Local marketing is vital to companies of all sizes. Specifically, a sound local marketing strategy can increase awareness for your company’s offerings to local audiences while establishing your expertise and creating new channels to increase traffic and revenue. When it comes to implementing a local marketing strategy, we’ve included a few tips you can easily implement today for greater long-term success.

1. Strengthen Your Social Media Presence

Start with an analysis of your company’s social media presence. You might not realize it now, but a strong social media presence can have a huge impact on your local marketing efforts. Make sure your company has established profiles on appropriate social media outlets that provide value to your local targets. We suggest optimizing your time by prioritizing the social media outlets that are most relevant to your audience. One platform may be more useful than the other depending on your industry and business goals. Whatever platform you choose, make sure you create content that resonates with your target and don’t always talk about your business! As long as your content is appropriate to your brand, sharing funny images, inspirational quotes and even recipes your audience would enjoy is just as important as the post about your next sale.

2. Encourage Customers to Post Reviews & Testimonials.

In addition to maximizing your company’s social media presence, you’ll want to encourage your clients and customers to post reviews and testimonials. This can be done with signage at your business location or on your social media pages. For example, both Facebook and Google+ provide options to add reviews to your business page. Customer reviews are one of the hardest pieces of content to acquire, but it’s worth the investment because reviews are a big factor for local search rankings. Personal outreach is also important to generating positive reviews. If you know you have a happy customer, you should consider reaching out and asking if they’d be willing to provide a brief testimonial to include directly on your website. However, we do not recommend directly incentivizing customers to post good reviews. Many online review sites are starting to be more vigilant in auditing business practices and you may be penalized for paid reviews.

3. Run a Locally Targeted PPC Campaign

Paid search advertising (PPC) can be extremely effective in a local marketing campaign. This is especially true for smaller local businesses that may be having a hard time competing in the search engine results with more established companies. Not to mention, PPC gives you immediate results while you’re waiting for your SEO tactics to bear fruit. Local targeting is easily achieved and you set your own budget, so SEM is a great option for smaller businesses that have limited marketing budgets that still want to make a major impact. We suggest utilizing PPC in addition to your local SEO marketing to bolster results.

4. Claim All Directory Listings

Even if you don’t create your own business directory listings on major sites such as Google and Yellow Pages, there’s a good chance listings will be automatically generated for your business over time along with customer reviews, images and other user-generated content. For this reason, it’s in your best interest to claim all directory listings related to your business (each platform has its own steps). By claiming these listings, you can ensure all information is accurate at all times for potential customers or clients.

These are just a few tips to keep in mind when it comes to your company’s local marketing efforts. As minor as these steps may seem, they can make a significant difference for your local business without occupying a great deal of your time or effort.

These verbal mistakes can cost you credibility and influence, so fix them, stat—if you want people to take you seriously.

Whether it’s a flyer, social media graphic or your website, there are some fonts to avoid.

It’s not that these fonts are necessarily bad or ugly, but most have been so overused or unprofessional that they will automatically reduce the quality of your work. Ready to see the list of fonts to avoid? Let’s do it.

1.  Arial

We may as well start with the basics. The first font on our list is none other than Arial.

The Arial typeface comes standard on all modern computers and boasts at least twenty different variations but none of these variations warrant use in your designs. Arial is the poor man’s Helvetica and one of the reasons designers dislike this font is because it aims to copy Helvetica while not paying any royalties or mentions to its inspiration. And to prove this isn’t simply typographers cynicism, Windows boldly proclaimed in 1992 that Arial was indeed an, “alternative to Helvetica.”

Aside from the aforementioned typography conspiracy, we dislike Arial primarily because of its blandness. It’s dull and plain. And while it may serve as a justifiable type for a secondary title or body of text, we’d prefer you use an alternative.

2.  Times New Roman

Ok, now let’s move on to another overused font. Times New Roman is the oldest font on this list commissioned in 1931. Moreover, it is used frequently in North American paperbacks and is one of the most widely used typefaces in history.

However, while Times has distanced itself from the shackles of Microsoft in recent years, it still remains so widely used that we would suggest avoiding it on your marketing materials.

3.  Comic Sans

Above we mentioned earlier, not all the fonts in this list are truly bad, they’ve simply been overused. However, Comic Sans is not one of these fonts. This font is absolutely horrible.

It was released in 1994 by Microsoft and designed by a man named Vincent Connare. Connare was known for creating child-oriented fonts and he based this specific font off of a collection of Batman comics in his office. True story. And that is the precise problem with this font – it’s childish. Using this font will immediately lower the quality of whatever you’re promoting.

The only conceivable scenario in which this font would be remotely acceptable is for some sort of children’s marketing. And even then, there are a plethora of other fonts that could adequately replace it.

4.  Papyrus

Chris Costello designed this font and released it in 1983. It was hand-drawn over a period of six months and was designed to imitate what the English language would look like if it was written on papyrus several millennia ago.

So you might ask, with such a noble and beautiful origin, how could this font be on the list of terrible typefaces? Simple, it’s overused. It’s so overused in fact that Costello the creator said it had lost its original appeal and been diluted.

From Avatar, to National Geographic, to Arizona brand Iced Tea, Papyrus is everywhere, but one place it shouldn’t be is on your marketing materials.

5.  Impact

Last on our list is the font Impact. Impact is popular because it is designed to do just that – impact the reader. It uses wide strokes and compressed spacing to do just that. And this is why it has been used on so many posters and publications. However, due to this appeal, the fonts ironic overuse has left it unable to make an impact at all.

There are plenty of wide fonts that will convey your message in impactful ways but Impact is not one of them.

Are there other fonts to avoid that you feel should be on our list? Drop us a comment and let us know!

Looking for guidance on how to structure your brand and/or marketing materials? Contact us today for a FREE consultation.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. ― Darrell Cobbins’ grandfather was a real estate man.

Samuel Peace opened Peace Realty in 1959, a company whose legacy includes building Memphis’ first neighborhood for middle-income African-Americans ― the 600-home Lakeview Gardens subdivision.

“I grew up seeing him go to work six days a week. He had six children, a wife that didn’t work and he provided for all of them,” Cobbins said. “From an entrepreneurship standpoint, I’ve seen a great model for success ― especially black entrepreneurship.”

Shortly before Peace died, Cobbins’ mother showed him a 1967 edition of the Memphis Press-Scimitar that included the headline “Negroes Climb Ladder To Success.” The piece profiled 10 black businessmen of the era, including Benjamin Hooks, a civil rights attorney who ran his own law firm before becoming the first black criminal court judge in a court of record in Tennessee; A.W. Willis, another local civil rights attorney who opened the city’s first integrated law firm and founded Mutual Federal Savings and Loan in 1955; Antonio Maceo Walker, whose family founded the Universal Life Insurance company and Tri-State Bank, which supported black entrepreneurs that had been denied loans; and Peace.

Cobbins is also a pioneering black entrepreneur. He founded Universal Commercial Real Estate in 2007. It’s Memphis’ first black-owned commercial real estate company, and its name is a nod to Walker’s company, which Cobbins calls “the quintessential example of everything great about the black business legacy in Memphis.” He keeps a portrait of his grandfather hanging in his office.

“I wanted to make sure that I had that to look at every day, something to remind me of that legacy,” Cobbins said.

Although Memphis has given birth to black entrepreneurs like Peace and Cobbins, very few black-owned businesses have had the kind of success necessary to build a solid middle class. It’s a majority-minority city ― 63 percent of residents are black ― and more than half of the city’s small businesses are black-owned. Yet 30 percent of Memphis’ black residents live below the poverty line, compared to the city’s overall poverty rate of 26.2 percent.

Black businesses have struggled with growth. Only 0.83 percent of all the revenue generated in Memphis is coming through black-owned businesses, according to the 2012 U.S. Census of Small Business Owners, down from 1.08 percent in 2007. That number went down even though the number of black-owned businesses doubled between 2007 and 2012.

Just 2 percent of the 39,864 black-owned businesses in the city have paid employees.

It’s not just Memphis. Nationally, only 4 percent of black-owned businesses have employees. Despite black entrepreneurs starting more businesses than their white counterparts, white-owned firms outperform black-owned ones across all business sectors, according to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity’s analysis of data from the 2012 U.S. census.

Making Memphis’ black-owned businesses more robust is essential to carrying on the city’s legacy, according to Cobbins.

“If black businesses were thriving more in Memphis, they could employ more black people. They could open up vocations in these black communities,” he said. “[People] would be able to economically reinvest in their communities and in the Memphis community, and just make it a stronger, more viable place to be.”

“The majority of the wealth has resided in the white community,” he added. “A black businessperson has to work hard to develop relationships that could be beneficial to the growth of your business.”

Along with the Greater Memphis Chamber, a membership-driven organization made up of 2,200 local businesses and leaders, the city of Memphis has backed a variety of new initiatives aimed at expanding the capacity for women- and minority-owned businesses to pursue economic opportunity.

“Minority” is an all-encompassing federal category that includes African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and women. The city’s various initiatives can’t directly target businesses owned by African-Americans. But most of the emphasis has been on black-owned businesses because there are more of them in the city, said Joanne Massey, the director of the City of Memphis Office of Business Diversity and Compliance.

“There’s no question that what we’re doing is to help black people in this community,” Massey said.

Her department was created in 2016 to help the city of Memphis grow its contracts with minority- and women-owned businesses and to lead programs that boost those businesses so they can seek contracts with public, quasi-public and private entities. The Office of Business Diversity and Compliance is the result of a merger between two offices that previously focused on minority-owned businesses.

The city could specifically see improvement when it comes to contracting. About 88 percent of county contracts awarded between 2012 and 2014 went to firms owned by white men, according to an April 2016 study for the Shelby County government. Black-owned businesses won just 5.8 percent of contracts over that period. A similar study for the city found that Memphis had awarded 12 percent of its public contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses between 2009 and 2014.

“We have to help companies build capacity and be able to compete,” Massey said.

There was a time when black entrepreneurs thrived in Memphis.

Black business owners founded several firms in the city during the 1870s and ’80s, according to John N. Ingram, a history professor at the University of Toronto who has studied African-American businesses in the South. The downtown artery of Beale Street flourished into a black-owned business district in the late 19th century. There were few black residential areas nearby, Ingram said, so those shop owners depended on white clientele. But black entrepreneurs were also opening barbershops, tailors, funeral homes and catering companies in their own neighborhoods.

The city had 248 black-owned businesses by 1900, according to Ingram’s compilation of census data. At least 29 of them were on Beale Street, and 97 were in black neighborhoods. Just 10 years later, the number of black businesses in the city had climbed to 599. Today, Beale Street is largely a nightlife hotspot known for live blues music. And only 20 percent of the businesses there are black-owned.

The success of black-owned shops with white patrons didn’t eliminate racial tensions. A white mob killed three black businessmen ― Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart ― on March 9, 1892, after their store began absorbing business from a white grocer. And as Jim Crow laws began to strengthen and segregation became more entrenched across the South, many black businesses were pushed out of areas where there was high foot traffic from white patrons, Ingram said.

Many African-Americans began to migrate north in the years after World War I in what is known as the Great Migration, seeking better opportunities in states that weren’t as segregated. White businessmen in Memphis, concerned about the possibility of a labor shortage, began to rally around the idea of uplifting and investing in black entrepreneurship.

In 1919, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce established the Industrial Welfare Committee to investigate why so many black Memphians were moving north. The 23-person committee eventually made a case to the city’s white elite to foster a good business relationship with black community members.

“We ask you to stand with the Committee in an endeavor to secure for the Negro a square deal at the hands of all employers and public officials,” committee members said in their appeal, according to A Handbook for Interracial Committees.

One white banker declared in a 1919 edition of the Memphis Commercial Appeal that black folks were the city’s greatest asset. “Anything therefore that will make our colored people more contented and happy, will necessarily be a great advantage to us in the future,” he said. Another banker proclaimed that Memphis should aim to be “the best town in this country for our Negro population.”

Nearly a century later, the Greater Memphis Chamber is still trying to lower barriers for black-owned businesses.

Institutional obstacles have hindered growth, particularly for businesses competing with white-owned firms, said Phil Trenary, the chamber’s president. Those hurdles have included hard-to-navigate requirements to become a city-certified minority- or women-owned business. To address that, the chamber recently created a universal, streamlined application process, and later this year it plans to launch an online portal to connect small, minority-owned firms with contractors and companies looking to fulfill diversity requirements.

The chamber also started a mentor-protege program last year. Thirty-two small firms have connected with more established businesses through the program, and Trenary said some of those companies are already seeing increases in the number of contracts they’ve landed.

Trenary said the new programs are helping break down old barriers.

“We can never be the kind of community that we want to be until we have the minority firms have a much larger piece of the pie,” Trenary said.

Similar economic development efforts have sprouted and died on the vine in the past. But Trenary said he believes the latest wave is likely to affect real change because the public and private sectors are finally aligned in the goal to help minority- and women-owned businesses.

“The reason it’s going to work this time is because the business community has come together and agreed to lead,” he said.

The largest companies of the chamber have entered into a voluntary program establishing a goal of awarding 300 new contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses and 300 new contracts to locally owned small businesses between April and the end of 2017.

The city of Memphis has also undertaken its own recent efforts to improve the wealth of minority- and women-owned businesses in Memphis.

Massey, who has led the Office of Business Diversity and Compliance since it started last year, cited a host of new city-backed efforts ― including an annual symposium, networking events and a 12-week accelerator program ― that she says will prepare minority-owned businesses to expand.

At the core of these city-backed programs is the idea that minority- and women-owned businesses need help gaining enough traction to hire employees and navigating the process to become accredited.

There are already signs that the renewed focus on minority-owned businesses is paying off. As of June 2017, the city of Memphis had increased the percentage of its contracting money spend on minority- and women-owned businesses to 21.3 percent, up from 12.6 percent in January 2016. (Businesses owned by white men don’t make up the remaining 79 percent; that share also includes other business entities, such as publicly traded companies and nonprofits.)

But public contracts represent a small percent of Memphis’ overall economy. There are more opportunities for growth in the private sector ― which the Memphis-Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine, or EDGE, is trying to address.

EDGE is a city-county agency that administers tax incentives to attract and retain businesses in Memphis. The agency adopted new criteria in 2016 that requires any company benefiting from these tax incentives to spend its contracting dollars with minority- and women-owned businesses. EDGE was created in 2011, and this is the first time it has adopted such criteria.

Companies that receive benefits through the EDGE program are also required to provide employer-subsidized health care and pay at least $12 an hour, which is well above Tennessee’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Opponents of the contracting requirement ― including the Greater Memphis Chamber ― say it could deter some large businesses looking to relocate to the city.

Reid Dulberger, EDGE’s president and CEO, said that’s necessarily not a bad thing.

“We know that our nearest competitors do not do these things. So we understand that we have raised the cost of doing business, and we do understand that that may cost us some projects,” Dulberger said. “But there is an offsetting benefit and we think that offsetting benefit far outweighs the cost.”

Proponents of the new criteria say it will bring in millions of dollars to for local minority- and women-owned businesses. EDGE’s policies would create nearly $432 million in spending for those businesses if all of the projects under development currently come to fruition, according to the group’s projections.

“We don’t think it’s bad or wrong for communities to stand for something. And this community has standards,” Dulberger said. “This community has a vision of what it wants to be, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We will also stipulate that good public policy is not always competitive.”

Cobbins sees himself as a man who, like his grandfather Samuel Peace, is willing to do whatever it takes to support black Memphians. Peace helped a lot of black people become homeowners after they’d been told by white lenders that they could never buy a home, mentoring prospective buyers and working with them to craft letters to mortgage companies.

Cobbins says he’s continuing that legacy by making sure that the city’s economic policies work for everyone. Several of the city’s new initiatives came about after he and several other black entrepreneurs held a press conference in the lobby of the National Civil Rights Museum three years ago to demand that the public and private sectors work together to expand opportunities for black-owned businesses in Memphis.

The programs are showing promise, Cobbins said, but he noted they’re still in their infancy.

“The jury’s still out,” Cobbins said. “Ultimately, the goal should be to see the needle moving in the right direction. Right now everything is so young and introductory that it may be another year or two before we’re able to determine what’s making a difference.”

Cobbins said he has found that the biggest barrier for black entrepreneurs is often the perception that their businesses lack the capacity to handle large contracts.

“When I worked for the white commercial real estate company, I knew what I was doing,” Cobbins said. “I was a professional. I was respected. But suddenly when you step out on your own as an entrepreneur, you have you fight against all these [perceived] deficits. If I knew what I was doing when I was working for the white company, why don’t I know what I’m doing when I’m out here solo?”

Ultimately, overcoming those perceptions is about personal relationships, Cobbins said. He started Universal Commercial Real Estate when a wealthy high school classmate approached him. The former classmate was pursuing a large development project, so he tapped Cobbins to acquire the property and agreed to be his first long-term client.

Cobbins went on to secure work from such major clients as FedEx Corp. and Blue Cross Blue Shield. And on Aug. 19, 10 years after he launched Universal Commercial Real Estate, the project he discussed with his former classmate came to fruition: The Crosstown Concourse ― a $200 million redevelopment project that includes a high school, a 25,000-square-foot YMCA, several restaurants, a coffee shop, a pharmacy and a barbershop ― had its grand opening. The development will employ at least 700 people.

“Unfortunately, the average black business owner doesn’t have those relationships,” Cobbins said. “And I think the final frontier [of equality] is on the side of commerce.”

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Click here to view full article

This is a great article that discusses some key points in turning your passion into profit. An important take away is the critical key of insuring you properly incorporate social media into your overall strategy. Social media management allows you to reach more people with your brand, so it’s a must that it be done correctly. Simply building a following on your platforms is not enough if your goal is to increase revenue – you have to convert those followers into supporters of your brand. Rebel has helped dozens of brands properly incorporate social media into their overall strategy. Contact us today for a free consultation.

 

Today, of course, building a personal brand that attracts clients means you need to be active on your personal social media accounts. Time consuming, yes, as Leatham admits to sometimes spending hours on curating his Instagram account, currently with over 600,000 followers. But, Leatham keeps a positive perspective on it. “I think that’s the most important thing with Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat, is not looking at it as a burden, more as a way that you’re inspiring people. They maybe have a hundred-dollar budget, but you’re able to inspire them to want to achieve more and to do better and to be a better person, or to be a kinder person, or to be a better designer.”

Entrepreneur Network partner Kelsey Humphreys sits down with Jeff Leatham, artist and celebrity florist, to talk about mastering creativity in business, making amazing detailed ideas become a reality, landing celebrity clientele and much more. Jeff Leatham is an artist, entrepreneur and celebrity florist, best known for his work as […]

Click here to view original web page at www.entrepreneur.com

Are You An Author Thinking About Self-Publishing Your Work?

One of the first things most authors want to know when they contact us is, “is self-publishing a good idea?”. We believe it is – as long as you follow the basic publishing rules of having a quality book that is well written, well designed, and well edited. If you are an author looking to self-publish your work, contact us today to discuss how a strategic marketing plan can increase both your recognition and your revenue.

 

Over the past few years, several individuals have told me effectively the same thing: “Books are business cards on steroids.” When I published my first book in 2016, I found out what they meant. I’d suddenly and dramatically increased my credibility, and I was invited to speak at events […]

Click here to view original web page at www.entrepreneur.com

Brand Colors – Which Colors are Best for You?

Choosing the right brand colors is crucial for your business. 93% of consumers make purchase decisions based on the color and visual appearance of a brand. Because personal preferences, experiences, and sexual and cultural diversity have a strong influence on individual color likes and dislikes, some companies feel the easiest way to choose colors for their brand is to decide based on the owner’s favorites. This may or may not be true. If the owner represents your brand’s core target audience, choosing his or her favorite colors may be a perfect fit; however, the majority of the time this isn’t the case. Let’s take a look at why color palettes matter and how different colors bring different emotions to consumers.

Male and Female Color Preferences

Based on a recent survey performed by Kissmetrics:

• 57% of men and 35% of women said their most favorite color is blue.
• 27% of men said their least favorite color is brown, while 33% of women said their least favorite color is orange.
• 26% of all participants said they considered orange to be a “cheap” color.
• Women gravitate towards soft colors, while men tend to like bright colors.
• Men prefer simple color names like purple, whereas women use specific color names like plum, eggplant, grape, and orchid to describe the different shades.

Of course, most companies have a mix of male and female consumers, which leads us to have to explore the overall psychology behind brand colors and the emotions they normally cause.

The Psychology of Colors

Black

The color black represents power, elegance, and authority. It’s often associated with intelligence, but it’s also associated with evil and grieving. It’s a serious color that evokes strong emotions.

Common associations with black include authority, class, distinction, formality, mystery, secrecy, seriousness, elegance, and tradition. Black is used by “high-end” brands as the main color or can be paired with another color. Black is somber, serious. Most logos are actually designed in black & white first because color logos also needs to look well for black and white printing.

Brown

The color brown represents nature and utility and is often used in logos related to construction and law due to its simplicity, warmth, and neutrality. Brown is seen as being stable, reliable, and approachable, but can also be viewed as boring or dull. In logo design, the color can be used as a subsitute for black, providing an extra bit of warmth black doesn’t portray.

Blue 

The color blue represents trustworthiness, loyalty, and dependability. The color is very popular with financial institutions  and social media platforms due to its message of stability and trust. Blue is also a frequent color used in logos promoting products related to cleanliness, air, and water. Restaurants tend to avoid blue in their logos because it is said that the color suppresses appetite. Blue is the preferred color of men and is the most popular corporate color for brands.

Yellow

The color yellow is represents positivity, happiness, and warmth. It gets a person’s attention (which explains why taxis are yellow) but can also represent caution (think yield-signs and traffic lights). Men usually view yellow as a lighthearted and childish color, so you don’t see it very often in expensive product advertising for car manufacturers or men’s clothing stores. Yellow is also viewed as being spontaneous and unstable.

Yellow can sometimes be too bright a color to stand on its own and requires a secondary outline, background or bordering color for balance.

Red

The color red is the color of blood, fire, and strength, so it’s often associated with energy, war, danger, and power. However, the color can also represent passion, desire, and love. It’s an emotionally intense color, has very high visibility, and is often used to grab viewers’ attention (think red tag clearance sales and “buy now” buttons). Red has also been known to raise people’s blood pressure and stimulate appetite, so it’s frequently used by food industry brands like Nabisco, Kellogg’s, Frito Lay, Heinz, McDonald’s, and Chick-fil-A.

Pink

Pink is a feminine color that conjures feelings of innocence and delicateness. However, bright and vibrant shades of pink often evoke a bold and modern appeal. Overall, pink is known for its friendly and light-heartedness.

Common associations with pink include gratitude, romance, gentleness, innocence, softness, and appreciation.

Green

The color green represents nature or finance. It symbolizes growth, freshness, serenity, and healing. It also has a strong emotional connection to safety and balance. Dark green is closely related to money, banking, and wealth. Lighter greens have a calming effect.

Some common associations with green include freshness, harmony, health, eco-friendliness, healing, inexperience, money, and nature. Green means “go.” Used frequently to represent eco-friendly companies and products. Thought to be a calming color.

Orange

The color orange is less intense than red but still packs a lot of punch. It represents energy and warmth. Like yellow, orange is also associated with joy, sunshine, and playfulness. You will often find it used in logos to stimulate emotions or even appetites.

Some common associations with orange include creativity, enthusiasm, lightheartedness, affordability, and youth.

Purple

The color purple represents royalty, nobility, luxury, and extravagance. It’s a very rare color in nature, and many relate it to creativity and mystery. It is also said to stir up feelings of nostalgia. Once the most expensive color to reproduce (it was made from hard-to-find sea weed), purple is often viewed as “elitist.”

Some common associations with purple include fantasy, mystery, nobility, royalty, and sophistication.  Appeals to children and often used in candy and toy packaging.

Multi-Colored or “Rainbow” Logos

Multi-colored or “rainbow” logos are a relatively new brand colors phenomenon due to the web and more economical four color printing. They represents brands that are fun, easy-going, or child-like. They are also becoming more popular with brands that are internet, Multi-disciplinary, or Authoritative. These logos also represent a color-branding challenge due to the complex nature, because it is can at times be hard to convert them for black and white use.

Still confused about selecting the best color brand colors palette for your brand? Contact Rebel Group today for a free 30-minute consultation to learn how we can help your brand stand out from the competition.

Powerful steps for startups & current businesses to use to stand out with a strong brand presence

Course Length: 6 hours

Did you know that 98% of new businesses fail? This workshop is a straightforward lesson on using business brand strategies and marketing techniques to stand out from other businesses and get the awareness you desire for your business. This requires practice and motivated people to put in the work. If you are serious about growing your business and building a strong brand, this course is for you.

What Will I Learn?

• Discover Top Branding Techniques for Growth
• Master the Best Branding Strategies
• Use Great Visual Aspects of Branding at Your Advantage
• Learn Branding Tips & Tricks for A Strong Brand
• Evaluate Successful Branding Examples You Can Copy
• Create A Strong Brand for Online Businesses & Startups

This Workshop Will Change Your Business.

If you’re looking to build a strong brand and be recognized, we will show you the steps to take to reach a high level of brand awareness and reliability, reputation and power in your business.

You must have powerful business strategies and knowledge to successfully run your business and get it the brand awareness it deserves.

This workshop is for:

• Any Individuals Looking to Turn Build a Strong Worldwide Recognize Brands
• Entrepreneurs, Online Marketers, Business Owners, Marketing Directors, Etc.

This workshop is NOT for:

• People Looking To Market Non-Branded Products With No Personality
• People who aren’t willing to put in the work to grow their business

This course is essential to all entrepreneurs, startups, marketers etc. who are willing to do the extra effort to apply the lessons they learn in the workshop. If your plan is to build a strong brand that is recognized everywhere you want to expand your business in, then you need this.

Upcoming Workshop Dates:

Stay tuned for upcoming workshop dates and locations

If you would like to offer this course as individual or group training for your company, contact Rebel today by calling 813.995.8081 or by completing the form below. You can also click here to view the full list of workshop courses.

Brand Strategies for Growth Workshop Inquiry Form:

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rebel Marketing Group Receives 2017 Best of Riverview Award

Riverview Award Program Honors the Achievement

RIVERVIEW, FLA June 1, 2017 — Rebel Marketing Group has been selected for the 2017 Best of Riverview Award in the Marketing Agency category by the Riverview Award Program.

Each year, the Riverview Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Riverview area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2017 Riverview Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Riverview Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Riverview Award Program

The Riverview Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Riverview area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Riverview Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Riverview Award Program

CONTACT:
Riverview Award Program
Email: PublicRelations@onlineawarded.org
URL: http://www.onlineawarded.org

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With new businesses being started daily, it is very important that you develop successful business branding for your company. Whether you are a new solopreneur or a large corporation the key to attracting new customers is to make sure people are aware you exist…and that you’re great at what you do.

Why Do I Need an Online Brand?

It’s simple: We are more likely do business with people we know. Creating a successful online presence helps potential clients learn what you do, what you stand for, and expands awareness. Awareness = More Customers = Larger Profit! Building an online brand isn’t easy and it won’t happen overnight. Everything from your logo design, to your tagline, to your URL and social media usernames are critical to being recognized as a company a prospective customer would choose to use. That’s why, if possible, you should consult a company that has experience with brand development so you start off on the right foot and keep running successfully from there.

1. Who Are You? – We are Rebel Marketing Group. Rebels. Imagine if you went to our Twitter page and saw a logo with our name surrounded by pretty flowers and a teddy bear. Sounds silly, right? You’d be surprised to see just how many companies have logos that aren’t suitable for their brand. Of course, if we really wanted a teddy bear, we could have dressed him in a leather vest and made the flowers with lots of thorns and intertwined in barbwire, but (luckily) that wasn’t the path we decided to choose. Your logo needs to be memorable, represent your brand correctly, and able to be used across different platforms clearly. It can be as simple as your name in a certain font, or as detailed as the rebel bear – just so long as it clicks.
2. What’s Your Handle? – Sometimes, finding a social media name for your company isn’t as easy as you’d think. For some, you can use your name or business url, but even that is hard if it has already been taken. Twitter rarely, if ever, will transfer a twitter account…even if it hasn’t been used in years. And if your name is long, using it for a social media handle isn’t even an option. For instance, since Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (try saying that 3 times fast) is 24 characters, it wouldn’t fit for a Twitter handle. Instead, they decided to opt for something shorter – an easier to spell – and went with @TBZ1864 (their acronym and year they were founded). Your social media names should be easy to remember and easy to spell. Otherwise people won’t know how to find you.
   
3. Tag…You’re It! – A tagline is a phrase that lets your visitors know exactly what you’re about without having to search. This works best when the tag line states a benefit. Our tagline, “Don’t fit in..stand out” shows potential clients know that we aren’t your cookie cutter firm. We ensure our clients stand out from their competition. When thinking of a tagline, make it catchy and simple, but also have it compliment the services you offer or your values.
4. Share and Share (for Likes) – Be sure to share your social media pages on your website, business cards, and any other opportunity you get. We live in a world where social media is prominent, so make sure people know how and where to find you on the web. Of course, you also need to make sure you don’t create a page that just sits and never gets updated, or is used to share things that have NOTHING to do with your business (we had a client who had created a Snapchat page for their business where the CEO shared videos of his cat. Seriously. And no, it was not an animal-related business…it was a fashion boutique). If the platform doesn’t fit your type of business, don’t create it. And please don’t share unnecessary cat photos. No disrespect to the cat lovers, but domestic felines really aren’t all that exciting – and they have nothing to do with fashion.
5. Comment, Reply, and Share – Social media is all about being – you guessed it – social! So be sure you aren’t simply posting content. Check out pages related to what you do. Share their content, comment on their posts, and reply when people comment on yours. A little sociability goes a long way.

Ensuring your online brand is successful takes a lot of preparation, and they can’t just be left alone once created. If you need help improving your image on the web, or if you don’t even know where to start, contact Rebel Marketing Group today for a free consultation.