The success of a small business depends in large part on its public media relations. Promoting the company to the public in effective ways can help to build the brand and attract consumer interest. Here are some things a small business can do to enhance public relations.
This is a unique time. We are experiencing an unprecedented situation in our lifetimes and it has caused us to shift our thinking not just about business as usual but marketing that business as usual. We here at UnoDeuce, have come up with several ways during this current pandemic by using video. Here are some ways that we are doing that:
However, there’s much to do that goes beyond video. In fact, my friend Amy Zander of Zeedia Media has several ways that you can do this and helps you think of several to do your best during this uncertain time. Check out her blog here: Marketing During the Coronavirus
To learn more about Amy, much quicker, please watch her UnoCard:
If your business could use a marketing makeover, help is more readily available than you might guess. But you don’t have to spend huge sums of money to pay for expensive advertising agency help. Take advantage of low-key, yet effective services that can make your business more attractive and appealing to public consumers.
Being a part of a political campaign means that you need to focus your marketing efforts in a different direction. Many of the same principles apply, but more emphasis needs to be placed on language. Here are some of the things that you should know about how to handle political advertising.
One would assume that having access to a whole range of different channels makes it easier for businesses to market themselves and engage with their target audiences properly. Alas, having more options is often more confusing and more challenging to navigate than having a select few choices at your disposal. Use too many different channels and you risk diffusing your brand in front of fewer people due to limited resources. Limiting yourself to a few channels can also mean a disaster for your marketing efforts, since people do consume various media outlets regularly.
Striking the right balance and placing your brand on the right channels can make all the difference when the time comes to impress your audience and communicate with them effectively. Depending on your budget, your resources, and of course, your audience, you will be able to limit your marketing efforts to a select few channels that will bring you the best results. Here are a few of today’s most popular and widely used marketing channels and methods to consider. (more…)
A good sales booth can be an incredible marketing tool – that is, at least, if you set it up correctly. Poorly planned-out booths are distressingly common and they’re also huge wastes of both your time and money. If you want to get the most out of your investment, you’ll definitely want to consider the following advice when you set up your next booth. (more…)
If your business is growing or you just started a new project, you are probably thinking about your logo design. Why? Because it is basically the most important essential aspect of your whole business. So we can say with confidence, it is a big deal and you should think about it before developing any other thing. Maybe you don’t really know how to create a logo yet, but don’t worry, you are in the right place! Let’s learn how to design a logo with our tool that works as a Photoshop alternative.
Now let’s be honest, picking an app to make a logo may be overwhelming. So we will be comparing the all times classic logo software Illustrator with an online logo maker tool by Placeit. Don’t worry if you feel this is a work you can’t do, we will be guiding you step by step so you can easily make your own logo on either one of these apps.
The Wonders of Using a Logo Creator
Using an online logo creator for your logo is like magic. You don’t have to spend hours designing and you don’t have to hire anyone else to do the job because it is so easy you can really design it yourself! We do have to mention that making your own logo is way cheaper than buying one, but the most amazing thing about using Placeit is that you can make as many logos as you wish, plus other essential branding assets for your business like business cards, posters, flyers, social media posts, and even videos!
How to Make a Logo with Placeit’s Logo Maker
The Logo Maker will suggest an industry for your logo, if it’s the right one, click on “Let’s Go”. If it is not the right one, pick the industry you are working on.
2. Choose the template you would like to customize.
3. Customize your template by typing any additional info you want on your logo. Change colors, fonts, graphics.
*Pro Tip: You can move around your elements to play with your logo’s layout.
4. When you are completely satisfied with your design, click on the “download” button.
Also, if you need a vectorized logo for any further editing now or in your future, you can download it from Placeit as a PDF with your vectorized logo!
How to Design a Logo with Adobe Illustrator
So let’s try to make a similar design from scratch using Illustrator.
2. Select the “Type” tool. Click and drag your text box and type your text.
Customize your text’s size, font, spacing, alignment, using the “character” window. 
With your text selected click on the color tool. Move the mouse around to pick a color or you can always type in a hex code with the exact color you want. 
Change your shapes color. 
Duplicate your lines by clicking on your Alt key and dragging your line.
Relocate your line and change its orientation by using the selection around it.
Make lines and arrange them until you get the desired shapes. To group lines into one single object, select them and click on the “object” option on top of your screen and then select “group”. 
Almost done! Click on “file”, “save as” and choose files locations and format. Always save your original design in Ai format and have a second format, most likely PDF, for easy sharing. You can also click on the “export as” options in order to get a PNG file or a JPEG. 
Compare These Logo Makers Pricing
A Placeit subscription gives you unlimited access to all of Placeit’s mockups, design templates, and video makers as well as half off the logo maker to not only make your logo but also promote your designs, products, and brand like a pro. Easily create a logo for your brand with this subscription and use this tool from any computer, tablet or even on your phone!
On the other hand, if you feel confident about your editing skills you can take a look at the whole Adobe suite pricing to get this software on your computer at once! Ask an expert so you know which version is better suited for your PC or Mac software update.
Let’s Wrap Up How to Design a Logo
The most important thing to consider is that you do need a logo to start your brand. So maybe play around with these tools or try other sites and choose the option that is better suited for your needs. All we can say about Placeit is that this is the option for the ones that are looking for something easy, affordable and quick but still need a professional hi-quality logo. This is why Placeit’s Logo Maker is always a great idea. 
Valeria Santalla is a multi-disciplinary graphic designer and writer that loves to create branding images for local business, she currently collaborates at Placeit.net one of the largest logo maker and design template library website.
2019 will be the most significant year yet for search engine optimization (SEO). As in years past, SEO continues to serve as an invaluable stepping stone for small enterprises keen on competing with large corporations online on a near equal footing.
As part of their overarching digital marketing strategy, small companies need a coherent, consistent and well-thought-out SEO plan. Small enterprises must strive to appear in local search results. We are already halfway through 2019 but it’s not too late to take a look at the most popular SEO trends sweeping the market today.
Voice search is certainly not making its entry in 2019 but it hasn’t yet made as big an impact as one would expect it to. 2019 looks like the year that will start to change. Google’s speech recognition technology is fast approaching 100% accuracy and is the bedrock on which Google voice search is going to run on especially since mobile internet use is surpassing desktop use.
But what does voice search mean for SEO? Voice queries tend to use more complete sentences or conversational keywords as opposed to text search where users will simply type in the 2 or 3 most relevant keywords.
Someone wants to find information on a given subject. So they do a quick Google search and click on one of the websites that show up in the results. But it turns out that the content they find isn’t what they were looking for so they have to return to the search results and click on a different link.
Sometimes, this is because the keywords the person searched for weren’t the most relevant in the first place. Often though, it’s because a website’s content isn’t consistent with the keywords it’s optimized for. In 2019, small businesses are paying greater attention to how their content matches their keywords as a means of boosting user experience.
There’s arguably never been a time in human history where customers have had higher expectations of businesses than they do today. Online users aren’t willing to wait even a couple of seconds longer than they expect to. One study found that 2 in 5 internet users will abandon a web page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Delivering content quickly has always been a big deal for SEO but 2019 is seeing the standards of rapid delivery rise even higher. Whether users are accessing it on a desktop computer or a smartphone, businesses must ensure their website loads in the shortest time possible. That may be achieved in multiple ways including getting rid of apps, plugins and elements you don’t need.
Social signals play a major role in SEO. A quick look at the top 10 most popular websites and mobile apps in the world shows why. Facebook is the largest social networking app and has more than 2 billion active users. WeChat, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger each have over a billion users. About a dozen other social apps have hundreds 
of millions of users.
With users spending ever more time on social media, small businesses can create active social media business pages and direct the traffic they receive on these pages onto their websites via inbound links. Social media marketing and optimization isn’t new but 2019 will see a clear distinction emerge between the small businesses that take social media seriously and those who are happy to just get by.
If you search for the words ‘commercial bank’ or simply ‘bank’ on Google, the first page results will feature well-known local or international banking brands. Typically, large established businesses have huge marketing budgets and can afford to target generalized keywords.
Small businesses cannot compete on these keywords. They can however find opportunities for growth in more conversational long-tail keywords. So instead of ‘commercial bank’, something more local or niche like ‘sacramento small business banking’ would have less competition and still deliver relevant leads that have a higher likelihood of getting converted.
For many people, the Internet is the first place they check when they are thinking of making a purchase. That is irrespective of whether they intend to make their purchase online or at a brick and mortar store. In this regard, making sure your website ranks highly on search results is important.
But this won’t matter if your business or product has a bad reputation. A good reputation all starts with having a good product. After that, keep an eye on customer complaints and seek to resolve them quickly and conclusively. Provide excellent service consistently as that’s what will keep your Google and Facebook reviews highly positive.
Ride these trends through 2019 and give your small business the edge over your competition.
Ashley Lipman is an award-winning writer who discovered her passion for providing knowledge to readers worldwide on topics closest to her heart – all things digital. Since her first high school award in Creative Writing, she continues to deliver awesome content through various niches touching the digital sphere.
When launching a small business, it feels great when you have more work than you can keep up with because it means that your business is flourishing. Increased workload should not prompt you to have more employees. It makes more economic sense to outsource some of your company services. Outsourcing also takes off pressure from your internal team. Consider outsourcing these four tasks so that you can free your time for the core objectives.
Research by the American Psychological Association concludes that multitasking or attempting to manage several projects at once leads to a 40 percent decrease in productivity. The chances are that your projects will take longer to complete, and you might be under high-stress levels. Juggling is merely an illusion because the balls are thrown independently and caught independently. With such a high likelihood of error, it is not advisable to handle your finances. Allow an independent team to handle the bookkeeping. You also get to learn from the bookkeeping experts you hire.
Customer ServiceWhen running a small enterprise, hiring trained customer service personnel is not always a feasible option. It means that the staff members have to manage this function by dividing their time between keeping the old customers happy and trying to get new ones. Consider outsourcing customer service to a contact center.
Content marketing is one of the modern marketing methods that small businesses should embrace. The content should be easy to digest and not sound promotional. Its objective is to generate leads that later convert into sales. Rather than using your time to produce content or hiring a marketing team to handle it, you should consider outsourcing. You can also hire a design agency to create a website that fits the material perfectly.
It is easy to get overwhelmed by the dozens of small tasks that take up your time every day. As a business owner, your primary objective should be to expand your venture. If you don’t have time to focus on the core duties, the company may not succeed. By hiring a virtual assistant, you will save money because you pay only for the hours that the expert handles the tasks.
There is so much work you can outsource. All you have to do is to survey your team and process the work you should do regularly. Consider outsourcing tasks outside your team’s competencies. The cost difference between having an in-house team and outsourcing will also help you decide.
Emma Sturgis
Emma is a freelance writer based out of Boston, MA. She writes most often on health and education. When not writing, she enjoys reading and watching film noir. Say hi on Twitter @EmmaSturgis2
Finding new avenues for marketing your goods and services is certainly one way to go about expanding your marketing outreach, but have you considered actually offering a greater diversity of goods and services? For as simple as this marketing strategy sounds in theory, understanding your customers at a deep enough level to know what they’ll want in the future can be challenging to say the least.
You might have been able to see where this was going: to be more sure-footed about whatever marketing direction you take next, consider doing market research. Market research is all about uncovering more information on what your customers’ preferences and their needs. Sometimes only market research can uncover what customers truly want since the product that will fulfill their future needs hasn’t been invented yet!
Tap Existing CustomersYou shouldn’t feel bashful about asking your current customers what they like about your current lineup of products and services in order to inform tomorrow’s product lineup and marketing outreach. It’s much more economical to sell trusted and newer products to current customers than go through the ordeal of wrangling new customers into the fold. In other words, marketing to current customers can have a much higher return on investment for your company.
The good news is that you’ve already established rapport with these customers and know a lot of information demographically about them. They might even be willing to share with you what they’re looking for out of your company!
The internet is a veritable treasure trove when it comes to expanding our marketing outreach. Between paid-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, and email marketing campaigns the only limitation is the depth of information that you have on your prospects and customers and your willingness to experiment.
You might also want to explore local search engine optimization and app development services in order to capitalize on the fact that your customers are largely online in terms of exploring your product lineup, connecting on social media, setting up appointments, and making online purchases.
The great thing about marketing in new territories is that you don’t necessarily have to open another brick-and-mortar location to be effective. You can use search engine optimization and social media marketing to your advantage and tailor your marketing to a brand-new demographic of customers. Fresh segments, niches, and locations can be extremely exciting. It’s all about bringing more customers into the fold.
Emma Sturgis
Emma is a freelance writer based out of Boston, MA. She writes most often on health and education. When not writing, she enjoys reading and watching film noir. Say hi on Twitter @EmmaSturgis2