Modsnap Design

Holiday Marketing on a Budget

Morgan Murphy — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 20:49:07 +0000

It’s crunch time for holiday sales and promotions whether you’re in retail, hospitality, or you’re a local service provider. With most businesses also marketing themselves for the holidays, you can expect the competition for your customer’s attention to be fierce. Companies without a plan for the holidays will fall behind. Shoppers need to know you’re available and ready to help them make this holiday a memorable one. That’s where your holiday marketing strategy comes in! If you find yourself marketing on a shoestring this holiday season, we’re here to help you with some holiday marketing tips that don’t break the bank! Whether you are offering products, services, or experiences, a marketing plan that works for your budget will work for you. Though some businesses have the funding to purchase radio or television ads, others need to pursue smaller-scale options. Creativity, planning, and some clever preparation leading up to the holidays can help you to draw a crowd and boost your sales. We’ve put together a list of ways that will allow you to boost marketing efforts through the holiday season on a budget. Show your customers appreciation and gratitude! Tis the Season of Giving and Thanks! Send out Holiday Customer Appreciation emails or cards to let your clients and customers know how much they mean to you. Stay top-of-their-mind: A sincere holiday message can keep you top of mind when they need your services after the new year. Engage with your customers. Engagement is key, everyone loves to be asked about their experiences. For Example: “What are you most excited about this holiday season?” This year especially, many will respond “Spending holidays with family, friends and loved ones.” That’s a sentiment we can all relate to, and it conjures warm feelings that bring us all a little bit closer together. Appeal to their emotions: Share inspirational messages on social media, or provide a behind-the-scenes look at images of how your company celebrates the holidays to bring them a little closer to your “family”. Holiday Specials & Promotions For many service industries, the holidays are a slower time. At this time of year, people are especially budget-conscious so it’s a good time to offer discounts. Promote discounts as Holiday Specials. Think of some ways that your service can creatively tie into holiday preparations. Service Industries such as housecleaning services, electricians, plumbers, and HVAC businesses might promote “Prepare your home for guests” specials, or “Deals for the New Year”. Build brand awareness with a How-to Holiday-Blog or a How-to-Video with tips or tricks from an expert in your industry. Be sure to promote this on your website! Create Special Offers for Post-Holiday Shopping: Build a list of emails for this sale from your holiday shoppers. Email them for the post-holiday sales and specials after the holiday. To avoid potential pre-holiday shoppers waiting for the post-holiday sale you can also create a sign-up form at your register, on your website, or create the sign-up option in a contest entry form. Customers love holiday shopping in an atmosphere evocative of the joys, memories, and experiences of the holidays. Even if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar location, you can decorate your website and your social media channels beginning right now. Decorating or branding for the holidays with visual imagery and sounds will help invite your customers into the mindset of the holidays allowing them to recall the feeling of the joys of giving, gathering, and purchasing for others. Amplify! Whatever offers, specials, sincere thanks you express, and whatever you promote, use Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) to amplify! Post events and offers directly to your Google Business Profile listing using the Posts feature. Posts encourage more action from potential customers who find your business on Google search. Can’t find the posts on your desktop GBP? Look under “Updates.” Google Event and Offer posts are particularly useful for your holiday promotions, as they let you set time frames, provide redemption codes, and include terms and conditions. Use these posts to promote special pricing (especially useful for services that help people to prepare for the holidays). Use images and designs that are eye-catching and evocative of the holiday. Here are some great resources for designing your Holiday Campaign! Our Favorite Sites for Free Images: Rawpixel Unsplash Pixabay Pexels Canva is a great site for designing cards, emails, social media posts, and more! And remember to Measure Results! Set SMART—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound— goals for your campaigns. SMART goals can clarify why you’re engaging in content marketing for holidays in the first place. Smart goals also provide specific information about your return on investment so you know if it’s worth your time to repeat the effort next year. Here is an example: Not a SMART goal: Wish everyone a happy new year! A SMART goal: Increase our blog traffic by 500 visits in January Whatever you do for your Holiday Marketing, we wish you very Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year! Click here to download our free guide “Holiday Marketing on a Budget”. And if you need assistance getting your campaigns up and running just give us a call.

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Where Websites Go Wrong

Suzanne Porath — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 14:32:44 +0000

I wish I could say that I live a balanced life. That I spend as much time going on walks, reading books, meditating, stretching, and cooking healthy meals, as I do on the Internet. But that fantasy of myself is alive only in my head… In reality, I spend most of my day looking at screens. And I am very good at it. As a millennial with parents who brought a computer into our house at a young age, I am unapologetically very good at surfing the web. I switch from one screen to another and have three different browsers that I use for different tasks. Whether I’m on my phone or my computer I’ve got multiple tabs and windows working simultaneously to deliver all the content my heart could desire. Now that I have joined the Modsnap team as a project manager, I am learning ins-and-outs from the experts. While I grew up watching websites change from one page sites about a single topic to complex and beautifully designed pages with seamless user experiences, there are still sites I encounter that make me cringe. With so much advanced and powerful technology at our disposal, why do so many websites get it wrong?! So what separates the good from the bad? Based on my daily experiences, I’ve compiled a list of personal peeves that turn me off of a website even if the site has all the information I’m looking for. The Wall of Text Obviously, a website should tell a visitor why they’re there. Content is key. A wall of text, however, is the ultimate turn off. Unless I am reading an article, my brain will go idle when I visit a site and am met by just so. much. text. It is a tricky balance for content writers to provide enough information to get the point across without bombarding a visitor with an “about us” essay. That’s not to say a website can’t be thorough with the information they provide to visitors. Sometimes every word on the page is necessary. How the text is displayed, however, can make all the difference. Breaking up the information with photos, icons and headers can mean the difference between a website I immediately leave and one I spend time exploring. Pixelation Problems Images aren’t always the saving grace of a website. There have been many times I visit a site and wonder if I finally need glasses, if I’ve been staring at a screen too much, or if someone just uploaded a poor quality image to the website I’m looking at. Every time I see a blurry photo on a site I can’t help but wonder, why? I question if the person designing the site bothered to look at the page. Whether it is fair or not, a blurry image makes me doubt the credibility and legitimacy of the site. I wonder, “if the site owner doesn’t care how this looks, why should I care about it at all?” I know the struggle of finding high quality images. I’ve even resorted to putting a low res screenshot on a page when I got desperate enough. But I know better. If a high quality image isn’t available, change the design or find a different image. I’d rather see a second-choice image than get a blurred out version of the first option. Lost and Confused An over-designed site that is not kept up to date leaves me asking “Where am I?” Even as someone with a personal aesthetic of “more is more,” I understand that on the web, I’ve gotta draw the line somewhere. For all of the beauty and technology that the Internet offers, it is important not to get lost in the trappings of flashy design that ultimately hinders user experience. When a website tries to do it all, the end result is often a muddied message that doesn’t serve the client or the target audience. An overly complicated menu makes things trickier to find, and too much information leads to a confusing site structure that is hard to navigate. On top of that, a complicated design means there are more elements to maintain and more opportunities for the site to break. All of a sudden buttons redirect back to the page you were just visiting and CTAs become dead ends. Visitors are left wondering if the site is poorly designed or just broken, and leave with their mission unfulfilled. Continued maintenance once the site is up and running can help prevent dead links, while a clear design from the get-go means a clear and successful user journey. A Smart Phone Needs a Smart Site Bad responsiveness on a website might be the worst offender of them all. At least half of my time on the Internet is spent on my phone rather than on a computer. If a website isn’t optimized to work on a smaller screen, I get frustrated and I bail. Fortunately, I see this problem less and less. Because Internet usage on cell phones is on the rise, most designers consider mobile use first when building websites. However, this isn’t always the case so it is good to check in with your designer to make sure that they are taking this approach. Content is Key In all of these instances, the issues come down to content: What you choose to share and how you chose to share it. The information you want to relay and who you want to relay it to is crucial in organizing and designing your website. What feels frustrating about these issues is also part of the solution: They are all avoidable or relatively easy to fix! If your website is in need of a revamp, contact us to see how we can help.

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Why Website Accessibility Matters

Suzanne Porath — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 16:57:30 +0000

Website accessibility has become inextricably linked to most parts of our lives, and is crucial for participation in society. So, why aren't we building websites that are accessible to everyone?

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New Year’s Resolutions for Your Business

Suzanne Porath — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 16:22:31 +0000

We would be lying if we said we weren’t eagerly awaiting the end of 2020 and looking forward to a better year to come. With the outbreak of COVID-19, a lot of things this year have been out of our control. That being said, we want to take this opportunity to focus on the things that we do have control over. The approach of a new year marks a time for self reflection and improvement. With 2021 around the corner we have decided to extend our New Year’s resolutions to our business. We urge you to also consider these suggestions as easy ways to refocus, regroup, and make the most of your time so you can make the most for your business. 1. Assess, Reevaluate, and Set Realistic Goals The first step in any sort of improvement is looking inward and taking stock of what you’re doing. Assess your business’s current status and be realistic about what are feasible and reasonable goals for your business. We still believe in dreaming big but if you spread yourself too thin with an unattainable monthly goal, then you are less likely to be productive in a way that helps your business grow. Now say it with me: Delegate! This can be one of the hardest things to do that will ultimately make your life infinitely easier! Goals are always easier to achieve when working with the support of others. If you have employees, communicate with them about the what’s and why’s of the goals you’ve set and ask for their help in completing relevant tasks. Then let them complete the tasks without micromanaging (you’ve hired them for a reason! Let them help you!) If you don’t have employees you might consider hiring outside help on an as-needed basis. Maybe this looks like investing in a company that does blog writing, or a part time social media manager… Make this process of assessing, reevaluating, and setting goals a weekly or monthly task. 2. If it Isn’t Working, Let it Go Once you’ve reevaluated your goals, don’t be afraid to EDIT. One of the hardest things for people to do when editing is cutting out what isn’t working. When you’ve invested time and money into a certain sales technique or marketing strategy, it can feel difficult letting go. But if the strategy or technique isn’t working the way you had hoped: it is ok (and often a good idea) to drop it. Trying something out isn’t a waste of time if it allows you to evaluate a strategy/idea and rule it out. Knowing what to focus your energy on is just as important as knowing what NOT to focus your energy on. Sometimes the only way to know these things is through trial and error. Don’t stress, just move on. 3. Make a Schedule… Then Stick With It! Now that you know what your goals are and what business strategies you want to focus on, schedule time to actually do them. Ok, we know that sounds simple but this is actually very easy to overlook. Rather than just having a long and daunting to-do list, set aside time for specific tasks. Once the time comes, really focus on that task. We are guilty of letting certain things slip through the cracks and have found this method to be a simple and effective game-changer. 4. Schedule YOU Time and Let Go of the Bad Days Don’t forget to schedule time for yourself. When you run your own business it can be especially difficult to separate working hours from non-working hours. However, if you aren’t taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of your business. Whether this looks like having a hard out at the end of the day or making sure you’re taking your lunch hour to eat instead of answering emails, make sure you’re setting aside time just for you. Additionally, give yourself flexibility to have good days and bad days. We all have ups and downs, in business and in life. It is easier said than done, but really make an effort not to linger on the bad days. Try to learn from them but don’t obsess. There is a certain amount of letting go that is healthy. Although it can be a hard task, practice makes it easier every time. 5. Learn to Love Zoom With many businesses switching over to digital platforms this year, we know screen fatigue is real. BUT we’re here to make the case for embracing the tools that enable us to work smarter, not harder. (Ok, ok, we know that phrase is a little cliched, but it’s a cliche for a reason!) We believe in the power of Zoom to help your business grow past the pandemic. Its easy to use hosting abilities offer many benefits that address a range of needs, making it a flexible and valuable tool across industries. We especially appreciate that it is an easy way to expand a client base from a local range to one that is unrestrained by location. 6. Reconnect and Renew Relationships During this time of reflection, take a moment to reach out to and check in on past clients. A warm hello goes a long way to see how they are doing. Perhaps they won’t need your services right at that moment, but reminding people you care about their well being and progress is always good practice. These renewed relationships can generate a renewed interest in your company and lead to recommendations passed along to family and friends. Never underestimate the power of a friendly email. 7. Support Fellow Business Owners Becoming a part of a community of business owners is a great way to give and receive support. Start by supporting local business owners in your area by referring your customers to those whose services you like. Uplifting the businesses in your area is a great way to uplift your community as a whole. This can also look like joining a leads group. These are groups

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