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How You’re Doing Branding Wrong, And What To Do About It

The post How You’re Doing Branding Wrong, And What To Do About It appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Having a consistent and clear brand will help you build a business that lasts for the long-term. At the core of your branding should be a connection between you and your customer. The role of your brand is to communicate your value to your customer in the clearest manner possible. Only by understanding your customer can you truly create a brand that lasts. Most companies go about branding from the opposite approach and end up with a brand that speaks to no one. Below you’ll find some of the most common branding mistakes and what you can do to fix them.   1. Trusting Instinct Alone It’s easy to fall in love with your business idea. But, if it isn’t serving anyone, or no one is going to buy what you’re offering. Then it’s better left as a hobby than an actual business. Instead of focusing on building your brand identity and other activities to solidify your brand you should be talking with actual customers to verify your idea and uncover their needs. Only then does it make sense to invest more time into your project. After all, by going of instinct alone you’re essentially flying blind and will have no idea if anyone even wants what you’re offering until it hits the market.   2. Little To No Engagement or Feedback Like we mentioned above, if you’re relying directly on the assumptions you have about your target market you’re going to have a difficult time nurturing a brand over the long-run . The best brands speak directly to their target market’s needs and nothing more. Acting on instinct alone puts you at risk for attempting to raise awareness around your brand for years, with nothing to show for it. A better route is to find people in your target market, or people who already interact with your company and ask them some of the following questions: How would you feel if your product or service ceased to exist? What alternatives to your product or service would you use instead? Why do you choose to work with us over our competitors? How can we improve our offerings to serve you in deeper ways? By working with these answers you’ll be able to better refine your brand (if you have an existing company), and figure out how to position your offers to your fans in a more compelling and attractive manner.   3. Being Consistent When you have a stable brand it can be tempting to change up subtle elements of your brand just for fun. Although most brands go through design overhauls and image shifts over time they’re usually structured and thought out. However, even subtle inconsistencies within your logo, colors, and messaging can throw off your users and start to erode your trust. Make sure you keep an eye on brand consistency, once you’ve developed a strong brand and don’t stray from what you’ve created. Brands aren’t built overnight. The take consistent time, effort, work and refinement. However, by taking the time to incorporate feedback, and consistently engineering your brand towards service you’ll build a brand that works for you , instead of against you. web hosting Continue reading

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4 Tasks That Will Save Your Email Marketing Campaigns

The post 4 Tasks That Will Save Your Email Marketing Campaigns appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . On the internet, email is like having a mobile phone, with the difference that on the internet — you can almost always get anyone’s phone number, at any given time. Sometimes, you create something and ask users to enter their phone number (email) in for you, so that they can be notified when you share and publish more of the amazing stuff that got the interested in the first place. We now it by the name of email marketing. The reasons for creating an email list have long been known and understood by expert marketers, and we recently published a post ourselves, about the reasons why a small business should invest in an email marketing strategy , and how rewarding it can be. It’s without question the leading way of staying in touch with your customers and peers of interest. If you’r new to email marketing, or have done it a few times before, you will be familiar with email marketing campaigns — in simpler words, it simply means to send out a carefully crafted message and/or announcement to everyone who has signed up to be on your email list. And more often than not, we want these emails to be of highest quality so as to retain the subscribers, but also to convert leads where possible.   1. Talk to Your Customers Marketing always was and always will be about the customer, there is no denying that. These days there are countless ways of connecting with your customers, social media and content marketing being a few of them, but email is usually the one that plays on the more personal level. And there is nothing more dissatisfying than a corporate email that only wants to sell you something. When sending a new campaign: Always greet your customers by their first name, which means you have to find a way to collect their name as well. It’s a nice and personal touch. Don’t drag the email for too long only to try and sell something at the end. Bring value to the table. Give them a good initiative to continue reading the email at the top, rather than the bottom.   2. Optimize the Email Experience The mobile experience can now provide just as many features and possibilities as a full-blown desktop computer, and with that in mind, the usage of mobile devices for business and personal needs has increased dramatically over the last few years, even months some would say. And with that in mind, we need to make sure we’re catering to our mobile users the same way we are to desktop users. A mobile device is usually going to require a responsive email design that can naturally adapt to the needs of the mobile device. The impact of responsive emails in terms of open rates, and conversion rates, is too huge to miss out on.   3. Test What Works In development, programmers test their applications against common errors and performance optimization, in email — we can use testing to test what works best for us and our subscribers, including the email design, the titles we choose to have, and the overall email experience we provide. It’s easy to get started . Testing allows you to compare and contrast different elements of your email campaigns to see how they impact your subscribers’ reactions to them. You can form a hypothesis about what you think will occur, and then formulate a test and find out what really happens .   4. Email Campaign Frequency The last task on our list is actually less a task, but more of a reminder to those who are eager to build their email list quickly. It’s easy to get carried away with having access to so many people at any given time, and sometimes we may feel that sending out a few emails a week is going to increase our conversion rates significantly, that simply is not true. Even before you begin sending out your first emails, you should get clear about the email marketing strategy that you’re going to be using, and whether sending out multiple emails on weekly basis is going to yield you the best result. It’s possible to ask your new subscribers to select the frequency of emails they’d like to receive, but then you’ve to be completely clear about the message you’re trying to convey over your email campaigns. Sometimes as frequently as twice a month is enough to capture the attention of your customers, and customers-soon-to-be. MailChimp fully agrees that more is not always better .   ***** Alex Ivanovs is an online entrepreneur who has been writing about technology, business and developer topics for over a decade. He currently manages CodeCondo — an aspiring community for designers and developers. web hosting Continue reading

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How To Use Split-Testing To Improve Your Website

The post How To Use Split-Testing To Improve Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Optimizing your website could be the missing factor in making your website a success. Split-testing allows you to truly unlock the power of your website. Imagine being able to test every aspect of your website, so it’s perfectly catered to your ideal visitor. When you’re building your website right out of the gate you’re actually making an educated guess about what you think your visitors are going to like. Split-testing allows you to morph your website into something that speaks to the heart of your visitors. To get started with the split testing process you’re going to need to install a split-testing tool, such as, Visual Website Optimizer , Google Analytics , Optimizely , Unbounce , or Crazy Egg . Once you have the tool installed, begin by testing some of the page elements we highlight below.   Headlines If your headlines are too complex, or not clear, they’re not going to do a good job at conveying to the user what your page is actually about. Changing and simplifying your headlines can have a huge impact on your conversion rates. Common elements to test include: your value proposition, headline length, and the color and size of the headline.   Call-To-Action Your call-to-action is one of the most important elements of your landing page. Without having this central piece of your page fully optimized you’ll be losing out on potential customers and subscribers. You can customize and test your call-to-action in a myriad of ways, but the most common elements to look further into are: size, colors, the text, the placement, and the spacing surrounding your call-to-action.   Testimonials Testimonials act as social proof for your services and offerings. They help to build trust with your potential customer or subscriber. If you have several testimonials you can actually rotate them and change their appearance until you find one that helps your website convert the best. Some people will resonate with some testimonials more than others.   Forms If you use your website to gather useful user information, then you’re going to be using certain form elements more than others. If you make your form needlessly complicated chances are the user won’t actually stick around to complete the form. You can test out different form styles and elements until you find the form that converts the highest. You can even add hidden elements into your form, or gather other user information at a later stage in the process.   Media Elements Elements such as photos and video will help to increase the power and emotional resonance of your page. When it comes to using images and videos you need to think about quality over quantity at all times. One well-placed image, or a short high-quality video, will say much more than over-stuffing your page with added media.   Copy and Content Often, the shorter your content the better it will convert. If you copy is overly wordy and doesn’t get to the core of what you’re trying to say it will turn people off. You can experiment with testing different versions of your content that conveys your message in slightly different formats. This can be done through using different formatting, or even writing entirely different versions of your copy. However, be careful not to test too many different elements at once, as it will be harder to tell which small element was the cause for the increase in conversions. Split-testing can truly help your website realize its potential. The process may take a while, but when you see your conversion rates start to grow it will be well worth it. web hosting Continue reading

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3 Ways To Acquire Funding For Your Next Business Idea

The post 3 Ways To Acquire Funding For Your Next Business Idea appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Starting a business based on an idea that you think could improve the lives of others is a very exciting, yet difficult, task to embark on. With several hundred million companies already built by enthusiastic people such as yourself, the question of whether my idea is good enough is definitely a burning one. All questions aside, there is still the need to decide upon the business strategy, and more importantly — how the new business is going to be funded. Will you have to sell your car? Get a mortgage loan? Invest all your life’s savings? None of these would be a first for many other people, but thanks to the rapid growth of industries such as startups, small business, and crowdfunding — there’s now an opportunity for anyone to become a business owner, given that their ideas is good, and could potentially stick. It certainly can save you from a potential disaster, and there are several other advantages of reaching out to other establishments for an investment plan that could get your idea off from the paper and out in the real world.   1. Bootstrapping This is a classic technique for raising money for a new business idea, and is considered one of the safest ones. The way bootstrapping works is that you mostly do all of the work yourself, so this is the one way of acquriing funding where you actually have to put your skills and knowledge to work for you. Some of these may include: Writing technical content for sites that resonate with your idea. Using your design skills to freelance, help out other businesses. Establishing an early online merchandise store to sell items like shirts, stickers, etc,. Getting heavily involved in social media around the networks that resonate with your idea. It’s all the basic stuff, it certainly is going to be a lot tougher, but in the end you call feel good about yourself — knowing that all the funding was acquiring thanks to your own set of skills, and you don’t have to answer to anyone about losing some here and there. We recommend that you check out Jon Yongfook’s story of bootstrapping his startup , and how he was able to do it. Getting the initial funds is only half the battle, not paying yourself for several months is something completely different. Jon explains that in his report beautifully.   2. Crowdfunding The second best way of getting that initial funding is by launching your business through a crowdfunding platform such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or Indiegogo. A crowdfunding platform takes away all of the strain of having to raise money through your own skillset, and instead you can focus on promotional and marketing campaigns to make sure that your project does get funded in the end. The biggest advantage here is that you also build a community around the business you’re trying to launch, giving you the initial customers without having to do much else — and we have seen some great success stories with this type of funding before. Kickstarter constantly update their data and the amount of completed projects would scare most banks. They are upfront about their fee, it is 5 percent if you are successful.There are many other crowd funding options now that Kickstarter have blazed a trail. They include crowdcube and Seedrs. Transparency and building a community are the main benefits the negatives are that you might have a large number of investors. — Elaine Thompson   3. Angel Investors These are the guys who have several decades (most often) of experience in a particular field, they’ve made their money from creating their own businesses in the past, and have moved on to helping others to do the same by funding their projects. Ideally, you want to reach out to an Angel Investor once you’ve exhausted all your personal resources, such as friends, relatives and other connections. Getting funding from angel investors isn’t easy, but it can be done if you take the right approach and are a good match with their interests. And the benefits can beyond the money for your business, but their expertise in both in business operations and your industry niche. — WSJ However, no Angel Investor is going to write you a check just because you ask. You have to come prepared, and by prepared we mean full market research, a strategic business plan, and already established progress on trying to get the business off the ground. And because an Angel Investor is giving you his own money from his own pocket — expect this process to take several weeks, up to several months to get a clearance for the check; nobody wants to invest in something that won’t turn profit at some point of its development.   What else? Other than what we have looked at already, there are government grants , banking loans, even startup incubators — which are usually aimed at people who are really up to par with the latest development in their industry, and are willing to invest the next few years of their life in building an idea. Entrepreneur magazine has a special sub-section of their site where they talk all about raising funds , and we highly recommend to indulge in that content as it will be invaluable to getting your idea funded.   ***** Alex Ivanovs is an online entrepreneur who has been writing about technology, business and developer topics for over a decade. He currently manages CodeCondo — an aspiring community for designers and developers. web hosting Continue reading

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How To Make Your Brand Matter

The post How To Make Your Brand Matter appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . You can either look at branding as a buzzword, or something very valuable for the continued success of your business. For the sake of this post we’re going to investigate the latter definition. Every company has a brand whether they’re aware of it or not. However, not every company has a brand that matters. In this post we’re going to examine what makes brands matter and how to transform your brand from boring to brilliant.   What Is A Brand? The moment a person thinks about your brand the feelings they feel, or the thoughts they think are the backbone of your brand. Your brand extends way beyond your logo and what font you use on your website. Think of Apple. The moment you think about their company, or hold on of their devices in your hand you automatically think about simplicity, sleek design, attention to detail and beauty. What kind of feelings do you make your customers feel? Sadly, most brands aren’t making their customers feel anything. Most brand are bland and don’t inspire action in one direction or another. The worst feeling your customers can feel when interacting with you is ambivalence. In another way you can think of your brand as the experience you deliver to your users.   Make Your Brand Matter How do you exactly engineer a brand that makes people stop in their tracks? It takes more than a fancy website and sleek logo. It takes asking the right questions to get to the center of why you do the work you do, and what it looks like. 1. Why Are You Different Different is good. People have more choices than ever. By trying to cater to every style of customer you end up appealing to no one. By taking a stand about what you believe in you can create a brand that others believe in as well. This goes in line with what makes you different. Why would a customer choose you over the competition? 2. Discover Your Values Your company values run deeper than your products and services. Your values are your core reasons for doing business in the first place. Why are you doing what you do? Is it for freedom, for love, or for making a difference in the world? Patagonia has a deep environmental ethic that runs throughout their entire business. As a result, every aspect of their business caters to this ethos. From their website, to their products, to their images and even storefronts. 3. How Will You Communicate This? In what style will you communicate this message? Will you be stylish and clean, or brash and crude? Whatever you choose is up to you. But, it will come across in your web copy, your overall design and how you interact with your customers. Building a brand that people care about takes time. It takes being honest, and it takes brining every aspect of your business into alignment. However, the results are well worth-it. By building a brand that matters you’ll start to cultivate passionate brand evangelists who will do most of your marketing for you. web hosting Continue reading

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