At Energyhill, we’re passionate about helping organizations of all sizes achieve their goals. Recognizing that growing a business from a small startup to a large corporation is challenging, we strive to be there every step of the way, assisting with design, advertising, video, and more. Additionally, we provide consulting help to ensure you’re taking your company in the right direction. Read on to learn our tips for managing business growth in a way that’s effective and affordable.
Trying to grow your business the right away? It helps to set goals that you can achieve in a reasonable amount of time. With that in mind, we recommend that companies use the SMARTER method for business growth. In other words, make sure your objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-framed. Lastly, commit to Evaluating your progress every quarter to ensure you’re moving in the right direction and then consider a Re-do, or adjustment, if your tactics aren’t bringing about the desired outcome.
It’s impossible to achieve successful business growth if you don’t truly know your market. Before putting money into hiring new employees or exploring different revenue streams, take time to understand the customers you already have. Learn what they want and how they act in order to assess your ideal market niche.
You’ve probably heard that your business is only as strong as the people it employs. Give yourself the best shot at success by hiring the right workers from the outset. Remember to look beyond skills and qualifications on a resume to find individuals who fit well with the company culture. After all, it’s a lot easier to teach someone how to use WordPress than to educate them on the importance of community-mindedness. Once you’ve located these superstar employees, make an effort to keep them around by providing regular feedback (including praise) and offering opportunities for advancement.
Looking for sales training or business planning? Maybe you need help rebranding your business to accommodate a change in leadership. Whatever your business goals, the team at Energyhill can help. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we help organizations set and achieve their objectives. To learn more about business consulting services, call today or contact us online.
Social media has rapidly become an integral tool for most businesses. Due to its unprecedented reach and its amazing growth, it is easy for small business owners - and even some larger business owners - to be overwhelmed by all the options. Plus, even if you choose the one or two platforms you think are the best fit for your brand, how do you approach them? Below are the top four social media guidelines for business owners.
Remember, people post their best in personal profiles - the latest selfie that looks particularly dashing or the most recent family portrait. However, just as you shouldn't compare your family to someone else's, don't compare your business either. There is always going to be an organization that is better, older, younger, smarter, better looking, etc.
This is a pitfall you must avoid. You don't get any points for comparison. Avoid letting doubts creep in and overwhelm your brain. Just because company X does one thing, doesn't mean it's right for you. And that's okay.
Most of all, remember why you started your business. Be confident in what you do.
Social networks need to be managed - post and pray isn't going to get you far. Managing your networks means replying to and giving feedback to people, removing inappropriate comments, setting ground rules, answering questions, generating leads and more. This is where the 'social' in social networking comes in.
A big question that people ask about managing social networks is whether to reply to everything, even negative comments. Chloe, our SEO and Advertising Lead, wrote a great article on our blog about the “BEST 7 WAYS TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE CUSTOMERS”. Click the link to find out more about handling less than positive feedback. Here are the two main takeaways:
Remember, saying “I hear you” does not admit fault, you are just being proactive.
As an agency, we suggest using the following networks: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
When building your organization's social networks remember to put time into them. Don't feel like you need to do all of them at once. In addition, it's important to only select the networks you can think you can handle. Your social networks sites (SNS) should be managed or monitored to make them most effective.
It might also benefit your business to consider a mix of first, second and third tier networks. Each requires its own amount of attention and strategy.
First Tier Social Networking Sites
Second Tier Social Networking Sites
Third Tier Social Networking Sites
There are a handful of other tertiary social media networks that are worth mentioning. However, none of them has the traffic yet to provide significant impact to your social media strategy.
Find your biggest, loudest, best fans and ask them to write a testimonial on your social networks. Think of testimonials as digital word of mouth - still one of the most effective forms of advertising. If used correctly, testimonials illustrate someone's personal experience working with you and their brand.
When you are asking for a testimonial, make it easy. Give customers a link to where you want them to write about you whether it's your website, product detail page or one of your social networking sites. Also, check out these tips on customer testimonials.
To find out more about social media guidelines and how to best manage it for your business, we invite you to contact Energyhill today. Also, follow us online. Our handle is @energyhill. And, if you follow us on Instagram during the months of October, November and December, Energyhill with give you $100 in Google Ads credit.
Capturing the heart of a message is the most important thing we do. Dr. Michelle Zimmerman testimonial conveys this point. In advertising and design we are not always challenged with simply solving a problem. Sometimes it goes much deeper than that. How do you convey a mission, that doesn't have a simple ending point. Energyhill's culture is to capture an audience by exemplifying the core of your message. Thanks Dr. Zimmerman for including us in your schools' journey.
It was the summer of 2016 and we received a request for more information from a school with a unique mission, strong vision, and enlightened action. Renton Prep wanted a full redesign of their web presence, as well as, marketing and design support for their schools. After a business consultation, we set goals to position them as the global leaders in technology. Energyhill achieved this by creating branding, video, advertising, and marketing collateral for the schools. Since the summer of 2016, we have partnered with Renton Prep to create stunning videos and collaborative experiences. The work that has come from this partnership spans, print collateral, landing page design, conference banners, one sheets, ad campaigns, social campaigns, and more.
This forward thinking school needed to be showcased. The challenge was fairly simple. We only needed to tell their stories. How fantastic are the Renton Prep teachers, students, staff, and technology that they use? Simply put, world class. Microsoft, Amazon, HTC, and other leading tech companies and organizations often visit Renton Prep to see and study the trends of where technology and education are headed.
The redesign of their website and re-organization of their content yielded a 6,844% increase in monthly traffic to their website. Yes, almost 7,000%. This is organic traffic, no digital advertising (yet). What's great about Renton Prep is that they are an amazing brand. Working with them is a complete joy. For one of the video shoots we produced, a local makeup artist was hired. She said, "I just really like working with this group of people, they're fantastic." We couldn't agree more, great people, amazing students.
