Handling email can be a very stressful task for many people. And, receiving multiple emails a day makes it difficult at best to manage your inbox and respond to people in a timely manner. Have no, fear, we are here to help!

5 Tips for Dealing with Your Email

1. Filter incoming emails: If there are emails you don’t need to read right away, set-up an automatic filing system. You can do this in most major email programs such as Outlook, Gmail, etc.This allows those emails to go to designated folders you can check at a time that is convenient for you.
   
2. Unsubscribe to emails you do not read.We all think we're going to be good and keep on the latest news when we subscribe for an e-newsletter but if you're not reading them when they come, they're really just cluttering up your inbox.
   
3. Add links to social media in your signature including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, etc.Doing so will help you stay connected and may encourage people to send you a quick note on those platforms vs. email.
   
4. Set aside a certain time each day to check your email and respond to others. We understand that you need to check your email for replies more often, but use this chunk of time to really go through every email in the inbox and do something with it.
5. Utilize the "touch it once" rule. Getting emails on our smartphones can be so tempting but if you're going to re-read the same email when you get back to your office, what's the point? Utilize the "touch it once" rule and only open email when you can really deal with it, the first time.
   

We hope this helps you!

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

There is a difference between a personal Facebook page and a Facebook business page. It is important not to mix the two. The main difference is “business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to be the administrator for pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts have limited access to information on the site.” -- Facebook.com.

First steps for creating the business account:

In order to create a business account you must already have a personal page on Facebook. Once you have logged into your personal account, you can create a Facebook page. Once you complete all of the required information, they will ask you to re-login to your Facebook.

After getting the business page created, you can customize it however you want. You can add information, pictures, links to your website, etc. After you have set-up everything completely, you can start building your fan base. TIP: Before you begin to build your business page, look at other business pages so you can have an idea for what your content should look like, have it spell checked, and ready to load. These easy planning steps will save you some time and embarrassment.

Remember, keeping up with a Facebook business page is not easy. It takes planning and dedication, but when handled well, it can lead to increased exposure for your brand and build customer loyalty. If you're on the fence about whether you can commit to maintaining a Facebook business page, remember that it’s more detrimental to your business to have a business page with no activity than to not have one at all. Keep up with postings and keep your page current and you'll do great! Check out our Facebook business page here.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

When building a website, there is much more to think about than just traditional layout and design. A website today must be built with the purpose to be seen in search results. This holds true for supplemental sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, etc. It is becoming increasingly common that these supplemental sites will rank toward the top of search results.

In a recent study, 64% of small businesses felt that these social media sites are unimportant for them. We find this number to be far too large. For small businesses with limited marketing budgets, social media can be a great way to reach customers. Though these sites do take time to create and maintain, the impact on search results for a business can be huge.  We strongly recommend that small businesses utilize these sites to grow their online presence and be seen in search results.

This photo shows the search results for Ruby Porter, where you'll see the first listing is our website, and second is our Facebook page. If you continue to scroll down in the search results, our LinkedIn and Twitter pages also show up on the first page of search results. This is just one example of how important social media sites can be in helping your customers find you online.

For businesses without any social media sites, the next big question is where to begin. With so many different social media sites to choose from, where should a business start? In most industries a small business should start with a Facebook page. Once this page is up and running, your business can branch out to other sites, but only if you have the time and resources to do so faithfully. It is better to have fewer, well-utilized sites than many sites that look as though they've been neglected or only partially setup.

Questions on how to use these tips for your business? Having trouble getting started? Contact us, we're here to help.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

Metaphors in ads. They win awards, they get the audience’s attention, and, ultimately, they get people to buy stuff. Do they ever get old? Well, they do, so be careful. Not every fancy photoshopped picture of an elephant in a tutu is going to bring them in in droves. A clever metaphor-based ad must use the product, problem, or idea that your product solves. Make sure it makes sense, and that it can be easily recognizable. The viewer isn’t going to sit there for several minutes trying to figure out deep meaning. Keep it simple.  

With that said, the Scrabble “Slices” campaign perfectly captures the product itself. The way in which the parts of the guitar are organized is even reminiscent of the Scrabble tray that holds the letters, as if it were sitting there waiting for you to organize it on the board for a triple word score. What is so captivating about this campaign is the simplicity of the image and how that communicates so strongly the brand image. It’s playful, fun, and a little weird. Also, when you’re looking at the pieces, it’s difficult to see how they might go together, such as the elephant, but you know immediately when you look at it what it is. Like any good ad, the “Slices” campaign makes you stop and look at it for a minute, because it’s both familiar and puzzling at the same time.

As advertising has increasingly moved to the Internet, Facebook advertisements are becoming a common way to reach customers. With 750 million users, many of which use the site daily, it's no wonder why advertisers see Facebook as a great way to reach customers. A recent study found significant differences in the way that different genders and age groups respond to Facebook advertisements.

Facebook Ad Stats:

• Women are 11% more likely to click on an ad
• Women (age 50+) are more likely to click on an ad where as younger women usually don’t go beyond using the ‘Like’ button
• Across all groups, women age 50+ have the highest click through rate
• Men (age 50+) are 11.7% less likely to ‘Like’ a page than their younger male counterparts

What does this mean for your business? If you have a gender neutral product or service, you will see higher success by tailoring your advertising to women since they are more likely to click. If your target market is women ages 50+ Facebook is likely a good option to explore for your advertising. However, if your target market is younger, you may want to reconsider using Facebook advertisements, and spend your advertising dollars on a medium that generates more response from these customers.

Still unsure if Facebook Ads are a good fit with your business? Ask us, we're here to help.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

Source: http://paidcontent.org/article/419

Many entrepreneurs and small businesses start out with a few individuals who have a great product or service idea. Despite having this, their businesses fail to get off the ground. What is a major reason for this? Most entrepreneurs or small business partners did not plan on being salespeople. However, the reality of running a small business is that you must be your own salesperson. So what can you do if you have a great business idea but don't have a knack for sales?

Tips For Being Your Own Salesperson:

1. Make selling a priority. Your business cannot operate without sales, they must be your #1 priority.
2. Go in to each conversation with a target in mind. Know what you want to sell to customers and have a game plan for what you are going to say or do to make that happen. And, be sure to have an up-sell product/service and a down-sell product/service in mind ahead of time so you can quickly and easily adjust to their needs/abilities. Make sure to close each conversation by assertively (which is different than being rude) asking for the sale.
3. Set goals and track results. This will tell you what is and is not working. Use this feedback and change your approach according to what is providing you the best results.
4. Be yourself. Be genuine in all your interactions with customers and your passion for your business will show.

If you try these tips and still find that selling is just too far out of your comfort zone, hire a salesperson. For an entrepreneur or small business this can be a huge expense, but it will begin to payoff quickly. If sales is really not your thing, hiring a salesperson will be well worth your time and money. But, if you find you enjoy sales and want to hone your skills you can also hire a sales coach - someone to help teach you the art of selling. This is also another well-worth-it investment for your business.

If you're still stymied on what to do, give us a shout. We're here to help.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

It’s easy to get carried away with flashy graphics and moving pictures, especially when it comes to website design. For some reason, the restaurant community has particularly embraced this idea, perhaps because there isn’t a whole lot of reason to stick around on a restaurant website and just look at food instead of going out and eating it. For this edition of Website Winners and Bloopers we will look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of flash animation on restaurant web design and see how it can be used well, not enough, or perhaps, to induce seizures.

For our winner we will travel across the globe to Greece, where a little restaurant called Arxontiko uses a flash animation intro to great effect. The website is simple. First, a faded moss green baroque pattern covers the background, while a single white plate appears in the center. Scraps of a frilly napkin are used for all the navigation titles, and these appear onto the page. An old crank phonograph pops up in the corner inviting you to play some appropriately old world music. The concept and presentation is simple, and yet so much is communicated. A mix of old and new, tradition and modernism, make it look true to the history of the food, but with a flair for the modern kitschy, funky trend. Animation is used, but it is subtle and not distracting or nauseating.

For our blooper, we have Soup du Jour, a website that simply doesn’t capture the mood of the restaurant. The picture of the place looks very nice, all track lighting and redish wood furniture, but the website doesn’t emulate this in any way. The background looks like stained paper, in a yellow shade, with the titles in that 1997 bright blue. There are about five different fonts, and the size of the screen is adapted for a very small computer, making it look strange aligned against the left. This website doesn’t need a big long Flash intro, but bringing in more design elements to give viewers a sense of what the food is like would greatly improve it. The kind of food this restaurant has isn’t immediately apparent, and even though it’s called “Soup du Jour,” the focus isn’t really on the soup. What the viewer is really confronted with is the giant “Click here for our kids’ menu” which appears very large above a photo of their restaurant. What is nice about using flash animation, is that it guides the viewer’s eye exactly where the designer wants it. But without animation, web designers must also think about where they want the viewer to look first, second, and so on. The kids’ menu may be important, but an introduction to the restaurant itself, like when you’re first meeting a person, would be more appropriate.

Now we’ll go to the opposite end of the spectrum, with a gyro and panini restaurant in Astoria, New York called Pita Pan. With a simple orange background, the intro asks us if we want fresh? Fast?? And then nearly blinds us with the answer: Pita Pan! With flashing white and orange backgrounds. Then it goes through what seems like the entire menu, flashing orange and white and various foods. With slightly overlapping and not-quite-centered titles, this website almost works in a quirky kind of way. But it does bring up the idea that you have to know your audience in order to decide whether or not to use flash animation or any kind of complicated intro. This place seems to serve a younger crowd, perhaps a similar target audience to Taco Bell or Carl’s Jr., but with a healthy twist. For that reason, it works. Had this website been used for either of the first two restaurants, it would have fallen flat.

So, when designing your restaurant’s website, be sure to always take into consideration who you are catering to. What is your audience like? Are they going to sit through a 30-second intro with music and flashing lights or will they get annoyed and go elsewhere? Website animation can be used to evoke a lot of moods, so don’t write it off too soon, but always be aware of your audience and your brand image and make sure your website graphics are in line with that.

Until next time,
The Ruby Porter Team

No one ever wants to find themselves in the position of having their brand badmouthed to the public, but it still happens frequently. Once your brand has been badmouthed, what do you do next?

First you need to acknowledge the problem and show what you are doing to fix it. This must be done immediately. Being slow to react will make the public lose more trust in your brand. Second, be honest and transparent. This means sharing everything you know about the problem. You want to be the one sharing this information with the public, not a third party.

Recently, HP announced that they are going to discontinue their struggling TouchPad tablet and WebOS smartphone business and that they have plans to spin off their PC business. An onslaught of press coverage followed these announcements. The result has been a huge loss of consumer trust which can be seen in HP's plummeting stock price.

So, how has HP reacted? They have been open about the fact that they find themselves unable to compete in the technology market and that they are undergoing a period of significant transformation. Their Chief Executive, Leo Apotheker, referred to it as a "needed transformation." He has spent time selling this idea to shareholders in an attempt to regain shareholder trust.

Reacting to a situation like this is an ongoing process. HP must continue to be transparent about future plans to rebuild their business in order to start regaining consumer trust. It will be interesting to see how they continue to handle this situation.

Has your brand ever found itself in an unflattering situation? Share with us your experience.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

Recently, Bu-Ya Bookkeeping came to us for help with creating a logo. They're previous logo wasn't really capturing who they were, and because of this, they were lacking brand recognition. Bu-Ya Bookkeeping wanted to portray that they are fun and upbeat while maintaining their professionalism. We examined logos of other companies in the industry and noticed a trend: extremely simple and often flat out boring logos. We wanted Bu-Ya to stand out among this landscape of simple logos. To do this we created a logo that is a little different than most in the industry. We were able to get their fun attitude and professionalism across in this logo, and it is sure to stand out! Here is what we came up with:

In addition to creating a logo, we also designed a new business card for Bu-Ya Bookkeeping that incorporated the new logo. Their previous business card was busy with too many colors and images. The images used did not portray exactly who they are and what they are all about. And, the type was difficult to read as it was set in a very small serif typeface. We designed a more refined business card with a simplified color palette that better conveys the Bu-Ya image. Here is the before and after for the Bu-Ya Bookkeeping business card:

Having a logo that represents your business well is an essential piece of branding your business. A logo allows customers to easily identify you from your competitors. And having your logo live on a business card that is truly useful and functional is like the icing on the cake.

Need help creating a logo for your business? Contact us to find out how.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

What is guerrilla marketing?
Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional way of marketing on a very low budget.

Why is it great?
Guerrilla marketing is great because it's marketing that any business with any amount of budget can do. It also has a very great chance of getting noticed by people because it's usually integrated in high traffic areas in the environment.

Examples of guerrilla marketing we love:

These four guerrilla marketing campaigns are very creative and definitely get people's attention. We think guerrilla marketing is a great way for small businesses to advertise inexpensively. Would your business ever consider this tactic? If you're not sure, we can help.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team