 Your current clients and the people in your desired target audience will all experience many changes in their lifetimes. They'll go through different life stages that depend upon their circumstances and age. Consequently, they look for consistency in other ways. When they are going from their teens years into adulthood, there is a comfort that comes from knowing a certain food item is always going to taste the same or a certain lotion is always going to deliver desired results. Keeping your brand consistent all across the board matters to your customers, so here are a few ways to meet that need and help your business thrive.
First, Determine Your Brand It has been said so often and for so long that it has begun to sound like just another cliché, but there is a lot of wisdom behind the words, "Know thyself." In order for your brand to be successful, you have to know what it is before you roll it out. If you do not know what your brand is, there is a good chance your target audience won't either. That is a recipe for a potentially expensive disaster. Whether or not you have a deadline to meet, you can try idea boards. You can also consult with professionals. Once you have narrowed down the options, it is time to seriously ponder how they each look on social media, websites and printed media as well. Then, you'll be ready to make your final decision. Take some time with it, though. You'll be living with it for quite a while. What Does it Take to Be Consistent? From visuals to messaging, your brand should be the same across all channels so it creates a clear representation of your business. Studies show that once a child begins to recognize brand logos, they are ready to begin to learn to read. The way a child can look at the golden arches, the bull's eye or the black mouse ears and know exactly what they represent is how you want your target audience to feel about your brand. When they see it, they should immediately know the name of the company it represents as well as the messaging. Consistency is the key. Brands do not become household names overnight. The success of Google and Amazon did not happen from one day to the next. Each company's brand was built from the ground up, and it was helped by strategic placement in entertainment, advertisement and marketing channels. Why it Matters to Your Customers A company's success can be built by several factors. Consistency is one of them. Credibility is another. A consistent brand will build credibility with your customer base. It will also help draw in other people who need a little bit more time to check you out. There are brands that have trained their clients to expect something different every other week, but McDonald's, Target and Disney are some of the most recognizable brands because they do not change. They might roll out new campaigns every so often, but the core remains the same. If you walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the world, you know that there are core menu items you can order whether you are in Spain, Japan or the United States. Consistency in Media As with your website, you don’t want to leave your logo to amateurs. Invest in professional design for your logo and use that logo everywhere for consistency. Place it on all of your company's media. This includes online and offline materials like brochures, flyers and letters. Promotional merchandise, storefronts and all digital assets should feature it as well. Studies show that it takes anywhere between 15 and 17 times for a consumer to see a commercial and remember the details of the advertisement. By placing your brand's logo on all company materials, you are creating the opportunity for consumers to remember it. Consistency in Engagement Another great way to keep your brand consistent is to participate in relevant events, and release relevant content on a regular basis. For example, sneaker companies do well when they attend races and post relevant running and exercise content based on a content calendar. Customers are more likely to engage with a brand that posts to its blog and social media on a regular basis. When you operate a business, you are going to find that things run in cycles. Your job is to keep things as consistent as possible during the peaks and valleys. This is especially true of your brand. When you think it is time to pivot, think about the equity you've built before you decide.
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 Marketing often proves most successful when businesses employ dramatic strategies. Sticking with old methods isn't necessarily a terrible plan, but a failure to also integrate modern technological tools is. There are small business owners who still don't fully embrace the value of marketing technology. A quick look at three top benefits may lead many to take steps to start increasing technology-based marketing plans.
Improved ROI Return on investment might reflect the most essential sought-after benefit to any marketing campaign. Mostly, ROI refers to what you get a monetary return for what you’ve invested into into it. Investing $500 in marketing software might lead to $2,000 in new revenue. That's a $1,500 return on investment. And more benefits might be connected to the initial ROI. If new technology also increases overall productivity, cost savings and efficiencies might result. Cutting down on costs has a definitive effect on a company's bottom line. The double impact of increased revenue combined with fewer expenditures puts a small business in a superior position. A full-service voicemail system intended to handle scores of customer service requests represents an example of valuable technology. Instead of relying on a cumbersome standard phone setup, many small business owners choose to streamline things with customer service and marketing-friendly VoIP programs. The investment tends to pay off. Reaching More People Casting a wider net for customers supports the cause of generating more sales. Manually performing all promotional tactics, however, has its limitations. For example, posting on several social media accounts every day is more labor-intensive than it needs to be. Using a program to handle some posting tasks will take some work off your shoulders. The technology designed to help business marketing is vaster than you might realize. The arrival of address verification technology is allowing businesses to address the 5% of USPS mail that ends up being undeliverable. By increasing deliveries, a company reaches more potential customers worldwide. Improvements to Branding Direct sales and revenue aren't the only things of value marketing technology may deliver. Advanced technology might support improvements to a company's branding. Branding refers to how the name recognition of a company stays cast in a positive light. A business owner must control several things to realize effective branding. One primary step involves controlling the messaging. You want to create perceptions about a business and not react to them. The communicative benefits certain technologies provide help with the cause. Outdated marketing tactics don't always work in the current business environment. Become quick to embrace marketing technology or risk falling dramatically behind. Looking to boost your brand? We have top-notch video and print services to help you out!  Search engine optimization (SEO) has seen a lot of changes in the last couple of years. For online marketers and business owners, SEO is absolutely essential for the continued growth of your business whether you own a brick and mortar store or your business is strictly online.
What's Local SEO and Why is it Vital to Local Businesses? For local businesses, onHaving reviews about products that a business sells will give customers an insight into how to tell if they want the product. According to Podium, consumers who used to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations now rely on online reviews. In fact, over 80% of consumers trust reviews as much as they trust recommendations from family and friends.line visibility is more important than you think. With more and more people using their mobile phones to find products and services near them, if you don't ensure that they can find your business online easily, you risk getting left behind. Local SEO offers an effective way to market yourself online. It helps local businesses promote their products and services to local customers exactly when they're seeking them. While local SEO involves boosting your website's rank on the search engines, it also involves using listings like Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, Yelp, and others. It also helps you understand the value of localized website content, online reviews, and more. The Five Best-Kept Secrets of Local SEO The subject of local SEO is an enormous topic with many different features and aspects. We've selected five of the most crucial local SEO factors that will improve the visibility of your business online and your search engine ranking. Knowing the most important local SEO factors to focus on will give your business an advantage over your competition. 1. Citations Citations are online listings or references to your business that will include the name, address, and phone number (NAP). Listings in business directories or review sites for your industry are both examples of citations sources. Consistency is crucial when dealing with citations. Take advantage of high-profile directories by listing your business with them. Don't waste your time on smaller or newer ones until they have a good rank and some authority. Just make certain that your NAP follows an identical format for each and every listing. If there are changes, make sure you have a list of each citation so that you can keep all of them updated and matching. 2. Google My Business Creating a Google My Business (GMB) listing is very important. Once you've created your listing, make sure your profile is optimized:
When we refer to linking, we mean the inbound links to your business website and the value assigned to each. Links to your business website are good, but not all links are equal. The following factors are taken into consideration by search engines when assigning links value:
Reviews matter. Online reviews are extremely important when it comes to local SEO. For one thing, they offer valuable feedback from customers that can be used to make improvements by wise business owners. On occasion, businesses can use reviews to reach out to unhappy customers and turn them into happy customers. Some of the major online review platforms you'll want to monitor:
5. On-Page SEO As they are in traditional SEO, on-page SEO techniques are vital in local SEO too. Your business website's content should provide value to your local audience and prospective clients. Ensure your content includes targeted keywords and long-tail keywords, but again, don't overdo it. The following page elements should be properly optimized to include relevant keywords.
Takeaway The five local SEO secrets above should give you a great place to get started on building or revamping your business's online marketing efforts. Remember to be patient because the benefits of SEO when done well take time. Finally, measure your results carefully so that you'll know which of your efforts are really paying off and which you shouldn't waste any more resources on.  If you find that your marketing team is turning out stale, un-creative ideas, then it might be time to rethink the way that you foster creativity. Below, you will find 4 ways that you can get more creativity out if your advertising team.
Rethink Your Brainstorming Sessions The first strategy for getting more creativity out of your advertising team is rethinking the way you brainstorm. Generally, teams gather in a room and throw ideas around until they land on a good idea. However, not every member of a team is built for this kind of public, sometimes stressful interaction. You might find that only one or two people are doing the brainstorming while others sit back and watch. Instead, try pairing your team together in smaller groups, including those who maybe don’t usually work together or teaming up the quieter team members so that they get heard better. Design Collaborative Workspaces Another way to get prompt creativity is to change the physical space your team operates in. Emerging research suggests that creativity is a principally collaborative enterprise. Taking this research at face value, team leaders can design workspaces that facilitate "collisions" or unplanned interactions, from which creative spontaneity and innovation can emerge. Forget about sectioning off your employees into lonely cubicles, and instead opt for open spaces and multi-purpose rooms that bring your team together. You never know what unplanned interactions can lead to the next great idea. Be Open to Different Ways of Working Not everyone learns or thinks in the same way, so why should force your marketing team to work in the same way? A traditional 9-5 workday may be hindering the creativity of your team. Instead, you can offer work from home opportunities or allow your team to work their preferred hours. Of course, a fair bit of accountability and supervision will be necessary, but you could find that new ideas flourish when your team is working in the way that works best for them. Avoid Micromanaging Last, the worst thing you can do to stifle creativity in your team is to constantly micromanage them. Hovering over your team, controlling every decision, and leading every discussion can make your advertising team feel as if their input and ideas aren't welcome or needed. The best strategy for fostering creativity is actually allowing your team to be creative, to make mistakes, and to work towards their best ideas. You can up your advertising team’s creativity by rethinking the way you brainstorm, designing workplaces that prompt collaboration, being open to new ways of working, and by taking a step back and letting your team get creative on their own. Need a website with a design that actually gets people’s attention? Hire us today!  With experience of running a business, one learns that the website is the face of its business, and is very important for the company's success and growth. It is the key platform where your business interacts with leads and clients. Your website design needs to work for you. You should probably ask these questions.
Design of your website is the main component of lead generation. Most of the successful business websites have the following four aspects in their website design: 1. Content of the website should be professionally written. Content writers can help to create quality content for your website with their unique talent of writing and expertise in marketing and selling services to buyers. If you want to have an increase in the leads generated from your website make sure it’s written by a professional content writer, otherwise you won’t be able to reach the targeted audience. Content writers use the following tactics to increase the lead:
2. Website design oriented towards lead generation. Every website should be designed for a specific purpose and have a clear "cal-to-action", in our case it is to generate quality leads. An experienced web developer understands the importance of the good website design. If your website is well designed it will lead the user to the contact section which will add conversions. Without a thoughtful web design, users may lose interest. Make sure you give importance to these issues while designing a professional website.
3. Websites need to be search engine optimized. Every business owner knows the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). It’s very helpful to succeed for a business by ranking it high on search engines. The design, content and key words linking with your service gives good results when we talk about lead generation. While launching a website, good use of key words, structure and solid back end is just not enough for ranking. Social marketing is also very important. 4. Superiority in Website Functionality. You won’t be able to get a lot of reach if your website is broken, not updated and slow. To get more leads your website needs to be fast, and should have a structure that is easy to understand. Some of the common mistakes can be:
 A good majority of small business websites are not up-to-date. Non-updated websites are very common. The main reason for this is that a website requires to be redesigned and updated often. As web developing is advancing day by day, it is required to regularly maintain and upgrade a website. The best way to update your website is by having a blog, where you can post updated information about events and happenings. Following are some questions that you should ask to check if your website is outdated or needs updates:
 ![Website Designer Near Me... Serving Adams County and York County. [Thinking About Getting a New or Updated Website?]](/uploads/4/3/3/7/4337168/get-a-new-website-design-web-designer_orig.jpg) A well-designed and perfectly functioning website says a lot about your company. Think of it as your business’ wardrobe. If it’s outdated, then potential clients will automatically assume that your business is as well. This assumption is based on the thought that businesses who don’t care to update their website are less likely to update their policies.
Millions of small businesses and global corporations work tirelessly to keep their website updated, attractive, and relevant. Below are a few of the signs that it’s time to hire a website designer and get your website up-to-date. If your current site has any of these issues, you may be in need of a website update.
Are you ready to start your website redesign? Our local web designers are fully prepared to build you a well-designed, responsive, and unique website! Reach out to Crawford Designs of Gettysburg, PA TODAY. We’d love to schedule a coffee with you and get the conversation started! Click here to choose the time that works best for you - for your FREE consultation. Let's talk about where you are today, and where you want to be!  [business website] A creative web design is an important investment. The internet is an important medium of communication. This explains why local businesses are thriving to have in place a properly designed website. Many of the businesses are striving to have in place an online presence through efficient business website design. Furthermore, businesses that are planning to start their operations consider a website as part and parcel of their business strategy. The reasons for considering a creative website design include:
 The phrase 'search presents a unique opportunity for businesses' has become a cliché. You will hear everybody talking about it, but no one will ever tell you how you can leverage on those opportunities to see actual gains that can drive the growth of your business.
Leveraging a search engine can be harder for small companies which other than their lack of finances, they may also harbor misconceptions. However, this should not be the case. Startups can wrestle with fortune 500 companies for a piece of the cake. All they need to do is take steps to employ some top SEO strategies, and they will stand a chance. So what are these strategies? 1. Reviews of your content Content is the driver of SEO. You have probably heard this before, but I believe stressing it is key. Search engine algorithms mainly prioritize relevance and content hence content forms the backbone of your performance on SEO. Great pieces of content often perform better on search engines. So how do you have great content? You have to employ multimedia. This is usually in the form of images, texts, and video. Purely text websites are often dull for visitors. These visitors often leave the site within a brief period hence go the website with a high bounce rate which results in it being ranked lowly by search engine algorithms. However, you can try and have your content in the multimedia form to counter this. This will break the monotony and keep your sites interesting enough such that visitors often stay in them for more extended periods. Subsequently, search engines will rank them highly. Your content should also have a call to action. It can be in the form of convincing customers to pay or even to leave a review. You should encourage reviews to boost your SEO. Many people often want to find out how past clients rated your business before spending on it. Excellent business reviews often translate to reliability and authority. When people find these excellent reviews, then they are likely to spend on you. Similarly, search engines usually rate sites with excellent reviews highly as this is seen as a show of authority and your social proof. You should continuously seek to improve yourself based on the reviews. Your content should also reflect what I like to call the four pillars of high material. It should be convincing, informative, educational and entertaining. Once you ensure that your content meets these, then you can say you have started your journey to SEO success. 2. Know your audience Several SEO campaigns often struggle due to the absence of this. Unless you have a clear understanding of who you are targeting, you will employ general strategies which may not be as effective as customized strategies. Not knowing who your audience is will likely make your efforts futile or not as useful. Thankfully, today there are so many tools out there that can help you identify who your target audience is. You should seek to find one that works for you. For example, try the Google Search Console to help you know what your customers are looking for and Bing's Keyword Research tool to help you understand the words in their search queries. 3. Do great web design It is essential that you focus on this. The way you design your websites can have a significant say on whether you will be successful or you will struggle in search engines. Effectively developing your site can lead you to success. Here are simple strategies you can adopt in your web design to help you be successful on search.
4. Use analytics and tools Analytics plays a key role in measuring the effectiveness of any campaign. For this reason, the metrics and information they provide offer a key indicator of what is working and what needs changing. Similarly, tools can be a great asset to you and your website. They can help you respond to customers within a short period, manage your sites and even schedule posts among other. Google has a wide variety of analytics and tools that you can utilize to help your business as well. One of the most useful applications is Google My Business. This allows you to put your business on the map and attract more local search results. If you don't have a physical location, but you still want to use Google My Business, setting up a virtual office can help you attract the local search results you are missing out on. 5. Promote your content It is significant that once you are up and running on a search engine, you promote your content. This can be done in the form of advertising your sites in other platforms like social media platforms. This will help push your site's traffic. Link your websites to your social media platforms, and you will be surprised by the truck originating from your social media. Search engines can be a great avenue to generate leads. While these strategies can work for some, for others it might take time and require a little twitching. All you have to do is be patient and try new things until you find what works for you.  The success of business mostly depends on its ability to provide excellent customer service. In today’s competitive world, the way you treat your clients dictates how much activity you will have. Many companies have had trouble in the customer service sector, but thankfully technology is making things easier. Here are five ways technology is changing customer service:
Giving control to the client Technology has enabled companies to empower clients. Nowadays, clients have expectations about how they should be treated. Customers have become more demanding, but technology has allowed companies to meet their expectations by all means. In the past, customers did not have a choice when they got poor customer service. The incorporation of technology has enabled clients to access a global marketplace. The moment one company offers poor customer service, the clients switch to the competitors. Since competition has become stiff, other companies are going the extra mile to provide social media customer service. Client-centric modeling A few years ago, many companies used to get away with poor customer service only because they offer superior products or services. Nowadays, clients have become wise because they can get excellent customer service and at the same time great product or service. Today, when you are running a business, offering a great customer experience is a must. Technology is encouraging key performance indicators, which is essential in creating a client-centric approach. With the help of big data and analytic information gotten from different applications, companies can quickly gain access to key performance indicators. Such knowledge helps the company to hold everybody in all positions accountable in case any client does not get superior customer service. The opening of different communication channels Now that businesses have so many ways of communicating with their clients, there is no excuse for poor communication. The good thing about having different forms of technology is that you can interact with all your clients using their preferred methods of communication. For example, the older generation prefers communicating using email and SMS. However, the young people prefer active connection using social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, and Twitter, and since many clients prefer live chats, technology has also made that possible. Additionally, creating a blog for your website can help you to connect with your customers and answer common questions before they even know how to ask it. Availability Operating with a 9 to 5 customer service will make your business fall behind. Nowadays, businesses can be online for 24 hours. Therefore, if you want your business to stand out, you need to utilize this service. Companies can also be available for their clients anywhere and anytime by making use of all communication channels. Give your clients the opportunity to talk to you any time of the day. Few businesses give their customers such freedom. An excellent example of a service you can offer your clients is guest printing. As long as your client has a gadget that can connect to the internet, he or she can be able to print whatever they want from the comfort of their homes. Empathy Most clients get frustrated with the customer service they receive from most companies because they feel like the representatives do not understand their needs. The truth of the matter is that the representatives are doing their job. Fortunately, due to technology, companies can change their policies to offer their clients the empathy they need. To be able to have the edge over your competitors, try and incorporate technology into your customer service campaign. |
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