Your website is a critical part of your online image and reputation.  It’s the first impression many potential clients have of your business.  A bad impression may turn them away for good.  A quality website requires many different components to work harmoniously.  From design to content, your website should send a clear message about your services and products while creating a unique and enjoyable user experience. It doesn’t take a professional designer or a marketing guru to spot problems with your website.  Want to know if your website is turning away potential clients?  Ask yourself these questions and see how well ...

Marketing a business, small or large, is no easy task.  It requires dedication, creative thinking, planning, retooling and much more.  While there are many different opportunities to market and a variety of channels to do so, it’s important to stick to the basics before you start spending your marketing dollars. Making sure that you have covered these topics will ensure a better yield on your marketing efforts. Not Designating a Budget A serious mistake that many small business owners is to not designate a budget.  Regardless of the size of the budget, it’s important to know upfront how much can be allocated ...

At its core, content marketing is the creation and sharing of content with the ultimate purpose of attracting new customers, engaging with potential customers and nurturing current customers relationships.  By producing high-quality, relevant content, business owners stand to gain brand loyalty and potential business from prospects. When creating content, avoid making these simple mistakes to grow your potential customer base and gain respect from current customers. Having No Plan If content creation is not part of your current marketing plan, it needs to be.  Just like you plan out your marketing campaigns, content marketing has to be well planned.  A content schedule ...

To the average person, blogging may seems like a waste of time. For business owners, understanding that a company needs a blog is even harder. A few reasons why corporate blogs fall by the wayside include lack of time to dedicate to writing frequent content, general inability to come up with topics and thinking that no one cares (or reads) what you write. Contrary to this belief, blogging is becoming an important tool in increasing a business’ reach online. Still not convinced? If you have already have a website, the key to success is higher traffic. An easy way to increase ...

With the holidays upon us, retailers are busy gearing up for the big sales and shopping frenzy synonymous with the holiday season. With all the craze, it’s easy to see why retail owners forget that marketing doesn't stop once the holiday season has begun. On the contrary, it’s time to ramp up all marketing efforts to keep a constant stream of shoppers at your registers. Here are some simple marketing tips that small retailers – from the small clothing boutique to the children’s toy shop – can get behind without breaking the bank. Return Visits An important part of growing your retail business is gaining ...

Halloween just passed, and the start of November means the biggest shopping day of the year is just around the corner. It’s also the time when every business rolls out their holiday marketing. As such, your marketing strategy should be both bold and aggressive. Here are some easy multi-channel marketing ideas to leverage your holiday marketing this season. E-Mail Marketing E-mail marketing is an easy and convenient way to reach out to your clients. Design a special “thank you” campaign promoting your holiday specials or to keep your customers informed of your upcoming sales, promotions or offers. Also, don’t forget to push your ...

Having an online website requires more than a few static pages. It requires consistent updates and modifications to keep up with the ever-changing rules of search engines and internet marketing. As a business owner, it’s critical to grow your website. If  you've never modified your website since it launched, you are letting search engines and customers forget you. Growing your website means giving search engines reasons to come back frequently for more traffic and better ranking. It also means that you can keep your readers or past customers returning regularly. Here are 6 ways to grow your website. Add More Content When it comes to ...

Keeping up with the changes of the internet is an ongoing challenge for most people, especially business owners with an online presence. Google’s recent announcement about a new change to its ranking algorithm will not make it any easier. The search engine giant has announced that its new ranking algorithm will now take “freshness” into account when displaying results for queries. So what exactly does that mean? With the emergence of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, information spreads within seconds, making day-old or week-old results a thing of the past. Google’s new algorithm will now also display news results, ...

Direct mail campaigns are a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. Using them wisely can bring in new business, build customer loyalty and expand your brand awareness beyond other types of advertising. While they are one of the oldest marketing tools, direct mail campaigns require more than just sending out a postcard to a mailing list. Here are five pitfalls to avoid. Using a Bad Mailing List Today’s data hygiene services have advanced data tracking tools to ensure that mailing lists are up to date.  While reputable companies may charge you a chunk for a quality mailing list, it’s worth the extra dollars ...

Your website is a gold mine of information. Taking the time to understand visitor behavior is monumental in helping you improve your website to offer exactly what your visitors want. Google Analytics, a free tool from Google, allows you to see what led visitors to your website and what they did on your website. Following are seven important pieces of information Google Analytics provides you with that can help you maximize the potential of your website and overall online presence. If you don’t currently have Google Analytics installed, make sure to do it today. Nature of Traffic Your website is an important piece ...

Just like cars, there are a variety of tests you can run to evaluate your site’s performance.  Although they may seem simple, they can provide a lot of useful information that may help you discover and fix problems with your website. Here are five crucial performance tests your website should pass. 1. Loading Speed Test High-speed internet connections and overall demand for faster connections make a fast loading speed a must.  If your website takes too long to load, visitors may abandon your site all together.  Don’t know your website’s loading time?  There are a variety of free web tools, such as pingdom.com, ...

Direct mail campaigns are one of the oldest methods of marketing. However, old doesn’t equal ineffective. The way we market our businesses has changed radically in the past five years. If you recently sent out a direct mail campaign and had little success, it’s probably because you are still using old tactics. Create a successful direct mail campaign by following some of these tips. They are sure to increase response rates! Customize and Personalize We all receive dozens of pieces of mail in our mailboxes each and everyday. How does your direct mail piece stand out from everything else? To avoid a ...