#10 A powerful tagline In 10 words or less, a good tagline reinforces a company’s reason for being. And smaller companies will find it to be one of hardest working tools. To get one, first boil down to a single sentence, benefits of doing business with your company. Then, take write up a few version of this and take them to a good copywriter. After deciding upon one, marry this tagline up with your company name and logo wherever they appear.

#9 Consistent branding elements During 19th and early 20th centuries, a rancher would mark his cattle with an exclusive brand. This brand, depicting a unique visual image, distinguished his cattle from another rancher’s. A branding effort for a growing company works same way. The consistent use of branding elements (i.e. name, tagline, logo, colors, fonts, and typestyles) clearly identifies your company from competition.

#8 Search engine positioning Today, just having a high-quality website doesn’t mean success. Having large numbers of qualified prospects visiting your site does. If you’re not spending equally on promotion of your site through search engine positioning, then your website isn’t working hard enough. One recent client of mine who found my site through a search engine, generated a whopping 1,500%+ return on my search engine investment.

#7 Calls-to-action It’s not enough to just rattle off your product’s features and benefits. You must go one step further by telling your reader exactly what you want her to do next. Too often marketing materials effectively present a company, then leave next step up to reader’s imagination. This is a missed opportunity. Instead, spell out exactly what your reader should do next. “Visit www.emergemarketing.com and register to win”, “Call our estimating department for a free quote” or “ Email us with your suggestions” are calls-to-action that leave no doubt about what you want your reader to do next.

Price is a promise Let’s say you’re shopping for cereal and come across two varieties. One is a well-known brand in a resealable 20 oz. package, which comes with a toy and sells for $4.99. The other is a store brand, that’s packaged in a non-descript plastic bag and sells for $2.99. Which do you buy?

If price was your only factor, you’d buy $2.99 brand. But there are other factors. In this example, $4.99 box promises you reputation of a well-known brand, a toy to entertain your kids and convenience of resealable packaging. Remember that a price guarantees all promises wrapped up in your product or service.

Determine your promises Before you ever touch a calculator, first take stock of all value factors that are bundled into your price. If your company sells a product, these might include: ·the performance of your finished good ·your distribution capabilities or ·your service and installation services.

If yours is a service, value factors might include: ·the bottom-line impact of your deliverable ·your company’s ability to meet tight timelines. ·your experience level.

Pricing financially After taking stock of all your value factors, grab a calculator. First, add up all your direct costs (those incurred as a result of delivering your service) which include labor and raw materials. Then, add up all your indirect costs (all other costs that aren’t direct) like rent, insurance and utilities.

Now, identify profit your company needs to attain in order to fuel new investment and reward your employees. Finally, forecast what your annual unit volumes will be. Now, divide total of your costs and profit by annual units sold, and you end up with a unit price. Sure, this is a simplified example, but process is sound. This kind of analysis will help ascertain where your prices should be from a financial perspective.