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Brentwood Visual News and Tips

Facebook Admin Page Scam

No, Your Facebook Page Isn't Scheduled for Deletion

If you're an admin or receive messages from a business Facebook Page, you've likely received a notification within the past couple of weeks warning you of a purported copyright violation, and claiming that your page will be shut down unless you click a link to verify.

None of this is true.

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Swinging Open the Door to Local Advertising: Digital Door Hangers

Businesses are continually seeking new and innovative ways to connect with local audiences. One such strategy that has emerged is digital door hangers. But what exactly are they, and how can they transform your local advertising strategy?

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Changing the Game: Harnessing the Power of Apple Business Connect

We are on the precipice of a digital marketing revolution. The catalyst? Apple Business Connect. For the first time ever, businesses can directly control the information that appears on Apple Maps. This unprecedented change opens up a world of possibilities for businesses to tap into an enormous market previously underutilized: the 1.5 billion users of Apple products worldwide.

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Whose Email Is It, Anyway? The Case for Company-Owned Email Accounts

Email is an essential tool for businesses of all sizes, and while free email services like Gmail and Hotmail are convenient and easy to set up, they can cause problems for small businesses. In this article, we'll explore why it's crucial for small businesses to have control over their employees' email accounts and how Brentwood Visual Digital Marketing can help you set up and manage professional, domain-based email for your company.

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Here's Why Local Search Should Be On Your Radar

As a small business owner, you know that having an online presence is crucial for success. However, are you aware that having accurate local business listings can make a significant difference in helping your business stand out from the competition? In this article, we will discuss the importance of local search and why it should be on your radar.

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Mobile phone in the hand showing online reviews page

Can you afford to send 76% of your business to your competitors?

Business owners love to hate reviews. A positive review from a customer can put you on top of the world, while a negative review often feels unfair and leaves you feeling defeated. The policies of the review platforms may drive you crazy – especially when they 'filter' legitimate 5-star reviews and publish the negative reviews right at the top of your listing.

Instead many owners decide to give up on reviews entirely, under the assumption that "people never read reviews anyways". The truth is, you couldn't be more wrong, and by choosing to ignore reviews you're sending your best customers right to your competition.

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The Business Owner's Guide to Domain Name Management

For a business owner, your domain name is your most important online asset. The domain name controls how the world accesses your business, including your website, email accounts, and often subdomains pointing to portals and specific resources.

In spite of its importance, most people have relatively little insight into how the domain name works, the difference between the domain name and hosting, and how best to manage the whole process. In this article, I'm going to equip you with some basic knowledge about the technical aspects of domains, as well as tips on how best to manage your domain, based on over 20 years of web development experience.

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Woman browsing email at her computer

Understanding Email: The Ins and Outs of Accessing Your Business Email Account

If you're in business, email is a part of your daily life. But for as much as we use it, most people don't understand the technical "mysteries" behind their email address. As a result, many people stick with the free accounts such as Hotmail or Gmail, even though these aren't as professional as an email account that includes your domain name. Understanding the basics of account types and how to access your email can give you the confidence to make the switch to domain-based email, as well as make a huge difference in the way you interact with your email account and speeding up your daily workflow.

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Data driven marketing approaches

Data Driven Approaches to Content Marketing

The best marketing depends on data. Whether it’s the customer data that drives better targeting and segmentation, or the use of predictive analytics to understand buyer behavior, companies that use data are finding new ways to reach consumers and increase sales. In this post we will take a look at various approaches to marketing with data.

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Reopening Soon? Start Coordinating Now

As the shock of the COVID-19 Stay at Home Orders (coupled with the forced shutdown of businesses) finally begins to wear off, the focus is shifting to how to reopen.

Businesses owners will be faced with a myriad of decisions as individual States progress through their phased reopening plans. We'd like to offer our recommendations for how to coordinate your reopening through your digital presence.

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Emergency Communications for Small Businesses

The Coronavirus pandemic has plunged the entire nation into an unprecedented situation, and small business owners are struggling to keep their customers informed during a situation that seems to change moment by moment.

With as fluid as everything is right now, there is a lot of bad information and rumors floating around out there. Every few minutes someone has a new announcement about whether a business is open or closed, or will be closing soon. As a business owner or manager, you are in the best position to provide accurate information. The challenge is getting the information out there in a way that makes it easy for people to find.

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Driving traffic to your website (you may not be doing it right!)

Everyone wants to drive traffic to their website, and everyone wants that traffic to turn into paying customers. But sitting there waiting for that traffic to appear isn't a great approach.

Most marketing techniques fall into one of two very broad categories. Push marketing involves techniques that get your message out in front of the customer to make an impression on them. Pull marketing is creating content that is sitting there waiting for the customer to come find it. Without a well-designed strategy, we find that most business owners tend to focus on pull marketing. While this is important, without the balancing approach of push marketing you are not likely to see the results you are looking for.

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seo-infographic

Is SEO really the solution you're looking for?

Sometimes a buzzword seems to define an entire industry. In digital marketing, that buzzword seems to be SEO. When I introduce myself to someone and say I'm a digital marketer, the most common response is “Oh, you do SEO!”

Well yes, we do SEO. Oftentimes we’ll have a customer contact us asking for SEO, but when we dig into their needs we discover that SEO isn’t really what they’re looking for, and it’s often not the best solution.

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The Death of Facebook (and why it's not as close as you think)

Every few weeks, another doomsayer will pop up in the news announcing the imminent collapse of Facebook as a social platform. They’ll trumpet new user numbers from [insert competing platform here] and compare those to slowing percentage numbers from Facebook. They’ll cite Congressional investigations, the rise of Instagram influencers, and the #DeleteFacebook movement. They’ll compare Facebook’s stock price to the overall market, and proclaim that the collapse is soon to come.

They may be right. But then again, maybe not.

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Building Brand Authority Through Your Blog

At Brentwood Visual, we’re big on blogging. The blog is the single most useful tool in our marketing strategy, and the content created there is interwoven throughout your entire marketing campaign, from social media to improved SEO.

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Marketing sketch on the wall

Exploring the Digital Marketing Funnel

Throughout our website, you’ll see us refer to the “Digital Marketing Funnel”. Anyone who has taken a marketing class or read a good marketing book is familiar with funnels, and there’s nothing magical about ours.

What the funnel provides for us is a roadmap. It gives us a starting point, and a structure that we can come back to when we start to drift. All that glitters is not gold, and there is a lot of glitter out there in the marketing world. Everyone has new ideas on the latest and greatest thing that “every business” needs to be doing. Many of these ideas are exciting and innovative, but if they’re not incorporated with the end goals in mind they can lead us off track.

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Planning a Marketing Budget

How much should I spend on Digital Marketing?

How much of your business revenue should be spent on digital marketing? This is a question we hear a lot, and the simple answer is that there’s no simple answer. The “magic number” you typically hear is 10%. The Small Business Administration recommends budgeting 7-8% of gross revenues to marketing, assuming revenue below $5 million and profit margins of 10-12%.

The reality is that it’s far more important to look at your own needs and goals to determine where you want to take your business.

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domain-name

What’s in a Name?

Choosing the right domain name for your business

Google.com. GoDaddy.com. Yahoo.com. These websites and the companies behind them are all household names, but take yourself back to the day when you first heard them. Google? What’s a Google? Yahoo sounds more like you’re cheering for your favorite team.

Today, nobody has any trouble identifying these companies, but that is the result of massive, multi-million dollar branding and marketing campaigns. For the average business, such a campaign is out of reach, so it’s important to spend more than a few minutes deciding on a good domain name for your website. In this article, I’ll walk you through some of the factors I take into account when I’m helping a client choose their domain name.

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