Building a business is virtually identical to building a structure from steel and cement, the principal is the same, spend the most time building a solid foundation and scale from there. Although I'm comparing ideologies to concrete structures you can take the same theory behind it and apply it to creating or renovating your business.

The foundation

Before a building is built, a team of excavators must level the playing field and make sure it is worthy enough to pour the foundation. When you plan on building a company, you need to make sure your in the right area, the right industry and have the resources to continue further successfully. Identify that your idea is worthy of starting and make sure you do your homework and establish the goals of your business. The days of whipping out a fort out of blankets is over, it's time to grow up and make sure your "fort" is worthy to support yourself because if it fails, your financial stability will seize.

Once you level and check the ground to scale upon, you need to lay the foundation, the structure that allows you to scale your company. By making it solid from the start, you can avoid the costly and time consuming aspects of making it stronger, later. A solid foundation consists of a business plan and business operation structure, these will be your blueprints and what you will turn to if you ever get lost during construction. Even if you are not seeking capital, a business plan is essential no matter what you are going into. Your BP will outline the structure and operations within your business,it helps you set your goals, stay focused and achieve them. Another part of the foundation is establishing your company (LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, ect).

Scaling up

Once the cement is poured and dry, you can begin scaling your company and with a solid foundation, the sky is the limit. The more you grow the more successful you can become.

Start with a company image, the overall look of your building, appear professional and able to provide quality service to your customers. Appearance is everything in business, do you want to look like your operating from the ghettos of the Bronx or downtown Manhattan?

Create a website, no matter what your business entails, a website is no longer a luxury but absolutely crucial to appear as a solid and established business. A website allows you to have your building not only where your put it, but at every home in the world. This will open a whole new realm of customers. Like your building, you need a professional website, one that has be designed and developed by a qualified firm to capture the image of your company. Even if you can locate a budget web developer, much like a budget contractor you will have poor quality and it will almost never be done on time.

Continue Scaling

The process of scaling is never complete, or it never should be. If you continue to dedicate yourself into your business, this process will never stop but continue to grow and expand as your revenue does. Begin to market heavily and hire a team to manage your online marketing practices as well.

Before you know it, you will be the only building in the city to see the sunrise and sunset everyday.

Posted by Phil Antonson at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

No matter what size your business is, you can directly benefit from taking a strong online presence. Often times people will think, why do I need a website? I am not trying to reach a global audience. The truth is, you are not focusing on the global market, there is a significant local audience that will find you on the web.

What business can benefit from local internet marketing?

All businesses can benefit from local internet marketing, whether you are offering a service or a product however, those who benefit the most will be those with a standard "Yellow Page" appeal. What I mean by "Yellow Page" appeal are services such as:

Plumbing
Electrical
Attorneys
Landscaping
Pest control
Construction

By utilizing effective local online marketing strategy's you will benefit from more customers, for a fraction of the cost of traditional local marketing.

Where to start?

First off, you need an online presence, mainly, a website. On this website you should have information about your services and potentially rates as well as an online store for product based companies. Depending on the nature of your business, your website can be extremely simple and maintained very little. Here is a list of things that your website should stress about your company:

1. Explain your service - Quickly inform your visitor of the services your business conducts. If they notice you offer what they are looking for, they will continue to look through your website.
2. Inform of your location - When you are targeting a local audience it is crucial to inform where you conduct your business. By listing your location various times, it can drastically assist in your search engine rankings.
3. Competitive advantage - Odds are, your visitors have also looked at 3 other websites offering the same service. Now is your opportunity to stress your competitive advantage. Explain why you are better than your competitors.
4. Make your users act - When you have your visitor's attention, it is time to call the to action. Make them call or fill out a quote. The sooner you can get them to inquire about your services, the more likely they will be to use your services.
5. Professional appeal - Show your visitors that you are a quality and credible company. Make sure your website is professional and appealing. Often times people will reflect the appeal to the quality of your services.

Consider your population

If you are based in a larger city, obviously your local market will be much less than if you are based in a small town. If you are located within a small distance from a major hub, consider targeting to that area instead of the particular area that you are based.

If you are a service company in Town-A which has a population of 2,000 targeting your specific town online won't be very effective, traditional advertising methods will suit you better. If Town-A is located less than 30 miles from a larger city, you can target towards that city.

Search Engine Optimization

If an individual is going to search for something locally on the web, they will typically search in the following format.

[Service] in [town/city]

i.e. Plumber in Minneapolis

With that being said, it is crucial that you focus your keywords on your particular services in a particular city or town. Consult a SEO firm to assist you in focusing your keywords.

Driving traffic to your website

Not always can you solely use the search engine process to generate visitors. The reason being is that the search engine indexing process is very time sensitive. A new website may not be indexed within major search engines for several months or even a year.

Fortunately, there are several ways to boost your local traffic without spending much time or money.

PPC Services - PPC (Pay Per Click or Search Engine Marketing) services allow you to "bid" on specific keywords. When these keywords are entered into the search engine, your website will be listed in the most predominately noticed areas (top and top right column). When a person clicks on your ad, it will cost you the amount you bid for that keyword. The prices change daily and some keywords are more competitive than others, thus will cost more. Remember that your PPC bid will not convert to multiple search engines, i.e. Google Adwords PPC won't effect Yahoo.

SEO - SEO (Search Engine Optimization) allows you to speed up that rate that your website is indexed in major search engines and your ranking on the search engines. There are many DIY SEO tactics that you can use to help your rankings but to benefit the most, quickest, we recommend hiring a qualified SEO firm.


There are many more effective tactics to market locally other than the 2 mentioned. Search your community on the web and find different outlets to market.

Labels: promoting locally online

Posted by Phil Antonson at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

One of the most exciting moments of your business is the launch and the impact your company makes in the market. Essential to launch is formulating your companies main message and selling that message to the media for the first time. With a new company the last thing you want is a subtle entry, when you launch you want to take the market by storm, no, scratch that, hurricane - quick, powerful and widespread. Whether you have a million dollar marketing budget or none, a solid PR plan is essential to sending your message to the largest population of people, a PR plan is also the most cost-effective. PR generates buzz and interest, media coverage and an unbiased opinion.

When developing a company message, think of your appeal and impact you are going to make in the market. How will your service or product exceed that of your competition? What will you offer that is not currently on the market? Those are solid questions that you need to establish in your main company message, if you can't clearly identify such benefits, why should customers seek out you rather than competitors? When you clearly state your competitive advantage and benefit to society, exploit the hell out of it, your best asset and chances of success will rely heavily on that message.

New companies aren't identified by image

When a new company starts, nobody will identify that company by their name, logo, or image, you need to connect all of your marketing to your PR plan. Market your message and your name, people's association with your image will follow, sometimes that will take months, other times, years. Believe it or not, McDonalds was not instantly recognized by it's logo. It provided fast, cheap and "quality" burgers and marketed that. Now when you see that logo, you immediately associate their message with what they offer, fast and cheap.

A PR message doesn't and often times shouldn't be established only for your business a whole. Whenever your introduce a new product, that same message should be established and like your business people will associate it's image with the product itself.

So how do you establish that PR and give it to the public?

Advertise your message on everything your company

• Websites, when such a hefty portion of people will see and investigate what you have to offer is found on your website, it is very important to get that message across clearly.
• Business cards, also be used to distribute your message and can be quite effective. When you are networking with other individuals, you never know when the next "big thing" will hit.
• Blogs, blogs are very powerful tools that can create instant responses from the online going public. Every day cover a topic of your service/product/industry, create hype, direct other bloggers to your own and see the buzz spread like wildfire.
• Distribute press releases, if you are a good writer you can write your own but it is often recommended to hire a qualified PR writer. The press release should cover all aspects of your message and remain detailed, but rather brief. Most press releases will be around 1 to 2 pages in length. There are several websites in existence who take your press release and can distribute them to thousands of viewers. A couple of these sites offer to host your press release for free however the best results are seen with a paid service ranging from $100-700.
• Go local, never underestimate the power of your local audience. The power they hold is extreme while they are generally very easy to connect to. Depending on the nature of your business, contact your local paper to cover a story of your business and soon after you can attract larger publishers.

While the topics covered barely tear the skin into PR as a whole, you can clearly see its importance and ease of implementation. By following the simple tasks on the road to quality PR, you can quickly see the momentum your company will gain.

Labels: PR, public relations

Posted by Phil Antonson at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments

What makes a good website and what makes a bad one? There are many different aspects to a website that when combined, will make a dictionary definition of a good website. Some aspects of considering a website "good" is opinion based such as the appearance and graphics used within the site. People have different tastes, much like with homes, if everyone liked the same colors and themes, we would live in a very boring world. Appearance is only a small portion of what makes a good website, additional factors include content, usability and structure.

• Content and site purpose: So you want a site or already have one, what is the purpose of your site and what do you want to accomplish? Before starting or continuing with your site, you need to set objectives and how you want visitors to benefit from using your site. The content of your site should always be kept up to date and reflect the main goal of your website. If your site's objective is to sell computers, you obviously don't want to write about how to change a tire.
• Appearance: Appearance and the colors used strike an emotional reaction which can be used to make people feel a different way such as to buy. Different colors evoke different feelings. The psychology of colors is time proven and used by professional web designers to manipulate different messages to the users. A design should never be overly complex and confusing and the design should reflect the business and the service or product that you have to offer.
• Usability: A website should be easy and intuitive to use, the navigation should be easily accessed on every page of your site. You never need to click more than 4 times to go to a specific page, a general rule of thumb is 2 or less clicks should get you to any page of the site. Complicated navigation structure will quickly frustrate your visitors and they will bounce quickly if they can't find what they are looking for.
• Site Structure: This aspect cannot be seen by your visitors but is crucial to having a good website. The foundation of your site lies within the coding and programming structure. A solid site should be openly usable in all browsers, all screen size, all operating systems and without additional plugins such as Flash. Large amounts of potential customers can be lost if your website isn't compatible with different systems.
• ISP: Your service provider (host) is also extremely valuable in a good website. Your host should have great uptime (99.9%+) and boast fast transfer speeds. When was the last time you stuck around for a site that took more than a minute to load?
• Marketing: A good site should at least promote a good SEO practice and rank well within the major search engines.
  

Combine those key aspects and you will have a good website and if you ever need help with ensuring that you have a good website, Revived Media is always here to help.

Labels: what makes a good website

Posted by Phil Antonson at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments