Profitable Connections

Helping You Grow Online

Project Type: Quick Tips

  • Small Business Brand Management

    Small Business Brand Management

    Brand Management Explained

    We were at a discount close out store the other day, when I discovered that they had a graphics novel section. I had been told to wait by the bathroom, but the round black, red, and white little Deadpool logo on a large book kept calling me over, until I was knee deep in discounted comics feeling the tingle I get before I am about to buy something fun.

    Clutching my Deadpool minibus made me happy, even when my wife yelled at me for wondering off.

    We wondered around together through the store, which was a collection of all kinds of discounted household items. They had signs up with a cartoon character that looked like Eisenstein’s retail cousin, saying things like “The place may be a mess, but the oh the bargains.”

    We were looking at a rack of pants. Okay, she was looking at pants, and I was reading the back of my new book. It took a moment of her looking before she said, “The size on the hangers don’t match any of the pants. I have to look at each stupid label?” She managed to grab a store employee that was scurrying across the floor like a rat trying escape the light. ”Excuse me. None of these hangers match the labels,” she said. The man looked at her, his face hard to read behind his mask. “That’s what you get here,” he said before running off into a back room, quickly closing the door behind.

    We didn’t buy any pants, but the book will be digested over several days of reading.

    You may not have realized this was a story of brand management, because brands have been part of our society, since we thought society was a good idea.

    A brand is a symbol, name, or feature that represents one organization and differentiates it from another.

    Marvel weaves brands into everything they do. Deadpool’s brand includes a logo that artists use to fill spaces in their books. It is easy to see and is easily memorable. In a stack of books, it stands out. I can guess what kind of story and what the art will look like based on that logo alone.

    The retail Eisenstein store’s brand is “that’s what you get here.” It’s for people willing to sift through a dumpster to find a bargain.

    So what does brand management do for small business?

    Your brand is the public face of your company. Not managing your brand is like not brushing your hair and putting pants on before going out. It’s going to have an effect on the way the public remembers you.

    Much like a comic book character, people tend to treat brands like actual people, rather than fictional constructs. Brands are associated with emotional values, such as trustworthiness and more physical values, such as durability. Your company’s brand is the face of your company.

    Our job as Digital Marketers is to provide communication between your brand and the general public. This starts with research. Who is your brand? What values do you associate with your brand? Is your brand a Capricorn or a Libra?

    How does the public see your brand? This requires an honest look at your product or service, employees, sales process, customer service, and advertising. All of these qualities come together to form an overall perception of your brand.

    Once we know what your brand is and what you would like it to be, we can start communicating that to the public using all the tools and methods we use as digital marketers.

  • Does Online Advertising even work? Are the ads worth the money?

    Does Online Advertising even work? Are the ads worth the money?

    Does Online Advertising even work? Are the ads worth the money?

    Yes…..

    ?

    Should I post my collection of goofy t-shirts as proof?

    Oh, you want an explanation.

    Digital Marketing companies use many confusing words, talk rather rapidly, and move on to something shiny when asked this question, because it can be difficult to answer. Initial investments can take time to work and consumer behavior can be unpredictable.

    The world does not have room for “consumer behavior can be unpredictable” on a balance sheet, so online advertising companies have come up with numbers for success. The big number that everyone ultimately cares about is ROI or Return on Investment. This number tries to show a business how much money is made or lost on an advertising campaign.

    Return – Cost=ROI

    Digital Marketing Companies often know the cost of the advertising campaigns because it’s on their invoice. They do not typically know the return value because this happens with the sales team when they make contact with the lead.

    The best way to solve this would be to have your sales team work closely with the Digital Marketing Company, so they can compare notes and create a great report. This is not always possible and marketing companies have developed other measures of success that can be nicely packaged and sent off to the customer who should have all the other pieces to create an accurate picture of ROI.

    It sounds so easy. I just send you a long list of confusing numbers with confusing acronyms next to them, and you combine those numbers with your own long list of confusing numbers and everyone pretends they know what is going on.

    Or

    We break it down into something simple.

    Advertising costs are tied to consumer actions, because that’s what you are paying for. You pay when they see the ad, when they click on the ad, and when they interact with the ad.

    When they see your ad.

    Ad views are called Impressions by most advertising platforms. They are typically charged per thousand. On the balance sheet, companies often use the acronym CPM. The M stands for the latin word mille, which means thousand in Latin. Why are we using Latin? It’s weird but that’s how it is done.

    When they click on your ad.

    Ads that are charged with a Cost per Click or CPC are usually used to drive traffic to a page on your website. You are charged when they click on the link.

    When they interact with your ad.

    Ad interactions such as completing a sign up form, calling a phone number, or commenting are called Engagements. Cost per Engagement or CPE are the costs associated with this.

    The hope is that out of the people that have viewed, clicked on, and interacted with your ads, a group will buy your product or service. Those sales are your return on your digital advertising investment. This is why it’s a good idea to find out how your customer found you. If you don’t know this, it’s impossible know what the return is on your investment.

    If you pay $1000.00 for digital marketing, whether its CPE, CPC, or CPM, the way to figure out what that money netted in return is the same. The sales team should know how a customer found out about the company. Let’s say they tell you that five customers saw the ad and all five bought $300.00 worth of stuff. Your company made a total of $1,500.00 in sales off of a investment of $1000.00. Your ROI or return on investment is $500.00. You made 50% return.

    In reality the math is rarely this neat. Often it may take multiple campaigns to generate a return. Successful ad campaigns are often a combination of a well created ads, funding to support those ads, a product or service people want, and an effective sales team.

    Our hope is that we have demystified these numbers somewhat. Let us know if you have any questions.

  • The Case for Digital Marketing Management

    The Case for Digital Marketing Management

    We had a potential client that was in the construction industry and ultimately decided that digital marketing was not worth the money. He didn’t market the company anywhere else but word of mouth. This worked, and in the beginning he found work fairly regularly with loyal clientele. This small group of customers were able to provide him with steady work for a short period of time, but it became sporadic. He would find work and be so busy that he wouldn’t have time for anything else. He would finish this work and then there would be a time where he was doing nothing. When he was busy, he would complain that he did not have enough help. When he was not doing anything, he would complain that he was not getting enough work and couldn’t hire anyone. His business ran in a kind of circle where he would find the work, do the work, and find the work again. He always seemed one step behind himself in getting the steady work that wanted.

    Some people get in the way of their own success, and I was never able to convince him why we could solve this problem for him.

    If this sounds like you, let me give it another try right now. To break this cycle, you are going to have to do something different. You are going to have to use some digital tools to build internet lead generators. But it takes time, experience, and knowledge to set this up. You can only wear so many hats in a day, and the digital marketing hat is one you should hire.

    One reason is that we are working while you are working. For a small investment, you can save time and have us handle all the work for you. This means you can spend your time running your business instead of using it to create forgotten websites and social media pages.

    We will setup a social media page with an advertising campaign. This will provide your business with an internet presence and a method of bringing traffic to that page. This simple setup will help bring customers to you, while you run your business. You might even get enough steady work to hire that extra person. With a little more of an investment, we can handle all of your internet services to provide professional domain email that you control and looks professional to your clients. We can provide a state of the art website that is optimized for your customers to find it. We can ensure your business is well connected to search engines so your clients find you.

    All of this work helps in a few ways. It provides a kind of digital sign post that allows your customers to find you on their tablets, cell phones, and computers; and it provides you a low cost and active way to reach your customers. It’s a great way to grow your business and much cheaper than traditional marketing.

  • Digital Marketing

    Digital Marketing

    Marketing Leads

    Marketing Leads are a company’s potential customers.

    How does your business get its customers? Do you have a sign? Do you give people a business card? Do you make posts on local Facebook Communities. These are all examples of Lead Generation. Lead Generation is what companies do to increase or maintain sales and can be done through many methods.

    Sales Leads are generated by gathering data about potential customers and using that data to create lists. A lawn service that sends post cards to houses in zip codes that fit their potential service area is using this method of generating leads.

    Digital Marketing uses the internet as a low cost way to generate and to maintain customers or leads, because one of the things that computers are really good at is maintaining a database of information. Most of the services on the internet rely on data collection and marketing. This is done through a variety of channels such as social media, web searches, forums, advertising platforms, and blogs. Leads are either Converted into sales or may, after going through a series of temperature swings, fade away.

    • Hot leads are where the customer has the budget, the authority, and the need for your product or service.
    • Warm leads are where your customer is interested but is missing some of the requirements needed for the lead to become hot.
    • Cold leads are the ones that are missing a key component and will be for some time. These are leads that are worth keeping in contact with as they are still potential customers and may get hot any time.

    Even for people that have more work than they can handle, it is still a good idea to think about how you manage leads. It is hard to know how things will go in the future and having a good understanding of who and where your customers are will go a long way in making it easier to sleep at night.

    Digital Marketing is an entire world of methods and services used to generate and manage leads. It consists of several basic parts.

    • SEO
    • Social Media
    • Digital Advertising

    • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of creating a company website that works for search engine companies with the goal of attracting relevant leads.
    • Social Media are websites and applications that enable individuals and organizations to create, share content, and to participate in social networking.
    • Digital Advertising platforms allow one to place a variety of advertising campaigns across multiple sites and applications.

    These parts work together to create a system for creating, managing, and converting leads to sales. A good online marketing campaign will combine many systems and methods to produce relevant leads from each of these parts.

  • Tracking Pixels

    Tracking Pixels

    Did you know you are being watched? Every internet search and every website you visit is being tracked, studied, and tabulated on a graph somewhere.

    What you click on and what you clicked on before you clicked is recorded.

    It’s a little creepy, but it’s not you they are interested in. They are much more interested in your behavior and what makes you spend money. Your actions are a data point in a much larger picture.

    Tracking Pixels are small transparent images that are not meant to be seen, but are meant to be downloaded. These images are usually hosted by analytic companies. During the download process the server gains key information about the user, the most important of which is the IP address.

    IP addresses are a bit like your spleen in that everyone has one, but very few people know what it is. For the purposes of explaining web beacons, you just need to know that IP addresses are unique eight digit numbers used to provide your connection to the internet. Because it is unique, it can also be used to track your connection to the internet. It is owned by your internet service provider and assigned to your router. You will have this number for a length of time, depending on your provider.

    Now that you something about IP addresses, here is a basic summary of how tracking pixels work.

    The user opens an e-mail or a web page. When this happens, the program you used to read this information, called a client, reads a series of instructions on the remote computer, called a server. The client follows the instructions and downloads all the images needed for it to display properly. A Tracking Pixel is a small clear image file that is downloaded by the client. It is invisible, because it’s only purpose is to be downloaded.

    Your client isn’t downloading the Tracking Pixel from the site you are visiting. It is downloading it from a data collection site. Through this download, the tracking server gains the following information.

    • IP address
    • Operating System
    • Browser
    • Device
    • Screen Size

    As you click through the internet, your browser will download Tracking Pixels. The tracking server logs your IP address, along with all the other information. It does this each time it sees a download. This allows tracking companies to compile information around an IP address.

    It doesn’t know your name or what your Starbucks order is, but it does have a snapshot of your behavior. Digital Marketing companies use this data to create fancy presentations with graphs that show information about website traffic.

    The data can be used by marketing companies to show their customers a breakdown of the sites internet traffic. They might provide a pie chart showing the number of returning visitors and the number of unique visitors. They can show what relevant sales data was clicked on next. They might show a map describing where the traffic is coming from. A presentation might include a slide showing a bar graph comparing browsers and how the site looks on the top one. It can do the same for mobile devices.

    Tracking Pixels are not restricted to websites. Their use can be included in any service that requires the user to download a image. One area where they are used extensively is email, where the system works in much the same way.

  • Put Your Business on the Map

    Put Your Business on the Map

    Your business likely has a either a physical location or a service area, but how is your customer going to find you? Well, if you have a physical location, you probably put up a big sign. Maybe that sign even lights up. If your company offers a service and doesn’t have a store front, you probably have a big wrap on your truck with your phone number, a list of services, and the company logo.

    All of these things are great, but only work in a casual sense. If someone is actively looking for a plumber, they may pull up behind a plumber van and call the number, they could ask their friends, or they might do a google search on their phone.

    Most small businesses ignore the internet entirely. I know because when I am in a new town and look for a restaurant, all I can find are the large chains that probably have media departments that handle these things.

    With a little work, your small business can look like it has an entire media department working for it as well.

    A good place to start is Google. Google Business is the place to setup your business address, phone number, and hours. If you own a service company, you can specify a service area and service hours.

    This allows google to display accurate results and helps those customers find you.

    Other options to consider are Google Maps, Waze, and Facebook; which all have location, service area, and business hours built into their searches.

    The best part is that these services are free. Google wants your business listed correctly. Waze wants your store address to be correct. Google maps wants to display accurate images of your storefront. Customers also want to use companies that they can find and know are open. It is a win for everyone.

  • Digital Marketing Audits

    Digital Marketing Audits are frequent reviews of your company’s internet presence and advertising.

    Most businesses know they should cut the grass, because they know people will not enter a store that looks abandoned. Websites and social media rarely get the same kind of attention, but the premise is the same. People use cell phones to search for what they want. Results with outdated contact information or that doesn’t display correctly will look the same as a dirty storefront to your customer.

    Digital Marketing Audits are used to ensure that all internet assets and strategies are working for your business and that you have a clean and professional looking storefront.

    It isn’t something that you do once, in the same way that you wouldn’t cut the grass and clean the windows on your storefront once. Things change over time and Digital Marketing Audits ensure that your Businesses’ internet assets change with them.

    A quick Google search will show many examples of Digital Marketing Audits. Many of these examples may be helpful, but it is important that the audit is not out of date. Looking at a variety and staying updated with search engine and social media policies really helps in creating an effective Audit.

  • That’s so Meta or the new Facebook

    That’s so Meta or the new Facebook

    Have you heard of the company Alphabet? I will give you a few hints. The company was named as a parent company of something you have heard of in 2015.

    Have you heard of Google? Alphabet is the name of the parent company of Google. If you are just hearing about this, you are not alone.

    Facebook is changing it’s name to Meta. This is to line itself up with the company vision of what social media will be in the near future. This future is being called the Metaverse, which uses virtual reality to connect people to all sorts of digital environments.

    Facebook will still be the name of the application everyone uses, but it will be just another app in the Metaverse.

    So how does this effect you or me? Currently, VR technology is not at a place that could support a Metaverse. Currently, there is also no Metaverse, and Facebook is in the hiring stages to create it.

    It does show how Facebook, I mean Meta, is investing in it’s future. I can see virtual events being used in many creative ways to do things like trade shows, concerts, conventions, and company meetings.

    It will be interesting to see where Meta goes with this or if the name will stick the way Alphabet did. Facebook has been steadily adding services to the platform with everything from a full marketplace, to Live video, and a promotional center. Facebook has even talked about starting it’s own cryptocurrency.

    Virtual Reality is a logical next step for Meta, and the name change does show a fundamental ideological shift for the company moving forward.

  • The Apple, the Facebook, and the IDFA

    The Apple, the Facebook, and the IDFA

    Apple has made some changes lately that has rattled the Digital Marketing industry, and the news ranges from the sky is falling to Apple is protecting user privacy.

    But what did Apple do? Will it effect you? How has digital advertising changed after the policy came into effect?

    It’s been something that has not only been confusing to the public but has been confusing the marketing industry as well.

    I thought it might be helpful to clear this up a bit, so let’s start at the beginning with what Apple has done and how this decision is effecting the industry as a whole.

    Apple developed a tracking technology for all their phones and tablets called Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), which tracks users using a web beacon technique of assigning a unique identifying number so that user information can be tracked across a variety of applications.

    Web Beacons

    In Apple’s iOS 10, they provided a setting that would allow the user to disable this feature, and 20% of users went through their settings and did just that.

    With the release of Apple’s OS 14.5, on September 20, 2021, users are prompted with a box that asks if the user would like to share their information across applications to which 96% of users are saying no.

    Apple announced that any application found sharing user data without using this box to opt in will be deleted from the play store. Their policy also says that applications can’t ask users to opt in, so they can be used or to access special features.

    It’s too early to tell what long term effects this decision will have; but in the short term, Facebook and Snap, who both rely on advertising platforms, have seen their revenue decrease. Apple dominates the mobile market, so these changes will effect large numbers of Facebook’s user base, but not all of them. Facebook says that this will be terrible for small business and a lot of other things that sound like the sky is falling.

    It’s unclear how this will effect businesses that use their advertising platforms or how this will effect Facebook and Snap long term. Facebook has stated that this will limit their ability to target ads to consumers, which it will do in the short term by preventing applications from communicating with each other. This is true, but they can still target users within their own application, perhaps using AI to develop algorithms to target their expansive user base.

    Small Business’s have many options besides Facebook’s advertising platform to generate leads. Consumer demand will not change, and there are a variety of options for a business looking to generate sales leads on the internet that are not limited by Apple’s policy.

    Privacy advocates and users are siding with Apple. Apple created IDFA, so it will be interesting to see what Apple does with the service moving forward.

    For more information, there is a great article by CNBC

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/apple-ios-14point5-release-date-with-att-idfa-restrictions-confirmed-for-next-week.html

  • Reputation Management

    Reputation Management

    The internet is a powerhouse for word of mouth communication. This can be both good and bad for your business. Negative reviews can last long after whatever issue caused them are resolved and can turn customers away, before they even talk to you.

    Reputation Management involves managing the perception of your business to the general public.

    In the digital world of the internet there are businesses that do this well, and there are ones that do it so bad that it must be effecting their sales.

    A good example of a bad one is from a company that runs an online trading platform. For this example, we will call them Eshade. Eshade has a company Facebook that is riddled with negative and scam comments that make the company look fraudulent and incompetent. A Google search brings up several review sites where the company is rated poorly and accused of withholding money from heirs when one of their customers die. Eshade is running an active content marketing campaign that is allowing users to vent grievances and others to post links to fraudulent websites. They are paying for this content. None of this makes Eshade look good, and it probably turns more than a few potential customers away from their company and to their competitors.

    Your company is probably nothing like Eshade. You answer the phone when it rings. But you still need to manage your company’s reputation online.

    Reputation Management in the digital world of the internet involves managing both Company controlled assets (such as social media, websites, and directories), and non controlled assets (such as review sites, other websites and social media). Even the best company cannot keep everyone happy, but the happier they are, the easier reputation management becomes. It can even be a company asset itself in the form of positive reviews and word of mouth.

    Here are some easy tips you can do to help ensure your company’s reputation is protected.

    • Create social media accounts on all major platforms. This will not only help customers find your company, but will also provide your company a voice.
    • Read and respond to all comments both negative and positive.
    • Read and respond to reviews both positive and negative.
    • Find the groups your customers use to recommend and research products and services.
    • Add testimonials to your social media and website.

    There are some things to consider when replying to reviews and comments

    • Always be professional, particularly in cases where you do not want too.
    • If able to do so, delete comments that are either spam or untrue. Reply publicly to all other comments and reviews.
    • If there is a solution, put the general outline of that solution in your reply publicly.
    • Try to think of situations from the customer’s perspective when replying.

    Reputation management is a powerful tool in an overall digital marketing strategy. A positive reputation can increase brand loyalty and repeat customers. It also attracts new customers through positive comments and reviews.

    If you don’t have time to manage your business and be updated on your digital reputation, consider hiring a marketing company to help out. Brayson Management can handle all of your Reputation Management needs. See our services section for details.