We built them a dynamically populated WordPress website that new projects can easily be added to as they are completed, with no need to adjust the layout for new content.

We color corrected and cropped images to best showcase the woodwork and added keyword strategy and taxonomy to their entries, creating more tags for search engines to crawl and the public to align their searches to when looking for woodwork.

An FAQ was launched which aggregated the top questions searched for online around residential millwork, to align with target clients that would be searching for a custom solution. These questions were answered in blog format so they can be promoted out on social media as separate pieces fo content, and together as a FAQ too help reduce the decision barrier to purchase by de-mystifying how to hire and work with a custom wood work shop like Grain.

The client worked hard to acquire beautiful photos of as many projects as possible, and this effort has payed off in a new showcase section.

At the close of each project we added a button to the close of the project “Estimate Request” that leads to a customized form including a file upload for plans to be attached or any notes for an estimate.

1. A Market – Category Win: Best Natural Foods Store.
Open since 1970, A Market has been helping families think healthy in Manchester NH for decades. Their staff’s customer service is unrivaled, they are all very friendly and knowledgeable. A Market offers a full grocery that is carefully stocked with many quality local craftsmen and farmers, and a 100% Certified Organic Produce section that rivals any larger supermarket. If you are looking for a more intimate, locally focused health-centric shopping experience, A Market is the place.

PS – They have won Best of NH 6 YEARS IN A ROW!!

2. XO on Elm – Category Win: Best Alternative Healthy Menu.

It is not surprising, since owner Rosa Paolini is originally from Italy, that she is dedicated to a menu filled with local, fresh produce, meats and dairy. Next to Citizen’s Bank downtown, it’s a great restaurant to eat healthy while enjoying a sophisticated atmosphere.

3. Lucida’s Bodega – Category Win: Best Wine Store NH. 

Lucida’s Bodega is the little engine that could. With our friend Chuck Palazzolo at the helm, this store is a gem offering a selection of wines and craft beer that is unbeatable. Lucia’s sells more wine than any other privately owned store in NH—and I can tell you exactly why—because Chuck’s passion for wine has earned him a die-hard group of customers that love to attend his Thursday and Friday night tastings and the many educational tastings he hosts with the best distributors around. If you are in Windham, or heading out to Mass., stop by Lucia’s is 3 miles from Exit 3 off 93. Cheers!

4. Millbrook Gallery – Concord NH – Category Win: Fan Vote Best of Concord Art Galleries

Artist and Gallery owner Pam Tarbell has the most fantastic outdoor ( and indoor) galleries in New Hampshire. You are welcome to walk your dogs on leash through the sculpture gardens, and laugh at the geese honking at you from the pond. It’s two miles from Concord Hospital up the road on the right. Don’t miss the beautiful scenery and Pam’s wonderfully curated gallery filled with unusual and handcrafted art work and items for sale by local artists.

Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden, 236 Hopkinton Road, Concord, 226-2046, themillbrookgallery.com

5. American Barber Studios – Concord NH  – Category Win: Fan Vote Best of Concord

Experience an authentic Barber Shop—Best of Concord NH’s American Barber Studios. Get a warm lather shave, a well tapered haircut with a great fade, or a facial massage to relax and soften your beard before a straight razor shave. Located downtown on Park Street next to the State House in historic Concord, New Hampshire.

6. Dennis Mires, The Architects – Manchester NH

Dennis and his team have been improving the Manchester landscape one great design at a time for decades now, ( but really 20 +/- projects at a time as they are always in high demand).  We all benefit from this firm’s dedication to beautiful and functional building designs.

7. Gibsons’s Bookstore – Concord NH, Best of the Best

Gibson’s Bookstore is not just a bookstore, but a destination—a place where the Concord community gathers. There is a café, outdoor seating, endless aisles of books and cozy chairs to get lost in, and over 100,000 different toys for kids in the Children’s section. Gibson’s is in the heart of downtown Concord across from the Capitol Center for the Arts.

Studio141Photo
Commercial Catalog Photography Studio

Studio 141 Photography & Creative, a full-service photography studio specializing in photo branding. We created their website and wrote SEO-optimized client success case studies which were made into blogs and downloadable pdfs for sales use. Social media channels were branded and created. A few big brand contracts have come in from the blog as high level clientele saw their brand aligned with other happy clients.

We love attending this HubSpot conference so much, we wrote this blog post about the TOP TEN Reasons to Attend #INBOUND16.

7. Even the Pets are high tech at INBOUND: In the middle of thousands of people yell-talking and networking, Brian Halligan’s doggie, aptly named Romeo, is sporting his own Go-Pro Pet Cam to record the action. Naturally, Romeo is completely unphased by the marketing mélé all around him.

8. Inbound Happy Hours: At the end of the loonnnng day sessions there is a huge cocktail party for all attendees the size of a small village complete with a 360 two-story DJ Tower—loved the DJ last year. DJ Fast Girl kicked it! Snacks and free wine and beer at the end of these intense days of training is wonderfully welcome because your brain is melting and you need a respite! The Inbound cocktail hour is a nice time to socialize and network, find people, and make dinner plans ( if you can find open tables). I hope this year they will add additional charging towers, it was a battle to keep my cell phone juiced up at times.

When my birthday comes around each year on the Vernal Equinox, a.k.a. March 20th, I know that it’s time to get free stuff season! Now, I am not talking about birthday presents (although I never refuse chocolate, wine or art) but folks, we have arrived in Trade Show SEASON! If your T-Shirts are looking grim after this weird winter of mud, and you lost your coffee thermos on a ski trip, not to worry!

Head on down to the New Hampshire State Home Show starting this Friday, March 18th and I am sure you can glean a King’s Ransom of free branded loot.

I know I am joking around, but I am meandering to my main point of this blog post… which is promotional items can provide a lasting brand connection. Let’s get back to basics people. CharmLab can design and build your business a landing page, an email and even a gorgeous, state-of-the-art responsive website, but the reality is, none of those items will sit on a person’s desk, hit the beach, or be plastered across someone’s back all summer while they walk around. Those promotional items can ATTRACT a stranger or a current customer into one of your online properties.

A brand endorsement from one person to another, is a fun exchange we marketers like to call C to C marketing or consumer to consumer, and consumers are 8x more likely to trust an endorsement from a family member, friend or peer than a business that is self-promoting.  So, if I see my friend Ken wearing a T-Shirt for one of his favorite beers, Litherman’s Limited—his love of that beer means a lot more to me than when they build cool 12 pack sculptures of Gronk in the Super Market.

“Hmmmm… maybe I will go to their brewery and try some of their beer tomorrow.”

See? It works.

One of my all-time favorite free promotional items I use all the time is a Branded USB Car Charger. I had it in my glovebox on vacation, and my piece of crap Verizon charger broke AGAIN and there it was. I <3 my free car charger and that’s marketing gold, to help someone in their time of need, and when my phone is going to die, I NEED A CHARGER!

So, as a company you have to get the word out and share the branding love! Celebrate the END OF WINTER with our special pricing for promotional items.

If you aren’t a “pen” person (although pens STILL are the best leave behind for the cost and brand saturation) give us a call and we can help you find the perfect giveaway for your fan base. We added above a few hip and adored promotional items to check out… and we are offering some great items on sale! Go for it—get some fan love this Spring!

If you hover over the Thumbs Up Icon, you can choose from one of the six. Not everyone has access to the new interface update, so if you can’t get the icons to pop up after trying a thousand times and driving yourself mental (like I did) then you may have to wait a little bit longer to try out this new enhancement.

Facebook’s six new reaction emojis. (Courtesy of Facebook)

But what a minute… what happened to the “Dislike” Button that Facebook users have been clamoring for? It’s not in the set, with the closest choice being “Angry.” Well folks, it’s not happenin’ so don’t hold your breath.

According to this article in Time Magazine, Why Facebook Doesn’t Have a Dislike Button, the answer is simple. Dislike is way too negative! As a social media marketer, I can tell you that Facebook advertisers have been lobbying hard to make sure that “Dislike” never sees the light of day on Facebook.

Imagine if you spent, oh say almost 5 million dollars on your Super Bowl ad, like the 2015 Nationwide ad with the deceased child in it. Last year the public reaction was horror and complete loathing of their TV Ad and in turn their brand. The last thing Nationwide wants is a big fat “DISLIKE” button to throw more gasoline on the social media fire.

Another Icon in the running was “Yay“, but it was shot down as it is not a word that is understood across the globe. I use it all the time, I “Yayed” my friend’s post about her house being sold a few hours ago, but if other countries, “Yay” or “YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY” doesn’t translate.

Now, “Like” just seems so wishy washy. It’s much more exciting when you can “LOVE” content on Facebook, which is the most used new Emoji according to Forbes Magazine in this article, Facebook No Longer Just Has A ‘Like’ Button, Thanks To Global Launch Of Emoji ‘Reactions’.

I am sure advertisers are much more excited by the “LOVE” Emoji than the former threat of a “Dislike” Emoji, as companies want loyal fans to LOVE their brand and products. One negative comment can equal hundreds and even thousands of positive comments if gains speed and goes viral.

So if you really DISLIKE your lunch, or your new phone, or a political candidate’s comments, you are only allowed to be “Angry” but you can’t give it a thumbs down. Are we being censored? You bet.

* * *

(Cartoon by Peter Noonan)

Less than one year ago, Bernie Sanders was relatively unknown to most of the voting population and Hillary had few impediments on her path to the oval office. There was no question that she would win the Democratic primary and quite possibly become our next President. It seemed as if there was no stopping the Clinton juggernaut. So, how did Bernie, who was unknown to many voters just months ago, get more #FITN NH primary votes than any other candidate, Democratic or Republican?

Rather than focus on the status quo marketing techniques, like TV ads and mailers, that the other candidates hold tightly to despite waning ROI, Sanders was building his inbound marketing engine. Looking at each of the candidates, you would never expect that the messy gray-haired guy from Vermont would be the one who was dominating online campaigning, especially with the former CEO of Hewlett Packard in the race (who just dropped out today), but that’s exactly what he’s been doing.

Bernie’s campaign has harnessed the ability of the internet and technology to connect with voters in a highly individualized and targeted way. This allowed him identify likely supporters and motivate them to turn out on election day better than the other candidates who relied the status quo outbound marketing techniques.

Inbound marketing allows businesses (or candidates in this case) have individualized two-way “conversations” with interested parties. It allows you to collect information about those prospects to use in future communications. There is no way to get someone’s email address from a TV commercial or mailer and no way to click a TV ad to donate money. In fact, many people go for weeks without watching live TV, which means they are skipping the ads altogether.

Of course, Bernie isn’t breaking any ground with his use of digital marketing for a political campaign – Barack Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012 used social media, email and online ads to drive people to the polls with outstanding success. In fact, Sanders hired a tech company that was founded by members of Obama’s 2008 campaign. Using online marketing, Bernie’s website was getting 5 million visitors a month – twice the traffic of Clinton and more than all the Republican candidates combined. 

This commitment to digital advertising and inbound marketing has shown in the support that Sanders has from younger voters. While his message resonates with many of these voters, it is the way that his campaign is delivering his message that has made the difference. If Bernie was delivering his ideas only through TV, he would never have gotten the response that he has.

With so much money to burn, it is no surprise that candidates waste so much money on the spaghetti approach to marketing – Let’s throw some stuff out there and see what sticks. Unfortunately, most businesses can’t just freely spend on marketing without expecting to see any positive ROI. Here’s some mistakes that the presidential candidates are making with their marketing budget that you should avoid in your business:

1. Direct Mail

A lot of people I know leave a recycle bin next to the mailbox this time of year. As you can see from the picture above of one day’s worth, our mailboxes are filled with mailers telling us to “VOTE FOR ME” or “DON’T VOTE FOR HIM!” Before any of CharmLab’s print suppliers start fussing, I’m not here to argue that direct mail is dying. I think that direct mail as part of an well-planned inbound marketing campaigns can be very useful. But it has to be done right.

2. Going Negative

Not only is it distasteful, but you are taking the attention off of yourself or your business. If somehow you’ve gotten that person’s attention, you want to keep it, not point out your competitor. You should be telling me how you can solve my problem, not saying that your competitor can’t solve my problem. With endless information at my fingertips, I may want to check your claim for myself – OMG! Your competitor actually can solve my problem!

3. Weak Calls-To-Action

A strong call-to-action (CTA) is essential in any inbound marketing campaign. Depending on your business, that CTA can have many forms – a link to your website to download a coupon or gift card, an invitation to an event, etc. Something that gets the person to start the buyer’s journey. A strong CTA can keep the prospects attention much longer.

4. Interruption Marketing

TV Commercials in the middle of your favorite TV show, Tele-Marketing calls during dinner – these traditional marketing techniques hope to draw your attention away from something you are doing. Marketing rock star, Seth Godin wrote the book Permission Marketing almost 17 years ago. Somehow, it hasn’t made it into the libraries of any of the presidential candidates. Permission Marketing builds relationships, trust and awareness by marketing to people on their terms at the right time for them rather than interrupting them.

5. Over Saturation with Repetitive Junk

Yard signs lined up as far as the eye can see, multiples of the same exact flyers in the mailbox, robo-calls… There seems to be a fire sale useless repetitive junk messaging. People want new and relevant information, not the same old message shoved at them from all directions again and again.

If you feel like your marketing dollars are being wasted like your a presidential candidate, contact the Charmers at CharmLab for a free marketing assessment.

The Charmers at CharmLab work with many companies that have an existing website and suite of online properties and social media accounts that need a brand and technology update. As part of the on-boarding process for new clients, typically we need access to accounts.

These simple questions below, while they seem to be innocuous, can send a client into a tailspin.
1. Where is your website hosted?
2. Who owns your domain name, where it is registered?
3. Do you have administrative access to the back of your website?
4. Who has administrative access to your social media accounts?
Google?
Facebook?
Twitter?
LinkedIn?
YouTube?
Instagram?
Pinterest?

Here’s where the pain and blaming begins as the story of the company logins unfolds. Who does the website posting? Not you? Who? A bitter ex-employee who locked you out of your Facebook account? Someone that is no longer at the company because they are deceased? Your nephew’s friend from college that helped you update a form? He’s traveling in Thailand right now?

There are a few ways that you can be held hostage by a developer, and the first is if someone else has registered YOUR company domain under their account.

Domain Name Hostage:
There are two main reasons why this happens. The first is laziness. It is much easier for a web guy to add another domain to their account rather than pick up the phone and help you set up your own account and register under your company. The second reason is control. Clients change their passwords all the time without telling the web team so if the domain is under the developer’s account and not yours, then they will always have control and access to it. Either way it is bad, as YOU do not have ownership of your own website domain!

Trying to change your website? Can’t get your developer on the phone? Want to fire him but afraid he will not give you access to your domain?

ALWAYS register your domains under a company account, not under your web company. If you are on good terms with your former web developer but not working with them any more, it is possible for them to transfer ownership your domain to you if you set up your own account. You can read about the process of transferring a domain on Go Daddy.

We help clients gain control of their domains but the best advice is to register all your domain names under your own account. Sometimes people will not give up control and you will have to choose another domain to use. This can be a huge problem because it can affect all your company collateral if you have to update email addresses, change business cards and all supporting materials.

Website Hostage—Can you update your own website?
Even if you work with a company like CharmLab to post blog content for you and maintain your site content, it is essential that you have passwords to your own website back end. And more than that, make sure you get a login for full administrator access. For example in WordPress or Drupal, you can have access as an admin, an editor, author or subscriber. Most web developers set up clients with an editor level user role so they can’t break the site, and never give them full back end access but the client never realizes this until it is too late. Years later when it’s time to hire a new website developer no one can get into the website. No one wants to make the break up call to get passwords! Angry web developers don’t like to answer the phone.

Web Hosting Hostage:
You would be surprised how many clients do not know where their website is being hosted. Your website files need to be installed on a server so it can be connected to the internet and served when website visitors are trying to access your site. A third way for your website to be held hostage is if your web developer is the only person that knows your login information for your hosting account. If you can’t log into your web host, you typically can’t update your website.

I once was asked to rebuild a site for an artist who needed to update their portfolio out of Flash, which does not work on Apple devices like iPads and iPhones. The site’s former developer wouldn’t give the site owner the login information to their hosting company, and that prevented them from hiring me (or anyone else) from downloading their website so they could rebuild the portfolio elsewhere.

We waited months and months for the former developer to respond with no luck. In the end my client had to abandon the entire site, and his domain, and was forced to start 100% for scratch so he could gain control again.

Social Media Hostage:
It starts out so innocently but social media hostage situations can blow up in your face big time! You put an intern in charge of the Facebook page. They setup a personal page for your business, not a business page (they don’t know better) and made themselves a fake person to get the page up because they had their friend’s brother help them after hours. Now you can’t access the page, it can’t have multiple admins because it is not a business page ,and you can’t respond to the negative comments posted from six months ago after the intern quit two weeks early with no notice.

Who is in charge of your Google page? YP.COM? Yellow pages will set up a Google page for your business and NEVER give you access as an admin. Then years later when you cancel your contract because it was a colossal waste of your money, your Google page will be as populated as a desert island in the Bermuda triangle. There are positive and negative reviews, but you can’t manage any client relationships on the page because you don’t have access!

I wrote this article because we have been in the website development business awhile, and this is a chronic problem that we have to help clients with over and over. I can tell you that NO ONE has their logins! You are not alone. Most clients have notebooks with their website logins but 99% of the time passwords are crossed out and no one has the new one. The old admin had it and she’s overseas now.

At CharmLab we believe it is important for clients to have ALL their accounts in their name, not under our company, so the client is in control of their own assets at all times. We do not want control of you assets, we want to empower our clients, not hold them hostage!

To review, logins seem like no big deal, until you don’t have one. So take the time to make sure you have the following to avoid all future hostage situations:
1.  Make sure YOU own your own domain name AND have the username and password for your account.
2.  Make sure YOU own your own hosting account AND have the username and password for your account.
3.  Make sure YOUR WEBSITE is built on a Content Management System like WordPress, and you have full admin access, too.
4.  Don’t let the intern set up your Facebook or other social media accounts – make sure you have admin access to all accounts!

The Charmers at CharmLab have been successfully helping clients get control of their technology since 2009.