supportsmallbusiness Archives - Page 2 of 4

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Let’s Talk Marketing & Strategy

Let’s Talk Marketing & Strategy is a blog about exactly what marketing is. We’ll also cover some simple strategies you can take to improve the marketing of your business.

Firstly, let’s use the definition from a HubSpot blog and Dictionary.com, “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.” It and more can be read here: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-marketing

There it is. Consequently, the definition is a little broad. We create content, images, video, and do design work. We also do market research and a little advertising. The initial definition is a bit blurry in our opinion though. Thats marketing for you. For example, there is no mention of brand, creativity, or messaging. These are essential pieces of marketing too. However, the description does get a bit more detailed further in the read.

Purpose.

So, let’s move along. As you can see in the HubSpot link above, they describe the purpose of marketing thoroughly. There’s not a whole lot that we would add.

However, our idea about marketing is much more primitive…”get more eyes on your product or service.” Truly we believe this is the main purpose. Yes, <caveman grunt> our views can sometimes be uncouth. We can assure you though that your marketing will never be. Also, if done correctly, marketing will substantially increase leads, referrals, and visibility.

Marketing’s main purpose, we believe, is to get more eyes on your product or service.

What next?

Next, now that we’ve got an idea about the definition and purpose of marketing, we can turn to the strategy. HubSpot has an extensive list of the forms of marketing. They are all in the article above. Some of these are, blogging, social media, SEO, video, and more. Additionally, there’s newer forms of marketing popping up yearly. Influencer, VR (Virtual Reality,) text, and alternate forms of digital marketing are some of the most recent types.

Traditional forms like print and social media also still make HUGE impacts. Of course, all of this depends on the style of message(s) your company puts out. Tags, links, images, designs, offers, and much more all are relevant to the strategy success. More than we could explain here.

Simple strategies we’d recommend include:

Keep the website simple. Update it regularly. Of course, make sure it’s mobile/SEO friendly. Change content and images often. Additionally, ensure there are no broken links or inaccurate info.

Images for the site and all social media posts should look and feel professional. Eye catching photos and designs attract more clicks. They also increase the length of time a reader views the page. Don’t believe us? You don’t have to. There are so many studies that back up this claim. Google it.

Hire a professional photographer. That is, hire one with experience in product or commercial photography. A wedding photographer, for example, will shoot things in a completely different manner. Likewise, with graphic designers. One that routinely creates bright elegant invitations will have a different style than one who works with industrial clients. Many in these fields won’t admit that they aren’t jack-of-all trades, but the final work will showcase the varying differences. Ask for examples of work.

Social media channels should be posted on regularly. Find the ideal post times. Or, hire an individual or team capable of making excellent social media posts. Create a buzz! Make posts that are interesting and informative. Use these channels to be a help. Highlight your team. Highlight your company’s product or service. Show off customers. These are just a few ideas.

Need some help developing a successful marketing strategy? Drop us a line https://77designco.com/contact-us-2/ for a free consultation. We are always excited to learn about your business!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

April 5, 2022April 5, 2022

Comparing Marketing to Gardening

Admittedly, we’ve posted about this topic, Comparing Marketing to Gardening, in the past. There’s no problem with repurposing good content! At the same time, we feel this is good. Also important. It’s that time of year again. Spring time!

In Western Pa, spring is here. We couldn’t be happier! We love gardening and we love what we do! This weeks blog post explores how comparing marketing to gardening will help with business growth.

Much like your garden, a business requires constant attention, maintenance, and care to result in good growth. We all want healthy, bountiful vegetables or fruits from our gardens. Your business should be looked at in the same way. Due to a variety of reasons, there are many similarities to both that you may not initially be aware of.

Comparatively, here’s an article about business growth and gardening from Medium.com similar to our blog: https://medium.com/the-mission/5-steps-to-grow-your-business-like-a-plant-4e7abbadf390

Attention:

We must pay attention to everything about our business. Troubles can occur if we don’t. Exactly like a garden. Things can spiral out of control if they aren’t looked after. The weeds can take over and almost always this results in a depletion of growth. Customers can get upset due to a lack of response, something an employee did, or a bad estimate. Just to name a few. Getting great reviews from your clientele base is essential. Stay on top of things. Pay attention to potential problems and ‘weeding the garden’ are both crucial in order to succeed.

Maintenance:

New customers come from a range of different places. For example, word of mouth may be the main tool you use. But, perhaps you started promoting your business on social media or another outlet. Customers that find you elsewhere will expect a certain level of maintenance on your platforms. They want to see and read about your business. Consistent upkeep is essential so things stay fresh. Rarely does a business thrive on social media by letting things get stagnant. Marketing and finding new leads for your business consistently is similar to watering or adding essential nutrients to garden soil. Therefore, maintenance must be exercised regularly.

Care:

Care certainly wraps up both of the above. This can be looked at in several ways. Care means caring about your customers and your reputation. Likewise, care also means caring about what happens with your marketing garden. Just planting and walking away will result in failure.

If your business “has been doing it this way for so long” it may be time for a change. When you do make a change take great care in how you do it because nobody wants to spend more than they have to without the desired results. Like a garden, you should rotate. You can’t continuously plant the same seeds and plants in the same areas year after year without changing things a bit. This will hinder growth. Care will ensure that your garden stays healthy.

In conclusion, plant the (marketing) seeds of your business garden. Pay attention to everything happening. Maintain customer relationships, and grow new ones. Care for the new things you are trying and your reputation. Then, watch your profits and business garden grow!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022

Spring Cleaning Your Business Marketing

Spring Cleaning Your Business Marketing focuses on how to clean up your business marketing to make it more efficient. Spring is here! Usually this means more cleaning and getting rid of some unwanted items. For the most part, this is also applicable for a business.

Spring Cleaning Your Business Marketing

If you want to make the most of your marketing, occasionally you need to do a little clean up. Likewise, you’ll have to consistently monitor all of it. Think of it as caring for a pet. Websites, social media, printed materials, and even your company image should be reviewed yearly. Yearly isn’t that bad! Not quite as much as pet care.

A little cleaning or updating is likely necessary. This keeps things fresh. So, let’s get into Spring Cleaning Your Business Marketing a little deeper.

Website Updates

You have a business website. Maybe it’s new or just a few years old. No need to make drastic changes. You like what you have. Ok, great! As much as you are happy with it, there’s always ways to improve!

Therefore, small changes can make a BIG difference. If there isn’t anybody updating the site regularly, plug-ins probably are out of date. New keywords can be added. You can update the images on it. Add new employee bio’s or products. Additionally, what about revising the menu and content? Taking time for these changes will keep it fresh and Google happy. However, there’s also a lot more to it than can be thoroughly explained here.

Social, Social, Social

Further, let’s get into social media. This type of marketing typically can be fruitful. That is to say, IF it’s being used properly and consistently.

Time to spring clean. For example, ask yourself, “when is the last time you invited new contacts to follow or like your page?” Have you acquired any new products or equipment? Heck, when is the last time you even posted to the page? By the same token, it’s time to clean these social media pages up. Below is a list of new and improved items you can start doing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or whatever pages you have:

New photography
Add videos
Update any new services or products
Do a “History of your company” post or series
Highlight wonderful recent projects
Employee bios
Spotlight new or long time customers. The list can go on…

In fact, the uses for social media are endless. Perhaps we will create a future blog on this topic alone.

Conclusion

Finally, along with the above mentioned, analyze what worked in the last year. At this point you can figure out where leads, messages, and calls came from.

Perhaps you are just looking to create brand recognition. Just being visible and not intentionally seeking out leads is fine too. For example, during the pandemic you just wanted your company to be helpful. Admirable. Many company’s did just that.

If leads and referrals are what you want though, time to clean. Subsequently, whatever isn’t working you may want to drop. Or, at least change. Some marketing avenues don’t work for all. Print direct mail may be better for a home improvement company than, say, a niche manufacturer. Likewise, social media may produce more for a restaurant than an auto repair shop. Drop the useless marketing or make some necessary changes after trying a while.

All of this is sort of like cleaning out the gutters. It doesn’t happen often. But, when it does things flow much smoother.

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.

September 14, 2021September 14, 2021

Making Social Media Work for Business

Making social media work for your business isn’t always an easy task. As a matter of fact, it can be downright difficult at times. A lot of business owners think just posting will get attention and the customers will quickly follow. In short, not true. The rules for social media are constantly changing. Further, choosing the right channels and messaging for your business takes some time and research. Next, you have to consider the content and times of your posts. Thankfully for you, the reader, we’ll break this down some.

Rules

Rules. First thing to remember is keeping professionalism on top of mind. If your business floods posts with political opinions or pandemic related health info there are rules now in place that may flag the post. Stick to your subject and do not stray into gray areas. Stay professional and un-opinionated.

However, when discussing “rules” we didn’t mean etiquette. That should go without saying. We meant the ever evolving, constantly changing, eternally revamping, social media landscape. In years past, a business could post on Facebook and it would be seen by hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. But, that is simply not the case any more.

Algorithms and different platform features are always changing. Subsequently, this makes keeping up with it all very very difficult. These continuous alterations are done in hopes of creating a better user experience. For business owners and marketers that’s usually not the case. Making social media work for your business requires staying on top of these changes. Without a doubt, you want to research, research, research to find out all you can about the platform(s) of your choice and any new changes.

The Right Channels

Equally important (and maybe even more important) you need to know your customer. That’s always a first step of marketing. If your business is using Tik Tok or Instagram but the demographic is a little older, you are wasting time and money. This interesting Pew Research study https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/ goes into more depth than we can discuss here.

What’s the age of your client base? Where do they live? Likewise, even knowing their hobbies and interests can be an indicator to which platforms to use. We aren’t big proponents of simply blasting your business info and/or products and services all over the social media world. Take the time to narrow down which platform(s) your customers use. This is a much more effective strategy.

A slide from our 77 Design Co Social Media Training program.

Content and Times

Now that we’ve got to this point and learned a little of the rules, then decided on the right channels, it’s time to turn attention towards what to post and when. Usually this is a hurdle for some companies. Again, not an easy task. What do you say and how do you say it?

For content, the ideas are limitless. One great way to make social media work for business is to be helpful. In short, you want to create resolutions to problems you believe customers are facing. Be aware though, customers can see through a sales pitch versus an authentic post that truly shows empathy for their situation.

Content creation can and should include, emotion, storytelling, great visuals, shared info, and just be generally helpful. In addition to that, make the social pages fun. Offer contests, witty quotes, post in-action videos, or highlight customers. There are endless ideas for content.

So, that leaves us with best post times. The advice for this is all over the place. You’ll need to research your industry and do some trial and error to see what works best. Generally for Facebook, Tues, Wed, and Thurs between 9:00A.M.-12:00P.M. work well. Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter vary as well. This is not a set in stone formula though. Monitor your business pages post performances closely to get a better idea what works for you.

Need a hand figuring all of this out? Questions? 77 Design Co is here for you.

Analyze. Create. Achieve.