Today's economy has been shaken up, businesses of all kinds are being forced to be innovative, and we are left wondering how we navigate these unsettling times.
Join us in this educational webinar where we discuss how small businesses can take control of their brand and online presence. Setting up their business to be more ready than ever when this temporary set back dissipates and the economy is back in full swing.
Does your business struggle with the following challenges?
- Not reaching your targeted customers
- Customers are not talking about your business
- Experiencing a lack of momentum amongst clients and employees
- Brand touch points appear outdated and don’t communicate your business effectively.
- Your online presence is outdated due to advances in systems & technologies.
- Your business seems to be losing exposure to a competitive industry.
In this webinar, you will learn how to;
1. Improve the brand you already have and extend its lifetime.
2. Gain attention and momentum around your business.
3. Effectively reach out to your desired customers.
4. Create a purposeful brand strategy that will move your business forward.
5. Make more streamlined business decisions.
Attendees of this webinar will receive a brand improvement package that includes:
- Complimentary One-on-One Video Consultation with Gavin or Andrew
- List of Brand Maintenance Tools & Ideas you can apply today.
- An awesome checklist, “Getting Your Brand Found Online”
Gavin O'Halloran
Chief Marketing Guy @Monalo Media www.monalomedia.com
Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, Gavin has been in the marketing trade for over 10 years. He helps local businesses boost their online visibility and increase customer interactions, in order to deliver more leads and help grow their business. Gavin likes to solve marketing problems, which is anything from helping design local marketing systems to more complex SEO configuration. He loves to answer marketing questions, just ask him.
Andrew Scherle
Brand Consultant @Early Creative - www.earlycreative.ca
Andrew has been designing brands and branded experiences for passionate business owners since 2010. Like you, they are small business owners, influencers, and leaders, working hard to grow their business in a competitive market that demands more now, than ever. Andrew believes that the job of a brand is to tell the story of your business, while clearly communicating your goals to desired customers and standing out in your industry. Andrew will be talking about how to improve your brand in today's economy, and what it means to streamline your brand for successful years ahead.
Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them well
How to improve your brand and get it found online
1.
2.
3.
4. Challenges
● Tired of working on your business
and not seeing positive results.
● Not attracting the right customers.
● Sense a lack of momentum amongst
clients and employees.
● Touch points appear outdated or don’t
communicate your business
appropriately.
● Business seems to be taking a
back seat in your industry.
13. ● What are your core values?
● What are your future goals?
● What do your customers expect
from your brand?
● What makes you different?
● How much am I willing to invest in
my current brand?
Ask Questions
16. Brand Refresh
Update the appearance of
specific brand elements of your
business while still maintaining
the heart of your brand.
Ie. Painting the wall.
Option 1
Reasons
● Create better consistency
● Update essential brand components
● Redesign your logo
● Refreshing colours or typography
● Updating brand collateral
18. Rebrand
Reimagining the entire look of
your brand to align with
an updated brand strategy,
vision, and/or customer reach.
Ie. Replacing the wall.
Option 2
Reasons
● Redefining your DNA
● Changing your business strategy
● Targeting a different market.
● Changing your business name.
22. ● Allows customers to get to know your brand.
● Keeps your brand memorable.
● Builds trust amongst customers.
● Become more recognizable and easily identifiable.
● Differentiates you from your competition.
The value of
being consistent
24. Benefits:
● Extend the life of your brand.
● Gain excitement in your business.
● Save money by dialing in on what is important.
● Have confidence that your brand is
effectively reaching out to your customers.
● Move towards your goals faster.
● Make more streamlined business decisions.
● More clarity in the direction your business.
32. Focus on the
foundations first
● Your website is your lifeblood. Why?
● What is expected of you? What’s the
minimum bar to entry?
The 5 ‘technical’ website essentials
33. The 5 ‘technical’ website essentials
HIGH
SPEED
SECURE
NETWORK
DEVICE-
RESPONSIVE
BASIC SEO
STRUCTURE
EASY TO
NAVIGATE
37. Content & Content Strategy
● Why important?
● Dedicate time - keep it simple
● Medium - figure out what suits you best
● What platforms / channels / tools do you use?
● Tips to get you started
● Map it out & be consistent
38. Tips to get started
○ 1 topic per month (12 annual)
○ Decide on core message & desired outcome
○ Choose your platform
○ Create 1 long form resource (long blog post, how-to guide, or video)
○ Chop up into micro blogs, create graphics, pull quotes.
○ Use a social media publisher to schedule delivery
42. Your reputation matters
● Basic social profiles (Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, Google My Business,
Youtube, Yelp etc)
● Trusted business profiles (Chamber, BBB.org, TrustPilot)
● Identify industry-specific sites (trade associations, reviews sites, awards,
trade-shows, & additional listing sites)
● BE CONSISTENT
● Manage your Reviews (and ask your customers for them)
● How can we improve our reputation online?
○ Consider other authority signals
43. What are some of the
common authority
signals in your industry?
45. Tactical ways to promote your brand online
1. Seek out guest blogging opportunities ->
2. Create killer content that your audience desires (solve their problem)
3. Seek out Joint ventures - who complements you
4. Facebook groups, podcast appearances, other online communities
5. Run social competitions / giveaways
6. Create a freemium product - free version with paid
7. Steal your competitors ideas
8. Got hunting on Q&A forums
Remember: Brand congruence
46.
47. Tactical ways to promote your brand online
1. Seek out guest blogging opportunities ->
2. Create killer content that your audience desires (solve their problem)
3. Seek out Joint ventures - who complements you
4. Facebook groups, podcast appearances, other online communities
5. Run social competitions / giveaways
6. Create a freemium product - free version with limited features
7. Steal your competitors ideas
Remember: Brand congruence
49. Additional Resources
1. SEO Checklist: “Is your brand getting found online?”
Provided by Monalo Media
2. Brand Resources: “Tools for successfully maintaining your brand”
Provided by Early Creative
3. Complimentary 20 minute Discovery Call:
Book a call with either Andrew or Gavin today and discover
how you can apply these improvements to your business.
50. It’s your turn to talk
Use the chat to ask us a question
Andrew Scherle
Founder of Early Creative
We specialize in designing brands and branded experiences. Since 2010
Our goal is to help businesses take control of their brand and recognize it’s full potential
I have worked with various industries
Many of these business I have worked with are faced with similar challenges. Some of which may be why you are here today.
Tired of working on your business and not seeing positive results.
Not attracting the right customers.
You sense a lack of momentum amongst clients and employees.
Touch points appear outdated or don’t communicate your business appropriately.
Your business seems to be taking a back seat in your industry.
We all have different definitions on what a brand is.
But to make sure we are on the same page throughout this webinar
I wanted to define what a brand is.
We all know what these logos stand for as they have been “Branded into our minds”
It wouldn’t be a presentation on branding if we didint share big company logos…
I chose each of these logos as they are so recognizable and they all have an emotion tied to them.
That emotion that we associate with each of these logos whether good or bad IS THE BRAND.
It is not the actual logo itself.
You can be a large corporation or a small ma-and-pa shop and still create a brand that will have an emotional connection to your customers.
In other words a brand is defined by your customers / users of your product or service
As established business owners we already have already started defining what our brand is
but how can we improve it?
Next Slide:
Today I want to touch on three ways we can improve our brand.
*breathe*
Three Ways we can improve our existing brand.
The first way is (Next Slide)
This should always be the first step whenever you are considering improving your brand.
What do I mean by getting curious:
Get to know them and understand what they are looking for.
Be specific.
Who are they?
What do they like?
What brands are they attracted to?
Really get to know them and what they love or hate about your brand.
Direct or indirect.
Learn from them
What are they doing well? what are they not doing well?
What market are they attracting?
Get even more curious about your business.
Do you have clear answers to these important quesitons?
What are your core values?
What are your future goals?
What do your customers expect from your brand?
What makes you different?
Investment?
(Sagway to next slide)
Getting curious sets us up to better evaluate our existing brand
*Deep Breath*
After answering some deep questions you might be wondering the best option for your business?
There are a couple of options for how we can improving your brand depending on where you stand and the direction you want to take your business.
Next Slide
Definition and examples of a refresh
Analogy of painting a wall
Visual Example
Definition and examples of a refresh
brand refresh can be dramatic, however, it’s mostly cosmetic.
Rebrand Project:
Analogy of tearing down a wall and building it from scratch
Liquid Amber recognized the need to do a rebrand in order to attract a different market their previous brand was not attracting.
Specifially that market was high-end female demographic
They wanted to create a more welcoming and visually pleasing experience for their clients
A rebrand helped them attract that market and be different from their competitors
As you can see they transformed the look of their brand in order draw in a different client base.
A brand involves far more than just the right logo, colours that hit the spot or a really amazing website.
It is important to be represented consistently across all platforms both on and offline.
*Breathe*
Summary:
Challenges
Getting Curious
Choosing a direction in order to improve your brand
The value of being consistent.
What is the benefit of all this?
People remember you when you are consistent
What does this means?
How do we talk about your business?
What tone of voice do we use?
What does our promotional material say about your business?
Are you being represented consistently everywhere your brand is?
Ensure that the products, services that fall under your brand resonate your customers
As it is important to improve your brand it is just as important to make sure your customers are finding your brand online. Gavin is going to share with you how to get your brand found online.
MUTE AUDIO
Andrew:
Important to control how is your brand being represented online? Going to pass it over to Gavin now to share with you on how to get your business found online in the best way possible.
Over to Gavin:
Gavin:
Thanks Andrew .So Andrew talked about the process you can take when rebranding, or refreshing, and what some things you need to take into consideration,. now I’m gonna tell you what you need to do to get your brand found online
So I’m going to be using the terms “getting found online”, or your online presence. And what I mean is, do you show up for your search term. That could be event “event planner in vancouver”, “business coach”, “accounant
So we are going to keep it real simple and focus on 4 things. 4 things you can do to help promote your brand online.
What now?
So what are we talking about here?
We are talking about - how to get your brand to show up where it matters
It’s all well and good having a brand and brand strategy, but we want to make sure that your customers can find you.
A reminder here a brand could be an individual like, a lcoal busienss, or a consumer product.
When I refer to a brand, it encapsulates all of the above
So that’s what I am referring to.
This can be called SEO SEM or digital marketing. Marketing your brand the way Google wants it.
Or here on the map
Or even here on speciality websites. This example is Opencare.. A site for dental practises.
Or even here on youtube
First we focus on the foundations. And it starts with your website.
like the way the foundations of your home, need to be solid, so does your website.
Why?
This is what google will analyze to, your entier website, to determine how to rank you and where you show up online.
Google will scan every element of your website to determine how valuable you are a a business, as a brand, and influencer to the people searching for information.
What is expected of you? Whats the minimum barrier to entry?
Google is looking to depth and breadth of your knowledge on the subject matter. Do you have a large Resource area on your website? Do you have an FAQ? Do you have educational and informative videos and is it technically sound the way they want it.
Google will also benchmark you against other similar companies to determine how much of an expert you are and in turn, will rank your business accordingly .
5 essntial
Non-negotiable. Fast, basic SEO structure in place in terms of expected keyword placment, and is it easy to navigate, does it make sense for the user. Consier time on site, bounce rates, pages per session. Google analsying all of them .
!!! And These are your Non-negotiable
+200
Its starts with the technical essentials, and then we take care of the next few items afterwards.
First we focus on the foundations. And it starts with your website.
like the way the foundations of your home, need to be solid, so does your website.
Why?
This is what google will analyze to, your entier website, to determine how to rank you and where you show up online.
Google will scan every element of your website to determine how valuable you are a a business, as a brand, and influencer to the people searching for information.
What is expected of you? Whats the minimum barrier to entry?
Google is looking to depth and breadth of your knowledge on the subject matter. Do you have a large Resource area on your website? Do you have an FAQ? Do you have educational and informative videos and is it technically sound the way they want it.
Google will also benchmark you against other similar companies to determine how much of an expert you are and in turn, will rank your business accordingly .
5 essntial
Non-negotiable. Fast, basic SEO structure in place in terms of expected keyword placment and tagging, and is it easy to navigate, does it make sense for the user. Consier time on site, bounce rates, pages per session. Google analsying all of them .
!!! And These are your Non-negotiable
+200
Its starts with the technical essentials, and then we take care of the next few items afterwards
First we focus on the foundations. And it starts with your website.
like the way the foundations of your home, need to be solid, so does your website.
Why?
This is what google will analyze to, your entier website, to determine how to rank you and where you show up online.
Google will scan every element of your website to determine how valuable you are a a business, as a brand, and influencer to the people searching for information.
What is expected of you? Whats the minimum barrier to entry?
Google is looking to depth and breadth of your knowledge on the subject matter. Do you have a large Resource area on your website? Do you have an FAQ? Do you have educational and informative videos and is it technically sound the way they want it.
Google will also benchmark you against other similar companies to determine how much of an expert you are and in turn, will rank your business accordingly .
5 essntial
Non-negotiable. Fast, basic SEO structure in place in terms of expected keyword placment, and is it easy to navigate, does it make sense for the user. Consier time on site, bounce rates, pages per session. Google analsying all of them .
!!! And These are your Non-negotiable
+200
Its starts with the technical essentials, and then we take care of the next few items afterwards.
Ok, a big topic in itself. We could talk for days.
So what does that mean?
Ok so we’ve got the fundamentals taken care of. Now, how are you going to communicate your brand and get it out there.
Communicate your brand (and its message)
And this is what we call your content strategy **We could talk content strategy for days, but right now we’re only going to scratch on the surface. *
If you want to there’s a great guy called Tyler Basu, who teaches you how to be externely efficient with your content creation.
Content is blogging, yeah? Blog all day every day until your drop. That’s what’s blogging is. I hate blogging.
The difference between creating content and blogging, creating content is done in a purposeful, structural, & logical manner answering the questions that your customers pose. It’s writing content for your customer. Rather than for yourself.
It doesnt have to be hard. But you need to dedicate time to do it.
What’s important here is create on content that focuses on education, builds trust, and tells your story, and is aligned with your business objectives
Not just blogging for blogging sake.
Why important? Google wants to see fresh content, your customers want to see that you are active enagaging and are provding useufly nuggets of infor to help solve their problems
Do you like to write, do videos, webinars, podcast, or communicate though grapchis, Pinterest and Instagram.
The configure out what platforms, channels, tools do you use to help you along the ways.
Product/food - instagram
Coach/therapist - linkedin/medium
A simple way to do this is
8. Key here is to be consistent. Google loves a website with fresh content regularly updated.
9. This will help you in two ways, you’ll keep Google happy, and the content strategy will keep you in check
Andrew:
Important to control how is your brand being represented online? Going to pass it over to Gavin now to share with you on how to get your business found online in the best way possible.
Over to Gavin:
Gavin:
Thanks Andrew .So Andrew talked about common challenges with branding and ways to improve your brand, now I’m gonna tell you what you need to do to get your brand found online
So I’m going to be using the terms “getting found online”, or your online presence. And what I mean is, do you show up for your search term. That could be event “event planner in vancouver”, “business coach”, “plumber near me”
So we are going to keep it real simple and focus on 4 things. 4 things you can do to help promote your brand online.
Map it out, be consistent, find what's comfortable and attainable in your weekly schedule.
In the real world Your reputation is noted in referrals and partnerships. Google cannot see these sort of things.
In the online world google needs to see reputation signals to determine how to place you.
As much as it matters to your prospects, it matters to Google as well.
1. Google wants to show real companies, who are reputable, and provide exceptional service
3. It’s sounds obvious but you’ve got to set up all the basic profiles, your Facebook, Linkedin, Google My Business page, instagram, YouTube channel, Medium, Yelp, trip advisor account.
Next, look to other strong ranking signals.. such as boards of trade, Are you members of chamber of commerce, are you active in the local community, are you BBB registered?
Next you want to identify the important website specific for your industry. These could be association websites, additional reviews sites, or established business listings website.
1. You have the likes of Homestars, trusted pros, Angies lis tot name a few. Then Industry specific, “lawyers list, for counselloers and therapist there is BCconsouslos, and even really specific we
For a plumber there is a site called “bestplumbers.ca”, for a startup you want to be on Crunchbase.
And then once you are visible on all these different platforms, whats really important here is that the information is consisent across all platforms - the slight difference in consistency just confuses Google. In partuclare here, we’re taking about business name, phone, address, business category, and biz description.
2. Reviews are obvious key item here and they are impotant to google as well. Google reviews are the . Why because they are visible front and centre when you search for a company.
Consider other Authority signals - where where are you mentioned online?
How many other websites are taling about yourself webiste, how many times is your brand mentions? Are they big publication.
Has you been in the news lately, have you been interviewed? Have you spoken at an event.
Example could be a mentioned on CBC, are you a contributor to enterpeneur,, or even presented at netwokring event like vancouver business network.
Seek out opportunities to grow your reputaiton,
And again think about what are the reputaion signals for you in your industry.
Why: It’s 1 of the most important ranking factors.
Ok lets dive deeper and looks at some things you can do yourself.
1. To be a thought leader in your industry you need to share your ideas, opinions.
Depending on your content strategy will determine what ways you’re going to promote yourself.
Remember links/mentions, are one of the most important ranking factors. So get out there, and get your message heard.
Use all the publication tools like Linkedin blogs, Medium.com. Pinterest if you product is visual.
Some ideas to get you going.
Write for us - try it yourself.
Write a killer peice of content - If you don’t know where to start, go to quora, or any other facebook group that supports people in your industry and read the comments. Use this to attract your audience
Who else targets the same people
Social - depending on your product
Start a podcast, do some pro bono work for a local charity, facebook groups,
4. Brand congruency - so so important that your ads match your landing pages, your social posts match your brand image. Inconsistencies are noticed, and create that “unsure” feeling within people. Be consistent, be congruent.
1. To be a thought leader in your industry you need to share your ideas, opinions.
Depending on your content strategy will determine what ways you’re going to promote yourself.
Remember links/mentions, are one of the most important ranking factors. So get out there, and get your message heard.
Use all the publication tools like Linkedin blogs, Medium.com. Pinterest if you product is visual.
Some ideas to get you going.
Write for us - try it yourself.
Write a killer peice of content - If you don’t know where to start, go to quora, or any other facebook group that supports people in your industry and read the comments. Use this to attract your audience
Who else targets the same people
Social - depending on your product
Start a podcast, do some pro bono work for a local charity, facebook groups,
4. Brand congruency - so so important that your ads match your landing pages, your social posts match your brand image. Inconsistencies are noticed, and create that “unsure” feeling within people. Be consistent, be congruent.
1. To be a thought leader in your industry you need to share your ideas, opinions.
Depending on your content strategy will determine what ways you’re going to promote yourself.
Remember links/mentions, are one of the most important ranking factors. So get out there, and get your message heard.
Use all the publication tools like Linkedin blogs, Medium.com. Pinterest if you product is visual.
Some ideas to get you going.
Write for us - try it yourself.
Write a killer peice of content - If you don’t know where to start, go to quora, or any other facebook group that supports people in your industry and read the comments. Use this to attract your audience
Who else targets the same people
Social - depending on your product
Start a podcast, do some pro bono work for a local charity, facebook groups,
4. Brand congruency - so so important that your ads match your landing pages, your social posts match your brand image. Inconsistencies are noticed, and create that “unsure” feeling within people. Be consistent, be congruent.
To bringing it together.
Curious, deleriming, the direction of your brand, rebrand or a refresh, and keeping it consistent acorss all platforms.
There is no silver bullet. No quick win. Unfortunatly. But if you get the foundations right, be consistent, do what are best practise, have some to take care of the technical side of, then you’re going to be much better off than the person next to you.
Example:
Fiona Sun accounting. Web struture basics, socail profiles not consistent, mutliple addresses. I was confused, no security cert. .
Questions
Can you give me an example of a brand that you have helped grow online?
Service area business - who doesn’t have their google my business set up correctly.
Content strategy example