Tips for Boosting Your Small Business’s Reputation

Young African American Businessman Sitting At Tabl TwhbafsLocal businesses work locally. In other words, the pool of prospective customers typically is limited to those living or working within just a few miles of your physical location.

This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it means you don’t have to create costly global marketing campaigns aimed at a lot of different kinds of people located in a wide variety of places. Instead, you can focus only on those people living close by who are most likely to use what your business is offering.

It’s a curse because much of the success or failure of your local business depends on your personal reputation. If people don’t know you or have negative perceptions about you personally, it’s going to impact your small, local business.

Reputation  Building

Boosting your local reputation is a two-fold process. First, you need to make sure people know who are. Second, they need to like what they see. Both objectives are achievable with a few simple actions.

First, you need to make yourself known within your community. Advertising is fast and effective, but it’s also expensive. A more affordable and successful way for new business owners just starting out is to physically get out there and introduce themselves to their neighbors, especially influential ones such as the local Chamber of Commerce or social groups like the Lions or Rotary clubs.

Set up appointments with local leaders, like mayors and councilmen. Send emails to your US Representative and Senators. Start making connections with people who can help your business, even your competitors. The more people you know, the more likely word about your business will spread.

Getting People to Like You

In small towns, everybody knows everybody else’s business. This is also true of small communities within larger ones, such as where your business operates. So the best way to enhance your reputation is to treat people well, show genuine interest in what they have to say, and be persistent in introducing yourself to new people every day.

When it comes down to it, boosting your business’s reputation is just like getting people to like you in high school, college, at a new workplace, or anywhere else. Simply be a nice person who is engaged positively with their community and the rest will take care of itself.

Website Engineering Starts at the END and works BACKWARDS

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Web Design Software 1

Building a successful website begins with the end: What are the results you want to achieve? Identify your specific goals and the experienced and knowledgeable web design professionals at Lytron Web Design can build the site that gets you there.

Reverse-engineering your web page to deliver your unique and specific goals is the easiest and fastest way to get your business where it needs to be. Once we know what you want from your website, we can build it to suit your specific outcome.

Specific Goals

The operative word here is “specific”. If your goals are vague or generic — such as “I want to reach more customers” or “I want to make my business more well-known in my community” — it’s going to be hard to dial down and achieve these generic outcomes. To get optimal results, website creators need hard numbers: How many more customers do you want to reach in what specific timeframe? How will you measure how well-known your business is in your community and where do you want to set the goal base on this metric?

These kinds of questions help quantify the results you want by offering the ending point our web designers can use to start building your web pages. In web page creation, it’s always best to start at the end and work backward.

Planning and Development

So before you even begin to think about building a website for your business, it’s critical that you spend some time thinking about what exactly you want that website to do. Things like real numbers, hard deadlines, and specific outcomes offer our web designers the starting point from which they can reverse engineer your professional web pages to reach your specific goals.

At Lytron Web Design, we believe if you build it, they will come — but only if you know exactly what you want to achieve with your business’s web pages.

The Most Effective Social Posts Offer Something for Nothing

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Lytron Fort Lauderdale Strategic Agency 1

Today, every successful company has a high social media platform. Publishing content regularly on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and other popular platforms makes sense because that’s where most customers are today.

But publishing just any type of content isn’t a great idea. The posts you publish need to be relevant, on brand, and offer something of value to the people who see them. Random, unhelpful posts will turn people away from your brand. But if you can find a way to post interesting, entertaining, or useful things on your business’s social media platforms, people will actively look forward to your posts rather than tune them out.

In other words, you want to give people something for nothing on social media.

Inform and Entertain

People don’t pay for social media. With a few specialized exceptions, most social media platforms are free to sign up for and free to use as often as people want. Companies like Twitter and Meta (Facebook) make their money from advertising.

Buying ads on the most popular social media sites is a good way to boost your business’s name recognition. But for smaller, local companies it can be cost-prohibitive. So a better way to raise your profile is to create social media accounts for your business and then focus on providing followers with useful, entertaining, or informative posts that actively engage them with your brand.

Managing Social Media

The job of social media manager pretty much didn’t exist a decade ago. But today the biggest companies are hiring young people to manage their social media in order to engage with customers on the fastest-growing platforms in history.

For small businesses like yours, however, it often makes more sense to trust experienced professionals like those at Lytron Strategic. We can craft, launch, and manage your social media sites with posts that make genuine connections with both new and existing customers.

 

In Branding, Consistency Is King!

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To be memorable and effective, brands need to be consistent across all platforms: Print, broadcast, digital, and even signage and face-to-face messaging. Consistency is critical because it inspires familiarity in customers, making them feel comfortable with your and open to your marketing, making it more successful.

Elements like color schemes, fonts, and logo design should be consistent whether they are part of print advertising, websites, brochures, TV commercials, and even packaging. When your branding is always the same, your customers know what to expect from your business. But when it differs from platform to platform, it can be confusing and off-putting.

Amazon Marketing

One example of effective marketing is Amazon. The world’s largest online retailer has done a great job of keeping its branding consistent during every stage of the customer interaction. When you log onto their app or website, it always features the same familiar logo, the same color scheme that is anchored by package brown, and even the same simple, “regular folks” scripting style.

Then, when your package arrives, it comes in a box that features the same “Amazon smile” logo in a box that is the same color as the package brown featured on the website, digital ads, and elsewhere. Even the truck the package arrives in and the uniform worn by the delivery person is consistent in its branding.

Top to Bottom Branding

A lot of thought went into Amazon’s branding. But the results speak for themselves. In less than two decades, Amazon has gone from a niche online bookstore to one of the biggest companies on the planet. And much of that is due to its smart branding decisions.

Consistent branding continually reminds your customers of what your company is all about. Smart branding keeps everything the same on every platform and with every customer interaction.

Holidays and the Seasons Offer Built-In Marketing Opportunities

Friends Taking Selfie At Dinner Table Cbvkzp3When promoting your business online, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Instead, smart business owners use marketing opportunities that are already built into the calendar year: Seasons and holidays.

Holidays are familiar and comforting to consumers. They offer reassuring milestones throughout the year. And they often dictate people’s buying behaviors. So it only makes sense to use them to promote and expand your business.

Year-Round Opportunities

Nearly every month has at least one familiar holiday that can be used to connect your business with customers:

  • January — New Year’s Day
  • February — Valentine’s Day
  • March — St. Patrick’s Day
  • April — Easter
  • May — Mother’s Day
  • June — Father’s Day
  • July — Independence Day
  • August — Labor Day
  • September — Back to School
  • October — Halloween
  • November — Thanksgiving
  • December — Christmas

Building your marketing around these and other holidays and seasons create instant connections with consumers. Depending on what type of business you own, some holidays will be more relevant than others. For example, appliance dealers often have big sales on Presidents’ Day, a holiday not relevant to most other types of businesses.

Acknowledging and celebrating holidays in your blogs and social posts is another great way to connect with people — not to mention giving you something to write about. People like it when you wish them a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Fourth of July, for example. It makes your business seem more familiar and connected with their everyday lives.

Connecting to the Calendar

Official holidays aren’t the only opportunities to promote your business. The change of seasons also has familiar and reassuring relevance for customers. Pool service providers, for example, benefit from amping up promotions in the spring and summer. Owners of vacation resorts and rental properties reach more people in the fall and winter.

Whatever kind of business you own, there’s a holiday and season for you. All you need to do is find it.

It’s Important to Appreciate People’s Sensitivities

Serranos 2It’s not your imagination: People today are more sensitive than they used to be. Things that you wouldn’t think twice about saying or writing even a decade ago can get you into heaps of trouble today, especially online. Places like Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms are filled with people outraged about something somebody else posted.

So rather than getting your back up and standing your ground, it’s better to accept the new realities and appreciate people’s sensitivities rather than ignoring them. It’s all about making your business appealing to the largest possible audience.

Easily Offended

In today’s online culture, a lot of people are easily offended. As a result, “red flag” issues like people’s sexuality, race relations, and especially politics are best avoided altogether in places like blogs, social media posts, advertising copy, and other marketing materials.

When you publish something online, it lives in the digital world forever. So if somebody somewhere out there takes offense at what you have written, it can come back to haunt you years later. So it’s important that you think twice before hitting the “Publish” button if anything in your copy could be construed as offensive — even if you never meant to offend anybody

Proofread Copy

If you hire somebody else to write content for you, make sure you have the opportunity to proofread what they have written before it is published because it’s your name on the company masthead. If a contracted writer posts something that someone else finds offensive, you are the one who will be held accountable.

The last thing you want in today’s digital business environment is to be on the defensive over something you wrote or said online. It’s bad for your reputation and it’s bad for business. So just be smart. Don’t say or do anything that people are going to object to. Instead, stick to the facts.

How to Distinguish Yourself in a Crowded Marketplace

teamwork consulting fort lauderdale web design zoom

Teamwork Consulting Fort Lauderdale Web Design Zoom

Every business owner has felt it at one point or another: They are only one of the thousands of other similar businesses offering the same types of products to the same pool of prospective customers. So how can you distinguish your business from all the rest?

Well, it starts with taking action. Nothing comes from nothing. If you fail to try to differentiate your business, failure is your only option. Literally.

But the good news is that it’s possible to make your business unique, special, and appealing to customers at the expense of your competitors. All it takes is the help of an experienced, professional branding partner — like Lytron
Strategic.

20 Years and Counting

At Lytron Strategic, we recently celebrated our 20th anniversary of helping small businesses just like yours make their mark in a crowded marketplace. We’ve transformed business owners who were previously frustrated with their bland, non-differentiated business image into flourishing, strident brands that instantly appeal to customers worldwide.

Based in Fort Lauderdale but working with clients nationwide and even beyond, our skilled and experienced branding professionals will design, implement, and manage branding strategies that are uniquely suited to your business. And we get the results you want: Whether it’s enhanced return on investment, lead generation, reputation management, or all of the above!

Reliable and Experienced

At Lytron Strategic, our track record speaks for itself. With more than 1,050 completed projects and consistent five-star ratings among our clients, we are the 100% results-driven strategic branding professionals you need to take your business to the next level and beyond.

So stop thinking of yourself as a little fish in a big pond. With the help of Lytron Strategic, now you can get the consulting, brand strategy, internet marketing, and business digitization your business needs to be that pond’s only fish that matters.

Love Your Family But Trust Professionals

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20 Years Lytron 3

When you own your own business, people are constantly asking things of you, including your own family. Siblings or cousins with children who recently graduated from a graphic design school, for example, may offer their services to design your business website.

It’s a good idea to remember the old axiom: Family is family. But business is business. You might want to do your relative a favor, but do you really want your business represented online by a website designed by an amateur?

Customer Contact

In today’s business environment, the first point of contact most people are going to have with your business is online. So if they find your website only to discover that it is hackneyed, amateurish, and unhelpful, they aren’t going to care who designed it. They will simply move on to somebody else.

You owe it to your business to give it a professionally produced website that is created by a web design company with a proven track record of success. At Lytron Design, we’re a family-owned business, too. But we understand that when it comes to making contact with prospective clients, it pays to be all business.

Web Professionals

At Lytron Design, we collaborate with clients to create websites that reflect their distinct personalities. But we also strive to accomplish your specific goals, whether they are to build your online reputation, capture leads, or convince visitors to buy right away. For more than two decades, we have helped hundreds of small businesses achieve their online goals. And we can help you expand the scope and size of your business with a professionally produced website that gets results.

Your business is unique. So your website should be as well. It’s admirable to love your family. But when it comes to creating, launching, and maintaining your business website, it pays to leave it to the professionals at Lytron Design.

Company Mascots Can Help or Hurt Your Business

3711292494 D7E38Ce7C3 BDoes your business need a mascot? This is typically an original character that represents some element of your business. When used properly, a company mascot creates an instant connection between your business and your customers in a positive and meaningful way.

Lots of different businesses have highly effective mascots. Planter’s Peanuts has Mr. Peanut. M&Ms has an ever-expanding world of M&M characters. The Poppin’ Fresh Doughboy has been used in advertising for Poppin’ Fresh biscuits for generations.

Like all successful business mascots, each of these has a direct and meaningful connection with the products they promote. Less successful mascots — like “The Noid” from Domino’s Pizza — can confuse and repel customers and ultimately become more of a liability than a benefit.

Creating a Mascot

Most business mascots are created by a creative team that includes graphic designers and marketers. To work with customers, they need to be appealing, memorable, and connected with the product in some way.

For example, if you own a plumbing business your company mascot needs to have something to do with plumbing. It probably shouldn’t simply be a cute animal or cartoon character because people won’t understand what that has to do with your business. It’s also a good idea to avoid company mascots that are in any way controversial, including those based on racial or ethnic stereotypes or overly sexualized.

Think It Through

Your mascot is going to be associated with your business forever, whether you want it to or not. So it’s important that you fully think through the consequences of introducing it to your customers. Think about how people will perceive your mascot a year from now, a decade from now, and far into the future.

A well-planned and designed business mascot can help bring more people to your business for many years to come.

 

Which Websites Do You Visit Most Frequently?

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Lytron Fort Lauderdale Strategic Agency 3

Everybody has a few websites that they visit every day, or possibly even several times per day. While these often include social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, there likely are also a few business websites that are also on your “Favorites” list.

The question is “why”? What is it about these business websites that keep you coming back again and again? Answer that question and you can unlock the key to making your own business website more popular and successful!

Perceived Value

One element of a successful business website is that it offers “perceived value”. Visitors get something worthwhile when they visit. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that costs the website owner money.

Helpful and useful information in the form of blog posts is one example. Exclusive offers and rewards are another. Or perhaps it’s some type of exclusivities such as access to a VIP tier status or preferred customer class. When people feel as if there is perceived value in visiting a specific business website, they are more likely to keep coming back again and again.

Encouraging Loyalty

The challenge for the owners of business web page owners is to convince current and prospective customers to visit their site instead of their competitors. The key to achieving this goal is to build strong loyalty bonds among your clientele.

Increasing the perceived value is one way. But so is capturing important personal data about your customers — including information like birthdays, product preferences, geographic location, and so on — then using this information to personalize the experience they have when interacting with your business website.

When people feel like they are one of your most important customers, they are more likely to return to your business website more frequently — and be more open to your calls to action, such as subscribing to an elite service, buying more products, and even endorsing and promoting your business on their social media platforms.