Search results

1. Search engine optimization (duh!) SEO is the most important thing to do to increase your website’s ranking. Consumers use Google or other search engines to seek information, and what they type in is referred to as "keywords." Long-tail keywords are “phrases” that are sought. The more people use a particular keyword or phrase, it gains more “keyword-super- juice.” Ensuring you have the exact use of sought-after keyword/s throughout your site, the higher ranking you will achieve. Most folks don’t seek past the first page, so high ranking is a coveted spot. Improve organic search results by adding new or editing existing content, removing barriers to index search programs, increasing your backlinks and inbound links—which are the links your website receives from other webpages. The more you have, the more popular you are, and search engines reward that popularity. 2. Social media: Don't be afraid, use a scheduler. Social media has millions and millions (and millions) of daily users. From a marketing and traffic perspective, it’s a cost-effective way to attract people to your site. You can do paid ads and set a daily budget, pay per click, or pay for “impressions,” when people see your ad. Social platforms and DM options are also excellent tools for customer service inquiries and real-time communication. However, don’t only think about your own needs. Be sure to comment on other’s posts, share, etc. This generally leads to a quick peek at your website or comment back. Be useful, educational, and friendly to build a follower base that is already interested in what you have to share. Too many ads will turn people away. Find your balance. 3. Blogging: People do care what you have to say! Google loves it some fresh content. So, blog all you want; search engines want more! Offering free, original content on your site can help bring new visitors, set you apart from the competition, prove your authority, and increase conversion. Another option is that you can guest blog; by writing for prominent blogs in your niche. Remarkably, this method is even more beneficial in generating traffic. Include a link to your site in your signature biography at the end of your guest post and you can draw in new visitors from their audience, which likely gets much more traffic than your current blog or website. This gains you instant credibility. 4. Meet them where they are: Email marketing Email marketing is an effective tool because many people need to be engaged multiple times before they buy. It has proven its viability over the years and is still one of the best ways to engage potential and current prospects. If you give people a compelling reason to subscribe (contests, great content, insider information, deals, etc.) and dependably send great content so they don’t unsubscribe, you will encourage them to return to your site on a regular basis. 5. Word of mouth (forums/social media/community pages, etc.) When you’re looking for a new shop to get an oil change or a good deli in a neighboring town, you likely turn to trusted friends, family, or online sources to discover the best-rated options. These reviews and social-proof elements are critical drivers for your website too. Focus on building tight connections with followers and ask for positive reviews or word-of-mouth recommendations regularly. Participate in forums or comment on other’s blog posts to plug your company, but be careful, you don’t want to come off too salesy. 6. Rejected? Retarget! Retargeting ads work by placing a tracking cookie on each of your visitor’s computers. It feels wrong, but they can choose to decline. The idea is that when they leave your site, they are directed into a funnel that sends them more ads about your product or service. Using this type of advertising helps you reach visitors who leave without conversion, which is about 98 percent of all your traffic, and that makes retargeting valuable. You’ve already worked hard to get people there, so invite them to come back. 7. Get after Video! Videos can pack in much more information, in an entertaining way, than almost any other medium. Posting them to YouTube can help your content get discovered by YouTube aficionados and even go viral. Google indexes your content, but others can embed your video on their blogs and share it via social media. Although going “viral” is undoubtedly the goal, it’s important to remember that not every video needs to get a million views to drive traffic to your website successfully. Instead, focus on a call to action that tells viewers exactly where to go. You can also advertise on other people’s videos by buying targeted ads relevant to your business, yet another way to get more people to see your company. Explore Video email! As stated, videos can pack in much more information than almost any other medium. So why not put them as your email content? Your “email readership” will skyrocket, and you can always personally ask them to visit your site and see more. By saving your videos onto your site (if they are educational), you will have a library for folks to watch, thus spending more time on your site and helping your SEO. Amazing how this stuff works! 8. Pay per click (PPC) PPC Internet advertising brings traffic to your website from search engines. Here’s how it works: you pay a fixed price for every click your ad gets in the results feed. Your ultimate goal of the click is to convert that user and see a return on the click investment. With Google AdWords, there’s no spending requirement, you can set a tiny budget of as little as five dollars a day or a maximum cost of ten cents per click. Your primary focus should be the person becoming your client, but simply showing interest is still a good ROI, since you can now be confident that they are aware of your existence and may possibly convert at a later date. Carefully chosen keywords and phrases will cause the search engine to use algorithms that get your ad in front of many potential prospects. 9. Be somebody! Authority and backlinks rule. Building your authority and influence is an integral part of driving traffic to your website. Through public relations strategies, you can brand yourself as an expert in your niche and build your credibility. For instance, by serving as a source in journalist’s articles, the outlet typically provides a link back to your website, which carries significant traffic that converts well, all while building your reputation. Plus, when you’re mentioned on a big press outlet, your prospects trust you more. Periodic press releases can also help drive traffic and generate interest in your product or service. Backlinks and authority are also propagated by hosting a podcast (even just being a guest), creating an Alexa Flash Briefing, vlog, writing a book, speaking at events, or being on the radio can all add stripes to your authority and credibility factor. 10. Great branding matters Last but not least is branding. Much of the above may not be taken seriously or engaged if the branding is subpar. To appeal to the higher-end client, one must walk the talk. Take the time to do a brand analysis, perhaps refresh your brand, and engage in a more modern way. If you are not sure if your branding is up to snuff, check out our Branding Analysis Quiz using this link. ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168

We are all inundated with brand experts, branding agencies, corporate brand architects, brand strategists, freelance brand designers, design thinkers, and brand “gurus” who insist that they have the golden touch and can create and plan your brand for you. I have heard of agencies telling clients that “they were hired to do this, so step back and watch the magic.” If so, it is essential to understand this claim may not only be disingenuous—it's dangerous. Although everyone may mean well, and it may seem like the easiest solution; the truth is that no one is in a position to build a brand on your behalf without a ton of input from you. Believing that you can hand over your brand and it magically return, having captured your voice, heart, and values, is the first misstep in understanding how a brand works. Your brand must come from you. The voice, art, and visuals must reflect you. Brand building is not a passive exercise; you must be an integral part of the process. If you are serious about developing a truly impactful and representative brand, hiring a company that will work collaboratively and defers to your instincts is key. Doing anything else will damage your brand and risk having to do it all again. Measure twice, cut once. Unfortunately, the term “brand” is often overused (and grossly misunderstood). It's common to hear that a company has rebranded when it actually updated, revised, tweaked, or changed its logo. That is simply an identity refresh, not a rebrand. A proper rebrand would involve developing a new company name, strategy, core focus, as well as the visual and messaging throughout every platform, package, and ad-space. For an established brand, that is a risky move, but sometimes necessary. Hiccups, such as a “name” emerging that is the same as yours but has negative connotations. An example of this would be an old client of NLC, the International Society of Endovascular Specialists, which used the moniker "ISES" for short. You get the idea. Why branding can be dangerous An effective and authentic brand makes you vulnerable; values transparency opens you up to the world. If you don't live up to what you say you are, you are exposed as a fraud. You cannot hide from what you are communicating to the world. You are expected to live up to your promise. If branding isn't done correctly—and authentically—the result will most likely be confusing, misaligned, and dishonest. This taints the perception of your business. Reputation, the public perception, is a core part of your brand, and once lost, is hard to rebuild. The design and marketing role is significant. Your team needs to dig deep and question everything you represent and the values of your business—or at least they should. Freelancers are notorious for disappearing or not understanding what all encompasses a true brand, so finding a professional agency is vital for a growing business. Under the transactional model, the creative does not have a long-term investment in your company. However, an extraordinary agency will champion your brand every chance they get. Your success is their success and having you as a long-term client is essential. Be sure to choose one that always has your back and is more interested in doing it properly and exceeding expectations over their bottom line. You've got this. If you need help or advice, give us a call. Happy to help EVEN if you don't hire us. :0) ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168

Enjoy this great guest post! Learn why a community bank might be the first choice for your business! Special thanks to the State Bank of Fairbault for their input! Benefits of a Community Bank Some people think all banks are the same, but they are not created equal, especially when it comes to lending to businesses and individuals. You should do your research when determining which financial institution with whom you wish to do business. Community banks take pride in getting to know their customers and thinking outside the box to give more flexibility to the applicant for their loan needs. Building a rapport with your financial institution leads to trusting communication and positive outcome. Whether you are a large business or one just starting out, consider who is willing to listen to your needs and who is open to assist you. Community banks also pride themselves on working alongside customers in all aspects of their banking needs. Community banks also give back to the community in which you live, in addition to enhanced benefits to the customer. All of these are important points when choosing your perfect banking partner. The State Bank of Faribault, with a branch office in Prior Lake, is family-owned by four generations of community bankers. We’d love to meet you. The State Bank of Faribault, Prior Lake Branch 6867 Boudin St. NE, Prior Lake 952-204-1240 ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168

My husband was living in Minnesota seeking a job as I stayed behind with our three children, ages 1, 4, and 6. It was a gorgeous Arizona day (as always) and I "had me a cravin' for some bourbon chicken." Yum. ​ Now, going out in public with three active kids 6 and under proves to be a challenge on the best of days, but I was determined to have bourbon chicken in my future. I loaded up the kiddos, a freshly diapered 15-month old, noses clean and all presentable. As we drove to the restaurant, I did my usual speech about behavior and manners, of which the children all happily agreed. They loved going out to eat. TGI Friday's had umbrellas for the drinks, which always made for a special occasion. Oh, it turned out special all right. ​ After a wonderful meal, we topped it off by ordering dessert, a chocolate mudslide large enough to feed us all. I entertained the kids with silly songs and "I spy with my little eye" when our trip to TGI Friday's took a nasty little turn. My little one looked at me so sweetly and squirmed in his seat. His arm was back behind and I leaned forward to help him look for his binky that he must have dropped. At this point, he brought his hand around and "proud-as-punch" gifted me a giant handful of steamy crap. Yes, warm, steamy, rank... poop. I was stunned. Here we are, in a nice restaurant with cloth napkins, other folks sitting nearby, having just eaten a full meal, and my 2 older children too young to leave at the table alone. If I take all to the restroom to get him cleaned up, they will think I walked the check. If I leave them, I am a horrible parent. I wanted to be as discreet and quick as possible. The 6-year-old thought it was hysterical, my 15-month-old obviously thought he gifted me a fabulous, funny gift, and the 4-year-old daughter dramatically feigned indignant shock and disgust about the entire situation. I had no choice. I wrapped his little hand in the red cloth napkin and commanded the other two to follow. I grabbed my purse and needed items for the change but left the diaper bag to let them know that I was coming back. Embarrassed and frantic, we rushed to the bathroom and got my tiny-stinker cleaned up and redressed. On return to the table, the waitress, laughingly, let us know that the neighboring table had informed her of the situation and that all was good (I guess we weren't so discreet after all!). To this day I relive the upset when sharing this story and how I was so incredibly mortified. To this day, my now 15-year-old big-stinker, still thinks it is hysterical. Go figure. Why do I share this personal story in a business blog? Because occasionally in business, as in life, we are presented with a handful of crap. A loud and disgruntled client, a bad batch of product, a politically incorrect misspeak; any public failure can be just as mortifying as being handed a fist-full of poo in public. We are convinced that everyone is watching and judging. Our reputation is ruined. We can never recover. Or can we? How we handle business drama is determined by the values we embody in our business. Our brand promise and reputation, if solidly built and maintained provide stability. Strong client relationships offer forgiveness. Managing the failure with honor, class, humility, and doing the very best you can to make it right, can save face as well as clients in the midst of what could be a terrible hit to your business. What can you do now to prep your brand? What process do you have in place to deflect the negativity? Are your relationships poo-proof? Life isn't always roses and lollipops, crap happens. Are you ready? ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168

There is an elephant in the room regarding branding + marketing that no one is brave enough to point out. The room is quiet, Bob the young VP has just presented the new logo and brand look that the company paid bookoos to a freelancer to develop. The colors and design are hip and bright, similar to something you'd see at a skateboard shop. It oozes youth and excitement. The internal marketing team seems excited; they've taken the logo and put it on a bunch of social ads in Canva for Facebook and Instagram. The freelancer and VP appear to be on board... except there's only one issue, they are an end-of-life trust and estate law firm. Even the youngest member on the staff's gut is screaming that this is not a fit. Who dares to speak up? Granted, this might be an extreme example, but it is also very apt. Many business leaders don't understand the nuances of branding and marketing. Due to inevitable overlaps, Branding and Marketing get lumped in together as the same thing, when in fact, they are quite different. The short definition: BRANDS EVOKE and MARKETING GUIDES. What does this mean? Branding is so much more than just a logo. Yes, you've heard that a trillion times, but it's true. It is the psychological result of customer experience, brand messaging, and visuals that evoke your potential buyer's emotion. The collective buyer's perception determines your business's reputation and thus the likelihood of someone considering your offers. Your brand includes the above but is not limited to that bird's eye definition. As with any reputation, it is dependent on every interaction, every touchpoint, every phone call, disgruntlement, heck — even how the company van driver behaves on the road or if the tipsy CEO disrespects a coworker at the office party. The design and visual styles are vital aspects of the brand since a poorly designed logo or visual, regardless of whether all else is in line, can be the difference in whether you are chosen as a provider. The clarity and quality of your messaging are factors too. Are your values clearly defined? Are they consistent throughout your communications? A brand is comprised of many parts, but understand that merely slapping your logo on a Canva template does not qualify as marketing. Marketing is the method by which you guide your prospect from point to point until they choose you over your competitor. Marketing exploits the emotions propagated by the brand, like a bread-crumb trail, it leads your prospect where you want them to go. Through lead-generated interest, such as a blog or a social post that gets clicked, and sends the viewer to a landing page which further explains and entices the sale. Hopefully, that leads to conversion. It is, in essence, "strategic manipulation." Ouch, that is a dirty word! However, that is what marketing is meant to do. To guide and convince your prospect to buy. The brand is meant to engage, communicate, build relationships and trust. The brand is the personality and the "human side" that appeals to the prospect's heart and biases. Marketing is not near as effective without the brand, and a brand alone cannot do the heavy lifting of marketing. Imagine if all products were utterly blank, an opinion could not be formed or manipulated as easily. In our example, the brand was off by a mile. The "marketing" was simply social posts. There was no guiding purpose other than showing the logo on a graphic. That may create brand awareness equity, which is essential but much of the time does not lead the buyer to buy. This substantial difference in definition is not all-inclusive. The blend of the two efforts is almost indiscernible during use. Although they are interdependent, they are absolutely, without a doubt, not the same thing… and that, my friends, is the disconnect most people won't dare challenge because they are clueless on how to extricate them from one another and articulate the differences. BRANDS EVOKE and MARKETING GUIDES. Now you can stand up and have a voice. The elephant may leave the room. ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168

A wonderful guest post by Impression Sign. It is so great when companies align! This article fits right along with our HEART Principle so much that we couldn't have written it better ourselves! Nice job! We are definitely not experts on love (by any means) but we do know a thing or two about loyal customers. While we count our lucky stars every day for them, we know it’s not all just dumb luck. We put in a lot of hard work into finding our perfect matches before we begin working on a project. Everything we do is purposeful. And the formula for setting up your brand and building a business people talk about not because they have to but because they want to isn’t easy but it’s worth it. Be a human Skip the jargon, people want to buy from other people, not a “business”. Be real, use a conversational tone whenever possible in your marketing and direct engagements. It makes people feel good to support others they enjoy talking to, learning from, or those that bring value to their life. Millennials and Gen Y often support businesses because they support the people behind the business. A mission statement is often no longer enough to show others there’s a person behind that business. Always be transparent Many of today’s consumers like those who are honest, those who apologize, those who allow themselves to be humbled. They’re no longer just impressed with confusing, fancy-sounding jargon. They again, want to support people, not just a business. They want to feel confident they’re making a good decision and feel good knowing they’re supporting something that identifies with their views. Don’t sell A lot of people don’t want to be sold to, with so many online resources often they’ve already done some of their research before they even found you. With our online purchasing habits, we’re no longer comfortable feeling pressured to buy something. If you push too hard you could easily lose a potential buyer. With so many responsibilities and possibilities to be distracted, often patience becomes the new name of the game. If you’re being authentic, you’re giving your audience value and you’re talking about the things you know consistently, you’ve already done most of the selling. Be a leader Show what you know, digitally and in person. Teach others things they either want to know or things that you make sound so incredibly interesting, they didn’t even know they wanted to know it. Every time you speak or publish something online is an opportunity to show you are a leader within the industry. It’s also an opportunity to connect to others, show them you’re a real person behind the business, and sell to them without selling anything at all. Create good content Good content adds value to people’s lives and gives them another reason to fall in love with your brand. All content created should have a mission or help representing who you are. Content should not just be posted to stay relevant but because you have something worth sharing that is relevant to your mission. Show others you’re worth investing a few minutes of their time with and give them content that makes them feel good. It’s also an excellent platform to display critical thinking and problem-solving skills to your specific industry. Invest in good talent The right people can make all the difference, from the way they handle a bad day to how they handle someone else’s and how they uphold your company’s values. Spending on the right talent and investing in those you see potential in can make or break your business. Leaving an impression that reflects your specific set of values and services can be hard to grow. Company culture and flexibility can help foster the right environment for those you already feel share the right values to help your company harness its full potential. Those people are the ones who will help sell you and create the stories that others will want to talk about, and those people and stories are what will make people fall in love with your brand. Make your product something you’d be proud or excited to buy Is your end product or service something you’re proud of? Train your employees to recognize things that should not pass through a quality control check. If you outsource your product have someone inspect those items as well, to make sure they represent your brand well before they’re out in the world or on shelves. You want to make sure your products or services are something you’d buy or invest in. And, your immediate answer isn’t yes it might be tough to get others to fall in love with you. Always stay flexible Sometimes things won’t always go smoothly, whether it’s an internal issue or a tough return. If there is any way your service or business can overdeliver, do your best to always keep that goal in mind, every time. Life happens and companies that recognize that, not only win in the end, they get talked about for going above and beyond. Staying positive in negative situations also helps stave off bad reviews which consumers are more apt to post about. Make your audience happy Give consumers content they can believe in and sales or service transactions that go the extra mile. In today’s day and age, customer service experiences are being overlooked. While marketing and content is important don’t forget about the actual sale or service. There are a lot of potential touchpoints and moments to make a big impact on your consumers. Make sure your employees are always thinking about how they can go the extra mile to make someone smile. Sometimes one tiny gesture can make all the difference in building a successful brand. You never know just who might see it. If you love what you do it's easy to be genuine. Being genuine with your audience and sharing the love you have for your business helps other people love it to do. So do what you do best, show love for your business wherever you can, hire those that align with your mission, and continue to deliver amazing service. If you’re leaving the world better than you found it with every business interaction or transaction you make it will be hard for others not to fall in love with your brand. And, if you do get dumped… If someone does wind up falling out of love with your brand, as with any relationship, it’s important to communicate. Make sure your business does its best to address any issues or shortcomings that may have been neglected. It is possible to recover consumer relations and even turn an upset consumer into a loyal brand follower. It also just depends on how your business handles the situation. Have questions for us? Contact us at: info@impressionsigns.com | 651.328.6600 ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168

(A Designer Rant) To put this into context for those who are not familiar, imagine asking for a glass of wine yet are given a cup with grapes or asking for an item at a department store and simply receiving packaging but no actual product. There is a hidden disgruntlement among professional designers: being given an unusable image file. Inexperienced designers or DIY businesspersons may not know the difference between a “Raster” or a “Vector” image. Nor do many realize there is a vast variance between files ending in “.jpg” or “.png.” Consider this a public service announcement about print vs. web image files and how best to provide art to your designer. Providing a print designer an image or logo that is embedded into a slide or word document ending with file types such as “.pptx” or “.doc,” you might as well have handed the designer a shovel. That’s about how useful an embedded file is for print production. Print photography and imagery require a minimum of 300 dpi (dots per inch) — at use size for a clean, crisp image. So what is this raster/vector thing I speak of? Raster is made of dots: the more dots, the tighter and cleaner the image. Every photo you see in print is made of 4 dots, CMYK = Cyan (blue), Magenta (aka pink), Yellow and black (aka “K”-why “K”, I have no idea!). TIP: Find a magazine and look at it with a magnifying glass. Those four colors make up every photo, color logo, etc., you see in print. The more you increase the size of a raster image, the further the dots move apart. The computer does this handy dandy thing called “interpolation” which is basically the computer guessing what the colors would be between each pair of dots and then fills it in as well as it can, which usually is not very good. Vector, on the other hand, is mathematically based. It is used for logos and other clean edge items. It is used for linear illustration but is not used for photography. It can be enlarged as big as a billboard or reduced as small as a stamp and never lose quality. Logos for print should be an “.eps” or a “.pdf” (common vector extensions) but can also be raster if they are high enough in their dot count. Extensions of “.pptx” and “.doc” are no more than 72 dpi and thus are absolutely not acceptable for high-resolution printing. Why? A file with a dpi of 72 dpi is too small to be clean and crisp in print. If you attempt to enlarge it, it digitizes and looks soft and blurry due to the interpolation. Not good. Most people’s confusing part is that a “.jpg” file can be a low dot count or a high dot count. For internet use, a dpi of a “.jpg” file at 72 dpi or more is fine if used at that size or smaller. (With dpi, reducing the size makes the dots tighter and cleaner, while enlarging causes interpolation.) On the other hand, an image of 600 dpi is overkill for both print and web. In web use, that large of a file can slow your page load. In print, it just makes your file larger and unwieldy. When the experts speak of optimizing your images online, they mean that images need to be resized to be the smallest they can be and still produce well to not slow page load speed. The wrong file choice can delay the print or web design process. Ask your agency what file types you own and ask for them to be segregated for your use. A professional design firm should provide art files in all of the above image types, multiple configurations, and various colors. At NLC, we provide logo files as horizontal, vertical, and in color, black, white, and one other brand color. Then we put vector and 300 dpi raster art in a PRINT folder and lower resolution raster art in a WEB folder. By segregating files, retrieval is easier since potentially needed files are readily at hand. Note that photographers generally provide very large files for imagery. Always better to have too big than too little! But you may want to ask them to provide files in smaller formats as well. CLIFF NOTES: Logos should be vector. Images should be 300 dpi and raster. If you are not sure what you have, please let your designer know and send your entire library so they can choose the best resource for you… but for the love of Pete, do not place files into other apps and hope that will work unless you want to spend time seeking other files and send your designer over the edge. :0) ©Neon Lizard Creative 2021 | Rebecca Rausch | neonlizardcreative.com | 952.452.0168