How to Maintain Brand Identity When Your Business is Scattered Across the Internet

The explosion of social networking sites has made it easy for business owners to place their company in the thick of things.  Sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter allow business owners to reach out to their clients in a more casual and relatable way.  While these mediums may allow for more personal communication, keep in mind that consumers face an onslaught from marketers and if your messages aren’t reinforcing your brand identity, you’re likely to be quickly forgotten.

There are quick and easy ways to create continuity for your business online, even if it spans across a variety of platforms.

• Rely on your logo. Your logo is the face of your business, so make sure it’s out there for people to recognize.  While it may seem like a fun idea to mix things up an use different images for different profiles, it will simply create confusion.  Make it easy for your customers to recognize you.

• Take advantage of the customization features.  Many of the platforms like MySpace, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter offer you the ability to personalize your page – and this is another great way to reinforce your brand standards.  So while your customer may have found your business page on YouTube, they still can feel at “home” on a page that reinforces the themes, colors and images that represent your business.  Here are a couple of examples of pulling elements together for different platforms:
  • Historic Home Designer, Lynn Taylor: Taylor Made Plans.com, Myspace.com/TaylorMadePlans, YouTube.com/TaylorMadePlans
  • Capitol Recording Artist, Emily West:  Myspace.com/EmilyWest, Emily West on YouTube
  • Local Baking Company, East Side Cookies: EastSideCookies.com, ESC on Twitter

• Personalize your message.  The great thing about the social networks is that you have a very specific audience.  If you’re using an industry-specific networking site, customize your message to that market.  If your audience is in specific area, use Twitter or Facebook to target your message to those customers.
  • East Side Cookies uses their Twitter page and ESC on Facebook page to let customers in Nashville know where they’ve made the latest delivery so they can easily find the freshest cookies in town.

These are just a few starter tips.  Also sure to check out the help sections of the site that you’re using to see what other features they’ve created for businesses to have a more dynamic presence, and if you’d like more assistance, always feel free to contact us at Brady Mills Graphics.

How Do You Get Shoppers to Open Their Wallets in Today’s Economy?

Consumers are spending less.  That’s hardly a novel headline in this economy, but just because spending is down, it doesn’t mean wallets are completely sealed shut.

Bazaarvoice commissioned a survey of 800 U.S. consumers to learn about what factors have the greatest impact on shoppers during the decision-making process.  Not surprisingly, 61% of respondents acknowledged that online resources can sway them as they’re making purchases.  Factors like “user ratings and reviews (77%), and recommendations based on other consumers’ purchasing or browsing behavior (66% and 65%, respectively)” played heavily into their final decisions.  This data reflects that word-of-mouth is alive and well online – even among people who may not even be on the same continent.

What does all of this mean for your site?

Make sure you’re allowing online shoppers to get involved!  Make it easy for them to leave reviews and ratings.  Incorporate systems that intuitively know when to suggest products or link to purchase histories of other shoppers.  Brett Hurt, founder of Bazaarvoice, explains it simply, “companies have a tremendous opportunity to provide online shoppers with authentic, user-generated content that is proven to build confidence, increase satisfaction, and drive sales.”

It’s an easy step that can have a far-reaching impact.  Work with your web designers to find ways to incorporate more user-friendly features and you may just find that you’re creating a loyal (and growing) consumer base.

If You’re Not Online, Small Businesses Are Missing Out on Local Customers

MarketingCharts.com posted a great article about a survey done by Webvisible and Nielsen regarding how consumers look for local businesses online.  The survey uncovered some insightful information about how small business owners are missing out on customers who may be just around the corner – but can’t find the business because they’re not online.

With 82% of respondents citing search engines as one of their main resources of information, the unfortunate news is that  “39% report frequently not being able to locate a particular known business.”  That means these people who may be searching for your business are stumbling on information about other businesses – likely your competitors.

There are simple ways to make a business more prominent online.  Take advantage of the free search services like Yahoo! Local or Google Local Business Center to post free local business listings.  Also check out how your business is listed with YellowPages.com or SuperPages.com.  Yelp.com has some great resources for business owners to manage their reputations on Yelp and with CitySearch.com, business owners can create profiles that help bolster their presence on the site.

These are just a few free resources that every business owner should take note of.  If you’ve got questions about other ways to bolster your online presence, check out our online marketing services at Brady Mills Graphics and give us a call or drop us a line!

The Right Mix: Experiments in Marketing

It can be difficult to find the right fit for your company’s marketing plan, but that doesn’t mean you should succumb to a one-size-fits all mentality. Marketing your product or service requires a certain amount of finesse – especially when branching out to a new segment of consumers. Give your plan some wiggle room for testing and experimenting. These are a few guidelines we follow when tweaking marketing plans:

• Always keep your goals at the forefront of the plan. If you’re moving in the direction of your ultimate goal (increasing sales, response rates, awareness, etc.) then you’ve got the right momentum – you may just arrive at it a differently than anticipated. When you keep your goals in mind, it’s much easier to hone in on what’s effective. Sometimes the most creative (and effective) marketing comes by taking a roundabout path… just don’t get too distracted by the new territory, always keep an eye on the final destination.

• Nuances can make a world of difference. If your email marketing campaign isn’t producing the results you want, don’t scrap email marketing. Instead, look at your message. Is your tone appropriate? Are these customers looking to you for a light-hearted message or do they want a just-business rundown? If the tone’s right, consider calls to action. Does the customer know what to do? Subtle changes and guiding directions can make any tool more effective.

• Try new techniques, but know when to move on. There’s a careful balance to strike when testing new methods. You don’t want to bail too early before giving the process a chance to eek out results, but also you don’t want to be caught stubbornly pushing along an effort that’s not gonna budge. When you’re not seeing results, use your best judgment and don’t be afraid to redirect your efforts.

• Have realistic expectations. While you may be primed and ready for customers to start knocking down your door within 24 hours of implementing a new marketing tool, recognize that most plans work on a slow-build concept. While things may start out slow at first, committing to a plan that’s producing results is likely develop into a steady, long-lived stream of business.

Keep adjusting your plan until you find the combination that maximizes your marketing dollar’s impact. Testing new methods and refining messages can be frustrating, but it’s essential for creating the right marketing mix.

battling bunker mentality in a rocky economy

The economy’s trajectory has been far from smooth over these last few months. Shaky confidence in the future is causing many businesses to scale back on marketing budgets, which while it may ease the immediate cash flow concerns of some in management, developing too much of a bunker mentality will make it difficult to bounce back once things get rolling again. Take a minute to review Scott Shane’s post about Four Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make in a Recession. It’s good food for economically-weary thought.

do small businesses really need websites?

Sometimes we’re asked about the need of a site for some of our smallest clients, especially ones who don’t see e-commerce in their future.  Many of our clients are small businesses owners.  These are some of our favorite web design projects because creating a site for a small business can make a tremendous impact on the dynamics of their business.

Perhaps even more than established corporations, small businesses need a quality website.  Corporations have a distinct advantage over their smaller competitors – chiefly established reputations.  The Internet acts as a balancing force, though.  A well-designed site that is both visually appealing and packed with useful content can level a the playing field between small businesses and their corporate competitors.

Even if your small business doesn’t sell Internet-ready products or services, a site is critical.  With so many people heading online to comparison shop before heading out to the store, a good website can “prove” the validity of your small business.  The public needs to see that while your business may be rooted in bricks and mortar, your business is geared to even meet the cyber needs of its customers.  Even if your offices hours are from 10 – 2, a website gives your customers 24/7 access to your business.  Google has a number of Local Search features that feed users information about your business.  If you don’t have a site presence or haven’t registered your business with Google, you’re missing out on customers who are searching for your services.

Brady and Crew are on the Scene

There’s a lot of conversation that goes on in our office. Sometimes it’s heavy with coding and programming speak, other times it’s light and breezy with marketing jabber. Instead of keeping these pearls of wisdom or pondering questions to ourselves, we thought it best to get out there and share with the rest of the world.

Brady Mills Graphics and Interactive Marketing is, well, an interactive marketing firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. We work in web design, SEO, online advertising, copywriting and a whole host of other areas. We’ve got a backload of topics that we’ll be posting in these next few days and weeks. Once all those topics have loaded we’ll adapt a more routine posting schedule.

We hope that you’ll find what we have to say entertaining and useful – regardless of whether you’re a prospective client, a keen competitor or just a visitor in blogland.

Thanks for visiting and let us know what you think!

– Brady and Crew

http://www.bradymills.com