A father and son both own cabinet installation companies, the son’s business is thriving while the father’s is struggling, what is the difference? Why is the son’s business working with larger corporate clients and earning greater profits?

One significant difference is that the son invested in branding his company while his father never did. When we talk about branding, we are not talking about just a logo, we are referring to the set of tools used to market a business and the experiences your customers have with your business. It is the perception you want people to have about your business.

Using visual and verbal consistency to promote your brand is a great first step. Building a brand is not about short-term results but about long-term results, it takes vision and dedication. And yes, every small business can accomplish this, here are the ways we worked with our client Cheyenne Dental Group to build a successful brand:

1. Defining the business and how we want to be perceived

Cheyenne Dental Group was started by Dr. My G. Tran, DDS, a dentist younger than most of his peers. He wanted to emphasize that his office incorporates the latest technology that is more advanced than surrounding competitors. However, unlike other state-of-the-art practices, Cheyenne Dental Group is affordable for most patients.

2. Determining the audience

Cheyenne Dental Group’s focus was to penetrate the Las Vegas community, a community that is saturated with dental practices, so we focused on a target audience – younger families and young couples. Research showed that the female in the family generally makes healthcare decisions; and the brand identity was developed to connect with the female audience. Dr. Tran wanted his patients to feel comfortable that his practice can provide comprehensive care for every family member.

3. Telling our story, one that people will remember

The visual illustration we developed of a young couple dancing on grass and a smiling cloud, exclaiming “When you smile…The world smiles back.” is an advertisement that the community has associated with Cheyenne Dental Group over the past 3 years. The ad was meant to signify that having a healthy and beautiful smile makes a positive impact. Along with the illustration we included a coupon that provides a financial incentive for people to experience care at Cheyenne Dental Group. In this ad, we were able to accomplish two things, show that Cheyenne cares about the health of a person’s smile and provides it at an affordable rate.

4. Consistency and details matter

Cheyenne’s colors, logo, and curved styling are all a part of their visual identity system used on all marketing collateral to maintain a consistent brand identity. The curves in the design are supposed to portray friendliness and engage the female audience, while the metallic shine on the logo communicate the cleanliness of the office.

We used these design elements and messages on all of the practice’s print collateral, web design and email marketing. Patients began to quickly identify what the logo, pictures and colors represented.

5. Follow-through with the customer experience

The perception you build with the branding design and messaging has to align with the reality of your service. Nike and Apple do a great job bringing the brands to life, when you walk into those company stores there is a specific experience they provide.

Again, Branding is not as simple as a logo, or consistent designs, it is a holistic approach of how you portray your business and follow through. Cheyenne Dental Group has been very successful with its brand; it makes a promise through visual and verbal consistency and keeps the promise with the patient experience.

Cheyenne Dental Group is a lot like Apple and Nike, it promises to provide “the premier dental experience”, and it follows through; from the friendliness of the front desk, to the flat screen televisions, and digital x-ray machines they use for exams.

The Book:
Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap..and Other’s Don’t, by Jim Collins

The Big Idea:
Good is the enemy of Great. In order to become a great company stop relentlessly focusing on what to do, and instead starting focusing on what NOT to do.

If You Read Nothing Else:
In chapter 5, Collins speaks about “The Hedgehog Concept.” The idea is that the strategy of your entire company should be based upon the intersection of the following three circles: What can you be the best in the world at?; What drives your economic engine?; What are you deeply passionate about?

Rigor Rating: 5
(1=Skip the book, 5=Absolute Must-Read)
Good to Great was actually written after 15,000 hours of work by over 22 people. The book is organized with invaluable information that outlines greatness in such areas as leadership, hiring, and company strategy. If you are a business owner or a manager, be sure to read this instant classic.

There are a lot of reasons a company and organization should consider using video marketing. Great brands tell great stories to capture audiences – the right video content can help position your brand to stand out from the crowd. Here are 8 quick reasons why you should consider video marketing.

1. Get More Exposure
YouTube is currently the 2nd most popular search engine behind Google (note: it is also owned by Google).

By producing videos based on a variety of topics you can improve your chances of receiving attention. You can multiply this traffic by uploading your video to other video sharing sites such as:

Yahoo! Video
Google Video
Facebook
Metacafe
Dailymotion
And many more….

2. Motion Picture Appeal
Not all of your visitors prefer to receive content they have to read. Many prefer to watch, listen and read at the same time. With video you improve your opportunity to appeal to more people. For example, people would rather watch a product demo than read a product demo.

3. Gain Top Search Engine Rankings
Google is now using what is called “Universal Search Results” giving searchers a mixed result of websites, videos and other media. Currently, not many small businesses are using videos to help rank for competitive keywords. If you add videos to your marketing mix you could achieve top rankings in your niche.

Example
If you enter “how to drive a car” in the Google search box some of the top search results are videos.

4. Viral Marketing
Developing a strategy to create a valuable or entertaining video that your fans/followers love and want to share could lead to mass exposure and more fans/followers. Web users have many ways to share videos with friends on Email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the plethora of social book-marking/sharing websites.

5. Inexpensive
Nowadays most computers come with free software that can help you import, edit, convert and upload videos to video sharing web sites. In addition, inexpensive camera phones, and flip cameras (Flip Mino HD) have the ability to capture quality footage.

6. Become Recognized As An Expert
If you work hard at your craft and want to convey your expertise, video is a great communication channel to do so. This can be a great opportunity for you to become recognized as an authority in your field. Once again, you can use a basic video camera for this.

7. People Buy From Businesses They Trust
The Internet is often seen as an impersonal place where it’s hard to trust anybody because site owners don’t provide any contact information and online scams are common. A video offers your visitors a very personal touch that helps remove the fear of doing business with you.

8. Makes Your Website More Engaging
Web visitors skim through websites more than ever. Video gives you one more opportunity to capture your visitor’s attention, thus increasing the amount of time the visitor will spend learning about your business.

If you have any questions about developing and producing successful video marketing, please contact us: info@infinitecomm.net or 818.990.9843.

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. Not great numbers if the purpose of a headline is to get someone to read your material.

Before you read more, your takeaways from this from this article will be:

1. Headlines are a promise to your reader
2. Have a set goal before writing your material
3. Write, rewrite, test, and rewrite
   
4. Headlines with lists and “how-tos” are very effective
5. The best headlines are specific and straightforward

Headlines (and email subject lines) are a promise to your reader of the value that you will be providing; specifically, what they should expect to takeaway from the article or email you crafted. Therefore, you have to promise that what you are offering will make an impact and is worthwhile.

It is essential to have a goal prior to writing an article, email or blog post, usually to receive a response from your target audience. In business, you normally want a response that causes the reader to act (i.e. for the reader to comment and like your post or in this case to connect with me on Linkedin).

Writing and rewriting – investing the time and effort to tweak what you have started writing will help you make the headline useful. Typically you should give yourself a day away from the material so you have fresh eyes. If you are writing your sales page or website landing page, you should write a dozen headlines and test which works best.

Numbered and list headlines are successful because they tell you the amount of information the reader will receive. With a headline such as, “99 Tips to Makeover Your Home”, your reader knows exactly what they are getting by reading your article.

Stating the specific outcomes the reader will get by reading your article is extremely effective. For example, a headline that reads “7 Tips That Will Help You Save 130% on Your Summer Vacations” will grab more readers because it tells them what to expect. By reading this headline we know the number of tips we are getting and the amount we will save by following those tips – pretty straightforward.

A great tip I learned was to emulate headlines on the front cover of magazines in supermarket aisles. Those headlines only have a second to get the shopper to buy the entire magazine – they need to be powerful.

Remember “repetition is the mother of skill.”

Click here to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Word on the street is that blogging helps with your search engine optimization efforts, and yes that’s true, however the main idea you should keep in mind is that blogging is a “value-added deliverable” that differentiates you from competitors and helps create the perception that you are the absolute expert in your field. By educating and informing visitors of your blog, you are building trust with each one of them. And as you should know by now, all things being equal, people will do business with those they like and trust!

What Are Others Writing About?

Your first step is to determine if your audience is using the Internet, (nowadays, I think it is safe to say they are) and to find out what other people in your industry are blogging about / and getting responses for.

You can always start the researching process by searching your business category (i.e. “business law”) combined with the word “blog.”

What Should You Write About?

As with any marketing or communications material, a blog post has to be tailored to your customer base. That means the blog posts have to be timely, useful and easy to comprehend. Some ways to accomplish this are to write:

• How To’s: How-To articles have been popular since the invention of the magazine.

• Product/Service descriptions: People may not be familiar with some of your products or services, so writing a thorough and easy-to-comprehend description can save you time. Your prospects will use it as reference to become more educated instead having you answer their million and one questions.

• Comparisons: Your business might offer services/products that compete with each other or other services. For example, if you do financial planning you can write about Roth IRAs vs. Traditional IRAs.

• Success Stories: Here’s a chance for you to brag and be informative at the same time. If your company has success stories which I hope you do, writing a blog post can be a great way to publicize it and get people excited about what kinds of results they can expect when working with you.

• Statistics, Day-to-Day examples, Valuable Resources, etc can also make great blog posts.

The only approach I would avoid is making your blog a Public Relations tactic/newsroom. However, we do recommend mixing news about your company and valuable posts for your customers.

If you would like any specific blog ideas for your business, please leave a comment about our blog and we’ll message you some Great Ideas.

As a business owner in today’s day and age it’s a must to leverage tools to make your business more effective and efficient. These are just 5 tools that can come “to your rescue.” If you like these website/apps you can check out our other recommendations in Part 1 and Part 2.

Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/

Dropbox is a great software that allows you access files on any computer or share files with multiple users on different computers. It’s like a shared server for your office, without all the hardware and messy wires. You can even access and update your files from anywhere in the world, by using a web browser login. The Dropbox software works on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can also get the Dropbox app on your iPhone or Android giving you access to all your files when a computer isn’t around. Dropbox will let you try it out for free – up to 2GB per user.

HelpAReporter.com
http://www.helpareporter.com/

Every business could use publicity. This website is your free solution to reach out to reporters when they are looking for sources. You or your business can potentially receive free exposure on a website, magazine, newspaper, or even television show. Everyday you will receive emails with specific requests from reporters who need an expert to help them with their story. The emails segment requests based on industry, so just look for a request relevant to your expertise and respond to those reporters who are want to hear from someone like you!

Mindnode
http://www.mindnode.com/

If you are you a creative thinker that needs to brainstorm or a project manager that needs to map your projects, then Mindnode will be a valuable software for you. Visually connect your thoughts and brainstorm with others by collaborating on files. It works on the iPhone too, perfect for organizing your ideas on the go.

Fivesecondtest.com
http://fivesecondtest.com/

Want to know people’s first impression of your current website design or a website design that you are about to implement? This website allows you to upload an image of the design and share with “testers.” You can frame questions to get answers about specific features in the design. We highly recommend this before launching a new website!

Social Mention
http://socialmention.com/

This is a valuable tool for Online Reputation Management. According to its website, Social Mention “allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.”

If you already have a LinkedIn profile and want to learn how to get more out of it, then keep on reading!

Yes. LinkedIn can work for you! The other week I needed to reach out to an LATimes reporter and I did what I always do, “Googled” the person’s name. I saw he had a LinkedIn profile and when I clicked it, it showed that a fairly close acquaintance of mine was one of his connections. I emailed her to make an introduction and the next thing you know, I am exchanging emails with this reporter.

Here are some steps to take if you already have your profile set up.

1. Perfect your profile. Is your profile succinct, organized and does it clearly state how you add value or make an impact in business? (I will write an in-depth post describing ways you can perfect your profile)

2. Make a connection with your email contacts. If you use Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail or another email client, LinkedIn has a feature that will invite those contacts to connect with you on LinkedIn. You can do this by clicking on “Add Connections” in the top right and it will ask you to enter your email address and password.

This is a great way for past associates to find out about your latest activities.

3. Recommendations. Isn’t a referral the best way to get new business? One thing I am guilty of not doing much of, is asking for recommendations or offering to give them. “Recommendations” have a box on your profile and you can request clients/colleagues to write about your strengths. Offering to give others a recommendation is a great way to get one back.

4. Q&A Section. LinkedIn has an amazing feature that even Facebook copied, and that’s the Question and Answers section forum. For example, if you’re not sure what type of Internet router to install for your office network, instead of searching Google for an extensive time, simply post your question on this section and you’ll have a half-dozen IT specialists giving you their best recommendation. Time is money. I also use it to share my knowledge about topics that are my expertise. Give to get.

5. Join Groups. One group that I have loved being a part of is the UC San Diego Alumni group. I love the University I attended and want to stay in touch with that community. By answering some threads and posting my own questions I have been able to make some valuable business contacts and actually get a few business referrals!!

LinkedIn can be a very valuable tool to help take your branding to that next level, whether it’s for your company or your personal brand. These are some ways that it can help you gain exposure.

Click here to make a connection with me today.

- Parham Nabatian

5 Websites That Will Meet Your Marketing Needs

Evernote

http://www.evernote.com/

If you’re like the Infinite team, you must have a million things going on at once. With Evernote you can capture and organize web clippings, emails, pictures, voice notes, written ideas, and tasks on all of your computers and phones – your notes sync to your phone and computer! And yes it is free. Watch a great video explaining Evernote: http://g4tv.com/videos/27990/evernote

Hoostuite

http://www.hootsuite.com/

Hootsuite is a tool for Twitter that allows users to organize tweets, schedule tweets, shorten links, track statistics, monitor keywords, and much more. It is a must for those using Twitter for business. And no it doesn’t cost you a dime.

Alltop

http://alltop.com/

Alltop is a resource website that aggregates blogs, online magazines, newsletters, websites and more on one platform. You can organize the information based on the topic of your interest. The site is known as the “online magazine rack” of the web.

Grammar Girl

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

If you are uncertain about punctuation or need help with word choice, then making a visit to this site could be very helpful.

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

http://www.ted.com/

Sometimes in business you need information, inspiration, or just want to watch “Riveting talks by remarkable people.” The site features speeches and talks from thought leaders such as best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and many more business experts.

According to the Association for Psychological Science, first impressions occur in the blink of an eye. This means that your business may be judged by its appearance in a matter of milliseconds – especially when viewed online.

Here are 5 tips that should shape your online marketing:

1. Quickly define what your company does.

Unless you’re Coke or Apple, your logo will not define your company. This means you need to develop a clear and concise message defining who you are and what you provide.

2. People love visuals.

People surfing the web have a short attention span so you have to visually captivate them. Consulting with a web expert about layouts, color schemes, shapes, and other design elements are a must.

3.  Personalize it.

Use your name, face, and personal messages. In the online world where trust is hard to gain – having a personality behind the company makes a huge difference.

4. Expertise.

For your website to have value, it must contain your expert knowledge in an easy-to-read format – bullet points and lists are highly recommended.

5. Drive people to your website.

Unless you are driving visitors to your website, tips 1-4 will be useless – successful online marketing starts offline. Are you attending Chamber events and driving people to your site? Are you sending out email newsletters, as well as participating in forums, chat rooms or social media to share your expertise with people who need it? These are a must.

The Internet can be a gold mine but only with patience, persistence participation, and the right marketing strategy.

Imagine you are at a networking event, a chamber of commerce function, or an industry conference and you just stand in the corner the whole time…nothing gets accomplished, right? Well if you are not contributing your knowledge in the online world, then you my friend are standing in the corner and missing out on your opportunity to retain your next customer.

Tomorrow or the day after, you are going to meet a potential prospect that knows they need your service but has no clue about the intricacies or the complexities of what you do. They want to learn more and when you meet them, you might have a minute to initiate a dialogue – but typically that’s not enough time to truly establish the value that you can add to their business.

Here’s a great example:

There are two tax services companies at your local chamber of commerce and as a striving business owner you know you need to hire one.

Tax service company rep A and B are both nice people, both seem trustworthy, and both are referred by other members. At the end of your conversation they leave you their business card with a web address.

Company A’s website has a whitepaper, a “how-to” guide, an updated blog, links to helpful websites, and more information than can you probably handle.

Company B has a nice looking website but no extensive information other than their company address, a few stock photos, and the typical tag line about how they are reliable and that they provide solutions.

Now, which company will you call first? Exactly. It’s officially time for you to join the party.