Tag: Tips

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November 17 & 18 – Class & TV Show

Next Thursday night, November 17th at 6:30, Jeremy Halsey will lead a class at the Alleghany County Public Library. The class will focus on Internet Radio, TV and movies, and how to purchase and download music legally.

There is no charge for the class, but registration is required. To register or for more information, contact the Library at 336-372-5573 or contact Jeremy through his site.

The next night, Friday the 18th, at 7, the Special Christmas Show at the Alleghany Jubilee will be filmed. Admission will be just $5.

Make plans to attend 1 (or both!) of these events!

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75 Top Tips to Build Your Business

In honor of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s 75th Anniversary coming up on September 11, we’re sharing 75 tips to promote your business.

75 tips make a big list – so, here we go…

  1. Update and print new business cards.
  2. Have an easy-to-navigate, user-friendly website.
  3. Sponsor programming on Alleghany Community Television.
  4. Use keywords on your site to raise your visibility online.
  5. Advertise in publications your customers read.
  6. Get a professional, vector graphic of your company logo. Nothing looks worse than fuzzy graphics.
  7. Keep a uniform look across all marketing materials.
  8. Post banners with your logo and contact information.
  9. Market with postcards through direct-mail.
  10. Draw coloring pages (include your contact info and web address). Let web visitors print them out.
  11. Have good-looking signage inside and out.
  12. Use professional letterhead and stationery.
  13. Sponsor a ticketed event at the Silver Dollar Music Park. Ask them to use a rubber stamp of your logo to allow readmission.
  14. Link to complementary websites and have them link back.
  15. Take advantage of local pages on google, yahoo, and bing.
  16. Publish attractive rack cards and position them around your area at racks like the Alleghany Inn.
  17. Keep your site up-to-date. Change home page information regularly.
  18. Email newsletters to your clients and potential customers.
  19. Run month-long promotions on specific products.
  20. Send printed newsletters to clients without email.
  21. Give demonstrations at group meetings, events and festivals.
  22. Send introductory letters and include your business card.
  23. Start a rumor about yourself. Folks will come in just to see if it’s true.
  24. Use customer testimonials in your marketing materials and online.
  25. Put your company name and contact info on your car.
  26. Be involved with local celebrations.
  27. Give free consultations and work to get an order before the meeting ends.
  28. Network with others in your industry.
  29. Attend meetings of professionals in the community. Don’t be afraid to join a board if asked.
  30. Publicize what makes you stand apart from the competition.
  31. List your business at yelp and other area-oriented websites.
  32. Give talks to local clubs. Sparta Women’s Club, Newcomers and Friends of the Library are sometimes looking for speakers.
  33. Print bookmarks with your contact info and distribute them at colleges and libraries.
  34. Write articles related to your industry. Submit them to regional publications.
  35. Allow for alternative forms of payment including credit cards, PayPal or Google Checkout.
  36. Give samples to prospective clients.
  37. Ask your vendors to recommend you.
  38. Supply informational brochures to potential clients.
  39. Get listed in industry directories both online and in print.
  40. Post flyers for events you sponsor or are involved in.
  41. Hold give-aways and promotions like the Possum Queen Contest.
  42. Contribute to online messageboards with links to your site in your signature. Your expert opinion will add to their site and help you in the process. More people read these types of pages than you might think.
  43. Promote events you support. Don’t just tape up a flyer in the window, add a thumbnail image and a link to your website.
  44. Advertise in the local high school yearbooks. Ashe, Alleghany and Grayson each could be a great way to contact potential customers.
  45. Put up a billboard.  A good time to have your logo in a vector format. It can be enlarged without losing resolution (sharpness).
  46. Get listed in online and printed area directories.
  47. Take advantage of free advertising opportunities.
  48. Include your web address and contact info on every piece of printed material.
  49. Become a Sponsor in events like the Mountain Heritage Festival.
  50. Ask visitors to bookmark your site.
  51. Go on local and regional talk shows. Contact Clark Hunter, host of Mountain Topics, at the Blue Ridge Business Development Center.
  52. Boost sales with reduced pricing for repeat customers.
  53. Provide support for your products.
  54. Leave business cards with tips, in books and magazines that focus on your industry.
  55. Market jointly with another company and share the cost of the promotion.
  56. Send out a yearly Christmas Thank-You gift to loyal customers.
  57. Link to your site in your email signature.
  58. Contact opening businesses. Give away your promotional items with theirs.
  59. Sponsor clubs’ projects. Alleghany 4-H is currently looking for show ring section sponsors.
  60. Start a blog. Add interesting graphics and useful information and they will come.
  61. Advertise on Hillbilly Wes’ overalls. Any publicity is good publicity.
  62. Give your products as gifts. Show off your quality to friends and family.
  63. Co-sponsor a concert, promotion, or other event with other local businesses.
  64. Donate to charities.
  65. Set up displays at community fundraisers.
  66. Give out free bookmarks, magnets, or buttons.
  67. Contribute to community fundraisers.
  68. Be easy to contact. Give your customer several ways to contact you including phone, cell, email,  facebook, twitter, etc.
  69. Encourage employees to volunteer at the Rotary Club of Alleghany County or Sparta Lions Club.
  70. Send out press releases when your business or employees do something newsworthy.
  71. Sponsor a feature in the Alleghany News.
  72. Add your products and information to a community Welcome Wagon gift basket.
  73. Mark your products Made in USA or Made in the Blue Ridge Mountains by… like John Brady at Blue Ridge Woodcrafters does.
  74. Sponsor a band at the Blue Ridge Craft Fair.
  75. Come up with a list of 75 tips and publish it on your blog.
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Web Site Tips

The web reaches further than your immediate area. It is your storefront to the entire world. It never closes. Here are a few tips for your web presence:

  1. Plan for who you want to be on the internet. A single-person enterprise can look like a huge company and impress potential clients or a chain of restaurants can look smaller and give off a more intimate, warmer feel online.
  2. Build visibility and exchange links with others. Links are an inexpensive way to increase traffic to your site. Linking to others will also encourage them to link back to you, so that both parties benefit.
  3. Create an e-newsletter and send it to your customers, linking back to your site. We send out these news updates periodically and several people return to the site to see what is new.
  4. Subheads and bullet points make it easy for visitors to read your site. The majority of visitors to your site will scan the page, rather than read every word in each sentence. Make it easy for them to understand what is most important.
  5. Clear, meaningful home pages allow your visitors to quickly understand what you offer and make it easy to find out more. Its alright to add your policies, mission statements, or other wordy documents- but on separate pages. Anyone who needs to find them will.
  6. Feature your customers’ testimonials on your site. You do good work, but sometimes it can be difficult to blow your own horn. Contact some of your current (or former) clients to see what they have to say. Their words will reinforce your claims.
  7. Build visitors trust. Explain what you support, your history, your mission statement. If your visitors trust you from the start, they’ll be more likely to use your services.
  8. Have contact information easily accessible on your site. Let your customers contact you in different ways. List your email address, phone and fax numbers, even your mailing and physical addresses. Potential customers like to know where you are- (At the very least for shipping purposes) and rightly shy away from sites without contact info.
  9. Need information from your visitor? Build a custom input form. Or let your client fill out a PDF while online to print out and send in. Typed information is easier to read than handwriting. And it uses your visitor’s ink and paper instead of your own. PDFs can be protected, also. Contracts can be signed and returned without risk of alteration.

If you’re considering a new web site, want to redesign your current site, or just need to have a few tweaks done, email claire@imagingspecialists.net. Or for more information, just check out our Web department.

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10 Hot Marketing Tips For Your Business

Wondering how you can improve your marketing? Here are some tips.

  1. Update your website regularly. Keep current information online. Your visitors will keep coming back if your homepage is always fresh and new. (If your site is hosted by Imaging Specialists, image and text updates up to an hour per month are included in our standard hosting plan.)
  2. Take advantage of all marketing options available such as your web site, email, mailings, newspaper and magazine advertisements, brochures, and flyers.
  3. Advertise in the newspaper, radio, and on your local television station. Broadcasters can help generate your ad or you might consider calling ISI for help. Just supply your information and we’ll put it together in the correct file configuration each outlet requires. Great, professional advertising- just the way you want to be represented.
  4. Keep the same message, logo, and look in all your marketing materials and paperwork, from advertising and brochures, to invoices and receipts. Changing your look in different places could possibly confuse your customers.
  5. Invest in indoor and outdoor signage. It’s seen every time a potential customer passes by or comes into your business. Make sure it fits your location and your company’s image.
  6. Develop flyers and brochures. They can be used to promote “sales” or other promotional events your business or organization is hosting. They can be an inexpensive way to quickly get your message “out there.” Contact the Chamber of Commerce to learn where brochure racks are around town and the region.
  7. Join community organizations, such as the Lions, Rotary or the Chamber of Commerce. Club meetings, service projects and the Chamber’s “Business After Hours” are good opportunities for networking and the local Chamber is often the first place new residents look for local services.
  8. List your web site and contact information on all materials you hand out. Help your customers get in touch with you. Additionally, consider making your policies and forms available online as downloadable pdfs. You’ll be able to update them in one place and everyone will be able to access the latest versions. It will also cut down on your printing costs – they download and print the forms, themselves. (Don’t forget to add your contact info on each pdf, also.)
  9. Follow trends that affect your market. You love the field you’re in- that’s why you do it! You already know more about your products and services than anyone else. Take time to become the most knowledgeable in your field and people will rely on getting their information from you.
  10. Sponsor local television and radio events. Your name and message will reach potential clients in the region and WCOK Radio and Alleghany Community Television offer reasonable rates and the advertising revenue stays in our area.
  11. BONUS TIP
    Contact other websites and ask them to link to yours. Are you in an industry organization? Find out if they have a directory that you can list with. Links increase your visibility to search engines and, of course, to your potential customers.

Contact Imaging Specialists for help with these (and your own) ideas to promote your business.

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Why pay for web hosting?

Free! That’s a word that everybody loves to hear. And when you get something you need for free, it’s even better. But, you know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true. You might find that free hosting brings unexpected costs.

Your website needs to be “hosted” to be online. Without hosting, your site is just a collection of files on a disk. A hosting company places your files on a web server so that they are accessible to the public.

So what’s wrong with using a free hosting company?

Continue reading Why pay for web hosting?