All posts by Steven

Local Branding

5 Tips For A Successful Office Party

A good office party is good for morale and the office as a whole. Here’s how to plan one that will be a success.

1. Inclusivity

It can be very difficult to plan an entire office party that includes your entire staff. After all, having to please all different kinds of people with different tastes isn’t easy. While you certainly won’t hit the nail on the head for everyone, you will be able to create a much more inclusive party by asking employees what they would want from the party.

You can do this easily by sending out a basic survey using something like Google Forms or even Survey Monkey. This will help you figure out what kind of ideas are popular with your staff and you will even be able to figure out whether a staff member has a specific allergy or dietary requirement.

2. Plan Early

Spring is perhaps the best time to book your venue for an end of the year party. A lot of the venues that you will find will be advertising their best packages during this time and it will be a lot easier to secure the date that you want when you are booking early. If you were to wait closer to the date to your planned event, you will find yourself dealing with limited options and potentially higher pricing.

If you find that you have left things to the very last minute, you will want to be resourceful. You should begin to look at recreational clubs or even local parks in order to find something with availability. There are a variety of different ways you can enjoy the beautiful summer weather without being forced to book a traditional venue.

3. Off-site

Christmas parties can have a very positive impact on staff morale according to a 2017 survey of Australian workplaces. Therefore, you want your end of the year celebration to focus on building team morale and make it a rewarding experience for the entire staff. Buy your favourite LED toys at Premier Glow.

The best way to do this is by hosting your party off-site. That way, you will be able to give your staff a much-needed change of scenery and break from their work environment. Planning something off-site will help you allow your staff to connect with one another in an entire social setting. You should look for venues outdoors or even out of the city to make the most out of the experience.

4. Transportation

One of the main things that can get tricky is the logistics involved with the party. A lot of people might need to leave early to get their kids from daycare or school. Whereas, others might want to continue to party for hours and hours. Having a venue that is optimally located near public transportation options is key. Also, you want to save room in the budget for getting everyone a taxi or some form of transportation for those that will be leaving without using public transportation.

5. Drink Choices

While the end of the year parties have a reputation for being a time where employees let loose, you might want to offer a wide variety of options. Not only should you have various alcohol options, but you also want to have a lot of interesting non-alcoholic options in order to allow those that don’t want to drink to participate in the fun. If you are looking to limit the amount of alcohol consumption, you should look to hand out drink tickets or by having the staff limit refills.

Digital Branding

5 Best Twitter Marketing Tips for Your Startup

Twitter does not just claim one of the top spots as a Social Media Platform, it is also one of the best platforms used by the business for promotions.

While it is being already used by most businesses for promotions, there is no doubt that new and growing businesses can make use of it for more business and increased reach among the masses.

Twitter can play a crucial role in scoring new clients and business for many start-ups that keep popping up almost every day. Several innovative startups begin with great motives and ideas that could really make a difference; however, because of the lack of proper marketing, many of them fail to gain recognition.

Here in this piece, we take a look at the top Twitter Marketing Tips for Startups that can help you make your business flourish, starting right from scratch.

1. Use Right Hashtags: In order to make tweets, you need to find out the hashtags around which you will be creating content. The top priorities should be tweeting with trending hashtags that belong to your industry. This needs constant monitoring of trending hashtags and being creative in order to find a connection between the hashtags and your business. You can also go to the extent of using hashtags that do not belong to your field yet is a hot trending topic.

One more thing that you need to take care of is to make sure not to use more than 2 hashtags in a single tweet. Tweets with 2 or fewer hashtags get more than 20% engagement than the tweets with 3 or more hashtags. You can always make new tweets with fresh content with the other hashtags that you wished to use.

2. Create Engaging Content: We all know Content is the King, and the same applies to Twitter as well. A successful Twitter Marketing Strategy always prioritizes short, crisp, informative, and engaging content. Try to create content that revolves around your brand and the products/services you offer.

The maximum text limit of a tweet is 140 characters; however, it is always recommended to accommodate your content within 100-110 characters. Tweets falling in this category get higher engagement.

Also, try to include photos, videos, and links in your tweets for more engagement. You can even build a tweet around an image or video. You can use multimedia to provide more information to the audience than a tweet allows.

3. Build a Great Profile: Your startup’s profile plays an important role in getting new followers and building trust around your brand.

A great profile has an attractive profile picture, a cover picture with additional information about your startup, a crisp and straight forward bio, your website, and other useful information. You can even add your startup’s location on your profile.

You can also use your profile to pin an important tweet to the top which you would wish the visitors see.

A great profile always helps to build rapport among visitors and pushes them to follow your profile.

4. Engage with Audience and Influencers: Twitter is an engagement-driven community. The more you engage with people, the more you will be noticed. You can mention users in your tweets, reply to their tweets, and even retweet their content for engagement. With more engagement, you will be visible to more Twitter users from different user communities.

Along with your followers and other users, it is also important for you to engage with influencers in your field. These influencers may have many followers interested in your startup and you can gain new followings by regularly being visible with great content.

5. Use Twitter Analytics: Twitter Analytics is a very important tool that can help a startup with more followers and building your business. Analytics will provide engagement information for every tweet made by you. By using Twitter Analytics you will get information regarding which sort of tweet gets more engagement. This way, you can plan and create a Twitter Marketing Strategy with the kind of tweets that will get you more engagement.

Startups can really make use of Twitter to grow their business multiple folds. You can even go for paid promotions on Twitter to get more engagement. I hope these Twitter Marketing tips for startups were helpful. Feel free to contact us in case of any doubt.

Digital Branding

8 Tips to Protect Your Startup from Cyberattacks

Tech is evolving fast and you more or less have no choice but to digitize your business to compete. However, this is not without its demerits as organized hackers and criminals have come out full throttle to take the slightest benefit from any security loopholes in business systems. That is why, as a startup owner, you need to take serious considerations of the security measures to put in place to evade cybersecurity attacks. Now, let’s explore the crucial steps that you can consider implementing to protect your business from cybercrime.

Ways to Protect your Business from Cyber Attacks

Use secure file sharing

While sharing files over the internet, you are at risk of attackers or even malware that may distort your documents. To ensure that your data is safe from any form of attack, go for secure file sharing with secure data room as you collaborate on files in your work environment. Go for a service that offers end-to-end encryption that will protect you from external hackers while letting you take control of your data

As a rule of thumb, you can always double-check permission settings so that you can determine who to allow to view your documents. Moreover, you can run audits on your files to see who is accessing them. If you no longer need the file, you can opt to remove it from the cloud altogether.

Update your software regularly

Outdated software is prone to cyber-attacks, malware, and viruses. To keep the files of your startup safe, you need to ensure that the software you are using to carry out your business transactions is up to date and patched for vulnerabilities frequently. That will deny any unauthorized third parties access to your system via the bugs in outdated software.

Enforce the use of strong passwords

Ensure that all your team members with corporate emails and profiles on your website create strong passwords for accessing the system. Remember, hackers take advantage of weak passwords to gain entry into a system, thereby corrupting your data and stealing your information. You should encourage your workers to create a strong password of about ten characters long, with a mix of letters and numbers. Additionally, forbid your team members from sharing their passwords with unauthorized parties. They should also keep changing their passwords frequently.

Educate your team members about email and email use

Make sure to teach your team members about malware and phishing attacks and urge them not to open attachments from unknown sources. Ask them to report any suspicious emails that they may receive. This will ensure that they don’t get to fall into the traps of hackers.

Backup your files

The need to have a backup for all your business files cannot be overstated. You should make sure to back up your files as often as you can. Remember that the backup drives should only connect to the machine during the backup, and after that, you should disconnect to minimize the risk that they may be affected. Ideally, go for automated backups to make things a little easier for you.

Use a reliable antivirus software suite

Choose a good antivirus software, whether free or paid, that provides maximum protection against viruses, malware, and internet threats. Ensure to take a lot of caution so that each time a USB stick is inserted into your business PC, you should make sure to scan it before using it. Always turn on the safe browsing feature of the antivirus to avoid accidentally visiting any malicious websites.

Take caution while visiting websites

You should also switch to HTTPS from HTTP as far as your site is concerned. The HTTPS protocol for browsing uses encryption techniques and is more secure than HTTP. Make sure that essential places like the ones for email and financial payments contain the secure HTTPS protocol.

Find the best security solutions for your business

Choosing the right security solution is essential as it gives you a chance to get the desired level of protection necessary for your business. Top cybersecurity solutions are designed in a way that gives protection to your business against things like Man in The Middle (MITM) attacks, and other vulnerabilities. So, find a security solution that’s ready and simple to use. You can hire experts to find vulnerabilities in your business and implement the best solutions.

Conclusion

While technology has come in handy to make running business easy, the challenge of cybersecurity threat cannot be underestimated. You should ensure that you take the necessary measures to protect your business from any threats. Don’t wait for a breach that can destroy your business!

Digital BrandingLegal BrandingPersonal Branding

How Can SEO Online Marketing Bring About a Transformation in Your Business?

With the number of marketing strategies that are available for your business, it is probably one of the most difficult jobs to decipher the ones that are going to be the best fit for the organization. Before you decide to spend a bulk amount on any particular strategy, it is a must that you know about all the strategies that are available for your business, especially important ones, which include search engine optimization. Nobody in the business world can deny that SEO is necessary. However, most of them have a similar question, what SEO online marketing is and what is the working pattern? According to https://www.entrepreneur.com, not having a proper strategy for onsite content is not a good idea when it comes to SEO online marketing.

SEO online marketing

SEO is a popular marketing strategy and it is extremely effective as well. The results of search engine optimization can indeed take a little time to show up but it is going to be worth your wait. Search engine optimization helps in improving the online presence of your business, which helps in making sure that you are having a good ranking in the search engines. 

When your website has a high rank in search engines, it is undoubtedly going to yield a lot more clicks from all the users. Based on the clicks that you are receiving, people are going to look at the website, and when they look at the website, they will come across services and products that are going to interest them. 

Apart from that, when your site has a high rank, you are going to come across important revenue and conversions. Online SEO marketing is known to combine both off the page as well as on-page strategies, which work together to make sure that the job is done.

On-page SEO is the change that can be made physically to the website to make sure that the website has a high rank. This includes:

  • Targeting keywords and implementing them
  • Creation of content
  • Optimizing page speed

Off-page SEO refers to the different strategies, which do not take place on the website for increasing ranking. The examples include:

  • Link building
  • Email marketing
  • Marketing on social media

When you decide to hire professionals of online impact marketing, they are going to use both so that you get the ideal results.

Given below is a list of the reasons why online marketing can help in changing the business for good.

Thousands of people are searching in Google constantly

When you are implementing online SEO within the marketing strategy, you are marketing the business to numerous people, and the figure is almost 67000 people per second. When you are using SEO for marketing services and products, you are making the offerings of your company available to a huge user base, which will provide the chance of making sure that customers are interested in your business. This is going to result in better and higher conversions. Without SEO, there is hardly any chance that the target audience is going to stumble upon your website and purchase products.

People ignore paid advertisements

Few paid advertisements indeed provide an amazing way of advertising the business but according to statistics, 80% of the users do not pay attention to paid advertisements that appear within the search results. This means that you have a much better chance of target consumers clicking on the website if it is getting displayed organically within the search results. Organic ranking means that the website has to be there as a result right below the paid advertisements. You will not have to invest money if you are interested in ranking organically, however, one important requirement that you cannot avoid is a great SEO campaign. 

Companies are constantly implementing SEO

If you are interested in staying many steps ahead of the competitors, search engine optimization is undoubtedly a must. 61% of organizations have stated that the biggest priority that they have is growing the campaigns. This is undoubtedly a high percentage and if you are not opting for SEO campaigns, your business is going to fall behind. It is going to be overshadowed by those companies, which focus on SEO strongly. This is why you need to make sure that you have a great campaign prepared. 

SEO helps in boosting conversions

When compared with traditional marketing, the rate of conversion of search engine optimization is extremely high. With the help of any traditional marketing strategy, you are going to see a 1.7% conversion rate. However, when it comes to search engine optimization, you are going to observe the conversion rate of 14.6%. This is a huge difference and illustrates the reason why SEO is a great marketing strategy. 

Local SEO is effective

If you are running your business locally, SEO has to be added to the marketing strategy without any second thoughts. After the users search for a local business, 88% are going to visit the business and make a decision within the next 24 hours. Therefore, to make this happen, you need to ensure that you are implementing a great SEO strategy. 

Can SEO online marketing be done by the business?

You need to understand that there are several dynamic parts associated when we are discussing SEO. Most of the business owners have one question, which is whether SEO can be handled within the organization itself. It is important to know that a single person can handle the campaign but to make sure that the results are coming; enormous hard work has to be put in. SEO is not at all a strategy that you set and forget about, you have to take constant care and monitor the results. Since the business has different aspects to be taken care of, it is always suggested that a professional does the job. However, if you want to do it on your own, make sure that you are focusing on the changing tactics and strategies of SEO constantly. 

Conclusion

Without ideal SEO strategies, your business will hardly get the limelight that you are interested in getting for it. Make sure that you understand all that has been mentioned above so that you can plan your strategies and implement them accordingly.

Legal Branding

Promote Your Business Effectively With Perfectly Designed Outdoor Vinyl Banners 

You can improve the chances of discoverability of your promotions as well as enhance its impact on the passersby when you use vinyl banners. 

  • Your business will be noticed easily and at the same time bring potential customers towards it. The best part of it is that it will become the highlight of a local event.
  • On the other hand, if you use these vinyl banners in front of your storehouse, it will enhance the exterior of the premises and at the same time will advertise your business to the world.

You can make these banners tailored according to your specifications to make it even more attractive and elegant.

Ideally, these outdoor vinyl banners come in a variety of sizes, big or small, in perfect form and color, making these a real asset for business marketing and brand promotion. This is because these banners are:

  • Gorgeous
  • Tough and 
  • Flexible.

It is the sturdy vinyl material that makes it the best option for outdoor advertising as it will withstand the harsh weather conditions, hell or high water, and be intact.

Designing the banner

When you design the outdoor vinyl banner, there are two most important things to keep in mind. 

  • First, you must keep your brand in mind to make your banner effective and stand out in the crowd. It is the message of your brand that you want to convey to the people. 
  • Secondly, you must consider the right color to use in your design. There is no reason that the brightest of colors will fit your design and your existing brand.

Therefore, when you choose the appropriate color or colors for your banner make sure that you consider the different associations that different colors have. 

For this, you will need to consider the types of emotions the colors evoke and what you want from the viewers. You must make sure that the choice of color is on point because it is the first thing the viewers will notice in your banner. Colors are also subjective to different cultures which is why you will need to study your target audience while choosing the colors. 

Here is a list of colors to make your selection process easier:

  • Red
  • Orange
  • Yellow
  • Green
  • Blue
  • Purple
  • Pink
  • Black
  • White
  • Brown
  • Gray

No matter what type of color combination you choose, make sure that you use them all in moderation so one does not overpower the other and your actual message is lost in it.

The banner sizes

Lastly, you must also determine the size of the banner to incorporate all your design ideas in it. To choose the right size you must tape measure the spot you want to put it up. Also, consider the size of the fonts you want to use for the text so that these are not far-spaced or cramped in it.

Sometimes, specific types of vinyl banners will come in specific sizes but when you want to customize it, you will need a much bigger banner than 10 to 12 feet in width and 3 to 4 feet in height.

Legal BrandingPersonal Branding

8 Effective Strategy to Improve Your Business Growth

So you decided to grow your business. But the question is how?

There are a lot of probable growth strategies that are available, everything from exploring new markets, crafting new products, to making an acquisition. Most organizations make their own unique combination of strategies. 

What’s important here is to select the best approach that is well-tailored for your overall strategic plan. 

That’s because it is easy to lose sight of the big picture, especially if you have placed your focus on non-strategic growth opportunities.

In this post, we will explore eight effective strategies in improving your business growth:

1. Invest in systems

If you’re trying to do everything on your own, then chances are, you’ll be limiting yourself to the prospect of growth.

A business that’s powered by systems is one that could handle multi-layered demands of expansion. That’s why it’s crucial to have a solid CRM, as well as a powerful e-commerce software that helps you focus on the important aspects of business expansion and growth. 

Check your current operations and see what elements are repetitive or monotonous. Also, make it your objective to outsource and automate as much as you can. That way you can focus on the growth of your business.

2. Improve your homepage

Apart from improving your SEO efforts, and making purchases and sign-ups easy, make sure that you have a perfect homepage as well. 

A majority of visitors who land on your site aren’t ready to buy anything. It’s also likely that they’ll land on your homepage. If it looks cluttered and difficult to navigate, then they’ll move on to your competitors. 

If your web copy is terrible and it doesn’t show your product’s value, then they won’t be won over. If this something that you can’t do alone, you can tap other agencies’ help by typing something like “outsource website design Philippines” on Google for example.

Sometimes, making a simple change, such as making improvements on your homepage, can boost your revenue tremendously. 

3. Focus on analytics

Large companies and tech giants like Facebook and Amazon have realized the value of using data. You should, too. 

As a business owner who owns a website and social media pages, you can use freemium tools to gather insights from your customers. 

For instance, using Google Analytics helps you gather insights on page visits, average time on site, bounce rate, how an audience arrives on your website, and so on. That way, you’ll know where to focus your marketing efforts

Another analytics tool that you can use is Unbounce, especially if you wanted to know how you can optimize your landing pages and boost your conversions.

4. Research the competition

If you’re figuring out what you can offer your target customers, then you have to research your competition.

You can use tools like AdBeat and Similar Web, to be able to gain x-ray lenses to your ad copy, all your landing pages, and other stages in the funnel.

It also lets you uncover the online strategy of advertisers. Search for ads that are running for the longest time, and try to emulate those. That’s one of the best ways to scale your business.

If it’s working for your competitors, then chances are, it will work for you as well. 

5. Always have a backup plan

As your business grows over time and processes become more and more complex, making quick adjustments can be rather difficult. 

Having a backup plan in place in case there are emergencies and unforeseeable circumstances could help you better deal with inevitable bumps along the road.

6. Build an email list

One of the effective ways in growing your business is by building an email list. It means that you need to have a lead magnet. And if you have a lead magnet, it means you need to create a sales funnel.

See companies like GetResponse, Aweber, ConstantContact, Drip, and  ConvertKit to build and manage your list.

7. Form strategic partnerships

Forming strategic partnerships with the right companies can certainly make a difference. It allows you to reach a large customer base quickly and easily.

But identifying the key companies to partner with is often easier said than done.

Here’s a piece of advice: Look for companies that complement your own. Get in touch with them and propose to them opportunities on how you can work together.

8. Host a webinar

Webinars are an effective way to promote a product or a service. It can also help a business scale quickly.

Webinars also have an automated selling tool for taking any service or product in the market and reaching a large audience fast. 

Overall, they’re a fantastic medium for captivating your audience to make a purchase. 

Final Thoughts 

Scaling your business is hard and needs considerable time and effort. You’ll be wearing many hats, and you’ll be interacting with customers regularly. Eventually, all of these would take a toll on you. 

Fortunately, there are ways to grow your business.

There are hundreds of resources about business growth strategies available online. Picking the right ones and applying them to your business will take your business to the next level, as you grow over time.

Mould removal
Local Branding

Top Methods To Clean Mould From Your House

Mould infestation is a dangerous and common problem that homeowners face when water seeps into their homes. Some people ignore small amounts of mould growing on the walls, nooks, and corners but mould is unsightly, usually has an odor, and results in symptoms such as eye irritation; itchy, red, watery eyes, runny nose, nasal and sinus congestion; respiratory problems, such as wheezing and difficulty breathing, chest tightness, cough, throat irritation, skin irritation (such as a rash), headache, and persistent sneezing. If you care about your home and family, you know that you need to remove mould before it reaches toxic levels.

Today we are going to present some of the best and the most effective methods to clean mould from your house. So take notes if this really is a big concern for you and if you don’t want the mould to take over your house.

How To Clean Mould From Your House

Scrubbing mold away

1- Use Chlorine Bleach

When it comes to DIY mould removal, there’s nothing better than using chlorine bleach, and chances are that you already know how effective this can be. This chemical can kill every kind of growing fungus. Especially if you’ve got mould growing on the tiles of your kitchen and bathroom, then use the chlorine bleach without any worries because this chemical doesn’t penetrate through any porous surfaces or tiles etc.

2- Removal With Vinegar

Looking for an inexpensive but effective product to clean all the mould? If yes, then try vinegar because with vinegar there’s nothing left to be worried about. Our suggestion for you is to use the distilled vinegar as it comes with mild acidic properties so it won’t be harmful for your skin etc. Also, there’s no need to dilute it because distilled vinegar works quite well and is safe even when you don’t mix it with water. All you have to do is to spray the vinegar right on the spots where you see mould growing and then scrub it all away.

3- Apply Baking Soda

Just a toothbrush and some baking soda is all that you need to get rid of mould in your house. Just scrub this mixture on the wall or the tile that you see the mould growing on and then clean it with a sponge. The chances are that the mould won’t grow there again.

Molud remediation

4- Call The Pros

If you’ve got a severe case of mould growth in the house, then instead of taking measures yourself, you should call the professionals. For example, if you are in London, call the London Mould Removal Services because these people know how to treat fungus. They have the right equipment, and they have the right tactics to kill all that bacteria. With a mould removal service provider, you won’t have to worry about the mould bacteria particles in the air too. Yes, you read that right! These people ensure that the mould growing on the walls is removed, and above that, they also ensure that there’s no more chance for new mould to grow.

Conclusion

These are some of the best things you can do to clean mould from your house. So use these tips because we assure you that they will work effectively for you. In case you don’t have the kind of time to try these tips, just hire a mould removal service and then let them take care of everything for you.

If you try these tips, do let us know the results!

Personal Branding

Branding An Engineering Firm

Branding engineering and related architectural and construction firms take more than having a good logo designed and deciding on a mission statement that summarizes the aims and values of the company.

Good branding goes hand-in-hand with marketing strategies and will ensure that people recognize who you are and what you stand for. It represents a promise to your clients that tells them what they can expect and differentiates your firm from others operating in the same engineering niche as you. 

Your brand will emanate from who you are, what you want your engineering business to be, and the way your clients and potential customers perceive you and your firm.

But one of the greatest challenges is that engineering firms, like architectural and construction companies, don’t offer products for sale. Rather, they are service-based and so their offerings are intangible and based on experience rather than physical performance or functionality. 

Additionally, any business that offers services may have diverse offerings with multiplex values. All of these need to be associated with the brand and highlighted in some way. 

Branding Tips for Engineers

1. Role of a Good Logo

Having said that branding is more than having a good, identifiable logo and mission statement, it’s important to recognize that both these elements still form a vital part of the branding process:

  • A good, well-designed logo will reflect both the name and mission statement of your business in a simple visual manner. If the color is used, this must be carried through all visual branding for consistency. 

  • The mission statement will define the fundamental purpose of the business and identify the services offered. When engineers formulate a mission statement they need to know who their potential clients or customers will be. 

Visual elements make any brand recognizable, which takes us back to the logo and colors are chosen if any. You will use these on letterheads, corporate communications, brochures, and possibly clothing or giveaway items like pens or caps. With reference to the two logos above, people will immediately recognize that you represent a business called Altitude Branding or New York Engineers. 

But that is just the beginning. You also need to have a vision of where you want the business to go and what you hope to achieve. 

2. Defining the Brand

Engineering is a broad field and many firms specialize. Perhaps you want to brand your company as a mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering firm or perhaps a business that offers top-quality heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) engineering services. Maybe you want to focus on mechanical engineering services or fire protection services including sprinkler design.

Alternatively, you might want to brand the firm as a business that offers a wide range of services that all embrace energy-efficiency and sustainability. 

Whichever emphasis you choose, successful branding will ensure that your company’s name is commonly associated with the top services you offer. 

Once you have identified where the business is currently positioned in the marketplace in terms of both goals and competition, you can define the brand and the promise it offers. The definition should also identify the values the business incorporates. 

3. Manage the Brand

Most successful brands are properly managed, and an engineering firm’s branding should be no exception. A brand management team, either employed or out-sourced, will (or should) keep the identity of the brand alive and on track. 

While recognition of visual branding will be helpful, it’s what the brand stands for that is important. One way to share the brand voice is to make sure that when the business communicates on any level it sends out a consistent message. Another way is to encourage and empower those working within the firm to integrate the values of the business into their daily lives and the way they operate independently and with the rest of the team.

Make everyone – employees and members of the management team – feel as if they are ambassadors of the brand and know how to communicate the message of the brand in a positive way. 

Managing the brand will also require regular evaluation to ensure the business stays on course and achieves its goals. There will likely be a learning curve and goals might change. But when branding is successful, customer loyalty will increase and the business will start to demand a higher market share of its particular engineering niche within its physical area of operation, Chicago or New York for example. 

Updating Branding

Your engineering firm may already be branded, but is it still working for you? The truth is, it’s not unusual for businesses to need revamping and refreshing every three to five years. 

A fairly quick assessment will tell you if it’s time for renewal or a revamp. Consider if:

  • The existing branding is outdated. Just updating your logo might make a huge difference.
  • Your services have changed or you might have shifted to a different engineering niche. If so, the branding message must change too. 
  • Your branding isn’t achieving the response you anticipated. Start by redefining your target market and then adapt your business image to match. If this doesn’t work you might have to start afresh. 
  • Objectively assess whether branding is consistent through all elements of the business from business cards and your website, to the office environment. Inconsistency can be confusing and it tends to look unprofessional. 

Updating branding is much like the buildings that engineers help to renovate and restore! Everything needs a change from time-to-time. Don’t feel bad – just do it. 

About the author

Michael Tobias is the founder and principal of Nearby Engineers and New York Engineers, an Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Company in America. He leads a team of more than 30 mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineers from the company headquarters in New York City, and has led numerous projects in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, and California, as well as Singapore and Malaysia. He specializes in sustainable building technology and is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Digital Branding

Top 5 Website’s Features to Become Mandatory in Following Years

Internet marketing is the most important way of reaching new customers today. Web design is the presentation of your expertise, the way you approach new users or clients, so it is indeed extremely important that quality your website is optimized for your target group. Before we go deeper into the most influential aspect of Internet marketing – features for your website, let’s discuss how a good website is different from a great website.

Is Your Website Good or Great?

Today, it is way easier than 5 years ago to design and develop a decent website within a few days. Progress of different tools made it now, more than ever, possible to launch a fine looking website with less coding than before. Website builders, templates, themes, and layouts are there as well to help you upgrade a simple site to the professional one. Plus, with improving your website you are enhancing your business opportunities!

Considering all listed above, and the fact that internet users are accustomed to seeing websites all the time, on all their devices, it is necessary to have a superior quality website in terms to keep your customers interested! Everyone browsing the internet today can draw a distinction between cheap (PBN, community) site or custom and highly efficient one. Aesthetics have been improving over the last few years, so now we all want impressive features and super cool design.

Besides visuals, a “great” website provides smooth handing – what is also important nowadays to point out: “user friendly experience”. There is no space for a great site to “fail to perform” – it has to keep going on any task with no glitch.

Here are the 5 features we found extremely important to keep implemented and up-to-date to your site in order to rock it up on the www:

1. Invest in your site – chose features smart!

One of the main issues a lot of small or new businesses face at the first stage of developing their online appearance is – lowering the cost for the website in terms of having more budget for the following stages. If you really want to offer tangible value to your visitors and potential shoppers, then don’t hesitate to invest in certain features for your website. Your website should offer tangible value for visitors – so use interactive features to utilize the services available on the site. Customers love to create a sense of interaction, so think about the optimization of emails and offering them the news they are really in need of! Browse for the best WordPress web-design company which can help you with a custom website with totally unique features!

2. Keep in touch – chose the right and unique contact forms

Let’s not keep in look at how your content should be relevant and awesome in terms of visitors to assign to your contact forms. Also, let’s imagine that you did your homework and almost everyone wants an update from your awesome website!

Contact forms are there to help you get through your audience, and keep them informed. You should use them to introduce on-trend new features, frequently asked questions, personal touch or some “unique” offer for loyal customers!

3. Everybody loves Polls!

Here human nature already played a big role! All of us love to participate in discussions. More than ever, on the internet, those discussions can be “anonymous” – well not quite anonymous but you can “hide” under some pseudonym if needed.

Your site is there for people, so what people need- you provide! Make amazing polls from time to time or some other interactive features where people can vote or choose and that way feel needed from your site. Make people more involved in your business and they will come back to you!

4. What is going on behind the scenes?

No need for explaining this in detail – everyone loves to gossip and to see what it is “really” like to do something. So for having people more interested in what you do, a smart move is to do behind the scenes videos or blog posts or images, where you can share some of your funnies and fails. We are all human beings, we all fail – so why not share your weak spot with others?

It can only make you stronger 🙂 Also – don’t forget to add value to those videos, for instance why you chose to do that type of business and what exactly inspired you.

5. Reveal-Based Features

Sometimes we are attracted to things we can’t have. These characteristics are of great value when we talk about customer engagement and online marketing. One way to use this for your business is to introduce a sense of excitement among the visitors. For this purpose, you could try introducing reveal-based features. For instance, you can add games that require all the users to do a certain action prior to accessing the promotion.

Maybe those certain spots made you think more about why is it mandatory to have a super great and highly effective website, in the ocean of average or decent sites. Measure pros and cons and get into the game of “how to engage more”! Many Software development company in Houston follow the above mentioned principlesin roder to attract the visitors.

Digital Branding

How Business Branding Affects Talent Recruitment

There is no doubt that as an employer, you want to hire the greatest talent from the pool of job seekers. This may seem an easy task on paper, but finding the right talent is easier said than done. Now, did you know that branding affects talent recruitment? Yes, you need to present to prospective job seekers the best image of your organization through active branding. Let’s expound more on how fine-tuning branding can help improve your talent recruitment.

How Branding Affects Recruitment

Talent attraction

For starters, branding is a valuable strategy in conveying that ubiquitous experience to clients, employees, and even job seekers! Branding announces to everyone your identity as a business, your mission, and your vision. Your brand also expresses the qualities you uphold, your workplace culture and what makes it great to work in your organization.

In other words, branding gives prospective employees a reason to yearn and desire to join your organization. Branding inspires people to want to work for your organization.  As such, when you put up an opening, you will have top talents eager to join your team.

Quick employee referrals

Branding also involves developing and providing the best work experience for your employees. This is to say that branding starts internally from within the organization. This is achieved through rewarding the talents that are already working in your organization by compensating them satisfactorily, providing a humane working environment, and also creating deep and necessary interpersonal skills and networking. This affects the recruitment process in a straightforward albeit interesting way: when a position opens up, the employees are confident in recommending and making referrals to the best talent for the post, as they understand the culture of the organization and also the capabilities of the prospective employees so that they know he or she is a great fit for the position. This makes the process of recruiting new hires less tedious and saves on time and money that could otherwise have been spent on advertising and conducting the interviews.

Easy to reach potential candidates

Now, having a great presence on social media in this time and age is a great way of branding an organization. This is also a nice way to attract top talent. Why? Well, most job seekers have social media accounts these days. They can interact with your brand directly through them and that desire to join your team can sprout from what they see in your profiles.

You will even attract a lot of applications from which you are likely to get great talent. Of course, this can only happen if you can sieve through a large number of applications that might come through, to find the right fit. As a recruiting HR team, find out what an HRIS is and how it can assist in handling the recruitment and onboarding process. Basically, this is one useful system that fine-tunes human resource functions in a centralized paradigm. With An HRIS tool like this one, human resources management can be much more efficient and streamlined.

Creating industry networks for more accurate hiring

Part of branding also involves attending events related to your niche. This is important in giving your company visibility. You get to interact with other industry players, create personal contacts and connections. It is obvious that with subsequent follow-ups, you get to create great relationships and relevant information sources that have the power to build both the corporate and employer brands. Well, inter-organizational networks can also prove very resourceful when looking for top employees in areas that you will find it hard to recruit.

Candidate Job readiness

On the part of the prospective employee, branding affects them in the sense that they get to know what exactly is needed for one to work for the organization they desire. This means that when an opening comes up, they are already in line with the right documents, skills, and experience to translate to their workplace. It also means that the employees know what to expect in terms of perks, compensation, and the kind of culture to find ahead.

As such, they are not only driven by the colossus salary or monetary value, but by their passion to be part of the organization. Research has shown that people are driven by passion work more efficiently and post greater results than those working for money. It will, therefore, be a win for your organization as you are bound to recruit employees eager to be part of your team.

Final word

In a nutshell, branding can help in refining the hiring process. It does so by attracting the best talent to work for the company. Having a good image out there can help you attract passionate employees, thus translating to productivity.