As the need for a strong online presence crystallizes for businesses, there are sudden calls for new websites: “Make it flashy, make it profound, make it digital!” Design matters, but the reality is that your website needs to be valuable to the audience and customers you serve.
The great and challenging thing about companies are their differences. Even companies with commonality in an overall industry differ in their products, their technology focus, and their target audience. And taking it one step further, each persona within each audience differs, and companies need to know what their prospects need and how to engage them.
My aunt is a gardener, so when I drew her name out of the “Secret Santa” hat for Christmas 2012 I thought getting her some seeds would be perfect. The search quickly became an Epic Christmas Quest, and reminded me that many businesses still don’t know how to use the web to do more and better business.
We often receive emails from clients who want to send a newsletter to their list, post an interesting article on their website, or otherwise engage with their audience. This enthusiasm is critical to success with content marketing, but we have to remember that every action must connect back to a solid strategy.
Being in business means sharing a little about yourself on a daily basis. You share information with colleagues, clients, and the public at large. You are in the engagement business; there is a public that you want to engage — think about how to target them through LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a powerful social network for professionals, by professionals. With over 187 million users, there are segments for all businesses and groups that interact regularly. And that’s the key — interaction.
Shopping this holiday season is already happening. Advertising began last month, and with some Black Friday sales actually starting on Thursday, it’s obvious that when it comes to retail, you just can’t start early enough.
When I think of testimonials, I am taken back to childhood memories of church services. Once in awhile someone in the congregation would stand up and “testify”: they had experienced something profound and wanted to share it.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a company that wishes to be successful online needs to have visitors coming to their website. But it’s more than that; driving the right visitors to your site means the difference between doing business and going bust.
Last week we shared the value of building your brand and focused on three key deliverables: logo, brand message, and brand tagline. This week we continue that conversation to bring your brand home to you and your customers.
When done properly, video can be a powerful tool for your business; done wrong, or even “just okay,” it can turn customers off faster than a lightswitch. In the first of this two-part series we’ll show you how to make video work for, not against, you.
