Professional networking, like dating, has gone digital. Whether you’re swiping on Tinder, Bumble or Hinge or looking for connections on LinkedIn, not everyone will be your match. For many users, you may end up going on 50 First Dates, but we find comfort in knowing that Drew Barrymore herself uses the apps to meet people too.
LinkedIn offers a space to network with people without the heartbreak. Networking can help you strengthen your personal brand, form connections with other industry professionals who can help you further your career, gain valuable insight, stay up-to-date with trends and explore new job opportunities. While Bowe Digital can’t ensure that you’ll be lucky in love, we can help your business. Today, we’re sharing our advice for networking on LinkedIn.
Make Your Profile Look Legit
Stranger danger is real, ya’ll. With stories like the Tinder Swindler on Netflix, we’ve got trust issues when it comes to meeting people online, and can you blame us? If your profile doesn’t make a good first impression, viewers will swipe left and move on to the next one, because, let’s face it, they’ve got options.
A complete and polished profile will help win people over and reassure them that you’re authentic…and that they won’t end up on an episode of Catfish. Fully completed profiles result in 40 times more opportunities, according to LinkedIn. Here’s what to include to make your LinkedIn profile stand out (in a good way):
Find Your People
Not everyone is going to be your match, and that’s okay! Find people you have things in common with and request to connect with them. If that sounds intimidating, start by connecting with people you know and trust. LinkedIn allows you to upload your address book from email. Joining groups is another great way to find your people. This resource from LinkedIn suggests starting with volunteer organizations, associations you belong to and school groups. Try reaching out to alumni or previous mentors and professors (they love connecting with students and other alums).
Send the First Message
Whether you’re sending a friendly note alongside your connection request or asking another professional for advice, make it custom. If you’ve met them in person, tell them where, who you met them through or what organization you have in common. If this is your first interaction, do your research. You can use LinkedIn Advanced Search and company pages to learn about the background and interests of the people you’re contacting. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to make the first move. LinkedIn is a professional community where many people are willing to connect and help each other learn and grow.
Update Your Status
Professional status: ready to mingle. Produce and share content that is engaging and sparks conversation. Try getting in front of the camera and posting a video, share an article and include your thoughts or post pictures of you and other professionals at an industry event. Never miss an opportunity to tag other people. You’re a catch, and you can remind the people in your network of that by updating your status regularly.
Start building your professional community today, and feel free to connect with our team! If you need more help, Bowe Digital is here for you! We can develop custom solutions to increase your presence on social media platforms, including LinkedIn. Contact me at bradley@bowedigital.com to get started! Learn more about our services at bowedigital.com.
After a long or stressful day at work, sometimes you just need something strong to help take the edge off. So take a seat at the Bowe Digital bar, and order a drink. We’ll mix it up; your drink choice will say a lot about your business’s marketing.
Today’s Cocktail List:
Old Fashioned
Wayne’s Hot Tip: Wayne’s tip for the best Old Fashioned, beyond great bourbon, is the cherry and he loves this brand most.
It’s in the name…Old Fashioned. An Old Fashioned is a straightforward and strong drink with no surprises. For many people, it does not go down easy, which is not a good thing when it comes to drinking or marketing. Old-fashioned marketing is as plain as the water that goes into the drink. It does not change with the times and isn’t as popular with younger crowds. If you’re not using social media or incorporating video and eye-catching graphics into your marketing, this might be the drink for you.
However, we recommend you keep browsing the list for a new cocktail.
Whiskey Sour
The Whiskey Sour is loved by some and hated by others. It’s controversial for its sour taste and that optional egg white (because why??). It’s a risk, which in marketing doesn’t always pay off. However, it works better in some industries than others. The fast food restaurant Wendy’s, for example, has seen success from its sassy personality on Twitter, which you can find examples of here. The restaurant bravely roasts its customers and competing companies, which earns them varied responses. If this sounds like your marketing, then we suggest you chug, in case it goes too sour!
Margarita
Heather’s Hot Tip: If you’re like Heather, you want a Marg with less sugar. She suggests you skip the pre-mix stuff. The best marg is tequila, fresh lime juice and a tajin rim.
The Margarita is fun; it has no rules. Like great marketing, it can be customized to the customer likes. We can make them sweet, skinny or spicy. We can salt or sugar the rim, offer different flavors and put them in any glass you’d like. Not a tequila drinker? Try vodka. If your marketing is one-of-a-kind and tailored to reflect the likes and dislikes of your audience, then cheers! This is the drink for you and for us, too!
At Bowe Digital, the margarita is our specialty. We can make it any way you’d like. Our team of experts stays up-to-date on trends and knows what works to make a perfectly balanced marketing strategy that isn’t old-fashioned or too sour. Contact me, Bradley Erb at bradley@bowedigital.com to mix up a custom marketing plan that’s unique to your business! Learn more about our services at bowedigital.com.
People want to feel special, and that’s what custom does. Whether it’s a custom designed cake, custom engraved gift, or custom built home, these one-of-a-kind solutions work to win people over.
Why pay for custom marketing? The same reason you pay for anything custom: you love it and want everyone else (your customers) to love it too! Custom marketing is your chance to stand out from the competition. It shows your customers that you know them and that your posts were made just for them.
Cut Through the Noise
Marketing is everywhere. Most Americans are exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day, according to this article from Forbes. However, that doesn’t mean everything we see or hear sticks. Hundreds of companies are offering the same products or services while marketing them in similar ways. It becomes noise, and only the most eye-catching and unique ones are heard. For small businesses, it’s even harder, but custom marketing can help.
Kids are notoriously harsh critics. They’ll tell you that you look fat one minute and that your food tastes awful the next, so we’ll use them as an example. Picture your kid going to the school bake sale. You send them with a pack of those thickly iced store-bought cookies (you know the ones). Other parents send their kids with sheet cakes and plastic-wrapped cupcakes. All but one, that is. Jeremy’s mom sends him with a 2-tiered custom cake designed around 2022’s most trending movie, Encanto. The bake sale ends, and your child comes home…can you guess what happens next? You hear about Jeremy, Jeremy’s mom, Jeremy’s cake and Encanto until your ears bleed! Yep, custom works any way you slice it, whether it’s a cake or marketing. It makes a lasting impact on people, and everything else fades away.
Audience Targeting
With custom marketing, you’ll reach individuals who are actually interested in your service and products without wasting money on those who aren’t. By using custom services like geo-fenced paid ads, you can target the specific geographic areas you want to hit. You can also curate your marketing materials to reflect the likes and dislikes of your customers. If your audience likes being active, you’d show them custom sneakers over a custom cake, creating opportunities for personal connections.
Consistent Branding
Quality marketing translates to quality products and services in the minds of your consumers. Not only does that mean having custom designs and content but also consistency. Your audience will come to expect your posts in the good times and especially in the hard times. It reminds them that you’re available to them and still investing in your business which means you’re still investing in them. Platforms like HeyOrca can help you schedule social media posts months in advance.
Remember, consistency doesn’t mean that there can’t be surprises. You can always find new ways to shake things up and grab people’s attention. At Bowe Digital, we’ve started incorporating trending topics into our marketing. Whether it’s the corn kid letting everyone know Bowe Digital has the juice or looking at the marketing in Netflix’s Emily in Paris, custom allows for creativity, relevance and excitement in your marketing.
Leave it to the Professionals
If you’ve ever watched Netflix’s Nailed It, you know what can happen when you tackle a new task on your own for the first time – disaster. It’s best to leave custom cakes to the bakers and custom marketing to the marketing professionals. Nobody does custom like Bowe Digital. We’ll tell your story for you and get creative when you can’t, all while moving at your pace and according to your brand image. Contact Bradley Erb on our team at bradley@bowedigital.com for marketing that’s uniquely yours! Learn more about our services at bowedigital.com.
We all know the story of Cinderella. Or at least some version of it, whether it’s the 1950 original movie, a live-action remake like the 2015 Cinderella or the 2004 spin-off, A Cinderella story, featuring Hilary Duff.
Bowe Digital has come up with our own modern twist on Cinderella, and you’re the main character. Let’s set the scene. In every Cinderella story, there’s a ball, a dance or a party where everyone wants to be. In our story, that place is TikTok.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a social media platform where people come from near and far to share and stream video content. And yes, it’s more than just teenagers dancing. Users on TikTok range from ages 10-50+. With over one billion active users, the application has become more popular than Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter. You don’t need to know how to waltz to attend this ball. TikTok allows dialogue, music, sound bytes and more on every topic you can imagine, personal or professional. These short videos can be anywhere from 15 seconds to three minutes in length. The application is also being used as a search engine. TikTok now receives more daily searches than Google.
Why should you be on TikTok?
In this story, if you don’t join TikTok before the clock strikes 12, you’ll turn back into a pumpkin. By that we mean, you’ll lose some relevance because pumpkin is a seasonal flavor. As a business or professional, you want to stay relevant all year long. To do that, you may need to meet your customers where they are. Joining platforms like TikTok is a great way to expose your business to new audiences and younger generations and show that you are willing to adapt to changes and trends in social media. By joining now, you can stand out from your evil step competitors and win the affection of your charming customers.
You’ve seen it on Instagram and Facebook; both platforms are incorporating more videos. TikTok is the king of video. Other benefits of joining TikTok include its huge, growing audience, international audience and ease of connection. Users can easily comment, like and share your content. According to this Forbes article, “TikTok is also the social media platform with the most opportunities to ‘go viral.’”
Getting started on TikTok with examples
It only takes one good video to go from zero to hero on TikTok. This video of our team member Joe Pittman got nearly two million views after being posted by his church. Similar to Cinderella’s glass slipper, you need to find the content that fits. The four main types of content you should use to promote your brand are videos of you and your team, user duets, advertisements and influencer related content. It could be as simple as dueting a video and sharing your thoughts, like this example here from a home inspector. You could take a clever route using music clips like this real estate example here. You can showcase your team and office culture in a fun way like this example here. Your content should be relatable, fun and true to your brand. Using popular hashtags can help ensure your content reaches the right audience. Follow this guide from TikTok to create your first video, or lean on our team at Bowe Digital.
TikTok may be the key to you and your business’s happily ever after. Bowe Digital is your marketing fairy godmother, and we can help increase your presence on social media platforms including TikTok. We’ll help you come up with ideas, edit videos and more. Visit bowedigital.com to start.
Ring! Ring! School is back in session and not just for your kids. As a former Kindergarten teacher working for Bowe Digital, I can tell you that marketing and teaching aren’t as different as you may think. What’s the biggest difference? Instead of keeping a classroom of kids engaged and happy, we convince entire online audiences of busy adults to pay attention to us in hopes they’ll give us a gold star for being the best teacher in our industry.
Now that summer break is over, you can teach your customers about your business through marketing. Luckily, I’m here to give you a quick lesson on teaching, and we’ll start with the basics.
Get to Know Your Students
It’s time to break the ice…let’s play two truths and a lie.
TRUTH: Everyone can use a refresh on the basics. However, a person just discovering your business will need different information than someone who’s been working with you for years. Your marketing should target audiences in every step of the buying process.
TRUTH: Uncovering your customers’ questions helps you define your curriculum. Send out surveys, look at reviews and ask your employees. Once you understand what your customers need, you can answer their questions proactively.
LIE: Knowing your buyer persona is vital to your marketing efforts. Understanding the likes and dislikes of your target customer is how you choose topics and make your marketing relatable.
Decorate Your Classroom
No, in this scenario, your classroom isn’t your office; that’s more of a teachers' lounge. Your classroom is online, where your customers go to learn. Your online presence and marketing materials should be inviting and eye-catching. Like any great teacher, we often trick students into learning the material by getting creative. Decorate your marketing with videos, images and sounds to make learning about your business fun.
Define the Terms, and Go Over New Systems
Consumers value being informed. Give them the information they need to choose the right product or service on their own. Try making weekly social posts defining the terms your customers may need to know or highlighting what your products and services do.
If there’s one thing students love, it’s shortcuts. Consider this when it comes to your systems and technologies. Let your customers know what they do and how they’ll make life easier.
Offer Tutoring
Finally, make yourself available, and be open to more questions. Communication is key. After a transaction, complete a personal follow-up over the phone or email. Take it one step further by offering more educational resources to your customers.
Follow these steps to become the coolest teacher in school (or in your industry). Of course, Bowe Digital will be teaching marketing in the classroom next door. My team and I are always happy to provide you with more tips and marketing services at bowedigital.com.
You know when your mom used to make you clean the whole house anytime people were coming over? Well, this is kind of like that…
We’re acting as Mom here and telling you to tidy up your website so that your guests keep coming back. Your website is the home for your story and services; it’s also your chance to make a great first impression. When you want a clean house, you call a maid. When you want a clean website, you call Bowe Digital!
We can help make your website sparkling clean with our 3-step website creation process, but first, let’s talk about what makes a website stand out from the ones next door.
This article lists 7 qualities of a great website. Here are 4 that stand out:
Well-Designed and Functional
Your website should have white space and breaks. It should be uncluttered, Marie Kondo style, with quality photographs and graphics to let your message shine through. See this website we designed for Golden Dog Title & Trust. Your users won’t stick around if it’s hard to navigate or if there are issues with speed and functionality.
Optimized for Mobile
Most users look at your website from their phones, so in our best mom voice, we say, “There are no excuses.” With the growth of digital technology and devices, your website should look great and work well on any platform.
Fresh, Quality Content
It’s time to renovate! Your website should use language that makes sense to your audience and avoid corporate jargon. Visitors have short attention spans so correct spelling, accuracy, relevance and frequent updates with fresh content (videos, blogs, social, etc.) are vital to improving SEO and organic traffic. Take a look at Amerititle’s, blog. As their trusted partner, we keep the information posted here current and fresh.
Optimized for Search and the Social Web
Imagine you get your website prepped and ready for visitors, but no one shows up. To grow your guest list, your content needs to be well tagged, contain searchable words, have a decluttered HTML code and be easily shareable.
If your website isn’t hitting these marks or you’re not sure if it stands out from the website next door…don’t worry! The Bowe Digital team can help clean it up! Visit bowedigital.com/contact-us to learn more about our 3-step website creation process and our website hosting services!
What do Crocs and our founder and chief inspiration officer, Wayne Stanley’s childhood dreams, have in common? They both made a comeback in 2017. While Crocs were trending in fashion and people were jamming out to Ed Sheeran’s hit song, Shape of You, Wayne Stanley was making his entrepreneurial dreams a reality.
This week marks five years since Bowe Digital made its’ debut in 2017. In the five years since, we’ve accomplished a lot and made tons of memories, friends and amazing partners along the way.
Here are 5 things we’re proud of in the 5 years since Bowe Digital began.
1. Being named #12 on the Best Places to Work in Indiana list
Landing the #12 spot on the Best Places to Work in Indiana list this year was HUGE! We’re super fortunate to have a team that brags about our company as much as they do, but this award speaks for itself. Compiled by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Best Places to Work awards are based on anonymous employee surveys with questions about company culture, pay, diversity, and more. We’ve learned first hand that happy employees produce better satisfied partners and productivity.
2. Making a name for ourselves in the title industry
Our company has carved a niche in the land title insurance industry, and we’ve made a name for ourselves through our outreach by attending and speaking at events like NS3, ALTA HOP and ALMA Agency Seminars. Even if most of you think that our name is Bowe Digital (Bow-ie) and not Bowe Digital (Bow)...we forgive you. We are proud to set the standard and serve title and real estate companies across the U.S., and we feel lucky that companies outside of title and real estate have trusted us, too.
3. Offering our customers custom solutions
The Bowe Digital difference is that all of our marketing, communications and advertising strategies are 100% custom. Forget pre-made templates… we recognize what makes you unique and start from scratch to produce original content that’s branded to fit your needs and meet your standards. We pride ourselves on being an extension of your team. Our goal is to deliver on your vision for connecting with your customers and making an impact in your industry.
4. Encouraging our team members to learn and grow
Since getting our start in 2017, we have always encouraged the members of our team to set educational and professional goals and to never stop learning. Pushing our team to further their expertise and career helps them to better serve our partners. It’s a win-win. We’re proud to share that our entire team is Hubspot certified by Hubspot Academy and that almost all the members of our team have been certified as ALTA HOP Leaders with eight earning that certificate this year.
5. Growing the Bowe Digital family
Half of businesses fail in the first five years according to the Small Business Administration, but not Bowe Digital. Despite being tested by the pandemic in 2020, our company grew faster than ever, providing the best service and support to our growing list of partners. What started as five teammates and a dream of helping a few trusting partners, has evolved into a team of almost 20 full-time employees, serving nearly 200 partners. Our team truly is a family - it means everything to us - and we treat our partners like family, too!
Like Crocs, Bowe Digital likes to make a statement. We provide our partners comfort with a bold look that customers can’t miss, and while we’d like to give Crocs all the credit, we can’t. We really owe it all to Wayne and to his grandparents, Shirley and Glen Vernon Bowe who inspired him and inspired more than just the name of this company. We honor them each day by sticking to the promise to work hard, play hard, and respect everyone. We can’t believe it’s been five years, and we’re raising a glass to the next five…and the five after that…and the five after that! Visit bowedigital.com to learn more about our story, and join us in celebrating five years by partnering with us!
By now, I’m sure you’ve looked at the video above and are wondering where she could possibly go with this in relation to marketing. Marketing takes boatloads of work. You must put in the time and effort to know your audience, understand your company’s comfort level with creativity and constantly keep up with new tools. One main driving force with marketing at Bowe Digital is to never stop learning. We do our very best to learn about anything new for digital marketing because we want to provide the best service we can for our partners.
The video above was a gritty starting point for me the summer of 2018. I purchased a baby green warmblood horse with loads of energy. As you can see, he was a bit of a handful when we started. He refused jumps, ran off with me many times, bucked me off several times and was pretty much a toddler in their terrible twos. From the summer of 2018 to late winter 2019, he’s become a different horse. My experience with marketing has run parallel with training my horse.
Bowe Digital was just a “baby” when I started. There was much to learn about title insurance, design, our partners and how everything worked. I was excited to start but was nervous about the opportunity. As the months passed by, the amount of knowledge I gained in such a small amount of time was unreal. Being able to apply that brain power to our partner companies is something we’re all incredibly passionate about.
We provide each of our partners the reins and we are the horsepower that drives your marketing. Branding is an important part of selling what your company is about and it’s why we take the time to customize your marketing. We learn your audience, your preferences and then we create. We also give our partners each month the opportunity to review our work, allowing you to get exactly what you desire. We are hands-on and non-stop and we promise we won’t let you down.
The video above is what 10 long months of good old-fashioned hard work, blood, sweat and tears look like. I put in the work to get what I want out of everything I participate in, particularly my job. My pathway through the digital marketing world is very different from what most would expect it should be. Digital marketing is a tough gig with tons of competition. You’ve got to be the best to please the best and I believe that is why Bowe Digital’s marketing stands out from “the other guys”. If you’ve got marketing needs, you should probably put a Bowe on it. Email me today at ashley@bowedigital.com.
The Bowe Digital team had the best time at ALTA ONE! It’s always invigorating to see several of our partners and friends in one place, and Wayne loves catching up with his old colleagues from the American Land Title Association.
If you were there, we hope you got a chance to stop by our booth. (We were in the middle of Market ONE room, so it was hard to miss us with our friend, Shane, from BombBomb.) We also loved the speaker at the first Omni Session, Sekou Andrews. The presenters were great the entire week, but the spoken word poet/motivational speaker’s message certainly resonated with us. Andrews latched onto the “defy convention” theme. Using a little wordplay, Andrews told us to embrace new ideas and to not be afraid to splash around and create a “Title Wave.” He challenged the crowd to be “bold enough to share who you are” with your potential customers.
Since storytelling is a big part of what we do at Bowe Digital, our team silently applauded that line from the audience. In fact, if you’re ready to put Andrews’ words in action for your company, we’d love to be the ones to help you tell your story better. Wayne was also one of presenters of one of the breakout sessions. He talked about digital marketing (of course).
Reminding the crowd that there is no “silver bullet” marketing solution, Wayne and his co-presenter, Dean Collura, gave five tips when it comes to improving your company’s digital presence with a multi-channel approach. Those five tips were:
Huge congrats go out to Cynthia Blair too! She officially became the ALTA president for 2018-19, succeeding our friend Steve Day of Fidelity National Title Group. We know Cynthia, who is one of the founders of Blair Cato Pickren Casterline in South Carolina, will use her tenure to continue to do great things for ALTA and the entire land title insurance industry.
Splash, splash!
Ready to reconnect with Bowe Digital, no matter if we met in LA or way before then? Great! Contact us today.
Happy fall, y’all.
October is certainly busy for us, just like it is for so many of you! We’re putting the finishing touches on a new www.bowedigital.com and gearing up for ALTA ONE, the national conference put on by the American Land Title Association.
It’s going to be great to talk to so many of our partners, and Wayne will be co-presenting a session called, “Are You Speaking To Me? A Blueprint for 5 Must Have Digital Marketing Channels.” We’ll give you a recap of what he says and everything else that we learn during the conference for you. We’re sure we’ll pick up lots of things we can use for our non-land title partners and future customers too.
For those of you joining our team at ALTA ONE in California, Wayne’s talk happens on Oct. 10 (that’s Wednesday) at 10:30 a.m. Be sure to stop by the Bowe Digital booth during the week too. We’ll have lots of cool stuff, and we love meeting new people. (Old friends are always welcome to stop and chat too.)
We’ve gotten lots of compliments on our first website during our first year in business. It will always have a place in our hearts, but we can’t wait to show you the new BoweDigital.com. It’s just so warm and inviting. You’ll see the faces of the entire Bowe Digital team sprinkled throughout, and even though some of us were nervous about the photoshoot, the pictures turned out great.
The new site also better highlights why Wayne named the company Bowe Digital. (Hint, it’s to honor his grandfather.) There has always been a blurb about Bowe on our page, but the redesign truly showcases it. We love that!
Our website redesign is a great example of what we can do for our partners. Anything can be improved and honed. Don’t wait until you’re behind to figure out how you can do something better. If you have any marketing desires you’d like to see become a reality, contact Bowe Digital today.
