Online Business Tips

Archive for August, 2010

Seven Tips For Small Business Branding

Seven tips for small business branding

Big companies know how to launch, build, and maintain their brands. Small businesses? Not so much. Small business owners know they need to grow their business, but without an in-house “Global Brand Management and International Marketing Communications Department” they tend to be iffy on the details of how to actually do it.

The following tips have been compiled after several years of literally repeating the same things over and over again to the small and mid-sized business that have made up the core of Plumbline’s client list.

1. You have a brand personality whether you create it or not.

A brand is not a logo. Its a feeling. It’s what the customer actually feels or thinks of when he or she hears your name. So you better take some time to figure out how you want your customers to feel about you. The minute you launch your product or business you will start eliciting a response from people. How they perceive you (premium, value, technical, friendly, old, young, etc.) will shape your future. To make things worse (or better), it happens almost instantly on the Web.

Send some time, before you even create a business card, to think, really think about who you are as a brand and who the people are that make up your target audience. Then craft every piece of communication material around that.

2. Know where you want to take your brand.

?You need a plan. Lucky for you, this plan is not a drag to create. You simply need to have a good idea of how far you want to take your brand in the future and write it down. Commit to your vision. You may be a local coffee shop now, but a few years from now there may be some crazy trend toward Italian-style hot beverages made with espresso and foamed milk and just like that your in the Forbes 500. It would be wise to consider this possibility and create your brand accordingly. If you are going to grow, your brand message and image will need to accommodate that growth.

3. Speak Your Customer’s Language

?If you are a stand-up comedian, you better know what kind of room you are working that night. Comedy that kills in San Francisco might just possibly get a good Texas-Style Butt-Kicking in Dallas.

You’ve got to know your audience. More importantly, you’ve got to know what will work for them, what will turn them off and what will make them sit up and take notice. This really is marketing 101: Match the message to the audience. The message may shift over time, but the voice you use should not. If the voice must change or evolve, it should only do so when necessary and after a good length of time.

If you are selling a Cadillac, you should speak in a way that Cadillac customers will understand. Don’t try to sell them a Cadi using the voice used to sell a Scion. They just won’t hear you.

4. Make your audience respond in the way you want.

First, identify what you want the response to be, then craft your message around that.

You can make your audience respond through the use of visuals that tell your story or deliver on your core message. In packaging, it is often said that the package design is the first experience the customer has with the product contained inside. So through two dimensional graphics on a three dimensional product, we can actually communicate flavor and taste – eliciting a response like “mmmm doughnuts” for example. You can also make people respond by connecting to them with images that they are already tuned in to. That’s why beautiful, scantly-clad women sell a lot of beer. Both on TV and in the bar.

Just remember to keep it appropriate. A scanty clad biker dude will probably not help you sell pantyhose. Then again, maybe it will.

5. Control your message.

?You are in control of what you say. You can control the message your brand delivers. However you cannot control what is said about you. Unless your in the movies or politics apparently.

Be very very careful to consider all of the points of contact between your brand and your audience. All messages should be delivered in the same voice. Everyone who works for you should be treated like representative of your company. You know where they do this very well? Disneyland. Every where you go, and every one you interface with–the guy running the Matterhorn, the garbage sweeper, or Mickey Mouse himself– are all working off the same script all the time.

Your brand should be treated the same way. Your receptionist, your stock people, your engineer, should all know the brand story forward and backward and be able to represent (sell) your brand to anyone, at any time just as well as your actual sales team does. Build your brand inside as well as out.

6. Show what’s special about your brand.

What makes BMW different than Audi? or The Gap different from JCrew? It doesn’t matter if you are a landscaper or a lawyer, if you want to stand out form the crowd, you have to show what makes you unique.

However what you think might be your single, most-defining feature probably isn’t. More specifically it’s probably the same single, most-defining feature that everyone else is pushing. And really, do we need another piece of software to increase ROI and CRM PDQ ASAP? Can the world really take another Amazon.com? Do we need the “E-Bay of medical supplies”? If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard a client describe their business as the “perfect one-stop solution for blank” or as the “gold-standard provider of blank for the blank industry” I’d be on the beach of the island I’d be able to buy.

So how will you define yourself? The good news is that once you arrive at that answer the rest will be pretty easy. Or at least fun.

7. Be who you are

Be true to yourself and your customers. Don’t oversell or try to do to much. And once you have defined your brand personality, stick with it. If you are the value leader, then be the value leader. If you want to move from being the value leader to a high-end player, my advice is to launch a separate brand – think Old Navy vs. Banana Republic.  Once you are out of the gate, changing the world’s established perception of you will be very difficult so again, think about who you want to be before your hang up your shingle.

Sometimes what you set out to be is different from what you become. That’s okay, even if it wasn’t part of your plan. If your audience leads you to a new place, follow them and deliver on their expectations. Don’t try to force them back to where you originally wanted to be or they will probably abandon you for your competition.

Of course there are dozens of other ideas for building the brand of a small or mid-sized business. And there are probably thousands of experts, books, blogs, lectures, and classes on the subject. This is not meant to be Gospel. It’s just some friendly advice.

Dom Moreci is the creative director of Plumbline Studios – a creative services firm in Napa, Ca.

Business Blogging Tip

If you have an aspiring writer on staff you may want to consider promoting them to a blog writing position with your company. Both small and large companies spend money on advertising, varying from yellow pages directories and classifieds to full featured television commercials or radio advertisements. The cost of a blog is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the cost of television advertising and it can reach thousands of on-line users spreading your message and branding your company.

Your advertising managers may even have looked at blogging as an advertising medium before. The most common reason given for dismissing this approach is the large commitment of time required and the writing skills needed to come up with daily posts related to the company. It’s certainly true that with a low staff ratio, their time is better spent creating a quality product and running a store than writing a blog. Some companies, small or large, are especially suited to use a business blogging project to advertise their company and this business blogging tip is about taking a slightly different approach to a business blogging project.

When a business is providing a service that requires some expertise or gives professional advise, a business blog is a valuable publishing platform to display samples of what your company or service offers. Business tip articles are often highly sought after. Where there is a high turnover of new products or company events, a blog can use the unique features of RSS to quickly inform your clientèle of new items. Combined with an auto responder a blog is a powerful advertising method to encourage repeat visits to your company store or site.

Sharing industry related news on a blog is an easy method of communicating with a large staff and customer base. Blogs can have both public and private areas so you can use the same vehicle but require a login for the more sensitive information you might wish to share only with staff.

Don’t let your business blogging project concentrate only on selling or advertising. People are looking for information and entertainment, not to be sold to. They may not even be looking for your company so niching exclusively within your business topic may not be the best idea for your advertising campaign.

Business Blogging Tip Case Study

John Nardini does the marketing for Denali Flavors, an ice cream manufacturer. He found that his most successful high traffic blogging project was a blog on personal finance called Free Money Finance. After a little experimentation with other business blog projects, he chose personal finance because it gets a high volume of searches and because there is so much valuable information to add to the blog on a regular basis.

Denali, being the sole advertiser and sponsor of this blog gained great exposure for its logo on a totally unrelated high traffic site. For brand recognition this was an excellent marketing strategy. Ice cream is an impulsive buy and unlikely to be searched for on-line in high volume.

So think creatively about how to use a blog to advertise your business. Give it to the project managers and experiment a little with different ways to give something to your clients in order to gain them as visitors or subscribers. Once people are visiting you can display your messages, your logo and give a free sample. Do something that will stay in people’s memories so that next time they need a service or product that you can provide, they remember your name and go searching for you.

Make sure your company name comes up on the first page of as many different search engines as possible. Owning the domain name of your company name, showing your company name in the url of blogs and in bookmarked article titles are the best way to make this happen.Submission of your site to the directories is also helpful.

Our business blogging tip is to gain extra traffic to your company name blog by building a blog on one of the online hot topics and displaying your logo or advertising on all its pages by retaining sole sponsorship for this high traffic site. Niche your company business site but go where the crowds are for clients by creating a niche site on a hot topic.

Top Facebook advertising tips for smart marketers

When investing in Facebook advertising, ensure that you keep close watch on the ad expenses since the expenses can increase drastically and eventually slay the effectiveness of your advertising. Most Facebook advertisers are committing novice’s error that ultimately makes Facebook rich while leaving the marketer financially wrecked! Desist from such mistakes today by implementing these tips below, which would radically improve your Facebook advertising competence.

Test Your Ads Differently
Among the top things to do for any advertiser would be to ensure that the advertisements are as best as possible. Most times, marketers/advertisers embark on a Facebook ad campaign and achieve little results probably with less than 0; subsequently, they rashly conclude that all Facebook ad campaigns follow that way. The truth is this; it is possible that your ad campaign was ill-performing as a result of a poorly structured ad. Smart marketers know that testing things out is the best way to realize the best performance or results.
Structure a CTR (Click Through Rate) Threshold
Though certain ads will outperform others, it is not wise to waste funds on advertisements that are performing poorly. Therefore, there is the need to come up with a CTR – Click Through Rate threshold, which would earn approval for your campaign.
Test Your Ads with CPM
Here’s all we are saying: Cost Per Click (CPC) is not for smart marketers but for those who are lazy; it makes you to carry out every test on Facebook landing page. This is a wrong way of getting things done. Test-run your ads on a CPM basis in order to discover the ones that drive the lowest Cost Per Click. It may amaze you to discover that more of lower CPCs would be the outcome than if you had used a CPC bidding model. When you use a CPM model, you will be able to know the best performing ads, which would potentially offer you the best opportunity to keep your ad campaign cost as low as possible.
Keep Track of Your Campaigns Closely
If you observe closely, at the very instance you start running Facebook ad campaigns, the performance will suffer degradation with the passage of time. The reason is this – what it costs to reach every successive user on Facebook rises incrementally. Putting it differently, the initial persons that click on an ad eventually seem to be the ones that respond highly to ads generally. As you succeed in getting through to this initial wave of individuals, a rise in the cost of reaching the subsequent group is experienced. Therefore, there is need to keep close track of your daily CTR.
Test Performance on a Different note
Most times it is discovered that an ad would produce better result at different times of the day. Although Facebook does not make provision for marketers to choose a particular time of the day to run their ads, you can manually turn on/off your ads in order to assess the best performing times. But bear in mind that this involves very close monitoring.

Financial Advisor Job Secrets

Learning about careers as a financial advisor, or financial planner

What are financial advisors and financial planners?  They are referred to as a mentor, a teacher, a registered rep., a sales person, an adviser or advisor, a consultant, a planner, a broker or stock broker, or a trader.  Many terms define what it is to be a financial advisor.  Financial advisors work at a brokerage, wire house, broker-dealer, or financial services firm.  Some specialize in insurance and some specialize in investments.

Financial planners and financial advisors deal with all things having to do with money, investing, and risk management.  They deal with banking, budgeting, and business investment.  Some firms have in-house legal and tax advice.  Financial advisors and financial planners must have a working knowledge of portfolio building, allocating assets, economic analysis, and other fiscal and monetary issues.

As a financial advisor you will help people become debt free and financially independent.  To help people reach financial freedom you will use tools and financial solutions such as mutual funds, common stock, preferred stock bonds, options (calls and puts), commodities and futures, outside consulting, life insurance, and soft ware assisted financial analysis.

In order to enter a career in financial services one must pass a series of exams.  Different firms have different requirements of tests you must pass.  The series 7 allows one to sell general securities such as stock, bonds, mutual funds, and exchange traded funds etc.  A series 6 allows a rep to sell mutual funds.  The series 66 allows an advisor to charge a fee based on advice.  Other tests one may be required to pass are the series 31 (commodities and futures) and certain insurance licensing exams.  Studies show that a career as a financial advisor will be one of the best careers to pursue as the need for financial services increases.

The hardest part of a career in financial services is getting your foot in the door.  There are many secrets to landing a dream job as a financial advisor or stock broker and many hoops one must jump through to overcome the weeding out process.  To learn more visit http://www.aspiringfinancialadvisor.com/

My top 10 online blog advertising tips!

1. Article writing – many bloggers have got where they are because they have submitted useful articles to directories such as ezine articles and articlebase that become linked to by other sites, followed on Twitter etc and become known as ‘an authority’ on this particular area.

2. Search engine submitting – Now this might seem an obvious point, but rather than waiting for Google and other sites to pick up on your blog, submit it manually, as it usually will get indexed a lot quicker. There are sites that will do this for you, but if yours is a pretty mainstream blog, I would suggest submitting them manually saving you both time and money.

3. Social media – Sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace have really taken off and are a fantastic resource for advertising your blog. Aside from being able to message friends with updates on your blog, Facebook in particular offers paid advertising which you can use to target certain groups, you can also set up your own groups inviting like minded people, or join groups yourself. Twitter can be used for posting announcements about you blog, and following other like-minded people in the aim that they will also follow you. If you don’t wish to target people in this way, Youtube allows users to post videos of interest while at the same time advertising their content.

4. Forums – Again, forums, like social media can be used to target people with similar interests. In most forums you can create a signature which appears in your posts (I would advertise checking though so it doesn’t seem like spamming), and as you gradually build up a presence on the forum, you can introduce your site into your posts. This is a longer term method however so that it doesn’t come across as spamming your site.

5. Classified Ads – Another useful method is Classified Advertising. Sites such as Craigslist provide a method of posting an advertisement advertising your site rather than advertising goods themselves, but can be used in the same way. Another UK based option is gumtree or Adtrader.

6. Digg.com – Digg is a site allowing users to publish news items, videos and images of interest to the general public in the form of original content you have published on your site. By submitting it, the more ‘diggs’ (hits) an item gets, the more likely it is to appear on the home page or become one of the more popular items.

7. Signatures – Linked to forums to some extent, but that can also be based around your email, are signatures, providing both a link and some relevant text to your site.

8. Link exchanges/submission/rss feeds – These vary, in that link exchanges are exchanges with other sites of relevance to yours, generally I would aim for higher PR ones, the higher the better, whereas link submissions are submissions to link exchange sites without having to provide them with a link back on your site. I would limit both these though as Google can sometimes see it as link farming.

9. Paid advertising – In some cases this can work, using methods such as Facebook, or Google adwords, but you need to word your adverts very carefully, and do the same with keywords, otherwise you’re targeting the wrong people with the wrong keywords totally.

10. Press releases/ news items – Sites such as searchbyheadlines.com, as well as many others, allow you to submit your own press releases to them which are then distributed to various companies.