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10 Ways To Increase Your Visibility As A Local Business

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Increase Your Visibility|10 Ways To Increase Your Visibility As A Local BusinessIf you’re looking for ways to increase your visibility as a local business and you’re unsure where to start then don’t worry, you have definitely come to the right place. Whether you’ve been in business for 10 years or you’re just getting started, it’s incredibly important to always be thinking about how you can reach new customers and as a local business, often this can be a little more difficult. Luckily, there are lots of ways in which you can grow locally. With that in mind, here are 10 ways to increase your visibility as a local business:

– Start Using A Social Media Strategy

One of the best ways to increase your visibility as a local business is to start putting together a social media strategy that you can easily follow. Although you may feel as though you need to be on every single app in order to succeed, the truth is that it only takes a couple of platforms in order for you to reach your audience. You need to think about which social media platforms your audience are likely to be using, then start working on your strategy from there. Whether it’s posting content they relate to or sharing the latest offers you have, it’s important you know what you’re going to be using each channel for. For a guide to creating your social media strategy, you can visit this site here.

– Work With A Local Marketing Agency

If you’re unsure whether or not you’re going to be able to create a social media strategy on your own, you may want to consider working with a local marketing agency instead. Not only will they be able to help when it comes to your social media channels, but they will also be able to help in various other ways. From creating an email list to using video to attract new customers, local marketing agencies will know exactly how to reach those around you.

– Consider Pay Per Click Advertising That Is Targeted Locally

Another great way to increase your visibility as a local business is to consider using pay per click advertising, as this will allow you to target people based on their location. If you’re looking for just local customers, this is absolutely ideal! You can set location, age, gender and a whole host of other demographics that will ensure your advertisements are only seen by people that would be interested in them. For a guide to using pay per click advertising as a small business, you can visit this site here.

– Pay For Advertisements In Local Papers And Publications

If pay per click advertisements is something you don’t think will work for your business model, why not consider paying for advertisements in local papers and publications? If you know your target audience is going to be reading them, it’s definitely a great way to get your business in front of the right people. In some cases, however, it can be expensive.

– Attend Local Events And Fairs

Local events and fairs are amazing for local businesses and depending on the type of business you run, you may seriously want to consider whether or not they are something you should be attending. Whether you’re attending to network with local business owners or you’re attending to sell your products to attendees, once you start showing your face at three or four events a year, local people will start to become more and more familiar with who you are.

– Failing That, Sponsor Local Events And Fairs

If you can’t always attend a local event or you want to go that one step further, why not consider sponsoring local events too? Having your name on all of the marketing and branding is a great way to get your name out there when it comes to local customers, as soon they’ll start to see you as someone who is everywhere at all times. Whilst it can be expensive at times, the promotion you will receive is invaluable. For the benefits of sponsoring an event, you can visit this site here.

– Consider Investing In A Virtual Office

If you’re working from home and you want to make your business seem more professional, investing in a local virtual office is a great idea. For those that don’t know, renting a virtual office means that you rent an address to use within your business. Whether it’s using it to send your mail or using it to allow you to operate in a certain area, they’re a great solution to using your home address as a business address. If you are looking for a virtual office service, you can visit this site here.

– Aim For Local Coverage On TV

Although it can be difficult, local coverage on TV is a great way to get your name out there. Whether you’re helping a local charity or you’re doing incredible things for your community each and every day, it’s important you’re doing all that you can to get your name out there. If you’re looking for assistance when it comes to local TV coverage, you may want to consider speaking to a PR agency.

– Set Up A Local Loyalty Scheme

If you want your existing customers to come back time and time again, you need to be sure you’re offering a loyalty scheme that will encourage them. Whether this means offering a discount or giving away free products after a certain number of purchases, you need to love the customers you already have.

– Rely On Reviews And Word Of Mouth

Finally, you may want to consider relying on reviews and word of mouth. Although it can be hard to get everyone talking about you, your happy customers will be the best marketing you can possibly have.

Are you struggling to increase your visibility as a local business? What can you do to ensure your name is getting out there? Did we miss anything?

How to Start a Distillery: The Step-By-Step Guide

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |how to start a distillery |How to Start a Distillery: The Step-By-Step GuideEntrepreneurs come in many different shapes, sizes, and interests. They all have different passions that they’re looking to pursue.

That’s good! It’s what makes the corporate world go round. If they won’t provide a certain service to customers, who will?

One of the business ventures you might be interested in is starting a distillery. It gives you a company that you can pour (pun intended) your heart and soul into to receive a substantial profit.

There are however certain guidelines that every potential distiller should follow. Here are some pointers on how to start a distillery that can grow for years to come.

1. Create a Business Plan

No successful business ever started without a business plan in place. Granted, some of them may not be super elaborate, but you don’t want to follow that trend. The more detail, the better!

There are certain factors you’ll want to perform heavy research on for your business plans. These are things such as the costs for your startup, production process, when can you break even, the name of your business, and what you’ll distill to name a few.

What does your target customer look like? How much will you charge them for your liquor? What return do you expect to see?

Assuming you don’t have thousands of dollars laying around, you’ll want to seek a funding group to help with your startup. Having an organized and strategic plan in place goes a long way with them.

2. Establish an Entity and Register for Taxes

Now that you’re a legitimate business, you need to get everything in place with federal business requirements.
That means forming a legal entity for your company and registering for your state and federal taxes.

For forming a legal entity, you can choose from such structures as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or a Doing Business As (DBA). Either will help protect your personal assets if the business gets sued.

As you’re registering for your state and federal taxes, be sure to apply for and obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

3. Start Considering Your Equipment

It’s never too early to start planning and budgeting for the equipment you’ll need to properly distill your liquor.
Such equipment includes water supply, a mill, cooker, still, transfer hoses, receiving tank, and fermenters. All of that can add up quickly and should be purchased in waves leading up to opening up your distillery.

However, the sooner you save up for it and purchase it, the sooner that you can start with your distilling process. Thus, the sooner you can start making a profit off of your liquor!

4. Open a Business Account with the Bank

One mistake that many people make when starting a business is not separating their personal bank account from their business bank account.

Not doing so can risk all of your personal funding and assets that you’ve accrued. Be sure to set up a business account to protect them.

Heaven forbid if you were to get sued, and you didn’t have a business account, things such as your house, checking account, jewelry, car, or retirement savings could be at risk.

While you’re doing that, be sure to request a business credit card so that you can control the expenses and pay them off in one single place.

5. Attend Distilling Workshops

While you or your business partner might be exceptionally knowledgeable on distilling, there will always be more to learn. It’s good for you and your business to educate yourself.

Because of that, you should attend a distilling workshop or two to see what you can learn about the process.
This will also help you build a network of knowledgeable distillers with years of experience under their belt.

They’ll be more than happy to point you in the right direction and help out in any way that they can. Who knows? Maybe your distillery will hire them one day!

While the classes might be a bit pricey, they’re well worth the investment. You’ll receive new ways of thinking that you can reiterate to all of your business partners.

6. Get All Permits/Licenses Taken Care of

Your distillery isn’t a legal business until you’ve properly acquired all licenses and permits required by your state. Be sure to find out what your specific state requires and seek them out.

The two mainstays among all states are a proper liquor license and a certificate of occupancy for your business.
Be sure to look up what role each of them plays in your distillery and how you can correctly go about obtaining them.

7. Invest in Insurance for Your Distillery

There are two types of coverage that you’ll need in your distillery insurance: property coverage and liability coverage.

Property coverage is exactly what the name would imply. It protects all incidents that might happen with the property your distillery conducts its business on.

Such things as fires, faulty parts, or even flooding can be a major catastrophe that results in your company going out of business. You may lose your entire distillery before it even gets up and running.

Property coverage is made to protect things such as the products you’ve made, the machinery you use, and the building that you use.

Liability coverage, on the other hand, protects you from the actions of their users. For example, if someone gets drunk on your premises and then is involved in a drunk driving accident, you’ll be protected.

As you can see, distillery insurance is vitally important. Learn more here for more details on this subject.

How to Start a Distillery: Set It up for Success!

As you can see, there’s a lot of factors on how to start a distillery initially, but they’re all vitally important.
Once you get them all out of the way, you’ll be reeling in a profit in no time!

Be sure to read our other articles that pertain to both this topic and other topics just like it.

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Employees

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article|Get the Best out of Your Employees|How To Get The Most Out Of Your EmployeesYour employees are an important asset to the company, and in order for your business to continue thriving, you want to utilize your employees to the maximum. However, there are certain things you need to do in order to make this happen. So here are some tips to get the most out of your employees.

Keep Them Happy

Your staff happiness levels should always be bursting at the seams, and that is the secret to keeping your work productivity levels high. If you’re not trying your utmost to make your employees happy, then you’re going to see a dip in your company’s success. See each and every employee as a valued member of staff, whether they’re maintaining the building in the operations department or striking deals for the company with new clients. Their worth is how hard they work at their job, and if you’re not valuing this for everyone, then you’re going to have some unhappy staff members. And the last thing that you want that will be taking up your precious time is recruitment. So aim to keep your staff turnover low by doing your best to keep everyone happy in their work environment and when it comes down to their role too.

Good Communication Is Key

Having good communication is important within the workplace, and so it’s good to ensure you’re talking to your staff and checking they’re ok. Not only that but you need to check that communication between departments is effective and if it isn’t, then you need to work out why. It could be a case of people being on the wrong page, and then you’ve got two or three people doing the same tasks and not realizing until it’s too late. A good task management platform might be needed or regular meetings between departments to catch up on where they’re at in their day to day runnings. The more communication that is happening between departments and colleagues, the better everyone will be in their efficiency to get work done.

Give Them Regular Training

Regular training is not only beneficial for you as a company, but it also gives your staff some variety during their time within your company. Yes, any employee would enjoy a day off from the usual grind of work in order to learn about things that would benefit their job and career. So try to consider some job training courses and other workshops that your staff and your company can benefit from. Ask your staff for recommendations on what they’d like to explore and do within the work company’s budget. You may have some great suggestions that you hadn’t really given much thought to.

Create A Conflict-Free Atmosphere

A peaceful and happy atmosphere is one that should be something you strive for when it comes to the workplace. Granted, sometimes work tensions can run high, but it’s important how you manage these that will make the difference. Colleagues may not always get on, but it’s worth putting in incentives to help them get along in a professional capacity. You could do this by getting them to collaborate together more and to do work events where your staff can socialize outside of the work confines. When there’s conflict in the workplace, it’s important to quash this as soon as possible. Don’t ignore it and let it continue to affect the two or three involved. That’s only going to spread and make it a more uncomfortable environment for everyone. Pull them aside and sort out the issues at hand, make the changes needed where necessary and find a resolution that works for everyone.

Offer Flexibility And Company Perks

And finally, when you’re a good boss, it’s because you’re putting the welfare and happiness of your staff first and above all else. When your company is doing well, it’s only nice to spread that wealth around to other staff members. Offer as many company perks as you can and look to improve and increase them when possible. You might also want to be able to offer a bit more flexibility if possible, to those who have families or would like the option to work from home on certain days in the week or over the course of the month and year.

When you start focusing on your employees, you will certainly find a distinct improvement in their work productivity and the attitude they have towards their jobs. Use these tips to make these changes where possible and to try to get the most out of your staff.

Why SEO Is The Driving Force For Your Business

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |SEO|Why SEO Is The Driving Force For Your BusinessIf you have to ask if your business should be investing in SEO, then you haven’t been paying attention. SEO is just one of many digital marketing strategies that you should have implemented into everything you do. Not every company will have the know-how or the time to fully integrate an SEO strategy, which is why working with an SEO agency is one of the most important things you can do for your business.

Ideally, you should choose a marketing agency that is well versed in your sector. Like digital marketing only for dental offices or an agency that specializes in the beauty industry. Their insight is unparalleled.
So if you are looking to increase your conversions, reach more customers, and boost your brand awareness, then SEO is the way to go. And, here are just a few reasons why.

Driving Traffic

Good SEO will help you gain high-quality traffic to your website. While traditional marketing can be fairly slow, digital marketing is lightning fast with incredible targeting tools. You can, of course, use things like billboards and newspaper articles to gain attention SEO delivers the content to them in the form of search results.

When people search online, they are looking for something specific already, which means your website is shown to people who already need your services or are ready to buy your product. People are looking for you and what you do. And, as they are already interested, they are more likely to click your call-to-action.

Non-Stop

You work hard, but your SEO works harder. There is no off button, it doesn’t take breaks, SEO will be your 24/7 golden ticket. 60,000+ searches a second is what Google alone processes. The right SEO agency will help you capitalize on your slice of the search traffic pie.

You can reach commuters who are using their mobile, or CEO’s who are kicking back after work – your information is delivered to their device no matter the time.

Lead Gen

A huge benefit of having the right SEO strategy will be having continuous lead generation and increased sales. You’ll notice this improvement in your day-to-day running of the business.

This increase happens due to the strategy implemented by your SEO services provider, they will improve your search ranking, and put you in competition with market leaders. Once you are appearing on the front page of searches, due to the use of high-ticket keywords, you’ll see a higher amount of clicks and visits from the people who want your services or goods.

If you are someone who still underestimates the value of ranking on the first pages, then you might like to know that according to it has been reported that the first position search appearance receives 31% of the search traffic (taking only organic search into the equation).

Local Marketing

According to HubSpot, 34% of ‘near me’ searches will result in in-store visits. Which means that SEO isn’t just about your global reach. It can be incredibly powerful when it comes to your local area. So if you have a brick and mortar store, you can still see a marked increase in both sales and brand awareness by doubling down on your local SEO efforts.

Put plainly, if you leave local SEO out of your strategy, you are taking yourself out of the running for keen shoppers who are ready to buy.

Digital Marketing Strategy Strength

SEO will strengthen your overall digital marketing strategy, which should already include content marketing, social media marketing, and video marketing. All of these components will give you a bigger online presence, which will increase your competitiveness in the online marketplace.

Always consider that a strong digital marketing strategy is the key to a bigger ROI.

And that bigger ROI can then be reinvested into your company, and drive you forward in other areas, or increase your SEO efforts.

Decreasing Costs

This one might seem like an impossible dream, but when you have an SEO expert on board, you are going to see a decreased spend on your advertising costs. Why? Well, because with a well thought out SEO strategy, you are going to be ranking higher for those high-value keywords.

This means you can take a portion of your advertising budget and reinvest it somewhere else. When you have an SEO expert, they will be able to trim the fat on what you are currently spending, and streamline your strategies so that you are ranking where it really matters.

Investing in SEO is more cost-effective than traditional advertising and marketing, so it is no wonder that businesses will (and should) reduce spending in those areas and invest more in the right SEO strategy.

Brand Awareness

Shoppers can’t be aware of what they aren’t seeing. So when looking at how you can increase your brand awareness, SEO makes the most sense. Consumers will move through a buying funnel when they are looking for a specific item. What you should be looking to do is appear in those searches repeatedly, and over time they will begin to recognize your brand. Once that recognition is in full effect, they will switch from random searches to direct – and when this happens, they are more likely to make a purchase.

PPC Boost

It is highly likely you are already investing in PCC, or have at least toyed with the idea of multiple times. SEO is the key to great PPC. PPC is, of course, a paid strategy, and SEO is non-paid (the cost will be in the company you hire to manage this for you), they work together incredibly.

Which both SEO and PPC, you are going to be reinforcing your search appearance, you will be showing up in both paid and organic searches. This provides more opportunities for consumers to visit your website. Again this helps with brand recognition.

And, we all know that data matters. You can apply your SEO data to the PPC campaigns that you are running. Say you have a web page that leads on conversions; when incorporated into your PPC campaign, it will likely rise in value.

The bottom line is that when you work with the right SEO consultant, you are going to see an increase in both traffic and conversions. And the speed in which online shopping and research grow years-on-years means you need a robust strategy in place to capitalize on the potential traffic.

Revealed: The Secrets To Successful Products

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Product Marketing|Revealed: The Secrets To Successful ProductsWhat makes a product successful? Well, the bottom line is that products that sell lots of units are bound to be successful. But how do you ensure that this happens in your business? If you want to grow your company, then you need to keep increasing sales and reeling in new customers. All of this relates back to the products themselves.

If you’re in the middle of starting a company – or releasing a new product – then you’re in luck. Today, you will see the secrets to successful products. Below, there are a few key points that must be paid attention to:

Attention To Detail

The best products have received exceptional attention to detail. This means that you take extra care to ensure that all of the tiniest aspects of the product are perfect. If you’re making clothes, then you use attention to detail to make sure that even the clothing labels are up to scratch and gorgeous. If you’re making a car, then you ensure that the small trims on the inside are all made to the highest standards. You’ll find that by doing this, all the little things start to add up. A product that’s had no attention to detail put into it will ultimately fail as people start to recognize the flaws.

Unique Selling Points

What makes your product better than similar ones out there? How can you guarantee that people will pick you over a more established business? It all boils down to your unique selling point. With a USP, you provide customers with a specific reason (or two) to pick your products. The way you do this is by researching your rivals. Look at the existing products in the same category as yours, then think about what’s missing. Develop your product to tackle this missing thing and give customers something new. If no-one else offers what you do, then you’re bound to find a lot of customers calling.

Exceptional Marketing

Yep, the secret to successful products is excellent marketing campaigns. Think about some of the businesses out there that release new products all the time. Companies like Samsung and Apple will make new smartphones every year. Most of the time, there’s hardly any difference between the new models and the old ones. So, why do they sell so successfully? It all comes down to how the products are marketed before and during release. They create hype around the products, releasing teasers here and there. Then, they do a big reveal, detailing all the main points.

By the time the products are released, everyone’s keen to have them because they feel like they absolutely need this new phone over their old one. Sometimes, a killer marketing campaign can take an average product to a phenomenal one.

Those of you that are developing products should pay close attention to these three things. Think of them as a mini checklist. Tick each one off, and you’ve got yourself a successful product. Now, go ahead and make lots of sales!