Impact Branding and Design Blog
Jan 12

Point of differentiation

By Will Shay General Marketing No Comments »

I was reading an article recently about marketing and stumbled across a pretty interesting use of terms: share of voice and share of mind. What the writer was trying to convey was that share of voice is a measure of how much market share you hold against your competition in output. Share of mind, however is market share in the minds of the consumer – in other words who among the competitors in the marketplace do customers think of first when contemplating a purchase.

The scenario was that there were five kitchen design companies in a town and they all advertised a half page in the yellow pages, all took out weekly ads in the local newspaper and they all had similar websites that were not really optimized fully. In other words they were marketing themselves pretty much the same and all held 20% share of voice.

In this hypothetical situation we can infer that the share of mind will be around 20% each as well. Clearly there are other components that need to be considered – so this test tube is virtually unrealistic – but does offer a platform to consider in business competition regarding base line. Imagine for a moment that this is true – that these kitchen design companies are equal in their market.
People hear about them equally and people think about them equally.

So I start thinking about one of my favorite subjects – point of differentiation.

What one thing does any one of these companies need to do to place them ahead in the marketplace? The article suggests consolidating most of their voice in one area and increasing their share of mind by repetition in that area and thus to the marketplace.

I would agree that this strategy would be interesting – but where? Would a two page ad in the yellow pages set them apart from their competition significantly – even if they dropped out of the newspaper? Or would four ads in the newspaper cement repetition in the minds of the reader?

Twenty years ago this analysis might be difficult. Today it is not.

Point of differentiation is what you do that your competitors do not. And, more importantly, it is how you convey it to the marketplace. Your identity must be strong and your brand must be clear. Potential customers must understand you and your promise.

Here’s the rub – you must deliver it efficiently. You must target your audience and not waste your money on marketing to people who you already know are not your potential customers. Yes brand yourself in mass media to some extent – but target your message to those with a real potential to buy your product or service – and keep expanding this audience for maximum profitability.

It all lies in technology. A well crafted website and targeted email campaign will put you head and shoulders above your competition and you will earn a heavy percentage of share of mind.

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Dec 14

Why isn’t anyone going to my website?

By Bob Ruffolo Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Website Promotion 3 Comments »

Why isn't anyone going to my website?

Why isn't anyone going to my website?

You’ve just invested in designing a website and you think business is going to increase. You created a website to expand your exposure. Your competition has a website and it works for them, yet you are seeing poor results. Why?

Many business owners are under the impression that their entire target market is going to swarm to their website and the phone is going to ring off the hook. That won’t happen.

With hundreds of millions of websites, business owners must understand that a new website starts at the bottom of the list. No doubt – a website can produce tremendous sales results – it takes time and financial investment however.

The world will not magically know your web address, and they will not visit your site unless you have told them about it. Just because you have a new website, it doesn’t mean that online users are going to be looking for it. Without a properly planned out strategy for visitors to find your site, your website will certainly remain lost in the mix.

I have been developing websites for over five years and worked with many clients in various industries. Never has anyone disagreed with me when I told them that they needed a website and rarely has anyone disputed that even a basic custom website costs at least $1000. But when I tell them that it’s critical that they invest in optimizing their website, they sometimes find that to be an unnecessary cost. I really have to explain why this is so valuable. When I check in with clients who choose not to optimize a few months later, they ask me the same question: Why isn’t anyone going to my website?

How do you help potential customers find your website? Here are the basics:

1. Is your website interesting?

This is the first thing I look at when helping clients generate traffic. What comprises your content? Is it unique to the internet? Is it different from your competition? Does it make you look competitive? Does it engage the visitor? If someone looked at your website for five seconds, would they want to read on or would they want to hit the back button?

The more interesting your website, the more likely that a visitor will understand your business, spend time visiting the different pages on your site, and share your website with their friends and other online users. It’s critical to develop unique content and provide visitors with information they may not find anywhere else on the web.

2. Is your website easy to navigate?

Another very important aspect is that the user can navigate throughout your website with ease. Plan out where a visitor will start, where you want them to go, what do you want them to see, and where do you want them to exit. Most small businesses want them to exit the website after they have made some sort of contact. Does your website encourage interaction?

3. Does your website have any search engine road blocks?

Most of your website traffic will come from search engines. Like a library does with books, search engines will review the content of your website and categorize it. Search Engines will then present your website in its results if it believes it accurately matches the keyword term for which the user was searching. Is there anything on your website preventing search engines from accessing and indexing your website correctly?

You can review our post: Top 9 Search Engine Ranking Road Blocks that Many People Experience, to test your website for major issues that will block your website from search engine results.

4. Have you promoted your website?

OK, so your website is interesting and search engine friendly. Now it’s time to “open the curtains” and let the world know about your site. There are many things you can do to promote your website including link building, pay per click advertising, mass-email marketing, social media marketing, and offline website promotion. These are all popular and proven methods to generate traffic.

Pay Per Click Advertising:

You may recognize pay per click (PPC) advertising as those results that appear in search engines next to and sometimes above the true search results. Most PPC programs also show ads on affiliated websites such as “Ads by Google.” Popular PPC programs include Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. The pay per click means exactly what is says – you pay when the user clicks the link and follows through to your website. These clicks generally cost between a dime to a dollar, based on how many competitors there are. A PPC advertiser sets a daily budget for how much they are willing to spend on clicks.

The benefits of PPC are that it can be set up quickly and start generating traffic immediately. Depending on your needs and your reach, however, this could be costly. But until your website starts climbing in the ranks of the search engines, this is a great way to get started.

Link Building:

Link building is the single most important thing you can do to improve your ranking in modern search engines. The downside is that it’s time-consuming. The upside? Search engines count how many links are pointing to your website and modify their rankings accordingly. The more links the better. Even more important than the number of links is the quality of links. A link from the New York Times is a lot better than a link from your kid’s blog, so keep that in mind.

A great way to get started with link building is through directory submission. I recommend spending at least $2000 on directory submission for a new website. Certainly you will want to submit your site to the top-tier directories including DMOZ and Yahoo Directory. I would also seriously consider Business.com, Best of the Web, Joe Ant, CannyLink, Gimpsy, GoGuides, America’s Best, Rubberstamped, Uncover The Net, Starting Point, and Linkopedia. Along with these paid directories, there are also many good free directories, such as Jayde.

Beyond directories, I recommend:
• Swapping links with your customers and vendors (if possible).
• Asking your chamber of commerce and other associations to link to you.
• Participating in forums, blogs, and question/answer sites (including your link in your signature).
• Searching for what sites are linking to your competition and request that they link to your website.

Mass E-Mails:

Or as we like to call them, blast e-mails. A great way to generate some quick traffic to your website as well as a message to your target market.

Social Media Marketing:

No joke, Facebook and Twitter are for real – and hyper popular. Businesses are discovering the possibilities of finding contacts, building relationships, sharing interests, and ultimately, driving sales. Make sure you take advantage of the power of social media, it’s where the internet is going.

Offline Marketing:

And of course, make sure you are promoting your web address on everything possible, including business cards, brochures, flyers, promotional items, vans and trucks, television and radio commercials, sponsorships, and just about everywhere else your company name may be found.
Another quick tip: make sure everyone at your company knows your web address.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below or contact us directly.

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Dec 07

What is a Brand?

By Will Shay Branding No Comments »

Your BRAND really speaks about who you are. You connect with your audience if well branded; they associate values and promises instantly. It could be luxury, consistency, youthfulness… But where did it all start?

We believe that the concept of branding (although not called that) has been in full swing since human beings became civilized. Branding is not too far from reputation. The way people have behaved is a representation of themselves – or branding. She’s fun and hip – he’s selfish. There you go – BRANDED!

It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that businesses began to recognize and implement this in their strategic plans. Many of these plans were accidental and the ones that worked set the stage for what we now understand as the most important part of a business and a modern science.

The word “brand” comes from brandr (old Norse) meaning “to burn.” We immediately think of cattle upon learning this. It was functional for ownership purposes and security. With all other local ranchers branding their cattle, Samuel Maverick decided that if he didn’t brand the bovine they would stand out as his by default as they had no markings. We now associate “maverick” as a personality type – or one could say personal brand.

It’s crucially important to park yourself at this point for a while if you are pondering a new or existing brand. Think about reputation of the individual and what Sam Maverick decided to do and how significant his understanding was of this concept. He created a brand identity so strong that it was the platform of an entire presidential campaign.

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Nov 22

Why does my Website need to be Optimized for Keywords?

By Bob Ruffolo Search Engine Optimization No Comments »

Search engines use keywords to categorize your website.

A keyword is 1-5 words that describes a topic. When someone uses a search engine to find what they are looking for, the type their request in the search engine search bar. What they are really doing is providing the search engine with a keyword to go through their database, or list of websites that they know about, and return the most appropriate results. One major factor in the way a search engine categorizes a website to fetch the most accurate results is by analyzing the content of your website and recording what keywords appear. Search Engines will then make the assumption of what your website is all about.

How to pick keywords.

You have to put yourself in the position of the search engine user, or more realistically, your potential customers. What are they searching for when they are looking for a company like yours? Once you have created this small list, you then can utilize some of the many keyword selection tools available online to better optimize your keyword selections.

How can I use Keyword Management to get to #1 on Google?

It is critical that all keyword optimization techniques are implemented. A high keyword density will help achieve higher search engine positions. Keywords should be included in the image alt tags, title tags, header tags, links, meta tags, and content. It is also important that you vary your keyword term and use complementary terms. Use plural versions and similar terms. Writing keyword rich content is one of the most important things you can do in order to reach that overall goal, a high ranking in Google.

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Sep 21

Top 9 Search Engine Ranking Road Blocks that Many People Experience.

By Bob Ruffolo Search Engine Optimization 1 Comment »
  1. Flash Websites – Unless done properly (which most are not), flash websites can not be read by the search engines. Flash is not too much more than graphically pleasing images. Any text in a flash website is part of the flash image, and not part of the site. A simple check to see if this is the road block for your site is to view the site source (Right click > View Source) and see if you can make out any of the same text in the code as you see. If you can’t make it out, neither can the search engines.
  2. Clunky HTML Websites – Search engines read the HTML code of a website to find text and links. Basically, if a search engine spider goes through your code and had to read clunky html (lots of tables, unnecessary tags, invalid code, css in the html, etc.), it has a hard time collecting the information it needs and may even give up and move on.
  3. Poor Keyword Management – First, it’s important to know what keywords your customers are searching to find you. Once you know that, then they have to be included in your website, and often. Places to include your keywords are title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, image names, urls, link titles, header tags, lists, etc.
  4. Poor Website Navigation – Often many designers will use JavaScript for navigation bars. Although it will look nice, your navigation will not be visible to the search engines. And since search engines index websites by crawling from page to page, it’s important that you have a navigation system that the search engine can see and can access any page on your site within 2 clicks from the homepage.
  5. Lack of Links – Without links, your site has no importance. To see how many links you have and who is linking to you, go to Yahoo and search your site url with “link;” before it (ex. link:http://www.example.com).
  6. Ignoring the Title Tag – Many websites ignore the title tag on a website. This is one of the most important places to put your company name and / or keywords. The site title is the link you click on in most search engine results, including Google. A title tag that says “Welcome” or “Site Title” does nothing for your site in the search ranking. To see if this is hurting your ranking, check the top of your browser (above file, edit, view etc.) and see what is written in the top bar. Are your keywords there? Is your company name?
  7. Poor URLS – Simply put, a url of http://www.example.com/wallingford-real-estate.html is better than http://www.example.com/homes.html or http://www.example.com/index.php?option=com_content&sectionid=4
  8. No use of H1, H2, H3 tags – These are your page header tags. Imagine a newspaper without headlines. To see if your site is using header tags, check your code (View Source) and search for <h1>Example</h1> or <h2>This is a Header 2 example.</h2>
  9. Poor META website descriptions – Like the title tag before, this is often ignored, but extremely important to search engine optimization. This is the text that shows up in a search result below the page title. To make sure your Meta Description is correct, check your code and look for a line like: <meta name=”description” content=”Keyword loaded description of a website with around 50-70 characters of text.”
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Sep 21

10 Benefits to Having an Impressive and Up-to-date Website

By Bob Ruffolo Website Design No Comments »
  1. Customers will find you: Whether you want to believe it or not, the internet is increasing as the source for which customers seek products and services year by year. And they are certainly looking for your products and services. Open up the lines of communication and show them who you are.
  2. Company Image: Are you putting your best foot forward or does your online image leave a bit to be desired? You know you are a serious business and you want your customers to perceive you as so. A well designed website tells your customer that your organized, professional, and on the cutting edge.
  3. Competitive Edge: Your competition is already online, and you may think their website is better than yours. You may be surprised to see how affordable it is to have a website that towers over your competitors.
  4. Showcase your Products or Services: You’ve worked very hard to build your business, and I’m sure you have something that others don’t. Showcase your uniqueness where people are looking for it.
  5. Syndicate News: Have a big announcement that your customers want to hear? A dynamic website will allow you to quickly submit articles that visible through the search engines and entice visitors to want to return to your website.
  6. Expand Your Market: Advertisements in the newspaper or yellow pages are expensive and will generally reach a small local market. In many cases, a company three towns over will never see your ad. A website is a fraction of the cost is accessible to your customers all over the United States and the world.
  7. Improved Customer Service: Are you constantly answering the same questions over and over again. A website is a great way to provide your customers with driving directions, frequently asked questions, troubleshooting solutions, tutorials, and much more. Also, Newsletters and mailings lists can easily be added to a website that promote your specials and keep that constantly remind your customer that you are still in business.
  8. Anytime Anywhere: Customers can get the answers to all their questions, even when you’re business is closed or a representative is not available. A website can be a 24 hours salesperson.
  9. Freshness of Information: Your business is constantly improving. Although your brochure and newspaper ad may be aging by the day, your website can be updated instantaneously to ensure that your customers are getting the latest and greatest information every time they visit your site.
  10. Track your customers: Free tracking software, when set up correctly, can tell you how people found your site, when and where they were when they were on it, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their experience.
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108F North Turnpike Rd. Wallingford, CT 06492
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