Well, Twin Anchors is exploiting the exposure online reviews can give a business. Especially for a company that serves only local customers, this sort of interactive marketing is an efficient way to use the support of your regular crowd to entice new clientele. Just like I might never have stopped into my new hood’s local rib joint if my friend hadn’t lauded their baked beans, other newcomers are more likely to give something a try if they’ve heard it’s good from their online peers. And your loyal customers are usually more than willing to sound off on how great your company is, without even being asked.

Twin Anchors uses review site functionality in another way– they actually read and process their reviews, too. After my friend left a glowing review of the service he received there, the owner emailed him requesting the name of the waitress, in order to reward her for her good work! Besides allowing you to give your employees proper credit where it’s due, online reviews can provide you with valuable feedback on customer experience. Customers who would never send a dish back or critique your service in person will describe their experience at length online. Using those reviews to adapt can benefit any company, established or up-and-coming.

Admittedly, review sites can sometimes be problematic for companies– if you get an aggressive negative reviewer, you may see some opinions you don’t agree with. However, due to the transparency of the medium, users of these sites can almost always tell who is crackpot habitual complainer, who offers a legitimate critique, and who is a complete phony. Most sites now feature a rating system that lets you note which reviews were in fact helpful and informative. That being said, never leave positive reviews for yourself, because readers will know and will not appreciate it. Involving yourself in the online review world  almost always pays off in business and backlinks. Just make sure you immerse yourself in the culture and etiquette of sites like Metromix, Yelp, and Citysearch, and use them properly and transparently.

Oh, and does Twin Anchors look familiar? That’s because it was in The Dark Knight. Cool.

Watch out for Two Face!

So, exploring his other music, Hayley came across this gem:

From an online marketing perspective, this song is genius. The beat incorporates windows computer sounds, which is quite cheeky and fun. However the chorus is where the marketing genius comes through. It is essentially a roll call of his online presence. Personally, my favorite part is when he points out that he “is not charleshamilton.com” for those who were confused.

This song is a clever way of reaching your customer base, and sharing your online presence. Admit it, after listening to the song you’re never going to forget his website. This is a very clever way to integrate his web presence. He is using his artistic medium to make sure that his fans can find him online.

While businesses are not rappers, and do not necessarily have an artistic medium to advertise their web presence–they can find creative ways to utilize their existing product to create awareness for their overall web presence.

Let’s say you’re a company that sells pots and pans. What if you had an inscription that tastefully listed your websites on the bottom of each pot? A burger place that puts their website on the bottom of their fry or drink container? The options are endless, but businesses can learn from Mr. Charles Hamilton (dot blogspot dot com)

Interested in what you’ve read?
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Mayhem Studios gives recommendations on how to better brand your Twitter presence with a customized background– check out the do’s and don’ts.

Web Designer Depot talks branding, too, and shows us 50 great circular logos. Check ‘em out. We do love NASA and Wordpress!

Smashing Mag talks cool (but maybe impractical) business cards. It’s good to have a stand-out card, but don’t get this attitude.

Finally, advice on pleasing clients is always good. Vandelay Designs gives some good tips on understanding your client from the get-go.

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend!

This article from the New York Times gives some great insight into logo creation– we’re going to tweak it for company owners working with an online business development firm.

1- Sketch. As an online business owner, you might not have the skills to create exactly what you want. But walking into a meeting with a design with a blueprint is always good. Print things you like, iconography you relate to your business, or sketch as best you can what you envision representing you.

2- Check out your competition. You want to distinguish yourself, but you want your customers to indentify your company with your  market. You don’t want to get so far away from norms that your customers can’t relate to or trust you within your niche.

3- Timeless over trendy. Especially–especially– in web design, this is so important. A trendy logo of a new company will often look dated a few years down the road. Make sure yours will hold up.

4- Less is more. Web users always prefer simplicity. Clean, sleek and clear are words we hear our designers using all the time, and for good reason. Logos that are busy or messy are as bad as websites that hide their function in clutter.

5- Easy on the colors. Especially for a corporate presence online, you want to stay on the “friendly” side of the color spectrum. You never want to alienate users with lurid colors that are trendy or you think stand out.

6- One size does not fit all. The article pretty  much nails it- Have your consultants “test your logo across different reproduction sizes to make sure it is scalable. Web logos may look different in print than online, different when faxed than when printed on a business card or mug. Consider all the possibilities, including aspect ratio.”

7- Go beyond photoshop. DIY may work for a small business, but if you’ve got bigger goals, “then hire a qualified professional with proven experience. The difference between a poorly constructed logo and a well-designed one is self-evident.”

8- Graphic vs. text logos. Although some of the most memorbale logos, like the Nike swoosh, are simply graphics, if you’re a new company, you may need a little more brand explanation. Make sure your logo meets the needs of your online business development– you may need to explain what your business does before you start branding it.

9- Get feedback. Ask your office, ask your consultant. But never stray too far from your vision to accommodate the opinions of everyone you know. Don’t let your designer lose the “you” in your design.

10-  Simplicity, again. Yep… simplicity is so important, the article recommended it twice.

The logo is often a first step of business development, and it’s important to get it right. A web design firm should understand the principles above and help you achieve your vision.

While it may seem like published authors might look down on the unedited, unregulated form that is blogging, they are overwhelmingly taking to it for business reasons. For the promotion of their published materials, writers are tapping into their market through social media and a developed web presence. British writer Kate Hardy explains, “Blogging means that readers get a glimpse into the ideas behind my work — whether it’s an awards do, a research trip or random musing. It also updates my website frequently to bring readers back; I use it to interact with my readers and my publishers can use it on their website as a publicity tool.”

Similarly, although it may not seem like most intuitive venue to promote your business, blogging may be a valuable resource for your company. Almost every industry has a niche audience on the web. You can enhance your customer service and relationships with your users, while also tapping into new markets that have eluded you until now. Blogging is a key element to online business development– well written, long form content proves your authority and builds confidence in your readers.

A List Apart gives great advice on how to cultivate a community. A community starts with a website that is current and usable, but the communicativeness of your copy and content also directly affects whether a user feels welcome or not. In addition to your creative web design, users need to relate to your community to want to join it; the engaging copy you provide must make a user identify with your brand and community. Information about your company needs to be accessible and interesting. 

Encouraging participation through design is, of course, important as well. If your main community-building source is your blog area, the main place users will participate is the comment form. You must spur a user to comment with engaging content– then make them feel confident to respond with a well designed comment form. Blog Design Blog shows us a ton of ways to make your comment section look. The main consideration is, will your users provide feedback through that form?

Building a community can create new customers and keep the old ones, through allowing your users and customers to relate to each other and your brand. They can better your business if you can ascertain what they’re feeling and how they’re responding to your website and company. By writing creative copy to engage your users, and designing your site to best encourage them to participate, you can start building your community immediately.

The wildest part about it all is that small business owners themselves use search engines (or at least 82% of them, according to this blog).  So why do they relegate themselves to the virutally unused yellow pages for advertising to potential clients? If you want to be found by people looking for your services, having a well optimized website that represents your small business is the first step.

Seach engines allow users to isolate exactly what they need and find who provides it, especially on a local scale, and local, highly-targeted traffic is exactly what small business websites need. If your small business doesn’t have a lot of money to spend of advertising, consider an advertising method that is more than just a business expense. Online business development isn’t an ad you just put out into the world; it’s a living and growing expansion of your business. A developed web presence elevates the quality of your interaction with customers, which eventually betters the quality of your business. 

If your small business is part of the 91% of companies that are unsatisfied with their online marketing efforts, make sure you hire a online business development company than can expand you horizons and not limit your online growth with predictable strategies.