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March 1, 2022March 1, 2022

Nothing To Do With Business

Nothing To Do With Business is an article different from any of our other blogs. We’ve been writing marketing blogs (hopefully insightful ones) for years now. Additionally, almost every blog we’ve done centers around better marketing and business.

So, we’ve decided to change it up this time around. At any rate, with baseball season (hopefully) around the corner, we’ve decided to do a baseball card style info blog. As a result, we’ll have a little fun with this particular article and share a few fun facts about the characters of 77 Design Co.

Nothing To Do With Business. An image of the orange and gray 77 Design Co business cards on a textured orange background.

Rob Hoffman-Founder/Owner

Position: Head coffee maker

Bats: Doesn’t

Throws: Left

Wins: Some

Losses: Some

Competitiveness level: Not

Western Astrological Sign: Leo, the Lion

Chinese Astrological Sign: Snake

Favorite food: Yes, all of the foods

Favorite drink: Coffee, followed by whiskey

Favorite movie: Back to the Future or Ghostbusters. (Note: TV and movies aren’t a real big deal. He tends to read more or do something else)

Favorite movie genre: Comedies, thrillers, or crime

Favorite TV series: Whatever series he is binge watching at the time. He usually reads over TV or watches how to YouTube videos

Favorite actor/actress: None

Favorite album: Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd or Abbey Road by the Beatles

Hobbies/Interests: Playing music/guitar, writing music, recording music, shooting, antiques, and refinishing old furniture

Favorite sport: Doesn’t care, may watch some college football

Office pet(s): Elsa (cat,) Starla (cat,) and Molly (dog)

Dislikes: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Bobby Drakulic-Co Owner

Position: 3rd Base

Bats: Right and Left (ambidextrous)

Throws: Right

Wins: As much as possible

Losses: As least as possible

Competitiveness level: Ultra high

Western Astrological Sign: Aries, the Ram

Chinese Astrological Sign: Dragon

Favorite food: Crab legs

Favorite drink: Coors Original or Jefferson’s Bourbon (depending on the mood)

Favorite movie: Empire Strikes Back

Favorite movie genre: Spaghetti westerns or sci-fi (depending on the mood)

Favorite TV series: Cheers

Favorite actor/actress: Clint Eastwood

Favorite album: L.A. Woman by the Doors

Hobbies/Interests: Fishing/hunting, martial arts, watching Red Sox baseball, Corvettes & muscle cars, relaxing, gardening, art, and playing catch or coaching baseball with his son

Favorite sport: Baseball and martial arts

Office pet(s): Voodoo (lab/Pitt Bull mix) and Maya (Bearded Dragon)

Dislikes: Pretentious people, mushrooms, the Yankees, and Tom Brady

We hope you enjoyed this goofy blog, Nothing To Do With Business. After all, fun and humor is a major part of our personalities. Even though it’s important to talk business, its also important have fun too. Additionally, we’d love to see your comments or thoughts. At last, if you don’t enjoy what you do…why do it?

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

February 1, 2022February 1, 2022

Monitoring & Measuring Your Marketing

Monitoring & measuring your marketing is an article we’ve wanted to talk through for a while now. In the past we’ve discussed the importance of knowing your customer. This is still true. In fact, they can sometimes be combined. However, if you aren’t monitoring and measuring your marketing, how do you know what’s working? This could be just about as important.

A 100% authentic insights stat from a page we recently took over.

Check this stuff…often!

Let’s use Facebook as our main social media example here for this blog. The demographics, reaches, likes, and other analytics will vary from platform to platform. Comparatively, the audiences differ greatly. LinkedIn will differ from Facebook. Instagram will be different from LinkedIn, and so on.

The above statistic is a screenshot directly from a Facebook page we recently took over managing. As a matter of fact, all stats in this blog are authentic. In other words, no numbers are skewed here in any way. This (above) was their page insights roughly two weeks after 77 Design Co started posting.

How to improve.

By all means, there is more to this statistic than what it seems. This is not a “puff our chest out” type of post though. We’ll discuss a few things we did that you can simply do to improve your page. Sure, we are proud of creating numbers like this. It’s kind of crazy when you really look at it though!

What happened to this Facebook page before we took over? We don’t know. They were posting consistently. The page was mostly optimized. It’s our belief that the messaging may have been off though. Believe it or not, even the typefaces and fonts used in some of the earlier posts likely mattered. The bubbly and vivacious styles that were used in previous posts likely threw off the audience. Given that the page is geared towards outdoorsy men and women, this undoubtedly affected the messages. Content, visuals, and messaging are extremely important. They absolutely need to be tailored specifically to the pages audience.

What we do know is that it was our intent to build an audience right from the start. Looking over this statistic, we are confident that has begun. We’ll do our best to continue that trend.

The insights tool gives you a lot of data that is relevant to what you are doing…marketing your business! Use it. Monitor it. Measure it. These tools help when deciding who you are writing content to. In addition, you can use these insights to tailor your message, the tags you use, post times, and other aspects to see what works and what doesn’t. This HubSpot blog gets a little deeper into understanding FB insights. Have a look and learn more: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-insights

More…

Along with monitoring & measuring your social media marketing through available stats, as mentioned above, knowing your customer is one of the most difficult tasks for a business. The given statistics from your social media pages can help with this. That is to say, if you monitor the stats closely it will give some ideas. Additionally, you will need to consider that these are social media numbers. They may vary slightly from other sources of marketing. Either way those statistics will give you a starting point.

Summing up, monitoring your social stats can be applicable for other forms of marketing as well. If you check over the ages, genders, and locations, for example, these could help drastically with a direct mail program. Or, they can be applicable to narrowing down what services/products to promote for other digital marketing strategies. Again, in the end these are social media stats. Monitoring & measuring your marketing has to be done across the board to get a true analysis on who your customer really is.

Audience stats.

As always if you need help tracking or attracting customers…certainly, 77 Design Co will give you a hand. Feel free to reach out.

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

January 4, 2022January 4, 2022

Marketing Myths-Volume Three

Marketing myths-volume three covers an important topic. The type of content in marketing. Above all, first we’d like to say, Happy New Years! Before we touch on the details of marketing myths-volume three, a new year brings new optimism. It also brings new challenges. There’s an unexplored road in front of all of us. Make the best of your situation in 2022!

Too Long.

By and large one of the most common issues we run into is making content too long. Sure, we get it, you want to tell customers ALL about your business. One myth is that you have to tell the full story. Not true though. Often times marketing is much more effective when simplified. We work together with clients to shorten the message. This makes the content more impactful.

Instead of creating posts, billboards, or web content explaining all kinds of details about your service or product, try narrowing it down. For instance, we like to advise clients on keeping things short and to the point. So, don’t think that you have to explain everything right out of the gate. Giving customers just enough but not too much will create an interest. This in return creates calls, email, and messages for you to interact with potential customers.

Confusing.

Don’t confuse customers or potential customers. It’s a turn off. Using industry specific acronyms in marketing can hurt the message. These will often create confusion. Unless it is about something obvious and well known, we advise against using them in marketing messaging.

Additionally, keep the sales you run clear and concise. For example, do not try to stuff several sale items into one mixed marketing message package. That is of course if the items can be separated.

Pics/Designs/Videos.

Oh boy! Another myth is, “we don’t really need any photography/video.” We have discussed these at great lengths over the years. One of the most powerful elements of marketing is the creative visuals. We’d love to hear the argument against this. There isn’t one.

Want the message to stand out? Make it look brilliant! Clean, clear, highly detailed, colorful, or even humorous pics, videos, and designs will get the job done. It sends a message that your business utilizes creativity and imagination in its marketing. This is a point often overlooked. This makes you stand out from other boring marketing. Read more here from the great Neil Patel : https://neilpatel.com/blog/visual-content-you-need-to-use-in-your-marketing-campaign/

Anything else you’d add to Marketing Myths-Volume Three? Need a hand formulating a 2022 marketing game plan that works? Hit us up for a free consultation: https://77designco.com/contact-us-2/

Make 2022 ROCK!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

December 14, 2021December 14, 2021

Marketing Myths-Volume Two

“Marketing Myths-Volume Two.” This blog discusses bringing your business up to date with newer marketing strategies. We’ll debunk some marketing myths if you manage or own an older business. It always makes sense to better your marketability.

Despite how long your business has been around, there’s always ways to improve. How old is your business? What’s more, which marketing efforts have you tried over those years? Read on further and we’ll explore some common misconceptions we’ve experienced.

No matter how long you’ve been in business, marketing can improve your brand!

No Social!

“All things considered, we don’t need social media.” Yep. We’ve heard it. Likewise, we’ve met some more seasoned business owners that actually get upset at the very mention of it! Perhaps it’s fear of the unknown. There are times we’ve basically had to talk them down from the ledge. Look, we don’t LOVE social media either. There’s a lot of craziness on social. However, it is a super helpful tool for businesses. There’s no denying that.

Explaining how social can help in a thorough manner is important. Particularly for those that hate it. Here’s a blog from Hootsuite to read more on: https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-business/ .

Believe it or not, there are ways just about every business can benefit from social media. For example, you can build brand recognition/awareness, increase traffic to your website, or just personalize your brand. These are just a few ways social helps. Social media is a great way to give your business a voice and personality. Additionally, this leads to more calls, emails, and visibility. If your business has been around for decades or longer, it’s high time to step into the 2000’s.

Having a Facebook, LinkedIn, or even Instagram page is necessary. Like it or not. There are so many ways your business can attract the followers you want on all of these platforms. Facebook, for instance, has many professional group pages. It doesn’t really matter what industry you are in. Sharing stories, industry news, or products with these groups will create a personality for your business and make you an expert in your industry. Potential customers and partners will see, like, and share these posts. You can build relationships from there. Community groups help to grow your page too. Get going with it and make new connections.

No Web!

“We don’t necessarily need a website.” Really? Even if you have been in business for 100 years and bring in $10,000,000 per month, not having a website makes you look bad. If this is you, we apologize in advance because making $10,000,000 per month is crazy! Maybe you are satisfied with this. However, we’ll still state that you should have a website.

Likewise, if you are just starting out and only make $100 per month, you need a site. Your customers expect it. New prospective customers definitely expect it.

Without a website the legitimacy of your business is in question. We aren’t saying you need to go out and spend $10,000 on a new site. What we are saying though is that there needs to be an online presence to point people to. Websites are a digital “home” for your business. Additionally, having a site set up poorly (broken links, bad photos, inaccurate or outdated info, etc) can have negative consequences. See to it that your business has an accurate and operable professional looking website you can direct customers to.

We’ve Tried That!

Often we’ll hear, “We’ve tried that. It didn’t work.” Whether it was a printed direct mail program, digital marketing tactic, or social media strategy, you have to look deeper. What were you offering? Was the effort clearly creative and interesting? Who was the ideal customer you tried to reach? All of this and way more matters!

For instance, direct mail HAS to be eye catching. The offer HAS to be bold, useful, and draw attention to the piece. If not, buh bye! Straight to the garbage it goes.

We receive direct mail pieces ourselves from time to time. If it’s interesting we’ll carefully take note at what caught our attention. Some are great. Some not so much. The creativity and offer are what will make this program succeed or fail. The same can be said about digital marketing and social media.

Meanwhile, a few newer digital marketing options can truly be beneficial. In brief, strategies like geofencing or retargeting can be hugely successful. If you haven’t, it’s time to look into these. Questions about these? Contact us.

Finally, with all three of the above, you don’t want it to be all sales. People get irritated when they are sold to continuously. We’ll argue that any effective marketing campaign needs to be creative, informative, and helpful. This is when you will see the rewards of an effective marketing plan.

In conclusion, we hope you enjoyed Marketing Myths-Volume Two. Have you struggled in the past with any marketing efforts? Business been around for a long time? Unsure of how to create the right message? Give us a call. Of course, with a free consultation, we’ll be happy to discuss how to improve your marketing! Have a great Christmas and New Year!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

November 17, 2021November 17, 2021

Marketing Myths-Volume One

Marketing Myths-Volume One. The first in a series of blogs where we’ll discuss topics that some (not all) believe about marketing. In short, we’ll get straight to the point. Marketing myths volume one tackles the age old myth…marketing is an expense. Wrong! Marketing is your answer to those pesky expenses! Read on and we’ll explain how.

An expense? Most certainly not!

Marketing and advertising is the right arm of your business. It draws attention to your brand. By all means marketing done correctly not only raises awareness but in some cases acts as an additional sales tool. Heck, further, creative marketing even makes the sale on its own sometimes! To clarify a bit, the money you spend on marketing services will (and should) pay for itself exponentially.

Marketing is an investment. Period. Comparatively, you look at high-yield savings accounts, properties, or certain stocks as investments. These are expected to bring value. It’s no different with marketing.

Marketing= the right arm of your business.

Obviously, some marketing tactics will work better than others. Although this may be true, it must also be noted, other strategies may fall flat. In order to avoid this as much as possible, you’ll need to know who your customer is. Don’t know who your customer is? Not sure how to go about narrowing down your ideal customer? Read this SCORE article to learn how to identify them: https://www.score.org/resource/how-identify-your-ideal-customers-and-get-more-them

SCORE is an organization we volunteer to. It is a nonprofit organization made up of mostly retired professionals who help new entrepreneurs get started. We’re honored to be a part of the helpful organization. They also help existing business owners fine tune their business growth as well as offer free mentoring, webinars, and courses. As I have noted, the above link is a great starting resource. It will help you identify the characteristics of your ideal customers much better.

Why does this matter?

Marketing myths-volume one is all about why marketing is NOT an expense. At its core, marketing revolves around who you are specifically targeting. When you truly find who your correct customer is, the game changes significantly. Then and only then is when you’ll start to see it as investment versus an expense. Likewise, then and only then can you tailor a successful marketing plan.

But…I pay X amount for marketing!

Is your business on a current marketing plan? What does that include? I will break it down. Firstly, if your business is paying X amount on a marketing strategy, what is coming back? Visibility. Brand recognition. Increased exposure to alternate audiences. More calls/emails/leads. All of these should be occurring. Additionally, these should lead to more moolah!

Next, have you ever truly tracked the marketing efforts? If the answer is no then how do you know what is working? Track your leads, analytics, visibility, etc. It is critical to keep track of these things.

Lastly, ALL of your marketing tools must be branded. By branded we mean the same or similar in design, logo usage, color, and look or feel. The website, business card, and social pages are the tools that make up your marketing. Anything with your business name on it simply must offer the same look and message.

At 77 Design Co, we welcome conversations in regards to previous marketing objectives that failed. Why did it fail? How do we correct these issues to ensure success? If you believe marketing is an expense and are reading this…let’s talk.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

October 20, 2021October 20, 2021

Winterize Your Business Marketing

Winterize your business marketing? What does this even mean? As long as you read on, we’ll get to that.

October is here and for many businesses that means slower times are ahead. At least for industries like, landscaping, roofing, pool companies, and many more seasonal businesses the winter months are a blessing and a curse simultaneously. For example, the slow season gives owners an opportunity to catch up on things. On the other hand, it also means less income coming in. A blessing and a curse.

This is also the perfect time to plan ahead and properly prepare for next season. You can winterize your business marketing now. Think of it as adding insulation to a building to keep it warm in the colder months. There’s literally hundreds of marketing things you can do for your business at this point. So, what do you need to do?

No need to just believe us. We always back up our claims and advice. Check this SBA blog for more: https://www.sba.gov/blog/18-ideas-marketing-seasonal-business-season

Website.

When is the last time you looked over your website? Do you have someone managing it? Making regular changes to it? If the answer is no, why not? After all, you probably paid a decent amount of money and spent time getting it together. Make it work for you.

While you are getting some downtime during winter, a great idea also is to revamp that site. You don’t have to make massive swinging changes to it. You can and should add things like keywords, new content, updated images, or even include new services and products. Keeping up with the website will pay dividends in the long run. It’ll help SEO, offer customers a fresh look, and even build better brand recognition if you promote it properly.

Get Social.

While you were running around or buried IN your business during the busy months, that social media channel(s) probably sat idle. On the other hand, maybe you just sporadically posted during that time. Perhaps your social media was ignored completely. Time to get to work. Make your channels work for you.

Don’t think there’s any good content to post about in the off months? Wrong. Now is the time to set yourself up for next year. You can show new equipment. Make a video or photo post about how it works. Did you have a new employee this year that really killed it and worked hard? Share who that is or a little about what they do and who they are. Highlight some successful projects. Pass along industry news. Call up some customers (we’ll discuss more below) and showcase how you helped them. This list could go on eternally. Time to use social media to your advantage and build credibility for your business.

Reviews. Reviews. And More Reviews.

In addition to the few things above, you should check in with customers during the offseason. Find out how they like A, B, or C (whatever work you completed). Ask for reviews. Offer a discounted product or service. In addition, this keeps you top of mind. These reviews will most certainly help the brand with credibility and recognition. This is assuming you did good work for your customers. Finally, ask them to take a moment to review the business on social media and of course, Google.

Additional.

Additionally, the downtime is the perfect time to alter or review any or all of the below:

Business cards. Redesign or reorder new ones.

Brochures, pamphlets, and other printed marketing materials. Create something new or reorder what you had from last season.

Email marketing. Hopefully you have a list of customers’ emails. If so, send them over an email or a few during the offseason keeping them up to date on your products and services.

Signs, yard signs, vehicle graphics. Are any of these looking worn out or old? Some fancy new stickers or signs will keep you looking professional and up to date.

Direct mail. In essence, if you haven’t tried direct mail, or worse failed with it…something just isn’t right. Get a creative graphic designer to help make a mail piece really pop. It will pay dividends.

Finally, is there anything we left out? By all means, we’d love to hear about what is successful for marketing your business. How do you winterize your business marketing?

Analyze. Create. Achieve.