So
many small businesses make the mistake of focusing too much on operations, the
day to day ways they handle their business, and not enough on marketing and
brand building. Your company’s brand encompasses more than just a pretty logo:
It’s your reputation in the business world. Nothing is more important than your
brand.Chucky Free Blogger Template
Memories are Made with Strong Impressions
Put some solid work into your brand, design and reputation, and you’ll
see your business go from invisible to bubbling with excitement in no time
flat. Think about making a lasting first impression in every place that your
potential customers experience your brand, maintaining that impression as you
develop your relationship. You want to be the one the customer remembers – not
your competitor.Blogger temeplet
Memories are Made with Strong Impressions
Branding
is the fine art of creating positive, lasting associations with your company.
The first step is to create a concrete idea for your potential customers and
business partners to latch on to. Most companies do a little of everything, but
when presenting outside the company, telling people that you do “this and that”
is the worst thing that you can say. Instead, create a concrete sound bite that
sums up product or service that you sell in a memorable or interesting way. A
construction company could say, “We provide a strong foundation and build your
business from the ground up the way you want it.”My Template Download
Hire
a Designer
Just
like nobody wants to shop in a dirty grocery store, nobody wants to invest in a
company with a dinky old website. The modern style is clean, elegant HTML5
sites with a flexible content management system, lots of contrast and
eye-pleasing colors. Your designer will make sure that your site is pleasing to
the eye and makes you look like the best among your competitors. You’ll get
color synergy, texture, vertical and horizontal rhythm, and a hundred things
that an untrained web developer would put at the end of the list.
When
looking at draft designs, think about first impressions. Your homepage is your
handshake with your customer or client. The first thing they see should tell
them that the company is reliable, stable, and on top of their business.
Internal pages should be brief, marketing-driven, and encourage the reader to
reach out or stop by the shop.
Monitor
Google and Social Media like a Hawk
Chances
are that every morning when you wake up and shave or put on your makeup, you
look in the mirror before you head off to work. When you submit a report to the
boss, you spend an hour proofreading it and double checking your data before it
goes out. This behavior is prudent – when you do something, you check to see if
you actually did what you think you did before you show it to others.
But
when was the last time you Googled your company? This should be at least a once
a week event. Are your Facebook and Twitter pages overrun with unanswered
complaints?
Social
Media is the mirror that you look in to see what everyone else sees about your
company. Use the feedback you receive there to streamline your perceptions and
find the real kinks in your system. Respond to everything you can. Never adopt
a “can’t save everyone” mentality – even if you can’t save everyone, your brand
gets points for great customer service.
Alternatively,
you can use reputation management services, like Reputation.com, to build
up positive reviews and links on popular search engines. These companies are
often dumped on by the general public, but the good ones provide you with real reviews
on websites like Yelp, Angie’s List, and even Reddit. They can also crank out
good SEO articles on authentic blogs that paint your company in a positive light
and direct traffic your way and a host of other small services that really help
to clean up your image and bring in new sales. They’re especially useful if
you’re got some bad publicity out there that’s hurting your image.
No comments:
Post a Comment