By now almost everyone has felt the effects of the economic downturn that has taken place over recent years. In the wake of a global recession, numbers have been crunched, companies have become leaner and many independent business owners have been forced to close their doors. This last point is especially unfortunate considering that many economists believe small businesses to be the driving force of our country’s economy. The growth of small businesses generates new capital and offers job opportunities to an increasingly unemployed nation.

November 26 marks the second year that American Express will celebrate an event it’s calling “Small Business Saturday.” On this day, which falls during one of the nation’s busiest shopping weekends of the year, the company encourages the millions of American shoppers who will be out to “Shop Small” and support their “favorite local stores and help fuel the economy.” This noble effort is not only a call to action for consumers but also provides opportunities for small businesses to create offers, initiate Facebook communities and receive e-marketing materials to promote their businesses online.

Lifeblue understands that there are challenges that face any of the hopeful individuals out there who start out with nothing but a dream and a plan. In our five years of operation, LB has not only survived, but thrived, and while much of this success is attributed to providing a quality service, much of it can also be credited to the company’s use of cost-effective marketing tools now available to just about anyone with an Internet connection. Below we have outlined some of the ways that these services can help a small business become a success.

Company Website
As a company that designs and builds websites, we firmly believe in the power of an effective and engaging online experience. In this day and age, much of a business’ consumer traffic is generated by an interest that is sparked long before that person is in the vicinity of your store, but instead miles away in front of his computer. Create a good, user-friendly website that allows consumers to research your company and its products and services. As more and more people turn to mobile for all of their online needs, having a working mobile site is also in your best interest. Just make sure your site is in shape; it’s the window into your store.

Review Sites
Review sites, such as Yelp, and reviews found on Google Maps can also prove important in developing your business. The Digital Age allows for customers to have their say and spread word-of-mouth endorsements—or defamation—to a global audience. While you can’t necessarily control what gets said about your business, you can regulate how you react to it. Respond to negative comments. This can help you discover how to improve and gives you the opportunity to right your wrong and turn an unsatisfied customer into a very happy one. Use review resources to know exactly what’s being said about your company. These comments can provide insight on how to improve and reveal opportunities to capitalize on something that works.

Social Media
The rise of social media platforms like Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter and Foursquare have provided any company with an inexpensive method of customer engagement. These vehicles allow for user interaction and build on consumer relationships by providing a forum that fosters the two-way conversation between company and customer. Create an offer on FourSquare that brings in business, or use a Facebook page to advertise promotions to consumers that will build loyalty. Take advantage of the location features on these programs that allow consumers to publicize their visit to your establishment. One of the best parts about social media is that it can generate something money can’t buy: word-of-mouth endorsements with the potential of worldwide reach.

Online Video
While paid commercials are expensive, publishing videos to your own YouTube channel is not. The video site YouTube gives anyone the opportunity to create and share video worldwide, and as a small business, it could be just what you need to get your message out. Viral videos have been shown to possess great influential power and can even be more effective than a commercial. Create one and post it on your website and social media profiles to gain exposure. The great thing about creating your own online video is that there are no time restrictions, and it allows for more artistic freedom in crafting your message.

SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) can also help get your business out there. Starting out, your business’ site will not be at the forefront of an organic search simply because of its newness. Good SEO practices can help guide consumers to your site when they are searching for a product or service your company provides. Look into using programs like Google AdWords, where you can purchase keywords that will bring up your site in a relevant search. Most of these programs provide analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of your paid placement, and you can then decide whether or not this tactic is working for you and adjust accordingly.

This is an exciting time to be taking the plunge and investing in your own business. With a variety of tools available online, it has never been easier to reach millions with your message. Advertising can be expensive, but online marketing costs very little and can be just as effective.

Today you have the chance to build personal relationships with consumers around the world and engage them with media that is interactive and dynamic.

Small businesses are extremely important to the American economy. When you think about it, every large, successful business today started out as a small business itself. Use these tools to find the mix that works for your company, and let the business start booming.

-Savannah Harper, LB Wordsmith

Recently we came across a documentary being developed and showcased on www.kickstarter.com called “Design & Thinking” and it poses several questions to the Design Thinking approach and the incredible value that design plays in everything we do.

Shyam Patel, our LB Creatologist spoke last week at Ignite Dallas during the Big Design Conference on his approach to Saving the World from Bad Design and the value of design thinking and our current complacency with status quo. 

“Design is not about just making things look better, it’s about making people’s lives better.” 

We need to be conscience that every decision we make impacts the design of our own lives and the world around us.

In the movie trailer it spoke about the idea that “design is not a luxury, it’s a discipline”. We believe that to be true in all that we deliver. Maybe we could even elevate it to Design “doing” because we believe it is an absolute necessity in all our efforts at LB.

If we view the challenges of our society through the lenses of a design problem, the problems become infinitely more approachable and solvable. The industrial age taught us to be system thinkers, but the information age requires us to become design thinkers.  We must stop being passive consumers and creators.  We are not passive witnesses to these problems, we participate in them by the way we choose to design our lives and the work we do.

The industrial age encouraged us to gain a depth of knowledge in one area of expertise; the digital age requires that we supplement that depth of knowledge with a breadth of knowledge. Understanding all dimensions is critical and requires that we think through usability and aesthetics, form and function.

So what is design thinking? Well as I mentioned, design is about making people’s lives better – thinking and doing are about the process we use to ensure that we achieve that goal in whatever we are trying to create. 

Let’s use form design as a great example. It’s amazing how applying design thinking to a form can change the world. Think about default options of a form.  This country suffers from an abysmal savings rate due to over consumption.  By changing the default option on 401(k) plans to be opt out saving rates have been shown to increase to 11% compared to negative savings rates nationally.

That’s design thinking and design doing at its best. We must pledge to be design doers. Saving the World from Bad Design means no more status quo, it means challenging ourselves to ask questions, absorb information and ultimately deliver better end results.

Our LB mantra…

We believe that design is a craft at the intersection of art and science, form and function. It is about more than being creative; inspiration and innovation are its fundamental principles. Design is about having the courage and the audacity to pursue our vision through our work to make the world what it can and should be and not settle for what it is now.

To see Shyam’s presentation for Ignite Dallas, check it out here: http://slidesha.re/oMul4V  

Photo/illustration courtesy of: Emerson College blog post by Nitjyot Saroan

Dear Facebook, I have been cheating on you. It was completely unintentional and I can explain everything…sort of.

This week I finally got my invite to Google+.  I had been waiting, wanting to dive in and better understand this shiny new toy that everyone is talking about. This week I got a chance to satisfy my initial curiosity and better understand this new gadget.  

I fumbled some in the beginning until I figured out the interface. I found that it got a bit more interesting as I started understanding how to add people to circles.  It’s been fun to find Ashton Kutcher or Michael Dell and add them to my circle of “Inspirational People”. In this new social tool, I don’t need to be connected to close friends to get content going. I already know this could be addictive.

Here’s a deeper dive into a few of the features I found interesting…there are many more yet to discover:

• Circles: Circles seems to be a hybrid of friending and following that seems difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s cool. You can put anyone in a Circle, and they can choose to reciprocate or not. The interface is easy and very dynamic.  Drag a user here.  Drop them there.  Put them in multiple groups.  The animations for creating, deleting and modifying Circles are also easy to use and fun.  Very cleverly designed.  It also allows for communication streams to be far more organized than on Facebook. While the “group” feature exists in Facebook and is similar to Google +, Google has definitely mastered the art of making it extremely user friendly.
• Stream: The stream — essentially the Google + version of a Facebook news feed — pulls in information from posts made by people in your circles. You, or anyone following you, can also give your personal endorsement, the +1, to any post or comment. Similar to the “like” button. Aesthetically, it’s a big step up from the News Feed.  One of the best features for me was the ability to sort your stream by Circles to see posts only relevant to work or to catch up on the latest news from your friends, etc. Again, bit confusing until you get used to the interface, but highly addictive thereafter.
• Hangout: I personally have yet to try this feature, but from what I understand it is super cool.  The functionality will allow users to post the hangout to their circles and your friends in that circle will be able to join the hangout which is basically a video conference for multiple people.  I believe it will be interesting to see how this actually unfolds within the Droid and the iPhone app interface.  Could this be a significant VOIP play in the future?

My first few days with Google Plus have been addictive. I’m not certain when the “shiny new toy” syndrome will wear off, but for now Google + was fun to use and has a lot of potential. I could see using it in addition to Facebook, but until Google weaves more of their existing services into G+ and I can integrate more of the people I know, it won’t become my main way to socialize online.

Facebook, can we still be friends?

“Nothing ruins a great website… like people using it.”

This remark was made by SmashingMagazine.com writer Ian Lurie in his recent article featured on the site, Getting Started With Defensive Web Design— a piece in which Lurie explores how the shortcomings of a website’s usability can pose problems that can’t be saved by even the most captivating visual design or creative content. If the user runs into a problem that can’t be easily solved, it’s likely that they’ll simply abandon the site, never to return again as a result of their frustration. The aim of any website is to expand its audience, but it’s just as important to maintain that which already exists, and defensive design focuses on just that.

So what exactly is “defensive design”? It’s a contingency plan for when design fails— and this fail may very well be a mistake made by the user, so it’s important to create a web design that is both proactive and reactive to errors. So now the question is how to design defensively.

Web design should first and foremost be proactive to potential road blocks that will leave the user banging his or her head against the wall or worse, completely uninterested in further interaction with the site. Here are some ways to avoid making someone’s hate list and to instead make him or her feel like a valued visitor:

1.     Never assume that the user will “just know” their way around your site and how to use it. Create contextual help that appears on the current page or roll over inline help boxes that help guide users in the right direction and create confidence in their navigation of your site.

2.     Create a website that is still functional even in the event that your images fail to upload due to slow speed or poor connections. You’ll never know exactly what you’re dealing with, so be positive that under no situation will your site be unusable.

3.     Consider providing an on-site search option, and remember that to err is human— features like closest-match for misspellings and auto-completion for the absentminded are great ways to ensure that search and navigation of your site are seamless.

4.     Forms are the proven enemy of many users. Highlighting errors makes any mistakes clear and easy to correct. Courteous error messages prevent the user from feeling scolded or belittled, and preservation of data that has been previously entered by the user facilitates the otherwise laborious process of filling out forms.

5.     Page errors are expected to occur. Finding creative and kind ways to display the “page not found” screen never hurts, and helping the lost and confused user find his way back or to his intended destination make for a better user experience. Use analytics to determine if a reoccurring page error is fault of your own.

6.     Limited landing pages or ambiguous copy can stir up trouble as well. Be sure to avoid making these kinds of mistakes in designing your site, and again, as Ian Lurie warns, do not assume that the user will just “figure it out.”

Taking these points in consideration will minimize potential errors and will almost certainly increase traffic to your site, consisting of both new and returning users. A better web experience equals a better brand experience, and that is ultimately the goal of any website. Don’t let a weak defense make your website work against you.

As the saying goes, “a good defense is the best offense.”

Written by: Savannah Harper, LB Wordsmith

Photo courtesy of Wild Women Entrepeneurs

 Marketing and customers are two words that have been around for years. Transactions have been a part of cultural norms most likely as far back as the caveman days. I’m not sure where or when the actual word “marketing” became widely known, but certainly the concept is not new. How we market however, has evolved as both customers and commerce have progressed.

Marketing used to be all about “push”.  Essentially companies just shouting the value of their products hoping to incite people to go buy them. It was a one-way medium. That worked for a while and then a theory popped up that suggested the customer become the center of marketing efforts and the traditional 4P’s (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) became more about Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication – you got it, the 4 C’s. I don’t think any of this gets lost in our new digital age, but I certainly would argue the world of social collaboration, digital engagement and interactive strategy have birthed many new ways to engage with consumers.  This in turn has dramatically changed our approach to creating marketing strategies that build intimate connections with consumers.

So what should we be considering instead of the traditional marketing approach? We need to begin the process of looking at these marketing concepts a bit differently. Online and digital strategies have changed the way consumers engage, influence and make purchasing decisions. There are apps for everything from buying a movie ticket to depositing a check. We can search in Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, Google and Twitter for anything imaginable.  There are influencing reviews on everything from doctors to restaurants. E-commerce is now in Facebook. All of these items designed in a way to leverage a new evolving marketing mix. So what should we be thinking about?  Hear me out on this…in a recent brainstorming session here at LB we referred to it as SSED:

• Place is now about Search Engines and discoverability – location, location, location.
• Promotion is now about Social influence and engagement – real-time engagement and influence.
• Product has become more about Experience – creating a more intimate connection.
• Price has become second to Design in many ways – functionality and utility over cost.

I am not suggesting we dismiss the previous P’s and C’s, yet that we simply allow for new factors (you guessed it… the SSED’s) in the ongoing marketing game. Interactive strategies must embrace these new paradigms and create digital footprints that leverage each of these new tenets to create a wholistic marketing strategy. Interactive is now as important as traditional mediums. The intricate details and objectives of each must be woven together in a way that complements and provides a 360 view of the consumer and subsequently how we build connections with them. Websites and social mediums are the new storefronts and it is critical they be created and ultimately designed in a way to maximize this new SSED approach.

It’s a whole new ballgame and B2B and B2C marketing is requiring the balance of the traditional 4P’s with these new and engaging ways to market in real time. Search, Social Influence, Experience and Design are all going to play a larger part in how we evolve marketing strategies and leverage the digital landscape.