Harnessing the Power of Video Testimonials for Your Business

An example of the power of video testimonials with the Paragon Marketing Group video team

Video testimonials have emerged as an impactful tool for businesses to connect with their audience. At Paragon Marketing Group, we understand the value and power of video testimonials, not only for attracting new clients but also for hiring top talent.

In this blog post, we’ll cover how utilizing video testimonials strategically can elevate your brand and build trust with both customers and potential employees.

How to Use Video Testimonials to Market Your Business

Discover how video testimonials can attract new clients and new talent:

Attracting Clients with Authentic Video Testimonials

Video testimonials from satisfied clients provide a genuine and relatable insight into the value your business offers. Unlike written reviews, video testimonials capture the client’s emotions, expressions, and tone, making the endorsement more credible and engaging.

A great example that demonstrates the power of video testimonials is from our client Daryl Burczyk, owner of Lilikoi Resort. Check out his video testimonial for Paragon Marketing Group below.

Are you harnessing the power of video testimonials for your business?

Takeaway: Video testimonials humanize your brand, making it easier for potential clients to trust your products or services.

Boosting Employee Recruitment with Video Testimonials

Attracting the right talent is crucial for any business’s success. Unlike client testimonials that are more likely to affect potential new customers, video testimonials from current employees can showcase your company culture, values, and the benefits of working with your team.

Job seekers researching your company can learn about current staff’s personal stories and experiences. Rather than just hoping for the best, job seekers will have a much better idea of the company culture before deciding whether to apply.

Recently, we filmed a short video testimonial to showcase the culture here at Paragon Marketing Group. Take a look:

Takeaway: Employee video testimonials can significantly enhance your recruitment efforts by providing a genuine glimpse into your workplace culture.

Capturing Testimonials with Professional Video Production

To capture compelling video testimonials, we recommend enlisting a professional video specialist. At Paragon Marketing Group, video production is a cornerstone of our services, delivering high-quality content across various platforms.

Before you pick up your smartphone to record a testimonial, consider partnering with Paragon Marketing Group. We can create videos for your website and produce effective training materials, ensuring your video testimonials are polished and impactful.

Takeaway: High-quality video production is essential for creating compelling and professional video testimonials.

Why Choose Paragon Marketing Group?

As a former video production company, Paragon Marketing Group is uniquely positioned to provide unparalleled video production services. We handle everything from filming to live streaming to post-production and ensure your videos are placed where they will be most effective. Our comprehensive approach means your video testimonials will not only look professional but will also be strategically used to achieve your marketing goals.

Here’s a Quick Recap:
  1. Video testimonials humanize your brand, making it easier for potential clients to trust your products or services.
  2. Employee video testimonials can significantly enhance your recruitment efforts by providing a genuine glimpse into your workplace culture.
  3. High-quality video production is essential for creating compelling and professional video testimonials.

Video testimonials are a powerful tool that can transform your business’s marketing and hiring efforts. By showcasing authentic client experiences and highlighting your company culture, you build trust and credibility with both potential customers and future employees.

At Paragon Marketing Group, we are committed to helping you harness the full potential of video testimonials through our expert video production and marketing services. Please visit our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092 to learn more about how we can elevate your business with the power of video testimonials.

Marketing with the Customer in Mind: Strategies for Success

a salesperson who is demonstrating marketing with the customer in mind

Today, it’s easy for small business owners to fall into the trap of making marketing decisions based on their personal preferences rather than what’s best for their customers. However, effective marketing must be crafted with the customer in mind to truly resonate and drive results.

In this blog post, we’ll cover the benefits of marketing with the customer in mind and provide actionable strategies to make your marketing efforts customer-centric.

Strategies for Marketing with the Customer in Mind

Check out these six ways to start marketing with your customers top of mind:

Salesperson in salon demonstrating marketing with the customer in mind
Are you marketing with your customers in mind?

Strategy #1: Understand Your Target Audience

Before you even start to market, you should know your target audience inside and out. If you have an idea but you need more information, consider conducting market research to gather data about your target audience’s demographics, preferences, and behaviors. 

Tools like surveys, focus groups, and social media analytics can provide valuable insights. This data will help you create detailed buyer personas that represent your ideal customers.

Takeaway: Effective marketing starts with a deep understanding of your target audience.

Strategy #2: Prioritize Customer Needs Over Personal Preferences

One common mistake business owners make is basing marketing decisions on their own tastes and opinions. While it’s natural to have a vision for your brand, you need to prioritize your customers’ needs and preferences as they’re the ones who will be purchasing and using your product or service. What appeals to you may not necessarily appeal to your customers.


One of the best ways to find out if your customers are satisfied is to first, ask them! Whether you’re asking a client in person or requesting customer feedback after they’ve made a purchase, your customer is your best source of information to understand whether you need to make changes to your product or service.

The next best way to find out if your customers are satisfied is to dig into the data. More on that in our next strategy . . .

Takeaway: Use customer feedback to guide your marketing strategies rather than personal bias.

Strategy #3: Utilize Data-Driven Decision Making

Data is a powerful tool that can help you make informed marketing decisions. By analyzing customer data, you can identify trends, preferences, and behaviors that inform your marketing strategies.

For instance, using analytics to find out what social posts are most engaging, which emails are producing the most sales, which graphics are resonating the most, and which buttons are getting clicked most on your website, can help you best understand what is resonating most with your audience. Using data to drive decisions ensures your marketing efforts are grounded in evidence rather than guesswork.

Takeaway: Relying on data-driven insights leads to more strategic marketing decisions.

Strategy #4: Create Personalized Experiences

Personalization is key to making your customers feel valued and understood. Tailor your marketing messages to address the specific needs and preferences of different segments of your audience.

Personalization can be as simple as using the customer’s name in emails, responding directly to social media comments, or recommending products based on past purchases. If you’re the founder or owner of a small business, often meeting and speaking to customers face-to-face can go a long way. When customers feel that your marketing is speaking directly to them, they are more likely to engage and convert.

Takeaway: Personalized marketing creates a stronger connection with your customers and enhances engagement.

Strategy #5: Focus on Value and Solutions

Your marketing should clearly communicate the value and solutions your products or services provide. Customers are looking for solutions to their problems, so your marketing messages should highlight how your offerings can meet their needs. Instead of focusing solely on the features of your product, emphasize the benefits and outcomes that customers will experience.

Takeaway: Highlighting value and solutions in your marketing messages resonates more with customers.

Strategy #6: Test and Adapt

Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach. What works for one audience may not work for another. Continuously test different marketing strategies and measure their effectiveness. Be prepared to adapt and refine your approach based on what the data shows.

Even if an old website, former mailer, or a specific marketing channel produced results in the past doesn’t mean that it’s what will work best for your business today. Flexibility and willingness to change are crucial for staying relevant and being successful in your marketing efforts.

Takeaway: Continuous testing and adaptation ensure your marketing strategies remain effective and relevant.

Here’s a Quick Recap:
  1. Effective marketing starts with a deep understanding of your target audience.
  2. Use customer feedback to guide your marketing strategies rather than personal bias.
  3. Relying on data-driven insights leads to more strategic marketing decisions.
  4. Personalized marketing creates a stronger connection with your customers and enhances engagement.
  5. Highlighting value and solutions in your marketing messages resonates more with customers.
  6. Continuous testing and adaptation ensure your marketing strategies remain effective and relevant.

Marketing with the customer in mind is essential for building strong relationships and driving business success. By understanding your audience, prioritizing their needs, utilizing data-driven decisions, personalizing experiences, focusing on value, and being adaptable, you can create marketing strategies that truly resonate with your customers. 

At Paragon Marketing Group, we emphasize the importance of customer-centric marketing to help businesses achieve their goals. Remember, effective marketing is not about what you prefer but about what your customers need and want.

Please visit our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092 to learn more about how we can help put your customers at the center of your marketing strategy.

The Compelling Case to Outsource Your Marketing Efforts

Man circling the word "marketing" on a mirror, demonstrating the dilemma of businesses deciding whether to outsource their marketing.

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, many companies struggle deciding whether to handle marketing in-house or outsource to a specialized agency. Outsourcing your marketing efforts to a dedicated agency offers advantages that can propel your business forward. By partnering with a team of experts, you gain access to knowledge, experience, and resources that would be challenging and costly to replicate in-house.

In this blog post, we’ll explore why outsourcing your marketing efforts can be a game-changer for your business.

How Choosing to Outsource Your Marketing Can Benefit Your Business

Discover three benefits of outsourcing your marketing to an agency:

A team of marketing professionals working on clients' work. Displaying benefits of a business that chose to outsource its marketing to an agency.
Could your business benefit from outsourcing your marketing to an agency?

Benefit #1: Access to a Multidisciplinary Team of Experts

Outsourcing your marketing allows you to tap into a pool of professionals with diverse skill sets. Rather than hiring and managing multiple in-house employees, you gain access to a well-rounded team.

At Paragon Marketing Group, our team of experts each focuses on a specific area of marketing. From video production and web design to social media marketing and graphic design and more, our team members dedicate themselves to mastering their respective disciplines.

This specialized approach allows us to assemble a well-rounded team with deep knowledge and skills in various marketing domains. By combining our diverse talents, we can seamlessly collaborate and execute marketing strategies tailored to our clients’ unique needs and goals.

Takeaway: You gain access to a multidisciplinary team of experts, ensuring your marketing efforts are effective, when you outsource your marketing.

Benefit #2: Cost Savings and Efficiency

Hiring an in-house marketing team can be a significant financial burden, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. You have to account for competitive salaries and benefits. In addition, you need to invest in the necessary tools, software, and resources required for effective marketing campaigns. Outsourcing your marketing to an agency often proves to be a more cost-effective solution. By partnering with an agency, you benefit from their established infrastructure, tools, and resources, eliminating the need for substantial upfront investments.

Moreover, the cost savings of outsourcing become even more apparent when compared to hiring a single in-house marketing professional. The salary and benefits package for a skilled marketer can easily exceed $60,000 annually, depending on experience and expertise. In contrast, agencies like Paragon Marketing Group can provide full-service marketing support at a fraction of that cost, often for less than half the price of a single in-house hire.

Agencies can efficiently allocate resources across multiple clients, leveraging economies of scale to deliver high-quality work at a more affordable rate. This means that you gain access to a team of specialists with diverse skills and expertise. You don’t have to rely on a single individual to handle all aspects of your marketing efforts.

Takeaway: Having an agency like Paragon Marketing Group offers significant cost savings compared to building an in-house team. Connecting with an agency gives you access to a full suite of marketing services and expertise at a fraction of the cost of a single in-house hire.

Benefit #3: Access to Cutting-Edge Expertise and Resources

Marketing agencies are dedicated to staying at the forefront of industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies. By outsourcing your marketing, you gain access to this cutting-edge expertise and the latest tools and resources. This ensures your marketing strategies remain relevant, innovative, and effective in a constantly evolving digital landscape.

Beyond knowledge and expertise, agencies like Paragon Marketing Group have access to overlooked resources when businesses consider handling marketing in-house. For instance, we maintain established relationships and connections with key industry players, such as Google Ads and Meta (Facebook) representatives. These connections provide us with valuable insights, early access to new features, and dedicated support, ensuring our clients’ campaigns are optimized for maximum impact.

Additionally, we invest in state-of-the-art software, tools, and equipment. These tools enable us to create high-quality, visually stunning content that captivates audiences and effectively communicates your brand’s message. Acquiring and maintaining these resources in-house can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for smaller businesses.

Takeaway: By outsourcing your marketing to an agency, you’re connected to cutting-edge resources, from industry connections to specialized software.

Here’s a Quick Recap:
  1. You gain access to a multidisciplinary team of experts, ensuring your marketing efforts are effective, when you outsource your marketing.
  2. Having an agency like Paragon Marketing Group manage your marketing offers significant cost savings compared to building an in-house team,
  3. By outsourcing your marketing to an agency, you’re connected to cutting-edge resources, from industry connections to specialized software.

By outsourcing your marketing efforts, you gain access to a team of experts, cost savings, and cutting-edge expertise and resources. This approach allows you to focus on your core business operations while leaving your marketing in the hands of professionals dedicated to driving results.

If you’re ready to take your marketing efforts to new heights, consider outsourcing to Paragon Marketing Group. Please visit our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092 to learn more about how our team of experts can deliver tailored, innovative, and results-driven marketing solutions that propel your business forward.

How To Make A Lasting First Impression For Your Brand

A small business owner shaking hands with a client after making a good first impression of his brand

In today’s competitive landscape, making a strong first impression for your brand could be the difference in someone choosing your business over a competitor’s. If you want your small business to stand out in the market, it’s essential to craft a memorable brand image that will resonate with your target audience.

In this blog post, we’ll explore some effective marketing tips to help your brand make a positive and lasting first impression.

How to Make a Lasting First Impression for Your Brand

Uncover four key insights into crafting a brand presence that leaves a lasting mark on your customers and prospects alike:

Plans for a brand to make a lasting first impression on a desk
How can your brand make a lasting first impression?

1. Establish a Professional Website

In the digital age, having a professional website builds credibility and attracts customers. Your website serves as the online face of your brand, providing visitors with valuable information about your products or services.

To ensure your website makes a positive first impression, your website should be . . . 

  • User-friendly. Visitors should find your website easy to navigate and understand. Your site should have a flow to make it seamless for users to explore with clear CTAs (calls to action) to move visitors toward making a purchase, booking a service, or contacting the business.
  • Visually appealing. There’s a science to color and design, and visitors will see right through a website that had no time and effort put into its design. Your website shouldn’t be filled with ads, difficult-to-read fonts, or eight different colors.
  • Mobile-responsive. Some of your client base might be on a computer. Others may be on a tablet or mobile device. If you want your site to attract the highest possible number of visitors, then it must be accessible across multiple devices.
  • Optimized for SEO. Optimizing your site for search engines will improve your site’s visibility and attract organic traffic.

Takeaway: Establishing a professional website that is user-friendly, visually appealing, mobile-responsive, and optimized for SEO will help make a positive first impression for your brand.

2. Maintain an Active Social Media Presence

Social media platforms offer a valuable opportunity to engage with your audience and showcase your brand’s personality. But have you ever visited a company’s Facebook or Instagram account and realized they hadn’t posted in a few months? Visitors are often left to fend for themselves or become “detectives” in finding the information for which they’re searching.

That’s why consistently posting relevant and engaging content on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Nextdoor, or other platforms can answer the questions for which visitors might be searching all while helping your brand build awareness and establish credibility in your industry.

Aside from posting consistently, here are a few ways you can actively engage with your clients on social media:

  • Respond to comments and messages promptly.
  • Stay up-to-date with current trends.
  • Note what type of content with which your visitors engage, and then share more of that content on your platforms.

Takeaway: Build positive brand awareness by maintaining an active social media presence through consistent posting and active engagement.

3. Invest in Quality Creative Assets

Compelling creative assets are essential for capturing the attention of your audience and conveying your brand message effectively. Invest in high-quality assets, including photography, videography, graphic design, and marketing materials, to convey professionalism and attention to detail.

Similarly, well-crafted copy that speaks to your brand’s values and resonates with your target audience can help you make a memorable impression and differentiate your brand from competitors. Whether you collaborate with in-house creatives or contract with a marketing agency like Paragon Marketing Group, we recommend having talented professionals create visually stunning content that reflects your brand’s personality and values.

Takeaway: Investing in high-quality creative assets can help your brand stand out and leave a lasting impression on potential customers.

4. Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Delivering exceptional customer service is key to making a positive first impression and building long-term relationships with your customers. Your branding never stops at the sales or marketing side. To maintain a positive reputation and establish your brand as one where people want to give their business (and continue giving their business), you need to provide extraordinary customer service. A few ways you can accomplish this include:

  • Responding to inquiries and concerns quickly. If there’s been an issue with a client’s service or product, one of the best ways you can manage the problem is by responding quickly so that the client understands they’re a priority. Often the way in which you defuse a tricky situation can become more memorable than the issue itself.
  • Address customer feedback and reviews thoughtfully. As a small business owner, it’s never easy to receive a critical review or negative feedback. But that doesn’t mean you can’t respond professionally, even if the review was unkind or untrue. Plus, other prospective clients will be watching and reading what you respond. How you respond will tell them whether or not your business is worth considering.
  • Go above and beyond to exceed customer expectations. There are so many ways you can accomplish this. Whether you offer a special discount, give extra attention to detail to a customer’s account, follow up on service where a client had concerns, or even offer a listening ear, you can always find a way to exceed expectations. Your customers will not forget how you made them feel.

Takeaway: By prioritizing customer satisfaction, you can create a positive reputation for your brand and earn the trust and loyalty of your audience.

Here’s a Quick Recap:
  1. Establishing a professional website that is user-friendly, visually appealing, mobile-responsive, and optimized for SEO will help make a positive first impression for your brand.
  2. Build positive brand awareness by maintaining an active social media presence through consistent posting and active engagement.
  3. Investing in high-quality creative assets can help your brand stand out and leave a lasting impression on potential customers.
  4. By prioritizing customer satisfaction, you can create a positive reputation for your brand and earn the trust and loyalty of your audience.

Crafting a strong first impression for your brand is essential for small businesses looking to succeed in today’s competitive market. By following these marketing tips and investing in your brand’s online presence, design, and customer service, you can create a memorable and impactful brand image that resonates with your target audience.

To learn more, please visit our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092 to learn more. We’re here to help you elevate your brand and make a lasting impression.

Why Your Website Content Matters

A computer on a desk with a website on screen, showing the value of good website content

Your website is often the first impression potential customers have of your business. While visual design sets the stage, it’s your website content that informs, engages, and compels visitors to become customers. High-quality website content should be a top priority for small business owners looking to drive leads and sales online.

Why Does Your Website Content Matter?

Let’s review some of the biggest benefits your website and business will experience from having high quality content:

Two working professionals working on their website content
Why does your website content matter?

Provides Value for Visitors

Excellent website content should educate, engage, and add value for visitors. But before you can think of how your website content can achieve these action items, put yourself in the shoes of a website visitor and ask yourself, “Why are they viewing my website?”

Once you know that answer (you may have multiple answers), your website needs to provide solutions. Consider these ideas:

  • Offer tips and how-tos. Depending on the products or services your business offers, this can be really helpful for both current and potential clients. If you want to include more detailed, in-depth information about your products/services, consider having a blog on your website.
  • Provide an explanation of products/services. Ever hear the saying, “Can’t see the forest for the trees”? While you know your product or service inside and out, odds are that most people do not. It’s a delicate task to explain what your products/services are in a cohesive, structured way while not providing too much content or detail but also offering enough information so viewers aren’t confused.
  • Share local information. Where is your service area? Who is your target customer? Sharing helpful information about the areas you serve, how your business fits into the area, and any relevant contact information will make it simple for your ideal customer to work with and contact you.

Providing truly useful content keeps readers engaged and spending more time on your site.

Takeaway: Creating high quality website content by offering tips, providing an explanation of services, and sharing local information will provide value to website visitors.

Boosts Your SEO

Well-written, keyword-focused website content also aids search engine optimization (SEO). While the use of AI to help create content can be useful, it can’t completely replace a human writer or optimize your content for SEO.

You can write the best content, but without properly utilizing relevant keywords throughout natural-sounding copy, search engines like Google won’t be able to understand your pages’ topics. Not having your content indexed by search engines will directly impact how high you can rank in search results.

The moral of the story? Optimized content attracts more qualified organic traffic to your site.

Takeaway: High quality content optimized for search engines will help you rank higher in search results and drive more traffic to your website.

Supports Your Overall Marketing

Your website content isn’t just the hub that anchors all marketing efforts driving traffic to your site – it’s also the only digital “salesperson” operating 24/7 for your business. Just like your branding should be consistent across all graphic design, web design, and print materials, so should your web copy align with and support campaigns across social media, PPC ads, email marketing, and more.

Strong, consistent content better converts that traffic into leads across channels.

Takeaway: Your web copy is an integral part of your marketing that requires consistency across all relevant marketing channels.

Enhances the User Experience

If you’ve ever been on a website and were unable to find the information you’re looking for, clicked links that turned out to be broken, or couldn’t understand the information provided, you might have decided that business wasn’t worth working with, given your negative experience.

Users should be able to easily navigate and find information on your site. Here are a few ways you can achieve this through your website content:

  • Write descriptive headers that are clear so visitors can quickly scan and jump to the sections most relevant to them.
  • Include bulleted lists to help break up dense paragraphs and highlight key takeaways, which helps retain reader attention.
  • Use ample paragraph breaks to make the content less intimidating and easier to digest so readers are not confronted with a huge wall of text.

Add internal links to improve user experience, allowing visitors to seamlessly navigate to other related pages of interest. This keeps visitors on pages longer, and viewing more content rather than quickly clicking away.

Takeaway: Well-written and organized website copy results in a positive user experience that keeps people on your site longer and viewing more content overall.

Increases Leads and Sales

Informative, engaging website content educates consumers so they feel confident doing business with you. By consistently providing valuable information through your copy, you establish expertise and credibility. Readers see you as an authority they can rely on for solutions related to your products or services.

Here’s an example of how this might look on a buyer’s journey:

  1. First, they may land on a blog post from a search, learning about their problem. 
  2. Second, they read about tips for evaluating solutions, building desire.
  3. Finally, more content compares options and outlines your process, nurturing leads.

With each stage, viewers become more qualified due to the knowledge they’ve gained from your website content. They feel assured you understand their needs and can provide the right solution.

In this way, useful copy moves prospects through the sales funnel, turning cold traffic into engaged subscribers, qualified leads, and finally loyal customers. Your website content plays a central role in attracting and converting visitors throughout the buyer’s journey.

Takeaway: When every piece of website copy, from blog posts to service pages, focuses on addressing needs, solving problems, and clearly communicating value, website visitors can become qualified leads and loyal customers.

Here’s a Quick Recap:
  1. Provide value: Creating high quality website content by offering tips, providing an explanation of services, and sharing local information will provide value to website visitors.
  2. Boost SEO: High quality content optimized for search engines will help you rank higher in search results and drive more traffic to your website.
  3. Support marketing efforts: Your web copy is an integral part of your marketing that requires consistency across all relevant marketing channels.
  4. Enhance user experience: Well-written and organized website copy results in a positive user experience that keeps people on your site longer and viewing more content overall.
  5. Increase leads & sales: When every piece of website copy, from blog posts to service pages, focuses on addressing needs, solving problems, and clearly communicating value, website visitors can become qualified leads and loyal customers.

At Paragon Marketing Group, we understand that creating great website content requires an investment of time and resources. But the payoff in increased visibility, traffic, leads and sales makes it well worth it.

If you need help with your website content, contact our team to perform an audit of your current site and revamp the copy to deliver better results. Let us optimize your 24/7 online salesperson through high-impact website content.

To learn more, please visit our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092. We’d love to hear from you.

The Power of Reviews: How to Get More for Your Small Business

a woman on her phone demonstrating the power of reviews

Positive reviews are vital for small businesses competing in the digital marketplace. With 92% of people reading online reviews before making purchasing decisions, reviews influence your discoverability, reputation, conversions, and even SEO, proving how far the power of reviews stretches. This makes cultivating an outstanding review profile essential.

Understanding the Power of Reviews for Your Small Business

To understand the power of reviews, let’s review the benefits positive reviews can provide for your business as well as some effective strategies to help you procure those reviews:

5 gold star next to a keyboard, showing the power of reviews on a small business
How many 5-star reviews do you have for your business?

Benefits of Great Reviews

Many business owners are so overwhelmed with running their businesses that garnering positive reviews on Google, Facebook, or Yelp usually isn’t top of mind, much less a priority. But positive, 5-star reviews provide many advantages that can significantly impact your success, including the following:

  • Boost credibility and trust in your business
  • Improve local search rankings and drive traffic
  • Persuade prospects to convert into customers
  • Promote repeat business and referrals
  • Counteract any negative reviews
  • Build brand authority and clout in your niche

With so much to gain, focusing on getting more online reviews should be a priority. But even if you understand the many benefits of good reviews, how do you actually get them?

Takeaway: Prioritizing the procurement of positive reviews for your small business will boost your credibility, improve your SEO, lead to referrals, and promote repeat business.

Strategies to Get More Reviews

At Paragon Marketing Group, we understand that it takes some effort to maintain a robust review profile. However, implementing these simple strategies can help generate more customer feedback on an ongoing basis.

Ask for Reviews Everywhere

The easiest way to get reviews is to directly ask satisfied customers to leave feedback. But don’t limit yourself to just one platform. Collecting reviews across multiple sites broadens your exposure. Make sure to include the following sites:

  • Google My Business – Google is the most common site potential customers will visit, making it critical for visibility. This requires your business to have an official Google My Business profile so customers can find you.
  • Facebook – While Facebook isn’t used as much as Google for reviews, getting reviews on Facebook helps with social proof, especially as Facebook still reigns as the most popular social media platform in the world.
  • Yelp or Houzz – Depending on the industry your small business is in, you may want to consider an industry-specific site like Yelp or Houzz where people leave reviews as these specific sites build authority within their particular niches.
Make Review Requests a Routine

A key strategy to get positive reviews for your small business is to incorporate review requests into your regular customer interactions. Some best practices to implement into your schedule include the following:

  • Ask for reviews once a purchase has been made.
  • Add a link directly to your Google My Business or Facebook page in email signatures.
  • Print a QR code on receipts, invoices, or custom cards to hand out to customers.
  • When you or sales staff are face-to-face with clients, request verbally at the point of service.
  • Promote positive, 5-star reviews on your social media platforms and website.
Offer an Incentive

Encouraging reviews through a reward or giveaway helps motivate customers. Offer a discount, free product sample, or entry into a prize drawing in exchange for leaving a review. Just ensure incentives are not conditional upon getting a 5-star rating.

Respond and Interact . . . No Matter the Review

Being engaged with your reviews shows customers you listen and care. Always respond promptly and politely to feedback – positive and negative. This fosters goodwill and shows your brand values customer perspectives.

From a customer perspective, negative reviews for a business may hold significant weight. But so does the way in which the business responds to those reviews. Consider this advice from Skip on how to address negative reviews.

Takeaway: Actively asking for reviews and incorporating the process into your routine will enable you to garner those positive reviews you need.

Here’s a Quick Recap:
  1. Prioritizing the procurement of positive reviews for your small business will boost your credibility, improve your SEO, lead to referrals, and promote repeat business.
  2. Actively asking for reviews and incorporating the process into your routine will enable you to garner those positive reviews you need.

With a rigorous review generation strategy, you can build the social proof and reputation that propels business growth.

At Paragon Marketing Group, we’d be remiss if we failed to take our own advice. So we’re going to implement our first recommended strategy to obtain a few reviews. If you’re a client satisfied with the level of surface we’ve provided, will you leave us a 5-star review on Google?

If you need help managing your online presence or more strategies for procuring positive reviews, please contact us. Visit our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092. We’d love to hear from you.

3 Ways to Gain Marketing Independence for Your Small Business

Close-up of American flag to celebrate independence

This fourth of July, maybe you’re planning to watch fireworks or attend a parade. Whatever you end up doing, it’s a great time to celebrate that we live in a free country where we’re free to run our own businesses. But have you ever considered what your life could be like with marketing independence?

3 Ways to Gain Your Marketing Independence

As a small business owner, responsibilities often outweigh the freedom that comes with owning a business. And along the way, we’ve learned it’s impossible to be an expert in every aspect of business.

Maybe you’ve also been craving that freedom to focus on the aspects of your business where you most excel in, but you’re unsure how to get there.

So we’re going to share three ways you can gain your marketing independence:

A small business owner celebrating his marketing independence
Let’s celebrate your marketing independence!

1. Take Ownership of Your Digital Assets

There is a freedom that comes from ownership. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with leasing a car or renting a home, there is freedom in owning your vehicle or home. When you own your home, you can decide if you want to replace the carpet, paint the walls, or even renovate your kitchen. But when you rent, there are rules in place that don’t allow you to make any significant changes when your home is owned by someone else.

So what are digital assets, and why should you own them?

Digital assets can be anything that can be stored as a file.

  • Does your business have a website? That’s a digital asset.
  • Do you have a company logo, specially designed graphics that live on your website, project files, videos, or audio clips? All of these can be classified as digital assets.
The second part of the question – why should you own them?

Owning your digital assets will give you freedom to do whatever you want with them.

  • Do you want to share a testimonial video on your social media pages? You can do that when you own them.
  • Do you want to change the color of your logo? You can do that when you own it.
  • Do you want to make small updates to your website? You can also do that when you own it.
But how do you know if you own your digital assets?

If you’ve hired an agency, a contractor, or a freelancer, you have to check with them. Many business owners don’t realize that agencies, designers, and freelancers all have the right to own digital assets – yes, we’re talking about your business’s assets. 

At Paragon Marketing Group, we do not take our clients’ assets. After you pay for your assets, they become yours forever – and not just while we work together. If you decide to leave or hire someone else, all your assets will still belong to you. We do not keep them or hold them as leverage against you if you decide to move on from working with us.

Our advice is to check with whoever does your marketing to find out whether or not you own your digital assets. And if it turns out that you are not the owner, find a marketing agency like Paragon Marketing Group that will give you the freedom to own your business’s digital assets.

2. Gain Independence from Your Competitors

No business wants to look identical to its competitors.

For example, if you had to choose between two different fried chicken restaurants that used the same color scheme, had the exact same menu, were open the same hours, and even hired the same wait staff . . . which would you choose?

You would probably ask what makes each restaurant unique:

  • What are their differentiators?
  • What makes one stand out from the other?
  • Which restaurant has the better chicken?

Obviously, this is a ridiculous question. Of course no two restaurants are identical. 

But let’s say these places are real. Imagine what would happen if one of the restaurants decided it wanted to be different from their competitor:

  • What if they updated their logo and colors to fit a theme that supported their mission to be sustainable?
  • What if this same restaurant updated the format of their menu to make it more readable and clear to customers?
  • What if they updated their hours and then advertised them across all their listings – social media pages, Google profile, website, so that customers could easily determine when they could patronize it?
  • What if they shone a light on their uniquely talented wait staff and advertised them on their website?

We could go on with the “what ifs.”

So when it comes to gaining independence from your competitors, it’s important you don’t implement the same exact marketing strategies that they are.

Consider asking yourself questions like these:
  • Are your competitors using a cookie cutter free website template? Then look into finding a clean, professional look that will accurately reflect your business.
  • Do all their graphics look the same because they use the free version of a popular design software? Then consider learning (or hiring a professional) to create unique, beautiful graphics that will set your designs apart from your competitors.

If you ever notice your competitors jumping on a bandwagon or following a trend, stop and think about it before you jump on with them. Ask yourself if taking part in something that’s trendy is actually going to help market your business . . . or maybe look like you’re just trying to fit in with everyone else. And if you’re thinking about hiring a marketing agency (or if you already have), ask the hard questions, like how they’ll help your business stand apart from the competition.

3. Find Freedom in Running Your Business

After all this talk, you might be thinking “these are great ideas, but who has the time?”

We know the struggles that come with running your own business. But no one Paragon employee knows every detail of every aspect of running a business. And if one of us did, that person certainly doesn’t have the time to implement every great strategy that exists.

At Paragon Marketing Group, our owner Skip doesn’t manage every invoice, design every graphic and website, curate every social media post, pen every video script, or shoot every video. He has a capable team who each uses his or her own expertise to accomplish these tasks.

And having a team of experts to help support Paragon Marketing Group has given Skip great freedom to run his business.

We would love for you to find freedom in running your business, too. And one great way you can do that is to gain some independence in your marketing.

Maybe that looks like hiring a single person in-house to do your marketing.

Maybe that means setting aside a few hours each day to work on marketing, yourself.

Or maybe you could hire a marketing agency like Paragon Marketing Group to run your marketing so you can enjoy the freedom to run your business.

Gaining marketing independence will look different for everyone.

Here’s a Few Takeaways:
  1. Make sure you own your digital assets (and if you don’t, hire someone who will let you).
  2. Differentiate yourself from your competitors (don’t become dependent on your competitors for marketing ideas).
  3. Enjoy the freedom of running your business by not taking on all of your marketing alone (find someone who can help).

If you have any questions, we’re here, and we’re ready to help.

Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our podcast, the Main Street Marketing Podcast, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your audio platform of choice.

Your Marketing Can’t Take a Vacation

marketing can't take a vacation

It’s summer time! The sun is shining, the temperature is up, students are out on summer break, and many people are getting ready to go on vacation. You might also be preparing to go on a much needed (and well-deserved) vacation. But just because you can go on vacation doesn’t mean your marketing should.

Today, we’re going to give you three reasons why your marketing can’t take a vacation  . . .

3 Reasons Your Marketing Can’t Take a Vacation

It might only seem fair that your marketing should get a break (or better, you), but we stand firm behind these three reasons your marketing shouldn’t stop over the summer months.

Don’t let your marketing take a vacation this summer . . .

1. Your Business Will Take a Hit

If you’ve read any of our former posts, you’ve probably heard us say this many times before, but we’ll say it again: you should view marketing as an investment, not an expense.

Marketing has so many positive functions in your business. It . . . 

  • Informs and educates people about your business and your products/services.
  • Keeps your customers engaged and builds credibility not just for your current customers but also for your new customers.
  • Enhances your business’s reputation from having a professional website to represent your business, to five-star reviews on your Google profile, to great customer service on your social media profiles.
  • Gives you leads and generates interest in your business which leads to sales.
  • Grows your business as you implement marketing strategies.

So if you understand even just a little bit about how much value marketing offers your business, imagine what would happen if you stopped marketing altogether.

Let’s say you stopped updating your website. You stopped Google ads, didn’t bother updating videos on your site from 10 years ago, and stopped posting to your social media profiles. Your digital graphics are at least 7 years old. Your Google profile doesn’t have your business’s updated address, hours, or phone number. You stopped implementing SEO keywords into your blog, website, and social media strategy.

Alone, these issues might not seem like a big deal. But when you start to look at the big picture, you’ll notice that when you stop marketing your business, you have a LOT to lose, like . . .

  • Leads, because they’ve never heard of your business.
  • Credibility, because your listings aren’t up-to-date.
  • Engagement, because you stopped engaging with them.
  • Reputation, because your site and graphics aren’t professional.
  • Visibility, because you aren’t implementing SEO.
  • An edge over competitors, because they didn’t stop marketing . . . YOU did.

2. Your Competitors Won’t Take a Vacation

Let’s backtrack here for a second.

If you’re a business owner, you’re really busy. You’re juggling a lot. You’re working through the challenge of owning a business and trying to market it at the same time.

Running a business isn’t easy, so of course, trying to do all your business marketing is a major undertaking.

If you’re taking a break from your marketing, you might just feel burnt out. You might be struggling financially and feel like you can’t dedicate any of your budget to marketing. Or you might not even be purposefully taking a marketing vacation . . . maybe you’ve been so busy, you’re just doing as much as you can and marketing is on the back burner.

Whether you’re actively marketing or taking a break, remember this: your competitors aren’t taking a vacation. Your competitors are actively marketing their businesses. They’re going after the same clients as you are. They’re probably viewing your website and trying to find out how they can differentiate themselves from you. Maybe they’re watching your social media strategy and replicating whatever you’re doing because it’s working. Perhaps they’re targeting the same locations as you. They might even have similar brand colors as your business. They’re working to educate their clients – and future clients – on the same things.

So if your competitors aren’t taking a marketing vacation, then guess what . . . you shouldn’t be either!

But what are you supposed to do if you don’t have time for your marketing . . . ?

Well . . .

3. You Have Other Marketing Options

We’ve already established why you shouldn’t take a vacation from your marketing.

And perhaps there’s a good chance that if you are taking a marketing break, it’s not that you want to . . . you just need help.

Think of it like this: when you go on vacation and leave your kids at home, you don’t just tell them, “Hey, have a great week – figure things out!” (Can you imagine what your 5-year-old or 10-year-old would do?)

Or perhaps when you go on vacation, you have a couple dogs. You don’t just leave out the bag of food and wish them good luck. You bring them to a doggy daycare or invite over a trusted friend or relative to watch them.

And for those of us who like plants, we don’t go on vacation for two weeks and never ask anyone to water them . . . 

So just like our kids, our pets, and even our plants need looking after when we’re on vacation, so does your marketing.

As a business owner, you might not even remember what it feels like to go on vacation. Most business owners can share stories of working grueling hours, rarely getting enough sleep, and just barely managing their lives outside of work. But sometimes, you deserve to go on vacation.

And the even better news? You can go on that vacation. Just make sure you leave your marketing in trusted hands.

At Paragon Marketing Group, we’re here so you can take the vacation, that well-deserved time off from work. Our tagline says it well:

“You run your business, we’ll run your marketing.

Paragon Marketing Group

You don’t want your business to suffer because you haven’t been marketing. And you don’t want to lose business to your competitors because you don’t have the time to market.

Whether you need to lighten your workload and hand off some of your marketing tasks, or you’re looking to completely get marketing off your plate, Paragon Marketing Group is here to help.

Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our podcast, the Main Street Marketing Podcast, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your audio platform of choice.

Why Marketing Consistency Matters

Discussing marketing consistency and strategy

In business, there isn’t any advice we could offer that would discourage being consistent. But what about marketing consistency?

See, when most people hear the word “consistency,” they think of repeating the same things over and over again. And while repetition plays a role, there’s a whole lot more to it.

How to Build Marketing Consistency into Your Business

You’ve probably read a lot about the importance of brand consistency, and why it’s so important for your business to maintain it. And that’s true — brand consistency is important! But how do you build marketing consistency into your business?

Building consistency into your business marketing is key to your marketing success.
Building consistency into your business marketing is key to your marketing success.

1. Implement General Consistency in Your Business First

Before you can bring marketing consistency into your business, it’s important to understand how being consistent in general business tasks will set you up for success in your marketing.

There are several definitions for the word “consistency,” but our favorite is probably an “agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole.”

Consistency brings harmony of parts. Ultimately, consistency brings a wholeness to whatever you’re doing.

Think of consistency in the same way you’d maintain your vehicle. When you buy a car, it’s an investment. You don’t just buy it but never take care of it. You get oil changes, you wash your car, you change its tires. And these aren’t just one-time tasks. You do it multiple times throughout the year on a consistent basis, once every 2,000 miles, or quarterly.

The same goes for your business. You don’t just start a business and perform each task one time. Employees will receive regular paychecks. You’ll ensure your business information is secure every day. You’ll even lock your door every time you leave — not just the first time.

So if you’ve established general consistency practices in your business, you understand how important those processes are. Because without them, your employees won’t get paid, your confidential information won’t be secure, and your office will be open for anyone to stop in and take whatever they want.

It stands to reason that your marketing should also be consistent.

2. Understand How Consistency Will Benefit Your Marketing

You know it’s important to be consistent in a general sense. But how can consistency specifically benefit your marketing?

  • Consistency builds predictable results (You know what’s coming when you’re consistent.)
  • Consistency leads to greater financial returns (The easier you make it for clients, the more likely they’ll spend money.)
  • Consistency helps in the long-term (Better to focus on the big picture by staying consistent rather than just put out short-term fires.)
  • Consistency clears up confusion (Your message will be clear to your customers when you’re consistent with how you put it out there.)
  • Consistency builds trust with your customers (Your business information and your message should be the same across platforms.)

And those benefits just scratch the surface. The power of consistency in your marketing can enable you to accomplish far more with it than without it. But understanding that consistency is beneficial isn’t enough. You also have to put in the work.

3. Build Consistency into Your Marketing

Consistency is all about developing processes and following through with them. You can’t just hope that you’ll always be consistent.

Consider including these ideas when incorporating consistency into your marketing:

Make a long-term plan.

Planning for the next hour or day isn’t enough. If you want to repeat the benefits of long-term success, then you need to figure out how consistency will play a long-term role in your marketing. Ask yourself:

  • In what ways have I already built consistency into my business? Can I apply those methods to other aspects of my marketing/business?
  • What areas can I start adding consistency with little effort, and which areas are going to require a longer planning period to build consistency into them?
  • How can I keep myself (and coworkers/employees) accountable in staying consistent with new procedures?

Cross-post consistently.

Keep your calls-to-action (CTAs) clear across all marketing channels. Don’t give 8 or 10 CTAs on your website or your direct mailer. Your customers won’t know what to do, and they’ll probably end up doing nothing.

When it comes to your digital channels, such as your website or social media sites, or even your Google profile, keep your information consistent. For example, don’t have one phone number on your Google profile, another one on your website, and a third one on your Facebook page.

Incorporate consistency behind the scenes.

The work you put in behind the scenes may take a lot of effort, but the important thing is that it be simple for the customer on the front end.

For example, let’s say you want to run a social media marketing campaign that starts with a giveaway and ends with five people winning prizes. How can you build consistency into this social media marketing campaign?

  • Creating a social media schedule and posting consistently will help your followers know when your posts will go live.
  • Curating a list of highly-followed and relevant hashtags and incorporating them into every social post on appropriate platforms consistently will reach more people
  • Developing a process to consistently test all tagged accounts, links that will be clicked, and words to be spell-checked before publishing posts will provide a much better user experience and provide professional credibility for your business.

Notice the common theme? Consistency.

Ultimately, building consistency into your marketing is no easy task. It takes a lot of work. But understanding why it’s so important for not just your marketing, but also your business as a whole can really help you become more consistent in your marketing.

At Paragon Marketing Group, we understand that many small businesses don’t have the time or the resources to apply a large-scale strategy, which is why we love sharing that marketing load, or even taking it completely off your plate. If you’re looking for advice or help regarding your marketing strategy, we’d love to help you.

You can contact us by visiting our website at paragonmarketinggroup.com or call us at 262-443-9092.

Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our podcast, the Main Street Marketing Podcast, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your audio platform of choice.

Top 10 Marketing Mistakes

Circling marketing mistakes in pink highlighter

“Don’t be a fool and make these marketing mistakes.”

Um . . . what?

We promise this isn’t a prank or an April Fool’s Joke. We’re not calling anyone a fool. Rather, as a small business, one of our biggest desires is that other business owners not make some of the most common marketing mistakes we’ve seen over the last several years.

Don’t Make These Top 10 Marketing Mistakes

Now maybe you’ve made some of these. Or maybe you’re looking for some tips on how to avoid making these mistakes. Either way, here are the top 10 marketing mistakes we’ve seen:

Business owner pondering what marketing mistakes he's made
Have you ever made any of these marketing mistakes?

Mistake #1

Your business doesn’t have a website OR your website is outdated.

Having a sleek, professional, and updated website is a vital part of your web presence. Not only will a website help your customers find your business online, but it will also give your business more credibility than organizations with just social media sites.

Mistake #2

You aren’t thinking about your mobile viewers.

More customers are conducting business, making purchases, and scheduling appointments on their phones today. So every business needs an attractive, functional, responsive, and mobile-friendly website that will serve your customers where they are and encourage them to spend more time on your site. Because more time on your site means a higher likelihood of them making a purchase.

Mistake #3

You don’t know who your audience is, where to find them, or how to reach them.

This is where marketing strategy comes into play. If you’re just throwing content onto the internet, there’s no way you can track, measure, or even hope for success. Determining who your target audience is (and where to find them) is a crucial step you should take before deciding which marketing channels to use.

Mistake #4

You don’t know who your competitors are or what they’re doing.

As a small business, you have to work even harder to get your message out there when you have competitors. Learning who your competitors are and what they’re doing — as in what’s working and what’s not — is vital to help you differentiate your business from the competition.

Mistake #5

You’re under-utilizing OR over-utilizing your social media channels.

Most people are on at least one social channel, if not several. This is great news, because that means your customers are ready and waiting for your business to interact with them! But successful social media requires a plan. Are you posting once every 6 months, or 6 times a day? You don’t want your audience to forget about you, but you also don’t want to annoy them. Come up with a plan and then consistently post to your social channels.

Mistake #6

Your business is difficult for your customers to find.

Before you can build trust with potential clients, listing your business in leading directories will make your business visible and easy to find. Plus, making your business easy to find in leading applications, search engines, and other directories will provide the validity your business needs to be established online.

Mistake #7

You’re hoping rather than creating a well-thought plan and strategy to accomplish your marketing goals.

We often don’t put enough stock into our plans. It’s so much easier to come up with a few marketing goals and then hope for the best! But marketing goals shouldn’t be just unfulfilled New Year’s resolutions. Schedule time to come up with a plan (or contact us so we can help you make one!), write down all your goals and your plans to accomplish them, and then start executing.

Mistake #8

You aren’t distinguishing your products/services from your competition.

For better or worse, you know you’re not the only business owner selling your product or service. You likely have local, regional, and national competitors vying for the same customers as you. That’s why it’s so important to differentiate your product or service. Ask yourself what separates you from all your competitors. Why should customers buy from you rather than from someone else?

Mistake #9

You’re trying to do all the marketing yourself OR you’re not doing any marketing at all.

Perhaps you’re trying to figure out how to market your business, or maybe you’ve even wondered how much money you should spend on marketing per month. Have you ever wondered how you’re supposed to have time to do all your marketing while trying to run your business? Whether you need to delegate marketing responsibilities to other staff or outsource your marketing altogether, we recommend not trying to do it all yourself. In fact, that’s where our company tagline comes into play: “You run your business, we run your marketing.” If you’re interested in outsourcing any of your marketing, we’d love to help you.

Mistake #10

You consider marketing an expense rather than an investment.

Like all things in life, it’s much easier to focus on the short-term than the long-term. Yes, it does cost money to outsource your marketing, but as a marketing agency, we stand by the belief that it’s so much more a long-term investment in your business rather than a short-term expense.

Let’s face it — no one is perfect at marketing. No business owner has all the answers and can do everything perfectly. In a way, we’re all fools to an extent, because it’s impossible to know everything. And even if we did know everything about running a business, our time can’t fully be dedicated to marketing our businesses.

And that’s really where we come in. At Paragon Marketing Group, we understand exactly what it’s like to feel overwhelmed. We know what it’s like to wear all the hats and juggle all the balls. We’ve been in your shoes before. And that’s why it’s so important that we not only help other small businesses like us, but also be a marketing resource that you can access whenever you need.

Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our podcast, the Main Street Marketing Podcast, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your audio platform of choice.