With close to 300 million searches per day, there is no denying that people use search engines. But do they use them when looking for local products and services?

There is an abundance of public data suggesting that as high as 80% of potential prospects turn to the internet first when looking for a local product or service.

The yellow pages are a thing of the past. The new yellow pages are local internet directories and a new medium called Pay Per Click advertising. If you don’t believe me ask yourself when was the last time you picked up your local yellow pages to find a vendor or to do research.

I know it, Google knows it (the majority of their stock price is a reflection of their anticipated growth from advertising) and if you resist it, there is a good chance your business may a thing of the past too. Microsoft knows it too, for this very reason; Microsoft is attempting to purchase Yahoo.

WHY USE PAY PER CLICK (PPC)

There are many reasons why, as a small business owner, you should consider allocating part of your marketing budget to local search marketing strategies, here are just a few:

1. Highly Targeted-Unlike direct marketing and other forms of advertising your ad will only be served (appear) when a prospect is actively searching for your type of business (typed into your pre-selected “keywords”)
2. Tracking-there is an old marketing adage that says “I know I am wasting 50% of my marketing budget, but I don’t know which half”. You can’t improve what you can’t measure and Pay Per Click advertising is very easy to measure. With search engine marketing (SEM), you are able to track every aspect of your campaign-keywords, Ad groups, Ads ect. All four major search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK provide a piece of script that you can put on your websites that give you very important visitor information (that will be covered in an upcoming article), all available in report form.
3. Testing-You can quickly and easily run A/B testing for both Ads (to drive leads) and different landing pages (to convert prospects).
4. Performance based-It is the only advertising available that you only get charged if a prospect actually takes action (clicks on your ad). This actually is a second form of qualifying. The prospect not only is actively searching for your type of business, but actually liked your ad enough to click on it.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Choose your search engine to advertise on. Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com account for 90% of all searches. Each search engine has different demographics for their typical users, so do some research.
2. Choose your keywords and key search phrases. In other words, when do you want your ad to appear? For example: if you were to look for an accountant in your area, what would be your search phrase? “Las Vegas accountant”, “cpa in las vegas”, “irs audit cpa las vegas”.
3. Choose a monthly Pay Per Click (PPC) budget. Many of the pay per click search engines allow you to manage budgets based on a set dollar amount or by daily or monthly limitations. Choose the PPC budget management tool which best suits your needs.

A word of caution before you run off and start pouring money into your PPC campaigns. Though, there is no denying that, when executed correctly, PPC can be a leading sales driver and profit builder, it can also drain your marketing budget if you aren’t careful.

Read and study as much as you can about Pay Per click and how it works. I would also recommend you start out small and learn what works and what doesn’t and then scale up your budget when you begin to get the hang of it. Be prepared though, Yahoo! anticipates the average advertiser spends nearly 17 hours per month managing their accounts. And that’s just Yahoo!. Add to that Google, MSN and Ask.com and it can quickly become a full time job.

If you believe that Pay Per Click can benefit your company but you don’t have the time, energy or desire to tackle this project on your own, there are many companies that will manage your search campaigns for you- my company being one of them. For more information on how to attract more clients using Pay Per Click (PPC) go to www.stickymarketingsystems.com

Yaro recently mentioned on his blog that he was coming to Vancouver before he heads off to Toronto. I have to say that it was a really great time to meet him. I also met with several others and had a great time chatting it up with David at the end of our table as well. John Chow was there but I was at the other end of the table so we didn’t have any time to connect.

My husband Leo came along with us and sat right next to Yaro, it helps because Leo does his own thing so it was nice to welcome him to my online world for a bit. Leo left with some ideas of his own so who knows when we’ll see what he comes up with.

The one thing that I did notice is that when you have an online connection with someone or have done business with others online, that connection extends in person as well. It’s definitely fun to come together with others who are online business owners.

I also attended the Speed Money Seminar last weekend. Again, it was great to spend time with other online business owners and learn from them as well as the speakers. I am really growing to like Armand Morin, super nice guy and he’s really funny too! I’ll be sure to post on that seminar shortly.

So why would I attend these? Well, I am a people person naturally. I used to love helping our customers and chatting with others. Some times I tend to get a bit loud so I have to really keep myself “in check” at times. Plus meeting others who are doing the same type of business to me is also a learning opportunity.

I love business, have been doing it for a super long time. I also really enjoy learning new technologies and creating income for my family. The best part is that I’m at home with my kids, I’m very blessed.

It was a great time to meet with Yaro, you can tell he is a very laid back person who seems genuinely interested in who you are and what you are doing. I can see why he has such a great following because his personality really shines through.

We all have our own personality, and I encourage you to let your own business personality come through and show people who you are and what your company stands for.

I have one target market and know it well. Because I’ve chosen to devote myself to this one snug market of business owners it is easy for me to stay in tune with their needs. When an opportunity comes to introduce them to something new I can spring into action with minimal additional research.

I can decide fast, act fast and see results fast.

Can you say the same? Share why you could say yes or no

A number of years ago I came up with a formula which I have found really useful as an ‘on the spot’ communication strategy. This strategy I call ORFF. You can use it in any communication situation - meetings, one to ones, presentations, video conferencing, whatever, to help create focus and realise objectives. It’s not a 100% guaranteed but with practice it will not only help you achieve the objectives of the communication situation it will save loads of time! So what is ORFF?

O - Objectives
R - Rapport
F - Feedback
F - Flexibility

O-Objectives

Consider the objectives from three points of view - the people you are communicating with, the company you are representing and your own.

First Point of View: ask yourself why are the other people at the meeting? What do they want to achieve? If you’re not sure ask them - as Stephen Covey said in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “seek first to be understood and then to understand”. So listen to them first and put all your attention on understanding why they are there. To be really sure you know their objectives summarise them back and clarify if needs be.

Second Point of View: what are the objectives of the company you represent? What would they like to achieve in the meeting? For example what image do they want you to portray? What products do they want you to sell? Last night I was in a supermarket and there was only one girl at the checkouts. The queue was huge. She kept ringing for help from another girl who was packing shelves. This girl eventually came around and said in front of all the customers in the queue - “I’m doing something, where’s Kim?” Not exactly a great message to display in front of customers! Before you go into a meeting ask yourself what are the objectives of the company you represent?

Third Point of View: what are your objectives? Again a few moments spent creating positive focussed objectives before a meeting will save time and help you hit the target. You can of course use the SMART strategy to help focus your objectives or simply ask yourself - what is your objective(s) and how will you know it is achieved?

Suggested Exploration
For the next week decide to make sure you know the above three objectives for all your communication situations - the people you are communicating with, the company you represent and yourself. Notice what works and make it work better!

Next week I’ll write an article on the second step in ORFF - Rapport - going a bit deeper than simply asking a few light hearted questions like - “how did you get here?”

Until then, carpe diem and focus your communications!

I got a packet today, from someone who is trying to sell me a service that I’m probably interested in. We’ll call me a lukewarm buyer. I don’t know enough to be a hot buyer, but the potential is there.

I had asked the rep to send me some information. I received a very nice folder/brochure, a DVD and a cover letter. The cover letter says:

“Blah, blah, blah…. In addition, there is a DVD enclosed that will tell you all about the products in about the first 20 minutes.”

What? The FIRST 20 minutes? Are you kidding me? What in the world makes them think I am going to watch their promotional material for almost a half hour? It is never going to happen. And now, because I didn’t get the information I needed, I’ve become a much less interested buyer.

Consumers today have a USA Today mentality and attention span. Give it to me short and sweet. Or I don’t want it. Technology has given us the tools to skip, skim or just ignore marketing messages if they aren’t delivered in a palatable way.

How are you doing in this arena? Are you being mindful of your potential customers’ attention spans or are you cramming as much information at them as possible?

Are you being skipped, skimmed or ignored?

1. Be clear about what you do

If visitors don’t see your site as being relevant to them – they can leave in 3 seconds. So make sure you’re clear about what you do. Use strong headings in your content, add relevant photos and make use of dot points to cut through the clutter. A good copywriter can help achieve this through brevity. This will help keep visitors on your site, but only if you…

2. Receive Targeted Traffic

You have to be attracting the right sort of person to your site. For example, if you’re selling web hosting, you need to think about the sort of customer you want to attract. Where will you advertise? How is the performance of different keywords in your PPC campaigns? Is your ad copy over-promising? Make sure all of this is congruent with the sort of customer you’d like to attract and you’ll increase your conversion rate dramatically.

3. Direct Traffic to the Right Landing Page

So many businesses direct their ads and search marketing efforts at their homepage. If you have a lot of information and pages on your site, this can be really detrimental to conversion. Research shows, that if someone cannot find what they’re looking for on your site within 3 page views, you’ve lost them. Also, if you’re running AdWords on your site, a specialized landing page optimized for certain keywords will help you pay less.

4. Direct Focus toward Your Call to Action

Make reference to your Call to Action throughout your copy. Continually remind users of the benefits of “subscribing now” or “purchasing before the offer runs out”. Even using arrows and pictures of people facing your call to action has been shown to increase conversion rates.

5. Use a professional and relevant design

A good design that makes effective use of white space can make your landing page easier to read and more attractive for lazy “energy conscious” customers to read. Make the design relevant to what you offer as this will communicate IMMEDIATELY to the visitor what it is that you do. If they can find that out by your site design, you might just hold their attention for long enough.

6. Make the action easy to perform and flexible

Offer flexible payment and contact options. Don’t ask too much of your visitors or they’ll abandon ship. Only ask for as much as you need – where possible.

7. See what Professionals and Your Competition are doing

Take a look at conversion specialist’s sites and see what they’re doing. Chances are, they probably have a clue or two. If your product or service is markedly different from what these conversion specialist’s sites offer, you should checkout your competition. Does their landing page suit what you’re after? Is the call to action obvious? Do you find it easy to respond to this call to action? Where did you find them?

8. Incentivise Your Call to Action

Give people incentives to respond to your call to action. If you’re building an email list, offer people a free report or software. Some companies I know go as far as offering gift-vouchers or physical products to encourage subscription rates. If you make the incentive too elaborate, people might take advantage of it though.

I think Amazon does a good job of this too, where they encourage people to “Order Now to receive by such and such a date”. The opportunities are endless.

9. Reduce Percieved Risk of the Call to Action

People won’t do something that puts them at risk, so reduce this anxiety by proving your trustworthiness. Offer testimonials, money-back guarantees and trial offers – people will feel much safer if they have to invest very little into the process. You can also build trust in the eyes of your consumer by placing logos of associated brands and awards on your site.

10. Is your call to action appropriate?

Will your customers convert on the first visit or do you need to establish a relationship with them? I’ve encouraged some businesses, where the purchasing decision for customers is complex, to encourage subscription to a newsletter as well. That way they can develop relationships with their customers and demonstrate their value over the course of a month or two and increase the chances of winning their patronage.

11. (Bonus) Pre-empt Your Call to Action

In your ad copy or source medium (reviews, link building, directories), foreshadow the call to action by using it in there. For instance, if you’re placing banner ads on a website to encourage more people to sign up to your newsletter, ask people in the ad to “Visit now for a free subscription to XXX. Limited time only. Worth $29 / month!”. This will help visitors understand what to do when they come to your site and consequently improve your conversion rates.

In order to reach an effective conversion rate, you need to optimize your lead generation, your website copy/design and your sales funnel. Without careful attention to each of these areas, your conversion rate will suffer. By refining these areas over time however, you’ll benefit from a synergistic effect. The key ingredients here are spare time and knowledge about your customers.

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In my line of work you get to have a lot of fun working with companies. They come my way sort of lost. Many have achieved impressive success but feel that they can do better and feel that something is missing. While others are absolute start-ups and want to hit the ground running. What is typical in almost every case is the fact that they never considered positioning themselves from a point of differentiation. They all want to go to market with a laundry list of services and shout out that they do everything. Since this is what ‘most’ businesses do, it hardly appears wrong at first glance. But what is also noteworthy is the fact that this type of approach garners no emotion but a resignation to market. Marketing is seen as a necessary evil. They focus on catchy graphics, a visual hook. But, that will not really sell anything - it is simply eye candy. It is your position that counts - what compelling offer intrigues the reader to give you a few moments of their time to indulge you.

Many times eye candy is simply forgetable. How many ads have you seen where you remember the sweet spot but can not for the life of you, remember the pitch and certainly not the company. Not a great way to start off a brand relationship. Offering everything or God forbid copying the leader in your category just tosses your brand into a sea of sameness. You are awash in mediocrity.

Now - take a positioning strategy based on differentiation and watch your stake holders get excited by what they are shouting. When we develop this position they (the customer) are so pumped they can hardly wait to launch this new approach. WHY? - because they now have something to say. The message comes from they’re very core. It is a difference that makes sense, and one that they can build a relationship on. It is something the competition has failed to recognize and it becomes a lightening rod. Marketing is now exciting and they are invigorated.

Taking the effort to discover your difference, will rejuvenate your brand and this will generate income and inject excitement into your brand.

In the world of internet marketing branding plays a very critical role in an overall marketing strategy. Branding tactics, designed to increase familiarity, ultimately result in front of mind awareness, trust, and purchases. To leave it out of a business marketing equation is to risk future success and sustainability.

The good news is, becoming a familiar brand doesn’t mean spending millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad. Becoming a familiar brand simply requires patience and a strategy that encompasses a variety of marketing tools designed to increase brand recognition.

Recognition means you’ve established front of mind awareness. When people think about your industry, your business is first in their thoughts. For example, imagine you’re traveling through an unfamiliar city, you’re hungry and you have a choice an unknown burger drive through or McDonalds. Chances are you’re going to choose McDonalds simply because it’s a known factor. You know exactly what you’re going to get. Even if you’ve never been to a McDonald’s you’re likely to choose it because you’re familiar with it. This familiarity has a direct result in purchasing behavior. In fact, it has a direct effect on your emotions.

The Ludwig-Maximilians University Hospital in Munich, Germany studied 20 men and women. While in a MRI scanner, the participants were shown a series of automobile manufacturer logos and insurance company logos – think Mercedes Benz and AFLAC. Some of the logos were well known, others not very well known. Each logo was shown for three seconds. As the men and women viewed the logos, they were asked questions to determine their perceptions of each brand.

The results of the study showed that well-known brands activated the inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula and anterior cingulate gyrus on both sides of the brain, and activation of the precuneus in the left hemisphere – all associated with positive emotions. Unknown brands had the opposite effect. They activated the precuneus in both hemispheres – an area activated by negative emotional response.

The conclusion? Strong brand names produce favorable emotions. Favorable emotions most definitely play an important role in a customer’s buying decision. It pays to increase brand recognition.

You may also be familiar with the “Coke versus Pepsi” taste test. Where subjects were blindfolded and asked to taste unmarked soda and identify which they preferred. What wasn’t generally shared was that when subjects were told that one of the drinks was Coca-Cola they were more likely to show a preference for it even if it wasn’t Coke. Interestingly enough the people who were told it was Pepsi, even when it wasn’t, didn’t seem to show any biased behaviors. These results were attributed to Coca-Cola’s branding and the reason Coke generally sells more product than Pepsi.

With so much competition for market share online and off, branding is an integral part of a marketing campaign. You don’t have to be Coca-Cola or General Motors to benefit. Brand familiarity works on all business sizes, all industries, and all consumer types. Familiarity breeds comfort and confidence in a product even when we’ve never tried the product before. It’s why building large databases and contacting them often is such an integral part of marketing. It’s why retail stores create loyalty programs and give consumers little cards to keep in their wallet and it’s why a long term branding strategy adds significant profits to a company’s bottom line.

- Creating a marketing strategy
- Implementing it
- Testing it and improving

Now you may be looking at that list and saying, “How do I create a marketing strategy?” That is of course the first step. As a small business owner you probably have one product or service that drives the business. It is the one product or service that represents your company and brings in the majority of your customers. This isn’t necessarily your most expensive product in fact it may be your least expensive product.

For example, if you own a dog sitting business that also sells homemade dog treats or food and even sells homeopathic supplements your primary product, the one that brings customers in, may be your actual dog walking service. However, if you’re a personal coach who offers coaching, seminars and motivational talks, online courses, and you have a book, your lead generating product may be your book. That may be the one product that brings customers into your business. That’s the product you focus your initial marketing strategy on.

Whether you’re a brick and mortar business or an online business, the internet may be your most valuable marketing tool. Communications are instantaneous, more than 70% of internet users use the internet to research a product or service before they buy it, which means the internet may be your first communication with a prospect, and many internet marketing tools have a very good return on investment meaning you’ll make more than you spend which is of course the goal of marketing.

So what internet tools can you use to market your business online?

The initial phase of any marketing strategy is generally a lead generation campaign. The internet can be an extremely useful tool to collect a database of prospects even if you’re a brick and mortar business. For example, Bath & Body, a brick and mortar retail store, implemented an in-store campaign where they collected email addresses in exchange for a free tube of lip gloss. The catch was that people who signed up would receive a coupon for the tube of lip gloss in their email. This campaign was so successful that Bath and Body collected more than 10 million email addresses, the largest specialty retail database created to date. They value each email address at $18 each because now they can market specifically to their database.

So if step one is to determine your business’s most important product and step two is to develop a database then step three is to market to that database. You’ll likely use a mix of tools to communicate your marketing message to your prospect including blogs, article marketing, email campaigns, social networking, sales letters, and even video and audio messages. The online marketing tools you choose to use will depend largely on your target audience. What websites do they visit? What do they read? What is important to them?

Once you’ve determined a few marketing tools to use to communicate with your prospects, don’t hesitate or wait until you think it is perfect, get your campaign up and running. Why? Because you won’t know how effective your marketing strategy is until you test it. Test everything. Test your headlines, test your email open rates, and test your click throughs. You can find a number of tools to help you track that information online and via your website host. As you collect data on your marketing you can hone each message to receive the optimal results. Creating a marketing strategy, like most things in life, is a process. Online tools and tactics can make it an easier, more powerful, and more successful process.

Why? Because on some networks, usernames are what people use to look you up. Usernames are also sometimes used in the URL of your profile’s pages. Also, on average many of us belong to more than one social network. The more consistent we are on all these sites, the more often we get our name in front of our audience.

For many of us, the logical username would be our real names. As small business owners, our brand, is often closely intertwined with us. But what if the username is taken? Then get creative, by choose something that can further enhance your brand. For example, I’ve had a few people nickname me their “Tech Diva”. I personally do not like “diva” so I use “TechLady” for my Twitter account.

Another marketer whom I follow - Anita Campbell is owner of SmallBizTrends and she uses “smallbiztrends” as her Twitter username.

The bottom line is, they all reinforce the tie between us and our brands or what our business stands for, and yet, don’t look like spam. Regardless of the social network we participate in, people know when they see me, my name or my username it’ll always be related to technology in one way or another.

It’s not at all unusual for an entrepreneur to start in one direction only to change their mind and turn towards something new. If the change is dramatic you know you’ll be starting from scratch as far as developing a new business brand, but what if the change is more subtle or takes place over time?

When is it time to scrap the old brand and go for something completely new?

When is it ok to ‘tweak’ what you have to avoid a complete do-over?

Wendy Peirsall tackled a big branding decision and knows the great challenge of facing these questions. A year or so ago Wendy launched eMomsatHome.com with a clear ‘mom’ focus but over time the popular site outgrew its ‘mom blog’ roots.

She tweaked and adjusted her website to incorporate the differences as much as she could without giving up her ‘eMoms’ brand - but it was like trying to redecorate a convenience store to look like a shopping mall.

Wendy had to let go of the old in order to let the new be all that it could be. After much brainstorming, gathering of opinions and advice, eMomsatHome.com relaunched in April as Sparkplugging.com. The little mom blog that was bursting at the seams is now a thriving blog network with an exciting future.

It took guts to scrap her existing brand and start from scratch developing a new identity but now she has a brand that can grow.

If you’ve changed your focus over time, ask yourself if your brand needs some tweaking - or even a do-over. It’s very possible that your current website is confusing potential clients and sabotaging your efforts to improve your bottom line.

Don’t let a little starting from scratch scare you off.

Determining a Target Market

Without knowing who you will market to, how can any business owner be truly successful? Sure, big companies can get away with marketing to a large arena of individuals from all walks of life, but as a small business owner online, you are competing with thousands of other business owner all over the world. For that reason, you will need to narrow down your choices and focus on one specific market in order to make running your business easier on you and more appealing to your customers. Here are some more target market tips.

Choose an Online Business Model

What will you be offering in your business? Will you be selling your own physical or information products, offering your services or promoting someone else’s products or services? If you choose to sell or promote other products, will it be through a direct sales company, affiliate programs or a combination of more than one? Here are some considerations to make for your online business model.

Determining a business model will help in many ways, one of the most important being that you can find other successful online businesses to learn and mentor from. This will help to cut your learning curve by teaching you tips and tricks that are unique to these specific types of businesses.

Deciding On & Purchasing a Domain Name

If you’re doing business online, you’ll need a domain name for your website. Once you have decided who your target market is and the type of business you’ll be starting, finding the perfect domain name will be much easier.

Here are a few basic tips for choosing a domain name:

· Make a list of possibilities before searching for availability
· Make it easy to remember
· In most cases, steer clear of extensions other than .com (this is what most people think of first when typing in domain names)

Copywriting – Learn & Apply It

Online businesses rarely have the ability to see their customers face to face. Therefore, the words on the screen need to do the convincing when it comes to potential customers. In order to be successful with an online business, copywriting is essential. However, you don’t have to be a grammar queen or a Pulitzer prize-winning author in order to write for the Internet. It’s a good idea to either hire a copywriter or, at the least, learn the basics of copywriting and apply it to your business.

Traffic is a Necessity to Online Business

You can have a website live on the web, but without visitors (traffic) coming to the site, what good is it? Learning things like what web traffic is and how to get visitors to your website are imperative to an online business’ success.

Creating & Maximizing Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are a big part of online business. If you don’t have one for your business, get one. You’ll use the mailing list for many things and one of the biggest being to keep in touch with your customers and leads. This will help to build a relationship, which is important when it comes time to sell to current and potential customers. Make sure to make learning to build and profiting from your list a priority.

Well here we are, a brand new design for a brand new journey. Since taking over Small Business Branding, I truly feel like I’ve had a hand in developing the future for this site.

I’d like to give Ben Bleikamp a big Thank You for bringing my ideas for the new site to light. He’s an excellent designer and is a true professional to work with. He got things done on time and all within 1 month!

Also a nice thanks to my friend Nola who designed the new logo for us and for rushing my new business cards in time for the seminar I’m attending here in Vancouver next week.

Funny enough, the toughest decision I had was the new RSS button. I couldn’t settle for one that I liked and Ben had to change it a few times so I’d be happy with it. Finally I settled on the one here and I’m really liking it.

I was running around yesterday with my kids picking up and dropping off at friends houses and youth night so it was a very busy day. I picked up some Subway and literally ran to the computer to let Ben know I’d quickly eat and then go over the new design with him that was already launched! I was thrilled to see it up and live and I’m really looking forward to bringing new and great things to the Small Business Community.

Our Sponsors - We are also up over 2500+ RSS Subscribers, that healthy number means that we are meeting a need in the business marketplace and news of our reputation is continuing to grow.

While we are pleased with this news, these statistics are just as important to our sponsors. Each month over 35,000 new visitors are seeing sponsors’ products and services on the banner ads and links that are on every one our 800 pages. Visitors are also seeing these ads several times in one visit as they view our professionally designed and laid out pages.

I consider our sponsors as respected partners in our goal to serve the Small Business Branding website community. Sponsor investments help to support our efforts to bring to our audience the timeliest and most relevant insights, industry news and practical tips that managers and marketers can use to advance their business.

Our Authors - When I first decided to launch a new design I didn’t think I’d do this right away, but I felt strongly that I wanted to highlight the authors more on this site as they write on a weekly basis here at Small Business Branding.

They are a BIG part of this site and helping to develop it further. So a BIG thank you also goes out to our Weekly Authors Ed Roach, Drew McLellan, Krishna De, Kelly McCausey, and Sean Kelly.

We will also see wonderful articles coming on a Monthly basis from Kevin Levi, Robert Kingston
and Lynette Chandler. And guest posts from Danielle Rodgers, Steve Woodruff, Nick Rice
and Alice Seba.

New Authors - I have also personally invited Alice Seba, Kelly McCausey and Lynette Chandler to join us as authors, welcome ladies! They are truly experts in their field and will bring online business experience and will not let technology hold us back, I can’t wait to see what they bring for us. Also, there are new authors signing on with us coming up! And an open call for new writers may be in the works, I just need to settle into this new design and make sure everything is running smoothly.

The one thing that I’ve ALWAYS done is celebrate all business decisions. We literally go out to dinner for the grand opening of any of our stores and even when we sold them off. Every big decision deserves a nice night out. So I’ll be planning that soon too!

One last BIG thanks goes out to Rob Kingston, Ed Roach, and Drew McLellan for giving me some great ideas for the new design and making my transition to SBB a wonderful experience.

I hope you enjoy the new design, I look to build this community over the long term and position Small Business Branding to be THE place for Small Business Owners to gain what they need to build their business further.

Using a combination of complex hardware and data analysis, eye tracking maps a tester’s eye movements across a computer screen and assesses the amount of mental strain exerted at any given moment. It does this by recording scanning patterns of the eye, measuring pupil dilation (which correlates to cognitive effort) and taking over 250 observations of each eye per second.

• A minuscule percentage of the subjects scrolled down to see what was being offered below the browser’s bottom border. Clearly, home pages are viewed as portals to get where the visitor wants to go…not lengthy destination pages.
• Web visitors look to the upper middle of the home page first. Putting your navigation tools there allow them to get where they want to go fast. Over 20% of their attention was focused here.
• Text heavy sites are more difficult to use. Most visitors only read the first two lines before moving on unless there’s white space and eye rests.
• Clean, non-cluttered sites produced higher success rates. Users didn’t have to filter through as much unnecessary information.
• Buttons/Icons with 1-3 word descriptions got the most use. Wordy button labels got the least.
• Banner ads, on average, earned about 13% of the viewer’s time and interest.

Before you design your web page…keep in mind that just like any other visual medium, you have to have a flow pattern for your viewer’s eyes to follow. Don’t make them work to get the message.

I’ve been to many Small Business Meetings at the different malls that I had stores in and I can tell you that they were all quite boring. Give me ideas, strategies, and things I can use NOW to develop my business. Not a marketing manager talking quietly all about the mall of the hour and all of it’s greatness.

That’s why when I saw that the Speed Money Seminar is coming here to Vancouver, I just knew that I would have to attend. It’s an opportunity for me to get together again with fellow internet business owners AND an exciting format to unwind, sit, and see what I can apply to my own business.

Here’s a recent picture of my last get together with fellow business owners Diana Walker & Alice Seba. We had a lovely lunch at Earls about 2 weeks ago.

I also love the networking and getting to know others who are running an online business. I met Armand Morin in Atlanta Georgia a couple of years ago at another seminar which was fun. When I spoke with Armand he had some great ideas for me that were painfully obvious to me of things that I’ve tossed around and never acted on up to that point.

Here’s who will be speaking:

So I’m looking forward to seeing Armand again along with the other speakers, and my good friends Alice & Diana. I’ll also be at the VIP Dinner on Friday night along with Diana, I know Alice said she can’t make it.

So won’t you come and join us?

DATE: The seminar will be held on May 8th – 10th, 2008 in Vancouver, BC Canada.

It will be an information packed 3 days full of solid advice on taking you from ideas to income in just the 3 days.

I know I know, it says “Speed Money Seminar” almost sounds like “get rich quick” But with the line up of speakers I know it will be proven strategies that work.

I’m also looking forward to meeting Dr. Andrew Jones because he’s from one of the best places on earth, Nelson, BC. And it’s really neat to see someone close by doing exceptionally well on the internet.

Side Note: Before I started my retail business, I worked for PCA International and I used to travel to Nelson and stay at the old Hotel there. It is one of the most beautiful places ever!

Anyhow, I’m really looking forward to my time at the Seminar, it gives me time away from the computer and brings forth great ideas I can implement to my business right away.

Now a nice surprise for you!

If you want to join me at the seminar you can do so by purchasing with your coupon code and get 50% off the ticket price.

COUPON: All you have to do is email me at smallbusinessbranding @ gmail.com and I’ll send you back your code right away so you can claim the 50% off.

SIGN UP: You can sign up and join us at the seminar here.

I look forward to joining up once again with my online business friends, and hope to see you there as well.

Sometimes a business goes for the obvious approach.

In the Virtual Assistant industry there are providers who have niched themselves to a particular group of potential clients by declaring the niche in their name. (Internet Marketers VA, Writer Support VA, New Media VA) It’s clear to anyone who sees their business card or visits their website that they are niche focused. Their choice of name attracta their desired niche while at the same time discouraging others which is exactly what they want.

Why do they want to turn some potential clients away?

They know they are more likely to secure a long term relationship and a premium pay rate with clients who needs their specialized experience and skills.

My client who is in the financial advice field wants to know if she should move in that direction or not. She has been getting great word of mouth referrals for clients in the medical field, should she somehow create a brand for her business around that clientèle?

Unlike the VAs mentioned above who have specialized skills for specific markets, the services provided to these clients are really no different than those provided to others but she has definitely spotted trends in the financial challenges medical providers face.

Is that enough to declare a specialty? Should she adopt a brand that targets medical professionals?

Would it be her ticket to really setting herself apart from others or should she stay with her current non-niched brand and let the referrals come as they may?

What questions would you ask to clarify things and what advice would you give?

What should be recognized as important is the effect on your brand your compliances have. If your corporate brand values are based on values such as integrity and due diligence, being compliant is very important to you. By complying you reduce the risk associated with running your operation. Deficiencies in the implementation of compliances can lead to unfortunate outcomes that essentially take a sucker-punch to your brand. No business can afford to run rough shod over their compliance obligations. Safety compliances protect your brand from being exposed due to employee injuries. These high profile events draw undesired attention to your company. Any adverse news makes your company look sloppy and insensitive.

Your brand is everything to do with your reputation. Not only is being compliant of importance to the health and welfare of your company but also by extension to your corporate brand as well. Industry compliances are more specific in nature. They typically associate themselves with standards of the type of business you are in. Architects for instance must adhere to compliances that allow them to promote themselves as architects. These industry compliances set the bar high for entry into the industry and protect the public in their quest for your services. Following these compliances assures the public of professional standards of practice. Detering from professional compliances sets your brand up to take the fall. Failure to live up to your compliances and accepting deficiencies exposes your company - and thus your brand. Any loss in professional designation will ultimately cost you money. Your brand loses its expert status in the eyes of your customer.

A third and often neglected area of compliance is the self-administered compliance. These are compliances that you have personally put into place to react to a cultural shift in your industry or to raise the bar from within. Self-administered compliances are very real opportunities. Corporate standards put in place within a company do so to provide an assurance on the level of quality of operation and service within the company. Self-administered compliances are a perfect opportunity to develop a more effective model of operation.

Now that we have looked at the 3 main types of compliances and recognizing their importance to the running of your company and their positive impact on your brand, now we must be assured that they are being implemented effectively. It is one thing to recognize a compliance need, it is another entirely that the compliance is being administered properly. There must be processes put in place to be sure that those rules and regulations are being followed and understood by all stake holders in the company. Any negligence in the implementation of compliances weakens the compliance leaving your brand exposed by association. Your marketing efforts often position your company in it’s best light. You simply can not afford sloppy compliance practices. It has a negative effect on moral and leadership within the corporation.

Once you have determined that all compliances are in place and that they are being adhered to according to processes developed to that end, it is important now to market compliances to your advantage. Being compliant on multiple levels can become the basis of a strategy of differentiation. Compliance icons can be used to shout this message out to your target audience. Stepping up as a leader in your category, not only raises the bar but puts barriers in place that impedes the forward movement of your competition. In order to match or beat you they have to invest considerable effort and expense to catch up and surpass you. Being the leader allows you certain bragging rights that gives your customers maximum confidence in dealing with you.

This confidence equates to a stronger brand relationship.

By keeping up to date with the leading edge thinking in your area from books to research, or even events that you attend, your clients will soon come to realize that you know your area of expertise.

In addition, writing reviews of those books or reports with your perspective is also a valuable resource, and increasingly you can do this online at your website, business blog or even sites such as Amazon.com. This also reinforces your personal brand online and reviews you write will be found in the search engines

A relatively new service is available online called Loudervoice dedicated to reviews.

You can register for a free account at Loudervoice and you can post your reviews directly on the site or from your own business blog, from your mobile phone or from micro blogging sites such as Twitter.

So the next time you read a book or report, attend an event or programme related to your field of expertise, consider consolidating your views, add your perspective and then write up and post the review on the web for the benefit of your own clients and to attract more clients and customers.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

“Measure twice, cut once.”

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

While you are nodding at the wisdom, ponder this: why don’t you have a marketing plan? Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. And don’t try to count the “to do” list or the “if I had more time, I would…” ticker in your head.

95+% of you do not have a written marketing plan. Does that mean your business will fail? Probably not. But it does mean you’ll:

• Spend more money
• Reach fewer of the right people
• Be swayed by persuasive sales people rather than staying the course
• Be less efficient
• Grow your business more slowly, it at all

Think of it this way. If I told you I was going to pay you to drive to Salt Lake City and that your compensation was going to be based on how quickly you could get there, would you use a map or would you wing it?

Same thinking applies to marketing plans. Could you be successful without one? Sure. But it’s going to cost you more and take you longer. So why not just use the map?

After all, isn’t running a business like a journey? You have finite resources and you’re trying to get as far as you can while using them as wisely as possible. A plan gives you a leg up on 95% of the businesses out there. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that sort of competitive advantage?

If you don’t have a written marketing plan — answer this for me and for you. What is your substitute for having the map that will conserve your resources and extend your reach?

We in business have tendency to want to leave no stone unturned when it comes to generating income. Are you targeting your efforts to reach your best target audience? Are you aware of just who this audience is? A good exercise would be to identify this person. To perform this task you have to build a demographic profile. Remember - the profile is of the person that you make the most money from. Once identified, you will want to locate more like them.

Here are some questions to ask yourselve regarding your most profitable demographic profile:

1. Are they male or female?
2. How old would they be?
3. What income level?
4. Are they philanthropic?
5. Are they married?
6. Do they have kids? (if so, what age are the kids?)
7. Are they community minded?
8. Union or non-union?
9. Are they American or not?
10. Republican or Democrat?
11. What vehicle do they drive?
12. Visible minority?
13. Aggressive or passive?
14. Introvert or extrovert?
15. Do they read the local newspaper? 
16. Are they joiners?
17. Are they handy around the house?
18. Do they own a single family dwelling? or a condo?
19. Are they a sports fan or culture fan or both?
20. How much money do they spend with us?

Answering these questions will give to a solid base to determine your perfect customer. Using census data or a market research source, identify more of this demographic profile within your community. If you charted the outcome on a map, you will typically see clustering of locations. This is because similar demographic groups tend to live close to one another. Market to these target locations. This will save printing and distribution costs by avoiding areas not identified as a target group. Now you not only know your perfect customer but where they live too.