Can you and your clients trust online reviews? The quick and straightforward answer is YES! Online customer reviews, in general, can be trusted. One reason to rely on online reviews is the fact that most platforms today are successful in thwarting efforts to post unverified and fake reviews. Gone are the days when anonymous reviewers could post reviews at will on these sites.
For a moment, take off your business hat and put on your “searcher” hat. As a searcher, online reviews are particularly useful for you and people like you looking for trustworthy and useful information about the products and services you or they need.
Switching hats back, online reviewers are usually actual users who can provide details about their experience with a particular product or service. This way, consumers get a perspective not coming from the business or service provider. This is a point of view that you as the business cannot always provide.
However, as a user, you must exercise caution and due diligence when reading online reviews. A sound suggestion is to read as many reviews of the same service or product as possible. You can better understand and appreciate the particular product through many different customer experiences.
When reading reviews, it is also worth mentioning that it is important to be discerning and deciding which reviews to believe and the ones to ignore or not to take seriously. For instance, if you encounter reviews that are too exceptional or seem too good to be true, they are probably reviews that you need to take with a grain of salt.
Written By: Adam Bennett | April 27, 2022
Adam is the president and founder of Cube Creative Design and specializes in private school marketing. Since starting the business in 2005, he has created individual relationships with clients in Western North Carolina and across the United States. He places great value on the needs, expectations, and goals of the client.
An internet marketing plan is an important component of a business's total marketing mix, regardless of its size or whether it does business online. If you're entirely new to online marketing for small businesses, getting started might seem like a daunting process as internet marketing is constantly evolving.
Small business marketing for a local company may include numerous offline local advertising approaches. Still, to optimize sales in today's economy, a business must also incorporate a good share of internet marketing strategies.
A small business will be interested in several significant areas of internet marketing. Some are more vital for local, offline businesses, while others are more beneficial for e-commerce businesses.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 18, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
In this day and age of digital marketing, you’ve probably heard of SEO or search engine optimization. Nevertheless, you might be curious about what it is and how it might benefit your company’s development?
Simply said, SEO efforts aim to boost a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) so that it receives the most traffic possible. In other words, an SEO-optimized website has a better chance of coming up in the top results when users search for a specific topic (also known as a keyword).
We’ll take a closer look at local SEO for small businesses such as yours in this article, and we’ll explain why it’s a good idea for you.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | April 06, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
If your local service business isn’t already on and utilizing social media, you’re passing up a huge potential. In a 2018 survey, PWC found that “Social networks are the most influential online media used by shoppers around the world when finding inspiration for their purchases.” The same report showed that 37% of shoppers use social media. The bottom line is that social networks are one of the most important sources of inspiration for consumer purchases, yes, even for service area businesses.
Failing to incorporate social media into your marketing approach can be costly! According to Facebook’s (now Meta) 2020 Q4 Earnings Call, “there are more than 200 million small businesses around the world using Facebook’s tools.” Therefore, if you’re not reaching out to those potential new clients, your competitors will.
Social networking allows your local service business to interact with prospects and retain existing clients. Social media sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram) are primarily used for socializing. By communicating with your clients online, making connections, and sustaining relationships, you boost your chances of retaining them and their potential lifetime worth.
Written By: Hannah Kilpatrick | April 04, 2022
Hannah Kilpatrick Cube Creative DesignHannah Kilpatrick graduated from Western Carolina University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Communication with a Minor in Marketing and a Concentration in Public Relations. She has been around social media since its creation. (Meaning, she was in the first grade when Facebook became available to the general public.) As our very own professional Gen-Z, Hannah is a whiz when it comes to social media creation and paid advertising.
There are numerous questions to consider while developing a marketing plan for your business. What will catch my clients' interest the most? Should I hire a digital marketing agency to do it for me? Should I spend money on advertisements, and if so, what kind? Should I put effort into developing content instead? While there are numerous factors to consider, one thing is for sure. Content is the ideal marketing tool for any small business, especially yours.
Content marketing can be one if not the most cost-effective form of marketing as it allows you to build genuine relationships with your clients. As a new business, creating your brand and building a client base are critical to your success. Let's look at how content could be the missing piece of the puzzle that allows you to accomplish all of this!
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | March 30, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
What is the impact of social media marketing on small businesses?
Assuming you are new to social media marketing, and you are asking this question for your business, Cube Creative is here to help.
With social media marketing, your small business can:
- Reach a large audience base
- Increase brand awareness
- Improve audience engagement
- Collect feedback from potential and existing customers
- Connect with customers at a lower cost
- Generate credibility and authority
- Customize and personalize their approach in marketing
However, you need to do it right to ensure you get these benefits of social media marketing rather than generate negative results. This post gives you the right strategies to use and the pitfalls to avoid in marketing on social media.
But first, the basics.
Written By: Hannah Kilpatrick | March 28, 2022
Hannah Kilpatrick Cube Creative DesignHannah Kilpatrick graduated from Western Carolina University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Communication with a Minor in Marketing and a Concentration in Public Relations. She has been around social media since its creation. (Meaning, she was in the first grade when Facebook became available to the general public.) As our very own professional Gen-Z, Hannah is a whiz when it comes to social media creation and paid advertising.
Becoming the busiest HVAC contractor or mechanic in town is every local business owner’s goal. But without marketing skills, this feat is not that easy to achieve.
Add to that is the changing consumer expectation and behavior. Nowadays, consumers check reviews and ask questions online before purchasing. Thus, before you can be the best HVAC contractor in town, you also need to conquer the competition in the online world of marketing.
Thus, local business marketers must not ignore the power of online marketing. For many businesses, it is the only way to:
- Make a positive impression on their customers.
- Beat their competition.
- Become an authority in their niche.
- Have an impeccable online presence.
For these marketing goals, marketers use the internet in general and social media specifically. Here, we explain how you can use social media to target, reach out, and communicate with your audience for your local business.
Written By: Adam Bennett | March 28, 2022
Adam is the president and founder of Cube Creative Design and specializes in private school marketing. Since starting the business in 2005, he has created individual relationships with clients in Western North Carolina and across the United States. He places great value on the needs, expectations, and goals of the client.
Small business owners have long struggled to find the best marketing methods. There are numerous marketing channels available to small service area businesses making deciding on the best strategy to find and be found by potential clients.
Should you start a blog? Should you be networking? What about traditional advertising such as running an ad in the newspaper, radio, or getting a billboard? Should you concentrate on social media? What about texting? Should you focus on your website, search engine optimization (SEO), and other forms of digital marketing?
Your ad in the local newspaper may never be seen by the homeowner who needs a service call. And, the woman who receives a text message from a nearby restaurant at 11:15 a.m. informing her of today's lunch specials may never see the coupons your coffee shop mails out.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | March 16, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
An email newsletter is just a regular email sent by businesses or individuals to inform recipients about important announcements and promotions about their products or services. To get the recipients’ attention, the content must be engaging. This is the most important rule to remember when sending an email newsletter.
The size or length of the email and the amount of information contained do not really matter. Even with a short message to relay only a small amount of information, your email newsletter can be effective. Here are nine proven and tested tips on how you can come up with a great email newsletter.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | March 14, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
Are you new to social media marketing? If yes, then you must have questions about it. At Cube Creative, we usually get these questions:
- What is effective social media marketing for small business?
- How can I use social media to grow my business, build brand awareness, start building relationships, etc.?
- What are the best social media marketing strategies for a small business or startup?
Perhaps, the best tip to tell all online marketers is this: Start by setting the right goal.
But what is the right goal for using social media for business?
In social media marketing, the right goal is to:
- Build influence and authority
- Promote brand awareness
When your audience is already aware of your brand and trusts you, that is the time you can lead them further into your sales funnel.
On average, it takes businesses six months to generate results from social media marketing, but HubSpot, a leading CRM developer, says, “It depends.”
According to HubSpot experts, businesses need to develop an effective social media marketing strategy to generate results faster and take advantage of ways to track social media results.
Written By: Hannah Kilpatrick | March 14, 2022
Hannah Kilpatrick Cube Creative DesignHannah Kilpatrick graduated from Western Carolina University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Communication with a Minor in Marketing and a Concentration in Public Relations. She has been around social media since its creation. (Meaning, she was in the first grade when Facebook became available to the general public.) As our very own professional Gen-Z, Hannah is a whiz when it comes to social media creation and paid advertising.
Is email marketing a priority for your small business? If so, you may wonder what the best email marketing software is?
Picking the right email marketing service can make or break your small business marketing strategy and your email marketing campaigns.
This post has rounded up 10 of the top email marketing services for small businesses.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | March 09, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
If you own or run a small business, you are constantly looking at various ways to better advertise your business. Many may gravitate towards more traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, billboards, and others. However, determining the costs can be difficult.
Therefore, I have compiled a list of the various traditional and digital advertising outlets with a brief explanation of:
- What is the type of medium
- What business types are a good fit for the medium
- What are the costs based on national averages for the particular medium
- What are the pros and cons the medium
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | March 07, 2022
Chad is our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
