small business Archives

Create a website

August 24, 2016 By Haley Graves

Create a website that helps your customers find what they need

Remember the last time you lost something? How frustrating and time consuming the search was? Searching for information on the Internet can feel the same way. How many times have you gone to a website looking for one simple piece of information and you end up saying ?nevermind? because the website?s navigation is just too confusing. You know the information exists, but you don?t have the time or patience to continue searching. So you do what every other person with an internet connection does: you Google it to find another company that offers the same products and/or services.

A recent survey by AnswerDash reveals how and why we leave websites:

75 percent of people 18 to 24 years old and 57 percent of those 55 and over abandon a site within two minutes if they can?t find what they need.
Of those over age 55, 28 percent said they spend only 4 minutes trying to accomplish their task on a website before leaving.
Across all age groups, average abandonment time is 90 seconds.

Here?s another informative statistic: 57 percent of web users will abandon a site as soon as they have a question without a ready answer.

For small business owners, this means two things. First, a website is a must. Second, when building your website, you need to think like a customer and understand best practices for web development, design, search engine optimization (SEO), and user experience (UX).

Help customers navigate

For any new business, the company?s online presence needs to be topnotch. Basic functionality should never be an issue, and content should be fresh and up-to-date. Sites that are most inviting are clean and flow logically.

Here are eight keys to consider when creating your new site:

Timeliness. Your site needs to be current and updated. Consider blogs, forums, or other tools that are updated regularly with new and engaging content.
Navigation. Keep navigation organized and straightforward. Consider grouping similar navigation items together. If your site is going to have more than six pages, consider a sitemap. (For SEO, you will likely want a sitemap anyway. We?ll cover that in a later post.)
Simplicity. Content should be concise and easy to find, preferably not across multiple pages. No one wants to click through 10 different pages to find that one piece of information they need. As with navigation tools, group similar pieces of content together. Use headings and highlighting to set content apart. Also, within the article, DO link to relevant content. For example, if you mention tips to design a great logo (https://atbrand.com/branding/design-a-logo), you?ll want to provide a link to easily access that content.
Engagement. If users are bored, they will not stay long and they will not come back. Make sure the site is clean but still eye-catching. Add interactive elements where they make sense?don?t force them.
Structure. While the site shouldn?t be so bland that users don?t remember it, don?t stray too far in the opposite direction and make the site outlandish. If it?s in your budget, hire a designer who can help you choose the right colors, fonts, and design elements to make your site unique and attractive.
Optional audio and video. Using audio and video on your website can be engaging, but let the user choose what he or she wants to see or hear?do not start audio and video streaming as soon as the user arrives. And be mindful that audio and video can use more resources, which may require you to select a more advanced (and more expensive) web hosting service, or your site may load slowly.
Registration as a barricade. You need a good reason to force users to register to use your site. If the site has a customer portal, then registration makes sense. However, having users register just to browse the site is a barrier, telling them only certain users are welcome.
Ad overkill. Using advertising appropriately can be a legitimate income-generator for your business. However, advertising in excess can be distracting and frustrating. Users want to review your content without ads popping up all over. An ad should not be the first thing a user sees, nor should ad space outweigh content space.

Information courtesy of Kissmetrics.

One last note

Your website should be informative; try to anticipate users? questions and provide them with answers. However, when users have questions you have not considered, make sure your ?help? tool is portrayed as just that?your company?s offer to help and not a secret society for only the most technologically savvy customers to find.

Remember, the most important thing to do when building a website is to help users find answers. Do this, and do it well, and you will give yourself a great chance to earn more business.

Design a logo

August 4, 2016 By Haley Graves

As part of your brand, make sure your logo hits the mark

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. This phrase has been uttered countless times, and nowhere is it more relevant than in the launch of your new business. During a time when everything is moving so fast, how do catch your target audience? You may have only a fraction of a second to get them to stop what they are doing to focus on your business.

Creating a top-shelf logo is essential while trying to capture the attention of your potential clients. From a branding perspective, the logo you create for your new business is just as important as the name of your company ? if not more so. Like the business name, the logo needs to be unique and memorable. Your logo needs to clearly represent your brand ? the overarching mantle for how you envision your company.

Logo design: on your mark, get set, go!

You will want to connect with the right branding service to help you take your ideas and sketches to a professional level. However, before consulting an outside source, it?s good to do your homework. Similar to the process for naming your business, contemplating your logo should inspire you to get introspective. Review your company?s core product or service. Think back on your target market?s demographics and how they spend their time. Most important, focus on what your business will do for your target market. With these pieces, you are ready to start brainstorming.

For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when considering a product?a new car, a new piece of clothing, a new piece of furniture?is the color. In creating your logo, you need to consider what colors mean to different people and what colors will say about your business.

Here are the attributes of different colors as well as the feelings that they might evoke:

Red (intensity): emotion, aggressiveness, passion, love
Pink (femininity): love, sweetness, warmth, nurturing
Orange (happiness): creativity, enthusiasm, determination
Yellow (energy): joy, being alive, energetic
Green (nature):?harmony, calmness, relaxation, peacefulness, hopefulness
Blue (depth, stability):?comfort, understanding, trust, clarity
Purple (luxury or royalty):?glamour, power, nostalgia
Brown (earth, nurturing): reliability, support, dependability
Black (formality, mystery):?boldness, luxury, seriousness

?[data from financesonline.com]

Keeping your target market top of mind, you can research color preferences based on many factors, including geographic location, age, and education level. In addition, here are some gender-related factors to keep in mind:

Men:
- In the western world, it is not rare for men to be color-blind so use red, green, and brown carefully.
- Typically prefer blue to red and orange to yellow.
- Are becoming more accepting of pinks and purples.
Women:
- Typically prefer red to blue and yellow to orange.
- Are more willing to try new colors.
Both genders:
- Can be marketed to most effectively with blue, turquoise, green, red, yellow, black, white, gray, and silver.
- Look for darker colors for a more serious business: dark blue, dark green, dark red, indigo, black, and gray.
- Look for bright, light colors for a more casual or light-hearted business: red, orange, yellow, bright green, bright blue, pink, and purple.

[data from empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com]

Your logo is the symbol and long-lasting representation of your company and its product or service. It should be simple but stylish, memorable and enduring. Above all, your logo should be flexible to suit the needs of your business? it should be formatted and colored to allow for reproduction anywhere ? on a screen, in print large or small, and in the memory of members of your target market. This is essential as you will want your logo to be readily available for all marketing opportunities. It is important for your logo to be attractive, but even more important that it is suitable for all platforms. After you have created an attractive logo, consider consulting a professional to ensure that you have covered all bases.

Take the time to create a logo that will be the best representation of your business both now and in the future.

Naming your business

July 25, 2016 By Haley Graves

Brand experts who create ?sticky? business names focus on purpose and relevance?

Are you great with names? Say you meet someone at a networking event. Will you remember their name tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

If you?re like most people, the answer is no. In fact, you?re likely to forget their name within minutes?and sometimes even seconds. But rest easy. According to Kansas State University’s Richard Harris, professor of psychology, there?s nothing wrong with your brain?you?re just disinterested.

This psychology?the association between interest and memory?is an important factor to consider as you determine the name for your small business. Because if you want to create a brand with impact, you need a business name that is memorable, and to create a memorable business name, you need to make it interesting to your audience. That is, you want them to connect the name to your business?and connect your business to them.

Don?t accept that people are terrible with names

A lot of factors go into naming a business. First, review your product or service and get to the core of what your company will do. Next identify your target market. Remember their demographics and how they spend their time. Then hone in on what your business will do for them, because the key to creating a name that sticks is the ensure that it has purpose (a story that is unique to your brand) and relevance (a story that matters to your audience).

Other factors to consider when naming your business include:?

* Length. Try to keep the name short and easy to spell. This will help with your email, website and social media presence. And consider identity materials and marketing collateral. Long names are generally not design friendly because they do not scale down well for printing on business cards and small print ads.

* Timelessness. Even if your exit strategy is to sell fast, avoid trendy expressions. Today?s ?catchy? could be tomorrow?s ineffective or inappropriate.

* Competition. What are the names of your competitors? Don?t copy a competitor?s name, but do consider synonyms or similar words.

* Stickiness. Go for a name that is unique but not so unique that it will be too difficult to remember. The rule of thumb here is the same as it is in building a successful business. Know your audience.

According to Harris, ?The key to a good memory is your level of interest. The more interest you show in a topic, the more likely it will imprint itself on your brain.?

The takeaway here is that your business name does not stand on its own. It is just one element of your overall brand identity, and for it to be memorable it must be part of your broader brand strategy.

Clear your name

Once you brainstorm your list, narrow it down, and make final tweaks to arrive at what just might be ?the? name, you have to do your research.

* Google it! What comes up?

* Search domain availability. GoDaddy will allow you to search available domains. If your exact domain is not available, they will recommend alternatives.

* Check Twitter, Facebook, and other relevant social media sites. * Use the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office?s trademark search tool to see if something comparable, or an adaptation of it, is trademarked. You do not want to get involved in a trademark case: some 3,500 of them are filed each year in U.S. district courts, according to FTI Consulting Inc., and the legal costs could hinder the growth of your business .

Once you have finalized your name, get feedback from people you trust. Then share it with more contacts and a representative sample of your market.

Remember: business names are like first impressions. It?s easier when you get it right your first time.

Identify your market

July 11, 2016 By Haley Graves

When selling a product or service, know who you?re selling to and why

Once you finalize your business idea, it?s time to shift your focus to your potential clients. You need to thoroughly consider who will buy or use what you want to sell. Consider these demographics:

Gender
Age
Marital/family status
Residential location (urban, suburban, rural)
Geographic location
Median income
Veteran status

When you picture someone using your product or service, who is that someone? A new mother? Senior citizen? A person of a certain nationality? It is hard to be everything to everyone, so define who you want to be to ?someone.? What is it about them that will make them want?or hopefully need?your product or service? Why are they your target?

For an existing product or service, can you find data on what your target is already spending annually? For a new product or service, is there something available now that your target market is probably able to make do with, and if so, what is their current spending for that?

What do different government agencies project about the expected change in the size of your target market? Will the size of the group be growing or shrinking over the next 5 to 7 years? You may have high demand for your product or service now, but that might wane a few years down the road. Or the opposite may be true. It may take a few years for your market to mature, but once it does, demand should go through the roof.

Research is not to be taken lightly
You have to know who you want to reach before you can get your business off the ground successfully. You cannot cast your net too wide, and you do not want to focus on such a small niche that your efforts outweigh your profits.

Finally, use your resources. You are surrounded by dozens of people in your family and social circles. Look to those you trust most to help you consider all the angles when it comes to your target market. It would be most useful, of course, if you can pick the brain of someone who might be in your target market?maybe a friend with a new baby or a grandparent. Or you can conduct a focus group to learn more about your market and their reaction to your product and/or service.

You can never have too much information. As your business plan progresses, you can refine the plan and filter your data. But at startup phase, be a master researcher and gather all of the information you can. You?ll likely find that it will guide you through your most difficult decisions.

Define your small business’s product and/or service

July 6, 2016 By At Brand Staff

Make the transition from desktop daydreamer to small business owner

If you?ve ever worked for someone else you?ve probably had a moment when you thought, ?I could make this business better?the product more appealing?and the service even more beneficial to the customers.?

Usually its after your boss makes a questionable decision or yet another memo comes down from corporate headquarters announcing the next breakthrough initiative or organizational change.

In fact, desktop daydreaming is commonplace. According to University of Phoenix, 39 percent of U.S. employees hope to someday own their own business. But what separates those who dream from those who do is the realization and belief that they can do it themselves?and do it better?whether it?s managing a client?s payroll and accounts, repairing clients? homes or vehicles, or serving the best desserts in town.

Know what you do well, and know what you like
What you?re good at it may be what you?re getting paid to do right now. Or not. We all need to pay the bills and put food on the table. But if you?re starting a business it needs to be about more than just earning a paycheck. It has to come not from something you like but from something you love. Something that lights a fire within you. And something you do well. So what is it? Maybe IT consulting or web design. Maybe construction or farming. Maybe caring for others. What is the first thing you choose to do in your free time? What is the last thing you want to be taken away from when you?re doing it? Once you have a concept, it?s time to figure out how to make it go.

Choosing your product or service is one of the most important decisions, if not the single most important decision, you will make when planning your small business. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to ensure you get it right:

What problem will my product or service alleviate?
Who is already doing it?
Is there a gap in the marketplace my business could fill?
If there are competitors, who are they? What are they doing well? What could I do better?

You cannot just start a business because you want to start a business. At least not if you want to start a successful business. You have to have a simple but solid idea for a product or service that people already know they need and are getting somewhere else. Or if it is new idea, you have to prove it is needed and then provide it at a reasonable cost.