 In today's competitive business landscape, small businesses are constantly looking for innovative ways to gain a competitive edge. One powerful strategy that can offer immense value to small businesses is the act of brainstorming with an outside marketing agency like Berry Digital Solutions. So what are the benefits and advantages of collaborating with an external marketing agency and how it can positively impact your digital marketing efforts? Let's explore more below!
Fresh Perspectives and Diverse Expertise When you collaborate with an marketing agency, you gain access to fresh perspectives and diverse expertise. They may bring a different set of experiences, skills, and knowledge to the table, allowing for a broader range of ideas and insights. This diversity can inject new life into your brainstorming sessions, leading to more creative and innovative marketing strategies for your small business. Unbiased and Objective Feedback As a small business owner, it's easy to become emotionally invested in your ideas and strategies. This emotional attachment can sometimes cloud your judgment and prevent you from seeing potential flaws or alternative approaches. By involving an outside marketing agency in your brainstorming sessions, you can benefit from their unbiased and objective feedback. They can offer valuable insights, challenge assumptions, and provide constructive criticism that can help refine your ideas and enhance your marketing strategies. Industry Trends and Best Practices Digital marketing is a rapidly evolving field, and it can be challenging for small businesses to keep up with the latest trends and best practices. An outside agency who specializes in digital marketing can bring valuable industry knowledge and insights to your brainstorming sessions. They can help you stay abreast of emerging trends, identify opportunities, and implement cutting-edge strategies that align with your business goals. This collaboration ensures that your digital marketing efforts are up to date and relevant in today's dynamic online landscape. Expanded Network and Resources Collaborating with an outside agency expands your network and resources. They may have connections to industry experts, influencers, or complementary businesses that can support your marketing initiatives. This network can open doors to new partnerships, collaborations, and promotional opportunities, ultimately driving more traffic to your website and increasing your brand visibility. Enhanced Problem-Solving and Decision Making Brainstorming with an outside agency can significantly enhance problem-solving and decision-making processes for your small business. The collaborative environment encourages active discussion, diverse viewpoints, and the exploration of various alternatives. Through this collective effort, you can identify potential roadblocks, uncover innovative solutions, and make informed decisions that align with your business objectives. This approach increases the likelihood of implementing successful digital marketing strategies that generate tangible results. Brainstorming with a digital marketing agency like Berry Digital Solutions can offer tremendous value to your small business in terms of fresh perspectives, unbiased feedback, industry insights, expanded networks, and improved problem-solving. By leveraging the expertise and collaborative energy of an external marketing expert, you can enhance your digital marketing efforts and propel your small business to new heights of success. Embrace the power of collaboration and unlock the full potential of your marketing strategies with one of our FREE brainstorming sessions, click here to schedule today.  In times of economic uncertainty, small business owners must take proactive measures to weather the storm. One of the most important steps is to prioritize their website and digital presence. Here are the top 5 things small business owners should do in a recession to boost their online presence and drive traffic to their website:
Optimize their website: Make sure their website is optimized for search engines and mobile devices. They should conduct keyword research and use relevant keywords throughout their website to improve their search engine rankings. They should also make sure their website is mobile-friendly, as more and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices. Create valuable content: Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content that their audience will find useful. This could include blog posts, videos, podcasts, and social media content. By providing value to their audience, they can attract more traffic to their website and build trust with their customers. Leverage social media: Use social media to promote their website and engage with their audience. They should share their content on social media and use social media platforms to interact with their customers and respond to their questions and concerns. They should also use social media advertising to reach new audiences and drive traffic to their website. Utilize email marketing: Use email marketing to stay in touch with their customers and keep them informed about their business. They should use email marketing to promote their website, offer discounts and promotions, and share valuable content. They should also use email marketing to collect customer feedback and improve their products and services. Utilize paid digital advertising solutions: Consider utilizing paid digital advertising to target the customers you would like to reach directly and better spend your advertising budget. By identifying the customer base that will offer a return on investment, small business owners can better allocate their advertising budgets to increase sales using digital advertising. Small business owners should prioritize their website and digital presence during a recession. By optimizing their website, creating valuable content, leveraging social media, utilizing email marketing, and allocating dollars to digital advertising solutions, small business owners can drive traffic to their website and stay connected with their customers. These digital tools can help small businesses survive and even thrive during tough economic times. If you are interested in learning more about how to drive traffic to your website, click here.  Berry Digital Solutions' Ryan Berry continues to work closely with Google to help Congress better understand proposed legislation on small businesses across the country.
Congress has recently turned a strong focus towards technology-driven corporations Amazon, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and others with a goal of breaking these large organizations into many smaller businesses. The concept of breaking up large corporations to create a more competitive market can make sense in some industries, but lawmakers are missing the huge negative impact a forced technology break up would have on small business owners. Most small businesses have come to rely on digital products and services to operate and promote their businesses. Many of these products and services, such as Gmail, Google Business Listings, Google Maps, and more, are available at no cost to small businesses. If corporations are forced to separate these products out, they would have to charge small business owners for the products and services in order to maintain them. In addition, many of these free services rely on each other to work properly. For example, Google Maps presents your business address by verifying it in a Google Business listing. A small business owner that maintains its Google Business listing doesn't have to worry about it's web presence across several platforms that utilize the Google Business listing. If those divisions of Google are forced to break apart, small business owners will be forced to carry the financial burden, as well as the burden of managing many different accounts, turning 1 task in several every time they need to make a change. Ryan will spend another week on Capital Hill at the end of this month speaking with leaders and staff in Congress to help explain these issues and offer better support on a true solution to the issues at hand. Data privacy laws are another topic Ryan is helping D.C. better understand. Lawmakers need to understand how daunting it could be for small business owners that will be forced to keep track of multiple data privacy laws passed by individual states, as opposed to one federal law that would be upheld across the country. Reach out to Ryan if you want to be part of the conversation. How to support your local businesses  Local businesses need our LOVE. Why not drop your “2 cents” and let them hear from you?
Making an impact in our Champaign and Logan county communities doesn’t always mean swiping a card or sending a Venmo payment. These ways do make an impact, but sometimes your opinion (and love) can help boost local businesses! Write a Review Leaving a review for a local business is one of the best things you can do as a consumer. Anymore, online reviews are a “go to” when researching where to eat, who to do your taxes, etc. Whether it is positive or negative, your comment can help other customers/consumers make informed decisions about what to expect from the business you review. So, what is a review? When you write a review, you share with others your experience in words; which is why it is important for it to be honest and specific. Don’t underestimate the power of a written review. Yes, a five-star review is great, but your two-cents can be the game changer. For example, if you visited Cafe Paradiso and loved your meal, the atmosphere and the service, take the time to leave a review. However, don’t just say “It was fantastic.” Explain the reason why it was great. Here’s a sample response: “Being a pasta fan has led me to many different restaurants over the years. After visiting Cafe Paradiso, I have to say, it is one of the best. The manager came out and visited with each of the tables and spoke to each of us like family. If the service wasn’t enough, the food was delicious. Definitely a place I will go to again!” While we know not every experience will be great, it’s still essential to leave a review so the business owners know what they can improve on. Think about the things you would like feedback on about your own business. Here’s a sample response of an appropriate review to leave if you’ve had a negative experience: “My intent was to write a great review after all the hype about this restaurant. Unfortunately, my order was brought out incorrectly twice and I had to ask several times to receive my check. It has potential, but this was not the best experience.” Now, what if you are the one receiving the negative review? Even though it might feel like a punch in the gut, it is important not to leave it alone. Honesty and integrity go a long way with consumers. Reflect on what was reviewed, take time to thank the reviewer for their feedback, apologize if appropriate and respond. Mentioning how you will work to improve whatever the negative review was focused on is step one – the big step is taking action and doing it. When it comes time for you to leave a review, there are several platforms you can choose from! Facebook and Google are the most popular options, but you can also leave them on the BBB website or the business’s website (if applicable). Give it a shot and use Berry Digital as your first review here. Follow Their Social Media Channels and Engage With Them With social media taking over communication platforms, it makes sense that we support our local businesses on their social media pages. It is as simple as “liking: and “following” your favorite business pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Once you follow these pages, you’ll be able to see updates whenever the business creates posts. However, don’t just follow the pages! Be sure to engage with the content they’re creating. Whether it’s liking, commenting, sharing or tagging your best friend in the comments, this engagement truly does matter and helps business owners know what content to keep pushing out. Because social media is mostly used as an awareness tool, business owners don’t always see an ROI, so your support by engaging means more than you realize. Before we move on, one last thing you can do is use any relevant hashtags the business uses. Let’s take Champaign Works, for example. One of their main hashtags is #ChampaignWorks. In their posts, you’ll see this hashtag used frequently. If you were to visit Champaign County and post a picture on your social media, we encourage you to use the #ChampaignWorks hashtag in your post. Champaign Works likely follows this hashtag and by using it, they are able to easily find your post. Make sure to only use hashtags that are relevant to the business you’re highlighting! #BerryDigitalSolutions #ChampaignWorks #Facebook/BerryDigital #instagram/BerryDigital Subscribe to Content/Emails Want to stay up to date on everything a local business has to offer? Then you should subscribe to their email content! Most businesses utilize some sort of email strategy and are always looking to add more consumers to their email list. Email content can be valuable to you, as the business is able to reach you directly with important updates. Most times, emails will have a little more content compared to your stereotypically social media post. If you’re really dedicated to a business, subscribing to their emails is one of the best options for you! You also have the opportunity to forward relevant emails to coworkers, family and friends! No matter how you do it, supporting local business betters the community you live in. Take time to support a local business today! You can start by subscribing to our email content, located at the bottom of our home page.  If you are a business owner and you have been following our blog, this is your sign that it is time to start a blog of your own! Often, we hear people say that they don’t have time for a blog or think that their audience might not be interested in what they have to say. There are so many great reasons to start a blog and we are going to share them with you!
1. Website Traffic and SEO Blogs are an amazing way to boost your SEO ratings. Text plays a huge role in SEO and including relevant keywords to your business in your blogs will help increase traffic. Often a blog is shared on a variety of platforms because of the type of content it provides. This increases visits to your website and many times those visitors will explore other areas of your website before leaving, giving you more of a chance to catch their attention. 2. To Share Your Expertise Sharing your voice and your experience in the field will build your customers’ trust with your brand. People will start to look to you for upcoming events, news in the field, and even just as a place of entertainment. This will get your website a lot of return visitors which helps show that your blog is a relevant place for customers to find answers to their questions or learn more about your product. 3. Blog Content Can be Repurposed One of our favorite things about blog content is how it can be repurposed for a variety of different areas. Blogs can easily be turned into social media posts, newsletter and newspaper articles, email campaigns, and press releases. Even if the content needs to be shortened you can link to your blog for access to the full article to drive website traffic and provide the best information possible to your customers. 4. It is a Place for Important News to Live on your Website How many times do you have information that you want to share or needs a place to live on your website, but it doesn’t quite fit anywhere? Your blog can be a place to host all those things and gives you links to direct traffic to from other platforms like social media. Blogs are flexible and can provide you with a little more freedom to include information you want to on your website without having to add a new page. There you have it! This list is just a few of the ways that having a blog can benefit your business. Take that leap and start your blog today. This week, let’s look at organizing your goals for accountability. Last week, we discussed how to make a goal SMARTER and the importance of writing it down. This week, let’s take a look at making it manageable and accountable. Pull out your goal and let’s get started… 
“A young lady is wanting to run an entire 5k to honor her brother. Unfortunately, she is not a runner, nor runs regularly. To be successful, she will need to build up her strength, stamina, and endurance. This takes time and can cause fatigue if one overdoes it. So, with the help of some friends she sets small goals. Goal 1 - She will run a mile without stopping at the end of the month. Goal 2 - She will be able to run two miles without stopping. Etc.” The important thing to notice here is the timeline, manageable goal, and the ability to revise. She may find out that one mile was too much for the first month and half a mile would be more realistic as she builds endurance and strength. The same thing applies to business. Having short achievable goals helps a business owner have more frequent wins to build towards the bigger goal down the road. This is where BDS can be a great partner in helping your business grow. (Click here if you would like to learn more ways that we can help.)
 Rocky tends to be an all-time favorite movie to many. The story of an underdog resonates with us for many reasons. Not to mention, it is one of the best series of movies to quote, “Yo Adrienne.”. The New Year’s Goal setting ritual hits us hard, much like the Rocky quote above. Typically, we do not approach our New Year’s Goals SMART enough, or for that matter, write them down. A Dominican University professor once noted that when a person writes down their goal, they are 42% more likely to achieve it. This is a decent statistic, but we still need some umph. This is where we need to train ourselves SMART(ER) like Rocky in his movies. Throughout this post we are going to look at seven components to making our goals smarter than before so we can pen our goal to paper and achieve it. Let’s jump in!
S-Specific Make your goals specific and narrow for more effective planning. M-Measurable Define what is going to prove you are making progress and reevaluate when necessary. A-Achievable Make sure you can reasonably accomplish your goal within a certain timeframe. R-Relevant Your goals should align with your values and your long-term objectives. T-Timebound Set an end-date that is ambitious, but realistic, for task prioritization and motivation. E-Evaluative Set some benchmarks to evaluate your progress along the way. Reflection on progress is important. R-Revisable By making your plan revisable, you account for unexpected errors and hiccups along the way to adjust your goal to align to your ultimate vision. Now, write it down. This helps to clarify and intensify your intentions. Once you have it written, post it some place where you will see it regularly and be reminded of how YOU are making progress each day! If there are ways that we can assist you with aligning to your goals here at BDS, please click here. Looking forward to strengthening your business!  Happy New Year from the BDS Team and Family! As we roll into 2022, there have been some amazing things that we have experienced as a local company and this all starts with support from readers and clients like you. On behalf of all of us at BDS, thank you!
Over the next several weeks we are going to be diving into “GOALS.” This isn’t your typical New Year’s resolution goal post either. We want to equip you with skills and tools to help you achieve the best for yourself or business by (RE)Imagining how to set and accomplish goals. Tony Robbins once said, “Setting goals is the first step to turning the invisible into visible.” This is true on many levels and something that BDS would like to help you with along your journey this year either personally, or professionally. Just start with this question, “Do you have a vision for where you want to be in five years?” If you don’t, that is okay. If you do, great! Regardless, no matter where you landed with an answer, we have you covered. As we venture through this series, we are going to be discussing how to set goals and accomplish them by following these simple steps in goal setting process:
No matter where you are in this process, the first thing to do is go back to the original question. Where are you in five years? Work on answering that question and come back for some ways on how to make it a SMARTER Goal next week!  Small Business Saturday is right around the corner, so now is the time to make sure your business is ready! Here are a few ideas on how to prepare for the big day:
Prepare Your Staff Start off by making sure you have enough staff for the holiday season and consider bringing on a few seasonal employees if necessary. Once you have your staff in place, it is time to prepare them for the day. Make sure they are all up to date on training and know what specials or deals you are offering for the day. Your employees will have to go through a lot during the holiday season, so make sure they know how thankful you are to have them on the team and consider providing lunch to those who work special days like Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. Prepare your Store Small Business Saturday can bring a lot of foot traffic through your store. Be sure you look at your layout and ease of access to all items and rearrange areas if necessary. The easier your customers can get to specific retail items, the easier it will be for them purchase those items. Plan a Promotion Get creative when thinking about what kind of promotion you want to offer. Set a goal (i.e. more sales, return customers, more website traffic) and make the offer work toward that goal. If you want customers to return after their initial visit, offer a coupon with purchase that is good for a later date. Partner with Other Local Businesses Many other local businesses will also be working hard to make Small Business Saturday successful. Why not partner together and make it great for both of you? It could be a neighboring business or even someone from another town, just find a good fit for you. You could also partner with a local charity and use the day to give back to the community. Check All Online Accounts Prepare for the day by checking all of your online accounts to make sure your information is accurate. Your store hours, location, phone number, and website are all important information that customers will be looking for. Leverage Local Events If there are local events happening that weekend make sure you are playing off them to drive traffic into your store. You can use sidewalk signs to let people know your hours and the deals you are running that day. Consider offering something like hot chocolate or popcorn and use the scent as another way to attract foot traffic. By Chelsea Bray- Elle A. Design  Fall is almost here which means the holiday shopping season is happening soon – or has even already begun for some people. According to a survey by Salesforce, 58% of consumers expect to do more online shopping after the pandemic than before. We have already seen this in action, with online sales reaching 18% of all retail sales in 2020. This number is expected to hit 21.4% by 2024. In 2019, before the pandemic, that number was just 13.6%.
What does all of this mean for the future of small business retail? Well, first look at all the different avenues available for online sales. With platforms like Facebook and Instagram rolling out shopping features, it is easier than ever to sell online. While these tools can’t replace your ecommerce site, you can attract potential customers you may not have been reaching before. Getting set up for sales on each platform is a little different, but worth the time. Another thing to consider while getting your store ready for the holidays is that people are still looking for an experience. It might not be easy to recreate the feeling of holiday shopping the way we used to know it on a digital platform, but putting that thought behind your decisions can help. Some sites are including more videos, offering augmented reality try-ons, and even offering chats with sales associations online. Giving your customers something that makes the experience memorable will go a long way. As you prepare your holiday shop it is good to remember that half of all online sales during the 2020 holiday shopping season were made on a mobile device. It is so important to make sure the time and effort you put into your ecommerce site translates to mobile users as well. You don’t want half of your audience to miss out on all the effort you put into your holiday planning. Last year the holiday shopping season started early, and we should expect to see more of the same this year. Along with early deals, expect shipping costs to go up this year. USPS has already said that they plan to charge more for packages shipped during the holidays. This increase will apply to individuals and businesses. Be sure to take this into account as you price out your shipping costs for the season. These tips should help you get your ecommerce site ready to go for the 2021 holiday season! If you need any help implementing any of these changes into your site, give us a call today to set up a consultation to see how we can help you - 937-404-1050. By Chelsea Bray- Elle A. Design |
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