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.

If you have spoken to a personal trainer or read about fitness, you’ve learned about the importance of your core muscles. Strengthen your core muscles, and you will inevitably strengthen your body’s other muscles. Your website should be viewed as the Core of your online marketing, ensuring its strength, will strengthen the rest of your marketing.

While there is a new popular social media platform or online marketing tool every couple months, your website remains the most valuable asset because of the control you maintain. If optimized, your website is typically one of the top results when someone Google’s your business, so placing your focus here before signing up for that new social media site should be your priority.

Here are 6 approaches you should take:

1. Have a clear and easy-to-see headline that tells people the purpose of your business. Don’t assume that people know what your company does. Using large fonts for headlines that attract attention and descriptive call-to-actions will enhance the user experience.

2. If you’re directly selling a product or service, you should explain why they need to buy and the advantages of your product in a bullet point format.

3. Give to get, if you want to get email addresses for your email marketing or attract more Facebook likes, give something away. For example, a dentist can mail a free toothbrush to people in a 5-mile radius if they join his/her email list.

4. Organization matters, treat each web page with a purpose by driving your visitor with one key message on each page.

5. Make the fonts and messaging on your website legible to all audiences. Contrary to what people believe, older people do read websites, and size 12, light grey fonts may not be legible for them.

6. Use contrasting color/shapes to make certain links and messages stand out.

Infinite Communications specializes in creating web sites and marketing material that are impressive, easy to understand and intriguing. If your business can benefit from our design expertise, call us at 818.990.9843.

Receiving media coverage is something most small businesses, brands and organizations can benefit from and should consider planning for because it can not only increase your exposure, it can also build your company’s value proposition.

Building a social media following is a first step in your efforts to receiving media placement. Working together with our client, Martin Kent, an Emmy Award winning filmmaker, we were able to get him placed in one of Israel’s largest circulated publications.

One of Martin’s goals was to receive targeted media coverage for Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). In the 4 months prior to our pitch we established a solid social media presence, some of the tactics included:

• Consistently updating his blog with relevant content (written by him) and optimizing every post with targeted keywords.

• Creating a branded YouTube page and uploading videos of his prior work, as well as optimizing all his videos to be found for competitive keywords related to his work.

• Creating a branded Twitter page and building a twitter following.

Because we were able to effectively implement all of these tactics, we were able to garner interest from editors even without a published book or movie ready for production.

Brutal Important Fact!
Editors and journalists jobs are to sell papers and to cover stories that are interesting. When he/she sees that you or your company has built a solid social media following it does two things, 1) shows that you are already interesting, 2) establishes that you can bring your followers to his/her respective publication.

Now, you might say that Martin was an Emmy award winning filmmaker and that his topic was particularly interesting. However, as business owners we can build interest in our community, each business can develop content that engages our prospects, associates and fans. This is how building your social media presence could be your first step to receiving media attention!

Please let us know if you have any questions about how you should approach social media.

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.

We get this question asked a lot, and the truth is pricing search engine optimization and Internet marketing, in general are not a one-size fits all campaign. Before we give you a price, we conduct research to determine just how much work your campaign will need and we base the price on these factors.

These factors may include;

• Competitiveness of your industry/keywords
Some industries/businesses are extremely competitive on the web and that will mean we will need to do more work for a longer period of time and for those businesses the amount of time and tactics needed to obtain an increase of quality traffic and gain rankings for keywords are significantly higher.

• Website redesign – if necessary
Visual presentation and proper messaging are known to have an impact on a website visitor’s decision to use your services or buy your product, call your business, or fill out an online form. Our firm’s philosophy is that your website needs to make a perfect first impression and be easy to use. That way you will have a higher chance of converting website visitors into new customers, when they find you via search engines from the search engine optimization efforts.

• Local, national, or international?
The wider the geographic area the more tactics and greater time investment is needed for your campaign.

These are just a few of the most important factors.

After we conduct the discovery phase which includes an analysis of your current website, industry, and competition, we develop a proposal with a couple of pricing options. Pricing Options can include a setup fee and discounts for longer commitments. Usually we recommend a minimum of 6 months because Search Engine Optimization is ongoing and any lapse in the campaign not only damages your website organic rankings, it adversely affects the SEO efforts made in the past.

To get more information about Search Engine Optimization or other Internet marketing tactics you can call (818) 990-9843.

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

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.

Here are a few tips when looking for how to
pick the right internet marketing firm:

So do your research and be patient because SEO takes time. Feel free to contact us to see what we can do for you.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of increasing quality traffic to a web site from search engines’ organic (natural) search results.  Search engines such as Google have computerized “spiders” that index and analyze your website every couple of weeks, determining the relevant keywords of your website. Search engine optimization is not an over night process, it’s a long term and ever-changing strategy. You not only need years of experience and developed skills to implement SEO strategies, you also need to practice patience.

SEO is a long-term solution, and unlike pay per click (see Pay-Per-Click VS. SEO), your search engine listing can be clicked all day with no incurred click cost. Case studies have proven that organic listings tend to receive more clicks than the sponsored ads.

Elements of Successful SEO

Here are just a few of the things that go into making your SEO campaign a success:

• Keyword Research – researching and determining the relevant keywords people are searching.
• HTML Optimization - Most websites are developed using HTML code, and successfully optimized sites start with optimized HTML. Optimized HTML takes longer and requires advanced knowledge to program compared with a non-optimized website.
• Optimized Title Tags - Title tags are the words that appear as the clickable link on the search engines, these need to include appropriate keywords.
• Optimized Meta Tags – The information that describes what your website is about – it is inserted in the beginning section of the site code.
• SEO Friendly
 Coding – Ensuring that the method your site is programmed does not hinder search engines reading your website.
• Ongoing content creation – A properly optimized website starts with quality content that includes relevant keywords, and is updated on a consistent basis.
• Link Building - Your site should receives links on older and highly reputable websites.
• Local Online Optimization - This is including your local area on your site and making sure your business location is registered with search engines and directories.
• Off-site optimization - Embedding video on video sites and having a social media presence as well as many more off-site tactics will improve your search engine rankings.
• Blogging (see the Power of an Optimized Blog)
• the list goes on…

Why does SEO take time?

There is no way that all of the tactics listed above and the ones not listed can be executed appropriately if it is done quickly. Even if some of these methods are completed quickly you still have to wait for the search engines to crawl and re-crawl your site and position it for a given search result. Search engines typically crawl a website every couple weeks to a month. The more incoming links you have the process will speed up a bit but they have to be quality links from relative sites.

Your focus should be building your content, optimizing that content correctly to show Google, Bing and others that your site is worth better placement for a variety of your targeted keywords. You have probably heard “content is king” for search engines, and when you optimize original quality content you will start seeing a rise in targeted traffic….. search engines are smarter than you think!

NEXT – SEO Takes Time Part II: Earning and converting web traffic, incremental growth is good growth, and how to pick the right Internet marketing company.

Before the popularity of Internet, testimonials were typically found on your company’s print brochures, press kits, and even print ads. Now that the Internet is extremely popular (to say the least!), there is an ever-growing platform to help prospects further their consideration of purchasing a product or service from you.

In order to leverage your testimonials successfully in today’s web-hungry world you must make sure to they are seen by more than just visitors to your website. But before you learn where to place your testimonials online, it’s vital to know how to craft an effective testimonial.

1. What Does A Great Testimonial Look Like?

All testimonials are not created equal. Some are full of fluff and a waste of space. A good testimonial provides the individual with a quick route to the great, dependable, safe buying decision they really want to make.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – This is where your company offers a differentiation that sets you apart from your competitors. People like to buy stability and consistency. And when your USP is emphasized over and over again with testimonials, it shows there is consistency and longevity associated with your brand and its promise.

Hard Value – Is measurable, you can express it in numbers or percentages. For example, has the individual generated greater revenues by “X” as a result of your business relationship?

Soft Value – These are a little bit more difficult to measure, because you aren’t expressing the values as numbers or percentages. Utilize descriptive words and phrases like “Greater piece of mind,” “Enhanced brand recognition,” “More security and stability” …etc.

Time Element - People want to hear how long it takes to the results of your product or service. It is one deciding factor for them.

Loyalty & Future Business – You want your customers to say they are continuing to work with you now and in the future. Your company is the one they trust and theres no reason to go with any other competitor. This will leave a powerful impression for people and they will be eager to become your next customer.

2. Where Should You Place Your Testimonials Online?

Capturing  a great testimonial won’t mean much unless it is effectively communicated to the right person at the right time. In the ever-growing online world, people will very likely come in contact with your brand in more places than just your website. Here is quick list of places you should considering putting your online testimonials.

Website Homepage – Potential customers will most likely see your company homepage before any other online material. You have just 2-3 seconds to convince them they should not leave. By placing a brief, powerful testimonial  in an easy-to-read area you are multiplying the likelihood of the visitor’s consideration to contact your company or purchase what you are offering.

Blog – Sidebars and columns can be a great place to add company testimonials. They can also be placed effectively under blog posts as comments (if your blog allows other to leave comments).

LinkedIn – In this business-heavy social media platform, testimonials can go a long way in promoting your individual brand or company’s credibility. You simply ask for recommendations from others within your network. You can even choose which testimonials you choose to publish for others to see, so don’t be afraid to solicit recommendations from your network!

Facebook – From research and other people’s reviews – case in point! – there doesn’t seem to be any spectacular Facebook apps for soliciting and retrieving testimonials yet. However, if you have a Company Facebook Fanpage, there is tab labeled “Testimonials” you can easily add in your profile settings.

Video/YouTube – Internet video is growing at a rapid rate. The power of an individual explaining your benefits and products in a story format is huge! By using the right tags and keywords to optimize your posts, you can even use these video testimonials as a way to increase traffic to your site.

Local Business Directories – If your business is dependent on customers from a close proximity (ie, dentist, dry-cleaner, restaurant, gym..etc.) than you should know more people are searching on local directories like Google local and Yelp! than ever before. Encourage your happy customers to leave positive testimonials and high reviews on company pages you set up on such directories.