It’s right up our alley to produce high end web designs for our clients, but what about our offline image and marketing?  I decided it was time to get some Five Technology apparel to keep us looking good offline for client meetings, events and so forth.   We worked with Peggy Jindra and Great Garments Plus, a promotional products and apparel company out of Rogers, MN. Peggy and her staff did a fabulous job in helping us pick out the right product lines, quality and colors.

The top photo is of our blue golf shirts, we also have black.  The lower picture is of a jacket and Flex Fit hat.

So if you see us on the street with our fresh gear on, just holler at us, we like the attention.

Most small businesses have heard of blogging, some read a few blogs and others have jumped into business blogging already. You might be wondering if you should start a blog for your small business. Most small business owners or management I talk to have some misconceptions on blogging. These “blog fears” are often a combination of misinformation from uninformed sources and their own inexperience.

Lets address a few questions that should help you answer if you should start blogging and also squash some of those blog fears.

1. What can I blog about?
The easy answer is what you talk about. Many business owners and management can talk up a storm on their business, their services, products and how they are different. These same verbal exchanges work perfectly for a blog. I often can lay out at least 20 blog topics for a business within seconds. Writing about product features, industry news, service comparisons, new buzz terms, your process and the list goes on. The biggest takeaway here: Make a list of topics you would talk about (blog about). Share your experiences, your expertise and your niche knowledge.

2. How often must I blog?
Yes, frequency has it’s rewards. Consistency is even better in my mind. Even committing and fulfilling posting once a week is worthy of a blog for a small business. You are far better off to put out solid content once a week then to just throw up a few paragraphs daily. I know blogs that post daily without value, they end up with few comments and their content feels very light. I, myself post once or twice every week and I’ve been very pleased with the growth in audience and SEO in the past 6 months. The biggest takeaway here: Once a week posts are enough, but make them valuable. Check out Blue Tent Marketing’s post on Blog Food for valuable posts and content.

3. What about negative comments?
A common “blog fear” is negative comments, I smirk at this one as my first thought is lets get you enough readers to get people commenting. Many businesses fear the slightest bit of negative criticism, especially in a written form online.  Realize that the majority of comments are positive or neutral, probably even over 95%.  Even if you do get something negative or controversial, rise to the challenge.  The Paramount Granite Blog covering granite countertops had this happen, and owner/blogger Barb Rodgers handled it perfectly.  Barb’s blog is a fantastic small business blogging example. The biggest takeaway here:  You likely won’t get anything negative, but if you do … meet it head on, you’ll learn something for sure.

Hopefully I have helped you answer these three questions for your business or eliminated some blog fears.  I want the overall takeaway to be that you need to look into business blogging further or even get started.  I’m an obvious supporter of it and have seen it’s benefits many times over.  If you are a beginning or seasoned business blogger, I would love to hear your path to starting and the experience to date.  Thanks!

To date this year, Five Technology has donated our web design services and content management solution for two different local organizations.  The first was to the “Vote Yes” committee in Delano for their efforts in getting two school referendums passed.  The second website has just recently been released and is for the non-profit Buffalo, Minnesota Food Shelf.

After I read a local newspaper article on the challenges the food shelf was facing for 2008, I decided that helping them launch a website would improve their ability to communicate with the community to increase support and also offer their services to those in need.

While the web design and site features are very basic, the site greatly increases the food shelf’s ability to gain visibility and share their mission.  One of the fun ways to help is by golfing in their 4th Annual Green Bean Open coming up, for which you can register online.

I also want to pass along thanks to the food shelf Director Jill Ask for the time she put in to helping us gather information to pull the website together.

I work with clients from time to time that are basically ashamed they have never taken the opportunity to acquire permission to market to their customers via email. It’s not a big deal, and it’s better to start today then to wait another week, month or year!

Lets take a look at three tips to remember if you are just starting to build an email list to leverage email marketing for your business or organization. You can also view a quick list of other list building basics.

Tip #1 - Quality Beats Quantity
It’s far better to start with even just 25 email recipients that are current customers, people in your target market or those that have sought out your new e-letter than a list of 2,500 random emails. You want to deliver relevant and useful information to your audience, that is what will motivate them to buy or contact you for new or repeat business.

Tip #2 - Ask For Permission In Person
I often ask a potential client when closing an introduction meeting or phone call for the first time if I can add them to our monthly e-letter. I tell them this is a great way to stay in the loop with our offering and learn more on web design and Internet marketing. Chances are you can easily do the same, you just have to ask!

Tip #3 - Create Some Fun
There are a ton of creative ways to start an email campaign. Prizes, contests, free marketing are all great ways to stir up some excitement. This sports art website is leveraging a contest to build their email list, sign up yourself! A little bit of brainstorming and planning can produce a great kick-off and list build.

If you didn’t catch my drift above, starting today instead of continuing to put it off is the biggest tip I can give you. With a little planning and strategy you can start your email list and marketing in no time. You can always holler at us for a demo of our easy to use email marketing tool as well.

If you are a service based business you need your website to create, build or maintain a high level of trust. Whether you are a service for consumers (lawn care, electrician, chiropractor, mechanic) or a service for businesses (consultant, accountant, web designer, bank), you are after the user’s trust.

Building Trust With Your Website Content
When you meet with someone in person, there are factors that earn their trust. Some of the trust factors are appearance from how you are dressed, the way you talk, the way you listen, the examples you can give them of your success. You also have the ability to tailor the conversation to each personality type or issue to hit their hotspots, answer their biggest questions and ultimately earn their trust.

Online, it’s tough to adjust on the fly, but here is how you can provide content on your website to earn their trust. Below is a Trusted Web Content Pyramid that I will break down to give you the best chance or earning your website visitors trust and their business.

+ Case Studies - Top Level
This is at the top for me. Why? Because I feel that ultimately every user feels significant trust in seeing their same situation or problem addressed. Getting the user to think “That’s the same issue or need I have, they have what I need.”. Building this content our on your website is simple, just outline what the customers issue is/was, then talk about how your service solves it, mix in some type of visuals to compliment and reinforce your solution and close it with the outcome. Building out these case studies and and continually adding to them brings trusted content to your website.

In a brief example our web design portfolio and project blog posts are examples of this. We outline what the client’s needs were when they came to us, the services we put into their website and the outcome is available for viewing on the site and by clicking the link to visit the website for yourself.

+ Features - Mid Level
Many companies often mistake their features as the top content on their website. Although very important, it’s not the top. To get the most out of your service features and build trust, make sure you organize the information correctly and make it easy to read. Make use of bullet points or icons to separate out features. Keep descriptions short by providing the main feature and then limiting yourself to one or two sentences of supporting information. Provide details, specs or data that supports in anyway possible. Lastly make use of visuals to support your features. This can be in the form of photos, graphics or video.

+ Benefits - Mid Level
If anything from this post, remember this: can the marketing copy. People are tired of the “latest, greatest, biggest, blah …blah …blah”. Use website content that is straightforward and real to relay your benefits. Link to the case studies and examples you have provided on your site (top level) as they relate to the specific benefits. When possible, translate your service benefits into numbers. What do you save the consumer or business in money, time or efficiency? Finding ways to provide numbers give the user a clear message on your benefit.

+ Company Info, Visuals & Clients - Bottom Level
Yes these are on the bottom, but they do the dirty work of a supporting role. Having information on your companies history, awards, key staff and affiliations provides a personal touch and needed background. Highlighting staff that customers might interact with builds familiarity and that builds trust.

I touched on visuals earlier and I probably will do an entire post on this at some point, but at least provide photos of YOU. Showing your employees, your company, your vehicles, your office or anything else builds familiarity and trust. You can obviously take things to a different level in using a professional photographer or web company to shoot them or producing a video. Lastly list out your past customers, clients or even add a few testimonials. If you do put out some testimonials, I suggest adding a photo of the client or project, not just having the same boring 2 or 3 sentences everyone provides on their website.

There you have some simple ways to write and produce content on your website that builds trust and business. Put them to use or maybe share how you have already had success online by leveraging similar items to my pyramid or examples.