(Photo by Kevin Dinkel)

Want to impress your clients – or have your clients impress their friends? Think bigger!

Psychologically speaking, bigger things are perceived to be more powerful, and therefore higher in social status.  That’s why many people search for larger homes, larger cars, larger offerings, and larger office spaces. While smaller things can be more intricate, made of higher quality materials, and more personalized to oneself – the smaller things are generally not seen by others.

So, if your goal is to impress others with your good taste, budget, or style – you want to go big. Be sure in your offerings you give the option for a larger impression – to allow people to advertise themselves.

(Photo by Merlijn Hoek)

What’s so different about marketing to Millennials? Born between 1981 and 1997, these 75 million young adults grew up as digital natives: online-purchasing, instant-messaging, cellphone-using, and social media-immersed. What marketing strategies work best to connect with them?

Visuals. Images matter even more to Millennials than previous generations, since social media posts of images are quicker to “see” (with lots of social media postings, great images stand out).

Stories. It’s not sufficient to describe how well a product looks or a service works. It’s vital to explain how the product or service enhances their life. Use stories to make an emotional connection.

Pre-digital Nostalgia. Modern digital life is fast-paced, and can be exhausting to keep up with. Therefore, Millennials yearn for a “simpler” life, full of quirky handmade goods to showcase uniqueness.

Off-the-beaten path. Because Millennials have a harder time finding meaningful employment, low-budget travel is another avenue to highlight their uniqueness and to expand their connection to the world.

DIY. The extreme way to reject major brands and highlight your uniqueness is to create something yourself. Instead of only showing turnkey solutions, allow your customers to customize your offering to better suit their needs.

By showcasing how you can help Millennials improve their lives, you’ll naturally be part of their lives.

(Photo by Dita Margarita)

No doubt you’ve spent a lot of time optimizing your home page: it’s attractive, it has a clearly stated benefit and a strong value, and is search engine optimized. Your “About Us” web page, however,  is likely to be an afterthought. It’s a commonly missed huge opportunity.

When someone is thinking of purchasing from you, before clicking the “buy” button or calling for a consultation, they’ll want to feel confident in you and your company. So, they’ll look at “About Us” to build trust. Think of this page as an interview, where you answer their concerns so they think “Okay, I believe in you”.

Here are a few of the questions that your web site visitor is likely to want to have answered:

• Are you an expert?
• What are you an expert in?
• What else about yourself is “interesting”?
• What are your plans for the future?
• Who is your ideal customer?

Don’t try to sell your product or services on your “About Us”. By focusing on why your customer can trust your skills and advice, you’ll move your sale from “possible” to “likely”.

(Photo by jonhoward)

We focus so much of our marketing efforts to get people to “like” us. But it’s not enough. It’s too safe. It’s not memorable.  But what else is there?

Your goal is to have your clients immediately love or hate your marketing.

If they love it, they’ll buy from you (and recommend that others do so as well).
If they hate it, then they won’t come back (and not bother you again).

What we too often do is focus in the middle-ground, those that can “take-it-or-leave-it”. But these people often don’t become your customers, because by the time it comes to purchase a product or service like one you offer, you’ve been forgotten. Instead, people remember those that they loved (that’s why Yelp uses the phrase “People Love Us On Yelp”)

You can’t be all things to all people, and you can’t convey passion for everything. Instead, focus on sharing your passion, engaging your customers and build a clear emotional response to your offering.