Category Archives: Small Business

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Charting Profits: How a Clear Vision can Amplify Your Marketing Results

Charting Profits: How a Clear Vision can Amplify Your Marketing Results written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

A company’s vision is its roadmap for the future. It encompasses the organization’s long-term goals and aspirations and lays out its desired destination. Experience tells me that a successful vision is more than just an aspirational concept. It’s a practical, actionable plan that should guide every decision and action within your business, including your marketing strategy.

Understanding the Role of Vision in Marketing Strategy

In the realm of marketing, your vision takes on an especially significant role. It provides the framework within which your marketing strategy operates, informing decisions about audience targeting, channel selection, messaging, and more. If you’re a small business owner, it’s vital to grasp this connection and ensure your marketing strategy is steeply aligned with your overall business vision.

Charting Profitable Growth Goals

Armed with your vision, you can begin setting realistic and profitable growth goals. This requires translating your vision into tangible, measurable objectives. It’s not enough to say you want your business to grow. Make your goals SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – to increase your chances of success.

Maximizing Impact with a Robust Business Vision

Your vision also defines the kind of impact you wish your business to have. What image do you want to project in the market? How would you like your customers to perceive your brand? The answers to these questions should be reflected in your vision. And this vision, in turn, should shape your marketing strategy, guiding you to attract the right customers and establish a strong brand identity.

Tips for Crafting an Effective Vision Statement

A vision statement encapsulates your aspirations and paints a picture of your company’s future. It’s more than just a series of words, it’s a communication tool that tells your employees, shareholders, and customers where your company is heading.

For crafting an effective vision statement, keep the following tips in mind:

  • Keep it succinct: The best vision statements are concise yet powerful.
  • Make it future-oriented: Your vision statement should look ahead, projecting where your company aspires to be.
  • Ensure it aligns with your values: A good vision statement is in sync with your company’s values and culture.
  • Make it inspirational: Your vision statement should inspire and motivate, both internally and externally.

Making Your Vision an Integral Part of Your Business

Your vision shouldn’t be a statement you craft and then forget. It must be a living, breathing part of your everyday business practices. From product development to customer service, every aspect of your business should be guided by your vision. The more consistently you align your operations with your vision, the more powerful your marketing strategy will be.

 

Is your vision driving your marketing efforts?

Embark on a journey to uncover your business’s untapped potential with our Gap Analysis. Turn chaos into clarity and see your vision come to life, driving your marketing strategy and propelling your business toward success.

Having a clear, well-articulated vision is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. It’s the compass that steers your marketing strategy, helping you navigate the challenges of the business landscape and stay on the path to success.

Why A Small Business Needs A Responsive Website

Why A Small Business Needs A Responsive Website written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Responsive websites are a necessity in today’s digital marketplace. That isn’t surprising when statistics state that 51% of time spent online in the United States took place from a mobile device, rather than a personal computer. Your website should be mobile-friendly and responsive any time a user visits. Otherwise, you’re turning business away at the first click.

What is Responsive Web Design?

Though it is a common business marketing term, many small business owners still wonder what a responsive website really entails.

A responsive website, aptly named, means that the site’s web design has been developed to adapt and respond to the different forms of technology that your audience uses to view your site.

If you’ve ever opened a website on your mobile phone that seems to have you scrolling horizontally more than vertically, leaving you piecing together cut-off sentences and large photos, you’ve viewed a website that is not responsive. On the other hand, a responsive web design ensures that your visitors have a seamless experience while on your small business’s website.

What Are the Benefits of a Responsive Website?

Strategic business marketing includes many tactics to help your small business reach your goals, both online and offline. Responsive web design is a key tool, offering many valuable benefits to your online marketing efforts.

Faster Web Pages

Countless statistics indicate that internet users’ attention spans are becoming increasingly short, with more distractions than ever pulling your audience away from your site. With responsive web design, your site will be optimized. Optimization and faster webpage loading times mean that your website users will be able to more easily navigate your site, rather than getting frustrated and clicking away.

Higher Conversion Rates

With easier navigation and shorter loading times, website visitors are more likely to stay on your website and find information easily. Once your visitors are able to find your services, they are much more likely to decide on contacting you. Furthermore, a responsive web design ensures that your website remains consistent and recognizable for return customers who are using different devices to find more information about your business.

SEO Ranking

Undoubtedly, you’ve heard the term SEO. Though the term can seem vague at times, the important aspect of SEO to remember in terms of your web design’s responsiveness is that Google prefers those who have a mobile-friendly and desktop-version of their site. Even better, if your site can configure to all the tablets, large phones, and everything in between, your website will be ranked even higher in search results. Better SEO means better traffic to your website!

Less Website Upkeep

Rather than choosing a responsive web design, many small business owners choose a website with a mobile version and a desktop version. A problem arises with that solution. With the changing sizes of mobile phones and tablets, only two versions of a website prove to be a challenge. With a responsive site, an optimal layout is available for any screen size, thanks to fluid grids. Less time spent updating the sizing and layouts to keep up with technology trends means more time on what you do best!

Determine Marketing ROI More Efficiently

A responsive website provides an additional benefit to your small business’s analytics and reporting. Rather than managing multiple versions of a website, a responsive site allows you to track your audience, conversions, and traffic sources much more simply. Similar to Google awarding you through better SEO ranking, Google Analytics now caters to the responsive web design model to deliver consolidated information that gives you the whole picture on your marketing results.

A Unified, Memorable Brand

One of the key benefits of a responsive website is the ability to design one site that is applicable to all internet users. As a result, a single design delivers your brand’s look, personality, and voice in a unified fashion. Though this may seem surface level, business marketing best practices indicate that a unified brand builds loyalty and recall, which then directly converts to repeat customers.

Effortless Business Marketing

At Outreach Local Marketing, we believe that with a responsive website, your small business will be a marketing machine! Our process for website development centers around Google best practices, taking keywords, SEO, social media, and content into consideration. In the end, our goal for your responsive web design project is to create a website that ensures your business is putting your best digital foot forward. Forty percent of internet users have stated that they exclusively search on their mobile phones, so don’t let your small business fall behind the times!

About the Author

David Gersh is the founder and president of Outreach Local Marketing, a digital marketing agency based in Westlake Village, CA. Through his agency, he helps local businesses build a marketing machine that attracts leads & customers by implementing a strategy first marketing approach.