pcgs Archives - Interfanatic Digital Marketing with Web Site Maintenance & Design

Quickness: The Penny Lady ® – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Quickness is necessity, the Penny Lady ® knows; just a few percent can be the difference between success and failure.

We’re here for your success. So we act as quickly as you do to bring about the results you need. And we’re not alone. There are a number of our clients who inspire us with their quickness. This week, I’ll tell you about Charmy Harker, The Penny Lady®.

The Penny Lady ®: Quickly Adjusting to the Needs of Coin Collectors

Charmy Harker, aka, The Penny Lady®, is a serious collector and coin dealer who has found ways to quickly adjust to the ever-changing coin market. Collectible coins (like anything traded for money) go through ups and slumps, and as a dealer perhaps the best way to counter those swings is to keep your inventory fresh. That’s one of many things that Charmy excels at – keeping her inventory new.

Harker branded herself as The Penny Lady ® after following a new-found passion for coins. She was very successful in the legal business before coins – she didn’t need coins. But looking back now, coins sure needed her.

When you go to a coin show, two things strike you immediately if you know anything about coins. One: holy crap, these coins aren’t the slightest bit rare. Two: there sure are a lot of old white guys dealing.

That’s not to minimize the recent resurgence of collecting with younger generations: Instagram has helped that immensely. And there are a number of dealers in their forties and fifties. That’s also not to minimize that if you look around, you’ll see collectors of all colors and walks of life.

But there are very few women. Mostly, we see the wives of dealers.

And that’s changing, in large part due to people like Charmy Harker. A successful female coin dealer is a breath of fresh air on the bourse.

And her inventory, which is expansive, is always fresh. She’s always quick to get new material for her avid collectors, and she’s always quick to get that new material professionally (and uniquely) photographed for her site.

Her customers’ favorite thing to do is view her new inventory. So she gives them what she wants with speed, consistency, and excellent service.

Check out a recent inventory addition on ThePennyLady.com – an 1856 Snow-9 Flying Eagle Cent!

Here, you can see some recent changes made on The Penny Lady. Charmy just added some new inventory, including the desirable impaired proof S-9 – an original 1856 Flying Eagle Cent. Check it out!

Quickness: An Interfanatic Quality

“There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action.”
– Martha Graham

What a beautiful quote by a woman who created and traded in the artistic beauty of choreography. There is a force that drives all of us, and if we harness it quickly, the results of our effort may be beautiful.

That’s what we’re trying to do here. We bring beauty and data together quickly to produce results. The site in the video above is just as Charmy wants it. This is her translation of business beauty harnessed into action. We’re proud to be a part of it.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Business Website Production – Ecommerce

In my previous post, I told you about our Interfanatic Marketing Message Situation Report. In this week’s post, we’ll talk about our Interfanatic Power Business Website Production, which often includes eCommerce.

All the Power Business Websites we build include exceptional SEO. But when you need to do business over the Internet in a safe and secure fashion, we include that in our Power Business Website Production.

“We’ll help you choose the right solution and get your site up and running quickly.”

We’ll transfer products from your old site, or we’ll create new products for you – all with your approval. In Charmy Harker’s case, we also included our exclusive Coin Entry software which allows you to quickly post certified coins. It’s a real time saver that pays for itself very quickly.

We work with all the major eCommerce platforms: WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, you name it. We’ll help you choose the right solution and get your site up and running quickly.

Interfanatic: Quick Answers and Quicker Action

We’ve been around the block a few times. We’ve seen it all! Please don’t be embarrassed at the current state of your website. We’ve all been there. Trust me: WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. The most important part is that you know there’s an issue and you know you need help. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to help. So give us a call. We have the answer.

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Adaptability: German Coins – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

Adapt or die!

Ron Guth has a numismatic career spanning decades as a pinnacle expert. He’s an author, an experienced executive, an auctioneer, … and proprietor of German Coins.

Guth built his first website around the same time we started our business – around 1998. (We started in 1999.) And as the Internet has changed, Ron Guth has changed with it.

As most of our successful clients, Guth embodies our quoter’s thought. Jessica Hagedorn is a bit of a maverick and found success in many ways – all of them through knowing how and when to adapt.

German Coins: Adapting to the Market

I had the great honor of working with Ron Guth when we did some marketing work for PCGS (Collector’s Universe) and handling the marketing for the second tranche brought up from the Ship of Gold. We worked together on more than that, too. It was always great working with Guth. He’s such a pro! Soft spoken, self-effacing, kind, and one of the most knowledgeable and sharp individuals you will ever meet.

And you have to be to take on the niche of numismatics that is German Coins! Coins of most countries are complex and intricate. There are entire libraries dedicated to the two-hundred denominations of U.S. Coins through history.

But German Coins encompass not only the intricacies of the modern era (West German, East German, and Unified Germany), but the upheavals of the 20th century and going back through the German States. Forget 200 denominations, how about 200 States, each with it’s own unique set of non-decimal denominations! And then there’s porcelain coinage, notgeld, precious metals coinage, territories – it’s insane. For reference: if you’ve ever seen the phone book size Krause “Standard Catalog of World Coins”, you know that of the three inches of material, US coins inhabit… maybe 1/8th inch of the 1900-2000 volume. For the 1800-1900 volume, twice that. German States comprise a full inch of the 1700-1800 Krause.

Ron Guth is one of the few sharp enough to take on such a daunting task.

But if you want a deep and rich niche of numismatics to delve into, German Coins are for you! That would be one helluva type set.

We began helping Guth with GermanCoins.com a few years ago. We added a shopping cart to his site, and gave it a quick redesign at that time. More recently, we relaunched the site with an all-new design that makes the site easier and faster than ever.

This quick video shows the changes the site has seen through its life.

Check it out now to see the latest design: https://germancoins.com

Adaptability: An Interfanatic Quality

“Adaptability is the simple secret of survival.”
– Jessica Hagedorn

To survive and yes to thrive, we have to change. We have seen so much change through our 20 years in business. From Netscape to Google, from MySpace to Facebook, from Nokia to iPhones, from AdWords to Yelp, we’ve seen so many fads come and go.

One thing that hasn’t changed: having your own website to tell your story the way you want to tell it is the way to go. You’re not reliant on some external force presenting your message. It’s on you. You get what you want.

“I don’t need a website, I just use Facebook.” Now that facebook is the home of fake news and toxicity on the Internet, that may not be the place for you. Plenty of businesses use facebook successfully. But if you want your message shown without distraction, it may not be the best place to showcase your products and services.

“I don’t need a website, I just use Yelp.” Which is great, so long as you have 5-star reviews! But what happens when Yelp doesn’t prioritize your correct reviews, but rather chooses to showcase some nutjob’s? You have to pay their fee, and even then you may not get what you want.

Websites are not the be-all, end-all, but I’ve heard so many times through my career that “websites are a thing of the past”, and yet here we are.

Kinda like Ron Guth and German Coins. They adapt.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Business Website Production

Last week, I told you about our Website Management services, which keeps sites running strong and keep the surprises away. Today, let’s talk about our Power Business Website production.

We’ve adapted this service multiple times through the years. The main thing you get in any service is labor – our prices are determined by the time it takes to properly complete the service you need. In the case of Power Business Website Production, we build a proper business website for you with either a focus on SEO (which most businesses care about) or speed (which is important, but not always the priority.) If you want both, look for our The Works service, which includes both incredible SEO, incredible speed and performance, and more. If neither are critical, look at our Basic Site Production.

Most customers we’ve experienced are most focused on SEO – getting traffic to their site. We’ve always done some SEO service in our builds, it’s just a requirement of the times. But to really focus on SEO in 2021, there’s considerable extra labor involved. And the results are always worth it – especially in the long run.

“…we invest extra time with our SEO-focused builds, we invest extra time in lightning performance for speed-focused builds.”

Some customers are not interested in SEO, (surprisingly.) For those customers, we emphasize the speed and performance of their website. When you have a business that is not concerned with SEO, it’s because you have enough customers – you just want referrals to have something sharp to see when they check you out. As we invest extra time with our SEO-focused build, we invest extra time in lightning performance for speed-focused builds. We have a couple of options here, including headless website builds, that might work best for your application. Talk to us about your needs and we’ll guide you.

If you focus on speed with your Power Business Website Build, there can still be some SEO done. If you focus on SEO with your Power Business Website Build, there will still be good performance. But getting those last few percent of each are labor intensive, so that’s what we do. We invest the labor on your behalf to get you the website you want.

Interfanatic: Adapting to Thrive

Our business changes every second of every day. We don’t do the same thing we did in 1999. Our systems and processes have evolved to adapt to the current business model that works best for our clients. What hasn’t changed is our commitment to excellence. We haven’t changed our willingness to what’s needed to ensure we do everything in our power to help them be successful.

You see, some things need to be adapted. Others, like doing what’s best for our customers, do not need to change.

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Efficiency: PCGS – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“Efficiency signifies the productivity of the process.”
– Susan Page

Efficiency sounds so clinical. It’s interesting to hear about it from a newspaper woman. Efficiency is not something that comes to mind when you think of journalism, but of course it’s critical. Excellent writing is all about being concise. It’s about getting the story across completely using the fewest words possible.

But she’s referring to the productivity of the process. At Interfanatic, we have a lot of processes. We have systems galore. We don’t really think about it in these terms any longer because they’re such an intrinsic part of our work. But we’re always trying to find ways to be more efficient for the long run – because it’s better for our customers.

This brings to mind one of our clients from just a couple of years ago: Collectors Universe and PCGS. Now THAT is an efficient company!

Efficiency: An Interfanatic Quality

Efficiency is ingrained. Of course, we have to constantly fight for it. Our business is on an entropic trend with efficiencies fighting inefficiencies on every front. Efficiency doesn’t have to be impersonal, but it does have to work.

We’re constantly on the lookout for ways to make things happen faster, simpler. Any time there’s a complicated process, we seek to simplify it. Our business is rife with new tasks, new processes, and these are not always beautifully efficient.

Over time, we hone new processes to make them simpler and more efficient. It helps us save time and money. And then we can pass that efficiency to our customers through savings.

PCGS is Efficiency in Action

The Professional Coin Grading Service is an incredibly efficient outfit. They deal with tens of thousands of collectibles daily, and they get those tens of thousands of items in front of dozens of extreme experts to get their honest opinion of condition and / or value.

“[PCGS is] an incredible outfit performing a massive service to an industry that intrinsically requires their talents.”

On top of that, they’re dealing with some of the most valuable and rare collectibles in the universe. The collectibles market is much like the stock market, in that it fluctuates daily based on supply and demand. They are the third party that helps buyers and sellers know what is in front of them.

A few years ago, we handled a couple the marketing initiatives for PCGS. Well, we Interfanatic, did not – I did. We handled some of their social media, many of their email sends, and a video marketing program related to a big rollout of collectibles for a big customer. It was awesome!

But in doing so, I got to see how clinically efficient PCGS is. They’re not that way just because they want to be – they’re that way because they have to be. When you’re dealing with collectibles on this scale, you have to treat them agnostically, and you have to treat them quickly – efficiently. It’s an incredible outfit performing a massive service to an industry that intrinsically requires their talents.

So when we had the opportunity to handle some of their marketing, these were some incredibly fun and rewarding projects for us.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Search Advertising with Setup

Search advertising is the ultimate in efficiency. While the newcomer to the scene – social media – is not always efficient for newcomers, search advertising is the king of making your dollar go far. It’s a great way to establish your brand, and a great way to get your established brand in front of the right customers.

If you want to spend your money efficiently, get a digital search campaign going the right way. It will take some time to get it tuned in, so start by spending slowly. As you see the results you want and begin to understand why you’re seeing them, up your spend to get more of what you want.

It’s a beautiful process, and we’ve been proud to be a part of it for some great customers during these difficult times.

Interfanatic: Honing Efficiency

Like PCGS, we have systems and processes in place to help you become more successful while spending less. We’re here to help. It is my pleasure to help you get more business for less.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Efficiency, an Interfanatic Quality. Interfanatic Digital Marketing founder Ryan Delane takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

While reviewing photographs to use for our social feed, I was struck by this image of a red rose. There is little that is so efficient in eliciting a reaction as a gorgeous rose. It is beautiful and immediate. The more you look at it, you have an emotional reaction to its visual and olfactory presence. It is a king (or queen, as the case may be!) of efficiency.

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