What We Do
While many things change in marketing, one thing never changes: Consumers purchase from people, companies, or brands towards whom they feel an affinity.
For small businesses, this should be the best news you’ve heard this year! Your story, your challenges, your passions should be the driving force behind your brand.
You may lie awake at night pondering what you are ‘not,’ but the great news is when you articulate who you ‘are,’ you can make inroads with your customers that will become unshakable.
And this is where Beyond Brand Collective comes in…
We are marketing veterans who have learned the power of harnessing stories. We’ve tried all the big-budget media blitzes and have come back to the simple premise: consumers chose stories over empty-promises. And people hear those stories through social media in a very cost-efficient way.
Stories release oxytocin…the happy hormone. Stories make business relatable. And most importantly, stories about community connection and service make you trustworthy.
All without ever having to say: ‘trust me.’
Please take a look at our website and drop us an email. We’d love to hear your story and find out how we can help you expand your client base just by telling your story.
Sending Polite, Urgent Emails
The heat around CAN SPAM laws has lessened over the years, but it is still important to remember a few things when emailing your contacts. Spam is still not legal, and it is good to be polite when contacting your email list.
Here are 5 ways to urgently and politely send emails to your contacts.
1) Include your physical address. It’s the law and it creates credibility for your brand.
2) Include an easy to see, 1 click way for people to unsubscribe. See this as an opportunity – it is good to clean up your list of people that really don’t want to hear from you anymore. That means your list conversion and other rates like clicks and opens will improve. You must remove the unsubcribes within 14 days.
3) Include an explanation of how this person receiving the email got on your list. Here is some sample text if you need it:
“You are receiving this email because you signed up to hear from John Smith Consulting, ABC Accounting, or John Smith personally”.
4) Limit the number of links in the email to 2-3 max and the images to 1-2. Optimize your images for the web – 400 pixels x 600 pixels works well. Microsoft Paint or similar programs are free and easy to use.
5) Is your email being rejected by major servers like Google, Hotmail or others? PM us, we can help.
To read the law, visit the CAN SPAM web site.
Questions? Leave them in the comments.
New Year! New Brand!
Welcome to my new web site! I hope you will take some time to read through my new services page and read the new approach to my work! I am excited to serve my clients and work along side them to serve our communities this year!
Happy 2020!
Jennifer Norene & Team
Managing Organizational White Space
The white space of a business is everything that goes on between your people and your projects that is not critical path (stages determining the minimum time of an operation) but critical to your success as a business. This article provides examples and tactics relevant to managing white space.
What is the white space?
A mentor of mine and Modelnetics Management leader taught me that the white space of an organizational chart is all of the activity or lack thereof that goes on between the team members and their assigned roles. It is the missing pieces that are overlooked on a successful project or event, the clashing styles between two leaders or the need for increased knowledge of key team players.
How to you discover white space issues?
Conversation, meetings set to regular rhythms are the most helpful in uncovering white space opportunities.
Most people find it fairly straight forward to perform the duties on their job description, it’s the in between required actions that move the organization forward progressively they may need help with. Providing outside industry training opportunities, coaching sessions can help increase the abilities of key employees and increase project success.
White space in an organization or company occurs in certain areas of business that consist of unclear strategies, lack of authority, vague rules and imprecise budgetary factors. In contrast, black space makes up those areas of an organization that are well-managed and targeted with formal planning and budgeting. Source: Chron
Creating documents that reflect key company processes and clearly assign roles and responsibilities can decrease unmanaged white space. Pay special attention to responsibilities where employees duties cross over others. Also provide increased training and collaborative opportunities to increase success of complicated or often overlooked but crucial tasks.
For more information on identifying and managing organizational white space, read these articles.
https://hbr.org/2001/02/managing-in-the-whitespace
https://innovationmanagement.se/2013/06/13/white-space-mapping-seeing-the-future-beyond-the-core/
What is SEO?
What is SEO?
Many now realize that a web site is not a “set it and forget it” affair. A web site that is found on search engines and thus generates quality traffic for a web site and a business takes a thoughtful structure and consistent maintenance, especially in regards to content creation. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is all the things, on and off site you do to make sure that the major search engines can find your site. Share on X The major categories of search engine optimization work are outlined below.
SEO is an ongoing list of important tasks and areas to manage.
Search engines like Google and Bing! want to see that your site is easy to navigate and populated with helpful consumer information. Search engines have “bots” or active algorithmic code that scans sites for relevancy and present sites to consumers in the form of “search engine listings”. Being listed on the search engines, especially on the 1st page for the keywords relevant to your business, is fundamental to success in marketing your site online. It also contributes to the credibility of your business. You may be a thriving business with many customers, but the search engines don’t even know you exist. How do you fix that?
Search Engine Optimization can be thought of in two categories of work to do. “On site” SEO or things you do on your actual site to optimize for the search engines, and “off-site work”, work done on directory listings, other sites that point to you, work developing a flow of reviews about your business. Here is a quick hit list of the things to do to optimize your site for the search engines. This list is not all inclusive but will get you started.
Onsite Search Engine Optimization
1. Site code must be clean
You must check your site regularly for code irregularities, search engines road blocks, efficiencies, missing or incorrectly entered meta tags. Search engines like Google change their code requirements frequently so the code must be managed on an ongoing basis.
2. Tags Audit
Your item tags must be configured properly. An item is a photo, a menu title or site graphic.
3. Content/quality Evaluation
This evaluation includes a review of site structure, page content volume and quality, site authenticity, topical relevancy, topics that are differentiators in the given market or represent opportunities to stand to the search engines. The presence of an active blog is fundamental to a successful web site that is findable on search engines.
4. Various design aspects of the site such as menu structure, present of reviews and testimonials and a blog.
5. Site Speed: Your site needs to load in a time efficient manner on desktop and mobile devices. Site speed is influenced by several factors, including image and files size, code quality and more.
6. Mobile Device Compatibility: Your site must be “responsive” to the environment it is viewed in. There are design factors and even Google requirements to a site being mobile appropriate.
Off-site Search Engine Optimization
1. Reviews
The presence of reviews on Google and other sites, the quality of the reviews and the level of response to the reviews.
2. Directory Listings
Your site’s Name Address Phone number listing being accurate, and the site must be listed in many online directories. We call it NAP and you can’t sleep through it.
3. Google Business Manager
Your site must have an active, accurate GBM account and be updated on a regular basis. Images, reviews, must be kept current, location information accurate. The site must be verified by Google.
Questions, Next Step
Have more questions? Need help stepping through Search Engine Optimization or managing a complex site to keep it appearing on Search Engines? Contact Beyond Brand Collective here.