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Building the Ultimate Pitch for Your Business

Fri, 28 May 2021 01:35:25 GMT

Every business, both new and old needs a business pitch to accurately summarize what they do. For new businesses, this pitch may focus on how your new business can solve a problem not currently being solved, or for established business, what makes them special. Either way, every business needs a pitch. How do you make a pitch for your new business? Let's get you started on the right foot

Define the Problem

When you start your business, one of the most important steps is identifying the problem your business can solve for your potential customers. Is it lack of service in a specific area? Are prices of current offerings too high? Without having an immediate problem that is worth solving, then there likely isn’t any need for you to start that business in the first place.

The problem your business plans to solve doesn’t need to be a complicated one, and even the simplest of problems require a solution! By defining the main problem your business will solve, you will have reasoning to back your business venture and a starting point for elevator pitch . By identifying and refining some of your customers main problem, you will be able to clearly express the problem your business plans to solve in a purposeful and acute way.

Describe Your Solution

After you have identified what problem your business will solve, you must figure out how exactly it will solve it! Often times, entrepreneurs forget about defining the problem and jump directly into building a solution. But how can you build a solution to a problem you don’t know? With a clear picture of the problem your business will be solving, you can craft a confident and viable solution to the problem. After establishing a solution, you can create a solution statement that describes what solution your business will be providing against the problem you have identified. A few sharp sentences is all it takes to capture your listeners attention and draw them further into the rest of your pitch!

Identify Your Target Market

This often goes hand in hand with defining your problem, as often times, there is a clear market being troubled with the problem you have identified. At this point of your pitch, you should define exactly who your business venture will be targeting. When identifying your target market, it is easy to fall into the trap of choosing one large group that overarches your perfect customer. But by breaking your few ideal customers into different segments, your business pitch will sound more thought out and researched. It is important to have a specific focus and not be to general, as this can come off as lazy and not put together well, but by being too defined may minimize your business’s overall potential.

Share the Competition

Every business has some sort of competition, and yours will too! Even if there isn’t a company solving your customers problem perfectly, there is likely alternatives that your potential customers are using instead. By understanding your direct competition and indirect competition, you can begin to understand the advantages and disadvantages between your business solution and your competitor’s offerings. By explaining your key differentiators from your competition will help justify to the person your pitching to just why your business idea is viable and the unique solution you will be offering your customers.

Who’s on Your Team

Your business might be a solo operation, or you may be starting it with others. Either way, there will be a number of skills being brought to the table that the person you are pitching to will be interested in hearing about. It is these skills that build the foundation of your business and the expertise that will shape your business offerings. Understanding your team will also help you in ensuring that you are executing your business vision correctly! While having a team for a new business isn't always required, but there is something to be said about multiple brains working together to build new business strategies and generate exciting ideas!

What’s Your Financial Status

Often when pitching to potential investors, they will be interested in hearing a little about your financial status as it will help them understand the stage the business is in and it’s potential. By having a solid understanding of your business model, such as expenses, debts and forecasted revenues, you will be able to swiftly present this information to your audience in a positive manner. Numbers are important, especially to investors and knowing your business model can make or break your pitch!

Wrap it Up!

Sometimes business pitches are more formal presentations where you can include more in-depth information accompanied by a helpful slide deck. Other times they will be quicker and more informal, you may only have a few seconds to share your pitch. In times like these, it will be important to be prepared with a simplified version of your full pitch to stay on track and ensure you are sharing only the most important information! Book a consultation with our experienced team and we can get your business pitch started on the right track!

How to Make Your Small Business Stand Out

Tue, 25 May 2021 15:03:10 GMT

In the crowded environment of modern business, there is sure to be a number of competitors offering similar services and products as you. It is no easy venture to start a business of any kind, and research shows that 14% of new start-ups do not make it past their first year of operation. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start a business; however, it just means you need to approach the situation differently and make sure your business stands out amongst the crowd. Finding your unique selling point can be difficult, but here are 5 ways you can make your business stand out from your competition:

Customer Service

No matter what kind of business you operate in, whether it is in providing services or selling products, there is one thing that customers will always remember, and that is how you made them feel. Customer service should be every business’s top priority. Without customers, your business would not exist in the first place, but providing quality customer service time and again will do many other great things for your business.

Providing good customer service is so important, that 33% of consumers said they would switch companies after a SINGLE bad experience, while on average they will tell 15 people about a bad experience versus the 11 people they will tell about a good experience. These statistics alone prove why providing exceptional customer service means so much, and in today’s competitive landscape, you just can not afford to lose customers’ over poor service.

Good customer service extends outside of your physical business as well. It is important to be monitoring reviews on places like Google to ensure you are managing bad reviews and are working to solve any customer complaints. Places like Google, that share complaints and the business’s reaction are available for everyone to see, and handling customer complaints in a customer first manner can leave a positive impression on your business for others!

In our modern digital world, customer service extends far from the workplace, and the companies that make the extra effort to provide exceptional customer service in many different forms are the ones that will leave a positive impression on customers and stand out from their competitors.

Unforgettable Branding

The first impression of your brand is extremely important, often times it only takes 10 seconds for a consumer to make a judgement about your brand. When creating your brand, it is important to think big and not being afraid of being different. Whether it is a unique and personal logo or the use of bright colours not normally used in your industry, small details can play a big role on how people see your brand.

Colour plays a special role in branding as research shows that using consistent colours can help improve brand recognition by 80%! Consistency is so important because it helps your customer’s build a level of familiarity with your brand, and can lead them to connecting colours and imagery directly to your brand, even if the object in front of them has no direct relation. Branding is such a fun piece of creating your own business, so let it be just that! You can create your brand however you want it to be, just stick to it and the results will speak for themselves.

Build an Online Presence

The world has never been more connected. Through social media, search engines, and everything in between, the world is quite literally at your fingertips. The extensive power the internet possesses is why it is so important for your business to have a strong online presence. The most important tool for your business is a professional, attractive website . Websites are amazing because they act as a 24/7 marketing tool for your business, where consumers can learn about your business, see your offerings and connect with you directly. Having a solid website for your business is the foundation of all other online strategies. Social media, Search engine optimization (SEO) and even traditional marketing tactics all will lead customers to your website. Strategies like SEO are extremely dependant on your business having a website, since without one, there is no way of improving SEO. Many consumers use Google to find businesses, and without a website, how will anyone ever find you?

Social media is another important strategy that works directly with your website. Using platforms like Facebook and Instagram are great ways to connect directly to your customers, share your knowledge and experience, and build a brand image for your business. Social media is the perfect place to tell a story, how your business came to be and what it is. Using comments and messaging is another great way to connect directly with your customers. Like Simon Sinek once said: “they don’t care what you do, they care about why you do it”, social media is the best place to show the world your “why” and build strong, personal connections with your customers.

Reward Loyalty

Having loyal customers who not only purchase from your business regularly, but also engage with your social media accounts, talk about your business to others and leave positive reviews is something every business should strive for. These loyal customers are important for growing your business, as it shows other potential customers just how amazing you are. People don’t normally become loyal to bad businesses, and everyone knows this, which is why loyalty is so important for leaving an impression on potential customers.

If loyalty is so important to the success of your business, why aren’t you rewarding it? Rewarding your loyal customers can be as simple as providing free shipping on their next purchase, maybe a gift card or a discount, or even a loyalty specific card, like a “buy 5, get the sixth for free” type. Rewarding loyalty is important because while it might cost you a bit to provide a reward, in the long-term, the return is huge! In fact, 83% of consumers say that loyalty programs will keep them coming back to the business, this means recurring revenue for you, potentially for many years at the simple cost of a loyalty reward. Keeping your customers happy has a great ROI and is a key method of making your business stand out from competitors!

Community Involvement

People love when businesses give back to there community and make an effort to improve life, and a commitment to the places they operate in. Consumers love when business commit to helping social and environmental causes and their image of that company is ore positive then of those who don’t give back. When finding a cause for your business to support, find something that fits both your brand and your customers appropriately. 64% of consumers say that having shared values is the number one reason they trust a brand. Find what works for you and run with it!

Are you ready to stand out?

Competition is important, it helps you be better and shows that there is an adequate need for your product or service. It is important for your business to stand out however, and the five methods above are great ways to differentiate yourself from other brands. Let us get you started and ready to stand out today!

Understanding Marketing Automation

Thu, 20 May 2021 14:00:22 GMT

What is Marketing Automation?

The word automation is synonymous to robots and artificial intelligence, and marketing automation is no different. Marketing automation is all about using specialized software to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks that marketing professionals face. Tasks such as answering messages on social media platforms, sending email campaigns and posting to social channels are all examples of tasks that are easily managed through automation. The specialized technology manages a multitude of marketing processes that allows employees to focus on other tasks of higher importance.

What does Marketing Automation do?

In a way that is most easily understandable, marketing automation consists of software and technical programs designed to work as a tool for modern marketers. This marketing tool helps streamline and simplify many different marketing processes that can be considered tedious and time-consuming. Tasks such as answering messages on social media, interacting with comments on posts, or even generating keyword lists are all tasks that consume the precious time of marketing professionals everywhere, but are easily managed through automation.

There are other uses for marketing automation as well. As the business world keeps evolving and becoming more complex, automation helps by simplifying areas of higher complexity for marketing professionals to use more effectively. Areas such as audience creation, lead nurturing and even designing the right content are all more complex features that automation can manage.

Marketing automation works by collecting information on your customers. This is done by analyzing interactions on social media, emails and even website visits that all provide valuable information for your marketing automation to utilize. The information collected helps the automation technology build a 360-degree view of your customers, helping it identify the key characteristics of your primary audience. With this knowledge, the marketing automation technology can go to work on building appropriate audiences, identifying key targeting practices and tailoring messages to each customer based on their profile. From there, you can assign what tasks you would like your automation to manage (depending on the application) and free up time for other, more pressing issues.

What does this mean for the Future of Marketing?

Why it is still hard to predict the true impact this technology will have on the future of the marketing industry, and ever-changing trends , we all will be experience marketing automation at some point in time. Because of its many useful applications and ease of use, marketing automation can be used by companies of all sizes and is not reserved for the large and wealthy businesses. The impact that marketing automation will have on the industry is still unforeseeable, however, we can identify some key areas it will shape over the next few years. These include:

Not expelling a human touch – no matter how advanced marketing automation becomes, there is something to be said about interacting with another human. One of our core needs as humans, feeling connection, will always ensure that living, breathing people will still be involved in the business cycle. There will always be high-value on building trust and connections with customers, something that automation can’t accomplish

More data will be captured – As automation processes develop further, and we continue to access the internet, technology will continue to capture more and more of our personal data and preferences. By accessing more data, automation technology will be able to create more personalized messaging and more accurate audiences.

Customer Experiences will change – with more accurate data, which is likely to be directly related to your customers, the overall customer experience will change and become more efficient. Things like chatbots work 24/7 to bring fast and efficient answers to customer inquiries. Other areas such personalized content and less human error will improve the overall customer experience.

Customer Journey will be more efficient – marketing automation can tailor every interaction for individual customers throughout their buying journey, providing seamless interactions at every checkpoint. You will effectively reach customers along their journey no matter where they are in the customer lifecycle. Deliver timely, relevant content that reaches customers when, where, and how they prefer — converting prospects into lifelong brand advocates.

What are some Automation best practices?

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when designing your marketing automation strategy:

Define your organizational goals. Use real numbers and data to justify the investment in a marketing automation platform for your business. Don’t always assume it will help your business

Collaborate with others in your organization. Your marketing automation strategy is likely to affect other teams in your company. Get their input and buy-in before you begin to help streamline the process.

Create process visualizations. By using detailed diagrams and maps of your marketing automation workflow you will more effectively relay your big picture objectives to your organization. Visual pictures will help make the data and reasoning more digestible and efficient.
Prepare for database segmentation. Consider your customer data and what specifically is most important to your business. Think about who you’d like to engage, and why. This will help you direct your automation processes and
Prepare your content strategy. Build your content library. Create interesting, engaging, and relevant messaging designed to reach all stages of the customer lifecycle.

Analyze as you go. Like all business endeavours, spend time looking at what is working and what is not. Use some of the time you get back from automation to dig into the analytics and make the appropriate changes that will grow your business.

Small Business Website Design Trends

Thu, 13 May 2021 14:05:45 GMT

Having a professional, well-manicured website is important for all businesses both small and large. Even small businesses can find many benefits from having a working website that is not reserved for the big players! As a small business, having your own website will help improve your professionalism and credibility, will increase your customer reach and provides cost-effective marketing, especially when your website utilizes blogs. To have an effective website, there are a variety of different elements to take into account, which is why today, we are going to look at the top 5 small business website design trends for 2021!

Mobile Friendly

In our modern environment, almost everybody has a smartphone and are always connected. Gone are the days of sitting in front of a desktop computer, the world and all of it’s known information is available at your fingertips! This is important for small businesses to remember, as many customers will be accessing your website through a mobile device! When building your website, it is important to take this into account as you will want to provide an enjoyable experience for your users on multiple devices. The shrunk downsize of a smartphone can reek havoc on your website’s design and functionality. Research shows that for most businesses, approximately 90% of website traffic comes from mobile devices! With their small screens and touch-based navigation, your website design must be mobile friendly! Having a mobile-friendly design will also ensure that loading times and functionality stays at an optimal level which will also improve your Google ranking , which is important for ensuring your website stays on the first page of Google search results.

Gradient Colour Schemes

It is normally best practice to avoid using gradients when doing logo design, but when it comes to website design the same can not be said! More and more we are seeing businesses use gradient colour schemes throughout their website to add additional visual appeal and texture. Most designs using simple colour gradients can become dull and uninteresting, but by simply using a colour gradient, you can easily add life and character to your design. We are seeing this trend not only in website design, but also in print and digital advertising as well. Colours like orange and yellow or red and blue create highly detailed gradients while still looking clean and professional. Using gradient colour schemes adds visual value to the user experience while capturing their attention more easily.

Parallax Scroll Animations

Parallax scroll animations sounds like a confusing, and hard to achieve design, but the reality is most developer programs can add this special effect with the simple click of a checkbox. While you may have never heard the name of this effect, it is likely you have experienced it as this trend is becoming extremely popular due to its attractiveness and ability to enhance the experience on your site. Parallax scroll animations is the effect added to photos and animations so that when you scroll over them, the photo or animation moves to further reveal the rest of itself or its movements. This special effect adds depth and movement to your design that captures the viewers attention and adds a level of visual interest. When using parallax animations, it is important to not let the animation distract users from important information or makes it difficult for them to complete a task. This website for a video game called Firewatch is an extremely attractive and creative way of using parallax scroll animation on their homepage, while this is a more complicated version, the effect can be made much simpler than this!

Video Banners

When you first open any website, what is normally the first thing you see? That is right, the banner. Most websites use static images for their opening banner, sometimes using a level of parallax scroll animation. A trend that is becoming more popular now is using videos in the initial banner instead of photos. Videos do a better job at capturing the viewers attention as it adds life and character to the website. For many businesses, such as landscaping, property management and golf courses, using professional drone fly-over footage is becoming popular to showcase their work and scenery. Such videos showcase the businesses capabilities and offerings better then photographs which leave more room for interpretation. Most often, videos are better at storytelling then images which adds an additional level of appeal and personality to your business.

Custom Illustrations

Using custom illustrations and graphics often requires a graphic designer, however the results can be fantastic compared to using stock graphics that can potentially be found on many other sites. Using custom illustrations and graphics allows you to create the exact design you want for your website without being limited by stock graphic availability. Many times, we have seen people have to change the structure of their website because they were unable to find that perfect illustration or graphic, and having these custom made completely solves this potential problem! Having well-designed graphic elements will reinforce your brand and showcase you and your work in a stylish and professional way. These custom graphics help to unify your brand image throughout your website and keeps your audience engaged!

Your Business Is Worth It!

Every business both big and small deserves a professional and attractive website! From reaching customers to acting as a 24/7 marketing platform, a website is a critical part of every business’s foundation and identity but is often overlooked by smaller businesses. New Heritage is here to help you set your business apart and give your business the amazing marketing it deserves! Contact us today to explore your business’s marketing potential!

Top 10 Design Trends for 2021

Thu, 06 May 2021 19:30:19 GMT

A New Year Means New Trends

Graphic design trends are always changing, as people become attracted to specific styles and designs. Graphic design plays a big role in marketing your business, from creating visuals for your website, designing pieces to be shared on social media, or creating a special magazine ad, you can guarantee that if you’re a business, you will be using graphic design at some point. Graphic design optimizes your brand and marketing efforts across numerous channels and is key to being viewed as a professional brand. Every year, we see new graphic design trends pop-up that are popular amongst a variety of audiences, and the same is true for 2021! Let’s look at this year’s top 10 graphic design trends!

1. Electric Fade

The electric fade design trend is something that has been around for a while but has been recently becoming more mainstream. This trend uses bright, electric colours like magenta, cyan, purple and yellow to create a brightly coloured, flashy visual. These colours are often used in a curvilinear blend to mesh the colours together in a seamless and attractive way. This trend is popular in tech, sportswear, and environment-based ads that are trying to quickly capture the readers attention.

2. Figure Isolation

Another trend we are seeing become more prominent, especially in sports, music and fashion is figure isolation. This design style uses isolates human figures out of a busy background and places the figure over something less dramatic or a digitally designed background. By placing the figure on a more open, blank background there is a cohesiveness between the two layers then blend together to create a strong focal point. This method also allows other graphic elements like text and shapes to be added more easily since they are being placed on a blank background, and the figure itself acts as an anchor point for these other elements.

3. Redline

Our next trend is focused on the use of colour, specifically red, white and black. This trend, known as “redline” focuses on these 3 strong, and attractively pairing colours to create striking graphics. The brightness of the red is an instant attention grabber, while the black and white provide relief for the eye. When these three are paired together, they create a hard to ignore palette that invokes emotion but is still appealing to the eye. This style is seen most often in outdoor advertising, activewear and retail. The colour red is highly connected to sales and promotions, for its ability to enhance physical reaction. When we see red, we are programmed to think “danger” which is why the colour red often grabs our attention most. Be prepared to see this trend take off throughout 2021!

See how we used this design trend to build an amazing website for one of our clients!

4. Sliver of Light

The next design trend for 2021 is a “sliver of light”. This design trend often uses a dark coloured background with a ray of light colour leading the eye or revealing the main message of the piece. The same effect can be accomplished by reversing the colour schemes, with a light-coloured background and dark sliver to lead the eye. It depends on the mood your image is trying to convey. This design technique is primarily used where illustrations and text layouts draw the eye to the primary story of the design by acting as a visual pathway. This design style is often used in movie posters and illustrations to add a sense of drama and mystery, where the primary focal point is often a human figure.

5. Architext

The architext design trend is perfect for magazine spreads and advertorials that have heavy amounts of text. Unlike other design trends that focus on imagery for the main appeal, architext uses the large amounts of text to build the structure of the design. Most often, this design trend uses a blank white background to optimize the reading ability of the design. The text is then structured in geometrical shapes and designs that attract the readers attention. These specially shaped text blocks can be paired with illustrations and imagery to build additional layers to the design and add further visual appeal. Headers and subheaders can be added in a variety of styles to help guide the eye through the design and lead the reader to the most important pieces of information. With this trend, legibility doesn’t always have a high amount of importance, rather the text adds a visual element for the reader to focus on.

6. Bright Geometry

The bright geometry trend we have seen become popularized by large companies like Google, more specifically their tools like Gmail, Drive and Calendar. This trend uses brightly coloured shapes, primarily blocks and circles to build the foundation and appeal of the design. The colour palette is more subdued compared to that of the “Electric fade” trend, using more regular blue, yellow and red colours. This trend is popular amongst tech and web companies who create appealing icons and logos using this design style but can also be paired with photography to create interesting ads and designs when done correctly.

7. Blurred Imagery

Exactly how it sounds, the “Blurred Imagery” design trend uses blurred photography to create visual contrast against text and other layers of the design. Most popular in video media, signage and editorial prints. It is popular when using imagery of people and large text to add some visual interest into the design. The blurriness of the image brings a level of mystery and interest while adding a sense of movement and depth to a otherwise static image. While we often see this trend using darker and flat colours like grey and black, using bright colours can add another piece of interest and something to capture the viewers attention.

8. Chiseled Typeface

This design trend focuses on the text in the design, adding a 3d look to the typeface. This retro look is being popularized in signage and print advertisements for its ability to draw the readers attention to the text in the design. Unlike other design trends that rely on the imagery to build character and depth, this trend uses the text itself. We are seeing more and more fonts created and utilized for this trend specifically, as the chiseled text brings life and character to something that is often bland and easily overlooked.

9. Singularity

Our next design trend is called “Singularity”, which is characterized by the use of one, excessively large number or letter to draw the viewers attention. This large text acts as the anchor point for the rest of the design. Other shapes and text can then be built off of the original piece to add depth, contrast and additional visual appeal. By being dramatically cropped, the individual text acts as the abstract element to build other design layers around. From editorial prints, packaging, and promotional posters, this trend will be hard to ignore throughout 2021.

10. The Colour Yellow

Our final design trend to watch out for in 2021 is the colour yellow. Many speculate that this trend stems from the gloominess of the last year, especially involving the COVID-19 pandemic, and that we are optimistic of the bright times ahead. This design trend is already showing up in numerous areas including print advertisements, web design, sports, tourism advertisements and the financial industry! The bright yellow colour adds POP! And immediately captures the viewers attention. By pairing this bright colour with white and black, the contrast is easy to interpret the important information while adding relief for the eye.

Are Your Designs Ready for 2021?

These top 10 design trends are already proving to be popular and effective in the first few months of 2021. With a variety of applications and designs, there is sure to be something that your business can use to add an additional layer of appeal to your designs while using these trends to your advantage!

If your ready to set your business apart and add some visual appeal to your digital presence, let New Heritage get you started !

Top 5 B2B Marketing Strategies to Enhance Growth

Tue, 04 May 2021 18:44:57 GMT

One of the hardest parts about managing a B2B business, is finding suitable methods to enhance company growth. Some may think that the methods used to capture regular consumers are ineffective in business-to-business applications, but the truth is very different. With these top 5 B2B marketing strategies, you will be sure to see results and growth in your company!

1. Content Marketing

One of the most important factors when marketing to business clients is education. Using content marketing is a perfect way for companies to educate customers rather then persuading their buying behaviour. Content marketing can be explained as a way of turning your product or service into something educational and engaging. Pieces like infographics, videos, podcasts and other forms of entertainment are all considered content marketing! Unlike other forms of marketing that constantly pushes products in your face, content marketing can be more subdued and less pushy. This strategy helps your customers build trust with the brand as they are educated on your offerings and benefits.

By building both trust and authority, your business will come to mind as an industry leader in providing the best service and being the most knowledgeable! As an industry leader, it is more likely that your business will be discovered by those searching for the services you offer, which means your customer relationships will be strengthened and more engaged, but you will also see growth in new customers who are drawn to your business. Content marketing is so effective in fact, that 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say that content marketing has a major effect on their purchasing decisions! The importance of content marketing for effective growth is undeniable and will be sure to help grow your business!

2. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is the perfect strategy to leverage attractiveness and engagement to with your potential customers. Unlike outbound marketing that pushes content and advertising to potential customers, inbound marketing works to attract customers to your business by creating value and experiences tailored to them. Inbound marketing works by building connections with potential customers and aiming to solve problems they already have. Inbound marketing has been identified to work in 4 separate stages that capture the strategy of inbound marketing:

· Attract – which uses blogs, keywords and publishing’s to draw the attention of your potential customer.

· Convert – Uses forms, CTA’s and landing pages to promote conversions from visitors to leads

· Close – Which focuses on CRM, email marketing and workflows to turn leads into paying customers

· Delight – This uses surveys, smart content and social media monitoring to turn your paying customers into promoters of your business.

Often times, other marketing strategies will work to compliment your inbound marketing such as social media and SEO. For example, by optimizing your website and writing blogs, you will be providing valuable resources for your potential customers, which gives them a reason to visit your site. The same idea applies to email marketing, whether you share a newsletter or an article, these emails will help drive traffic to your website where a purchase could be made. Using inbound marketing strategies makes your audience feel like they have the choice to view your content, and that they are being found naturally, rather then having advertisements pushed in their face all the time. Inbound strategies will help you amplify your marketing effectiveness, while leaving your customers feeling satisfied and unpressured.

3. Search Engine Optimization

SEO primarily focuses on making sure your website is consistently ranking high on search engines, helping to direct more traffic to your website over others. Many think that search engine optimization is an extremely difficult task, while it can be confusing, there are ways to help support your SEO strategies with minimal effort. For example, making sure your website has fast loading times and the right content, like blogs will help your organic SEO ranking! Fortunately, many of your other marketing tactics will work in unison with improving your SEO. Search engines such as Google are the primary ways that users navigate the internet. Strong SEO helps keep your business relevant and will help attract people to your site. Check out our other blog on “5 tips to increase your website’s search ranking” .

4. Industry Events

It is undeniable that special industry events like tradeshows have unbelievable power for building connections and generating leads. Tradeshows and conventions bring hundreds, sometimes thousands of potential customers by your business and gives you ample opportunity to capture their attention. These shows also provide opportunity to showcase your skills and offerings in person, where better connections can be made then over phone or email. There is no better way to gain new connections and leads then from a tradeshow or event. In addition, it also provides insight into what your competitors are doing and the strategies or products they are taking on to improve their business. With the COVID-19 pandemic still present, tradeshows and conventions as we know them are currently cancelled. In light of this however, we are seeing numerous online-based tradeshows offering the same great benefits of traditional shows, just in an alternate delivery. Even in these modern times, online tradeshows still have the power to showcase your top offerings, gain insight on your competitors and most importantly, generate new leads! Even in an online environment, you will still have meaningful conversations with potential customers and grow your network of leads. In fact, in the US alone, tradeshows are the second largest source of income for B2B businesses!

5. Social Media

Social media is so prevalent in today’s society that it is difficult to ignore its effectiveness for B2B marketing. Social media marketing allows you to post content such as images, videos and stories that your target audience will find valuable and will potentially share across their own social media platforms. Social media is especially useful for B2B marketing efforts because it helps reduce ad spend, while increasing engagement and lead generation, provides valuable metrics for your business to analyze and helps make your brand more personable and “human”. On social media, you can use both paid and organic (unpaid) posts to help grow and connect with your audience. Some of the most popular methods used on social media to increase B2B lead generation include referral contests, live videos and discount posts. These specialized posts can help supplement the educational content you are posting and provide incentive for your audience to interact with your brand!

Grow your brand

These Top 5 strategies are sure to help you grow your B2B brand. They are perfect for educating your customers, building relevancy and obtaining leads. Many of these strategies compliment each other and improving one will ultimately improve others! If you are ready to elevate your B2B marketing strategies, New Heritage is ready to help you get there! Contact us today to get started!

How your business can stay open when your doors have to close

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 22:13:01 GMT

We learned our lessons, now what?

2020 taught everyone a few valuable lessons. Some were harsh wakeup calls and others extremely positive. On one hand we learned just how fragile our local economies can truly be. On the other, we figured out that there is boundless resilience in community. Now that we have started a new year and there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel, it is time to start planning for what comes after the pandemic that changed our collective realities. It is time to get prepared so that our businesses are ready for anything. From one small business owner to another, we have to rethink our strategies and work to ensure that, no matter what happens, we can stay open.

In order to do this, it is crucial that we plan to adapt. If you have to close your brick and mortar location, how do you continue to serve your customers? If you can no longer deliver in-person services, what alternatives do you have? These are the types of questions you need to answer for your business. That said, we wanted to put together this post to provide some ideas of what you can do to get started.

Start selling products and services online

This, too, may seem like an obvious suggestion. Without a doubt delivering goods and services to your customers is a great way to stay open if you have to shut down your physical location. That is how many businesses have been able to survive the pandemic. But what do you do if personal interaction is part of your business? Depending on what you do for a living, this can be a simple or complex answer. Because it would take much more than one blog post to provide industry specific advice, let's settle on this: start thinking about how technology can help you achieve the same results as an in-person appointment. If you need certain information to provide an estimate, can that be done online? Is there a way to deliver your services via video call software like Zoom or Google Meet ? These are the types of questions that offer a great starting point. As always, we would be happy to help you build a strategy .

Reinvent your delivery

Look for outside advice

If this all sounds intimidating, that is because it is. Navigating the new world we live in has presented everyone with new challenges, on top of the difficulties local businesses already face. Don't worry, helping businesses like yours modernize and plan for the future is the entire reason we exist. Our team would be happy to hear about your businesses, learn about the challenges you face and work to develop strategies to ensure that you are prepared for anything.

5 Tips to Improve Your Website's Search Rankings

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 18:13:47 GMT

Not seeing the website traffic you hoped for...

It doesn't matter how pretty your website is if no one can find it online. If you're buried on page two, three, or beyond on Google, good luck! Experts agree that most people stick to the top five results, and most don't reach the bottom of page one during a Google search.

It doesn't have to be that way forever though. You might just need to spend some time optimizing your website for search engines. By taking some time to review this and implement proper SEO, you're likely to see an increase in traffic over time. Some of this might seem complex, if so we're here to help. But if you're looking improve some things yourself, here are five quick ways to give your website's SEO a boost!

Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

Most people today are browsing your website on their mobile device or tablet. In fact, 72% of Canadians accessed the internet on a mobile device in 2020. As you can see, having a mobile friendly website is necessary today. Part of Google's algorithm it uses to ranks results pages is mobile responsiveness. If your website is not mobile-friendly and accessible to people using these devices, you could be missing out on a lot of visitors and traffic.

Google offers different resources and tools to help you make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Within Google's Search Console, there is a mobile-friendly test tool you can use. They also offer a guide for mobile-friendly websites to help learn more about them.

Increase Your Page Load Speed

How fast your website pages load is another factor in Google's algorithm. If pages load slowly on your website, Google ends crawling fewer of them as a result. Fortunately there are ways to increase your page load speed.

Optimize images for web
Enable file compression
Leverage browser caching
Reduce the number of URL redirects
Improve your server response time

Slow page speed doesn't just impact search results, it increases bounces and people leaving your website. Research shows that 47% of people expect pages to load within two seconds at most. Pages that take three seconds to load result in 40% of people abandoning the website.

Develop Pillar Content

If blogging isn't a part of your content marketing strategy already, it should be. Blogging can help you rank better for different search terms and create more opportunities for customers to find you online. Pillar content, is a blogging strategy where you create of posts that are all linked together.

Pillar content starts with a main post that several sub-articles refer back to. Let's say you're a gym owner. You could start by writing a post for a "90-Day Body Transformation" plan. Your sub articles could include things like different workout routines, nutrition and meal prep recipes, supplements and recommendations, motivation and encouragement, and success stories among other topics. With this strategy you'd find a main keyword to rank for and several similar ones to include as well. You'll want to make sure these keywords are present throughout your articles and linked back to the main. Your sub-articles don't all have to be linked to each but need to link to the main one.

Once this content is developed and linked properly, you've created a trail to keep visitors and search engines crawling your website. This network of posts results in visitors staying on your website longer, engaging with more content, and learning more about your business. This is also beneficial for what terms you rank for and where on search engine results pages.

Create Internal & External Links

With the pillar content strategy from above, you create a series of internal links. These are important. Your website should have pages linking to other ones across your site. External links are also very valuable. These are where you send traffic to other websites. While that may sound confusing, it's actually helpful for your rankings. Creating external links to authoritative and relevant websites help search engines better understand the context of your content and how helpful it is to users. Another benefit of creating external links is they can result in other companies linking back to yours. This can be very helpful when trying to rank higher.

Update Page Titles and Meta Tags

Your website's page titles and meta tags should never be overlooked. These are essentially the navigational aides search engines and users use to crawl across your website. Think about when you go to a hardware store. If you need to find something like screws, you could walk down every aisle until you find them on the right shelf. Or you could walk by each aisle and look at the sign that tells you what kind of items you'll find on those particular shelves. That's basically what meta tags and page titles do for search engines.

If you're looking to improve your search engine rankings, these are four meta tags you should pay attention to:

Meta Keywords: The series of keywords you think are relevant to the page.
Title Tag: Also referred to as the page title, this is the text you’ll see in the tab at the top of your web browser.
Meta Description: The short description of that web page that appears when you share a link. It offer a quick glance of the info on the page.
Meta Robots: Instructions search engine bots should know when crawling website.

Looking to give your rankings a boost?

If you're looking to improve your search rankings and get ahead of your competitors, we should talk. Our search engine experts would love the chance to help outrank your competition and increase page views. We offer both search engine optimization and pay per click advertising packagers to help you give your website traffic a boost!