Asheville Web Marketing

Asheville Business after Covid 19 – We Can Do This!

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Asheville Business after Covid 19 As our state starts talking about reopening, we need to stop a moment and consider what that means. What will reopening bring? What will our new business environment look like?

The Online Shift

Up to now, the move of business online has been mostly evolutionary, but current events have made it a survival tool. The post-COVID world will be different. We will surely face new challenges in how we adapt and overcome.

Adapt and Overcome

Our local and county chambers predict that 30 percent of our local businesses will not survive. These are just some of the questions we face.

– What types of business will be left?
– How strongly will tourism come back?
– How will new health rules affect our incomes? More space means fewer tables, and fewer tables means less money.
– How are we going to handle the shortages of food and supplies to come?
– How are we going to handle sports without crowds? Concerts without crowds?
– How will a possible second round of Covid in the fall affect holiday sales?

We all know this will end, for lack of a better word. And we know life will be completely different when it does. Together we can do this—adapt and overcome! How we meet these challenges today will not only define us, it will define humanity from this point forward.

We all have questions let’s face them together
Chris

Marketing Your Business on The Internet

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Marketing Your Business on The InternetThe Internet has evolved quite a bit over the years as have the way people use it. The biggest change is in what I call the “Store Front”. Store fronts used to belong to larger businesses now everybody has a “Store Front”. The Internet has become the great equalizer and has leveled the playing field between small and big business. It has also changed the way we market our businesses.

Pre Internet, we marketed our businesses through print, direct mail, radio, newspaper and the Yellow Pages. In the day, only larger companies had the budgets that could really reach large markets. Now the Internet is here and that has changed things you no longer need the big budgets to reach masses of people. Now we do this by marketing your business on the Internet.

The Internet and its users are now ever evolving. Google has replaced the Yellow Pages. And as we did back in the YP days, everybody competes for a page position. Social networking has taken off and opened new channels that include music, images and video all within the ability of a small business. Now with the development of mobile devises a whole new age has arrived, the Internet of Things.

This new generation of the web is called the IoT (Internet of Things) because it will include everything from desktops to kitchen appliances. Just about everything will connect to the Internet and offer yet newer ways to collect data and reach out with your marketing.

Marketing your business on the Internet – Web marketing then and now

For a long time, the most accepted way to get traffic to your website was what is called the “First Page “ approach. You would optimize your website to have the highest listing for your category on the search engines. This spawned several of its own industries Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Lots of time energy and money was spent optimizing a website for a page position but that was ok at the time. It worked for a while when the web was still new though many SEO companies still pursue this method it really died years ago. The ‘First Page’ approach has been replaced by the more sensible method known as “Driving”.

Enter mobile

Mobil was a big game changer and really kicked the ” I want it now and I want it fast” into gear. People are now shopping or connecting from their devices and responding to ads in their cars, or from their couch to web addresses or businesses seen on TV or a blog post or off the side of a truck.

This is the result of the move into the current more effective method of marketing your business on the Internet called Driving method of web marketing. Meaning you use a mix of traditional and digital channels to “Drive” visitors to your website. And, as a side note (kind of funny too) is that older marketing techniques are now new again.

What is driving

“Driving” is using a broader number of channels to reach people where they are and drive them to your website. These channels include a mix of traditional means like radio advertising, newspaper, networking, flyers, direct mail combined with new digital and social networking. These of course would include social networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn to name a few but also email, electronic newsletters and my personal favorite the sales funnel.

Enter the Internet of Things

The IoT really ups the game. People will have the ability to visit your site from a screen on a refrigerator door or be able to order soap from a screen on a washing machine. This is going to affect the way websites are designed and speed the transformation from website to web application. New tools and technologies coming will change the way we use web applications to advertise or offer new products or services.
Personal assistants will add dramatically to this change with voice searches and how they affect your web marketing. This evolution brings new options to add to your Driving mix: web-based applications and the voice search.

What are web applications

Web apps are like phone apps except they reside on the web instead of a phone. They are considered the Silver Bullet of IoT because they will work on just about any device. You can even put your icon on mobile device screens like traditional phone apps. The advantages are many, less expensive to development, less expensive to maintain compared to traditional phone apps and way easier to distribute. The other big advantage is the plethora of uses from points and reward programs to build customer loyalty through custom applications for your product or service. Many apps you already use daily like Google, Instagram, Netflix, Dropbox, Facebook. You already see specialty apps for house cleaners, to order pizza and babysitters. Web apps are more adaptable, usable, and scalable than the websites we are used to now. Web apps are out of the realm of the do-it-yourselfer and you will need a professional

Alexa find a web marketer near me

Personal assistants have brought us voice searches with the big four being Google, Alexa, Siri, and Cortina. Voice searches have become the fastest growing method of searching the Internet since the Internet itself and spawned a new specialty the VUI (Voice User Interface). Voice searching leads to the next big internet trend … wearables. Wearables are items like watches, glasses, and the new bio computers. All will be voice commanded.
Because voice searches will also become the leading way to deliver content optimizing your website or blog is important and different than the old on-page optimization we are used to. You can navigate through setting these up yourself, but it may be better to leave this to a VUI specialist.

What is next

Wearables. They are already beginning, soon people will have a keypad as part of their shirt sleeve. How do you think that affect marketing your business on the internet? We are just a few years away from implants and after that bio computers that attach to the body one way or another. These are almost ready for market. Now that is scary.

Web Marketing and The Impact of Voice Searches

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Web Marketing and The Impact of Voice Searches
Personal assistants change everything. let’s look at web marketing and the impact of voice searches.

We take online searches for granted. Things are changing, though, from hand-typing in searches to using voice searches on mobile devices. If we need to know something, we simply ask Alexa, Ask Google, Siri or Cortina. Those voice platforms not only answer client queries but anticipate the end of the question with autofill options based on previous searches. Over 90% of Americans have a smart phone and most of them use smart speakers daily. As a business owner, you need your company to be the one that is included in Google’s search snippets. Otherwise, your company is going to be left behind in the dust of your competitors.

Voice searches are more conversational than traditional keyboard searches. We used to go to the computer and type in “Weather Asheville, NC” and scroll through options that popped up. Now we pick up our phone and say, “Okay Google, what’s the weather in Asheville, NC?” We’ve gone from a minimum key word entry to long-tailed phrases or complete sentences. Digital marketing now specializes in not just search engine optimization, but voice search optimization, where semantics matters. Voice-enabled speakers, such as Alexa and Siri already are used by an overwhelming majority of consumers and will take this platform to the next level. Will your company be able to handle the next generation of voice-friendly marketing? To ignore this trend is to ignore customers who’d like to hear about your upcoming sales or promotions.

Voice-friendly devices are the way of the future. We use our smart phones, obviously, but smart home (smart office) devices such as voice-activated thermostats, televisions, Alexa, kitchen appliances and vacuum cleaners can open a whole new world of business opportunities for you. Use of smart devices is on the rise, and therefore voice-based searches are rising. It makes sense to revamp your company’s content now to include up-to-date key phrases.

To grab more voice queries, your web content should reflect natural language patterns and optimize pages with long-tailed keywords. It’s part of the trend toward screenless apps, and can really help a brick and mortar business, especially when coupled with geo-mapping technology.

To stay alive, you cannot ignore this when it come to your web marketing and the impact of voice searches.

It’s a lot to take in, but Lone Bird Studio can help. Click here for more information or to schedule a consultation.

What the Internet of Things is and How it Impacts Business

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Internet of thingsWhat is the Internet of things, anyway? We’re glad you asked. It’s something you probably take for granted and don’t even realize it. When you get a text that notifies you of a package delivery on your i-Phone, listen with wireless earbuds to Pandora, ask Alexa a question, or check your Fitbit, you’ve dabbled in the Internet of Things, or IoT for short. Any device that has a sensor or a connection to the internet is part of the IoT. Virtually everything has some kind of internet connection these days, and that means businesses should keep up to date on changes in society that IoT creates. To ignore these trends would outdate your business, and that translates to decreased profitability.

How does IoT affect our behavior? Technology has made life easier and the digital age is here to stay. For example, instead of reaching for a dictionary, we ask Siri for a definition or pronunciation. As a business owner, seeing how these changes in technology have affected society (and how money is spent) is the first step. The second one is understanding how to create a digital marketing strategy that will grab consumers’ attention. Because potential clients have so many resources at their fingertips now, being able to find new ways to communicate with them and answering questions they may have, creates a connection with them. This connection is part of branding your business.

IoT itself is changing how client input is processed by those very devices. For example, a Google search a decade ago would’ve included basic key words only. Today, we ask whole questions to Siri. It’s more humanized. Searches now run not just on key words, but take into account our natural language patterns. Most everyone has noticed how they can be speaking of something casually, and suddenly advertisements for that very thing pop up on their social threads. There’s a fine line between gathering information for business analysis, and perceived invasion of privacy.

Taking IoT into account with web design (or upgrade) is key, because conveying a sense of trust between your company and clients is essential, even as business activities interact more directly with internet-connected devices. A secure website that looks good and loads quickly on laptops as well as smart devices is the standard. Adding a protocol to your business that, where applicable, includes geofencing/geomapping as well as external factors such as weather or traffic information could give you a serious edge in sales. For example, imagine a company that sells rain jackets and umbrellas being able to advertise those things on smart phones when rain is forecasted, and apply the concept to your company.

Most everyone has a smart phone. Tweaking your company’s website to embrace mobile IoT technology is essential. We can help with that. Click here for more information.

Using The SNAP Sales Technique to Understand Your Prospects

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Sales techniques, web marketingFinding that sweet spot in sales where you really communicate with your customers, and thereby increase sales, can be tricky because everyone seems to be pressed for time. Face it, even you may feel overwhelmed. One method for streamlining your sales approach is the SNAP method, which is a handy acronym to help you be more effective. The SNAP Technique basically brings the salesman to the prospect’s level.

• S. Keep it Simple. Because owners and managers are very busy, whatever you’re selling needs to be easy for them to change to or adopt. After all, who has time for a complex training system for a new program when one with intuitive pathways might be available? If you keep your approach simple, it’ll be received better and/or faster.

• N. Be iNvaluable. Life in the business world is really about relationships. You should be the invaluable expert your clients can’t do without. Establishing trust does take time and energy, but once you have become the person who knows (or can find) all the answers, you’ll have greased the money wheels as well.

• A. Align. What are the core beliefs of not only your own company, but your clients’ companies? Any time you can align yourself with those beliefs, people will want to work with you more. It’s not so much about spouting whatever you find on your client’s website, so much as knowing him/her well enough to have something in common. For example, if your client contributes to a local charity, you might let them know in an off-hand way of charities your own business supports.

• P. Priorities. Everyone has priorities, whether it’s personal or business needs. If you understand your customers’ proprieties, you can tap into them in ways that will not only help them, but will increase your sales as well. It could be a more efficient office program, or a new product to make their lives better. The point is, you must really know your customers before you can sell something to them.

SNAP methodology is not really about selling. It’s about building relationships effectively. Of course you need to make money, but you don’t need to waste your or your customers’ time. This method is an effective way to think about calls from the perspective of a customer, which will streamline them so you stay on track.

For more information feel free to contact Lone Bird Studio.

Using the DISC Personality Model to Improve Sales Techniques

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Using the DISC Personality Model to Improve Sales TechniquesThe DISC model is a way to analyze four basic personalities, which can help increase your sales records. After all, if you are selling something, it always helps to understand why people act the way they do. DISC is a way to categorize people very quickly into different personalities. Once you know which kind of person you’re dealing with, you can modify how you approach them to ways in which they will respond. In short, you can speak their language. The four DISC categories are below. As you study them, think of yourself. What kind of DISC personality are you? Then think of the customer you need to contact and which DISC category s/he is most likely in, based on what you already know.

D = Dominant. This personality sees themselves as being stronger than the world, which is hostile. They tend to be extroverts who overcome any obstacle in the way of their goals. They love a challenge, are energetic and innovative, and think outside the box. Sometimes they are perceived as being arrogant, insensitive and too aggressive, usually by people who are polar opposites.

I = Influential. These people see the world as a friendly place and see themselves a strong in their environment. They are inspiring, generous and open to the opinions of others. They are usually loved by others but might be seen as shallow or silly on the surface.

S = Stability. Like Influential personalities, Stability people see the world as friendly. However, because they see themselves as weaker than the environment, they don’t like to upset the established system. They feel safe with the status quo, and need encouragement to grow or branch out. Sometimes they are perceived as stubborn and unwilling to change.

C = Conformity. These personalities see the world as hostile, and themselves as weak, which means they don’t think they have much influence and therefore prefer to think inside a well-established box. They are fact-seekers, intelligent and diplomatic. Because they analyze things carefully before committing to change, they can be perceived as very reserved or indecisive.

No one is purely one flavor of the DISC categories, but are instead a blend. You may know someone who loves a challenge and tackles problems with both hands (Dominant), but is also diplomatic and reflective (Conformity). As you can see, the DISC method is a way to analyze yourself as a salesperson, to understand your strengths and weaknesses, as well as a way to see your clients in a new light. If you use the DISC method wisely, you can improve your sales techniques significantly, which will make your customers happier and help your own bottom line.
Contact lonebird.com for your web marketing solutions.

Ecommerce on WordPress

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Ecommerce on WordPressBuilding an effective website for your business is difficult enough, but setting up an ecommerce site can be overwhelming for many aspiring entrepreneurs. It doesn’t have to be, especially when if you build your website with WordPress.

Originally created for blogging, WordPress has become an open-source platform for all kinds of websites. Through the years, developers created plugins and themes that make it possible to turn a WordPress site into an online store. Ecommerce on WordPress offers many benefits.

What’s E-commerce?

Ecommerce (or e-commerce, as it’s sometimes written) is defined as buying or selling products or services through the internet. You can use a computer or a mobile device to conduct your transaction. Buying online requires entry of credit card information or processing the payment through a third party, such as PayPal.

When most people think about e-commerce, they may think of the megastores that sell physical products to retail customers. But e-commerce can also include B2B transactions, services and digital downloads. And e-commerce gets more complex every year.

Ecommerce vs. Traditional Retail

Starting a traditional retail business requires a lot of set-up and investment before you can make a dime. But if you set up an e-commerce website, your store can start selling your goods almost immediately. The costs associated with ecommerce are lower, too. Other advantages of selling through e-commerce include:

• E-commerce overcomes geographical limitations. You can sell to anyone, anywhere. And as you market your website, you expand your customer reach!

• Since customers shop on their devices, you eliminate their travel time and costs. In fact, since everyone’s online, you’re where your customers are spending their time.

• You gain new customers as your search engine visibility increases, which also builds brand awareness. You can even serve niche markets with less hassle.

• It’s easier for your customers to find what they’re looking for on a website. You can provide as much information as you want on your products and even allow comparison shopping.

• You can enable special deals, periodic bargains, coupon codes and group buying opportunities.

Set Up Shop the Easy Way

You can build a WordPress website yourself and configure WordPress with ecommerce, or you can do the smart thing and bring in an expert to help you. Lone Bird Studio specializes in building successful e-commerce sites. When you go with Lone Bird, the benefits include:

• A lot fewer headaches — in fact, your website’s cheaper and performs better in the long run

• Better-looking, custom website design, built by professionals, that reinforces your brand

• Faster-loading web pages that encourages commerce

• A website that’s compatible with all of the latest mobile technologies — and your site needs to be mobile-friendly

• Having a pro set up your payment and shipping capabilities

• The added advantage of getting increased visibility in search engine results

• Superlative support that minimizes any potential downtime

What are you selling? If you want to start your own web store, get WordPress with ecommerce website set up quickly. You can do it yourself, but if you need help, contact Lone Bird Studio.

Has Google Mobile Indexing Killed Your Business?

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Google Mobile Indexing You may have spent thousands of dollars designing, building and marketing your business website. How do you know if it’s working? You can track traffic to and leads from your site. You can search for your keywords to see how you rank. But it may change day-to-day, not just month-to-month.
Trust Lone Bird Studio to keep your website ranking high, as we know what to look for. Google continually changes its algorithms in ways that directly impact how it ranks your website. So what is Google mobile indexing and why does it matter to you? Let’s begin by tackling the first part of that question, so you get an inkling of whether it’s killing your business or boosting it.

What Is Google Mobile Indexing?

Sometime in 2014, the number of people using mobile devices to search the internet passed the number of people using desktops and laptops. And all of a sudden, mobile users became vital to your business. Actually, mobile users have been trending up almost since smart phones were invented.
Google has acknowledged the trend and made mobile-friendly websites rank higher than those that don’t have a mobile website design. It makes sense, as more and more people access the internet on mobile devices. Google mobile indexing means that Google looks at your mobile site first. If it’s unresponsive or incomplete, you’re ranked lower.

So if you haven’t given your site a mobile web design, your site is going to suffer in Google searches. Since Google accounts for more than 90 percent of all internet searches (in October 2018), you can’t afford to rank lower. You’ve worked hard at SEO and design. If you neglected to include a mobile web design, then Google mobile indexing will kill your business!

How Can You Implement Mobile Website Design?

To be compliant with the Google mobile indexing, your website simply has to work — it has load quickly, work perfectly and look great — on a device as small as a smartphone. Lone Bird Studio knows that mobile sites need to do certain things to save space (which is at a premium) and time (ditto), such as:

• Choose a mobile-friendly design template, not just a mobile-responsive design.
• Confine your web design, graphics and content to the screen size, not to an arbitrary frame or page width.
• Optimize all your images for fast loading.
• Resize the graphics and the copy so both are readable and not overwhelming.
• Make sure your mobile version has all the information your full site offers.
• Remove hovering elements, which don’t render on a mobile device.
• Delete any Flash and pop-up elements. They don’t work on mobile devices either.

If you ignore Google mobile indexing, your search ranking will suffer, which directly translates into business-killing lost sales. To get and implement a mobile website design and restore your website to its place on Page 1 of Google searches, contact Lone Bird Studio.

Different Way to Use A Sales Funnel

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Sales FunnelsIf you’re in business, you rely on sales to keep afloat. And you always need a way to attract new customers and keep them coming back. Some businesses rely strictly on ads, but without an effective sales funnel, positive results from those pricy ads often prove disappointing.

A sales funnel is the process of attracting leads, nurturing potential clients and generating new sales. Leads represent potential customers predisposed to buy what you sell, usually because you solve a particular problem for them. It’s a process, and Lone Bird Studio can help you with it.

The Sales Funnel Explained

The sales funnel represents the sales process. The funnel has four stages, from the widest (for the most general audience) to the narrowest (a confirmed customer):

1. Awareness. Potential customers become aware of your company name and form an impression.

2. Interest. When they’re interested in what you offer, you have an opportunity to make your sales pitch.

3. Decision. They weigh your value while deciding whether or not to buy. This is when you need to close the sale.

4. Action. When they buy what you’re selling, you provide a positive experience that may lead to more sales.

The sales funnel works the same whether a customer walks into your store or finds you online. It’s still the same process. And that’s where Lone Bird Studio’s email marketing comes in.

Enter Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing is just a different approach to the sales funnel. It follows the same four stages, but it’s accomplished with marketing automation. Once started, email marketing automation works without direct input, nurturing potential customers step-by-step toward a sale:

1. Begin an email marketing campaign from a list of email addresses you’ve collected. This initial email builds awareness of your business’ products or services.

2. Recipients respond, showing interest, and another email automatically gives them your sales pitch. If they don’t respond, a second email may offer a deal or reiterate your advantages.

3. Further emails in the chain, part of email marketing automation, are sent at reasonable intervals to help them make a decision and connect with you directly.

4. They take action and make a purchase. Follow-up emails ensure customer satisfaction while setting the stage for the next sale.

Each of these steps is automated. Email marketing is experiencing a renaissance because it works when done right. Automate your sales funnel by contacting Lone Bird Studio!

Uses for Augmented Realty

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Lone Bird Studio Studio Augmented RealityAugmented reality relies on three basic display types: Handheld devices such as mobile smartphones or portable computers, wearable technology or head mounted displays such as specially designed glasses or goggles (Google Glass application is one example; rumor also has it that a smart watch applying wearable technology is in construction by Apple.) and spatial displays which project computer enhanced graphics onto fixed surfaces.
Although AR was most common to training simulation applications and video games at first, its uses have widened to a great degree in the last few years. At present, we can see uses of enhanced reality in many different fields and industries.

Military

HMD or head mounted displays are used extensively in military aircraft technology. With the help of the HMD, an aircraft pilot has all the data he needs, including airspeed, horizon line, altitude, etc., right before his eyes. So, there is no need for him to look down to the instrumentation board for the perusal of such data. AR applications and HMD facilities are used for many ground troops operations, too.

Tourism

Tourism industry also makes extensive use of enhanced reality in a bid to enrich the experience of the tourists and the sightseers. Museums, for example, have introduced interactive 3D live views of the museum artifacts. These shows help the visitors to the museum gain a deeper and more interactive knowledge about the displays and the attendant historical facts.

Medical

The medical field similarly looks to make good use of the 3D visualizations made possible through advancements in AR technology. Thanks to enhanced reality, medical students can now practice surgical operations in a controlled environment. Neurosurgical methods have especially benefited from the use of enhanced reality. Since brain surgeries are often very complex operations and the margins of errors are, in most cases, very small, the doctors benefit from having access to comprehensive 3D displays of the brain prior to the surgery.

Apart from these, we can also find extensive use of enhanced reality applications in many other fields such as navigation, gaming, entertainment, education, advertising & promotion, etc.

In the field of website design too, augmented or enhanced reality has made its effect felt in a big way. Especially, use of enhanced reality has become a big feature in web design for smartphones, tablet PCs, and other mobile devices. The application Layer Reality Browser, for example, which is available to Android and iPhone users, makes use of enhanced reality to retrieve data on structures, places, movies, and locations and displays these data as real-time digital information, thereby augmenting our view and experience of the real world. Loan Bird Studio, as a leading Asheville North Carolina. Web design solutions firm, incorporates augmented or enhanced reality applications in their website design and other solutions, whenever possible and relevant. The firm caters mainly to medium sized businesses and one can read more about their success stories from client testimonials posted at the company website www.lonebird.com, and at other relevant online platforms.