The Importance of Having a Website

So its been a little while since I put up a blog post, I know, I've been bad. It my defence its mostly because I was over in Europe on vacation for most of October, and for the past week I've succumbed to the dreaded h1n1.

Anyways, this blog post is going to be about the importance of having a website for a small business. Seems like a no brainer doesn't it? Well a recent poll of 200 small and medium sized businesses in Canada found that of those surveyed, 26 percent of businesses smaller than 49 people did not have a website, while 16 percent between 50 and 99 employees did not have one. If you stop and think about how big a company actually is to employ 50 people, then think that there are any companies out there that size that don't have their own spot on the web, its pretty astounding.

For many non-tech savvy entrepreneurs the thought of a website can be intimidating. But its important to realize that the website is the centre of your marketing strategy and all media should lead back to your home on the web. Whether a potential customer is looking at brochure, a business card, or a print ad, they'll be looking for your web address to find more resources to educate them on their decision on where to take their business. And with that sort of bare minimum set, if you don't have a website, chances are your competition does.

Content should be king on your business' website. When someone enters www.yourwebaddress.com they are looking to find more info on your business, so give that to them. Be excited about your website and think of your website as a magazine and your business is the story. Then put a lot of time into the strategy you want for that story. Think about why you love your business and what you offer, think about your brand, and think about what you want viewers to walk away with from your site.

Setting up a website can be a lot easier than you think if you have the right help. A lot of web designers and marketing companies target big businesses for their clients since relatively speaking its easy to make a nice big site with just a few talented individuals. There's nothing wrong with this but it might leave the proud entrepreneur feeling a little left in the cold with lots of enthusiasm but not a lot in the budget for a massive flash site. (I'm going to make a shameless plug for redlime here, can you feel it coming?)

Ask redlime about our web design services. We do websites big and small to suit whatever your needs may be with the ability to do smaller sites in house, or bigger more complex ones with our partners at OxygenWebs. Don't be intimidated and if you just want to kick tires and ask questions, ask away, we'll even buy you a coffee for your troubles if you'd like to sit down and meet. We'll come up with a strategy and solution to fit your budget and you'll be glad you came to us.

Thanks very much and I'll have a new post up this weekend. Promise!

Alberta Brand

Its been a while since the last blog and I imagine the next week or two will be pretty spotty with a couple of the team members travelling the globe through the month of October.

But there is a pretty cool new branding initiative that I really like and would like to talk about quickly. Its called "Alberta Brand", highlighting the many things Alberta has to offer to to both individuals and businesses. Ultimately the M.O. to the initiative is;

• attract investment, tourism, and workers to the province;
• market Alberta’s programs and services;
• develop a positive, meaningful image of Alberta; and
• increase awareness of Alberta as a great place to live, work, play and invest

Anyways, a good deal of work was done from a marketing research and brand development standpoint and it shows. The brand is polished and really has what it takes to meet the goals I mentioned above, highlighting the value of doing the homework and committing to the image you or your organization wants to convey.

They've even posted summaries of the research and rationale behind the details of the brand. For any marketing geeks out there, or anyone else who just might be interested in things to do in our beautiful province, definitely check it out!

'Til next time!

Advertising with an Edge

There’s plenty of good advertising out there and there is plenty of bad advertising out there. This week I’m going to make a couple comments of what I think is pretty good advertising that undoubtedly turns heads.

• Last week after what could hardly be called public outrage, Coors pulled down a billboard in BC picturing an ice cold Coors Light and a large caption stating “Colder than most people from Toronto” (pictured below). Apparently some Torontonians found it offensive, not all Torontonians though as the ad was actually designed by a Toronto based advertising firm.

• If you’ve been listening to the radio lately you may have noticed the new ads Virgin Mobile is running to promote their mobile internet service. The ads themselves are full of innuendo and take the form of a guy calling one of those late night adult 1-900 numbers that always advertise aroused women staying in and talking on the phone to have a good time, because evidently that’s what they do these days. By the vocabulary and intonation in passing it may sound like a 1-900 number but if you listen they’re actually talking about the feature of the new mobile services. The ad airs on CJAY and Vibe.

Some people would argue that ads like these are too edgy to be good for the brand, but nothing could be further from the truth. Edgy or provocative advertising and publicity is a fine line to walk and some would argue that brands such as American Apparel may sometimes cross that line. But if you really know your market, sometimes the risk you take could be a lay up for a slam dunk. (For the record I wouldn’t have considered the Coors ad walking that line until I heard people were actually complaining to Coors about it).

With the Coors ad, chances are they are in the clear because a) People in BC probably don’t live in Toronto, b) even people from Toronto might get a chuckle out of it, and c) if you’re a loyal Coors drinker and lived in Toronto, you’d probably forgive them for it because you know that’s their brand. But most importantly, even if you do get a huge public response from the ad (good or bad), you’re still getting way more exposure than you paid for with the cost of a billboard and an ad design. The same goes for the Virgin ads, they’re pretty borderline and the innuendo is pretty transparent but rarely has an ad like that hurt a company’s bottom line. On the contrary, Virgin has been running ads like that ever since the young Mr. Bronson started Virign records 30 years ago.

The key a really good ad is to know your target market and demographics, this takes time, research, and an exceptional understanding of your customer. After that thought to ad design and ad placement is critical if you want to break through the clutter and evoke a response. This goes double if you want your ad to walk that fine line between clever+provocative and just bad press.

As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to email or leave a comment. I'm going to go enjoy a nice cold Coors Light now (actually I don't drink Coors...).

A Couple Pointers on Building Your Network

Okay team so here is another blog full of great advice for other entrepreneurs and emerging business people. This may seem pretty elementary to some because it’s so simple, but too often we get so caught up in growing our business through business channels that we end up ignoring opportunities that can be established through our existing personal channels.

Chances are your business isn’t your only interest, and you may have an interest in soccer, cycling, fashion, computers, hockey, cars, anything really. Make sure that people you have relationships with in those communities know what you do, whether they’re your team, on an online forum, facebook, whatever. If they ever need services in line with what you do, they’ll be more inclined to go with somebody that they have something in common with and at least sort of know, than with a stranger from the yellow pages. Moreover, those people will often refer you to other people if they need something (because everyone loves having “connections”). I’m not saying force your key selling points down people’s throats, I’m saying if you’re comfortable with it don’t be shy about sharing your business with people that don’t necessarily know the entrepreneur side of you.

This next tip is a bit more on the B2B side, but worth knowing anyways…

If you’re in tune with the small business community, or have a large social circle, or are just a super friendly person you likely find yourself in a lot of conversations where you have the opportunity to talk to others about your business. And in a city like Calgary you no doubt find yourself talking to other people with their own businesses. But key to the art of schmoozing isn’t telling other people about what you do, its learning more about what they do. Developing a genuine interest and asking a lot of questions about what other people do immediately establishes a strong rapport will identify you as someone easy to work with. Not only this, but it will help you identify whether or how you can find new clients or create partnerships with other businesses.

The last thing is, have a business card at the ready at all times, and make it a good one that fits your personality and business. This is really important because when the other person walks away from the conversation, that’s what they have to remember you by. And I really don’t mean to knock anybody who has business cards with perforations around the side that you can print on your own printer, but spending the extra $50 on printing at a print shop will show clients that you are committed to your businesses and want to relay a sharp, professional image.
By the way, sorry if this post seems a little disjointed, I’m a little hungry right now and ended up rambling and changing the topic of this post a few times. If you’ve read this far you deserve a gold star!

Valuing Your Time

The biggest challenge that many entrepreneurs face, myself included, is the concept of valuing your own time. Obviously there are a lot of businesses out there that seem to have mastered the concept of assigning dollars the their valuable time (read: lawyers), but for many of us its a forgone concept that must be learned in order to make your business a successful one.

For consultants, the ones who aren't engineers in this city anyways, it is important to do your market research before setting your charge out rate and being realistic about the fact that as a new market entrant you may have to price yourself at a discount to the competition. I once spoke to a now very successful entrepreneur and he told me that even with his many years of experience, his strategy was to enter the market charging literally nothing for his services and only request that if clients are happy with his service, they emphatically refer business to him. You certainly don't have to do this, but he did and it worked for him.

But as your business becomes established it is very important that you use pricing as a lever to manage how much of your time you devote to your work. If you the phone isn't ringing, either you increased your price too quickly, or you are pricing so low that people don't believe you offer value in your product or service (I've seen this happen, to lawyers no less). Likewise if the phone is ringing off the hook, its probably because your services are on a permanent fire sale. Again, this is why its important to do your research on market rates and benchmark off of this, if you find the market charge out rate is in the ballpark of $100/hr, charging $75/hr as a new business is not unreasonable if you are on your first client, but if you feel you offer comparable service, don't be shy to start notching your rate up there.

Enter shameless plug for our marketing company. redlime takes a very strategic approach to marketing and we strongly recommend entrepreneurs or emerging business do their homework on the market, or have us do it for them. Having a solid pricing strategy and marketing plan is a critical component to the survival of any business, its something that we take very seriously and urge you to as well.

If you'd like to pick our brains about what we can do for you, give us a a call or drop us a note!

An Entrepreneur in Calgary

Wow, I have just been brutal with keeping up with blogging lately. Luckily its because we've been busy. My last blog was before Stampede, and of course this being Calgary, the duration of Stampede was busy with things like Nashville North and taking in things such as the rodeo and chuckwagons.

Anyways, just some comments about how business is going lately. At redlime we're obviously an emerging business and one thing that I really enjoy about that is that we work with a lot of other like minded emerging businesses and entrepreneurs. There is a certain energy and spirit that comes out of working for yourself that is difficult to describe until you get right into it. Between that and living in a city like Calgary which is very young and very independent minded, I consider myself lucky to be doing what I do and dealing with the clients that we have.

A couple of years back I read an article in USA Today that talked about that entrepreneurial spirit in Calgary and it always stuck with me. So to all my fellow Calgarians and entrepreneurs, have a read through this article and give yourselves a pat on the back.

I'm off to take in the great weather now, got to enjoy it while it lasts.

Oh also I finally replaced my old school Blackberry with the new Tour, sweet!

The Calgary Stampede

Hey team, haven't really posted anything new of late. Thats not to say that not much has been happening, quite the contrary actually, business at redlime is really picking up which is great especially for this time of year. Anyways, the Calgary Stampede is just a few days away and a lot of effort will be going into getting things done during that busy week for clients (and us) followed by the summer doldrums.

Speaking of the Calgary Stampede, Karo recently did some fantastic outdoor pieces for the Calgary Stampede that I'd urge you to check out on their website, here's two of them

The other reason for my recent lack of blog posts is a splint on one of my fingers following a pretty epic bike crash I got myself into a couple weeks ago. I'll be sure to post again soon and Yeeeeehaaaaaawww!!!!!

Some Unnecessary Proactive Marketing

Recently some of you may have noticed ads on billboards around Calgary from a French company called Total. The M.O. of their marketing around Calgary is to take a proactive approach towards establishing a postitive sentiment towards their inolvement in the Alberta Oilsands. In my humble opinion, and of the opinion of one of my counterparts at redlime, this endeavor is wholely unnecessary and if anything hinders more than helps.

The ad itself shows a relatively pristine forest on a clear day on the shore of a lake. But in the reflection of the lake is not the trees, but distillation towers from a refinery or upgrader. Visually everything is clean and clear and you'd probably guess that Total operates the most squeaky clean refineries in the world, but its still an refinery.

Given public sentiment towards the oilsands right now, and the fact that many people outside of the oil and gas industry in North America have probably never even heard of Total (though it is very well known in other parts of the world with recognition similar to Shell or ExxonMobil), its just a poorly timed and probably unnecessary ad bringing attention to their stake in the developments.

If Total really wanted to be proactive, and their advertising people had been more discerning, they would have used a mix of PR and print ads in broad reach local publications (The Herald, Alberta Oil, maybe Avenue but probably not) to educate Albertans on what differentiates Total from all the other oil companies.

Often times a lack of awareness of the proactive steps by businesses to be environmentally or socially aware allows smart marketers to advertise postives for their clients that would otherwise go unnoticed. For instance, instead of showing the reflection of a forest in a lake as a refinery, they could have ran an ad in the Herald about the work they've done in France on carbon capture and sequestration, or their plans for the remediation of SAGD sites in Northern Alberta once their production tapers.

Just a few thoughts.

New blog, new website

Hey world,

So this is my new blog, I had an old one where I tried to be funny but after about two posts I think I wasted my comedic talent.

Anyways, this blog will be focusing pretty much on the world of marketing and advertising and the wonderful city of Calgary. What makes me an authority capable of talking about marketing in Calgary? Well I live in Calgary (born and raised) and am a partner at a new emerging marketing company called redlime. You can check out our website at redlime.ca , its not as mind blowing and snazzy as some other marketing company's out there, but its because we're always too busy doing stuff for our clients to make it as wicked as some of our other work. Also, with web design for clients we sometimes contract work out to make it truly mind blowing, whereas for our site we just do the work ourselves.

Wow, how is that for getting off topic. So other reasons I can provide insight to marketing in Calgary? This is going to sound pretty crazy but basically because I'm passionate about it. Marketing means expressing and creating a message that you want to communicate to a certain audience, and to resonate with that audience your message has to speak louder and more eloquently than every other message that person sees or hears that day. Marketing is the competitive art of communication, and to me, thats pretty cool.

Look forward to my next post and be sure to check out redlime.ca.

Cheers,
Raf