How much of your business is currently online? I think we can all agree that the last few months have been incredibly hard for small businesses. As someone who works with entrepreneurs every day, I’ve seen this firsthand, and I’ve had the great privilege of standing alongside small businesses through this crisis! So, I wanted to share what I’ve seen over the past few months with my current and new clients. After this experience, I have a ton of tips about how your small business can survive, and even thrive, during a crisis by pivoting to online business models. Now…
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I’m sure that you’ve visited websites that read… a little bit oddly. They keep mentioning the same word or phrase over and over again. “If you’re looking for the best car repair in West Palm Beach, Florida, then you will want to visit our West Palm Beach car repair shop. We offer the best car repair service in West Palm Beach, Florida. WEST PALM BEACH!!!” This kind of search engine optimization is a holdover from the early days of search engines. Back then, they could be fooled into thinking that your site was a leading one simply by stuffing it…
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About 30 years ago, do you know where one of the best places to market to people was? Their car. The very first thing they did after they got into their car in the morning was turn on the radio. And chances are that it remained on for their entire commute to work, both back and forth. This offered advertisers a captive audience (literally, if the driver was on the highway!) Back then, radio ads were smart and inventive. Frankly, some of the most effective and brilliant marketing campaigns of all time were on the radio. But then around 15…
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How much engagement is your blog getting on your website? If you don’t know the answer to that question, then you might be in trouble. Many small business owners spend hours and hours every week writing the perfect blog that will get them clicks. If you’ve followed me in the past, then you know I am hugely in favor of this! Having a blog on your website is one of the best ways to keep it active and updated regularly. It also gives you lots of material to work with on social media and through email marketing. But here’s the…
Read MoreLet me ask you a hypothetical question. Imagine you are looking for a virtual assistant to help with your small business (a fairly good bet, seeing as you’re here right now). You narrow your choices down to two VAs. To make your decision, you bring up their websites. Both of the sites look good. They are cleaned and polished, not looking dated at all. There are lots of services offered, some solid testimonials, and the graphics and copy are all high quality. Ah, but then you visit the “Blog” sections. In one of them, you see that they haven’t updated…
Read MoreWhat draws our eyes to beauty? When we see a lovely painting, or a sunset, or a stunning view, why do we instinctively think, “Wow, that’s beautiful?” Here is the thing: aesthetics matter, even in places that you wouldn’t expect. For example, when you are reading a big block of text (like this blog), you probably don’t think of it as “visual,” but it is. There is the choice of font, the width of the spaces between words, the length of paragraphs. Attractive visual choices make the process of reading much more enjoyable, even when the reader doesn’t quite realize…
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Ad-blockers are on the rise. Boy, there’s a phrase that puts cold fear into the heart of any marketer or business owner! Marketing has been in a Cold War with ad-blockers ever since the early days of the internet. Ad-blockers are browser extensions that will automatically filter out all of the advertisements on a website before it loads. The result is that the viewer will get a website completely free of any ads. Great for the viewer, but not for the businesses that are buying ads on the site. Thankfully, there are a few ways that marketers can combat ad-blockers…
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Think of all of the big brand logos out there. Those big friendly arches of McDonald’s, the swoosh of Nike, the softness of the Pillsbury Doughboy… Something that all of the world’s most valuable brands have in common is how well they communicate their brand’s message and values without one single word. Now, take a look at your logo. If this was the very first time you saw it, would you know what your company is about? Hiring a virtual assistant to revamp your entire brand, from your business cards to website, to branding collateral, to your social media graphics,…
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Do you know what the most effective method of advertising was back in the golden age of “Main Street” America? The storefront window. Pedestrians would walk by and look in all of the storefront windows on main street to see the most interesting and expensive items sold. And it worked! People would come in off the street to take a look around the stores. If the store owner was a particularly effective salesperson, they would walk out with a bag full of products, maybe even the one they saw in the window. In the marketing world today, the storefront window…
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Do you want to know my favorite part of flying? The landing. I love the moment when the plane suddenly touches the ground after hours in the air. It’s the last part of the journey and carries with it a sense of arrival. It’s the climax of the whole flight! Customers can actually get a very similar feeling when they are about to buy a product. If you’ve built your sales funnel correctly, your customers should have already gone through the steps of being aware of your product/service and are now interested. It’s time to close the deal with a…
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