Looking your best and and presenting a professional appearance is easy. Here is how to do away with all that silly nonsense.
1. Use the Email Address Provided by Your Internet Provider for Business.
If your email address ends in @shaw.ca, @telusplanet.net, or whatever your Internet Service Provider uses, you’re not taking full advantage of your company web presence. Your business cards should have your email address on them, and if you happen to change internet providers, your email address changes too. Now you have to throw away all your business cards and get them reprinted. Most domain names come with a number of email addresses too, provided either by the hosting company or the registrar. If your web guru hasn’t at least offered you an email address that has your domain name in it, tell them you need one.
2. Print Business Cards on an Ink Jet or Laser Printer
The first thing you do when handed a business card is feel it. You haven’t even read it yet, and you already have an idea of quality. Thin, flimsy card is all that can fit through most ink jets or laser printers – the office or home type models, that is. If your printer offers to use a laser, they are using a different type (no pun intended…). So if your business is indeed flimsy and unreliable, using DIY business cards might help. For everyone else, use a real printer.
3. Leave the Links at the Bottom of Your DIY Website
Many hosting companies offer do-it-yourself website design. They provide the templates, you provide the content and you have your very own, free website. Great. But staring everyone in the face, right at the bottom is a logo or tagline that tells everyone (including your customers) how little you invested in the single most important marketing system your business needs. Templates make your business look like everyone else’s, but isn’t your business supposed to be unique? Get a real website and you will attract real customers and get real results.
4. Use Very Popular Stock Images
Sometimes, stock images are necessary. But if you’re a single person business, your office might not look like an office furniture ad and you probably don’t have a team of glamourous, smiling models working for you. I really don’t want to see any more pictures of people writing on glass, jumping in the air or smiling inanely while sharing a laptop (in a completely empty office, I might add).
When stock images start cropping up on too many websites, they dilute their effect. So, of you do have to use purchased photos, make sure they aren’t showing up on all your competitors sites too. Or use original artwork. Use Tineye.com to see how many people are using an image.
5. Stretch Your Logo (or Other Images)
You cannot enlarge a bitmap (JPEG, PNG, GIF…) without losing quality. Simple as that. So if your logo isn’t big enough, talk to your graphic designer about getting a higher quality, larger version. You should have a logo kit of your logo with every conceivable version in it. If not, get one of those too! If you are uploading images to a website or using images for print, also remember that they should not be enlarged or resized disproportionately. A bitmap image only has so many dots in it, and stretching those dots out just looks terrible. Don’t do it!
Five should do for now, but there are lots of other ways to make sure people don’t return your call, treat you like an amateur or don’t look as impressed as you think they should when you hand them a business card.
Have you found any other ways to undermine your own marketing efforts?