Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

When You Get Busy

What happens to marketing your business when you get busy?

Since most consultancies are 1-person businesses, it's good to make sure that you address this question and make a plan to handle it. One person businesses can reach their manpower capacity pretty quickly, and you need to make sure that no matter what, you're still marketing consistently.

Whether you've gotten busy with client work or personal matters, it can really help your business to have a few marketing pieces at the ready. These can also be helpful strategies when you go on vacation - to make sure your marketing is uninterrupted while you are gone.

- A couple of pre-scheduled blog posts. Your blog allows you to set up posts before it's time for you to publish them. You can either save these posts as a draft or you can actually set them up to be published on a certain date, automatically.

- Some pre-written articles. This is especially important if you publish a newsletter. Just having an article or two set aside means that if you get busy, you can release that to your list without a huge investment of time. If you've really got some time and space to set these up, consider pre-formatting the newsletter too so that it's all ready to go.

- Make your website answer some of the most frequently asked questions you get from your clients. If your website can field basic questions, like your getting-started process, or who you typically work with, or what clients need to have at the ready to maximize the effectiveness of working with you, then you can refer people there to really learn more about working with you. This can help protect your time, keep your business running when you're busy or out of town, and keep clients happy.

Follow Your Print Pieces With A Website

You can make your marketing materials more effective by including a call to action and a website address on your print and emailed materials, and then creating your website to offer more information and help the sale along to the next stage. Depending on the offer, your client, and the price point, the website may - or may not - be able to make the sale for you.

You've probably seen this in action on postcards and flyers. But, don't forget to use it on brochures, and even on your business cards (the back side is perfect for that). And, you can put a call to action on the bottom of your email, and use links in your email newsletters.

Car Marketing And Cell Phones

I was driving to a meeting yesterday, and got stuck in traffic behind a landscaper's truck.It was nicely branded - logo, phone number, and landscaper's license number all there on the truck. 

While I was sitting there, I started wondering whether the new cell phone laws in California have affected the effectiveness of having your phone number on your vehicle. People can't see a number and pick up the phone immediately - they have to make sure they have a headset and all that sort of thing. Does that result in the companies that have on-car branding getting fewer calls?

Postcard Design Thoughts

There are two ways to go when designing a postcard:

1. Relate the design closely to your brand. This can help to build a small business's overall brand recognition. But, if your brand has a very clean, light look and color palette, then your postcard might get overlooked in the mail.

2. Design the postcard first to be eye-catching. This doesn't mean you shouldn't match your brand at all, but instead that you should think first about the viewer's reaction when pulling the card out of the mailbox. Make sure you capture the viewer's interest with the look and offer, and then match it to your brand secondarily.

How To Get An Affordable Headshot

A bit ago, it was suddenly that dreaded time - time to get a new headshot taken for my business. My old headshot was terrifically out of date - since I'd had it taken, I'd lost a bunch of weight, cut all my hair off, and gotten Lasik, so I didn't wear glasses any more. As a result, I was pretty much unrecognizable when using the headshot as a point of reference when telling new clients who to look for when I'd do meetings at a Starbucks.

So, I needed new headshots. But I wanted a low-stress, low-cost way to get that done.

I can't take credit for this idea - my friend Kelly O'Neil of Uplevel Strategies actually suggested it. She suggested heading over to the local mall and going to the photo store - you know, the one in every mall where parents take their kids. I was a bit unsure about this - I didn't want to take a photo with giant blocks, or with a "fall leaves" background. But, I gave it a try.

I called in on a Wednesday, and got an appointment for the next day, right after the lunch hour. I walked in, asked for the white background, and took photos in 3 different shirts I'd brought for the occasion. I headed across the mall hallway for a sandwich, and by the time I was done, my proofs were ready. I looked through them all, and chose one - then ran a couple of errands while they printed it up.

Total time? An hour and 15 minutes. And I got a bunch of other stuff done while I was waiting. 

Total cost? Just over $18 for an 8x10 that I brought home, scanned, and resized for my website.

And, I don't think the result is half-bad!

So, now, no excuses for having poor photos to go on your marketing materials - next time, just try the mall. 

Don't forget the web for marketing

Many small businesses who are locally based (house painters, pet sitters, nannies and baby sitters, tutors, etc.) occasionally forget to use all of the marketing avenues that are available to them. Since most of their competitors' marketing is typically done via flyers, classified ads, referral, and occasional brochures, they can concentrate on making sure that they have matching marketing materials - flyers of their own, classified ads, and trifold brochures - instead of branching out into other types of materials.

To expand your business, consider developing marketing pieces that are different from your competitions'. More and more customers are looking for services - even local ones that used to be bought and sold on community bulletin boards - online these days. 

So, put up a simple website - with a bit of information about you, some info about your services and rates, testimonials from happy customers, and your contact information. It doesn't have to be terrifically complicated to be effective.

You can also use a blog service to set up a very simple website at an affordable price.

Then, get your website listed on local directories. Google has a local search, and you can get listed on directories like backfence.com or smalltown.com. Look up your local area in the search engines and see what directories are available to you, and take advantage of those.

Your brochure's job

Your brochure's main job is to give you enough space to go into more detail about your services and offerings. To answer the questions that you most commonly get asked about your services.

It should also be a portable size, something that you won't mind carrying around. And, a size that your customers will take home, or back to their offices, and that will give them something tangible to review and remember you by.

And, the design and print quality of the brochure should show that your company is established, and that your services are set up in such a way that you'll be offering them for some time. The very fact that you have committed them to paper, and invested in getting the details printed up, means to your customers that you are established.

Jobs of your postcard

1. To get noticed in the mail instead of recycled

2. To give your prospect enough information to pique their interest

3. To tell your prospect what to do next (call you, get a free report to learn more, visit your website)

4. To be affordable to mail (make sure that the size of postcard you plan will be affordable to mail to all the people you plan to send it to)

5. To get out of your office - make sure that if you print a postcard, you have a plan for getting them out to your prospects. That means having addresses, a plan for getting them on the cards (writing them on, printing mailing labels, or printing directly on the cards). And, planning to get them stamped or metered as well. or, if you're planning to give the postcards out personally (for example, at a networking event or trade show), making sure that you follow through.

6. To be specific - you won't be able to tell your prospects everything about your business on a small card. Pick one thing to talk about and make sure your message is focused.

7. To match your brand and to be consistent with your other marketing pieces.

Your marketing flyer's jobs

The jobs of your flyer depend strongly on what it's promoting and how you're planning to distribute it. For example, a flyer that's being posted on a bulletin board or in a window at a busy library or at the local market should be attention-grabbing and stand out from the other flyers on the board. It can also be helpful to include take-away call-to-action tabs with contact info so that the viewer can take this information with them easily, and be able to follow through on their interest. 

if you are going to place the flyer on the board, make sure that you distribute it in places where your target audience would be most likely to see it. This will help you to get it in front of your best clients. And, you'll reduce the number of unqualified queries that you might otherwise get.

The design of a flyer that's being mailed to a client, handed out at a networking event, left on a partner business's counter (or your own counter) or distributed at a trade show doesn't have quite the same challenge of a bulletin board. In this case, your flyer can be two-sided as well. But, you still want to provide a few things:

1. A design that matches the rest of your brand materials

2. Information about your offering. Again, make sure that this information is focused enough to fit on the one page you have, and to be compelling for your target audience.

3. To tell people what to do next.

4. To give your viewers your contact information so that they can follow up.

Consider if you need to get a digital version of your flyer as well - it might be helpful to post it on your website, or to be able to send a copy to your email list. 

All marketing materials have a job

I like to talk about how a small business's website can act like an additional employee in your business - helping you make sales, gather leads, keep in touch with people, qualify clients, get press or media attention, and so much more.

And, today, as I was driving about, it occurred to me that all of your marketing materials actually have a job. 

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Your logo has several jobs: To be memorable, scalable, to communicate your company's brand to your clients, to be appealing... and there are more.

Your business card has several jobs: To give your contact information to your clients, to be easy to understand, to be memorable (so that when you give it out at a networking event people might remember the interaction), to get kept instead of tossed, and to give your new client an idea of what you do (it won't tell your whole story, but it can give them a basic idea)

Your letterhead has jobs, even. To make it easy for the recipient to get back in touch with you, and to make it clear, at a glance, where the communication is coming from.

Not to mention the jobs that brochures, flyers, postcards, etc. have...

If you design your materials with their jobs in mind, then they'll be more effective for your business - and they'll be able to do more than to be just pretty. 

And, if you design a suite of marketing materials to perform the jobs that will help you out in your small business, it can be like hiring employees - except, less expensive than hiring someone full time (or even part-time!) 

You can design a basic brand suite (logo, business card, letterhead, basic website) for under $5000 or $6000. You can also print enough materials to last a year within that amount, and get your website hosted for the year. If you want to create a more in-depth marketing kit, you can expect to spend a bit more - but it will still be much less expensive than hiring an employee.