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December 9, 2011
Happy Friday! While you’re here, check out my newly beefed up resources page. I’ve added links to a ton of products and services I personally use to run my creative business. I’ll be adding more resources in the coming months so that my readers can benefit from my favorite finds. Many of the vendors I recommend are the result of exhaustive searches to find suppliers with the perfect combination of best price and great products. If you need promotional items, web hosting, domains, graphic design, etc. the resources page has great suggestions.
On a personal note, I’m pleased to announce that an Ex-Boyfriend tee (my clothing company) was featured last week on an episode of ABC’s Modern Family. I’m always touting the benefits of publicity and this placement was a result of hard work from my partner and our PR assistant. (If you want to know how my partner and I do our own PR I’ve written an ebook about it.)
Now, on with my favorite reads this week:
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November 30, 2011
I’ve noticed recently that a lot of fellow biz bloggers and biz coaches are selling press or store lists (or offering them as a value-add for premium products). I’m pretty much against buying/using pre-made store or press lists, and here’s why:
1. They might make me lazy
It’s tempting to use someone else’s list. Making a list of stores or media outlets to pitch is time consuming, so why not let someone else do the work? Because working from someone else’s list is like working with blinders on. I promise you, there are more stores and media outlets that are great for your company that are not on that list you just bought. If you’re relying on a pre-made list, you might not go hunting for them.
2. They don’t give me an edge over my competitors
If someone is selling a list of store or media contacts, you have to wonder who else bought the same list. Are those stores or editors being bombarded with pitches from your competitors? That’s going to make it tougher to get them to focus on you.
I love when I find a hidden gem of a contact and it pays out for me. I’m great at thinking of unconventional places to pitch my work that competitors might not be trying. As a result, I can stand out and probably get a better response. Some of my best media placements for Ex-Boyfriend haven’t been Good Housekeeping or Elle or Design Sponge, they’ve been outlets that focus on niches relevant to my products, like geek culture blogs or outlets with a focus on animal lovers. Other tee labels might all be fighting for a placement in the same dozen or so coveted outlets, but personally, I prefer to skip ‘em. I’d rather go where my competitors haven’t thought to look.
Case in point, earlier this fall my company was featured in a magazine about cheese. We saw quite a few orders stemming from the placement. The average clothing company might not think about working with an outlet about cheese. By working with a media outlet that isn’t the first one our competitors think of, we were able to score a win.
3. They probably aren’t perfect for me
Even if I take competitors out of the equation, if a friend who had a jewelry line or a handbag line offered to give me her press list or store list, I’d still say “no thanks”. Media lists and store lists have to be highly customized to be valuable. The press contacts and store lists that are good for another business are not necessarily useful for mine. Even if I could get lists another clothing company was using, it probably still wouldn’t have all the stores and media outlets I should be pitching.
There’s more to your products than being a shirt or a necklace or a bag. Our products have so many niches they could appeal to that it’s important to build our prospect lists with those niches in mind. Hopefully there aren’t a lot of businesses out there with your exact combination of product types and niches, which is why the best store or press list is going to be the one you created yourself.
Purchased Lists as a Jumping Point
The case can be made for using pre-made lists as a starting point. You could use them to get ideas for your own custom list and cross off the ones you don’t need. This can work okay if you understand that the list you’re getting isn’t “your” final list and you want to spend the time checking out each contact on the list to see if they’re a fit for you. It’s not my preferred approach, I’d rather spend the same hours just making my own list, researching my own niches.
If you do decide to start with someone else’s list, make sure you’re not taking their list as gospel. Be prepared to spend the time checking each contact to see if they are suited to your business and then spend the time adding your own contacts that aren’t on the list initially.
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July 1, 2011
This week’s round up is heavy on the SEO info, but there were so many great SEO articles this week. Have a terrific 3 day weekend, all! See you next week 
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June 29, 2011
Ever hear the expression “dress for the job you want”? What it means is, if you keep showing up to the office in cut off shorts and ratty t-shirts, people will think you look like you belong in the mail room and that’s where you’ll stay. If your business is, figuratively speaking, dressed like a ragamuffin, it’s always going to be one. If you want to run a million dollar business, then fake it til you make it. Below are 7 ways you can make your business look like a big deal:
1. List your Phone Number
Real businesses have phone service. If you want to look like one, include a contact number on your website, ideally some place easy to spot. It says “we’re a real company, with real staff waiting to take your calls.” Even if you can’t man your phone line 24/7, have a professional voice mail greeting that implies that customer calls are returned in a timely fashion. (And then actually return the calls in a timely fashion.)
There are dozens of services that provide phone numbers for small companies. You can even get a free number from Google Voice (though it does have Google Voice branding on it). If you are willing to spend a little, you can get a toll free number for less than 10 bucks a month.
Bonus: Having a phone number ups your website’s trust factor, an important component of conversion rate optimization. People want to give their money to businesses that seem trustworthy. Having a phone number listed makes your business seem more like it can be trusted to take a credit card number and deliver products.
2. Have a beautiful web design
Not just any old website will do, you need a website that looks really great. Having an attractive professional website makes your business seem successful. It makes journalists more willing to write about you. It makes wholesale buyers more interested in doing business with you. It makes consumers more willing to trust you.
If you’re thinking “web design is hard” or “a web designer is expensive”, consider all the money and opportunities you’ll lose by having a terrible website.
3. Have great product photos
Great looking product photos are an extremely important part of your company’s image. Don’t bother with indoor lighting and a cheap camera. You want your photos to look compelling. Like a great web design, great product photos impress all kinds of online visitors from customers to the press.
If you want to take your own product photos, do some research to see how other people have staged photos of similar products. This will give you ideas on how to stage your photo shoot. Then be sure to work with proper lighting, so photos don’t look murky or gray. Finally, do some retouching in a program like Photoshop, so your photos look perfect.
If you’re not up for all this work, consider hiring a professional photographer to shoot your items. There are even photographers that specialize in doing product photography and will shoot your products for a pretty affordable rate, usually charging per product photo.
4. Merchandising
Merchandising products on your website in a variety of ways is useful for several reasons. It makes your product catalog seem bigger and it makes shopping for products easier. I wrote a detailed piece for Design Sponge last year on ways to merchandise a shop. You’ll notice a lot of bigger companies merchandise their online stores using the same strategies.
5. Publicity
Getting a mention from a major media outlet is not only a great way to increase brand awareness and give your sales a boost, it also makes your company look important. These placements give you credibility with both retail customers and wholesale customers, so they’re a valuable boon to your business if you can get them. Once you’ve scored them, you can use them on your website, adding logos like “as seen on” to product pages and your home page.
Not sure how to get publicity? Check this out, I’ve written a very detailed how-to.
6. Engaged Social Media Followers
Want to convince media outlets, wholesale buyers, competitors or potential new retail customers you’ve got an army of rabid fans? Of course you do, and social media makes that easier than ever. By truly engaging your fans on sites like Twitter and Facebook (instead of just selling to them), you can get them to talk to you and about you, thus making your fans seem like they’re crazy for you.
Some tricks that help:
- Ask questions that prompt responses
- In your product packages, include a note that asks customers to share a photo of themselves using your product on Facebook
- Take photos of fans at live events using your products and tag them on Facebook/share them on Twitter and Flickr
- Shoot videos of live events and interview your customers. You can just ask a couple of quick questions such as “what did you buy from [insert brand name] today?” or “what did you enjoy best about today’s event?” Then post to Youtube and let fans know they’ve been featured.
7. Product Presentation
If you’re just shoving your products into a mailer with an invoice print out from Paypal, STOP IT! You’re leaving the customer with the impression that you’re simply a transactional seller and not a real brand to be remembered. You want every customer who gets your package to remember it, so make sure your packaging isn’t an afterthought. This includes creating a stylish branded invoice and adding other little details to make your brand seem like a big deal. This can include hang tags, branded products or little freebies like branded vinyl stickers. These same rules apply to samples that go to the media. If your shipment looks impressive, it’s going to make an impression on anyone who gets it.
Bonus Tip for Wannabe Big Shots: A lot of small businesses who sell online take Paypal. It’s super easy and inexpensive to implement. The problem is, it makes you look pretty small time. Having the ability to take credit cards makes you look like a bigger company. If you’re a Paypal junkie, consider their virtual terminal product. It’s a nice all-in-one solution. This isn’t your only option, of course. A little research on merchant accounts will help you find plenty of other vendors that enable you to take credit cards online. And you need not completely ditch Paypal. Accepting both cards and Paypal is a great way to look professional and satisfy customers who have a preference for one of those two payment methods.
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June 24, 2011
Happy Friday! Below are my recommended reads this week from around the web:
Lastly, I wanted to recommend checking out Kyle-Beth Hilfer’s legal blog. She covers legal issues that pertain to small business and creative professionals. Add it to your feed reader for great insights on this important topic.
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April 25, 2011
If you’ve ever had your brand talked about in a magazine, high-traffic website, or newspaper, you know the amazing power of publicity. One little placement can generate thousands of dollars in sales over night! The good news about free publicity is that it doesn’t cost any money. The bad news is you’ve got to work for it. If you don’t know how to do that, I’ve got a solution, but first, here are some reasons to love free publicity.
1. Brand Awareness Beyond Your Budget
I’ve been able to get my shop mentioned in some of the highest profile media outlets around — outlets like iVillage, Gizmodo, Baltimore Sun, Nickelodeon, Animal Planet and dozens of others. I’m talking about media outlets that charge more than my monthly paycheck for an ad! I might not have had the cash to buy my way into those publications, but with a little strategic public relations, I was able to get my company mentioned for free.
2.Credible Endorsements Bring in the Customers
I am not knocking paid advertising; I’ve seen a great return on investment from ad placements. That said, advertising doesn’t carry the credibility of a media placement. When people see ads, they’re bound to be skeptical. It’s a company telling you how great they are. Of course they think they’re great, but they’re hardly objective. When a trusted source such as a magazine, website, newspaper, etc. has something nice to say about a business, consumers are a lot more likely to listen. That’s credibility you simply can’t buy.
3. The Caché of Media Placements Will Charm Those Wholesale Clients
Wholesale customers are just like your retail customers; they don’t just want you to tell them why you’re great, they’re interested in hearing about who else thinks you’re great. If you can get your company name or products into magazines, newspapers, blogs, TV shows, etc. that not only means more sales for you, it means more sales for the stores carrying your wares. Some high profile media placements are a great way to convince wholesale clients that your products are the hottest thing around.
4. Ripple Effects
Media placements do so much more than just bring you the audience from the magazine, website, TV show, etc. where your products or company were featured. Those placements have a huge ripple effect on your marketing. Getting on a TV show or movie can cause entertainment magazines to talk about you. Getting on a high profile website can lead to a flurry of Facebook likes, Tweets and other online buzz, driving traffic to your site from even more sources, and getting search engines to take more interest in your site. Each placement you receive generates more interest in your brand and gets more people talking and sharing.
So now that you’re as jazzed about the idea of free publicity as I am, how do you get some?
I’m not going to lie, getting free publicity is going to take some work. I can’t emphasize this enough. I can give you the tools and techniques to be your own publicist, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to use them to see results. So if you’re ready to do some work… let’s talk about Scoring Publicity For Your Small Business.
This brand new download will teach you everything you need to know to be your own publicist. To be perfectly honest, I debated publishing this for a long time. The information I’ve shared in Scoring Publicity For Your Small Business is the stuff that gave my own online shop a huge competitive advantage. We’ve toiled away at doing our own publicity for several years and had to learn by trial, error and no small amount of research how to get it right. I ultimately decided to publish this information because I want Smaller Box readers to succeed and I know my business has enough other unique advantages that having this information out there won’t really do us any harm.
All of that said, Scoring Publicity For Your Small Business contains my absolute most-valued and top-secret resources and tips. These are details and tips I have not and will not share on the blog because they were simply too hard-won to give away for free, so you’ll only get these tips from private coaching sessions or Scoring Publicity For Your Small Business. If I’ve piqued your interest, read on to see what else is included in this brand new download.
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March 14, 2011
Microsoft-owned Bing recently faced a huge Twitter backlash for pledging to donate $1 to Japan’s earthquake victims for every “retweet” they received on this pledge. Twitter users immediately accused Bing of profiteering from a tragedy.
First let me say, I’m not really a big Bing user and I’m not a huge Microsoft devotee, they do plenty of things I’m not crazy about but this isn’t one of them. Tons of brands are getting involved in the Japan relief effort and raising their profile in the process. After all, you don’t hear about who’s helping Japan without hearing Lady Gaga’s name and thinking “oh that Lady Gaga, what a nice broad.” It’s all marketing, so when celebs are elevating their own brands with charitable work, while complaining about companies doing the same, it smacks of hypocrisy.
I do think it’s nice when brands (yes, celebs are brands) use their position to help a good cause. My online shop just kicked off its big annual fundraiser for homeless animals. We’re not cackling all the way to the bank in Cruella De Vil style puppy fur coats while pretending to care about animals to raise our profile. It’s genuinely a pet cause for us (no pun intended) and we feel fortunate to have our company as a vehicle to raise money for it and encourage other people to care about it.
All of that said, yes, publicly supporting a charitable cause does provide benefits for a brand. It attracts media attention, it usually gets the public to think well of the brand, or at least it has historically. This “spit in your face” style cynicism the public is now heaping on brands who try to do good might make companies shy away from charitable efforts in the future. Afterall, if nothing but scorn is to be gained from charitable work, those companies may as well take the same money they’re giving to charity and spend it on ads that benefit no one but the company.
I find the charity backlash troubling, both as a brand owner who’s fond of supporting charities and getting my company’s fans involved and as a consumer who likes supporting brands who promote good causes. If the only result companies see from charitable efforts is bad press, the trend of companies lending a hand to good causes could become a thing of the past.
What’s your take? Do you like when companies support charitable causes? What could companies do to use their position for good and not be seen as predatory?
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February 4, 2011
Every day I check out the 100s of subscriptions in my RSS feed about marketing, PR, advertising, branding, social media, and a host of other topics of interest to small businesses that sell online. Most of what gets posted isn’t earth shattering but I reserve Fridays for the best reads of the week. So here you have it, the most valuable things I read in the business blogosphere this week:
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February 3, 2011
This week’s link love is a 2 parter. I was so busy last week I forgot to share links and I have a backlog of great reads to share.
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January 21, 2011
Every day I check out the 100s of subscriptions in my RSS feed about marketing, PR, advertising, branding, social media, and a host of other topics of interest to small businesses that sell online. Most of what gets posted isn’t earth shattering but I reserve Fridays for the best reads of the week. So here you have it, the most valuable things I read in the business blogosphere this week:
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