2- Build A Brand
/Build A Brand
Branding goes far beyond a logo or graphic element. When you think about your brand, it's best to think about your entire customer experience. Your brand is the way your customer perceives you. It determines whether customers join your newsletter, refer you to friends or choose to do business with you. Branding is like a first impression. They say you never get a second chance. Carefully consider if the colors, fonts, words and logo you use appeals to your potential clients and customers.
Successfully Implement Branding For Your Business
*Start by defining your brand.
*Know specifically why you're in business.
*Consider what is driving your business.
*Clearly define your brand promise. Example,"My customers buy from us because we're the only one that…" The more specific the answer, the clearer your brand promise will be.
*Always consider your branding when communicating with customers.
*Target whom you want to serve.
*Keep your messaging and visual identity professional and consistent.
3- Graphic Design
/Graphic Design
Utilizing a professional graphic designer is an integral step in establishing and maintaining a successful business. Your company’s total brand image starts with a great logo and expands to every aspect of your business. The design needs to target your audience in a functional, attractive, and professional way. There are minor things you can do yourself, but the majority of your graphic design needs will be done by a professional.
Successfully Implementing Graphic Design
Before working with a graphic designer, you need to have the look and feel of your brand thought out as mentioned in the previous page. You'll want to bring your brand folder to your first meeting, so the designer can easily see your vision. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words". Trying to describe what you want is much harder than a visual representation.
To ensure you're happy with the final product, take some time interviewing a few designers before hiring someone. You're looking for a designer who you can work well with, and one who shares your vision, but can also guide the project with a skillful eye. Be open to suggestions of what works best from a professional's perspective. For example, maybe you've chosen a pale yellow color for your logo, but your designer points out that yellow is difficult to see. You'll need to be open to their suggestions to achieve the best look and feel for your brand. They might suggest a graphic design that doesn't represent you, and again you'll need to share with them how it's not quite right. This is a relationship where both people need to feel comfortable expressing their opinions.
When you meet with a potential graphic designer there are specific items you'll request them to create for you, so your brand is consistent and recognizable. Having each of these things is important so you're ready for business.
Logo
Business Cards
Invoice
Letterhead
Brochure/Newsletter
RTF colors for replicating your brand colors from any computer or printing store
4- Build A Social Media Platform
/Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are where you'll want to build your platform. Each of these appeal to different audiences so it's great to share your message with more than one. Don’t feel pressured to be on every platform, I'd recommend starting with facebook, and then add one that connects you to your niche audience, aligns with your business’s needs, and is easily maintained. As you create your accounts, remember to use your branding such as logo, colors, font styles, etc, so your brand remains consistent and recognizable.
Key Benefits
Social media is an easy way to learn about your audience
Helps target audiences more effectively
Free Advertising
Find new customers and expand your audience
Increase website traffic
Create meaningful relationships with customers through social media
Share content quickly & efficiently with social media
5- Build a Social Media Platform-Facebook
/Facebook can be used for connecting with friends and family through a personal profile, and help to promote your business through a business page. Having an online presence helps to establish trust, and builds your network of people.
Personal Profile
When you sign up for Facebook, you create a profile. This becomes your identity on Facebook until you close your account. To connect with friends and family, you'll send a friend request before you can make a connection. Once you're connected, you can communicate on a personal level, and share photos, videos, and life updates. For example, this is where you'd post a picture of the gourmet dinner you made, your family vacation photos, or a child's milestone. This kind of information is for close family and friends, because posting personal content in the wrong place could drive business away. Personal profiles are for non-commercial use and represent individual people. A profile is for friends and family, whereas your personal page, is for your business contacts and business friends.
Personal Page
If you have a business, brand, or product you want to advertise on Facebook, creating a personal page is the way to go. A Personal Page helps your business, organization or brand share stories, and widen your audience. Once you have a personal profile, you can manage a personal page. Pages look similar to personal profiles, but they offer unique tools for businesses like managing and tracking engagement of your audience. On a personal page, anyone can see your posts and "like" your page because a "friend request" isn't required. This works best for business because it allows you to keep "business" and "personal" separate. A personal page is important because it's the personal face of your business.
Business Page
A Business Page represents a company or organization. Business Pages are visible to everyone on the internet by default. You, and every person on Facebook, can connect with these pages by becoming a fan and "Liking" the page. This means that business pages only require a "Like" to start a relationship with a fan, prospect, or client. Once you've "Liked" a page, you will receive their updates in your news feed and can interact with the business. Updates are things like upcoming events, promotions, coupons, etc. Interacting with the business consists of responding to posts, or "Liking" sales or events, etc.
Facebook Group
Facebook Groups are the place for small group communication and for people to share their common interests, and express their opinions. Groups allow people to come together around a common cause, issue, or activity. Group members can express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content. When you create a group, you can decide whether to make it:
1. Publicly available for anyone to join,
2. Require administrator approval for members to join
3. Invitation only & Private - For example, if you want to create a forum where leaders can interact, or a committee who will be working together, you'll want to use a facebook group.
Key Benefits
Low cost Marketing Strategy
Free Advertising and a powerful source of traffic
Easily provide customer support via Facebook
Increase traffic to your website
What You Should Post
Your logo displayed an engaging cover photo and a current & personalized recognizable profile picture
Discount & Promotions
Teasers or sneak peeks into new products and services before their official launch
Post Consistently
6- Build a Social Media Platform- Instagram
/Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms.
Don’t forget to use the same branding such as logo, colors, font styles, etc. so your brand remains consistent and recognizable.
Key Benefits
Create Increased Engagement.
Free Advertising and can be a powerful source of traffic.
Offers higher levels of engagement than on Facebook and Twitter.
How To Get Started
At the moment, you can only create your account by downloading the Instagram app to your phone.
Download the Instagram app for iOS from the App Store, Android from Google Play Store, or Windows Phone from the Windows Phone Store.
Tap Sign Up, then enter your email address and tap Next or tap Log In with Facebook to sign up with your Facebook account.
If you register with email, create a username and password, fill out your profile info and then tap Done. If you register with Facebook, you'll be prompted to log into your Facebook account if you're currently logged out.
What You Should Post
New Products.
Photos of your employees as well as your customers.
Teasers or sneak peeks into your brand new products and services before the official launch.
Photos and videos from company trips.
You can also look at other companies which are successful on Instagram.
7-Build a Social Media Platform- Twitter
/Twitter is a real-time information network where people can discover what’s happening in the world right now, share information instantly and connect with people and businesses around the globe. It serves people looking for quick info, company news, and immediate response to questions about products or events. It's known for its hashtag (#) communication functionality.
What is a Tweet?
A Tweet is an expression of a moment or idea. It can contain text, photos, and videos. Millions of Tweets are shared in real time, every day.
What is a Hashtag (#)?
Hashtags assign a topic to a Tweet. So, for example, Tweets that contain #WorldCup are about just that. Click on a hashtag to see Tweets related to a topic.
Key Benefits
Communicating With Your Audience
Showing Your Brands Personality
Collect Instant Feedback From Your Audience
Provide Customer Service
How To Get Started
Go to www.twitter.com: Sign up
Choose a username that best suits your business.
Create a bio that summarizes your business.
Upload a photo or image of your logo
Have a strategy-What are you trying to accomplish? Increase brand awareness?
Tell your network you're on Twitter.
What You Should Post
Promote New Products/Content
Share quick updates
Promote Brand Contests
Share links to trending things in your community
When you talk about your business make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
8-Build a Social Media Platform- Pinterest
/Pinterest acts as an online scrapbook, showcases products, and displays brand essence through inspiration boards. It generates leads and drives traffic to other content (or back to your website).
Users share visual images from the web, by pinning them on to a series of virtual Pin Boards. Pinners can create, share, collect and re post information in picture, image, or video format.
Don’t forget to use the same branding such as logo, colors, font styles, etc. so your brand remains consistent and recognizable.
Key Benefits
Visually promotes and highlights products/services through images.
Huge traffic referral for all businesses.
Majority users are female. If your target audience are women, then you should really use Pinterest.
Pinterest is a great source of inspiration. If you’re struggling to find new ideas for your blog, website, or product, have a look on Pinterest and do a quick search.
How To Get Started
Go to www.business.pinterest.com: Sign Up
Click Join Here and enter the required fields.
Set up an account in your business name, using your logo as an official business page. Try to stick with a consistent username if you already have a Twitter or Instagram account. That will make it easier for anyone who follows you to find you via searching on Pinterest.
One important way to let your clients and prospects know about your presence on Pinterest is to add a Pinterest button. Pinterest has several choices available on their goodies page. Find the one that works for you. When you add a Pin It button, you can encourage your customers and readers to pin your products onto Pinterest.
What You Should Post
Combine great images with content to solve a problem, inspire, offer something desirable or appeal to interest in a hobby or activity.
Use high-resolution, professional-quality photographs and illustrations. Don’t
use images that are poorly lit, out of focus or otherwise appear amateurish.
Pins last forever, so steer clear of including prices or words like “new” that won’t always be relevant.
9- Purpose Of A Website
/Build a Website
Having a professional and optimized website is an important part of your business a great way to position your company for exposure.
Purpose Of A Website
A website is one of the most important resources in your business. In our age of technology where most people are on their phones or a computer during the day, a website can act as your store front on the world wide web. If you have a business and don’t have a website, you are losing out on potential sales and connectionsfor your business. Imagine doing business with people who are interested in what you have to offer all over the world, instead of just your community. A website can be used to accomplish many different marketing strategies to help your business grow. Below we will list some of those benefits.
Key Benefits
- Minimal Cost To Create
- Always Open For Business
- Ability To Build Credibility With Your Audience
- Market Your Business Online Through Various Strategies
In these next sections we'll cover each step in depth needed to create a website.
- Decide on a business name for your domain.
- Browse through various websites to find a theme you would like to use for your business.
- Decide the functions you would like your website to have such as a shopping cart, page designs, etc.
- Choose a website builder and web hosting service. I use squarespace.com.
10- Purchase A Domain Name
/Purchase A Domain Name
A Domain is the name that people will type to find your business online. It is often referred to as a uniform resource locator (URL) or web address. Decide on a name that best suits your business. Check to see if the domain name is available online. Choose a domain name that is short, easy to type and easy to remember. Don't use hyphens or numbers in your domain name. It's also a good idea to purchase your personal name because people know you by that name and believe me you'll want to own it as your business grows in case people search you by your name.
Choosing A Domain Name
Here are a list of great sites for helping you to choose a domain name.
Panabee
Nameboy
Dot-o-mator
Bust A Name
Lean Domain Search
DomainIt
DomainTools
DomainsBot
NameTumbler
DynaDot
Domai.nr
Domize
Purchase A Domain Name
When you're ready to purchase a domain name, I recommend going to godaddy.com.
11- Hosting Site
/Hosting Site
Your website will not function unless you choose and pay for a web host site. This is a remote location that stores where your website will be accessible via the world wide web. In a sense, you rent space on a large remote computer center to hold your website. Your host, the computer where your website files are stored, assigns an address (DNS) for your files to your domain name so that anyone can find your website on the Internet by typing in your domain name.
Choosing A Hosting Site
Here are the types of questions you want to be asking yourself when choosing a web hosting service.
+ Support- Ask yourself what type of support you'll want. I like hosting sites which provide 24/7 free phone support and customer service reps who speak your language. Speedy email support is also a plus. Hosting sites I've used include siteground.com, godaddy.com
+ Website Builder-Some hosting sites offer a website builder tool as a separate add-on. Website builder allows you to design your own website. It's important that you choose a Responsive Design.
+ Responsive Design, this means the format will remain the same when viewing from desktop to mobile phone. However, most people hire a professional to design their site. If you want to do it yourself, Website builder sites usually don't cost a lot of money. Services such as squarespace.com, wordpress and weebly.com, let you make a well-designed, mobile-capable site with minimal technical knowledge.
+ eCommerce- Having this function on your website allows you to have the ability to sell products or services using the internet. Choose a website with this feature as you'll want to make money in the future.
12- Design Your Webpages
/Design Your Webpages
You’ve purchased your domain name, set up your hosting and have chosen a website builder site to create your website, you’re well on your way! Now it’s time to start designing your website.
Content To Include On Your Website:
+Home Page- Gives visitors an overview of what your business is about.
+About Me- Think of this section as your personal introduction & welcome message when people visit your site.
+Services- This can be multiple pages based on what you offer.
+Shop- Allows your visitors to purchase products & services.
+Blog- Helps you to stay engaged with your audience, and share personal messages.
+Newsletter Sign Up- Stay connected with your customers by offering a newsletter. Capture your visitors information through this feature.
+Testimonials- Use to spotlight satisfied customers who have worked with you and establish credibility with new visitors.
+Social media icons- You want people to share your great content, so ensure you not only have social media icons on each page and blog article, but also that they click through to the desired site. These should be tested frequently after launch as well.
+Images- Use high quality images. Make sure to avoid copyright infringement (using someone's picture without their permission). There are sites offering free stock photos or you can purchase stock photos. I enjoy using dollarphotoclub.com.
+Copyright- Make sure to include a copyright date stamp and that you don't infrindge on others copyrights as well.
13- Blog
/Overview
As a business owner it's important to understand how a blog fits into your overall marketing objectives. An active blog tells your customers that your business is alive, well and regularly maintained. Blogging is a way to connect with your audience by sharing personal insights, motivating stories, share experiences, or promote other businesses and products. Each aspect of social media plays a part in staying connected with your audience. For example, on Twitter you share a sentence, Facebook a paragraph, and a Blog you create a longer message like an article. Vital in terms of search visibility, leads, and sales.
Benefits Of Blogging
+ Increase Your Website Visibility- As you share your blog posts on social media, you increase traffic to your website. Having a website doesn't mean people can easily find you. Imagine your website is like a store front but all of the lights are off, and there's a CLOSED sign hanging on the door. Each time you blog, post on social media, etc. it's like you're opening the shades, turning the sign to OPEN, switching the lights on, so people can more easily find you online.
+ Show The Personal Side Of Your Business- Your blog posts give you a unique opportunity to share your voice and personality, building up trust and increasing your brand’s likeability.
+ Positioning Yourself & Your Brand As An Expert In Your Field- Blogging allows you to share important industry-related information and insights so that people come to you to learn the latest news, trends, and updates.
+ Increases Leads- The more you blog, the more content you'll have, which leads to more email opt-ins, and more people sharing your content.
14- Before Going Live With Your Website
/You are now ready to make your website LIVE! When you're getting a new website up and running, there's plenty of possibility for error, so it pays to make sure you've done everything right. Frequent reviews with impartial eyes will make your site the best it can be.
Checklist
+ Proofread- Read everything once and have a friend/colleague read it. Make sure your words are succinct, clear, and grammatically correct.
+ Browse- Check your website name on all web browsers — something that looks fine in Internet Explorer may look disastrous in Firefox, and vice-versa.
+ Links- Don’t just assume all your links work. Click on them. You may often forget to add “http://” to links to external websites. Make sure your logo links to the home page, a common mistake.
+ Images- Check that all your images are consistent in quality and size.
15- Selling Through Your Website
/The purpose of a shopping cart allows your customer to select a number of items for purchase, described as placing items in the shopping cart or adding to cart. Your customer can make a sales transaction online by purchasing the items in their cart using a credit card, debit card or paypal. Different software enables you to add this to your website if its not already included.
Key Benefits
+ Earn Profit While You Sleep- Consumer can purchase your product any time of the day.
+ Convenience- Customers don't have to leave their home to purchase your product or service.
+ Attract New Customers Through Online Promotions- Offer discount to new customers on yourproducts.
+ Selling Products Across the World- You can sell your products to anyone. You are not limited by the geographical area that you can service.
+ Establish Your Brand- Satisfied customers will share your product and website with friends.
How To Get Started
Does your business currently offer a product or service for sale?
If so, write down your menu of services.
If you're an independent distributor in a business that offersa free website to its consultants, which includes all of the products for sale, you will not need a shopping cart. You will need to link that site to your website under shop.
16- How A Newsletter Creates A Buzz
/The purpose of a Newsletter is to allow readers to find out more about new topics found on your websites, blogs, etc. It should share the latest news without overwhelming the reader with a lot of content. This is your chance to build a relationship with the reader. Send each newsletter out with some kind of promotion tied to one of your products or services.
Benefits
+ Cost-effective- Email marketing is very cost efficient, especially when you compare it to offline marketing that requires printing and sending costs.
+ Create & Maintain Relationships- An effective email Newsletter helps you stay in touch with your readers as it creates a unique opportunity to connect one-on- one with consumers. Sharing usefulinformation about your products or services will establish you as an expert on the topic.
+ Increases website traffic- A regular Newsletter emailed to your list with a link to your website will attract new customers which brings more business.
+ Increase in sales- By sending consistent, regular messages to your email list, you create more opportunity for people to buy from you.
What To Post On Your Newsletter
+Company News – People like reading about the success of your business (awards, nominations) and anything that happens inside your company (employee recognition, birthdays, fun event, etc). Don’t forget to include photos.
+Your Blog – If you have a business blog that is updated on a regular basis then this is a great type of content for your Newsletter.
+Quiz – Create a quiz in your newsletter from time-to-time. The quiz results can also act as a powerful base for future content creation.
New Products – Let your readers know about newservices or products.
+Offers – Share special offers with loyal newsletter readers. They will appreciate these exclusive offers and product promotions featured on your website that are shared only through your newsletter.
Here’s a list of popular email marketing platforms I’ve worked with.
+ MailChimp
+ Constant Contact
+ Aweber
TAKE ACTION!
Start thinking of what content you would like to include in your first Newsletter.
17- MailChimp
/MailChimp allows you to easily create newsletters of varying types and then provides simple options for sharing them on social networks such as Twitter or Facebook, making it your own personal platform for publishing your newsletter. MailChimp service is accessible both via its website and a smartphone app. It also helps you track your results so you can check the responses that you receive from your clients. This gives you a better idea about how you can make changes to your campaign in order to get a more positive response for your page!
Benefits
+ MailChimp is free- If you have 2000 names or less you don't have to pay a monthly subscription. This program is great if you are just starting your email list and don’t have many names.
+ MailChimp integrates with Twitter- Mail Chimp lets your readers share your newsletter with their Twitter followers with one click. Even if you don’t use Twitter this can be a big platform builder. It has deep social media integration.
+ Easy to Understand Reports- One of the key features of any email marketing platform is reporting. It's important to know how many emails were opened in your last campaign or what links were clicked.
Check out Mailchimp and see if it's a fit for your business.
18- Constant Contact
/
Constant Contact is an e-Newsletter service and is one of the oldest email marketing companies around – they’ve been in business since 1996. I use constant contact to send my monthly newsletters, create events and invitations. The best way to know if any of these email marketing service providers are a right fit for your business is to try them out.
Benefits
+ You can try it free for 60 days- If you'reconsidering using an email newsletter, this should be enough to convince you to try it out. 60 days gives you enough time to get the feel for the program and see if you like it.
+ Good technical support- I havefound that the technical support from Constant Contact is excellent. This is probably the biggest benefit of using Constant Contact over other service providers. I also received a friendly sales call after I signed up to see if I had any questions.
+ Easy to use templates- Whether you're an HTML wizard or new to the whole computer thing, it's easy to create a nice looking email in Constant Contact. You can also add your logo, match your brand colors, add pictures and links very easily. It takes an hour or two to get your email campaign set up initially, but once you have everything in place it only takes a few minutes to send out the next batch of emails.
+ It saves lots of time- Constant Contact manages your contact list for you. Just add the new emails to the database and Constant Contact will take care of the rest. When you want to send out a newsletter, it will sent it to everyone in your list. It even personalizes it by putting the recipients name at the top of the email, which also helps keep the email from being sent to spam.
+ Users can easily unsubscribe- It's important to have good email newsletter etiquette. If someone decides they don't want your emails anymore, they should easily be able to opt out. Constant Contact adds a link at the bottom of every email to easily do just that. It's also just as easy to opt in. You are provided with a piece of code that you can put on your blog or website so that people can easily sign up to receive your newsletter.
+ Create an event, make an invite and link it to your website- One thing I love about constant contact is when I have an event I can easily invite either my entire newsletter email list or target individual people.
TAKE ACTION: Check out Constant Contact and see if it's a fit for your business.
19- How An Event Creates A Buzz
/Creating an event for your business provides your clients or customers memorable experiences, and increases the value of your product/services by providing speakers and networking opportunities. Creating an experience that attendees want to participate in includes several key pieces. There are a few kinds of events you can create. An online event, an in person event, a paid event, or a free event. Different services cater to different events. Below we will discuss these different types of events, and what works best for what type of event.
Having A Successful Event
To ensure a full house and happy guests, you'll want to plan ahead with your events. A Three week lead time is standard for invitations for more formal events, like a Team Party, or an Open House. For events like a causal lunch with leaders, or an online training webinar, 10 -14 days is ideal. Being spontaneous always makes life fun, so don't hesitate to create events that happen with a shorter amount of notice. Like a Super Saturday Sale just for fun. This would be advertised with just a few days notice, and the "event" would be people coming and eating free cookies and chatting while they shop.
Whenever there's a registration fee, exchange of money or cost involved for your event you will want to use a service that will allow you to accept the payment, track the registrants, has the ability for guests to print offtickets and provides you a registration list that you can use at your event. If you've ever been to an event that does not include these things, it can be very disorganized and unprofessional. People can tell you they've paid when they actually haven't, or say they've registered when they haven't. When using a service such as Constant Contact or Eventbrite, guests are notified where your event is located before the event begins. As a host it's your responsibility to have all of these things covered. Constant Contact and Eventbrite are great tools for events because their service covers all ofthese things to create an event.
Examples Of When To Use These Services
+ Facebook Events- Promoting a webinar, holiday party, team training and inviting leaders for lunch.
+ Eventbrite- Hosting a specialty class, training class, team partywhere you will be collecting a registration fee. You will link this event to your Facebook event page for exposure.
+ Constant Contact- Party for the launch of a new program, hosting a training class, team party where you will be needing a registration list and collecting a registration fee. Constant Contact is different than Eventbrite with the cost of payment processing.
Creating A Valuable And Compelling Event
+ Focus on creating value, not selling. Create an event where attendees actually want to be there and are getting something positive out of it.
+ Be consistent across the board! Your customer's face to face experience with your brand should be the same experience they have with your online presence.
+ Keep it fresh! You need to be willing to continually improve your events, innovating and adding content that keeps it relevant and valuable. Attendees go through a lot of trouble to attend an event. If you don’t make it worth their while, they won’t come back and they’ll have a negative experience.
TAKE ACTION: Start thinking of events you would like to create for your business.
20- Facebook Events
/The importance of Facebook Events
As one of the top social media websites today, utilizing Facebook’s event page option is a great way to promote an upcoming event online. Events can be created by anyone, and can be open to anyone or can be made private. This is a great free service to invite members of a group, or fans of a page to an event you are planning.
Benefits
+ Save Time- One advantage of using Facebook events is that it can save you a lot of time. When you want to set up an event on Facebook, the process takes only a few minutes. This is much easier than trying to call a number of people individually or send a batch of invitations in the mail.
+ Save Money- Another reason to use Facebook events is that it saves money. You do not have to pay for any marketing. Instead, you simply create the event on Facebook and then send it out to your online contacts. They will see the event without you having to spend any money.
+ Tracking RSVPs- Another advantage of using Facebook events is that it tracks RSVPs for you. Once you post the event and invite people to it, they have the option of selecting "Attending," "Not Attending" or "Maybe." When people tell you that they are attending or not attending, it makes it easier to plan for the event.
+ Public vs. Private- When you set up a Facebook event, you have the option of choosing whether it is a public or private event. If you plan to have a small business event, make it a private event and send out invitations to those individuals. By comparison, if you host a huge event, make it a public event. This allows anyone to register for the event.
How do I create an event?
+ Log into your Facebook Account.
+ Click Events in the left menu of your News Feed.
+ Click Create in the top right.
+ Click Create Private Event in the top-left to choose a privacy setting. Keep in mind that you're not able to change the event's privacy setting once you've created the event.
+ Fill in the event name, details, location and time. Keep in mind that you must include an event name and time.
+ Click Create.
+ You'll be taken to your event where you can invite guests, upload photos, share posts and edit event details.
TAKE ACTION: Create a simple Facebook event such as lunch with a few friends to tell them about your business.