5 Productive Things to Do During Your Holiday Downtime

Taking time off during the holidays is necessary to recharge your batteries and spend time with family and friends.

While it can be tempting to take time off completely during the holidays, there is something to be said for dealing with some things that have been hanging around for “when you have time.”

Well, now is ‘the time’ and you will find that just trying one or two things on this list will make a big difference when you return to your office after the holidays.

Play With That New Technology

There is never the right time to learn a new technology when you’re up to your neck in client work. Time off during the holidays is the perfect time to play around with a new technology you’ve been wanting to learn. You’re not taking time away from client work and you can spend an hour here and there learning. No pressure!

Catch Up On Reading

Spend some of your downtime escaping in a good book. For me, the ultimate relaxing afternoon is curling up on the couch with a good mystery and a glass of wine.

You can also read for work. You may be too busy during your normal week to read business-related books, so now is the time to crack them open and educated yourself about your industry or job.

Write Thank-you Notes

Thank-you notes are a great way to keep in touch with your clients and show your appreciation for their business. Sending a hand written note will distinguish your business from your competitors. Today, we seem to be so informal, using email as the only way to communicate.

If you don’t know what to say in a thank-you note, we’ve got you covered. Click HERE for a link to Hallmark’s website which has some great ideas for writing that personal thank-you note.

Set Goals for Next Year

Spend some time during the holidays to reflect on the past year and set goals for the upcoming year. Having a set of goals gives you a baseline for measuring your success and keeps you motivated to stay on course.

Learn a New Job-related Skill

You may want to learn a new skill to make your job easier to perform. The holidays are the perfect time to take an online course. If you’ve always wanted to learn Photoshop, search online for courses that are offered and sign up. By spending few hours a day for a week or two learning a new skill will allow you to comfortably integrate this skill into your job.

Yes, holidays are meant for relaxation but by spending a few hours on work-related things, you will enter the New Year better prepared. 

The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first. – Iyanla Vanzant

Merry Christmas!

Happy Hannukah!

Happy First Day of Winter!

Rebranding Checklist

OMG! When you run a small business and you’re looking to rebrand, you forget how many things you’ve got branded with your company name and logo.

Blue Dog Marketing is in the process of rebranding (look for an announcement in early 2017!) so we’re putting together a checklist of everything we need to do to make the renaming of our company a smooth process.

Here is what we’ve come up with so far:

The new name

You have to work with an attorney to do a search to see if your new business name is available and you can legally use it. If someone else has already registered the business name in another state, you can be sued for infringement. Your attorney will also check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make sure the trademark is available. We’re using Tracy Jong of Tracy Jong Law Firm. She specialized in small business law and is easy to work with.

This was all the easy part….seriously! Now comes all the work integrating your new name into your business.

Website and Social Media

You need to make sure the domain name you want is available. When you find want you want, purchase it! You can have your old domain address point to your new rebranded website to help make the transition easy. Oh, that means you also need a new website!

You will also want to make sure the social media handles you want are available. If they aren’t, work on something as close to your brand as possible. Switch your social media profiles to the new name so you can retain your fans and followers.

New Logo

Design a new logo. Being a marketing firm, this part is easy for us. For others thinking about rebranding, this is where you’ll want a marketing firm to assist you.

Update your website with your new logo and name. For a few months, you should have some content on the home page letting people know that you have rebranded and that they are on the correct website.

Marketing Materials

Update all your marketing materials. This includes not only your brochures and sell sheets but your business cards, email signatures, proposal forms, invoices, trade show booths, and giveaways.

Your email signature can also be another way of letting people know that you have rebranded. Just like on your website, use your email signature to tell people who you used to be so they’re not confused.

Notify people

Your clients and vendors are the first people you should notify once the rebrand is in place. Formal announcements are a great way of letting people know about your rebrand.

Send out press releases announcing your rebrand. This is a great place to tell the story of your brand.

You also have to update your bank account. And notify any organizations that you belong to, such as a Chamber of Commerce, so they have your membership correct.

If you can, hold a launch party for your clients and vendors. What a great way to get the buzz going about your new and exciting venture!

We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s a part of success. – Arianna Huffington

Thinking About Rebranding Your Business?

A business’ brand is their core identity. It is the collection of the ideals, values, characteristics and personality of your company.

Sometimes, brands rebrand. There are many reasons why. For some, a crisis occurred; for others, they just felt they needed to come up with a more modern brand.

Rebranding isn’t something that should be done on a whim.

But if you are deciding to rebrand, here are some important steps for you to take:

Identify your goals

Like any marketing strategy, you must first identify your goals. Are you just reshaping your company’s image or are you rebuilding from scratch? Have you identified a new market that you must appeal to?

Your name change should coincide with other business principles changing too. You risk losing all the brand value you’ve built if this isn’t the case.

If you’ve outgrown your original mission, it’s time to rebrand. Over time, markets change and a rebrand is necessary to keep your company competitive.

If you have too many names for your business, it’s definitely time to rebrand. Consider the story about FedEx. Before they became FedEx, now a well-known company and logo, they were Federal Express and they had too many names for too many services. 

After a year of research, they rebranded to their new identity, FedEx.

Get professional help

Working with a marketing firm can help you do a rebrand the right way. You need so much ‘new stuff’ like a logo, website, domain name and more. A marketing firm can help you with all of these.

Have a story

Give your new brand a story. Find out what makes your products or services resonate with your clients.

Announce your new brand

Rollout your new brand in a series of formal announcements. Celebrate the change with your clients by possibly holding a launch party.

Blue Dog Marketing will be rebranding in early 2017. We want to share this experience with our clients and readers so if or when they decide to rebrand, we can better assist them with all the steps necessary to have a successful rebrand experience. Stay tuned!

We become what we think about. – Earl Nightingale

My best successes came on the heels of failure. – Barbara Corcoran

Why Your Business Needs a Blog

It’s so easy to talk yourself into not writing a blog. I don’t have the time. What should I write about? I’m not a very good writer.

Well, I’m not buying those excuses. Blogging is one of the best ways to improve your online presence and grow your business so you need to start blogging….now!

Why does your business need a blog?

Be the expert

Blogging about a subject sets you up as an expert on the subject. Write about what you know and what you do for a living.

Be Visible

Blogging increases your business’ visibility. A blog increased your chances of being found online. Adding your blog to your website increases your website’s ranking on Google searches.

Share your blog posts on your social media platforms too. This will increase your visibility too. Business professionals visit sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter every day and will see your posts.

Keep your clients informed

Set yourself apart from other bloggers by keeping on top of what’s happening in your field. Read industry magazines and articles about the most recent developments. Share this information with your clients and other readers of your blog.

Remember about 18 months ago when Google changed the search engine algorithms and if you wanted your website to rank on the first page, your website had to be mobile-friendly? I read about this and quickly wrote a blog letting my readers know about this change. It was crucial that they get their websites mobile-friendly fast so they didn’t slip in the rankings.

Your excuses…

If you think you don’t have the time, it’s easy to schedule your posts with software like Hootsuite.com. Your blogs can be posted once a week or once a month. Just pick a schedule and stick to it.

If you think you can’t write, believe me, the more you do it, the better you will become. Just start writing and keep it up. You will see an improvement.

If you really don’t think you have the time or the skill to blog for your business, then contact a marketing firm, like Blue Dog Marketing, and we can ghost-blog for you! 

Best Free Stock Photo Sites

If you’re like me, you need great images for your blog posts. Did you know that even if you find a great picture on the web you may not have permission to use it? Many companies and photographers have sued small businesses like yours because you have not paid to use an image that was found online.

You can go to some of the stock photo companies online and purchase images but that can get costly and quite often the pictures are cheesy.

You can find high-quality stock photos online for free. Yes, free!

Here are some of the sites I use so check them out:

Unsplash                  

Unsplash uploads 10 news photos everyday so this is a site you’ll want to check back with often. There are a lot of great photos for business use here. Definitely worthy of being bookmarked.

Death to the Stock Photo                                   

Death to the Stock Photo will send you a batch of free pictures every month. Just sign up on their site.

Negative Space                              

You can get new images every week from Negative Space. All of their photos are available without copyright restrictions….you can use them however you want.

Kaboompics                        

Are you looking for some great fashion, food or landscape photos? Check out this site.

Startup Stock Photos                   

This site has some great photos for many different businesses to use.

Stokpic                                 

Get 10 new photos sent to you every 2 weeks from Stokpic. You can use these on your website, in a brochure or an ad…basically anywhere you need a great photo.

Now that you have some great free places to get amazing, professional photos to use on your website, marketing materials, or blog, be sure to use these great images instead of trolling the web. 

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. - Maya Angelou