Marketing often gets placed on the back burner by many small business owners who are overwhelmed by the day to day administrative tasks that they have to do just to keep their business running. However, creating a brand that is cohesive and recognizable is important for all businesses regardless of their size.

While branding often begins with a name and logo, the two alone do not define a brand. Branding runs far deeper. It tells a story about a company, it is the voice that speaks to the core values of the business. The benefits that a business will reap through strong branding are multifold with the most obvious being industry recognition, trust and credibility with consumers, financial return, and vested employees who understand the goals of the company.

Does your brand tell your story accurately? Is the message you want to send being told consistently across all platforms? Although some of the rules of branding may seem tedious to the untrained eye, establishing brand personality will have a positive impact on the bottom line of a company.

Keeping your clients happy is easy – it involves employing your social and networking skills.

1. Be willing to share and give free advice without always watching the clock. Take the time to talk to your clients and build a relationship without launching into a sales pitch. It’s all about the “Givers Gain” philosophy that is based on the law of reciprocity.
2. Make introductions between people who would benefit from knowing each other.
3. Become an ambassador for your client’s brand. Show them that you share their passion for their own brand and be willing to spread the good word on your own social media pages.
4. Give regular progress updates while in the midst of a project. My goal has always been to reach out to my clients before they ask me about the progress of a particular project. This is particularly important during a crisis – people feel more comfortable when they are kept “in the loop”.
5. Give honest quotes and stick by them. It doesn’t do any good to under-cut a project and then come in over budget.
6. Respect deadlines and go out of your way to meet them.
7. Be a good listener. Ask lots of questions to gain a good understanding of their business the finished professional product will be that much more sensational.
8. Be prepared to accept blame when it is due.

That means, do you come up above the fold of a web page, on the first page of a keyword search for someone in your line of business? Here are a few tips to help to boost your ranking into the top ten.

1. Be consistent with your company name. It should look the same way each and every time it is written or displayed. Ensure that your logo meets the four characteristics of a good logo (memorable, timeless, unique, and relevant) and establish guidelines as to how the logo and name with be displayed and used. If you haven’t got one yet and you are thinking over ideas, you may want to go to websites like GraphicSprings where you can create and make your own designs and choose the best one that suits your business.
2. Actively seek reviews and testimonials from valued customers. They do make a difference. How often you have read reviews prior to making a purchase or selecting a restaurant? Claim your listings on YELP, Google, YAHOO, and other search engines, and then encourage customers to write a review even if you have to reward them with a glass of Prosecco in exchange for their effort!
3. Don’t be a wallflower – it’s important to be active on social media. That doesn’t mean that you have to jump on every Sm platform out there, but make an effort to establish a social presence somewhere and then … post, share, and like often enough that they know you care.
4. Try advertising your services on Google AdWords or Facebook boosts. Both can helpful and boosts can be very specifically targeted. While advertising is not directly linked to organic rankings, more visibility with help brand recognition and, in turn, drive more traffic to the website.
5. BLOG. Share valuable content and build a reputation as an authority in your field. You can then buy niche edits if you want to get these posts distributed on respectable sites online. The next time someone is searching for a topic relevant to your line of business, your blog post may provide the answer and, before you know it, you will be the go-to source.

As a freelance design and brand specialist, I am passionate about my craft and proud of my work. Like every small business owner, I too must effectively market my business in order to grow. There are many talented designers vying for the same clients and it’s important to find a way to stand out in the crowd. This is the same for every business owner. They need to find a way to make their business look more appealing than competitor’s businesses. One of the best ways to attract customers to your business is by spending more time working out who your target market is. Once you’ve worked that out, you will be able to market directly to them. This increases your chances of making more sales and helps to generate brand awareness. In order to get more customers using your services, you could consider getting in touch with a company like SheerID (learn more here). They could provide your business with improved strategies to help you build your business and acquire more customers through the use of marketing and other methods. Hopefully, that will help your business to stand out from others, encouraging more people to use your services instead.

In addition to devoting time to network and blog, it would help if I was given the honor of being listed among the top 3% in the UX Designers Community. How might that happen? The American freelance company Toptal is an exclusive network comprised of the top software developers and designers in the world. Global companies hire talent from Toptal and, the freelancers themselves, give glowing reviews of the company reporting that they are well paid and well protected. Not only would it be an honor to have a like opportunity but, it would help to grow my business.

There is a wealth of information that can be gathered from the data provided by Google Analytics. Making heads or tails of that information can be daunting for those who are unfamiliar with the analytics dashboard. To keep it simple, there are three key statistics to track that will help you to stay in touch with the source of your website traffic, the pages that are attracting visitors, and the value of that content.

How are visitors getting to your website?

The “Source/Medium” (Acquisition/All Traffic/Source/Medium) window reveals a breakdown of the source of the traffic. From paid advertising to social media to backlinks from referral sites that offer niche edits, the information will provide insight as to which marketing efforts are working for you and where you should invest marketing dollars.

What pages are attracting visitors?

The “All Pages” window (Behavior/Site Content/All Pages) tells which pages are the most popular on your website. The results may surprise you. Armed with this information you will be able to better tailor your content according to the preferences of the target audience.

How much time was spent on a page and did the visitor take action?

These stats are known as “Time on Page” and “Bounce Rate” (Behavior/Site Content/All Pages). They are two different statistics but are inherently related. The first tells how long a visitor stayed on the page while the other tells whether they left without taking action. The more time visitors stay on a page the more likely they are to be converted. On the other hand, a high bounce rate is indicative of a missed opportunity.

There is obviously much more informative data that can be gathered from the analytics dashboard. Whatever time that is spent analyzing data from Google Analytics is well spent and will be helpful in more effective marketing.

Every small business owner would benefit from a blog. Why?

1. Blogging drives website traffic: Blogging provides you with an opportunity to create content that is relevant to your customers which, when shared on social media platforms, will drive traffic to your website. It is a simple marketing tactic that works like charm.
2. Blogging Increases SEO: By regularly posting fresh, keyword peppered content on your website that is relevant to your business, Google will reward you by boosting your search ranking.
3. Becoming a Brand Leader: By demonstrating your knowledge and marketing skills through blogging, you will emerge as an authority in your field for others to follow. Blogging is a marketing opportunity that should not be overlooked.
4. Develop customer relationships: As you become a familiar face on the web you will build stronger relationships with potential and existing clients. We all know that building relationships is at the core of networking.

Are you struggling to keep up with changes in social media? Don’t blink! The internet and more specifically social media continue to be one of the fastest-changing industries in the world today. Here are a few trends that promise to dominate in 2017.

Social Messaging

Social messaging sometimes takes a backseat to all the chatter about social networking but the truth is that messaging apps have always been a preferred method of communication among millennials and this year, messaging will find its way into business as brands start to be part of the conversation in these channels.

Cracking Down on Fake News

The 2016 presidential election spotlighted the worst of what was termed “fake news”. As a result, social media networks are taking a stance against the guilty news outlets that regularly circulate bogus information and shutting them out. In 2017, there will be new standards put into place to regulate “news” and its validity. If some news outlets are not careful, they could find themselves in the middle of a defamation lawsuit. They would need some help from a California defamation lawyer or someone similar depending on their state. Fake news can have a serious impact on the publically perceived character of the individual, which can hurt the earning potential of entities affected by the misinformation.

Live Video Streaming

Unfiltered live video continues to be all the rage. Live streaming video first appeared on Twitter. It was recently launched on Facebook and Instagram is in the wings testing its own live video option. The trend will certainly continue through 2017.

Filtered Reality

We are all familiar with Snapchat’s filtered lenses which have become commonplace across generations. Other social media platforms are poised to offer copycat apps that can be applied to photos and live video. With more than 75% of millennials enamored by virtual reality, we can expect more on that realm as the year unfolds.

Chatbots

The opportunity to have a conversation with a chatbot in the customer service capacity has become more and more commonplace on websites today. The tool has brought with it improved customer service reviews and companies are starting to find out how to make a bot themselves as well, which means that we can expect to see more of this technology in the future. It is no doubt easier to have a text conversation with a computer on a social media site than to navigate through an automated phone. We are slowly be trained to function in our future world.

Which social media platform is the best one for my business and how often should I post?

This is a common question and it is one that I address in my initial marketing proposal to clients. Since the majority of my customers do not have a dedicated social media department, the task of posting often falls squarely on the shoulders of the business owner themselves. For this reason, I caution clients to commit to only to those platforms that they intend to fully embrace. A stagnant Facebook or Twitter page will do more harm than good. In my proposals, I identify the top two platforms that would be most beneficial to the business at hand. For example, I might encourage a commercial printer to promote their new vehicle wrapping capability on LinkedIn while my client who makes custom saddle pads may thrive on Pinterest. The decision as to which social media platform is the most effective is often determined by the whether the business is a B2B (business to business) business or a B2C (business to consumer) business.

The more daunting task – What to Post?

Developing engaging content is a challenge. Remember to always behave as a dinner guest might at someone’s home for dinner! When brainstorming ideas consider these questions:

1. What is the headache du jour in your industry?
2. What is the popular client question of the week?
3. What is the latest industry buzz?
4. Do you have an interesting story to tell about your company or it’s history?
5. What is the competition doing?

It isn’t easy being a good conversationalist who stands out in the crowd but somebody’s got to do it!