 Starting a home-based business is an excellent way to make a living doing something you love without stepping foot from your house. It’s easy to imagine the benefits that follow, not the least of which are flexibility, freedom, and convenience. With that said, home businesses are like any other in that you must make good decisions and set yourself up for success. Today, Allen Marketing Communications, a boutique travel and lifestyle public relations agency based in New York City, discusses three significant mistakes to avoid making so that you can build your company quickly: Neglecting to Get Help You may be a solopreneur or operate with a micro-team, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need additional help to keep things running smoothly.
Underestimating the Power of Marketing Effective marketing can do wonders for building your brand recognition and acquiring customers. Don’t make the mistake of downplaying its impact.
Working From the Couch You’ll be hard-pressed to run a thriving company without a dedicated home workspace that inspires productivity.
The benefits of entrepreneurship are very real, but not every home-based entrepreneur succeeds with their first company. Avoid the pitfalls above, and take the necessary steps to position your business to flourish long-term. And never stop learning how to improve your daily routines for optimal productivity. We would love to hear from you. Guest Post: Chelsea Lamb at Business Pop Image via Unsplash
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 Branding distinguishes your company, product or service from competitors. In today’s competitive market, small business and Fortune 500 companies often undergo a branding campaign to create a one of a kind brand that will resonate with customers and ultimately inspire them to choose your product or service. Allen Marketing Communications, Inc., a boutique NYC travel and lifestyle public relations agency, undertakes a holistic approach to develop a company’s brand DNA from the new logos and taglines to brand guidelines, to the brand vision and to recommendations on how employees should conduct business on your company’s behalf. In responding to Branding RFPs, our travel and lifestyle PR spotlights these tips for developing an effective brand campaign. Research Our talented team of brand marketing specialists work closely with an independent market research company to conduct competitive analysis, quantitative and qualitative research. Our quantitative research initiatives range from surveys and polls to one on one interview to gather invaluable insights about perceptions about our clients’ business and our clients’ competitors. These research findings serve the foundation for developing our branding campaign. Our qualitative research activities range from targeted surveys to focus groups in priority markets to ensure the new visual identity, slogans and taglines resonates with our clients’ potential customers. Stand Apart From The Crowd Develop a tagline to create an emotional connection with your audience and to engage the brand. Test the tagline with potential audience to ensure the messages are creating the desired effect for your product or service. Enlist support from a graphic designer to create a one-of-a-kind visual identity to create a memorable impression and to set your client apart from its competitors. Copyright and Trademark It is important to work with an intellectual property law firm to copyright and to trademark logos, slogans and taglines so clients own full rights for these creative works. Brand Position It is important to develop unique attributes to differentiate your company, product, service from competitors. It is important to maintain an open line of communication with clients, secure feedback and adjust the creatives. Brand Guidelines It is important to have a toolkit to ensure graphic designers, web developers, and marketers communicate the same message, have a uniformed look in all forms of communications. The style guide should include everything from the color palette, font, and editorial guidelines to ensure consistency with the brand. Create Your Company Culture The new brand DNA will transcend to your company culture. All new employees should receive the brand guidelines during the orientation session. A strong brand could be extremely helpful in creating positive and lasting reputation in overall. Everyone prefers to work with those who are people oriented or driven and actually show their concern for customers. Try to be one of those companies embodying people first attitude in everything that you and your employees do. Our boutique NYC travel and lifestyle public relations agency is here to help. Give us a call.  As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, health conscious consumers are looking for healthier and more sustainable beverages to boost their immune system naturally. The pandemic has inspired many individuals to think about how we should be feeding our bodies resulting in the latest beverage trends. In fact, the functional beverage market is “valued at US $118.7 billion in 2021 and the market is expected to reach US $265.9 billion by 2030, recording a promising CACR of 9.38 percent from 2021 to 2030,” according to InsightAce Analytics. Allen Marketing Communications, Inc., a boutique food and beverage public relations agency based in New York City, shares the five drink trends, from staying healthy to simply enjoying a sweet treat. Bubble Tea Bubble tea gets its name from the bubbles, also known as boba, or tapioca pearls that sit at the bottom of the drink. Created in the 1980s, bubble tea “is expected to skyrocket in popularity, and already has, expanding its market by almost $2 billion by 2027,” according to Tan Do Beverage. The tea component of Bubble Tea can be made into more than 200 flavor combinations, and you can even choose different types of “bubbles” if you prefer something other than tapioca, such as jelly, aloe vera, or red bean. If you’re looking for a tasty drink that’s customizable to your exact liking, bubble tea is just for you! Fermented Drinks Gut health is one of the most important things to take care of in your body, as it dictates things like your mood and energy. With the ongoing pandemic, people have become more and more aware of the importance of taking care of their bodies and staying healthy, and doing so with fermented drinks. Probiotic beverages, such as Kombucha, are expected to generate more than $77 billion in sales by 2025,”according to Tan Do Beverage. Water kefir, which has been shown to help aid digestion and boost your immune system, is another probiotic drink that doesn’t just taste good, but keeps you healthy, too. Dairy-Free & Plant-Based Dairy-free & plant-based alternatives to milk include options such as almond milk, oat milk, and rice milk which are more sustainable and allow those who can’t eat dairy to still enjoy milk. “Plant-based milk is the most developed of all plant-based categories, with $2.5 billion in 2020 dollar sales. Plant-based meat is a rapidly growing category, with $1.4 billion in 2020 dollar sales, growing 45 percent since 2019.” (Source: Good Food Institute) These alternatives are significantly less impactful on climate change and animal welfare. Plant-based milk is often fortified with nutrients and vitamins to make them very similar in nutritional content. In saying this, almond milk has a much lower calorie-count, so if you’re worried about your calorie intake, almond milk or oat milk may be the healthier choice for you. Juices According to CSP Daily News, “Many consumers want more control over their wellbeing,” because of the pandemic. As a result, people are seeking beverages that provide refreshment and satisfaction while also offering nutrients. Drinks such as cold-pressed fruit and vegetable juices offer these nutrients without sacrificing great taste. In addition, consumers can buy a juicer and make their own juice in the convenience of their own home – this allows them to customize the vitamins and minerals they’re getting from the different fruits and vegetables they add. Meal-Replacers Beverages With society always picking up pace and time always seeming to move faster, grab-and-go meals have increased in popularity recently. But what’s even faster than eating a grab-and-go meal is a grab-and-go drink that can function as a meal. According to Let’s Chat Snacks, “39 percent of consumers use nutritional and performance drinks as a replacement for breakfast.” These drink meals are convenient, affordable, and efficient, and as Americans move away from the standard three meals per day model and snack more often, these nutritional and performance drinks are becoming more and more popular and useful. They contain high protein content, high fiber, and offer a plethora of delicious flavors, from pumpkin pie to birthday cake. Who wouldn’t want to eat a healthy meal flavored like a birthday cake? Our food and beverage public relations specialists are here to help. Give us a call. By Marley Merrihew at Allen Marketing Communications, Inc.  Food has seen some interesting trends during the years, from Jell-O salads to unicorn-themed everything. What’s in store for food in 2022? Allen Marketing Communications, Inc., a boutique food and beverage public relations agency based in New York City, shares the latest about the new food trends. Hydroponics Hydroponic gardening is the practice of growing plants without soil, which usually involves feeding them added nutrients. This allows the growth of plants in places where they normally wouldn’t be able to grow, such as highly urban and industrialized places such as cities. The hydroponic gardening market has been “estimated at $1 billion in 2019, and projected to reach $16 billion by 2025,” according to the Chicago Tribune. This growing trend allows gardeners full control over the plant environment and the ability to yield fresh produce all-year-round. Juicy tomatoes in January, anyone? This practice has also led to the creation of hydroponic devices that can sit on your kitchen counter. Most of us don’t have the time to care for plants, watering and feeding them on a regular basis – but these devices, some of them even coming with a built-in LED light to help growth, according to Gardeningetc, will allow those who love gardening but just don’t have the time to do it in their own kitchen (and without having to clean up the mess that soil makes!). Foraging The shift in recent years forward towards healthier and cleaner eating has actually led to a shift backwards in time: foraging. As people become more and more concerned with what they put in their bodies, they look to their backyards and realize, “Hey, right out there in the woods, we can go and harvest food that actually tastes really good,” says The Globe and Mail. Foraging is something that takes practice, though, as something as simple as mistaking one mushroom for another could lead to someone getting very sick, or worse. That’s why foraging experts teach classes to those eager to learn how to forage safely and have fun doing it (The Globe and Mail, StyleBlueprint). Plant-Based Foods The Covid-19 pandemic has fostered a renewed interest in plant-based foods (a.k.a. Vegetarian diet) as consumers look for natural ways to boost one’s immunity. With the plant-based options expanding beyond beef into plant-based chicken, it’s becoming more and more accessible and easy to switch to a plant-based diet today. Companies and scientists are working together to mimic top meat products with plants, containing almost the same amount of protein and nutrients. The latest food trends seem to be working towards a healthier and more sustainable future for not just food, but the planet as well. These food trends may not be crazy, but they’re crazy good for you and for the environment, as well. Urban Gardening It’s difficult to find places to grow produce in urban areas such as cities, but this new trend encourages people to get creative and look at every space as an opportunity for growth. From rooftops, to kitchen counters, to balconies, urban farming is on a mission to get cities as green as possible. “Urban gardening is the most accessible practice for gardeners in the city; however, it doesn’t have to occur on a roof. It could be in a community garden, where residents grow their own vegetables, herbs and flowers,” according to ProMix. Other examples of urban gardening –a green roof (“a layer of vegetation growing on a roof”), and a green wall (“a vertical layer of vegetation found on the outside or inside wall of a building.”) (Source: ProMix) Rooftop greenhouse is simply a greenhouse space built on an industrial rooftop. Growing Food at Home It’s no question that getting fruits and vegetables at the store is easier and quicker than growing them at home. But with how many benefits there are to growing your own produce, it’s clear that there’s a more sustainable and healthy option. With Covid-19 still prevalent today, growing your own produce is not only healthier because of the lack of pesticides, but also because you don’t risk exposure going into a grocery store to get your food. In addition, while planting, taking care of, and picking your own fruits and vegetables takes more work than simply buying them. It gives you the opportunity to spend some time outside and working with your hands. This allows you to get exercise while also maintaining vitamin D levels from the sun, helping your body function efficiently and keeping energy levels high. Check out the latest on other trends from food and beverage public relations experts at Allen Marketing Communications, Inc. By Marley Merrihew at Allen Marketing Communications, Inc.  Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites out there today. In fact, this social media platform has “approximately 206 million daily users,” according to Statista. Twitter is expanding its reach by rolling out new features that increase accessibility and engagement for its users. Check out the latest Twitter updates in this blog from Allen Marketing Communications, Inc., a boutique travel and lifestyle public relations agency based in New York City. Co-Tweeting Ever made a post that was so relatable to you and a friend that you felt tagging them wasn’t enough? Well, now you and that friend can publish a tweet together – Twitter rolled out an update this July that allows users to “invite any public account that follows them to co-author a tweet together,” according to Hootsuite. Currently, the feature, officially called “CoTweet,” is only available to certain users as it is still in the testing phase. If somebody sends you a CoTweet request, you’ll get an invite in your Twitter notifications. If you turn it down, the CoTweet draft will be deleted. Downvotes Twitter’s downvotes are unlike most other apps in that other users can’t see the number of downvotes a post has. The platform claims that the new feature will help them gauge which content is not relevant or not contributing to any conversations. The most recent rollout of a new batch of users gaining access to this feature was in February of this year, so not everyone has access to it yet. According to The Verge, “the results of this experiment have found that this is an easier way for users to flag unwanted content, rather than muting a conversation or reporting it as spam or irrelevant – which are much more tedious to do.” Twitter Notes If you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t fit what you had to say in the 280-character limit on posts, you’ll be very happy about this update: Twitter announced this June that they’re testing a new feature called Notes, where select users can publish a post up to 2500 words with a title up to 100 words. Unlike a regular post, users with access to the Notes feature can make edits to their Notes posts after they’ve already published it. Profiles with access to this feature will now have a new Notes tab where all of their published Notes can be easily accessed. Don’t be worried if you prefer the shorter posts, though – Twitter says it’s not planning a full shift from short Tweets to longer Notes, so your feed won’t be filled with long posts anytime soon. Pin Reply Instagram and YouTube have implemented the “pin reply” feature in recent years, and this May Twitter followed suit. The update lets users pin comments to the top of their replies section, allowing posters and creators to highlight responses they want their followers to see. This new feature gives more control to users on how they engage with their audiences, and can even be used by brands to increase engagement with their followers. “The release is still in its testing stages, but it’s looking like there might be an official launch in the near future,” according to SocialMediaToday. Twitter Blue Twitter Blue is Twitter’s premium subscription that allows users access to exclusive features such as an undo button (finally), bookmarks folders, themes for your app and app icon, and even early access to Twitter’s NFTs. The service first launched in June of 2021 but is still rolling out features across platforms and countries. Twitter Blue costs $2.99 a month in the US, an affordable price when compared with other subscription services. If you like getting your news on Twitter, you may want to subscribe – the service also offers ad-free articles on participating websites such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Buzzfeed. Our social media marketing specialists are here to help companies take advantage of the enhancements on Twitter. Give us a call. By Marley Merrihew at Allen Marketing Communications, Inc. |
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