When you are talking about small business marketing logos, design matters VERY much. There are some basic design elements which can really help or hurt your marketing efforts!

The design of your small business marketing logo is a VERY personal and subjective process. What could appeal to you might not be something that will work well with your industry or the overall function of your business. BUT, there are some basic design functions that are fundamental to your ongoing marketing success which, as a business owner, you probably never considered!

Choosing Your Logo Colors

In this day and age of digital printing, it can be very tempting to have a full color logo instead of a two color basic logo. I think that this is HUGE mistake that can affect the cost of everything from name tags and embroidery to printing and branding. Having two colors allows you to buy offset printing if you get big enough to do large print runs, as well as semi-forcing you to use one of your colors as a “signature color” for your business. I can tell you that for my company, I use the acid green from my logo on EVERYTHING so that when people see it, they think Marketing Artfully!

Another color consideration for your business is that there are “industry” colors that will immediately allow consumers to identify what you might be selling. Some examples include:

• Red and blue for healthcare
• Green for environment products
• Yellow for construction
• Black, gray and navy for technology
• Blue for social media

It is easy to think of companies by the colors they keep! Coca Cola is red, McDonalds is red and yellow, Home Depot is orange, the list is endless. What never ceases to amaze me is that small biz owners do not recognize that having a really strong, simple vector logo is a hallmark of EVERY large corporation. Even knowing that, many of them want to use fancy graphics or design “fluff” which leads me to my next marketing logos rule:

DO NOT USE GRADIENTS IN YOUR MARKETING LOGOS

Can you tell this one of my all time major pet peeves? Having a fancy-smancy gradient is the hallmark of a designer that is not willing to have a fierce conversation with their client! Many of my clients have requested that we do them a logo with all kinds of design fluff that will only cause trouble for them in the future.

Gradients are when the color blends from dark to light or one color to another. It is a “shiney” silver sheen on a logo or a starburst light flash. When you use a gradient in your logo, many things can go wrong. It can be VERY hard to print good black and white copies of it. If you want to use it on a golf shirt, the setup costs can be astronomical, and it requires that you ALWAYS use four color printing.

I cannot stress enough that if you cannot use just two colors then make sure that you have a two-dimensional vector logo that will serve you well for years and years!

Corporate Logo Mistakes

I am not sure if you are aware of it BUT in my marketing world there was a HUGE snafu lately when the gap tried to reinvent their logo. They went from a clean crisp gap word on blue background to a new-fangled gap word with a gradient square. Now I am not saying that the gradient was the entire problem but they DID have to change it back after the uproar!

I am on the wrong side of this one, but I HATE the new YMCA marketing logos! They have 5 (count them 5) different color variations, a gradient and no consistent theme to the coloring. The thinking is that “the Y” will become a hip-hop-happening place because of the new modern colors and the rounded corners on the Y. Give me the old standby that is recognizable and basic design and dress up the brand with some great creative design rather than messing with a good solid logo!

Small Business Marketing Logos Exceptions

As I said before, logo design is VERY subjective. If you cannot stand the thought of a two color logo, make sure that you ADORE whatever you choose!

One of favorite clients, Palm Harbor Realtors Matt and Julia Fishel had us design a VERY unique realtor logo. It was not overly house-y and it was lots of different colors. That having been said, we found great beachy colors to signify their waterfront housing focus and made sure that it had a solid vector design. Then we paired it with “the shacks” that were the same colors as their logo and bada-bing, design brilliance!

The bonus – just this week Julia got a lead from the internet and when asked why they picked her, the new client said because they liked her logo!

For marketing logos and more – find out about our small business marketing services!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Logo Design Mistakes
2. Website and Blog Design – The Wrong Things
3. Realtor Marketing Logos – Does It Have To Have A House?

Small business marketing logo design mistakes plague my business. Many small business owners think fancy trumps functional in logo design, much to their detriment!

Many years ago, making logos was one of the major sources of income for my business. I have made hundreds of logos at this point and want to share some words of wisdom with any small business owners looking for a new or updated logo.

Small business logo design mistakes

First off, just because you can print in 4 colors affordably does not mean that your logo should contain every color of the rainbow. Do not forget, your logo has to look just as good in black and white as it does in full color. Our suggestion is to pick one or two colors that will represent your company and stick with those.

One color? Blasphemy! Until you think of coca cola who has turned red into their signature color or IBM who turned big blue into a household word in the nineties.

Some huge brands who use only two colors in their logo design include Walmart, Visa and McDonalds. These companies all know the power of having an easily recognizable color scheme and a bold font to associate with the corporate identity.

It baffles me that small business owners cannot see that fancy, gradient filled logos are the polar opposite of building a great brand.

Second, should you use just words or should you add an icon to your logo. The Harley Davidson logo combines words with the shield shape to to provide an instantly recognizable symbol for hog riders everywhere. Oh yeah, and they have two colors!

Icons can become synonymous with the brand like the Nike Swoosh or the Apple, well apple. They can also stand in for the logo when they want to have a graphic depiction like the coca-cola bottle shape. Again, these are not super fancy and can easily be recreated on a golf shirt which is my main way of determining the efficacy of a logo design.

Now do not get me wrong, there are fancy logos like Starbucks mermaid logo which does have a lot of moving parts, but at the end of the day it is a two color vector shape that you can embroider on caps and tshirts.

Lastly, colors can make a huge difference in how your company is perceived. Healthcare providers tend to gravitate towards green, blue and red. Technology based companies are deep in the blue, black and gray hues and marketing companies tend to have up-to-date colors like acid green or bright orange.

So why wouldn’t you want to be super different and set yourself apart from the crowd? Well, since most consumers make split second decisions about whether they want to find out more about working with your company, making your logo something way out or whacky could defeat your chances before you even get out of the starting gate.

Branding your company is a purely objective opportunity. Make sure you like the colors, icons and fonts that you use BUT do not make designing it a marathon. Remember that the best logos are clean, crisp and basic.

There you have it, my take on small business logo design mistakes. Luckily, I do not tend to design many logos anymore since I wind up looking like the bad guy for suggesting a clean, crisp design that is more functional than sexy. BUT, I still have to work with lots of logos for clients and I implore small business owners everywhere to take these logo design tips into consideration, no matter which designer you use!

Thanks to Brands of the World for the great graphic logos!

Related posts:

1. Small Business Marketing Logos Design
2. Website and Blog Design – The Wrong Things
3. Realtor Marketing Logos – Does It Have To Have A House?

I LOVE business card marketing. If you are anti-business card, this post is probably not for you, but if you want to find out how to use business card marketing in new and exciting ways, listen up!

Plain Jane Business Card Marketing

I am a proponent of plain jane business cards most of the time. Since I speak at so many events and attend networking A LOT, I need something that I can buy in bulk and hand out like they are free. For these types of cards I use Vistaprint. Oftentimes I will order non-glossy but pretty designed cards hundreds at a time so that I do not have to worry about running out.

What your work horse business cards should have on them

• Your Name – Duh
• A Picture – I like a business card with a picture or a cute logo on it. I use the business people across my branding efforts so they have become synonymous with Marketing Artfully. Some people like to put their picture on the cards. I am split over that one, I like when there is a picture since it helps me to remember the person BUT feel that it is a little less professional than I am shooting for.
• Phone Number – if you want to encourage people to visit your website rather than calling, make your website big and you phone number small!
• Email Address – I KNOW, you get too many emails as it is BUT you do not want to miss opportunities because someone cannot get ahold of you. Many databases need an email to even enter your info!
• Website Address – Make sure people can find you on the internet! Your website address should be www.YourSite.com with caps on the middle words for ease of reading.
• Social Media Links – I WANT people to find me on Facebook and Twitter so that I do not have go find them!
• Your Title – Now this does not have to be your “official” title (mine is officially owner), it should be what your chosen profession is. If you do multiple things, you can add bullets at the bottom, but you should have ONE primary title.
• Bullets – I like to have bullets at the bottom where I can list some other things that our company does.

Fun Business Card Ideas

Okay, now that we have your standard business card out of the way, here are some super fun business card ideas that you can use for special occasion!

Die Cut Business Cards

When I need to do some printing that is a little weird size-wise or shapes, I use uPrinting.com. They are super easy to work with and have some neat products AND they have graciously offered to let me have a contest! WHOO WHOO! Sign up for my newsletter for a chance to win 250 FREE (including the shipping) die-cut business cards! We are giving two sets away on October 4, 2010 to two lucky readers!

Die Cut Business Cards are a fun way to stand out from the crowd. They are a little different shape and can make a big impression for not that much money. Make sure to keep the look and feel similar to your current branding efforts, but HOW COOL would it be to have a round business card to hand out to people? Make sure to have fun with it, for my client with a sanddollar logo, this would be a BRILLIANT idea.

Unique Business Card Uses

Baseball Business Cards

Trinity Realtor, Lori Crawford, called with a GREAT idea! What about using a baseball card format for business cards that she could give to her home sellers to hand out to their friends and family? We looked at a number of different size options for this, but decided that quantity was the most important factor and went with business cards formatted to like like trading cards!

It is this out of the box thinking that can turn a lowly business card into something really special!

QR Code Business Cards

You may not know it but there are some really fun bar codes out there now called QR Codes which let you link a square bar code to any web address you like. When my pal, Cyndee Haydon, was going to a convention recently, she had a code printed on her cards that went to a special page on her site welcoming people who she had met. I LOVE that I have marketing friends!

I like to use scandots.com to make my bar codes because it was super easy and free, but there are many places out there who will take a URL and convert it to a code that smart phones like iPhone, Android and Blackberry can read.

GIANT Business Card Pet Peeve

Well, hopefully you have enjoyed our take on business card marketing! Now for my final word on the subject…DO NOT CARRY AROUND three or four different business cards for all the different things you do. If one more person pulls out a stack of different cards and then says “I wonder which card I should give you”, I am going to scream. It is unprofessional and makes the other person think that you are unsure of what business you are in!

No related posts.

When you are doing internet marketing, keyword and product names are more important than almost anything else you can do. It is great to have a product or service, but if no one can find it then you are going to have trouble making sales!

Friday I wrote a post about Small Business Marketing Naming Concepts which covered the basics of generally naming your products but I feel like I missed something in the internet marketing translation.

Why Keywords and Product Names Matter

I cannot stress this enough, keyword and product names matter more today than ever! Getting sales or leads from the internet relies on humans being able to find your company while doing searches. People find information by doing looking on search engines. Every one of you has “googled” something at least once in your life so you know what I am talking about. Search engines are just databases of information that is indexed by taking words you use and comparing them to words other humans use and seeing if they match.

This is not rocket science. If I name my best product Small Business Internet Express instead of naming it the Marketing Artfully Success System I have more of a chance of showing up in the search engines for the search term “small business internet” which is closer to my product than using my company name or obscure terms like success system.

Just so you know what this would mean to your business in the real world:

• Small Business Internet is searched 49,500 times per month
• Success System is searched 33,100 times per month and
• Business Success System has not enough searches to even estimate

So if I was trying to let small business owners know that I am selling internet products, the name I am using DEFINITELY will have a better chance of being found than something less fun and sexy. Now I KNOW it not fun to name your products what they are. It is more fun to make great marketing campaigns based on something funny or clever, BUT that makes it harder to get the word out there.

As a small business owner, I do not have the resources to do a branding campaign big enough to get the general public and especially the search engines to understand that a made up name is really a small business internet marketing program.

Related posts:

1. Internet and Keyword Marketing Are Constantly Changing
2. Small Business Keyword Marketing
3. Small Business Internet Marketing – RSS Feeds

While we are thrilled to report that New Business Denver featured Marketing Artfully in their Social Networking edition, is that really interesting to our readers? I feel like that kind of notification should be reserved for a press release (more about that later). That having been said, I thought that it would be good to tell you some of the ways that small business owners and entrepreneurs can capitalize on good press!

Blogs are not press release sites and I FIRMLY believe that writing a press release and posting it here does no one any good. It probably just makes you (my loyal readers) roll your eyes and it would definitely not attract the kind of attention that I am looking for, which is for other press people to pick it up and possibly use me as source for information or quotations in the future.

Fortunately there are press release sites that allow you to post your information in a structured format that notifies places like google news that you have published. In my world there is “NEWS” like I am on the cover of a magazine and then there is “news” like I am teaching a workshop.

As some of you may know, I am a pretty frugal marketer and so I do not like to spend the big bucks on press releases. I use the site www.free-press-release.com and I sprang for the big money release – thirty bucks. The super cool thing is that right now I am number 7 on google for the search term “new business denver” for my press release – yay! If you have “news” you can get it out there for one dollar which is a great value. If you are a little less frugal you could use the site www.prnewswire.com which starts at one hundred and twenty five bucks and works up over three grand.

So then I “tweeted” my press release news and will be tweeting my blog post about my press release also. I facebooked and asked my friends to vote up my press release so that I would get more eyeballs (my friends ROCK – I have 14 votes already…:) PLUS it has the added benefit of being about to watch my view stats obsessively just like I do my google analytics. Here’s a link if you would like to read my New Business Denver Social Networking Press Release.

I also social bookmarked my press release on sites like Stumble Upon and Digg (although I did not do all of them since I am going to be promoting this post also and I don’t want to be spammy).

SOOOO if you get great press, make sure you let the world know and try to do it in the proper medium! If you would like to read the whole Social Networking Article on New Business Denver click the link!

Related posts:

1. How To Market Your Small Business
2. Realtor Marketing – Market Like A Maniac Class Available December 22
3. Small Businessses – How To Survive In A Down Market

What is the purpose of an Superbowl advertisement? Is is branding, comedy or SALES? It is my understanding that all advertisements are supposed to generate twice as much revenue as they cost and at the very least should be able to pay for themselves with sales. Here is a VERY subjective look at Superbowl ads old and new and their sales effectiveness.

According to CNN Money, the 2010 super bowl ads cost “a record $2.6 million for a 30-second spot”. Add that to the approximately 1 million dollars it takes to produce the ad. That is a tremendous amount of money to have to recoup with sales and it doesn’t even touch what companies like Dorito’s and Papa Johns paid to be official sponsors of the event.

The other consideration is whether the ad is effective for just men or just women. At halftime my husband’s favorite ads where the Snickers where they slammed Betty White into a puddle and also the Doritos bark collar. I liked the irony of Oprah, Jay and Dave sitting together having a terrible Superbowl party BUT that is totally branding AND you have to know a lot of back story to have it make sense. That having been said, to people who DO pay attention it was worth a chuckle. I also like the ongoing Budweiser ads with the Clydesdales although this years was just okay.

I have been VERY disappointed with the ads and was particularly grouchy about one that had people flipping around in a pool like dolphins. REALLY? You are a Madison Avenue ad firm with a million dollar budget and the ability to do ANYTHING and you come up with slog like that?!?!!?

My Husband’s favorite commercial of all time is far and away the Nissan pigeons. We had a little talk about the effectiveness of the ad since he has never bought a Nissan, but John contends that it is a success because he talks about that commercial years later. He also thinks that paying this much attention to commercials is stupid, but that is a post for another day…:)

I don’t care what anyone says…I LOVED Pets.com and they were around just about the time that Stanley Brown Dog was a puppy so I have to say that single handed-ly tried to purchase enough new toys to keep them in business!! That having been said, having a business model that effectively loses money while spending gagillions on advertising may not be the exact way to go.

The Apple Computer Ad 1984 is my all time favorite commercial and the very first time that I remember noticing advertising as something I liked to study! It was directed by Ridley Scott and has set the bar pretty high for the competition. There IS something to be said for the fact that I did not purchase an Apple product until a couple of years ago – was it actually effective or just neat?

Related posts:

1. Customer Demographics and Super Bowl Commercials

I have been talking about this with humans A LOT lately so I am just going to get it off my chest here. There is NO ONE marketing thing that works! Facebook is not going to change your life, getting a blog or a website will not get you 1000 prospects tomorrow, new business cards – nope, print advertising – nitch, direct mail – nil, video – nada. Small business owners, entrepreneurs and realtors need to get a grip on the fact that anyone selling them THE ONE THING that will take care of all their marketing needs is lying (and not just a little bit, a big fat lie!)

There are a bunch of small business owners who are sad. They do not like doing marketing much and prospecting (calling) is out of the question for them. They are pining for the good old days when they could just place their yellow page ad once a year and then sit back and wait for the phone to ring. Realtors are looking for a time when sitting in the office meant that you got the next live buyer or seller that walked in the door for floor time. Pine away, those days are gone and yearning for them just means your small business is slower to get going in the new, more competitive marketplace.

Think about what has come and gone even in just the last decade…

• I started 2000 arguing with business owners that having a flash movie between their website and the search engines was harmful (and expensive)
• HTML built websites were hard to build, expensive to change and gave way to…database and frame websites that were hard for search engines to find!
• No one even knew about google
• Direct mail fell off the map in the latter part of the decade (smart marketers know that now is the time to get in when competition is low)
• Advertising in newspapers stopped being the other easy way to market
• Snazzy marketing materials and design became affordable at Vistaprint.com
• Blogs showed up as a great way to get found by search engines and were easy to use
• Social networking like myspace came and went and new ones like twitter and facebook took their place
• AND people started using the internet to find small businesses instead of using..wait for it…the yellow pages!!!

Now-a-days small business owners have to be more marketing savvy. They do not have to learn HOW to do the actual technical parts but they DO need to know what works the best for their business AND get involved. I can guarantee that no one will love your business like you do so handing over your marketing to a snake oil saleman could be death of it!

I am putting this out there loyal readers – before you spend more than $1,000 on any type of marketing please post a link to what you are thinking about here. If I think it is great I will publish it and give  your marketer some great publicity and you the thumbs up. If I think it less than great I will message you behind the scenes and let you know my thoughts. I have talked to too many small business owners lately who are spending a FORTUNE on snake oil…:(

There is an affiliate link for vistaprint in this post, if you click that and then sign up I will get a little bit of money, if you would like to avoid giving me a little bit of money type it in manually.

Related posts:

1. 20 Percent Of Marketing Works But Which 20 Percent
2. Real Small Business Marketing
3. Internet Marketing – Making the most of your marketing efforts

Making A Membership Site is HARD! If you are planning one or even considering making one I have some tips and tricks that I have discovered while making my Small Business, Entrepreneur and Realtor Marketing Membership site.

Step One – Figure out what you are going to sell on your membership site

I have A TON of marketing information all around the internet, some free and some paid. It is on different blogs, on different pages and some is even hidden from the world right now (I am a great marketer, NOT a great organizer). So a membership site allowed me to get it all in one place at one time. It also allowed me to get up and running with content quickly. If you do not have “stuff” made already, you are going to have to build that into the timeline or cost of setting up your membership site. Here are some things I am going to be adding to my site:

• Videos
• Recorded webinars
• Recorded teleseminars
• Ebooks
• Posts for members only
• Photos of how I do my internet marketing
• PDFs and Word Doc of forms I have set up for doing each part of my business

Step Two – Figure out what software to use to make your membership site

I have checked out a number of membership site options online including WildApricot.com, iGroops.com and a WordPress pluging called Wishlist for WordPress. While wishlist seemed like it would take more time (and money) to set up initially, since I planned on going for the long haul it just made sense. Here are some of the things I liked about Wishlist:

• It allowed me to pay one time ($99) instead of a monthly fee like some of the others had
• It allowed me to set up different levels (I have realtors and entrepreneurs who are interested in different things so I HAVE to be able to separate them)
• It allowed me put everything in one place
• I can add people on the back end without having to have them come through my shopping cart (this was SUPER important to me since I have people who have already purchased services and who I don’t want to have to charge again)
• I could set up one time charges for a lifetime membership instead of having to bill monthly (I am anti-subscription because I CAN NOT HAVE one more thing that I pay for monthly AND I don’t want to have to keep up with monthly billing hassles….:)
• It integrated with PayPal and 1ShoppingCart so while I am using PayPal right now for ease of setup, I can switch to 1ShoppingCart down the line if I get all fired up to do affiliate programs

Lastly you have to Figure out how to get people to sign up for your membership site!

I am fortunate to have a vast network of people and internet properties where I can market my membership site. If you do not have that you need to figure out a way to get people interested in your topic or information. Here are some of the ways that I plan to market my membership site:

• On my blog(s)
• In my newsletter
• When I speak for free
• When I speak paid
• Tweet it
• Facebook page it
• Direct mail
• Ask for referrals
• Have my project manager call my database
• Give away free memberships to get people interested and using the site (my “free” memberships cost a dollar because I can’t figure out how to make them free-free…:)
• PPC – Pay per click

Final thoughts! DO NOT let anything stop you if you want to make a membership site. It was scary and frustrating getting it set up for the first time. I am not sure it works exactly right (I think some levels can see things they shouldn’t be able to and the navigation bar is a little wonky) BUT it is up and ready to roll. If you think you are going to be able to roll something out on this scale without a few hiccups you might as well stop right now and read The Dip by Seth Godin! In every endevour there is a dip where you think it will never work right and if you start not knowing that you will get through it then you have failed before you began!

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

Right now this post is the only way to access the site, since I wanted to give my marketing artfully readers the first crack at banging around in there. I will keep you up with how it goes over on the membership site AND if you have gotten this far and would like to access the site for half price lifetime memberships – please call me and I will send you a payment link and get you set up personally (this will come off as soon as I know that the site is working properly and will not be repeated)

Related posts:

1. Should you digg your own site?
2. Internet Marketing – Making the most of your marketing efforts
3. Big Changes Coming!

You know I never re-post stuff from other people but Gabor Olah of PLRwholesaler sent out one of the more informative emails that I have gotten recently. His email about how to write a great small business marketing sales letter was very informative and easy to understand. PLR is Private Label Rights and this guy offers a bunch of great content (make sure you get on his mailing list)!

Many people have asked what’s the secret to writing a compelling sales letter that sells. Every communication you send to customers or prospects should have a clear purpose – and your sales letter is no different.

Now there’s simply not enough space to go into detail about every aspect of your sales letter, but below is a
brief summary of some of the major points you need to address.

Before sitting down to write a sales letter make sure you are clear about the product or service you are offering, the price, any bonus offers, whether there is a time limit, etc.

Think from the point of view of the customer. What will make them interested in your product or service?

Do not make the letter about you or your company. You will not make sales by telling customers about the latest events in your office or the history of your company’s expansion. The letter should be about the customer, their problems, and how you can solve them.

Headlines are the most important part of a sales letter. So it’s important that you try to come up with at least twenty different headlines and then select the best.

Generally headlines should be longer than 3 or 4 words, but less than 17 words. Take a look at newspaper headlines and other sales headlines for inspiration. Be specific. If you have a figure of 37% then use it, do not say ‘over 30%’. Do not exaggerate in your headline to get attention. If it cannot be believed readers will not bother to look further.

When you first begin writing the main body of the letter do not edit it as you write. Just write what you think is the main, important message and do not stop to correct spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. If necessary stare determinedly at the keyboard as you write, or better still turn the monitor off on your PC.

The reason for this is that if you continually stop to make corrections the words will not flow and the message may become confused. Don’t get me wrong, it’s vitally important to make sure that your final copy contains no spelling mistakes. But this should be done once your first draft is completed.

Avoid long sentences and paragraphs in your sales letter. You want to make the letter as easy to read as possible and the most effective way to do this to “trick the eye” by creating whitespace.

You can do this by breaking the letter up into subheadings that refer to the contents of the next section. Your subheadings should give enough information for someone skimming down the page to understand your offer.

Once you feel your letter is complete put it aside for a while before reading through it again. You may spot
mistakes or areas of confusion that you didn’t initially notice.

If you cannot leave it for a period of time give it to someone else to read. Ask them to skim through it to see if they get the main points of the message. If they do they can then read each sentence and give you their impression of the letter.

Now as I mentioned at the start, this is only a very brief summary on the steps you need to follow to create a sales letter. While it’s by no means a full-blown explanation, it gives you a place to start.

Sincerely,
-Gabor

Find out more about PLRwholesaler!

Related posts:

1. A great marketing letter?
2. Small Business Lead Generating Sales Funnel
3. Writing Great Headlines from Top 10 Internet Tools

Small business branding is NOT an art! It is also NOT a science! But it is vitally important to your business. If you have not done so yet, do (or get some done) keyword research so that you know the two or three terms that matter in your industry to whomever is purchasing your products or services.

Then name your business – NOT NOT name it something cute or personally fulfilling. Can you guess what Safer Dates sells, how about Business Writing Ink or Marketing Artfully? What do you think Etsy sells (crafts), Endodis (kitchen and restaurant supplies) or Geico (insurance). As a small business owner you do not have enough money to start a branding campaign to convince people that geckos go with insurance!

Then brand (name) your products or services. Products are easy because you have something tangible to work with, services can seem harder but giving them a name and a set price. STOP, I know that everything you offer has variables and that you CAN’T put a price on your services because they are flexible. The internet and humans HATE flexible. Put a name and a price on it and then put a disclaimer that it could be higher or lower depending on the circumstances!

I offer a Small Business Marketing Inspection: ($100) Review your current marketing plan on a two hour consultation call (or visit if you are local to Clearwater or the Boulder area) detailing areas of excellence and suggestions for areas you may need some additional work on!

This is something people can understand and call to ask me about. For startups, this is enough but sometimes small business owners are ready for the next level of service which is $500 and which offers more. And sometimes they want a custom solution to their marketing needs, BUT if I never got them talking with a solid, BRANDED and PRICED offer I would be dead in the water!

So to recap our branding talk:

1. Do some keyword research to find out what the internet and your potential customers think your business or products should be about
2. Name your business something that will help your sales
3. Name your products or services and give them a price

Next time we will talk about how to take that brand online!

Related posts:

1. Being Authentic Is The New Black – Small Business Branding
2. Small Business Marketing Say EXACTLY What You Are Selling
3. Small Business Marketing Planning