For more information and charts about Small Business Mobile:

and See Key Highlights from the Web.com Small Business Mobile Survey

Search Articles

Most liked posts

Recent Articles

Branding Articles

6 Ways to Build Your Company’s Brand

January 10th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

Of course you know that your company’s brand is about more than your name, logo and personality. Once you have those nailed down, here are 6 other simple ways to build and strengthen your brand:

Tell a story

Think about what makes you different from everyone else; if you’re not 100% sure, ask your clients why they work with you or buy your products. Build a story around your uniqueness and weave it into your communications.

Build a community

Talk to your online and offline audience. Find out how they’re doing, what they want, and what they need. Empower them to contribute – with ideas, feedback, guest blog posts, photos, etc. Give them a shout-out (with their permission, of course) on social media or in your newsletter.

Provide a great experience

Elevate your clients’ interaction with you and your company across the board. Build a product that is easier to use and provides better value than the competition. Continually keep clients up-to-date on project progress. Host an annual party – a BBQ, bowling afternoon, brunch. Follow up a month after the sale to see if they need anything or have any questions.

Keep promises

Because customer service is so often ignored, especially by large companies, one of the best ways to grow your business is by doing what you say you’ll do. Happy clients will spread the word about you, especially if you go above and beyond expectations.

Take a stand

Whole Foods sells sustainable, organic, all-natural foods. Nordstrom prides itself on exceptional customer service. Apple designs products that are user-friendly and stylish. Decide what your brand stands for, whether it’s more reliable products, faster turnaround, or more personal service.

Be honest

Lying is the fastest way to erode trust and damage credibility. We all make mistakes, big and small, so when you do mess up, be honest about it – and then do everything you can to fix it as quickly as possible, whether it’s providing a refund, replacement product, or free service.

What are your favorite brands, and why? How do you try to emulate them?

Image courtesy of mymagneticblog.com

Google+

Tags: Branding, community, Marketing, storytelling
Posted in Branding, Marketing | No Comments »

5 Steps to Connect With Industry Influencers

December 5th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

When you’re growing your company and building a brand, one of the best ways to accelerate that growth is by connecting with the influencers in your industry – the Tony Hsiehs, Mark Zuckerbergs, Thomas Kellers and Martha Stewarts. One recommendation from them, and you could see a significant uptick in sales.

Here’s how to start building those connections to influencers:

1. Start small

If I was a fledgling clothing designer, cold-calling Anna Wintour, the Editor-in-Chief at Vogue, would be a total waste of time. Instead of going after the top influencers, start connecting with others who share your interests or expertise. Do this by joining the Facebook and LinkedIn groups, Twitter hashtags, and influential blogs that are relevant to you and your industry.

2. Actively participate

The more you chime in on the conversations, the more exposure you will get, from your name and company name to your ideas and expertise. Each connection you make will grow your network and move you up the networking ladder, so to speak, towards viral growth.

3. Get them talking about you

One of the best ways to get people talking about you is to share your wisdom. Help others, answer questions, and share your expertise freely. Be sure to ask for help and feedback as well in order to strengthen the connections you have.

4. Ask for introductions

One of the beautiful things about LinkedIn is the ability to look up your connections’ connections, allowing you to ask for a warm introduction to someone you can possibly do business with. As you build your network elsewhere, don’t be afraid to ask for warm introductions, including to influencers.

5. Add value

Once you get that sought-after introduction to Richard Branson, you have to go beyond a “Hey, I’m Monika! SO nice to meet you!” and offer something of value. Would you like to guest blog for them on your area of expertise, or maybe solve a problem you know they are having? Think about the best way to build a relationship, add that person to your network, and possibly do business with them.

If you are connected to an industry influencer, what other relationship-building tips can you recommend? (Going to college with someone doesn’t count!)

Image courtesy of partner.kansas.gov

Google+

Tags: Branding, engagement, influencers, Marketing, networking, social media
Posted in Branding, Marketing | No Comments »

How Can Your Business Become a Breakout Brand?

November 23rd, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Want to make your business a “breakout brand”? Then you’ve got to make consumers “fall in love” with you, according to a new survey commissioned by rbb Public Relations and conducted by IBOPE/Zogby International.

What exactly is a breakout brand? “Breakout Brands recognize the value of emotional attachment and have adopted strategies [for]…delivering better services and/or products, elevating a category with new ideas and focusing on the customer, not the competition” is how the study defines the concept.

Being well-known or admired isn’t the same as being a breakout brand, the study notes. While 23 percent of consumers immediately identified Apple as a breakout brand, some big names–including Nordstrom and BMW–did not make the cut despite being well-respected for their quality and service orientation. The top 10 breakout brands customers chose are Apple, Amazon, Chick-Fil-A,Wal-Mart, Costco, Starbucks, Google, Zappos, Toyota, Ford, Trader Joe’s and Southwest Airlines.

A  strong majority of  respondents (85 percent)  say it’s very or  somewhat important  to do business with  a company they have  strong emotions for. Breakout Brands  inspire these  connections, which leads to strong brand  ambassadors arising  organically.

In addition, nearly all respondents (92 percent) say it is very or somewhat important for a company they do business with to show interest in them personally. Those living in the South and Central regions were far more likely to say personal interest matters to them than those living in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Millennials (18- to 24-year-olds) are the age group most likely to say emotional connections matter.

Emotional connections pay off for brands: The study found some 83 percent of consumers are willing to pay more when they feel a personal connection to the company. In fact, almost 20 percent of consumers would pay up to 50 percent more for a product or service from a brand that puts them first.

Instead of trying to chase their competitors, the study’s authors advise, brands would do better to focus on putting the customer first. Rbb notes that certain industries have greater potential to benefit from breakout brand behaviors. Specifically, customers say personal, proactive customer communication is more important in healthcare, professional services and technology, while it’s less important in the beauty products and apparel industries.

Does your business have the potential to become a breakout brand? Rbb says the strategy can work for any size company, and has created a whitepaper that you can download for free to learn more.

Image by Flickr user Sean McEntee (Creative Commons)

Google+

Tags: Branding, Marketing, small business, Thought Leadership
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

5 Storytelling Elements That Will Improve Your Marketing

November 20th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Storytelling is a really important way to connect with your audience – it is at the heart of families, communities and cultures around the world. Storytelling will help you develop emotional connections and build relationships.

My favorite ad campaign of all time was created by K-Mart. I believe it ran during the 1992 Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France, which just proves the power of a good story – it sticks with you, even 20 years later.

In this campaign, K-Mart ran a new ad every night in which a middle-aged man wandered through a K-Mart calling, “Valerie?” He’d always appear in a different department, and he’d always be looking for Valerie. I couldn’t wait til the Closing Ceremonies, as I fervently hoped he’d find Valerie. After all, he’d just spent 2 weeks looking for her every night on my TV screen!

A friend of mine, Khris Baxter, has been a screenwriter for more than 20 years. If you’d like to integrate storytelling into your marketing strategy, follow his 5 tips to ensure you make an impact:

Passion –Your story must be appealing, personal and original. If you want it to be important to your audience, it needs to be important to you.

Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill used to ask local Democratic committees to host his fundraising events at a place of local significance. He would open his remarks with what that local place and its history meant to him. This homage to a place of local sentiment created a rapport that made people open their wallets and donate to the party.

Hero – Every story needs a hero in order to earn audience buy-in. If that hero is an underdog, all the better. People love to root for the underdog.

Ronald Reagan used heroes to make abstract or difficult concepts concrete. Reagan would point to an “American Hero” placed at the edge of the Congressional Gallery who exemplified an issue’s human face: a single mother without health care, or a wounded veteran.

Antagonist – What is the threat faced by your hero? For a doctor, the threat is disease. For passengers aboard the Titanic, it’s the onrushing and frigid seas.

In the stellar 1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial, the antagonist was IBM (the PC).

Awareness – What did the hero learn? What’s that Eureka moment when the hero knew what he had to do?

Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered a mold that had blown into one of his petri dishes. He was looking for a way to kill germs. He had tried for ten years, and overnight, the winds brought him the answer in the form of a spore that settled in the uncovered dish and grew to become a colony that eradicated the deadly staph colonies within the dish. That was his Eureka moment, even though it took another decade to figure out how to produce penicillin in mass quantities. Fleming was knighted and won the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Transformation –This is the point at which your hero emerges victorious. He learned something, or he overcame a challenge.

As ever-quotable Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

By the way, our friend in K-Mart never did find Valerie.

Image courtesy of revolutionbooksnyc.org

Google+

Tags: Branding, Marketing, storytelling
Posted in Branding, Marketing | No Comments »

5 Marketing Lessons From Inc. 500 Companies

November 12th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

The companies that land on the Inc. 500/5000 list (including one of my clients) never fail to impress me. From their growth trajectories to what it is they actually do, I find it all fascinating.

HubSpot analyzed the winners using their Marketing Grader tool. Below, I share their findings about 5 of those companies’ marketing strategies, along with my takeaways:

#5: Gold & Silver Buyers

They have a great rank, but their online marketing efforts fall a bit short. They have a blog, but only post every few weeks, and what little they do post cannot be shared because there are no social share buttons on their site.

Takeaway: Blog consistently (at least once a week) and add those social share buttons to your website! If you don’t know how, your website developer can do it for you.

#11: Nasty Gal

The peeps at Nasty Gal are doing a lot right, but one thing they are not doing at all is analyzing their website. This is one of the easiest and most important things a small business can and should do to improve marketing.

Takeaway: Just set up a Google Analytics account (it’s free!), and you’ll learn so much valuable information about your website, like number of visitors you’re getting each month, which pages they’re visiting, keywords you’re being found for and so on.

You can then tweak your website as needed – maybe remove pages no one is visiting and develop more content around the products and services that are drawing the most online eyeballs.

#9: Red Frog Events

This company a has a lot of SEO issues that are affecting their website. A technical one is the lack of 301 redirects (so if someone doesn’t type in the www before your company name and domain extension, that person will still be pointed to your website). Nontechnical ones include a boatload of images with no tags and pages missing unique page descriptions.

Takeaway: Go into your content management system (CMS), and open up the media gallery. Check that each image, photo and graphic has an alt tag so search engines know what the image is.

Next, open up each page in edit mode and add keywords to each page title, to make it easier for search engines to find you based on what you do or sell.

#47: Vitals

This company does a lot right, and with one small tweak, they can do a lot more: add an email subscription option to their blog.

Takeaway: No matter how much your customers like you, they are not going to check your blog regularly for updates. An email subscription option ensures that all subscribers receive a ping whenever you post a new blog post – and thus gets more eyeballs reading the content you create.

#37: Webimax

This company is doing pretty much everything right: they blog every day and share their content on social media. They have a mobile version of their site that is optimized for a good user experience. They have landing pages that they link to from their blog posts, making it easier to convert visitors into leads. They use marketing automation software to nurture leads. They use analytics to track their marketing efforts.

Takeaway: Putting together an integrated marketing strategy can certainly pay off – Webimax grew from revenue of $123,000 in 2008 to revenue of $7.1 million in 2011.

Now you know what these successful companies do – and don’t do – what small fixes will you make to improve your own website and marketing strategy?

Image courtesy of HubSpot

Google+

Tags: analytics, blogging, email subscriptions, Inc. 500, Marketing, marketing strategy, Search Marketing, seo, social media, social sharing
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

How Your Small Business Can Give Back This Holiday Season

November 8th, 2012 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

By Maria Valdez

One of the best ways to give back to the community that supports your business is by getting involved in charitable activities. The holidays are a natural time of year for starting a charitable giving program, since everyone’s in a generous frame of mind. As an added bonus, giving back to your community also raises your company’s profile in the community and makes customers and prospects feel better about your business—and more inclined to spend money with you.

How do you start a giving program? Here are some steps to get going.

Choose a cause. Your cause should be one that relates to your business, your community and your customers. For example, you might be really passionate about programs to research cures for childhood diabetes, but if you own a dog grooming business, this kind of program isn’t really an ideal match. You know your customers care about animals, so they’d be more inclined to support programs that work with rescue dogs or train seeing eye dogs.

Narrow your focus. If your customers are from the local community, you’ll also want to pick an organization that’s locally based. On the other hand, if you have an ecommerce business with customers all over the country, you could pick a national organization to support.

Get employees on board. Involve your employees in all stages of the process, including asking them for ideas about causes to support. They may be part of organizations that would make sense for your business to work with.

Check it out. It’s important to investigate the background of any group you’re working with. Sadly, lots of scams are out there that appear legitimate. Even if an organization is legitimate, you’ll want to know how much of the money they collect goes to their clients as opposed to being used for overhead. CharityNavigator is a good source for getting the low-down on any organization you are thinking of working with. If it’s a local organization, you can ask around in the community or on social media.

Choose a way to help. Your employees should help you figure this out. They may want to volunteer for the organization, or you might just want to donate funds. You could also consider having special events where part of your sales on that day go to the organization, or giving the organization your net profits from the sale of a certain product. The amount of time you have to spare vs. the amount of money you have to spare will be key to this decision.

Publicize it. Let your customers and the community know that you’re involved with this organization by spotlighting it in your marketing materials and on your website, in social media and in signage in your store. Show customers how they can get involved and help too, whether by purchasing a product that supports the cause, donating money or shopping on a certain day. Let local media know about it, too, by publicizing the start of the relationship and the ongoing milestones you reach along the way.

Image by Flickr user Rotary Club of Nagpur (Creative Commons)

Google+

Tags: charitable donations, Marketing, small business, socially responsible marketing
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business, small business | 1 Comment »

How Your Small Business Can Market to Affluent Consumers

October 16th, 2012 :: Karen Axelton

By Karen Axelton

Are you trying to market to affluent consumers? Then you’ll want to know what the results of the latest Ipsos MediaCT 2012 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey say about their media consumption habits.

Although tablet and smartphone usage among affluents is growing, one surprising finding was how important print publications continue to remain to affluent (household income of $100K-$249K) and ultra affluents (household income of $250K+). The survey asked consumers about their readership of 150 print publications including 143 magazines and 7 national newspapers. Eighty-two percent of affluents read at least one of the publications in print form; overall, they regularly read an average of 8.2 titles.

Affluent women and ultra affluents are particularly heavy print readers; ultra affluents consume approximately 25 percent more print media than average affluents, reading an average of 10 titles.

Print isn’t the only media source affluent consumers turn to. Magazines were second to television in advertising reach and receptivity. And 60 percent of Affluents listen to radio in an average week, with the average time spent listening increasing by 4 percent, to 10.6 hours weekly, compared to last year.

Of course, affluent interest in mobile devices and digital media is growing, with 26 percent of affluents owning a tablet personally and nearly half (47 percent) having one in the household. More than half (55 percent) own a smartphone, up from 45 percent in 2011.

What are affluent consumers using their mobile devices for? While games, weather and music top the list of downloaded apps, of more relevance to small business owners are social networking apps (used by 45 percent) and magazine apps. Some 4.7 million affluents downloaded a magazine app in 2012, more than double the 2.0 million who did so in 2011, and 5.9 million downloaded a newspaper app, up from 3.6 million last year.

Affluents’ use of the Internet is up 14 percent from last year, to an average of 37.4 hours weekly. The biggest growth areas for Internet use were sites related to social media, entertainment and shopping.

What do these figures mean to you? If you’re seeking to grab affluent consumers’ attention, your marketing message needs to be integrated across many channels. While affluents’ use of the mobile Web is growing, don’t assume that the Internet is now the only place to reach them. Depending on your particular niche of the affluent market, you may want to put just as much or more of your marketing budget into print, radio or cable TV advertising as you do into your online efforts.

Whatever your marketing strategy, make sure all your marketing materials point back to a updated, mobile-friendly website with a clear call to action.

Image by Flickr user ToGa Wanderings (Creative Commons)

Google+

Tags: Branding, Marketing, sales process, small business
Posted in Branding, Business Development, Marketing, sales process, Small Business, small business | No Comments »

Learn the Secrets of Online Marketing at the Web.com Small Business Forum

October 12th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Are you a small business owner in the Dallas area looking for help successfully marketing your business online? Register now to sign up for the free Web.com Small Business Forum and learn how.

The interactive forum, to be held in Dallas from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 25, will focus on helping local small businesses learn how to market their companies online. Web.com’s Jason Teichman will lead a presentation and Q&A session. Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

What are the elements of a great website?
How do I increase traffic to my website and to my business?
Is my website “working” for my business?
How do I market my business on Google, Facebook and Twitter?

There will also be plenty of time for networking, of course!

Google+

Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, online marketing, small business events, social media
Posted in Branding, Email Marketing, Events, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Web Design | No Comments »

Web.com Small Business Toolkit: HowFindableAreYou.com (Online Findability Tool)

October 5th, 2012 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

HowFindableAreYou.com

The name of this website says it all: Can your customers find you (and do they even know you exist)? You hope so, but the odds may not be in your favor. Dex’s free online tool to help small businesses uncover their “findability” rating asks a series of five simple questions about your business’s brand, physical location, advertising, online presence and reputation/community. Business owners give honest answers on how they are doing in each category. Then the online tool will assess your marketing strategy, give you articles to help improve in the areas where you need to get better, and follow up with an email from one of the site’s experts to provide additional help.

Google+

Tags: advertising, Branding, Marketing, Resources, Search Marketing, small business, Web Design
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Resources, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Web Design | No Comments »

How to Deal With a Negative Review on Yelp!

September 19th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

If your small business is a restaurant, retailer, salon or bar—the type of business that relies on local customers and word-of-mouth—you’ve probably had some experience with review and ratings site Yelp!. How much weight do Yelp! reviews carry with consumers? A study by University of California, Berkeley, economists, reported on Mashable.com, found that an improvement of just half a star in a restaurant’s Yelp! ratings can increase business by nearly 20 percent during peak dining hours.

If you haven’t already listed your business on Yelp!, I hope this inspires you to do so. But is fear of negative reviews holding you back? After all, if half a star of improvement can boost business 20 percent, half a star of declining ratings could cut into your business, couldn’t it?

Negative reviews are a reality, on Yelp! or any other ratings and review site. It’s how you deal with them that matters. Here are some tips to help you get a grip—and keep your customers coming back.

First, remain calm. It’s human nature to get defensive when reading a bad review—especially if you feel it’s undeserved or if the reviewer seems to be a little unhinged. However, bashing the reviewer won’t get you anywhere—and in fact, will probably backfire by making you look bad to the other customers and prospective customers reading the exchange.

Talk to your employees about the review to see if you can figure out what happened and if the customer has cause for complaint. You can respond to reviews publicly or privately. Start by posting a brief, public response thanking the person for his or her comments (so other users can see you aren’t ignoring the review). Then respond to the reviewer privately to offer solutions or get more information about the situation.

Often, customers who are upset simply want to be heard and acknowledged, and in most cases, starting a personal dialogue with the person will be enough to defuse the issue. If you find you’re in an escalating situation with an irrational customer who keeps posting about your business, however, the best strategy is to disengage and trust that other readers will draw their own conclusions about the legitimacy of the complaints. You don’t want to get dragged into an online screaming match.

Consider negative Yelp! reviews as a learning opportunity to discover problems with your business and find solutions. No business can please everyone, so if you’ve done all you can to address an issue, it’s time to back off.

Image by Flickr user William Brawley (Creative Commons)

Google+

Tags: Customer Service, sales process, Search Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Branding, Customer Service, Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Search Articles

Most liked posts

Recent Articles

Popular Tags

Categories

Branding Articles

6 Ways to Build Your Company’s Brand

How Can Your Business Become a Breakout Brand?

5 Storytelling Elements That Will Improve Your Marketing

How Your Small Business Can Give Back This Holiday Season

How Your Small Business Can Market to Affluent Consumers

Web.com Small Business Toolkit: HowFindableAreYou.com (Online Findability Tool)