Monthly Archives: July 2008

Is your website prepared for the mobile revolution?

On this episode of Power to the Small Business, we welcome Holly Kolman. Holly is passionate about the coming mobile revolution. She tracks it, writes about it, and advises on it on her blog: Mobienthusiast. Are you prepared for the coming mobile revolution? You should prepare because it gets closer with each passing month and each new iPhone sold. The good news is you can prepare rather easily and Holly’s going to tell us how.

What you are getting in this episode is short, concise, and yet so important to reaching your customers in the future. There are very few opportunities to be the first in the game, this is one of those opportunities. The opportunity is called the mobile web.

Guest: Holly Kolman of Mobienthusiast

Length: 24 minutes

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The Mobile Web vs. The Desktop Web

 

More than 270 million smart phones will be sold worldwide next year. Smart phones are those web-enabled mobile phones like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Moto Q. As the use of smart phones rise, so will the use of the mobile web. That’s a great opportunity for the small business, but it’s also a challenge.

Websites display differently on mobile devices than they do on your desktop or laptop screen. The desktop web is a long, graphic-rich, application intensive experience. That won’t work on a mobile device because that website will take forever to load. And it will look like a jumbled mess on the mobile screen when it does load. But what to do? Holly thinks you should develop a mobile website as a companion to your existing site.

 

The Basics of Mobile Website Design

 

Holly Kolman shares with us some basic tips.

  1. Make your site is long and skinny.
  2. Develop your site without frames or tables.
  3. Use small graphics and don’t make your site big.
  4. Use ready.mobi to check the mobile readiness of your site.
  5. Test your mobile website on several different phones to see how it looks. Mobile websites do not look the same on all phones.
  6. Use site.mobi to create a free mobile website.
  7. Add a “click to call” feature

What To Do Right Now

 

  1. Register your .mobi domain name
  2. Get a basic site up
  3. Start getting traffic

Holly Kolman – Mobienthusiast

Mobienthusiast.mobi

Holly’s website and blog with news and advice on the mobile internet

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You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Show (for personal use only)

 

A Great Tagline is the Best Brand Communication Tool

On this episode of Power to the Small Business, we welcome Jim Morris. Jim creates compelling, evocative advertising. He also writes a weekly column for the Advertising for Peanuts blog. His specialty is creating taglines. His most famous tagline is for Flintstones Children’s Vitamins: We Are Flintstones Kids, Ten Million Strong . . . And Growing. Jim has created taglines for both large and small companies.

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Guest:

Jim Morris – The Communicaterer

Length: 28 minutes

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(Firefox users may have to refresh your screen to see player)

You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Show (for personal use only)

 

Taglines & Your Brand

I asked Jim about the importance of having a tagline. He believes that a good tagline is the single-most powerful, condensed, compact expression of your brand that you can have. Taglines show their value when you need to get your brand in front of people and connect with them in little space and time. The tagline is the first articulation of your brand.

However, a tagline is not an explanation and shouldn’t tell a long story. It needs to encapsulate the feeling you want people to have about you. For that reason, you should take great care in creating one. The key is having a clear sense of what your brand is.

The Don’ts of Tagline Creation

  1. Don’t brag or engage in chest-beating. Talk to the customer and not yourself.
  2. Don’t participate in tagline fads. Avoid formulas and plays on words based on popular sayings
  3. Don’t use one-word taglines.

The Do’s of Tagline Creation

  1. Start with a creative brief: a one page document that identifies:- Your goal- Your target- Your most compelling attribute
  2. Translate your brand promise into a tagline filtered through your brand personality.
  3. Decide on a voice, face, personality, and attitude of your brand.
  4. Find a professional to help you develop a good tagline
  5. Once you get a tagline, commit to it and put it on everything you do.

Jim Morris – The Communicaterer
TaglineJim.com

Jim’s personal website with examples of his work and contact information

Tagline Blog
Jim’s pithy column on taglines