By Adam Stone

NARBERTH — Rule #1: A Web site is only as good as your customers' ability to find it.

That's what Jeffrey Sherman discovered a year and a half ago, when his Philadelphia shoe store went online. Backed only by traditional marketing, the Sherman Brothers site was not scoring big.

Then Sherman brought in a local firm called Unreal Marketing to help boost his Web presence.

"The results were pretty nearly immediate," he said. "It took them probably a month to set up the campaign, but once their work was done, sales started coming in literally that day."

While the tech strategists at Unreal will handle all aspects of an advertising campaign, they have a very particular specialty: They know how to boost Search engine results.

For many online businesses, Search engine hits are the Holy Grail, whether they realize it or not. More than 80 percent of Internet users rely on Search engines to take them to relevant pages, according to various sources. Moreover, a report last November by CyberAtlas found that 56 percent of Internet users will not bother to look through more than two pages of Search engine results. This means, in essence, that whoever can get their results closest to the top is most likely to be the winner.

That's where Michael Stalbaum comes in. He worked up the nerve to quit his job as a lawyer in 1999 and step full time into the world of online marketing.

Along with local partner Adam Weil and West Coast tech guru Brad Solomon, Stalbaum made a creative entrance into the business. He drummed up his own clients, of course, but at first he relied most heavily on partnerships with bigger agencies. Unreal would, in effect, handle all work related to Web-based marketing, relieving the larger ad agencies of that burden while simultaneously building up its own reputation as a firm that could deliver tangible results in the oh-so-intangible world of the Internet.

If this kind of partnering seems like a conservative way to enter an industry, that is hardly a coincidence. In fact, Stalbaum says his firm's restrained approach to business helps explain why Unreal is still here today, when so many other Net-based businesses have gone by the wayside.

The partners started with $5,000 of their own money. They set up shop in Stalbaum's bedroom, and eventually took 100 square feet of office space: A 10-by-10 foot room with just enough space for their desks and their files.

"We didn't get venture funding. We didn't go in and spend thousands and thousands of dollars in furniture," Stalbaum recalled. "We grew organically, rather than jumping the gun."

Even without spending lavishly, the partners managed to attract an increasing portfolio of clients, and their revenue has risen in turn, from $1 million in 2001 to $3.8 million last year. This year they expect to gross between $8 and $10 million.

The success of Unreal comes as little surprise to David Krieger, Vice President and Philadelphia branch manager for Coldwell Banker Preferred Real Estate. He spoke to several firms before deciding to use Unreal to boost his Web site's positioning.

"One of the things they did that other companies could not provide was their attention to detail," said Krieger. "I am in constant touch with them on a weekly basis, and they are constantly making sure that we are getting the placement that we desire. We have increased our Internet leads by close to 60 percent, with leads that are more qualified than the leads we have ever had before."

Driven by that kind of market acceptance, Unreal has continued to spread its wings. In early 2001 it acquired the business of a smaller competing firm called Tailored Traffic. "It added some great clients to our roster and increased our revenue all in one fell swoop," Stalbaum said.

While appreciative of the rather sizable bump in business, Stalbaum nonetheless admits that the acquisition also served to exacerbate his firm's biggest challenge: That is, growing pains.

Unreal's pace of expansion has tested the skills of the owners, who have had to figure out on the fly just what it takes to organize a steadily growing concern. And "organize" is just the word.

"As we have grown bigger it has required a lot better systems and organizations. Having weekly meetings, firming up priorities: I am a big proponent of all that," said Stalbaum. "It used to be two guys screaming across the room to each other. Now we have intake forms and billing forms. We just upgraded our computers to have a virtual private network to link the [East and West Coast] offices together."

The new organizations also extend to the human-resources arena. "There was a point where I could be the salesman, the implementer and the legal guy, all in one," he said. "Now we need different people to do all those different things. That means you have to have new systems for how those different departments interact with one another."

At the same time, all these people must chase a moving target, as Search engine technology continues to evolve. "It has become an industry of partnerships, rather than technology," Stalbaum explained. "Instead of trying to dupe the Search engines, finding the tweaks that will get you a higher rating, now you need to do strategic partnering and relationship-building in order to keep on top of whatever it is the Search engines are looking for."

To that end, "I tell everyone to research the industry. It has been constantly evolving for the past four years, and I know that we need to stay on top of that."

As for future plans, Stalbaum says it is steady-as-she-goes. He has no dramatic initiatives on the books, nor is he actively looking for further acquisitions. Of course, if the right player were to express an interest in acquiring Unreal, he said, "that is probably something that we would look at seriously."

Posted 08/18/03

Return