Here is the funny thing about technology. It works until it doesn’t. There are few things more frustrating than going on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, only to discover that you can’t reach the website. You wonder if the problem is with your internet connection or their servers. So, you unplug your router, trying to reset everything, and it inevitably doesn’t work. So, you’re left annoyed. And that’s all it is: annoying. But what if the thing that was down was an essential part of your business? When your website goes down, not only does it appear to send a terrible…
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Do you know why testimonials are so important? Say, you’re walking down the street and a bus passes with an ad on the side promoting the “best coffee ever,” do you believe it? In all likelihood, you probably instantly think “Pfft. What a load of bull!” This is one of the biggest problems facing advertisers nowadays. Countless people are so instinctively distrustful of marketing that they dismiss any claims made in ads as exaggerations or outright fabrications. Even if the product is genuinely the “best coffee ever,” the average person probably isn’t going to believe it until they try it…
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How exactly do you go about building a brand for your new business? Over the last few weeks, we’ve been taking a look at the various aspects of brand building. This included the basics of branding, graphic design, and how to rescue a struggling brand. But you might be wondering, but how do I start building a brand from scratch? Well, help is on the way! What is a Brand? As I’ve said before, a brand is like a container that holds all of the assets, both tangible and intangible, of your business. Everything from your logo and color scheme…
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What happens when a brand gets a “bad name?” I consider a brand to be a container that holds everything about a business, both tangible and intangible. From logo to customer service to reputation, your brand encompasses all of the qualities that your customers think when they see the name of your company. The problem happens when some of those qualities are less than desirable. Maybe in the early days of your business, your customer service needed a little more work. Or that your prices were just a little too high. After enough time, many of those negative qualities got…
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When I’m working with a client to either create a new brand or reimagine their existing one, a common question I hear is, “What’s the difference between graphic design and branding?” Conflating the two is an easy mistake to make. After all, when people think of brands, they think of logos. Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nike… All of these brands have logos that instantly identify them. At a glance, a customer knows everything about those businesses, just by seeing their logo. However, logos and other graphic components are only one part of branding. As I’ve said in the past, think of a…
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Writing a Facebook Ad is easy, right? You throw together some text with an image and watch the clicks roll in! Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s a surefire way to end up with a Facebook Ad disaster! Social Media Ad creation is an art onto itself. Much like writing all kinds of social media, it’s a unique mixture of both marketing copy, target research and graphic design meant to attract the eye, intrigue the mind, and eventually, lead the user to your Website or Landing Page. There are a total of seven elements…
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How much time do you spend on Facebook every day? I’m not just talking about your personal account, but also your professional one. If you’re a small business owner, then you should absolutely have a significant professional presence on Facebook (and other social media networks). Facebook is one of the most popular social media channels in the world, with over 2.4 billion users and over 1.56 billion daily users. There are 9.3 million in Florida alone! That’s a lot of horn honking Floridians! Those kinds of numbers can give you a massive reach to connect with both current and potential…
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Congratulations, you’ve landed the client of your dreams! Now the trick is to keep them! Being a small business owner is a series of ups and downs. One minute, you’re on top of the world, doing the work you want to do with tons of clients. The next minute, some of those clients drop off, leaving you scrambling to find new ones. (Unless of course, you are ALWAYS marketing in the background!) However, at times, it can be like the world’s most un-fun roller coaster. As you gain more experience. You realize that the trick is to build up a…
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Do you remember what it was like when you were a kid during the summer? It was like heaven! Three entire months off school with no work whatsoever! I remember waking up to the smell of fresh cut grass and would scramble out of bed to get outside! Unfortunately, endless summers can’t last forever. But here’s the good news! One of the benefits of being an entrepreneur with a business is that you get to make your own schedule. Yes, you absolutely need to work like crazy during the summer to grow your business, but if you want a three…
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Do you have any tricks or tips that help get you through your daily workflow? Back when I first started my small business, my daily workflow was very different than it is now. There were very few applications out there that not only make my business easier to manage but also helped me get so much more done throughout the course of my day. Today, I have tons of programs, automated processes, and other tools that help me be super productive from the first thing in the morning until the very end of the night. If you’ve ever been curious…
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