©2021 SaratogaPhotographer.com
By Susan Elise Campbell
Interactive Media Consulting LLC owner Beth Moeller, PhD. is helping solve digital marketing problems for small businesses and nonprofits—markets she said she slipped into during the company’s earliest beginnings.
The company is marking its 25th anniversary this year.
“It was First Night 1996 and we were involved in organizing communications to create a web site,” said Moeller. “There was no money to pay us, but I knew we would do it.”
An arts enthusiast, Moeller has donated valuable professional services ever since to sustain and establish the arts and art education from her alma mater, Clarkson University in Potsdam, down to the Capital District.
She was teaching at Clarkson and was about to get married when she decided to create an LLC. That decision led the couple to the Saratoga area and the pro bono web site that introduced her programming and web design skills to the merchants and sponsors of Saratoga’s First Night.
“Some of those companies called and asked me to do their websites, and some of them are still clients,” she said. “I was at the right place at the right time with the right expertise.”
Moeller started her company at a time when the HTML programming language was “taking off” and more and more advertisers were promoting their websites on TV and in print, she said.
“All of a sudden I had a company,” she said. “I’m a geek at programming. When I talk to clients I’m programming HTML in my head.”
The digital world she immersed herself in was both competitive and male-dominated and remains so today. Moeller named her company Interactive Media Consultants to highlight what the business does rather than describe the intricacies of the world wide web.
“I didn’t want to be cute, I wanted to be taken seriously,” she said. “Back in 1996-7 I was told the internet had no future and here we have survived for 25 years. People were scared of the internet then and only knew what the media sensationalized.”
The industry has evolved such that today, rarely do websites fail to blend text and graphic communications with some form of audio, video or other media the user can interact with to learn more or make a purchase.
Companies who had asked Moeller about building websites were, in time, asking about search engine optimization and social media.
“They were hearing the words and not knowing what they meant,” said Moeller.
IMC has grown a dedicated base of repeat clients out of all sectors and sizes, from startups to multi-national corporations, Moeller said. The consultants expanded into print media recently and also offer editorial services.
Every project gets a quote, she said, and nearly all are custom because each client needs something a little different. She gave the example of incorporating an online appointment system feature.
“What if the time slot is no longer available? Do you want customers to just fill out a simple form and someone will call them back, or do you want a much more complex system,” she said.
“A client may see something on a site and think, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do that on ours,” she said. “That may be something common or require extensive custom programming.”
Moeller said her strength in technical communication is usability, a skill she developed by looking at challenges from the client’s perspective.
“I want to know what my client is trying to do, versus ‘I was told that I need to do this’,” she said. “How that feature will support their business may not be the coolest thing, but it will be the most useable thing.”
Moeller said IMC offers a large agency experience but keeps the business “small by design.” There are five full-time staff including two project managers.
“I like to fly under the radar, and some clients say IMC is the best-kept secret in town,” Moeller said. “I could have changed that so I’m not a secret, but 90 percent of my business has been referred. I like to quietly help people.”
Moeller created another division the company called IMC Express that helps startups and non-profits “who know what they need but don’t know how to get their feet wet.” She said once content is received, IMC Express can launch a new but “expandable” site in about two weeks.
“It has a low price point and can grow with the business,” she said.
Moeller is an advocate for the future of women in technology. She has the designation of a Certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise and was named as a 40 Under Forty by the Albany Business Review.
In 2015 she introduced Arts Spark, a division of IMC that helps artists with the business of being an artist. She is a past president of the board of directors for Home Made Theater.
She has been a volunteer with Odyssey of the Mind “teaching teenagers the tools” to become creative problem solvers. Over the past four years, she has helped hundreds of young people “to think and create.”
In 2019 she launched The Innovation Center at Saratoga, Inc., a nonprofit that will support the artist economy and provide an incubator for new talent.
Moeller and IMC will continue to “support the community and give back,” she said. As part of its year-long silver anniversary celebration, IMC randomly donates gifts and services to deserving nonprofits.