Category

Small Business Marketing

April 15, 2019
1
how to choose a great domain name.

How to Choose a Great Domain Name

By | Small Business Marketing

How to Choose a Great Domain Name

Last week we had a client come to us trying to decide on a strategic business name and website domain. We’ve decided to explain the process we shared with them as well as a resource GoDaddy offers to explain how to choose a great domain name.

Without getting too technical, for anyone who is not sure what a domain name is, a domain name is basically the URL for your website, i.e. www.conglomeratema.com. The domain is the address which your website can be found.

Step 1: Google Search

Do a Google search for the keyword or phrase most likely searched for your industry. For example we’re going to search “home warranty” to get a list of home warranty companies and websites. Here, we’re able to see some of the business names, domain names and phrases used in Google AdWords campaigns. Use that information to help you come up with good domain and business name ideas.

Step 2: Business Name Search

Now that you’ve got some ideas of business names, you need to check the registry to make sure the business names you’ve come up with are available. If you’re going to register your business in the state you live, you can search the database for companies with similar names. For this example, we’ll look for business names in Pennsylvania. If you are looking to open your business in another state, do a Google search for the business entity search for your state. There are many websites out there that will charge you for this free service, so choose a .gov website.

Step 3: GoDaddy Domain Search

Next, you’ll want to visit GoDaddy.com. At the top of the web page you’ll see a search bar for domains. Type in the domain name you have in mind and perform a search. GoDaddy will show you if the domain name is available or not. They will also provide other options to consider. Find what domain names are available. If you love on, go ahead and buy it. People are performing these searches daily. If you wait, even just a day, that domain may be taken. Also, because we’ve worked with GoDaddy for so long, we know how to find the best coupons codes. So when you’re ready, drop us a message and we’ll share our knowledge!

Step 4: Trademark Research

Now that you have your business name and domain options listed, you’ll need to make sure there aren’t any current trademarks on any taglines you may have considered. The database will even breakdown the way a tagline or phrase may be used. It even gets down to the hashtags certain businesses have trademarked.

Step 5: Conglomerate Marketing’s Pro Tip

At Conglomerate Marketing we have access to resources that will show the keywords, advertising budgets and advertising campaigns of your competitors. This will give you a leg up and help you identify the level of difficulty to enter the market. Drop us a message and we’ll share our knowledge with you.

Final Step: View GoDaddy Video

This video gives a thorough explanation of how to find the best domain name. We always recommend clients use GoDaddy, even though we’re not an affiliate.

How to choose a great domain name:

Now you should know how to choose a great domain name. Let us know your thoughts and if there are any other topics you’d like us to cover.

A Helping Hand to Small Businesses

At Conglomerate Marketing, our goal is not to just manage your marketing, but to build and collaborate with your business. We take a more consultative approach to your business and help create systems, processes, and automation to empower your marketing team or build an internal team. This is the approach we have taken as corporate consultants and provide the same method to our small businesses.

To learn more about our collaboration process, contact us at 856.302.4007 or visit our website for a free consultation: 

www.conglomeratema.com/free-consultation/.

December 5, 2018
1
Can A Marketing Agency Help My Business?

Can A Marketing Agency Help My Business?

By | Small Business Marketing

Can A Marketing Agency Help My Business?

As a business owner, you may have received a call from an agency telling you they will help you grow your business, but you’re skeptical…and rightfully so. You’re thinking how could you help my business and how much would this “help” cost? Also, why do they think they know better than you do if you’re running the business? These are relevant questions, so let’s jump right into Can A Marketing Agency Help My Business? 

Most marketing agencies aren’t invested in your business, they’re invested in their business. This means, their greater interest is making sure their business gets revenue at the lowest cost and fastest time possible. Most agencies take short cuts and or over charge for services that do not require much time or oversight. An example of this service would be YP (YellowPages) Media’s Business Listing  and Profile Management Program. This is a service you’re charged monthly, but the work has already been completed. Updating and maintaining your business listing is something you do once in a while only if you’re making changes. Once your business is listed and all information is complete, you’re done…but YP will continue to charge you monthly. 

A good marketing agency understands your business, helps you understand your customers better, provides consistent results and seeks to develop a relationship with you and your team. Outsourcing your marketing may seem scary and difficult, but take a look at Forbes article “The State Of Small Business Marketing” to see how you compare among your small business peers.

Here are a few questions you should ask your agency before getting started:

  1. Who will be managing my account and who will we be working with?
  2. Compared to your other clients how are we the similar and how do we differ?
  3. Are there specific planning or strategy exercises that we will need/Do you have an on-boarding process for new clients?
  4. What’s the process for client collaboration and communication handled?
  5. What key performance indicators do you as an agency focus on when it comes to client work?
  6. What are your reporting practices? How often will we get reports and what will they show?
  7. If you could map out the first 60 days working with your agency what would that look like?

Asking these questions and the answers you receive will help you weed out the bad agencies. Agencies that do not have flexibility, diverse clientele or someone working intimately with your business are not good marketing agencies, but rather giving every client the same cookie cutter marketing. I don’t know about your business, but in my experience every business is different; not cookie cutter. 

We have clients who have worked with an agency as well as businesses who haven’t. What both have in common is they aren’t seeing the results they expect and would like help, but need lasting results. With Conglomerate Marketing, we guarantee our work and work directly with you to not only make sure your business grows, but educate you and your team on what’s happening. All too often agencies do the work in the background and don’t bring the business up to speed with what they’re doing. They typical use buzzwords and shiny reports rather than conversational language to explain how they’re providing value. As it states on our website, we only care about the metrics that influence your bottom line. That’s why our clients stay with us.

Our goal is not to just run your marketing, but to build systems, processes, and automation to empower your marketing team or build an internal team. This is the approach we have taken as corporate consultants and provide the same method to our small businesses.

At Conglomerate Marketing we offer a package that will increase the amount of 5 star reviews you receive from customers, resolve bad reviews before they happen, and increase repeat business. Our program uses both in-store and online methods to drive more reviews and increase revenue for your business. For details regarding this package, take a look at our Bronze Package at www.conglomeratema.com/packages.

October 10, 2018
1

Tips To Grow Your Small Business In 90 Days With Donte Murphy

By | Small Business Marketing

Tips To Grow Your Small Business In 90 Days With Donte Murphy

As business owners we’re constantly seeking ways to grow our business. This can be very difficult and daunting, so we’re here to help. A few weeks ago, Dontè M. Murphy, Chief Marketing Director at Conglomerate Marketing Agency sat down with Curtis May’s Practical Wealth Show to discuss some tips to grow your business by 25%. Check out the video below to learn tips to grow your small business in 90 days.

Dontè comes with 10+ years of marketing experience and provides an unique approach to marketing with proven success. He has consulted large corporations such as Microsoft, Pri-Med, Eastern Acoustic Works, Marlin Financial, Arkema, and many more. He is a 2018 Forbes list 30 under 30 nominee. Currently, he serves as Chief Marketing Director of Conglomerate Marketing Agency where he is responsible for developing and executing strategies to create, communicate and deliver offerings that have value for clients. He also attends La Salle University where he’s pursuing a MBA in Business Systems and Analytics. When he’s not doing school work or in business he spends his time with family, friends or playing basketball.

At Conglomerate Marketing we offer a package that will increase the amount of 5 star reviews you receive from customers, resolve bad reviews before they happen, and increase repeat business. Our program uses both in-store and online methods to drive more reviews and increase revenue for your business. For details regarding this package, take a look at our Bronze Package at www.conglomeratema.com/packages.

September 14, 2018
1

How to Respond to Bad Reviews

By | Small Business Marketing

How to Respond to Bad Reviews

As a business owner, you take great pride in providing the best experience possible to your customers. But…there always seem to be a few bad apples in the bunch, right? When this happens what do you do? We are going to cover a few ways you can respond to negative reviews and turn them into positive experiences.

First, please and I mean please, DO NOT reply to the review arguing or telling off the customer who wrote the bad review. This is very unprofessional and will draw a lot of attention to your company in a negative manner. Which could possible cause prospects or existing customers to not want to patronize your business anymore. It’s great you even noticed the review, but this is not the response you should take.

I find that most business owners do not even take the time to view the reviews that come in from customers. This is important to do for several reasons:

1. It can be very encouraging on those tough days to see read through great reviews on Yelp, Google, and Facebook

2. It allows you the opportunity to respond to reviews, thanking the customer for a great review, or responding to a question someone may have had

3. Sometimes the constructive criticism, consistent complaints or even consistent raves can help you identify some areas of opportunity you may have in your business

4. On average, happy customers tell an average of nine people about good experiences, and nearly twice as many (16 people) about poor ones – making every individual service interaction important (American Express)

5. 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business (BrightLocal 2016)

6. 85% trust reviews as much as personal recommendations (BrighLocal 2017)

When you see a negative review on your business, you should first identify if the review is an actual bad review or if it is fake. There are people and competitors who may post negative feedback on your review sites. In the event the review is not valid, you should report it to the review site, whether it’s Yelp or Google to have it removed. If it’s actually valid, you want to respond by apologizing for the poor experience and offer to resolve the issue. Respond in a sincere matter and provide contact info where appropriate. Remember prospects and customers are looking at the review. Make sure your response is professional and solution seeking.

Even if the customer is wrong, just take care of them. It may not seem obvious, but if you can change a bad experience to a decent ending you can deter that customer from telling everyone about the bad experience they may have had. When you respond quickly it shows you care about this one customer and are willing to go the extra mile for every customer.

Last, but not least, the best way to respond to bad reviews is to be proactive. How great would it be if you could get ahead of bad reviews before they’re posted? Today, you can.

At Conglomerate Marketing we offer a package that will increase the amount of 5 star reviews you receive from customers, resolve bad reviews before they happen, and increase repeat business. Our program uses both in-store and online methods to drive more reviews and increase revenue for your business. For details regarding this package, take a look at our Bronze Package at www.conglomeratema.com/packages.

September 11, 2018
2

How much should I spend on marketing as a small business owner?

By | Small Business Marketing

How much should I spend on marketing?

If you are a small business owner looking to grow your business, you understand marketing is an important tool in your success. If that applies to you, then you have probably asked yourself how much should I spend on marketing? That is a really great question and I will provide you with an answer that applies directly to you.

US Small Business Administration recommends you allocate 7-8% of your company’s gross revenue toward marketing. I personally recommend 10%, but it MUST be allocated strategically with data to support the decision. There is a reason to my madness. The reason I stress that is because I have met many business owners who do not track ROI (return on investment) for the marketing and advertising services they use. After running the marketing services, revenue will increase and they will chalk it up to their marketing efforts. As that statement may be accurate, how much or which marketing channel generated the most sales?

As a business owner it would be great to know the social media ads you ran produced 65% more sales than the radio ad. Do you see how valuable that knowledge could be to you? Of course, and your next step would be to reallocate some of your radio spend to your social ads budget. By doing so, you’ll see a larger increase in sales. That is called scale. If you can determine what produces well for you, you are able to increase the budget and scale the results for the best ROI.

This simple strategy of using data to determine budget allocation is just one of the resources that give large corporations advantages in the marketplace. Use this strategy in your business and see how revenue you can generate.

I hope this answers your question and you find value in the recommendation provided.

If you need clarity or have any other questions, feel free to give us a call at 856.302.4007 or fill out our free consultation form to discuss in more detail about the growth opportunities within your company.

www.conglomeratema/free-consultation

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About Conglomerate Marketing Agency

www.conglomeratema.com

Conglomerate Marketing, one of NJ’s Leading Small Business Marketing Agencies, is a solution and sales-oriented marketing agency focused on activities that positively impact your bottom line. Their objective is to find solutions to your challenges, increase sales, decrease cost, automate, and standardize your business.

Conglomerate Marketing Agency was founded on the initiative to provide corporate level marketing sophistication to small businesses. They provide small businesses with access to the budgets and resources that give large corporations advantages in the marketplace.

They purpose to bring that same level of complexity at affordable costs that will enhance growth and develop sound systems to maximize your company’s potential.

August 16, 2017
3

7 Best Email Marketing Service for Small Business (2017)

By | Small Business Marketing

7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2017)

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools. It is easy to manage, gives you full control and allows you to establish direct contact with your customers. We always recommend MailChimp, but here are the top 7. For more information on the topic, contact us at info@conglomeratema.com

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