Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves. – Lord Chesterfield

Does Your Small Business or Startup Need a Logo?

Quite often, the success of a brand is not due to the products it sells but rather to the emotional connection the audience has with the brand message. Your logo can act as a great marketing tool to promote your brand’s message and create emotional engagement with your target audience.

Think about how your brand’s logo is processed by a viewer. Their subconscious plays a big part in how they react to your logo. Your goal should be to have a logo that communicates your brand’s message in an instant.

Why do I need a logo?

The smaller the business, the more you need a great logo. A logo inspires trust in your brand and trust is a vital part of growing your business. A logo-less company is basically a faceless company. A visual identity creates a familiarity with your brand that a small business or startup can’t afford to miss.

What color should I use?

Color affects people’s decisions, both consciously and subconsciously. Colors have meaning so make sure the colors you choose for your logo represent both your company and your target audience.

·        Blue is a color of trust, stability and authority. You will often see it used in the financial and technology sectors.

·        Red is high energy, passion and demands a call to action. Choosing red for your logo can make it feel more dynamic.

·        Green is compassionate, and reflects nature and wildlife.

What should my logo look like?

Your logo should be unique to you and your business. You want it to stand out and differentiate you from your competitors.

Think outside the box when coming up with ideas for your logo. Remember not all brands’ logos reflect their industry. Apple, which sells computers and technology, doesn’t have a computer as their logo. Yet, the Apple logo is recognizable and synonymous with great technology….not apples.

A good designer will work with you to create a logo that is perfect for your small business or startup.

The mind is everything. What you think you become. – Buddha

Happy First Day of Autumn!

Happy International Day of Peace!

Some Fun Ways to Boost Your Marketing

Creating a marketing strategy for your small business can be complicated and time-consuming. There are a few fun and playful methods to boost your current marketing plan.

Promotional items

Chotchkies with your company’s logo on them are just for trade shows. They can be a powerful marketing tool that can spread the word about your products and services. Give your current customers something they can and will use that will promote your business. Think about what you do and what your customers would like to use, then pick from the multitude of products available.

At Blue Dog Marketing, we have small Post It note pads with our Blue Dog logo on them along with our website. What business owner doesn’t need more sticky notes? This type of promotional item keeps us top of mind with our client because we’re on their desk top and they’re using our ‘gift.’

Branded cars

You’ve seen them around town and they do catch your eye. Some companies just have their business logo, name and phone number on the side of the vehicle. If you’re a plumber or handyman, this can be a great way to promote your business.

Some small businesses have their vehicles wrapped. This can be an awesome way to grab attention while you’re driving. One of our clients, Rochester Travel Group, has her car wrapped in a Sandal’s Resorts wrap. All you see is palm trees, sunny beaches, the Sandal’s logo and, of course, the Rochester Travel Group logo. You can’t miss her car!

If you drive your car a lot for your business, consider branding your vehicle. People stuck in traffic or parking next to you will see your message. Small businesses with branded vehicles often notice a spike in web searches and social media likes wherever their car is.

Blogging

Having a blog is one of the best ways a small business can boost their marketing. Blogging establishes you as an expert in your field. Blogging can be conversational and fun too.

Being consistent with your blogging schedule is important because your readers will expect to see a new post from you on a regular basis.

If you need help writing your blog, a marketing firm like Blue Dog Marketing, can help you create a blogging schedule and write some pretty amazing posts for your small business.

Have fun with your marketing. Yes, sometimes marketing can be dry and boring when you’re looking an analytics or writing your marketing plan for next year, but try to add some fun components to it and both you and your customers will enjoy it!

Do You Have a Social Media Calendar?

You have created your marketing plan and social media is a large component of that plan. You know that stellar content is important. Creating and publishing great content can get overwhelming.

You need to get organized and determine a schedule that works for your small business. Once you’ve created a social media content calendar, your social media marketing becomes a lot less intimidating.

The calendar

What does a social media marketing calendar look like? This calendar can be an actual calendar or a spreadsheet…whatever works best for you. The social media calendar should organize your content and help you develop and editorial strategy.

Your calendar should note which social media channels you are publishing which posts to. You can have a separate sheet for each month or day, depending on the volume of content you plan to publish. 

Track topic ideas

Use your social media calendar to plug in topic ideas that you want to write about. When you have an idea, post it on your calendar so it’s there when you take the time to write the content. This is one way you can avoid ‘writer’s block’ and have a list of topics that are relevant to write about.

Don’t miss important dates

When you have your social media calendar completed, you won’t miss important holidays that could affect your business. Just like your personal calendar, you’ll be able to see what dates are important and post appropriately.

6 Instagram Best Practices

Have you tried Instagram yet? If you products or services are image-based, having a presence on Instagram is a great idea.

Instagram has more than 400 million members and consumers are open to following businesses on Instagram.

If your small business is looking to get started with or step up its Instagram efforts, here are six best practices for you to incorporate.

Use a recognizable icon

Branding is key to your business identity. While it can be fun to get creative with different icons on social media, stick to your logo for your icon on Instagram and any of your social media platforms.

Fill the bio space thoughtfully

Instagram gives every user a small space for a bio. Use this space sensibly. Provide a short description of your brand and add a link back to your website. Instagram posts do not allow for link sharing but the bio space does support it. When you post to the news feed, you can include a ‘link in the bio’ caption to encourage followers to take action.

Use hashtags and emojis

In other social media platforms, you need to limit the amount of hashtags and emojis you use, but on Instagram, you can be a bit more liberal in their use.  Since Instagram is a mobile platform, hashtags can help your followers discover content easily and emojis are displayed correctly.

Posts with no hashtags tend to generate less engagement and posts with four or more hashtags can be seen as spammy. The sweet spot for the number of hashtags to use is two per post.

How do you look?

Instagram is strictly a visual social network, so looks matter… a lot. Be creative with your images and you will increase your follows.

Make is social

Remember Instagram is a social media platform so be social with your followers. Engage in conversations and foster those relationships.

It’s not all about you

Do more than just promote your products. Your followers want to get to know you. Yes, you want to post pictures of your products but be sure to switch it up and post about other things. Examples of other posts can be highlighting your employees and pictures of events you are holding or attending.

Happy Grandparents Day!

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. – Stephen Covey

5 Tips to Grow Your Business Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the professional’s social media platform. LinkedIn users don’t post pictures of their kids or their vacations on LinkedIn….those are for Facebook. LinkedIn is where your professional profile lives. You can also create (for free!) a company profile page. These professional pages will help you grow your business.

Here are some tips for using LinkedIn to grow your business:

Create that company profile page

Company pages offer public information about your business and LinkedIn members can search and follow companies that they are interested in.

Be sure to share and update your profile with information about what your business is doing.

Acquire new customers

Ask your satisfied customers to write and post testimonials about their experience with your company. Posting these testimonials on your personal and company profiles can give you an edge over your competition because they probably haven’t thought of putting testimonials on LinkedIn.

Hire the right people

As your business grows, you will need to hire staff. Finding the best and right people to work for your company can be overwhelming if you don’t do it the right way. Use LinkedIn to post your job openings. You can easily and conveniently assess potential candidates by viewing their profiles.

Keep up with current trends

Staying informed with the latest trends will allow you as a business owner to quickly respond to the needs of your customers. LinkedIn has a section containing the latest news in the business world. Take time to read it daily.

Check out your competition

Used LinkedIn to see what your competitors are doing. Adjust your business strategy accordingly.

Happy Labor Day!

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. – Albert Einstein