It’s nothing personal. We get it. As a busy NH web design firm, we know it can be tough to come up with fresh ideas for blogs when you’ve already got a lot on your plate.

But we also know creating content that is useful, interesting or just cool—content people want to share—is one of the most effective ways to get more eyeballs on your site (that’s SEO) and more sales leads in your inbox. It’s a new year, and it’s time to inject some new ideas, fresh faces and punched-up content into your business blog. Here are a few ways to get started.

Get your team involved

If you’re the only person generating ideas and content for your blog…stop! Talk to your colleagues and toss ideas around together. Enlist someone with useful expertise to do a how-to post, like this, or an FAQs post, like this. You might even find that people from your community and circle of business contacts would like to guest blog on your site, collaborate on a post, or be interviewed for a post.

Do you have a satisfied customer who talks your business up to all his/her friends? Ask if he’d like to write a blog post about his experience with your company. (A caveat: too many different voices can muddy your branding. Is your blog supposed to be serious? Conversational? Authoritative? Cute? Be sure everyone contributing to your blog knows the answer to this question.)

…And your readers

Strive to write blog posts that encourage discussion, sharing and collaboration. If you have an engaged readership, you’ll find that their questions and comments give you new ideas for other blog posts. If one commenter has a good question, write a blog post answering it–chances are many other readers may have the same query. You can even put out a call to action, asking readers and social media followers to send you questions they’d like to see answered, and then write a reader FAQ post.

Think about things a lot of readers might not know about your industry and write a post debunking myths or simply “ten things you never knew about____”.  Write a blog post sharing an experience (ex. “how we finally took the leap into social media” or “our big move to the new office” ) and ask readers to share their own stories. This is not your personal blog, obviously, but you still want people to feel like there’s a human being behind the words.

Don’t limit yourself to text

Make a video—a tour of your office, a step-by-step tutorial, a Q&A session with a knowledgeable person (or, uh…a member of an alley fight club)—and post it on your blog. This doesn’t have to be TV-ready stuff. Most digital cameras shoot video that appears in decent quality online, and small video cameras like the Flipcam are affordable and easy to use. Two simple rules for shooting good amateur video:

1. Keep the camera steady. Get a tripod, a coffee can or a cardboard box–whatever.
2. Get shots of people doing things, not just staring into the camera and talking. We told you it was easy.

Don’t know how to edit and upload the video you shot? We can almost guarantee you know someone who does. (Try your nephew.)

You can also add galleries of still photos to your blog using tools like Flickr, Picasa or Photobucket—great for sharing pictures from events, candids from around the office or shots of an exciting new project. Adding multimedia elements like video and photos to your blog enhances the human side of your site: readers will feel like they have faces and voices to go with names. Before posting, include a brief text explanation and don’t forget your SEO keywords.

Take your creativity for a walk

Artists, writers and musicians know that creativity isn’t a lightening bolt or a muse whispering in your ear: it’s a muscle that needs regular exercise. We know you’re busy, but if you want to bolster your blog’s general oompf, take a little time each day to browse the Web in a focused way. Look at what other companies in your industry and companies you admire are doing on their blogs, and spend some time looking at creative inspiration sites like the ones listed below. You aren’t looking for stuff to copy, you’re looking for things that inspire you to make something new, different or better. (Note that very few people get their creative “aha!” moment from Facebook or videos of kittens in top hats. We’re talking about actively searching for inspiration, not promoting procrastination.)

And if you’re feeling truly stuck, don’t aimlessly surf the Web or stare at your computer screen in frustration, get moving! Taking a walk around the block or doing some yoga poses can unclog your right brain and get those creative juices flowing again. It’s science.

A few sites to visit for outside the box inspiration:

TED Talks – Like having the world’s best and brightest as your cool college professor. Sort by theme to find the inspiration you need.

Dribbble – “Show and tell for designers.”

Visual Thesaurus – Spiff up your sentences with this inspiring, playful tool.

Pinterest – People all over the web post what’s inspiring them today on virtual pinboards.

Co.Design – More great design inspiration.

GOOD – People doing interesting, important or just plain cool things to help out the planet and the people who live there.

What do you do when you need a little creative spark? What sites do you visit? And how are you planning to spice up your blog posts in 2012? Tell us in the comments, and happy blogging! As always, feel free to contact us with any questions (or if you’re interested in the raw video of the #Alleycam fight club).

Being a Web design company, we might not be able to change the world, but we can certainly help. In Paula Abdul’s words, “Our gift to you is the stage, what you do with it, is your gift to us.” (Yes, you did just read that – shout out to Paula for her wisdom this season on the X Factor.) We build the stage for many great organizations who spend their time and energy helping others.

To give back to our most giving clients during this holiday season, we’d like to share their stories. Be inspired, be moved. Heck, go ahead and donate even.

Northeast Passage

NEP empowers individuals with disabilities to define, pursue, and achieve their therapeutic recreation and adaptive sports goals. Founded in 1990, NEP is now a program of the College of Health and Human Services at the University of New Hampshire. Hiking, golf, quad rugby and cross-country skiing are just a few of the sports made available to people with disabilities through their efforts.

With a staff of certified therapeutic recreation specialists and a variety of volunteers from UNH’s recreational therapy and outdoor education programs, Northeast Passage has a passionate team that is constantly searching for ways to bring more recreation opportunities to people with disabilities. NEP opens the door to a world many felt closed.

And to that end, they even rent equipment. Their rental program makes it affordable to try it before you buy it. All of Northeast Passage’s programs give people with disabilities and their families the opportunity of choice and freedom they deserve. Check them out www.nepassage.org.

IMEC

The International Medical Equipment Collaborative is one of the leading organizations in the world bringing equipment and supplies to people in need across the globe. Their mission is to transform impoverished communities around the world by providing equipment and supplies to doctors, teachers, and farmers so they can better serve their communities.

IMEC’s programs also help the environment while helping the poor. Donations of used equipment from doctor’s offices, hospitals and other medical facilities that would otherwise be discarded are packaged into medical suites. With new supplies supplementing when necessary, suites contain everything needed to turn an empty room into a fully equipped hospital room. Recently, IMEC has begun to provide maternal/infant/pediatric medical suites as well as sets of tools and equipment to small family farms. The organization plans to expand into other services as well, going far beyond medical equipment. This is truly an organization that makes a difference! Check them out www.imecamerica.org.

And we would be remiss if we didn’t give a holler to all our nonprofit clients… Clean Air-Cool Planet, Conservation New Hampshire, Cross Roads House, Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, HubFamilies, IMEC, New Hampshire Film Festival, Northeast Passage, Portsmouth Community Radio WSCA-FM, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Southeast New Hampshire Habitat for Humanity, UNH’s Citizen’s Health Initiative. Thank you for all of your dedication and hard work. We appreciate the effort and passion you put into your organizations and our community.

We hope you’ve been inspired to do some good. There’s a whole lot to be done.

Once you’ve built an address book of contacts who have an interest in your business, an email newsletter is a perfect way to keep those contacts engaged. There are many services that you can pay to create and send email blasts to your contacts, but a favorite of ours is MailChimp, a service that is free up to 2,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month. (If you need more contacts or monthly emails, MailChimp’s pricing is reasonable and has both monthly and pay-as-you-go options that will fit any budget).

MailChimp has a suite of tools that allow you to create custom email newsletters without needing to know anything about coding or design software–think of it as a WordPress or Blogspot for e-mail newsletters. It can be an easy process even for someone who isn’t familiar with Web development. MailChimp can pull a logo and company colors right from your Web site and add them to your newsletter template automatically.

You can also choose from a variety of templates already on the site, or link your MailChimp account to your Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, iTunes or Etsy page. MailChimp can add social widgets to your emails too, so that you’re reminding your contacts to follow you each time they receive an email. The coolest feature of MailChimp, and the one that powers blog-fed automatic newsletters, is being able to link the RSS feed of your blog content. This RSS feed capability allows you to decide if you’d like to email your readers daily, weekly or monthly.

Email marketing, like all online marketing, requires that you keep people interested. You can’t just flood your contacts’ inboxes with emails and expect the sales leads to roll in. You need to provide something interesting and useful to your subscribers. Reward your email subscribers with occasional perks–access to an online sale a few days early, a code for free shipping, or just a simple “mention this email for 20% off your meal.”

Think about how often you should be sending out updates. Once a month is a good minimum to stick to, but if you have a business such as a restaurant or retail location that has weekly specials, you may want to do every week or every two weeks.  Do not send out email newsletters that don’t provide something useful or interesting simply because you’re trying to stick to a schedule. Most importantly, keep your emails short, sweet and enjoyable. A long, boring mass email is very simply not going to be read. Ask yourself–if this showed up in my inbox, would I take the two minutes it takes to read it?

Using a service like MailChimp can help you get the word out about each new blog post you publish. Although your subscribers might not always remember to visit your business blog, if they receive an email from you once or twice a month sharing the latest news and blog posts, they’ll return to your site and you’ll stay on their radar.

If you’re ready to get started, MailChimp has a great guide to getting started with email marketing, and loads of other guides for specific aspects of email marketing. And if you want to start using email marketing but just don’t have the time, we can help! We provide email marketing campaigns through MailChimp for many of our clients, and we’d love to help with yours. Get in touch with us by phone or email, or on Twitter or Facebook.

This story is often used as an example of rock and roll diva behavior, but the truth is that it was an ingenious safety measure. David Lee Roth explained in his biography that if the band got to the dressing room and found brown M&M’s, they knew that the promoters hadn’t read the rider thoroughly. This tipped off Diamond Dave that the elaborate staging, the electrical system and all of the other technical specifics of the show were also suspect and possibly unsafe.

Bad grammar is like brown M&M’s for your marketing. It makes you look sloppy, and it’s a red flag about your professionalism.

When you’re writing for the Web, it’s easy to get messy about grammar and spelling. It’s simple – maybe too simple – to just hit “publish” and send something into cyberspace without a thorough review. (It’s not just business blogs and websites. Print material is even more important because it’s permanent).

We know how it is: you’re updating your website in a big hurry, so you make a typo here and dangle a modifier there, and you don’t think much of it. When you do this, though, it’s obvious to your readers that you didn’t take a few minutes to check your professional work. Each stray apostrophe or misspelled word is a little chip in your image.

So how can you be sure your writing is as professional as you are? First, have someone look over your writing before you publish it. Of course, it helps if that person is good with writing and grammar, but it’s useful simply to have a fresh pair of eyes looking over your work. Nobody’s perfect. In fact, you might even find an error in this post. But take some time to avoid errors when you can.

Remember that spell check is great but not infallible. It can’t tell the difference between discreet and discrete, baited and bated, or Wales and whales. Check and double-check your work for spelling and for commonly confused words. (And turn off Office grammar check; it’s only good for adding confusion.)

A Few To Watch

Make sure you have no improperly used versions of they’re/their/there or instances of your/you’re confusion. Those are some of the most obvious errors to readers. Another common mistake is apostrophe use. Here’s a quick primer: Use an apostrophe after a noun to make either a possessive (Joe’s boat) or a contraction (Joe’s going to to the store, a contraction of “Joe is going to the store”). Don’t use apostrophes to make pronouns possessive (hers, its, theirs). But you do use an apostrophe when you want to make a pronoun into a contraction (It’s raining, you’re late, they’re happy). And never use an apostrophe to make a noun or a pronoun plural, except when it’s necessary for clarity. So “cross the t’s and dot the i’s” is acceptable but “I have two dog’s” is not.

Need more advanced help? Hit the bookstore. We’re a Web design company, which means the majority of our work is online. But we’ve still got paper-and-ink copies of the old Webster’s dictionary and the “Associated Press Stylebook” kicking around our office, and some of us even use them.

If you need help with grammar, you won’t find anything online that’s as helpful as an old-school copy of Strunk and White’s ”The Elements of Style,” although the OWL at Purdue is a close second. Everything you write – whether a client is going to see it or not – should get at least a once-over for punctuation, capitalization and spelling (and yes, this includes your social media updates).

Content that will be published online or used in a marketing campaign should get the fine-toothed-comb treatment and be read by at least two people. Finally, always think of your writing as a reflection on your company. Just as you wouldn’t go to a meeting in ripped jeans and flip flops, you shouldn’t publish or send sloppy writing.

In addition to being a NH Web design company, we’re also a full-service creative agency. We can help write and edit your blog posts, press releases, Web content and more, so get in touch. You can also check out our Facebook and Twitter pages. (And in case you’re wondering, we only eat orange M&M’s).

So we were excited – as caffeine addicts, marketers, and members of the Seacoast community – to see a special offer from Popovers on the Square which will happen Wednesday.

As part of celebrating its fifth anniversary in business, the European bistro-style cafe will donate 50%  of the price of each coffee-based product sold on Aug. 10 (from 7 a.m. – 11 p.m)  to the cause of creating a memorial park for the African Burying Ground.  Additionally, Popovers owner John Tinios will match every donation personally.

The African Burying Ground effort strives to memorialize those buried in a part of the city identified on a 1705 map as “Negro Burying Ground.” The area was paved over when the city expanded in subsequent years.

Coffins in the area at the intersection of Court and Chestnut streets were accidentally unearthed in 2003 by city workers. The city of Portsmouth has since formed a blue ribbon committee to create a memorial at the site.

To make a small donation to the effort, all you need to do is buy a coffee at Popovers on the Square, strategically positioned in Market Square, on Wednesday.

The promotion essentially means that 100% of all coffee sales on Wednesday at Popovers will be donated to the African Burying Ground. It is a generous offer from Mr. Tinios.

And be sure to tweet this, share it on Facebook, post to Google+ or share it in whatever way is going to spread the word. Download a flyer in support of the effort here.

Some American Express card holders are already getting cash back when they check in at selected locations around New York City, and so far it’s been a success for everyone involved.

The initiative is simple–you just go online, sync your American Express card with your Foursquare account and start getting deals. For example, if you check in at clothing store H&M on Foursquare and spend $75, you earn $10 that goes straight into your American Express account. New duds, cash back and a chance to be Foursquare mayor? Sign us up.

During the program’s beta testing, carried out at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin,  business owners reported that American Express cardholders who checked in on Foursquare spent 20 percent more than those who didn’t. In the initial tests, the partnership with Foursquare brought a “higher response rate than anything else we’re doing,” said AmEx vice chairman Edward P.Gilligan, in an interview with the New York Times.

The partnership is a great example of business leveraging social media to their advantage: Foursquare gets new members, local businesses gain customers, and American Express boosts the amount customers use their cards and maybe even adds some new deal-seeking cardholders.

Based on the success of Portsmouth’s first Foursquare day, we think this is something that could work here in the Port City. What do you think?

Do you use Foursquare? Would you use technology like this if it were brought to your city? And would it influence your decision to either start using Foursquare or get an American Express card? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Not a Foursquare member? Join here. Want to learn about how Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites can help your business? That’s what we’re here for. Contact us at 603.766.1902 or via our website.

It’s time to update your website. Take a deep breath. You can get through it.

Planning a new website design for your small business can be daunting. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but there are a few basic functions and content areas you should include to make it an effective marketing tool.

1. Contact information on every single page.

This seems simple, but a lot of companies miss this. Include the phone number you want people to call for sales inquiries. Preferably at the top of each page. Include a clickable “email us!” button that either opens an email client or links to your contact form.

2. A blog.

All social media marketing and other online marketing requires quality content. So if you’re considering any online marketing effort, you should start with a blog. To get maximum SEO benefit, your blog should be listed under your domain (something like www.yourcompany/blog) instead of off-site through a service like Blogger.com. A blog can help your business in so many ways that you may be crazy if you’re not considering a blog for your business.

Benefits include:

- search engine optimization (SEO)
- communications channel for your company that produces content shareable on social sites like Facebook and Twitter
- a way to establish your company as an expert in your industry and connect with your customers

3. An SEO strategy that targets your services and products

The customers who know your name can find your website. So optimizing your site so that people can find you through Google when they search “your company’s name” isn’t necessary. Of course you should include your company name on your website and in the metadata, but the fact is that your company’s name is going to be on your website so much that you probably can’t help but be found on Google for it. Instead, focus on generic terms that customers who may not know your business are searching for. For example, Vital Design wants to be found on Google for “Website design, Portsmouth, NH” rather than just “Vital Design.”

4. Geographic information in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Most businesses with brick-and-mortar locations rely on customers within a certain geographic area. Fortunately, when most people search for a product or service, they include a location. For instance, if you need a plumber, you might search “plumber in Portsmouth, NH.” This is why you should use your location in page titles and other metadata as well as in the text that appears on your website. If you have two or three main cities that you serve, you should consider creating landing pages on your site for each location.

5. Testimonials or case studies.

Potential customers need to trust you before choosing to work with you. Use your website to build your credibility and to share your expertise and track record keeping clients happy. Often, a testimonials page is one of the most-visited pages on sites we create for our clients. When you do get testimonials, ask your clients for permission to use their real names. Real endorsements from recognizable community members means a lot more than an anonymous testimonial.

If you provide case studies on your site, come up with a consistent, concise format to explain what problem your company solved and what process you went through to get there.

6. Photos or video of your work, your venue, or your team.

Customers like pictures. And they like to see that you know what you’re doing. If your company provides a service such as landscape design, custom cabinetry or IT cable clean-ups, show before and after pictures of your work. If you don’t have a portfolio (take some pictures) but in the meantime, you could show your impressively maintained fleet of trucks and equipment. If your service is something less tangible, such as insurance or life coaching, show pictures of your friendly staff and your clean, comfortable office. Better yet, include video. If you don’t have any of these kinds of photos, think about including imagery of the recognizable landmarks from your area to show you are part of the community.

7. A newsletter sign-up.

Give people a way to stay in touch with your company such as a newsletter sign-up. This will let you share information about your company through email marketing. Yes, you can certainly send out a newsletter by email each month, but you can also use this list to share information you think your clients and prospects will find valuable whenever you have it. If you have a blog or news page, an RSS feed subscription button is another good idea. This will let you stay in touch with your clients each time you add a blog post.

8. Social media accounts.

If you’re active in social media, include a page (or a section on the Contact page like this) where you list which accounts you have as well as how your company uses them.

What do you think? Have more questions about a website design? Comment below and be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to get regular Vital posts when they’re fresh.

But that’s only half the circle. If you go into a relationship with the understanding that by helping each other, everyone benefits, then you are really onto something.

Call it synergy, call it enlightened self-interest, call it a rising tide that lifts all boats. It doesn’t matter what you call it, the effect is real. So why don’t more business do it?

Business Relationships Take Time

This is not a quick fix. It takes time and effort to develop a genuine relationship with your partners. The Music Hall is a 900-seat historic theater in the heart of downtown Portsmouth, NH and it seems that every production we create or event we host involves partnering with a business, non-profit organization, or charity.

A great example of what I’m talking about is “Vintage Christmas in Portsmouth,” a collaboration between living history museum Strawbery Banke Museum, The City of Portsmouth, downtown hotels and the local chamber of commerce to make Portsmouth a destination in December.

By partnering, we expand our reach. We can offer amenities we couldn’t individually. And we have increased ad-buying power. Instead of competing for holiday dollars, we generate more money for everyone involved by making it easy to book a hotel, find a restaurant, go on a candlelight stroll, see a live show in our gorgeous theater, and get around Portsmouth’s lovely historic downtown.

Heading into its seventh year, Vintage Christmas is a boon to all involved. The hotels are happy to have something unique for guests. The Music Hall and Strawbery Banke are happy with increased ticket sales. The City and the chamber are happy because it is yet another way for Portsmouth to be a focal point in local, regional, and national media. The restaurants and shops are happy because we deliver customers to their doorsteps in December.

This is how the synergy works. When the restaurants are full, The Music Hall benefits. When The Music Hall has a show, the restaurants are full. There is a feeling that there is something going on and that feeds the feeling that there is, well, something going on. Portsmouth’s most prolific restaurateurs, Jay McSharry, points out the importance of The Music Hall in drawing business as a key reason he continues to support The Music Hall.

“For my business and many others downtown, The Music Hall is a key factor for success, an engine for growth,” said McSharry.

The Vintage Christmas example is a huge undertaking with a lot of staff resources. But collaboration can be simple, too. For example, you could host a social networking event that raises money for charity through foursquare checkins. It can be really easy. Really. Here are some tips.

Find the Right Collaborators
Many great ideas falter because one or both parties don’t follow through. You have a meeting and everyone is really excited about the idea, but nothing happens. Avoid this by choosing partners carefully and making your expectations clear. Do your homework, and make sure you’re not the problem.

Maintain the Relationship
Once you have that first collaboration with someone, make sure that you do a post-mortem. Find out what worked and what didn’t, make plans to do it again, better. Keep notes. Remember that these things often work best when it is not all about sell, sell, sell. It is a chance to engage your customers in a different and meaningful way.

Get Out There And Do It
While it may seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be. The best way to learn is to do. Once you start looking with fresh eyes at the possibilities around you and start talking to people, the ideas will start pouring out. Not all the ideas are feasible. Knowing the difference is a learned skill. Start small, and know when to say when.

What do you think? How have you partnered with other businesses in win-win situations? Let us know what you think below and be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to get regular Vital posts when they’re fresh.

But there are so many reasons your small to medium-sized business can benefit from a blog that you might be crazy if you didn’t consider it.

If you own or run a small to medium-sized business, I bet you can feel the economy improving. As people start to spend more, your business is ready to capitalize. Customers need and want your services.

Maybe you have a Yellow Page ad. Or you get leads every few months from your networking group. The prospects trickle in. Maybe your website sends leads once in a while.

But what you really want is a steady stream of prospects who find you online.

Because there’s a good chance that every single day, potential clients are looking for your services, products or expertise. The trouble is, they may not know you’re out there.

That’s why you need a business blog.

Because a blog can be a marketing tool. Say it with me, “Our blog is a marketing tool.” It can build your credibility, help your search engine optimization, and allow you to build trust and relationships with customers by communicating and connecting with them regularly. And it could be argued that a blog will do more for your business than a traditional website (especially if you have to pay a developer anytime you want to make changes). It can also help you set up an automatic newsletter that gets sent through email.

What is a business blog?

You may still think of a blog (short for web log) as a personal journal or diary that details your exciting adventures with your cat or your remarkable video gaming exploits.

Maybe that was the case 10 or 15 years ago. But at this point, you could argue that the term “blog” should just be replaced with “easily updateable website.” If you’re more comfortable thinking of your company’s blog as a news section, that’s ok. Because a blog is just a way to provide regular updates to your audience. It is simple enough to use that it can be updated by you or by your internal staff. One of the most common blogging platforms is WordPress, which is slightly more complicated than Microsoft Word. Just be sure your blog is integrated into your site under your website so it ends up having an address of something like www.ourcompany.com/blog (this is very important for search).

A blog for your business can take on whatever form you make it. You can define how you use it. It can be just a news channel where you post press releases. But it should be much more. It should be a way to share what you know, as well as a way to share your company’s culture and encourage your customers and audience to join in and interact with you.

Will a blog will help my business get found on Google?

One of the biggest benefits of a blog for your business is that each new post becomes a new page on your website – as long as your blog is set up properly. It’s no secret that Google, Bing and other search engines return to crawl your site when you have new content. And you can target each of those new pages for certain search terms. Want to be found for a term like “New real estate listings in NH” or “business blog development in the NH Seacoast“? ; ) Write a post about it.

You can also share each new blog post through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, or bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. The people who follow you in those areas (as well as their friends and followers) can easily share those posts with their friends and followers. We’re talking exponential exposure here.

So each time you create a new post, you’re not only offering valuable content (hopefully) that builds your credibility, you’re also creating shareable content that will generate inbound links to your site for the terms you want to be found for. Building these inbound links to your site is a huge portion of search engine optimization, which is what pushes you to the top of Google results.

Think about that. Are you paying a company for search engine optimization (SEO) services? Or paying them to build landing pages to capture leads? Those are great things to do, but if you had a business blog, you could target a specific search term in each post you wrote. You could write posts aimed at certain keywords that perhaps your competitors are being found for or are overlooking.

What do you think? Have you considered a business blog? Already have one? Let us know what you think below and be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to get regular Vital posts when they’re fresh.

Consistent and accurate branding can be a huge factor in stimulating consistent growth for your company. For Sperry Tents Seacoast, founded in 2006, developing a recognizable, distinguished brand – including logo design but also messaging and identity – for our high-end event tent company has been important for our marketing and word-of-mouth referrals. Sperry offers sail-cloth canvas tents that are hand-sewn and crafted by master sailmakers.

But our branding goes well beyond having consistent colors and a professional logo on everything we put out. Our brand is about relationships, how we work with people, and how our representatives present themselves. In addition to the great graphic design Vital provides, we’ve used three key elements for building our brand:

High resolution photos of our event tents

We partner with photographers and are happy to pay for the best shots of our tents, flooring, and lighting in action. We have a vast library of photos to choose from whenever we need to produce marketing materials, a website or an email.

Clean, professional uniforms, vehicles and signage

The Sperry brand means respectful, professional employees who are courteous and treat our clients’ property as if it was their own – but better. You’ll never see a Sperry employee on a job site without a tucked-in collared shirt or a jacket featuring the Sperry logo. Additionally, our trucks are clean, well-maintained and always feature consistent Sperry signage and logos.

Attention to customer service

Sperry Tents Seacoast always has a manager on-site who can make decisions quickly to answer customer questions and take care of concerns. It might be more lucrative in the short-term for us to have fewer staff at each event. But it would be a mistake – and a disservice to our customers – in the long run.

All of these things and many more have helped Sperry build a brand that clients often know before they even see our high-quality canvas tents or hear about our attention to customer service. In short, many of our prospective clients, whether brides-to-be or event and wedding planners, understand that the Sperry brand is a promise of high-end quality as well as a high level of personal customer service.

Sperry has worked closely with Vital Design to help translate the quality products and services we offer into what has become our Sperry brand. But it wasn’t always this way.

The beginning for Sperry was a fast grass roots growth fueled mostly by word-of-mouth referral. As we continued to grow, we looked to organize our unique services and customized approach into a uniform message for consumers and vendors alike. Vital has helped us establish a recognized brand with a clear promise. They’ve also helped translate this promise to our website, our social outposts, and our print and Web advertising.

In the events industry, it is extremely important to stay current and maintain relationships with everyone involved in the event planning process. Our social media and Web presence has also enabled us to keep the conversation alive with vendors and with brides-to-be.

To stay competitive and to really carve out a niche in your industry, a strong, established brand is essential. It’s the face of your company – the first thing prospective clients and your community see. A consistent messaging and brand strategy is about building relationships, trust and credibility so your audience and customers know what to expect from you.

Ideas on simple, authentic ways to build your brand? Please comment below!