until we receive our first payment or deposit in either case.
Do You Use Project Management and/or Time Tracking Software?
Absolutely. Especially in our monthly retainer, you need to know what we’re up to.
We use the Basecamp system, which is very popular as it’s not complicated like Microsoft Project and keeps everybody on the same page with spaces to upload materials, have writeboards, etc. After all, running a project out of email can get confusing REALLY fast.
