Is your social media marketing feeling a bit sluggish like a muggy summer night? If you need to stir up a breeze and refresh and increase your connections online, it’s time to re-engage with a better grip on how to assess the environment in which you are posting, your social media content and helpful statistics. You likely already have some … Read More
This Time, It’s Personal: Creating Your Unique Brand Identity
Sometimes in the quest to promote our businesses we can get sucked into trying to look like everyone else. Mimicking the qualities of successful people is fine; it can help us improve and try on new ideas or approaches. But you must stay connected to the core of what makes your brand unique or you risk disappearing into a sea … Read More
20th Anniversary! Marketing Has Changed. Have We?
Can it be twenty years? Really? In 1999, I hatched a plan and stepped out into the unknown of business ownership. But how did I land here? Sure, I flirted with the idea of being a freelancer designer/marketer in my 20’s. But building a client base and filling in much of the needed business acumen was not quite my forte … Read More
Read This Before You Wix or Weebly: A Website Builder Checklist
I get it. If you just started or run a smaller business or not-for-profit, getting a good-looking, working website up quickly is critical. And cost is absolutely a factor. But before you pick one of the simple, cheap website building options, review this website builder checklist. Make sure it’s the best fit for your business right now. Or, at least … Read More
When a Marketing Pro Has to Face the Music: New Website for Grotto
How many times can we make that joke about the cobbler’s kids never getting new loafers? Lots more times because the metaphor is still true. Well, this marketing gal and web spinner finally got around to giving the Grotto Communications website an much needed makeover. How to Decide What to Keep and What to Toss in a Website Redesign Reworking … Read More
How to Get the Right Balance and Write Great Healthcare Content
Writing healthcare marketing content is a bit of a tightrope act. You want to be intriguing enough to attract people’s attention in order to share important information about their health and about how you can help. The content must also be very respectful, factual and clear. Whether your audience is prospective patients for a medical practice or healthcare colleagues for … Read More
Wading into Social Media
Every Little Bit Counts Whether you post on Facebook, tweet every day or shudder with anxiety at the very idea, social media can connect your business to your customers in meaningful — and profitable — ways. One way to be sure it’s NOT meaningful? Post willy-nilly, in fits and starts, and not only will your followers be baffled by your … Read More
Improving Engagement in Email Marketing
Email Campaigns: 3 Simple Steps to Improve Your Reach Show of hands: Who is using email to stay in touch with clients/customers and VIPs? Excellent. Now, are you keeping an eye on your response rate? As email continues to be the most important tool for work, getting people to read and react to your incoming message can become more daunting … Read More
Time to Go Mobile
Does your web site work for those on the go? Can someone find your business online “single-handedly”? Think about it. Where are they when people look at your website? If you have a business that targets other businesses, do your clients and prospective clients tend to work on the road or at a desk much of the day? Do you … Read More
How Do You Know When to Redesign?
New clients often sheepishly shake their heads as they admit how long they’ve been meaning to update their brochure, web site, fill-in-the-blank. Whether it’s time or money or ever-slippery priorities, small business owners and other harried types know that they should point some of their fractured attention toward marketing in order to lure new customers/clients. But how can you tell … Read More