William Exchange

Online reviews can be an amazing tool to help your small business drum up new customers. The “social proof” that comes from positive reviews gives consumers the confidence to invest in your products or services even if they aren’t familiar with your brand. But as you may have experienced, bad online reviews can be brutal. Tucked behind the safety of a computer screen, some people can launch diatribes that would make the most seasoned among us blush. If your business is on the receiving end of one of these doozies, it’s good to know how to handle it and come out shining in the end. Contrary to popular belief, a negative review doesn’t guarantee a negative impact on your business. In fact, if handled correctly, you can use the review to your advantage by showing how professional and customer-focused you are. So how do you navigate these tricky waters? Here are some tips to help you manage your online reviews without hurting your business. Dealing with Negative Onli...

If you are a small business owner, you already know how important an attractive, user-friendly website is for your business. But do you know that there are some common mistakes you might be making that are driving away customers? To help you turn your website into a lean, mean customer-conversion machine, we thought it would be helpful to point out common mistakes found on business websites and tips to avoid them. Read on to learn more. Poor Website Design When looking at website templates, you will see some pretty cool designs. Large sliding images, interactive features, artsy elements, interesting color combinations—the list of fun, eye-catching things you can add to your website is endless. But that doesn’t mean they all belong on your website. Rather than a “busy” (a.k.a. distracting) website, try to choose a clean, responsive design that will focus visitors squarely on your products or services and direct them through your conversion funnel no matter wh...

The restaurant business is fiercely competitive, so owners are always on the lookout for ways to stand out from the competition. One of the best things you can do to attract customers is to have an attractive, mobile-friendly website that is easy to navigate and highlights your eatery’s great features. If you want to draw website visitors towards your restaurant, your goal should be to do two things—showcase your tasty offerings and give visitors all the information they need to visit your establishment or order food. With that in mind, here are some elements you should consider for your restaurant website to help it stand out in search results and bring in customers. General Tips First things first, you need a stellar design that reflects the style of your restaurant. Whether you run a food truck, a laid-back café, or an upscale Michelin star restaurant, your design should blend well with your brand and atmosphere. Luckily, there are thousands of beautifully desig...

Imagine this: You fell asleep at a friend’s New Year’s party and you’ve just woken up. The only thing is, it was Dec 31 2009 when you arrived but now you look at the calendar on the kitchen wall you realize it’s January 1st 2020! Just like that, 10 years have flown by! After you struggle out the door, you find yourself standing in a vaguely familiar street and you find that same battered old brown wallet in your back pocket. Somehow you were cryogenically frozen (but that’s a story for another day) and now you have a lot of catching up to do. Let’s look at the world around and see how things have changed, especially for you—a tech afficionado and one of the first digital people in your company’s marketing department. Contactless Connectivity It’s New Year’s morning and the whole world feels a bit disoriented, not just you. You need to find your way home. You stroll to the bus stop, which is still there, (but with a new fancy tracker that tells you when the buse...

If you don’t make the effort to know your customers on a personal level, your digital marketing efforts are likely to become flatter than a glass of week-old coca cola from a childrens’ party. If you fail to reach out to your customers with personalized messaging and tailored experiences, your brand credibility will quickly diminish, as will your audience. The one-size-fits-all promotional approach of yester-decade will not do—and while this may appear obvious, as marketers we could all do with a little reminder of this from time to time. Speaking of reminders... Why you should get to know your customers When you’re creating content marketing strategies or campaigns to promote your brand, it’s easy to get carried away with creative elements, forgetting the specific needs, desires, and preferences in the process. But, consumers are the lifeblood of your business and getting under their skin is the only way to engage, inspire, and connect in a way that is both ...

Your brand identity has a lot of responsibilities. One glance at your company’s logo or website should show your capabilities, work style and how you rank within your industry. Despite this heavy burden, only 60% of marketers think their brand is well aligned with their long term goals. As time passes and your company evolves, your brand may need to adjust to keep up. If clients are surprised by your capabilities, or you’re offering services that don’t align with your visual and verbal identities, you’ve probably outgrown your brand. While this evolution is a great accomplishment, it also means you'll need to re-introduce yourself to prospects and clients with a rebrand. The first step to any successful rebrand is gathering support from your internal stakeholders, which can be as daunting as it is important. Here are four key ways you can get them on board: 1. Show them how you compare to competitors Start by poking holes in your current identity to stress th...

As a marketer, you know the power of generating good content. According to HubSpot, content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising, which might be why 81% of B2B companies use a blog as a content marketing tactic. Whether it’s to boost website traffic or increase leads, producing compelling content for your audience is a must. But in a world of information-overload, it can be difficult to break through the noise and have your content take off. For our fifth annual Just a Book club for marketers, we’re reading “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” by New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Jonah Berger to find out what it takes to create content that spreads. Jonah has spent decades uncovering the behavioral science underlying how ideas diffuse through word-of-mouth and social transmission. In the book, he draws on his findings to answer the question of what makes some messages spread better than others. “Contagious” shares...

Once upon a time, gamers were seen as schoolyard outcasts, work-shy dreamers, and lone rangers who struggled to fit into the real world. But now the old stereotypes are dead - from older women to athletes, kids to accountants, everyone is enjoying gaming now. Our world is rapidly becoming a gamer’s paradise, what with artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and mobile marketing growth. Tech Jury estimates that the gaming industry will be worth $180 billion in 2021. For years, the gaming industry has been an enigmatic challenge that many marketers have failed to crack. In a niche space where revenue was intrinsically linked to the launch dates of major games, marketing in the gaming industry has traditionally been an unpredictable, frustrating venture. Until now. The big question for marketers is: how can you tap into that and maximize your own brand’s visibility in the uber-competitive gaming industry? As you’ll soon see, the answer lies with gamin...

Whether you’re a George Lucas die-hard, a recent Star Wars dabbler, or a fan who eats up anything Star Wars-related, the final episode of the “Skywalker Saga” has likely been a highlight of your social media feed. Since Disney purchased the Star Wars franchise from LucasFilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion (to the dismay of many George Lucas fans) Star Wars has become watchable for a wider audience, reaching an all-time high of $2 billion in box office sales in 2015. However, this wasn’t just Disney’s doing. Over the past 43 years, the brand has produced 9 films, developing an estimated franchise value of $63 billion as the fifth-highest-grossing media franchise in the known universe. The truth is, Star Wars has been legendary for years. In this article, we’ll outline how to reach a heightened place of influence with your brand, with Star Wars as our Jedi. 3 Steps to Brand Development that's Out of this World A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars made...