by Nick Throlson | Dec 15, 2016 | Business, Social Media
Trade conventions are great marketing opportunities, allowing you to network with other businesses and promote your services to those who may be interested in your area of trade. But how do you stand out amongst all the other companies and stalls present? Failing to advertise yourself properly could make it a wasted trip. Here are some ways to make the most out of a convention.Check competitionBefore going to the event, you should receive some information detailing where your stall will be and which other businesses will be attending and located around your area. Research these businesses before going to a? convention. If their trade is similar to yours, they are your main competition! Find out what it is that makes your service stand out from theirs and make that your selling point at the convention public speaking tips. For example, if you're a health and fitness convention and the gym equipment your company sells is cheaper than your competition's? market your stall as? budget gym equipment that everyone can buy? or something along those lines. If your services are more expensive, market yourself as? luxury? or ?professional?.Creative signageDon't let your stall blend in with others. A great way to do this make?sure your signage creative. Invest in cardboard cutouts, creatively-shaped signs, and big colorful banners. And of course, your signage doesn't have to be static. Did you know that you can hire pedicabs for convention marketing? These mini vehicles are sure to stand out. Other ideas involve wearing branded t-shirts, hiring a mascot-like figure to carry a sign around and offering branded bags.Make a speechAll conventions will have an area for talks, whether it be a business convention or a trade convention. Talks can be educational, motivational, promotional or a blend of all three. Communicate with the organizers in advance about the opportunity of giving a speech. Public speaking can be daunting, but it?s the best way to stand out at a convention. Instead of having to give the same lengthy spiel to every passer-by, you can save it all for your talk and tell anyone that visits your stall in brief that you will be on at a certain time. Whilst you may want to shout about you and your business, the best talks commonly aren?t wholly promotional. Use it as a chance to inform people of your area of expertise, or to give advice to fellow businesses, on top of promoting.Tweet regularlyMany people at the convention will be using social media, whether they?re other businesses or members of public. Let people know of your presence by taking to Twitter. If you?re giving a talk, tell people what time it will be one. Take a picture of your stall so people know what it looks like. Shout about the convention well in advance so that people who follow you on Twitter already can come visit your stall. Keep on top of convention news and what things are trending and link your business in with this.
by Nick Throlson | Dec 14, 2016 | Social Media, Web Design
Let?s be honest for a moment: the internet is important to any business and if you don?t use it you?re losing potential customers. Whether you?re a brick and mortar store selling socks or a Michelin star restaurant, you have to use the internet for a variety of different things.In the modern age, almost everyone has a smart device of some kind and everyone looks online for news and reviews about almost everything. People can search up a review of your restaurant, on the socks you produce, or the quality of the doormat in your office. As long as someone has been to your establishment, they?re eligible to write up a review of your business.Even if you don?t have a brick and mortar store, your services are no good to anyone if someone hasn?t taken a chance to use you. Just think about it?are you more likely to use a service with 1000 reviews, or buy from a company with 0 reviews and feedback? Unless you like to take a gamble, then you?re almost always going to go for the company with more feedback and reviews for safety reasons.Welcome to Your BusinessBe it advertising, taking bookings or delivering products across the world, your website serves as the digital front door to your business. If your entrance is filled with advertisements, shoddy writing, clashing colors and incoherent blabber, then your customers are going to turn tail and flee. However, if there?s a cozy environment, clear and concise writing, and complimentary colors that are easy on the eyes, then your consumers will remember your address and keep you on their list of competent businesses to interact with.Take great care when designing your website. Hire a professional if you need, consult an artist, or even ask your friends and family what they think?every opinion counts, even ?bad? ones. Don?t turn your nose up at a friend who says ?the site looks weird??don?t just assume that your friend doesn?t understand your website because they aren?t an art student or they haven?t studied the colour theory that you?ve painstakingly applied to your website. Don?t get annoyed when your parents think that your website is ?too colourful? or they have comments like ?I don?t know how to find x? because chances are, they?re going to be the average type of audience to browse your website. You can?t plan your website and design it like you?re engaging in professional discussion and interactions all the time. Good design is simple enough to be understood by everyone, so don?t get too carried away with creating a minimalistic or avant-garde front page to impress people.When in doubt, consult professional designers about your problems. There are specialized services such as POET Media detailed here. Just keep in mind this golden rule of simple business designs: make something that a customer would use, not an art appreciator.Me! Me! Me!We, we, we. That?s all business seem to talk about on the internet. Take a look at the following phrases:- We ensure the highest standard of quality when...
- Our team of well-trained staff are capable of?
- We have multiple awards in the field of?
- Our experts have years of experience?
These are just some of the many types of quotes that you?ll find on a typical business website. Do you notice the complete lack of care about the customer? It?s a shameful display of self-importance that turns off regular consumers. People want to hear about what your business can offer them, not the other way around.Don?t list your achievements like a trophy display on the wall of your living room. You wouldn?t invite guests over then drown them in your achievements while pointing at the items in your display case, so why would you do that to your online guests? Treat consumers with the respect that you want to be treated with. If your customers want to know about your awards and qualifications, then they?ll look that up separately. Your first reaction to a new customer shouldn?t be ?look at my amazing awards!?, it should be ?how can I help you??.So how do you go about remedying your self-important quotes and qualifications list? Remove them. A front page should be welcoming, clutter-free, and easy to read. In many industries, qualifications are required so that your customers know you?re capable of doing the job they need or that you?re able to provide high-quality products. However, you can keep these on a separate page or place them deeper in your website for when the consumer requests more information?don?t shove it down their throats straight away.Utilise images, clean color schemes, reduce the number of words on the page and get your message across using fewer syllables. Consumers are busy people and potential business clients have a lot of work to do, so you need to use clever strategies to draw in customers.
Being Social on Social MediaTake a look at any social media account for a big brand and you?ll see the same boring and useless robotic-tone messages that might as well not be there. ?Our products are the best around, try us now!? or how about ?We have a sale! Click this link for more info!?. Sure, there?s absolutely no doubt that a sale would draw in more people?but is that really the point of social media? Another advertising platform? The millions of active users on Twitter seem to think otherwise.Let?s face it, no one is going to add your business?s social media accounts to their friend list if all you do is spout advertising nonsense and boast about how great you are. People already encounter tons of marketing campaigns and commercials in their daily social media feeds, so do they really want to add to that spam by having your account pop up as well? Most likely not.So how can a business utilize social media properly? That?s easy: by being talkative and encouraging interaction between users. Let?s not forget that social media platforms were made not for advertisers and businesses, but for regular people who want to converse, make friends, keep up with old pals, and learn about interesting things that are happening around the world. They don?t care that your business is having a sale in a store on the other side of the world to them, and the fact that you recently won a minor award doesn?t interest them at all.Give your social media identity a personality. Manage it on your own or encourage your marketing team to add some personality to your posts. You want to be relatable, you want to appear human, and you want to engage consumers by interacting with your social media followers. Ask them what they want to see in your new product, encourage people to create hashtags for your services and products, offer technical support through twitter messages so that people can see your company cares about its customers and its public image. Be social?not a robot.Focus on the User ExperienceAs mentioned before, one of the best ways to ensure that your business website is suitable for consumers is to get friends and family members to test it. However, those principles extend further than just design issues and coloring. While a good website can be attractive and informative, it?s useless if there are no systems implemented to actually encourage users to purchase or even consider using your products and services.Let?s use a restaurant as an example. It?s great you have a pretty website with a lot of pictures of your food, an online menu, and even a list of awards that?s neatly tucked away from the front page. You should also have some testimonies, reviews, and of course contact information such as a phone number, email address, and most importantly your address.Sadly, that?s considered the bare minimum for a productive website. You need to make sure that those pictures are up to date and change on a regular basis. Don?t expect your customers to be happy when they see a portion of fries on your website served in a pretty basket but then they find out that you no longer serve fries in your restaurant. Keeping the menu updated with the proper pricing and ingredients is also extremely important because you need to keep customers in the loop. Remember to update your content on a regular basis, and don?t skimp on taking pictures with your mobile phone unless it?s a top-end smartphone with an amazing camera. Hire a professional photographer to take mouth-wateringly detailed images of your food and beautiful photos of your establishment.In addition to just contact information, an online web-service will also get you a big thumbs up from consumers. Allow your customers to book tables, order food online, and even talk live to your staff members. Set up eCommerce services so that your products can be sent across the entire globe. Never limit your audience to just your local area, and keep your quality of service consistent no matter what country you work with.
by Nick Throlson | Dec 14, 2016 | Business, SEO, WordPress
Have you noticed that most of your competitors seem to have blogs on their websites and are wondering whether you should follow suit? Research has shown that adding a blog to your website can increase the traffic that you?re getting by more than 50 percent - that?s a huge increase! There?s no doubt about it, when used effectively blogging can be a great way to boost your website?s traffic. Of course, the thing that a lot of business owners fail to understand is that it?s not just a case of writing any old post and it being effective. Oh no, there?s a lot more to making your site?s traffic soar than that. Want to know what it takes to use a blog to increase your website?s traffic and search engine ranking - then keep reading! Quality content is crucialIf you want your blog to boost your website?s traffic and improve its search engine ranking, it?s crucial that you only share quality content. Blog posts should be well thought out and researched, and should always focus on something that links to your business. So for instance, say you run a wedding cake business, your blog posts should link to weddings and wedding cakes. They could be tips posts, how-tos, or event industry specific posts - it all depends on who your target audience is. If the content that you provide isn?t of a high quality, then having a blog is pointless because no one will read the pieces that you?re posting, and so, your site?s traffic won?t increase and neither will its search engine ranking. It?s vital that you understand how to use SEO To give your website the best chance of increasing the amount of traffic that it?s getting, you need to boost where it ranks in search engines like Google. One of the best ways to do this is with the use of SEO - Search Engine Optimization. Most business owners have heard the term SEO before but don?t totally understand how SEO works, as such. When it comes to using SEO effectively, it?s important to understand that if you don?t use keywords in the right way, it can have a negative impact, as the Google Penguin Infographic shows. However, if you learn how to use keywords and other SEO tactics properly, you can significantly improve your site?s search engine rank, as well as the amount of traffic that it?s getting. Understand the best ways to promote it using social media marketing In order to increase the amount of traffic that your website is getting, it?s important to know how to promote your blog content effectively. One of the best methods of doing so is with the use of social media marketing - aka sharing your posts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. The key to success with this is the use of relevant hashtags. There you have it, a guide to using a business blog to make your site?s traffic soar and your search rank improve. Hopefully, everything that you need to know to do this has been covered above!
by Nick Throlson | Dec 13, 2016 | Business
When compared to any other industry, building an online presence as any kind of medical practice requires a slightly different sort of tools. People don?t need to be sold on your product, but how well and how exactly you deliver in. In this article, we?re going to look at how you use your online presence not only to attract consumers but to continue offering your medical expertise in new ways. With some good judgment, your professional opinion will be respected and sought after all over.
Make a welcoming front deskNowadays, there?s a large number of people who will go online first to check out any business, even those in medical fields. Having an amateur site doesn?t just speak to your poor web design capabilities. It builds an image of unprofessionalism that can stick to the whole practice. When you?re designing your website, make sure you?re using designs specific to your industry, whether it?s dental websites, private therapy sites or any other kind. Use your site to do more than give information about the business, too. One of the ways you can start building trust is by publishing articles that give tips on helping people manage their health. Consider creating a news and advice blog for your practice areas. Producing relevant content is one of the most effective ways of not only becoming more visible but keeping your visitors returning to a valuable source of information.Be available onlineBeing able to talk with your patients online is important, too. Get your practice as active on social media as you can, answering patient and potential client queries as best as you can. Depending on what kind of practice you run, you might be able to offer even more availability online. For instance, nowadays, a lot of practices are using virtual clinic software. Using a webcam and sometimes telecare technology, people are able to inspect and diagnose people online. Not only will make your practice more efficient. It can remove the barriers of treatment from some people who might not be able to make the journey to you physical location easily.Become aware of word-of-mouthYour reputation is always going to play a big role in how people perceive your practice. Nowadays, it?s not just people recommending a doctor to their friends. They?re recommending them to the community at large through online doctor rating sites. Managing your reputation is all about ensuring that your positive ratings are more visible than any negative ones you might have. For those who appreciate and value your practice, consider asking them to leave a positive review on one of the sites with the most visibility. Consider using any testimonials as a bit of extra marketing power on your website and social media channels as well.Make yourself easy to reach. Provide expert information and tip that keeps people coming back to you. Offer more health care options online. Pay attention to your online reputation. These are the steps of making your private practice much more visible and much more effective online.
by Nick Throlson | Dec 12, 2016 | Business
Are you wondering whether your business is going to be a success or not? When you first come up with a business idea, it can be all too easy to get swept away and think that it?s going to be the most revolutionary idea since the wheel. However, this isn?t always the case. These sure signs will confirm whether your business will be a success:You Know You Make A Difference To Customer?s LivesIf you are confident that your business makes a real difference to your customer?s lives, chances are, you?re onto a winner. Having the customer at the forefront of your business and considering them in everything you do is a must if you want to be a success. As time has gone on, people have realized that putting more of a focus on customers is crucial. Make sure you are really helping them and making a difference. 
Your Business Can Make Money While You Sleep If your business can make money even while you?re sleeping or on vacation, this is a great sign! This can be one of the biggest and best signs that you?re on your way to financial freedom, which is surely what most entrepreneurs aim for. You Have A Strong Online PresenceHaving a strong online presence will do many things for you, including increase your exposure and get you more conversions. As more and more people are shopping online and using the internet to research products/services, having a strong online presence is a must. Your Customers Give You Great FeedbackDo your customers give you great feedback? This is a brilliant sign that you?re on the right track. You may get the odd piece of feedback that isn?t as pleasing to you, but that?s just life. If you are pleasing the majority of your customers and they?re telling you so, you should be proud and know you?re doing well. There?s a good chance that they're giving you word of mouth reviews too, which can be extremely valuable. Show off your feedback and testimonials online if you can, as they?ll make the world of difference! You?re Getting Attention In The PressGetting attention in the press is a wonderful sign too. Whether this is online or in print, you should take this as a sign that your business will be big. You Have A Business PlanA business plan helps you to see things from a bird?s eye perspective. You can avoid big mistakes these way and stay focused on your goals. Not only that, it can help if you?re trying to secure a business loan or some kind of funding. You Know Your NumbersKnowing your numbers is important too. You own this business, so you need to make sure you have a handle of the numbers too. Some find this boring, but it?ll only contribute to your success in the long run. You Learn From Your Mistakes It?s normal to make some mistakes, but learning from them is so important. Don?t let setbacks get you down for too long! 
