Why Good Customer Service Is So Important.

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Having great customer service is something that benefits every single aspect of your business. Not only does it help you generate new customers through referrals and word of mouth, but it also helps with returning customers. It’s a known fact that consumers who have had a pleasant experience are more likely to share it, and more likely to return.

The perfect example, is our business AngelStar Digital. We have been serving Windsor-Essex’s printing & design needs for over 25 years, and still have returning customers since day 1. The primary reason for this is because we are a family owned business, and treat every person that walks into that door with respect, and like a human. We’ve managed to even built up friendships over that period of time, and it’s something we are very proud of.

So if that right there isn’t a solid enough reason you should be prioritizing quality-customer service, i don’t know what is.

On a more direct level, the way you interact with your customers directly reflects the workplace atmosphere, and personality of your business. So if your customer service people have an attitude towards the customer, people will automatically assume they hate working there, and that your place of employment is probably toxic. Which is not exactly a good thing, capiche?

However, what defines great customer service isn’t based on friendliness alone. Below, is a visual to show you what consumers value the most from their interactions with customer service.

This makes customer feedback very important, for all parties involved. Check the ratings for business, one of the primary reasons you will get a low rating is because of your customer service. You could sell the worlds greatest product, but if you don’t resolve people’s issues with it, or don’t seem to care about their problems, then your business will suffer.

Remember this. Even though you are the business owner and they are the consumer, you are both human beings and the interaction between both parties should feel like a human to human experience. Not one of those automated, half-effort responses we are used to dealing with.

 

The Power of Branding: Construction Industry.

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The construction industry is one of those industries that is often overlooked and undervalued by people who don’t know much about it. Construction and all that encompasses it (which is a LOT of different sub-categories) is a lucrative, and essential industry. Unlike a lot of corporate industries, the construction industry is led by tons of small-scale, usually family-owned businesses that all specialize in different things, instead of MASSIVE giants. In the world of construction, the massive giants are the “Unions”, which is something I won’t dive into for the sake of the post.

Why is branding so important if you work construction, or have your own business? Well, it ties back to a point that I made in the opening paragraph. That point being….market saturation. Off the top of my head, I can name at least 5-10 construction companies in my small, local area, and I know little to nothing about the industry. With that in mind, think of people who actually might know a thing or two, how does your company differentiate itself from the competition? Is your quality better? Are you more efficient, and quicker? Do you charge less?

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Here’s a quick example of how a brand can affect even the smallest conversations.

You recently performed a job for a client named Jim. After the job was completed, Jim was very impressed.

Later during the week, Jim met one of their buddies at the bar and showed them pictures of the job you did. The client’s friend, Bill looked at the pictures and asked “Who built that?”

Jim responded with “John Doe Contracting”. Bill said, “Oh I think I’ve seen those guys before, they have those bright green trucks with the bear logo or something right?”

“Yeah, that’s them.”

“Damn, they do some great work” Bill responded.

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If you still haven’t realized why that example would be awesome in real life, let me spell it out for you.

Your client showed a friend (potential customer) your work.

Both of them liked your work.

The friend remembered your brand, based on seeing your trucks.

Catching on?

If you’re still not sold, here are some other reasons to brand your construction company. Wearing brand shirts or hoodies can help identify your workers on sites with multiple contracting companies.

People who like their jobs love wearing their employer’s merch, so everybody knows what they do, and where they work. Which in turn, is also free advertising for you.

Plus, look at this awesome wrap we did for local Cainen Contracting. Pulling up to a site with a high-quality, sexy wrap like this makes a statement. What is that statement?

That you guys take pride in your work, you’re professionals, and you are the right guy for the job.

 

 

Why Should You Rebrand Your Business?

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Ever wonder why big companies change up their brand “appearance” every few years?

Surprisingly, there are many different reasons for this.

Primarily, many businesses like to rebrand their company to feel up to date and to reposition themselves. For example, lately, there has been an influx of brands changing their brands to a more modern, minimalistic appeal.

Here’s an example of some of the biggest rebrands for 2021:

When it comes to repositioning, we can take a look at Walmart who changed its business slogan from “Always Low Prices” to “Save Money, Live Better”. Why was this so significant? Well, Walmart had a reputation for dirt cheap prices but wanted to provide some value/guarantee to their slogan. They knew that saving money led to a “better” life, subjectively. While these changes are minor, they can have a major impact on how people view your company, and sometimes it feels good to rebrand your business after using the same logos, colors, themes, for so long.

Rebrands don’t have to be drastic either, it’s all depending on your goals, and how you can make your company more “unique” compared to the competition in your field. For example, look at McDonald’s, which completely shifted into a “cafe” style restaurant.

Everybody misses the old McDonalds, including me. However, McDonald’s saw an opportunity for rebranding and took it. What was this opportunity? Well, there were quite a few. For example, the packaging of their products. This was changed to increase the “sustainability” of their previous packaging. (Which is also why many companies are switching to paper straws, due to climate change activism, and many people pointing the finger at large corporations.) As far as an overall rebrand, it was more of a reputation thing. In the United States, the obesity rates were rising through the roof in young children, and many feds pointed the finger at McDonald’s saying that they were too playful, and appealing to children.

Now with some background information and examples in your head, let’s look at the stats.

  1. Most importantly, consumers purchase from authentic brands, that they trust. What does this have to do with rebranding? Well look at big companies who have had controversy, and managed to “rebrand” to show that their company is a different company than before. For small business owners, you want to make sure you look professional, and up-to-date which is where a rebrand comes in. If you want to look more trustworthy, stop using your 1990s photoshopped logo, and switch to something more modern.
  2. First impressions make a BIG impact. Keep the above point in your head because it directly correlates with this one. If your brand is lacking visually, or business model-wise, it’s time to change that. Something business owners should always remember is that if they want more customers, you have to be in their face as much as possible. This means that branding your vehicles, running ads, branding company outfits, all work together like pieces of a pie, but with that being said the initial impression is definitely the most important.
  3. Be Consistent. If you’re going to rebrand your logo, for example, make sure that you are using that one logo everywhere. If your vehicle wrap has your old logo, it’s time to visit AngelStar Digital and update that to your new logo. In my opinion, as a marketing specialist, these are three of the most important branding tips I could give you.

Hopefully, this post helps you consider whether your brand is up-to-date for 2022, or still stuck in 2008.

Are you keeping up? For Business Owners, and Marketers.

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The world of business is an ever-changing landscape. Each and every day, new technology and software are released, that will eventually shake up the digital world.

As we know, Social Media is an absolute giant. It has become the best way to reach the consumer, and deliver our message to them.

As a marketer, the digital world fascinates me. It amazes me how ads have been more impactful, and relevant more than ever. When the user likes certain pages, talks about certain things, and shows a general interest in a product/service/industry, it allows us to segment better than ever, and get better results than ever before. While this is all great news and all, it also brings up some challenges.

For example, consumers are exposed to an average of 4,000-10,000 ads per day.

How is your message going to stand out, and stick in the mind of the consumer, with a stat like that?

Here are some best practices, that should help with that exact problem.

Whether you’re a marketer, or a business owner if you follow some of these practices you are GUARANTEED to excel in the digital landscape.

  • Content is King, Video Content Trumps All. I put this first, for a good reason. Next time you scroll through your social media feed/timeline, take a look at how much still imagery you see. I guarantee you that while you are scrolling, you will stop because you see either a gif/video that moves. Now that it grabbed your attention, it reels you in even further by using sound, and video. Every business should include video content for this exact reason, however, the ones that stick out the best are the most clever/creative ones. For example, here at AngelStar Digital in Windsor, we post satisfying, “behind the scenes” video content. Why? Put simply, people love satisfying content.

 

  • Optimize EVERYTHING for SEO. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING. When you write content, figure out ways to tie in your key phrases/words, and make sure they are CONSISTENT across all platforms. And no, it’s 2021, you can’t just fill a page in with keywords and color the font white to hide it, that just makes Google upset. He’s a mini-scenario of how I tend to optimize my content for a YouTube Channel.
    • Let’s say our company did a vehicle wrap, of a 2021 Ford Bronco. After my video is done rendering, I make sure to name the finished product something like “AngelStar_Car_Wrap_Ford_Bronco.mp4″. I use this name, because it’s based on the keywords people use to find our business, and it is relative to the content in the video. Then, when I make the thumbnail image, I’ll give it a similar name. When I write my description I’ll make sure to use keywords that relate to the video, and what people are searching for similar to the service ‘Car Wrap”. So on, and so forth. You want to make sure everything you upload to the internet is named properly and can help improve your search rankings.

 

  • Google MyBusiness. Tying into SEO, but important enough to be its own point is Google MyBusiness. This is something you should stay on top of, constantly. Making sure your business hours are correct, posting photos of your workplace/products, responding to customer reviews (Especially the negative ones), posting offers and events, are all extremely important especially for business owners.

 

  • Social Media, Use It Properly.  This one is mostly for the business owners that might be out of the loop, as marketers are USUALLY trained/educated on the matter, and yes…usually. If you run a social media account for your business, make sure you follow some of these rules of thumb.
    • Post consistently, don’t spam post either. Using a tool like Hootsuite, you can schedule all your posts in advance. Generally, there are some best days/times of the week to post, which you should Google search. However, every few months you should review your analytics to see what time your viewers actually interact the most with your content, and base it on that data.
    • Use emojis, strategically. The use of emojis, in general, seems to help increase overall engagement with posts. however, when executed properly, can be even more beneficial.
    • Establish a voice, and stick to it. Take a look at some of your favorite brands, and scroll through their posts. (The best example, is Wendy’s). You should automatically be able to get a gist of the brand’s “personality” by the content they post, how they “speak” through their copy, and how they interact with their audience, which brings me to my last point.
    • Engage with your audience. Remember, your goal for this is to get your audience to interact and engage with you. This means that when they do, you have to interact back with them, professionally, even the bad comments. You know how the saying goes, “Even Bad Publicity, is Good Publicity”. While you shouldn’t aim for bad publicity, you should still make sure to keep it under control when it does happen, because it does.

 

Now to be quite frank, I could spend the whole day writing about this. There are so many different aspects that you need to consider, in order to separate yourself from the pack and get ahead. If you actually had the time & patience to read the entire post, make sure to look up some more pointers and etc to get a better understanding.

I’ll leave you with one final statement. “The Human attention span has dwindled down to approximately 6 seconds and is expected to sink even lower. This is how much time you have, so make sure you make the best of it.”

As always, thanks for reading! I hope this does help your business, and if you have any further questions, you can reach out to any of our social media profiles at AngelStar Digital.

 

Vehicle Advertising. Here’s why your business NEEDS it!

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Vehicle Advertising is a marketing trend that is growing more and more, each year.

What on earth is causing it to grow at such a rate?

Well first, let’s start off with some need-to-know facts about this form of OOH (Out-of-Home) advertising!

  • Vehicle wraps/decals give you between 30,000-70,000 ad impressions, depending on the density of your area.
  • A vehicle driven only 15,000km per year will pass by roughly 9,000,000 cars. (No exaggeration!)
  • Vehicle wraps/decals help improve brand recognition by almost 15% greater than other advertising mediums.

These were only a couple of the many reasons your business should be utilizing vehicle advertising.

Now, let’s discuss WHY those numbers are so high.

Let’s start with a scenario.

You live in the Greater Toronto Area, and you spend about 30-45 minutes commuting to work. You spend most of your commute in a “Stop-and-Go” traffic jam. While waiting for traffic to move, you notice a bright Orange and Blue pickup truck, wrapped in a company decal. It immediately caught your attention as it went by, sticking out like a sore thumb against the sea of silver, white, and black cars you’re normally used to seeing. The truck was from a local plumbing company in the area. When you get home from work, you notice that your pipes under our sink have been leaking. On your way to work the next day, you see that bright truck again, which has a decal on the bed of the truck with the company phone number. When you get home, you call the company and they show up.

This was obviously a highly sped-up scenario, but it gives you a general idea of how these things work.

Almost 70% of cars on the road follow a “grayscale” color scheme of white, gray, black, and silver. What this means, is that it is ridiculously easy to stand out amongst the crowd. Not only does this apply to automobile traffic, but to anywhere your vehicle can be seen with a pair of eyes.

Not only can wrapping your vehicle help your car stick out, and gain more “impressions”, it also helps people briefly understand what your brand is about.

Here’s an example showing just how much of an impact wrapping your vehicle can have.

Before:

After:

(Wrap performed by the talented team at AngelStar Digital, in Windsor, ON.)

Which one would catch your eye in traffic?

Hopefully, this blog post helped you realize how beneficial this could be for your business!

Let us know!

window display

Window Displays & the Power of Visual Merchandising

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So you got an empty window and want to fill it? While promoting the sale of your offerings, window displays act as both a product selling point, and an opportunity to make a good first impression with potential customers. Used to pique curiosity, an attractive display made up of the perfect balance of color, white […]

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various logo stickers

Stickers: Why You Should Market Your Brand With Them!

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For decades now, stickers have successfully been used to get politicians elected, conversations started, and brands established. However, with social media being the go-to marketing tool in today’s online landscape, often advertisers overlook the timelessness, not to mention the simplicity, of this sticky marketing tool.  Available in a variety of material, including chromo, mirror coat, […]

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