“When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people people,” says Richard Branson. Many businesses are using the Internet and social media to become less human: they find any and every way to replace their people with technology and no longer interact with their customers. But as Richard Branson says, for a business to succeed, make it about the people…both your employees and your customers. So while some businesses use technology to make themselves less human, the successful businesses are using technology to make themselves more human. Here are two businesses who’ve excelled at this.
Buying a car is all about people. A consumer walks into a car dealership and is instantly greeted by a salesperson who will guide them through the whole car buying process. Therefore, many consumers choose where to buy a car based on their feelings towards the employees: if they like the salespeople or servicemen, they buy from that car dealership. Perrys, a car dealership in the UK, produced an amazing video to showcase their people:
Not only do they introduce you to their employees, but they also invited their customers to be on the video. The result: a more “human” business that more consumers want to do business with.
For us, Zappos is the king of making a business more “human.” The extremely successful online shoe retailer has centered their entire business on people. Take a look at just one of the videos they produced:
In this short video, you get a feeling for the fun and exciting employees. And more importantly, you see they actually enjoy working for Zappos. All of this translates over to their brand message: Deliver WOW Through Service. In addition, Zappos has an archive of videos giving you a behind the scenes look and invite people to come to their headquarters for tours.
In today’s world, the people are most important when it comes to business. Remember what Richard Branson said, “When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people people.” If you want to attract customers, you need to make your business more human.
Take a look at how we’ve made our business more human. Click here to learn about all the team members who make Brandtailers what it is.
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Some rights reserved by Robert Scoble
Search Engine Optimization – everyone in business has heard the term and knows what it means, but only a few know how it can truly help their business. Here at Brandtailers, search engine optimization is integral to our clients’ online marketing strategies. Therefore, we’ve put together this primer to familiarize you with search engine optimization. In this article, you’ll learn: 1) how search engines work, 2) what search engine optimization is, and 3) how it can help your business.
How Search Engines Work
Google and other search engines works tirelessly to match the websites they return in their search results with the user’s intent. For instance, if a user types in “buy video camera,” Google knows this person is wants to buy a video camera. Therefore, Google returns websites that are useful to the user, such as video camera review websites and video camera stores. It determines the relevancy through three main criteria:
2. How many other websites link to the website (also called back links)? The more back links a website has from authoritative websites, the higher a search engine will rank it. Let’s assume there are two identical video camera review websites. The only difference is that one has no back links, whereas the other has links from major websites like New York Times, Huffington Post, Mashable, and AOL.com. Because the second website has back links from major websites, it will be ranked higher than the first.
3. Does the website have fresh content? Google will rank websites with new content higher. The content could be blog posts, articles, and videos. The main reason behind this is that a website that hasn’t been updated since 1999 will be out of date. But as the world moves faster and information spreads more rapidly, even a week can make a website out of date.
What Is Search Engine Optimization
In a nutshell, Search Engine Optimization is about leveraging your website’s assets in a way that encourages search engines to rank your website towards the top of their search engine results. There are two main parts of search engine optimization: on page and off page. On page optimization is more of the technical aspects. As we discussed above, a search engine looks for specific keywords to determine the subject of your website. But these keywords must be placed in key strategic areas. On page optimization is about placing these keywords in these strategic areas. Off page is about acquiring back links. There are numerous techniques to acquiring back links, such as encouraging sharing through social media, press outreach and content syndication.
How Search Engine Optimization Can Help Your Business
When a website ranks high in search engines, it receives a higher level of relevant traffic. For example, a video camera store that ranks in the first position for the keyword “buy video camera” will receive thousands of visitors a day. And each one of these visitors is actively looking to buy a video camera. The same holds true for your business. The higher you rank in search engines for keywords relevant to your business, you will get a greater number of valuable leads. Search engine optimization is the path to higher ranking and more business.
When businesses come to us looking for an online marketing strategy, one of the first things we discuss is search engine optimization. It is essential to a strong online marketing strategy. We’d love to discuss further how search engine optimization can help your business flourish. Feel free to contact us.
You’ll hear all the marketing experts say: “The world of marketing has changed.” We, at Brandtailers, say it in our office all the time. It’s less about TV commercials and radio spots and more about social media and search engine optimization. But we want to clarify: although the mediums in marketing have changed, the principles that make great marketing have remained the same.
Whether using display advertising on Facebook or running a commercial on television, the goal of marketing is to generate business for you, the client. When we run a television commercial for a car dealership, we aren’t happy unless we bring customers into the dealership to buy a vehicle. The same holds true when we are running ads on Facebook for a restaurant.
With the rise of the Internet, a lot of new marketing firms have been popping up. They spout things such as, “Hire us and we’ll bring you 10,000 NEW FOLLOWERS!” When we see such statements, we immediately ask ourselves, “What does that mean for the client?” The firms may deliver the 10,000 new followers. But thousands of dollars later, the client has not made any more money and has not received any new business. It’s because many of these new firms don’t understand the basic principles of marketing.
That’s why we are proud to say that we have been around for 22 years. We’ve had 22 years to build and fine-tune the core principles that make great marketing. We know what it takes to bring our clients new business which in return creates profit for our clients. We don’t deliver empty promises like “10,000 new followers”, “1,000 new back links”, or “500 retweets.” While the medium has changed and continues to change, the basics of marketing haven’t. No matter what the medium, Brandtailers delivers insanely smart ideas that bring our clients business.
