Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

Get A Good Email Newsletter Service - Part 3

The last area where my old newsletter service was really falling down was in customer service. They had several strikes against them in this category:

• Poor online help. They had one page of FAQ information, and that was it.
• No call-in customer service. They had a call-in sales line, but no customer support service.
• Bad turnaround time on emails. I would email them, and sometimes not hear back for days.
• Uninformative answers to questions. When I did hear back, their answers would be cursory and not very helpful. Not exactly what I'd been waiting for. 

They basically didn't seem too concerned about the problems I was having with their service, and didn't show any interest in fixing those. Which is no good!

I've moved to a service that has phone support and email support. I had a bit of trouble importing my email addresses to their system, and I got very quick email responses (sometimes in as little as 15 minutes).

They have a huge online knowledgebase of support issues.

And, they have extensive training on email newsletters - their basic information looks good for my clients, and there's a lot of technical information that I have been using to learn more.

So, when you shop for a newsletter service, look for one that has the right amount of support for your needs. And that the support is of a level that's appropriate for you - whether you're a novice or an advanced user.

  

Free Branding Telecall on Friday 7/31

Don't accidentally wreck your small business's brand. This free telecall talks about 5 common branding accidents and how you can avoid them!

Preview: The Top 5 Avoidable Brand Design Accidents

When you start a small business, one of the most creative, fun and exciting things you'll get to do is to create your brand. But, that also means that branding is a business "rite of passage" that is easy to get really excited about - and just like a teenager who's just gotten their drivers' license, many entrepreneurs make mistakes and have costly accidents along the way. Join small business brand designer Erin Ferree as she walks you through the directions for designing your brand. In this 60-minute class, you'll learn:

• The five most common entrepreneurial brand design accidents
• How to drive your brand safely (and affordably) to avoid those accidents
• The most important "Rule of the Road" for designing your brand

Date: July 31, 2009 Time: 12-1 pm Pacific Time Sign up here for this free call. Even if you can't make it to the event, sign up to get the free recording after the event to listen to at your leisure! You'll also get access to all of the other free preview calls - even recordings of the ones that have already happened.

Get A Good Email Newsletter Service - Part 2

On the billing model: The service I had was charging me per email sent out - so, while my emails were only getting to a few hundred people, I was paying to send 2500 emails. And I send them out twice a month, so I was paying for 5000 emails and only getting about 800 delivered. Less than 20%. 

This is one of the two major billing models, and wouldn't be so bad if the deliverability rating was better. But, there was one big problem outside of that issue with how this was being charged.

When I looked at my list, I discovered I was actually being charged for everyone on my list, including addresses that had "hard-bounced" - which means that the address no longer exists - and people who had unsubscribed. Which seemed pretty ridiculous.

I've now signed up for a service that bills by the month, and bases that price on the number of subscribers on your list. But, you can send out as many emails per month you would like to your list during that time - so if I need to send out 3 emails in a month, I would still get billed the same amount. That seems much more reasonable and flexible for a regularly-recurring newsletter.

The instance where the pay-per-email model works better is if you don't send out many email newsletters (for example, if you send out 1 per month, or 1 per quarter, or if you have a very small list, that model can save you a lot of money).

Get A Good Email Newsletter Service - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I did a lot of shopping around for a new newsletter service. I'd been having a few problems with my newsletter service, especially in the areas of newsletter deliverability, their billing model and lack of customer service.

I'm not going to name the newsletter service here because I don't really want to talk badly about them. But, here's what I was experiencing so you can look out for these problems.

On deliverability: I had 2500 subscribers, and only about 400 of those were getting opened. I expect some people to be too busy to read, but that seemed like a pretty high proportion of emails to be deleted. Especially since my list is opt-in only, which means that I only send the newsletter to people who have asked to receive it. 

Upon further investigation, it seems that my newsletter service didn't have the greatest reputation  and that several email companies had them flagged as spammers. Which certainly didn't help matters.

So, look into your statistics on your newsletter - many services offer some sort of reporting feature. And, look up the reputation of your newsletter service online.I did this by just Googling a few things like:

 the service's name + spam
 the service's name + deliverability

And the results were very interesting. I also checked out my service on http://www.senderscore.org/ .

I'll talk about the billing model and customer service issues in later posts.

6 Ways To Improve Your Marketing During The Summer (and land some clients during slow times)

Ah, the lazy days of summer. Time to play in the sun, hang out with your friends, and have the kids home from school. Or maybe it's time for a barbeque or a trip to the beach. And then there's always summer vacation to take up a bit more time...

All those summertime activities can mean a slow-down for small businesses. Even if you, as a small business owner, are not the one doing the lazing about!

Your clients may be too preoccupied with their kids home for the summer to really get down to business (especially if your target audience is stay-at-home moms!). They may be distracted by social events, and unable to focus on spending time on reviewing the project or creating any client-side deliverables (or to even get around to reviewing vendors and making a hiring decision). They may just be out of town, on a much-needed vacation and not answering your emails and voicemails.

What's a small business to do? Just because it's summer doesn't mean that you don't still need clients (unless you're distracted by kids out of school or lucky enough to be going on vacation as well!) Here are some ideas to help get some momentum going in your business when things slow down:

1. Create and promote a quick and easy way that clients can work with you. Package up a small, in-demand portion of your services and make it easy for people to buy. Consider making this a project that has limited client deliverables, so that the client does not have to give you much information to get the project started. That way, frazzled clients who don't have a ton of time to go through the custom-quoting process, or to figure out how they can use your services, will have an easy answer — and will be more likely to buy.

Once you've created this package of services or products, create marketing materials so that you can tell people about the package. After all, no one can buy your package if they don't know that it exists! Make a flyer to take to networking events and to distribute to any marketing partners you may have. Post the package on your website, in your blog and on your newsletter. If you have a postal mailing list, then create a postcard and send that out to your prospects.

2. Take the time to update your website. It's always helpful (not just in slow times) to make sure that your website is current and that it's talking about the things that you're promoting in your business now — so that when you give out your cards at a networking event, and people decide to research your business online, they are getting accurate information.

This can be as easy as creating a "what's new" page or section on the home page and updating that occasionally. However, if you haven't updated your site in a while, you may want to review all of the content and make sure that it's still applicable to your current business offerings, methodology, and target audience. If this is the case, you may want to make the task less daunting by tackling the site a page or two at a time instead of trying to edit all of the text in one session.

3. Improve your search engine ranking. Refreshing your website content — and doing that with search engine optimization in mind — can help with your search engine rankings. If you improve your search engine ranking, then you can get more clients — or potential clients who sign up for your newsletter - through your website.

Do this by improving your headlines and title tags to have keyword-rich phrases in them. And then think about what you want the visitor to do once they're on your site, and make that clear and easy to do.

4. Make your marketing more strategic. This may mean being more strategic and planning out your marketing calendar for the rest of the year. If you have a strategy, it can help make your marketing more effective by making it more organized for your customers.

For example, if you publish an online newsletter, take the time to figure out what services you'd like to promote at which times of the year, and then plan out article topics to support those promotions.

5. Get ahead in your marketing. As a follow-on to the point above, if you have the time, you may take planning one step further into execution — which means writing your newsletter and getting them all formatted for release (Code them into HTML, or upload them into your template in your email program, for example. Or, pre-write some posts for your blog and schedule them to go out in the future.) That way, while you're busy, after your marketing has worked and brought in clients, you'll have your marketing program all set up and ready to go with a small amount of effort.

This may also mean getting some pieces designed so that you can better promote yourself and your company. If you have some time, you will be more able to focus on writing the text for any marketing materials you may create (like a brochure or website). And, you'll be able to focus on working with a designer to get the pieces designed. Then, you can get them printed and start promoting!

6. Make your marketing more "Do-It-Yourself". Take the marketing piece that you use or refer your clients to most often, and make it something that can grow with your company — and that you don't have to take back to your designer every time you want to make an edit. Make it so that you can easily update it, work with it, and make changes to it.

For example, you may ask your website designer to hook up your website so that you have access to change the text on it easily. Or, you may start up a blog so that you can regularly write about your business. You may choose to take this time to learn more about your newsletter sending service and its' capabilities — or to train yourself how to set up your own items in your shopping cart. Or, set up a customizable flyer as a Word document, with an eye-catching header with your logo in it, and editable text. That way, you can customize your own flyer as you create different promotions, or go to different networking events — and not have to pay for every change.

So, if you don't have the luxury of being (or the inclination to be) lazy in your business this summer, those ideas should keep you busy improving your marketing, and getting readier for busier times. They should also help you land a few customers who are still in "business mode" to keep the momentum going in your business. 

Corporate Branding vs. Small Business (Entrepreneurial) Branding

"I want my small business's brand to be as prominent, recognizable, and simple as Nike's logo."

Creating a brand with the appeal and instant familiarity of a major brand like Nike is often at the top of the list for every small business I work with. But it's more of a challenge than many entrepreneurs anticipate when starting their branding project.

Large companies like Nike have a major advantage over small businesses when it comes to getting the word out about their brands. That advantage is Brand Education, and it makes how small businesses create and extend their brands a completely different ball game from the way larger businesses typically approach brand growth.

What is Brand Education?

Imagine, for a moment, that you've never heard of Nike (I know—it's difficult, but just pretend). You don't know anything about the company or its products. You've never heard "Just do it". Next, pretend that you've run across the "swoosh" logo in an ad or on a website. Would you have any idea that it's affiliated with Nike or that the company makes shoes and sporting goods? Or what it's supposed to mean?

The fact that you know the swoosh logo on sight, that it's affiliated with Nike, and that the company is involved with sports are all factors influenced by Nike's giant brand education initiatives. Nike spends millions each year on advertising, which is a route that small businesses can't afford to take—at least not on a monumental scale.

Nike also launches many different advertising and brand campaigns, so that it can cast a wide net, attracting as many people who may be interested in its vast array of products as possible. But a small business may only have the resources and energy to create a single marketing campaign. Many small businesses make the mistake of trying to cast a wide net, when it would be much more effective to create a specific campaign message and to focus on one target audience.

Some of the major differences between branding a small business and a large one include:

• The prominence of the CEO/ business owner's image, name, or voice in the brand. Large corporations typically don't associate a single human face with the brand. Some corporations break this rule and use their CEOs as the company face—think Steve Jobs of Apple, or Richard Branson of Virgin, for example—but this is not the norm.

  A smaller company's image is more driven by its owners, who are usually a major presence at networking events and meetings. Small businesses can take advantage of this single point of contact by using the business owner or head consultant's headshot as a part of the brand. Using a photo this way is a unique touch that provides a point of consistency across all marketing materials.

• The number of customers that a brand is required to appeal to. Large corporations typically need to bring in a very large number of clients in order to be successful—to create a healthy bottom line and support the company infrastructure. In the case of many corporations, the more clients, the more business and the more growth.

  Smaller companies may not need to appeal to so many customers. They may not be equipped to fill large product orders or have enough staff to handle a lot of requests for their services. And a smaller business may not want multiple locations or a large staff. A consultancy may not want to expand beyond a lead consultant.

  So while it's still important for a small business to create a brand that appeals to its target audience, it may be possible to focus positioning and messaging significantly and still bring in plenty of clients.

• The focus of campaigns and marketing materials. Larger businesses can often afford to create more emotionally-driven branding pieces, such as commercials or ads with no specific call to action or branding message. Small businesses should make sure that each and every marketing piece is highly effective and delivers as much bang as possible for the marketing buck. Your small business can increase the effectiveness of your marketing pieces by:
  • Focusing each marketing piece on one of your offerings. If you try to sell your entire company and solution system in a single marketing piece, such as a brochure, flyer, or web page, you won't be able to be specific about anything. If you can focus on one offering, you can give clients more information and get them interested in what you have to provide.
  • Make sure you include a call to action. Tell readers of your marketing piece what they should do next. Should they go to your website for more information—and can you create a web page as a follow-up to your marketing piece? Should they call you? Register for a teleseminar? Sign up for your mailing list? If you tell them what to do next, it's more likely they'll do it—and get that much closer to working with you.
• The extent and range of marketing and brand materials. Large corporations often have the budget and staff to create extensive print and online campaigns. Smaller businesses need to focus because they don't have the huge budgets and staff needed to write and manage the creation of these materials—or to distribute many pieces simultaneously. Create the number of marketing materials that you can actually get out to your potential clients. They won't do you any good if they sit in your office, gathering dust.
• The level of meaning that each of your design and brand elements needs to have. Big companies can take time to teach their audience what their company does and what their logo and images mean. But for a small business, instantly-meaningful brand designs will be that much more valuable as communication tools. They'll carry part of your business's story, even before the client or prospect begins to read your information.

These tips should help you create a brand and marketing materials that work as well as possible without involving your small business in a big Brand Education program. 

How To Start Out With Designing Printed Materials

Do you absolutely need to market with printed materials when you're first starting your business? It can be less expensive to go with online materials at the start, and offer you more chances to edit your copy - but, if you go to a lot of live networking events, or if your target audience just doesn't read or respond to online communications, you might really need to start with printed materials.

How do you design printed materials without messing up?

Printed materials have several elements to consider:

• The design of the page, to make sure it's eye-catching but not too busy or distracting
• The copy, to make sure it's easy to understand, compelling and leaves the prospect wanting more information or to purchase
• The offer, to make sure it's clear, easy to buy, and includes all the important details
• The printing, to make sure it's on good paper, has good color coverage, and that your files are prepared right to print correctly.  

This is a lot to go into a marketing piece, and it can be pretty overwhelming for a business owner who's just starting out. To simplify the process, here's what I recommend:

Choose a printed piece to design that's not too expensive to print. Starting out with a flyer or postcard makes a lot of sense - online printers like PS Print have low minimums on these pieces, and the cost per-piece is not very high. Starting out with something like a trifold brochure can be costly - the folding really adds to the price.

See if you can design a template that you can then edit yourself. Consider designing a flyer header (or having one designed),  and then place that into a Word file. Then, you can go into the Word document and edit the copy to create different flyers that are targeted to different prospects, or that have different offers, or even just different text. If you only need a few copies, you may even be able to print them out on your home or office printer. 

Then you can go to an event, hand them out, get feedback from actual prospects, and then go back to your computer and edit the flyer for the next event. 

Once you've perfected a piece that really works for you and for your prospects, then you can invest in having it professionally designed and printed.

Your Website Has Lots of Room - And Why That's Great

Have you ever tried to write a 30-word promotion for your business? And to cover absolutely everything that you need to in that tiny bit of space?

Unless you've been in business for a while, and working on your messages, this is probably a pretty difficult proposition.

It's often harder to write a paragraph to promote your business - while making sure that it's effective - than it would be to write a page on the same topic. Your copy has to do several things:

1. Be easy to understand. Keep in mind that your prospects often won't know a lot about your field of expertise. Don't use too much industry-specific jargon, and be sure to fully and simply explain 

2. Be compelling. Talk about your target market's problems, and how you can help solve them.

3. Answers the prospect's basic questions so that your prospect gets comfortable with the idea of your product or service. Also, this can help stop your phone from ringing constantly with the same questions - and enable you to get more done.

4. Makes your offer - with all of the associated details. Things like price, how your service or product works, what the prospect will need to provide you with, etc. should all ideally be covered. Hard to do in just a few words.

5. Leaves the prospect wanting more information (or, to make a purchase). And, tells them how to go about doing that.

This is a lot of information - and it's even a lot to fit into a postcard or a brochure. With a website, you can create different pages, the pages can scroll down to accommodate more information, and you can even add new pages to the site to help explain new offerings or special offers. You'll have more space to expand, to test new things, and to grow.

Why Start With Your Website Copy?

If it is appropriate for a small business to have a website (and it often is, unless your target audience just doesn't use the web), then I often recommend starting your marketing writing with your website.

Why?

Because a website does not have the permanence or production costs of printed materials. You can write the copy for your website, post it, and then edit the copy as you get feedback from your clients and prospects. You can even get your designer to set up your website on a content editing program like Adobe InContext Editing and then you'll be able to get into the text and make those edits yourself. You'll be able to change out headlines to improve their effectiveness, add frequently asked questions, or just edit the text for more clarification.

Writing copy for your website, and then editing it, is much less scary and much more effective than designing and printing several hundred brochures. And, you have more opportunities to get feedback with a website and make changes as needed. Edits cost much less on the web (because you're not paying for printing as well). 

Once you've gotten your messages organized online, and fine-tuned, then consider moving on to creating printed materials to promote your business.

Writing your website copy

Many small businesses are afraid to write their own website (or even brochure) copy.

However, I highly recommend that an entrepreneur write their own text, for several reasons:

1. The copy you write will sound more like "you" than anything that anyone else could create. It's important for a small business owner to write their text in their own voice, so that your website copy can start to build the relationship with your customers from the first time they read your marketing materials. 

2. Your voice will also remain consistent throughout the marketing, sales and service process - you'll have written the text, you'll answer the phone to talk to the prospect, and you'll be the one providing the service to the customer. Consistency in all of these aspects will help to build trust with the client.

3. Writing your copy gives you a chance to work out your offerings. Creating text will allow you to scope out your services, decide how your process works, and craft your offers to your customers. If you give the writing process over to someone else, they might make these decisions for you - and you might find that you can't work with or live with the results.

That said, I do highly recommend that after writing up your content, you get it edited by a professional copyeditor - to make sure it makes sense and that all your commas are in the right place.