marketing

How To Meet the Media

March 1st, 2013 | Posted in Blog, Branding, event networking, marketing, Smart Business Practices | Comments Off
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Last night I attended my first “Meet the Media.” I was so excited to meet the representatives from The Genesis Group (organizer), Huffington Post Live, NBC News and Infusion Soft. There were 49 other entrepreneurs from a wide variety of industries including: health and wellness, space frontier education, publishing, public relations, marketing, and branding. We each had 20-25 seconds to stand up and introduce ourselves to all.

I had been practicing what I was going to say, but I tell you now, do as I say, not as I do. I learned so much about what I didn’t do right, by listening to the other business owners talk about their own mission and goals.

I had paired down what I do to three short statements, but I didn’t go into any depth on any of them.

I always say, pick one topic, stick with it and others will know you for that. If you speak passionately, others will get the real you. Then they will then be repeating your own words to others. So why didn’t I do that?

I guess because we each had a very limited time to speak and I wanted them to know the three businesses, but in reality with that short amount of time, it would have been better to go into more depth about just one thing. They needed to see my passion, my drive, what makes me tick. So, I am going to write out a few different statements about each business, think about those key points and next time I will be focused and deliver.

Luckily afterward, I was able to mingle with the media and took the opportunity to go into more depth about one thing. Now to watch the Broadcast Louder webinar from this past wednesday with guest Rick Brown, communication expert to gain insight and then to follow up with the media by email about the angle I’ve got for them.

meet the media february 2013

meet the media organized by the genesis group in ny

Business Meetings: Skype or In-Person?

February 15th, 2013 | Posted in Blog, Branding, Design, marketing, Smart Business Practices | Comments Off
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Are there different rules for business owners with prospective clients, rather than independents going on interviews?

Photo Courtesy TechTips-Salon

In my early career I can remember traveling into NYC for an interview, or driving within an hour’s distance in my car. But when the digital age came along and our client bases opened up globally, those in-person interviews weren’t really needed anymore.

We had Skype now! We could go face-to-face digitally.

We also have assorted videos of ourselves so others can get to know us, the face behind (or in-front) of the business.

I bring this up because in the last two weeks I’ve had an issue come up, and I’m debating whether I made the right decision. A potential client contacted me and asked me to write an estimate for a project, which I did. It wasn’t easy to get the right information from them but I managed to get a few quick photos, which helped. I sent my proposal off and then a few days later they asked if I could come meet them in person to discuss the project. Originally I said yes until I saw where they were located and it wasn’t going to be easy to get there, and would take an entire day. Then I found out they hadn’t decided on me, but were still interviewing all the candidates, as if for a full-time position.

Given my current work load and the “if” hanging there, I asked if we could Skype instead. They wouldn’t. I thought about this for a few days and decided to cancel the meeting and will assume I have lost the project.

My reasoning for this was simple. What if I weren’t an hour away but on the west coast? Even if I was the perfect business to handle their project, they would only work with someone who can be in the room with them? If they were making this process hard, would the entire project be hard as well?

I have written before about the lessons I’ve learned from reading Mike Michalowicz’s “The Pumpkin Plan” and one very important one is to recognize the clients or projects that don’t seem like a good fit and instead nurture the business relationships that one does has, making those clients happy so they turn into brand advocates for you.

What do you think? Is Skype or Facetime enough today? Should I have gone?

WordPress No-No’s: Custom Theme Rules for Clients

February 6th, 2013 | Posted in Blog, Branding, Design, marketing, Smart Business Practices, Website Design and Development | Comments Off
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WordPress is a marvelous CMS platform for both web designers and business owners. However, once a custom theme WordPress site is completed by the designer/developer and passed over to the client and administrator, there need to be a few rules to follow.

Wordpress No-No's

1- Remember that you have a custom theme with custom CSS and you should not touch the (Appearance >> Themes) area, unless you want to change the theme completely.

2- Just because certain plugins alert you they have new versions available, doesn’t mean you should just automatically update. The web developer may have custom coded these plugins, so definitely ask first.

3- WordPress itself alerts you when new versions of the software are available, and you have to be careful about just clicking on that update as it may effect many different parts of your site, the theme may be thrown off whether  a custom design or an inexpensive/free wordpress theme and may not be compatible nor function right. If you have a shopping cart installed it may also need to be updated.

4- When a designer creates your custom theme and has a vision of style, color palette and typography, don’t just add whatever colors and font sizes you feel like throwing in, it will look bad and savvy web visitors will wonder what you were thinking.

5- Your custom theme may have size perimeters, so make sure you have sized, optimized, and named those images before you add them to your pages and posts. This is true for embedded video too.

6- Your website/blog content can only be found if you add strong keyword-rich titles, short descriptions and long-tail keywords.

7- Depending on how often you blog, it’s a good idea to download, approximately once a month, an XML file as a backup of your posts and pages. (Tools >> Export). Through your hosting, creating a backup of the site is a good idea too.

8- If you have imported blog posts from another WordPress blog, do not take down that other blog or those posts will disappear.

9- If you aren’t a savvy WordPress user and are intimidated by your new site, ask for guidance. Either watch video tutorials or hire someone to tutor you.

10- Don’t just put your site up and leave it untouched for ages. A site should be a growing content-rich space where others continue to visit to learn and see new things.

11- If you are a creative and have galleries, make those galleries as easy for visitors to view, such as a single image at a time, with a slider underneath. If you prefer thumbnails, then when we click on an image, one pops up above the page and you can turn to view the rest.

12- Make sure that you have protection installed for your site. Especially to guard against the you-know-who’s. I won’t even say that word.

13- When you add a new page, check to see if your theme is using “menus” because this area will need to be updated if you want that new page in the navigation.

14- Before you install new plugins, be sure you don’t already have one doing the same thing or there will be a conflict.

15- Hopefully your programmer installed the “Google Analytics” code and you have your “permalinks” set on month/day, or something similar, rather than the numbered default pages. This way you can track the stats of your pages and posts on Google Analytics and learn more about your visitors.

Another important tip!

16- If you are going to hire a VA (virtual assistant) and you’re asking them to blog for you, but you don’t know exactly what  web development level they have it’s best to not give them full access as an administrator, but instead as an “author” or “contributor.” Below are the definitions:

Administrator
An administrator has full and complete ownership of a blog, and can do absolutely everything. This person has complete power over posts/pages, comments, settings, theme choice, import, users – the whole shebang. Nothing is off-limits, including deleting the entire blog.

Only one administrator per blog is recommended!

Editor
An editor can view, edit, publish, and delete any posts/pages, moderate comments, manage categories, manage tags, manage links and upload files/images.

Author
An author can edit, publish and delete their posts, as well as upload files/images.

Contributor
A contributor can edit their posts but cannot publish them. When a contributor creates a post, it will need to be submitted to an administrator for review. Once a contributor’s post is approved by an administrator and published, however, it may no longer be edited by the contributor.

A contributor does not have the ability to upload files/images.

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If you need guidance, I have a WordPress video tutorial series >> “10 WordPress Video Tutorials.” If you have any questions, just let me know in the comment section below. If you are a savvy WordPress user and wish to add some more rules that will guide others, I’ll welcome that too! Happy blogging!

What Brand Disappointment Looks Like

January 29th, 2013 | Posted in Blog, Branding, marketing, Smart Business Practices | 3 Comments
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This morning I headed down to Hoboken for a few errands and walked into the Starbucks on River Street. My first task was finding the bag of coffee beans I wanted amongst the similarly packaged bags. No bags of Sumatra. No bags below in storage and none in the back I’m told. Okay, I guess I’ll buy Casi Cielo which is another flavor I like.

I ask them to grind it for Turkish style. Thankfully the grinder was working, as many times in the past it wasn’t or would not go to that fineness.

starbucks in hoboken

Photograph from TheBokenOnline.com

I have my own Starbucks gold card which I earned from shopping there over the years. When I first received it I thought it was a great rewards system. Free coffee refills; every 12 cups, one free; and whenever I buy a bag, a free tall coffee to go with it. Today, at first, they wouldn’t give me the free coffee and told me the rewards have changed. But they realized I didn’t know and showed me a newly reprinted rewards promotion piece.

Starbucks has cut back. I walked out of that store with a sour taste in my mouth.

I started thinking about what a giant global brand like Starbucks has to do to stay on “brand” and satisfy customers and whether it’s right to change the rules of engagement after you’ve already launched a program. Is corporate greed the new “brand” message? Instead of loving the products and walking out happy and sipping away, I walked out disappointed. All I could think was we pay and pay, and they raise prices, and even when they try to reward us, they can’t follow through.

Are there other global brands who have done something similar you’d like to share?

Web Design is Tricky Business – Adding Mobile Device Design

January 23rd, 2013 | Posted in art, Blog, Branding, Design, marketing, Smart Business Practices, Social Media, Website Design and Development | Comments Off
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First, I applaud all the great web designers out there. I know you don’t get enough credit for what you do.

Now to get down to why web design (lately) is tricky business.

I have been designing web sites for 15 yrs now and each time I begin a new project I need an assortment of details to do my job right.

The client has to be interviewed, answering some key questions, such as:

  • Can you tell me about your company, your goals and aspirations?
  • Who is your exact target audience? Let’s talk demographics…
  • Have you seen some direct competitors you’d like to share with me?
  • Are there websites out there you’ve seen that you like?
  • Do you have a brand identity and marketing materials already printed you can share?

Mobile vs Desktop - responsive web design
When I’m designing… I must wear three hats at once. I’m creating a website that I like, my client will like, and the exact target audience will like, but it goes much deeper than that. I’m also loading all the elements needed, such as their logo, testimonials from happy customers, opt-in for email marketing, social media icons, copylines and headlines, photos or artwork, video and more. Then I must work to make sure that each element needed is seen by the eye in exactly the order I want the visitor to view it. Leading them by the hand to go and click where I’ve directed them to, all while making sure the page loads instantly and catches their attention in 3-5 seconds flat.

So many times I’m looking at my layouts and moving items around, changing colors even if ever so slightly, always keeping in mind who the target visitor is and being sure my client is thrilled at the outcome.

Today, even if your a pro at this, our technology is changing constantly and now we must think “responsive web design.” This means we are designing not just for the web on a wide screen monitor or laptop, but for mobile devices. Are we to rethink everything we’ve learned or do we just design additional versions now for alternate devices?

Two weeks ago I attended a free seminar at Noble Desktop on “Responsive Web Design” which was very informative and I learned a lot about how to think iphone and ipad, but I’m not sure I could start a web design thinking simplistic elements and then build on that. I think instead I’d create an alternate more simplified version after the larger one.

So, I’m asking the web designers out there, how will you address mobile devices in addition to desktop versions as we move forward?

Brand Interview: Paula Mottshaw Communication & Design

January 12th, 2013 | Posted in Blog, Brand-Interviews, Branding, Design, marketing | Comments Off
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Brand Interview: Paula Mottshaw Communication & Design

Paula Mottshaw Communication and Design

How long has your company been in business? Please tell us a bit about your company, its mission, goals…
I have been a solopreneur for about a year now. Prior to that, I worked for a few different non-profit healthcare organizations, including the quality improvement organization for Rhode Island, providing marketing communications support for different project teams. The support included assisting with marketing strategies, graphic design and writing/editing/proofreading for marketing collateral (brochures, annual reports, magazines), as well as web site support and a bit of public relations. After losing my full time gig, I decided to take more control of my destiny and became an entrepreneur. Think of me as a virtual marketing department.

I have two specialties:
Healthcare, including hospital systems, quality improvement, home health care and physician offices.
Gardening, especially small scale vegetable growing.

My goal? Providing clients with superior customer service while providing marketing support to accomplish identified business goals. I strive to keep my work process with clients streamlined and simple. I have a deep understanding of the industries I serve, and really care about the success of my clients.

Do you donate to charities? Tell us about that also and why.
I sometimes donate to charities but my focus is on volunteer work. Why? I feel strongly about giving back to my local community. I sit on the Zoning Board in my town (Foster, RI) and serve as secretary; and, I volunteer with URI’s (University of Rhode Island) Master Gardener Program.

Tell us about your brand.

How did you know what typeface (font) would be right for your company wordmark or logo? If your logo has an illustration, describe why that art was the right thing, animal, place, object, etc…
I actually created my logo during my last semester at RISD while completing the web design & development program. My motto is to keep it simple – that helped me to choose a very simple (and easy to read) font. As for the illustration in my logo… I included a hand-drawn pencil to represent the creative process.

Paula Mottshaw Communication and Design Logo

How did you decide on the right color palette to fit your company look and feel?
Since I serve both men and women, I wanted to have color palette that included both masculine and a feminine colors. I stumbled onto the color combination – brown and pink – by accident. Each year I mail out a hand made Christmas card. The year I got my puppy, I created a card (a birth announcement that was disguised as a Christmas card) that was brown and pink, to coordinate with her brown & white markings. I really liked the color combo and have used it on various projects since then, including my logo.

How did you decide which type of designer to work with, or did you design your own identity and web presence?
I designed my own.

In what order did you present your company to the world? Did you start with marketing and products, or website, blog and social media?
I started with a web site, so I would have a way to show my portfolio online. With the explosion of social media, having an online presence has never been easier, especially since much of the options are free!

How long after the launch of your company did you start pitching in social media?
I’ve been active on social media for the past couple of years. Professionally, I use LinkedIn to connect with individuals and groups. In addition to being a place to connect, LinkedIn is a great place to learn. I look for a variety of groups, including groups that may include potential clients. I look at social media maybe about an hour a day, just enough so I can participate in any interesting discussions and click on links to valuable information to read later.

Did you do research or study any software, take webinars, teleclasses, before approaching any area of your marketing or web presence?
Yes. Part of my service line includes graphic design and web development, so I studied for years and took lots of classes and tutorials. Continuing education is important to me, and I dedicate time each month to learn something new. One of my favorite on-line tools is Lynda.com.

Do you advertise locally in newspapers and/or nationally in magazines? Are they effective?
No, not to date.

Do you advertise online using Google, Facebook or on other company sites? Are they effective?
I don’t do any paid advertising at the present time. I focus more on email marketing and making professional connections (building relationships). I also do a guest blog for Small Business Centr, writing on topics of interest to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Maybe at some point I’ll try advertising and see if it’s beneficial.

Which social media site to spend the most time on and how does it help marketing your business?
LinkedIn, definitely. I scan the questions posted in the groups I follow that relate to my business – I try to post helpful responses that are actionable that can be used by the person posting the question. I think this approach helps to demonstrates expertise and helps to further connect with other professionals.

Do you belong to community sharing websites? Which ones and how effective are they in building your audience? What are the best features that help your business?
No.

When you printed your products, packaging, business cards and other print marketing did you choose an online printer or visit a local vendor?
The one piece of marketing material I have is a business card. I tend to print in small quantities because I’m always tweaking the design for a particular use. For example, I recently started attending in-person networking events and wanted to create a card that said something more about me than my name and number. I sent my design to Moo.com for printing. They provide top notch customer service and a terrific product.

Did you know anything about different types of papers, when you wanted to print your marketing materials?
Yes, I did. I enjoy looking at all different options.

Have you ever used “green” technology in printing, using FSC certified papers or recycled paper and if not, how likely are you at trying this on a next project?
I am very open to using green technology in printing, but have not used it to date. This technology supports my personal principle of sustainable living.

Do you speak at events? If so tell us about that.
I haven’t, but that’s on my list of things to do. In addition to being a communications & design entrepreneur, I also co-authored a how-to gardening book for beginners – Growing Vegetables Made Easy. The plan was to approach local garden centers and offer talks about how to grow more of your own food.

What is coming up in the year or two we should watch for?
My next book. How to grow the perfect tomato. It should be published in 2013.

Is there anything you haven’t yet tackled, but will want to do soon?
This year is all about getting out of my comfort zone – getting out there and shaking hands and meeting some nice people (getting out of my home office more) and continuing to learn to enable me to continue adding tools and resources to my toolbox.

To Learn more about Paula Mottshaw, visit the links below:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=69384459&trk=tab_pro
Guest blog: http://www.smallbusinesscentr.com/small-business-blog/
Website: http://www.mysimpledesignsolution.com

SEO and Google: 4 Successful Tips for Brand Visibility in the New Year

December 31st, 2012 | Posted in Blog, Branding, marketing, Smart Business Practices, Social Media, Website Design and Development | 4 Comments
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I’m going to start 2013 off by revealing a few of my SEO secrets with the hope that you will implement these into your own websites and online profiles and start the new year off right!

***Most important point.*** What matters is what others search for, not what you think they will search for.

SEO and Google: 4 Successful Tips for Brand Visibility in the New YearTip #1: Go to the Google Keyword Search tool and type in your profession and write down some of the top search words. Type in some key terms that make you unique and see how they do. Next, go to the regular Google.com search page and type in the words you’ve written down, first search separately, then search by combining a few of them. See what pages and websites come up and see what they have on their homepage that is making them the answer to your query. Also take note of where they are located and if they are using those choice words with their location as well.

Now you are ready to start thinking like a savvy web user and implement a few things into your own site and online profile.

Tip #2: Create your title or moniker that combines what you do with what makes you unique and then stick with it. Make sure that everywhere you have a profile, on your website, social media pages and community sites, it echoes that same phrase. For example: I have decided from now on, my title is “Brand Visibility Designer.” To me, this encompasses a wide spectrum of what I offer and doesn’t box me in. You’ll see that everywhere you see me on the web, this title is accompanying me.

Tip #3: Blogging and SEO. If you write a new blog post and you aren’t making the post SEO friendly, you’re wasting precious time and energy. Write your post first, then read it a few times to see if any words or phrases can be more SEO worthy, and then lastly make sure your title is using some of those attractive keywords to draw people in. If you are adding video and/or imagery they also need to be titled correctly and keywords added. If you’ve just started doing this but have tons of old posts that are missing SEO, go back and add it in.

Tip #4: Be sure to post on your website, update pages and share news as often as possible so all your profiles and pages are fresh. If you do not, you will be less likely to be the answer when someone searches. And since you do want to be the answer, realize how important this task is, and post!

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