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3 Pre-Requisites to Social Media Success

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 Facebook/Twitter Icons

 

Social Media can be an incredibly effective tool for your business’ marketing and branding. Are you looking to refocus your online presence? Good on you! Your willingness to adapt to a new era is the first step in putting your business on the path of growth. But before you jump onto Facebook or Twitter, STOP! Read the following pre-requisites any business needs to fully reap the benefits of Social Media Marketing: 

A relevant product/service – Whatever you’re selling should serve a purpose in your customer’s life; more importantly, it should be relevant. In an increasingly dynamic market, it is important to ask yourself: Is my product a “must have”? Who is my customer and what are their preferences? Is my brand visible? The answers to these questions can provide a starting point in measuring your business’ relevancy. Additionally, it can give you insight on whether there is a need to optimize your marketing strategy, your product, or both. 

Measure Customer Response Through Yelp

Top-notch customer service – Keep in mind that your customers have easy access to information about your company and sharing the customer experience online has become common for many. Hence, superior customer service should be a central and consistent aspect of your business. Ensure that all of your employees are knowledgeable, amiable and work urgently without compromising the quality of service. If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with Yelp, an online local business directory that doubles as a social network. With more than 100 million users, it’s necessary that your business have a presence there – for both branding purposes and to measure your business against customer reviews. 

Shared values – People will want to do business with you if they like who you are and what you stand for. In order to strengthen the relationship between your brand and your customer, you need to send them a message other than “buy my product.” Engage in community service causes that appeal to you – volunteer as a company, be an event sponsor or educate about an issue; then share your efforts online. Adding an additional dynamic to your brand may be the reason why someone chooses your product over your competitor. If your goal is to drive sales, remember: altruism is good for business. 

  

Quick Tips: Build Your Prospect List

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We would agree that the more food selections you’re offered at a buffet, the more choices you’re allowed to make.  similar to a buffet, the more e-mail addresses you have, the more choices you have to convert those e-mails into sales.  It is very beneficial as a business owner to accumulate a list of e-mails because you can categorize and select which groups to target.

How does this help your business? When you have a list of potential buyers, you create a channel of communication to answer their questions and let them know about your current products and promotions. Start building your list today, and increase the opportunity to generate more sales for your business!  

Business Success Story: Easylife Furniture

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Easylife Furniture Inc. is a furniture retail chain located across Southern California. They provide upscale furnishings at affordable prices for their customers. Easylife Furniture Inc. is recognized as one of the fastest growing furniture retail chains in California. The client asked Ready Artwork to help establish their social media platforms and generate a relevant fan base. To achieve this, we helped Easylife Furniture to create interactive online brand awareness and targeted marketing campaigns. One of the social media platforms we managed for them is Facebook.

 Once businesses have an established fan base, Facebook allows them to “promote” their posts. We took advantage of promoted posts and actively assisted Easylife Furniture with their marketing campaign efforts. At the end of November, Easylife Furniture had a little over 1,350 fans on Facebook. We observed how successful our previous giveaway campaigns were and worked with the client to create back to back promoted giveaway posts. For the month of December, Easylife Furniture gave away a Hello Kitty Bedroom set on Christmas and a $500 Easylife Furniture Gift Certificate on New Year’s Eve. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we promoted the Hello Kitty Bedroom Set, we were able to bring their fan base number up to 1,642, an increase of almost 300 relevant fans!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hello Kitty Bedroom Set Giveaway post reached over 16,500 people and received 608 “likes”, 346 shares and 54 comments. By utilizing promoted posts, we were able to effectively increase Easylife Furniture’s viral reach and the amount of engaged users. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We encouraged fans to actively participate in the giveaways through Facebook statuses and comments. Because of that, the virality increased to over 37% when we posted the $500 Easylife Furniture Gift Certificate Giveaway.

Here at Ready Artwork, we were able to assist Easylife Furniture to properly engage targeted fans and manage their marketing campaigns. Because of our collaboration with the client, we were able to increase their fan base and build more online brand awareness. 

New Year’s Resolutions: I Want to Grow My Business!

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Forget those typical New Year’s Resolutions for dieting and exercising. You can always make those commitments later in the year. What about setting New Year’s Resolutions to help you and your businesses grow? Once you set your resolutions, you will be more motivated to keep them and the end goal can help develop your business and take it to another level. Here are some suggestions for your New Year’s Resolutions on how to grow your business:

1. Set your sales goals early on. Have you ever set sales goals for your business? Was it forecasted daily, weekly, or monthly? Think of it as an important process to achieve success. When you’re coming up with a sales goal, you need to know how much more sales you wish to make compared to previous years. Depending on how aggressive you want your business to grow, you can set your sales goals to increase by a 5%, 8%, or even 10%. Pull up your old records to do a comparison and analyze your growth rate. Afterward, you can calculate your growth trend and forecast your sales for the upcoming year. You always want your sales goals to be slighter higher than your forecasted sales as a way of motivation. After that, you can start coming up with an implementation/execution plan.

 

2. Set marketing objectives for the year. What do you wish to accomplish for this upcoming year? Is it to build brand awareness, increase your website or storefront traffic, or build your fan base? You can set multiple marketing objectives for your business, but try not to overstretch yourself. Know your limits! Once you know what objectives you want to achieve, you can start coming up with your marketing plan. Let’s just say your marketing objectives is to increase your fan base, how will you achieve that? Is it by word of mouth, Facebook promoted ads, or other campaigns? Once you figured our your marketing objectives, planning can become much easy. Check your progress! Objectives are great references to go back to at the end of the year. You will feel that you have accomplished so much more, when you’re crossing these objectives off your list. 

3. Listen more. Getting feedback from your employees and customers can help improve your business and increase your sales. We sometimes simply can’t see all the flaws in our own business and/or website. By asking for feedback and actively listening to them, you will know how to better yourself and your business. Sometimes the littlest things can affect sales, services, or even the operation process.

4. Take care of yourself. A lot of business owners sometimes forget to take a break, while running their businesses. You need to have some time to relax and clear your head. Sometimes that’s the best way to generate new ideas for marketing, sales, and many other aspects of a business! You are as important as your customers. You are the only one who can take time to care for yourself.

 

In order to run a business successfully, you need to keep these tips in mind. What better way to start your New Year off than with some great New Year’s Resolutions!

Here at Ready Artwork, we can assist you and your business in achieving your goals. We offer website development, graphic design, social media marketing, and many more. These services all can help you achieve the biggest New Year’s Resolution of all – Growing Your Business!

 

 

Business Success Story: San Gabriel Mission

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Business Success Story: San Gabriel Mission


San Gabriel Mission is a fully functioning Roman Catholic mission and a historic landmark that resides in San Gabriel, CA. Ready Artwork first took on the San Gabriel Mission’s Facebook account back in September of this year. Because it was such a fairly new account, we struggled to bring in new fans and followers. One of the challenges we faced when building a community was the vast amount of Facebook pages, people, and places created for San Gabriel Mission by community members. We took on that challenge and tackled it with grace. For the month of November, we claimed all the possible Facebook pages, people, and places created for San Gabriel Mission by patrons. Because of that, Ready Artwork was able to help San Gabriel Mission increase their fan base by at least 85%. We are proud of our success and accomplishment!

On behalf of San Gabriel Mission, we have been posting relevant Facebook posts about any Catholic holidays/events and current happenings at the San Gabriel Mission, San Gabriel Elementary School, San Gabriel High School, and the San Gabriel Community. We were able to increase in engaged users and reach by over 83%. There was a dramatic increase in the amount of people talking about the San Gabriel Mission by over 137%. We look forward to promoting more events held at the San Gabriel Mission and getting the community actively involved!

Previously, many visitors were confused during check-ins because there were multiple locations to do so. Now, we were able to ensure steady check-ins at the San Gabriel Mission. By collecting everything into one account, Ready Artwork was able to ensure consistent information and message is given out to San Gabriel Mission’s fans.

Many businesses have problems with multiple locations that their patrons have created for them. These locations confuse others during check-ins, follow, and even obtaining information.

Here at Ready Artwork, we were able to assist San Gabriel Mission to claim all the existing Facebook locations and pages for them. Because of that, we were able to gather all accounts’ fan bases and increased their check-ins, reach, virality, and many more. Visitors no longer have to ponder on which site/location to check-in at.

 

Web Wednesday: How Small Business Are Taking Over the World!

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Welcome back to Ready Artwork’s Web Wednesday! Today, we’ll take a look at the importance of small business and how they are actually taking over the world! According to the United States Census Bureau, there are more than 27,000,000 small businesses in the United States.

If you’d like to help support Ready Artwork in a big way, check out the amazing grant for small businesses that is currently being offered by Chase and LivingSocial called “Mission: Small Business.”

Chase and LivingSocial are encouraging small business owners to participate because this is an opportunity for the “underdogs” to shine. However, the task is not that easy.  Small business owners are required to tell Chase and LivingSocial why their business is “a diamond in the rough,” plus an outline of a proposed plan for utilizing the grant to not only improve their business but also positively affect their community.

Applicants have from May 7th to June 30th to receive at least 250 valid Votes during the Voting Period. Applications will then be reviewed by Sponsors or their representatives based on the criteria listed below. Finalists are then reviewed using the same criteria by a panel, which may include senior executives of Sponsors and other notable business executives.

The criteria each small business will be judged by:

  • Solid business & management team/owner;
  • Well thought-out and feasible growth plan;
  • Likelihood to succeed within a two-year time frame;
  • Positive impact on local/relevant community (e.g. job creation, meeting an unfulfilled need, etc.) and demonstrated local support; and
  • Energy, enthusiasm, creativity and passion for your business.

Small business employment has been steadily increasing during 2012, which gives a much-needed boost to the US economy.  Business unit president for CBIZ Payroll Services, Philip Noftsinger, says, “What’s really going to be important for a domestic recovery is those small businesses. What really will drive a positive movement in the economy is getting that small business employment back up and getting cash in the hands of consumers.”  (MSNBC)

Please help support Ready Artwork in San Gabriel, California reach 250 votes! We are currently at 167 votes! Follow our super easy visual step-by-step outline on how to support us! :)

Small Business Grant Support Ready Artwork

Thank you!