May 24, 2017 See What You Need to do to Build your Brand Online

Building your own brand online contains a lot of small steps (and a few big ones) intended to put you in a position to gain trust and authority for yourself online. You may have the best shop downtown, but if you don’t have an online presence, you won’t exist for anyone that doesn’t know that or searches online.

In order to take your brand online you need to do some very basic steps to get going.

Let’s see what four of those steps are and help you get your business and brand online in 2015.

Four steps to start building your brand online

Here are some of the basics you need to secure in order to successfully take your brand online.

Know who your audience is – You might have a good idea of who you want to appeal to, but this is the time to do some research and see not only who your ideal customer is, but who you will be in competition with for their interest.

Secure your Web properties – Getting a domain name for your brand that accurately reflects your business is crucial. Have a website built. Don’t choose a free site you see advertised, as this will severely limit your alternatives and you won’t really own anything. Bite the bullet, secure web hosting, and get a site built that you can be happy with for a while.

Establish Social Media accounts – Social media is very important these days, because it can have a positive effect on traffic, authority, search ranks and a lot more. Deciding which social sites to employ is up to you, but most likely you’ll be using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Create a presence on these sites and be certain to have consistency in your contact information across each of these as well as your website. Having this last element wrong could really cause search engine problems so attend to it!

Begin to post content and engage people – Once all of your properties are set to go, it’s time for you to begin to populate them with content. This is a necessary step, and one to take care with. It is where your authority, search engine ranks, and traffic will ultimately sprout from. When people begin to engage with you through comments, be sure to keep up your end of the conversation, and thus help begin your brand’s authority online!

September 25, 2014 Invest in Digital Marketing and Take Your Company to Greater Heights

As the old business adage goes, it takes money to make money.

You, the business owner wanting to succeed and profit in today’s competitive marketplace need to be implementing optimized and cohesive marketing strategies. If you fail to invest in digital marketing, you will be left behind, as your customers are increasingly turning to the Internet to inform their purchase decisions.

Digital marketing is the way of the future. If you want to expand your brand, boost sales, and grow your businesses exponentially, then you have to invest money into digital marketing to drive these goals. Both your prospects and existing customers are actively searching for different products and services online. They’re also reading reviews and comparing various products and services.

You need to strategize your marketing budget accordingly with the help of online marketing professionals, as well as the application of methodical analysis such as the BCG Growth-Share Matrix.

Applying the BCG Growth-Share Matrix Analysis to Marketing Initiatives

 The BCG Growth-Share Matrix is a portfolio planning model that was created by Bruce D. Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1970 to help companies analyze their business units or product lines. The BCG Growth-Share Matrix can help companies allocate resources, and is used as an analytical tool in brand marketing, product management, portfolio analysis, and other disciplines. The BCG Growth-Share Matrix analysis can also be applied to marketing initiatives.

The BCG Growth-Share Matrix classifies a company’s business units into four categories—cash cows, dogs, question marks, and stars—based on combinations of market growth and market share relative to the largest competitor; hence the term “growth-share”.

Cash cows possess high market share in a slow-growing industry and are considered to be leaders in a mature market. Because cash cows have a return on assets that is greater than the market growth rate, they generate more cash than they consume. Like a real cow, such business units should be “milked” for profits and should be invested with as little cash as possible.

Dogs, in contrast, have low market share and a low growth rate, and as a result, neither generate nor consume large amounts of cash. While dogs typically “break even” and generate barely enough cash to maintain the business unit’s market share, they’re considered to be cash traps because of capital that is tied up in a business that has little potential.

Question marks are businesses that operate in high market growth, but have low market share. Their high growth rate ensures that they consume large amounts of cash, but their low market share ensures that they do not generate much cash. This results in considerable net cash consumption. Question marks have the potential to gain market share and become stars, and eventually, cash cows when market growth slows.

On the other hand, if the question mark does not fulfill its potential, then it will eventually degenerate into a dog after years of cash consumption, particularly after the market growth declines. Hence, question marks need to be analyzed carefully to determine if they are worth the investment required to grow their market share.

Less problematic are stars, which are business units that possess high market share in a fast-growing industry. While they generate large amounts of cash due to their strong relative market share, they also consume large amounts of cash because of their high growth rate. If a star can maintain its large market share, it will eventually become a cash cow when the market growth rate starts to slow down or after the star reached a level of maturity by gaining efficiency and cost advantage.

As noted earlier, the BCG Growth-Share Matrix analysis can be applied to marketing initiatives. The online marketing campaigns of successful businesses occupy most of the cash cow and the star quadrants because of the high market share (brand expansion, reach and conversions) that have resulted from these optimized, revenue-generating online marketing campaigns.

Typically, the first step is concerned with evolving online marketing campaigns from the question mark phase to the star phase, and finally, to the cash cow phase. Businesses that started early with their online marketing most likely started their campaigns in the question marks quadrant. These businesses have tested and selected the best online marketing campaigns, and in turn, have optimized these campaigns with their online marketing agency for maximum effectiveness until they became stars.

To paraphrase the words of the legendary advertising executive David Ogilvy: “Never stop testing and your [online marketing] will never stop improving”.

While stars generate huge revenues due to their high market share, they also tend to require huge budgets due to their high platform and market growth rate. Stars that eventually reach maturity will become cash cows.

Cash cows are the most effective marketing campaigns and resulting revenues from this quadrant should be coursed out to fund questions marks until they become stars. Also, a greater portion of the marketing budget should be invested in stars to increase their market share until they reach maturity and become cash cows. This process needs to be repeated in order to be always ahead of the curve in digital marketing.

In the infographic, you will see the cash flow and transformation cycle in action. After going through the experience curve, and gaining cost efficiency and cost advantage, these businesses have online marketing campaigns that have matured and have evolved into cash cows. This leads to high overall revenues for the business, which in turn allows them to develop more stars.

We’ll help you identify the ideal marketing budget for your organization in order to drive your marketing objectives and business goals. By establishing an optimal marketing budget, your business will become more competitive and profitable in an increasingly cutthroat marketplace.

We’ll also help you test and select the best online marketing campaigns, and optimize them to ensure maximum effectiveness to further your brand expansion initiatives.

We’ll drive your growth, boost your profits, expand your brand online, and increase your leads and sales.

Contact our professional digital marketing agency today, and get a FREE consultation on how to strategically increase your marketing budget.

 Call us now or send us a message so we can schedule your free consultation and bring your business to new heights.

December 30, 2013 4 Ways to Brand your Business More Profitably

Understanding how effective branding can aid your efforts to build sales and long term customers is must-have knowledge to possess. People often stay with a brand they used in the past and gotten good results with, so long as that brand is staying current, helpful and not resting on their laurels.

How to make your brand get noticed!

Planting your brand firmly in the minds of not only your current customers but also potential customers is a matter of doing a few things correctly, and consistently. Let’s have a look at 4 methods to help develop your brand.

  • Identify and define your brand – First knowing what your company is about, and then proficiently communicating this in any way possible as a brand is an essential part of the groundwork you must do. Make sure you are being characterized as a brand rather than just a product.
  • Consistency in branding – As soon as you decide about the direction and plan for your brand, everything and everyone needs to be on board, beginning with person answering the phones and emails to anything printed online or off in relation to you. Presenting a uniform image is the only way to develop a long term brand.
  • Strive for excellence – No one cares about a brand that’s merely mediocre. Aim to stand out amongst your competitors, and go above. Become known as the best in class, or at least in your immediate market. This along with terrific communication will tend to get your brand shared near and far.
  • Make your brand empathetic – People gravitate to brands that understand them, that share their values and dreams. Being unafraid to share emotional messages, and being empathetic with the problems and concerns of your followers will resonate favorably with them. Don’t concern yourself with manufacturing this: simply be authentic and the rest will follow.

Serious and effective brand building requires vision, determination and a strategy. Take the above tips to heart and create a brand that you can pass on!

December 10, 2013 Are Your Suppliers and Shippers Doing the Job?

These days business is more a collaboration than ever. Your relationship with suppliers and vendors is a crucial part of your business. Are you treating it as such? In a cut-throat business environment where speed is prized, knowing your needs and those of your suppliers and vendors is essential for a fruitful business relationship going forward. So how to gauge this? You need a system in place that shines a bright light on possible partners, and protects you from trouble later on. Bear in mind, this process isn’t solely for hard goods vendors. If you’re depending on a company for professional services or online services, the same system applies.

Start at the start – Evaluating a vendor or supplier

The best way to give your company the best shot possible at a great vendor/supplier relationship is to make sure you do your work in the beginning. Make the effort necessary to carefully vet a possible vendor or supplier, and search for possible red flags. A few of the questions you need answers to include:

  • How long have you been in business?
  • Who are some of your customers?
  • How many employees?
  • How busy are you?
  • How focused on my company will you be?
  • Who will I be working with?
  • What happens when there’s an emergency?
  • How do I know you’ll come through when I need you?

Put accountability systems in place

This relationship needs to be a win-win for all concerned. For this reason, it’s essential you put accountability systems in place to ensure everyone is doing their part. Create solid performance parameters that clearly state what’s expected, and adhere to them. Examine these criteria on a regular basis, and don’t let under-performance issues go unnoticed. Always make sure you have a quality management system in place. Don’t trust your business to someone who lets the inmates run the asylum!

Don’t be scared to cut ties!

If it all goes south, and it does from time to time, don’t be unwilling to move on to another vendor or supplier. Let them have the opportunity to correct things with a formal notice, but if it doesn’t get corrected, move on. You can’t afford not to!