FAQ's

According to the of the “leaders” of the movement towards Conscious Capitalism, Whole Foods' John Mackey and his research partner Raj Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism is created when a business operates in harmony with the triple bottom line principals first promoted by BALLE – the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.

The triple bottom line is focused on

• people – the suppliers, investors, customers, employees and community
• profit – all businesses have to make a fair profit
• planet – the environment

According to the book “Conscious Marketing” by Carolyn Tate, there are shifts we have to make to practice conscious capitalism.

Conscious marketing in our definition at onCOREventures is a bit different then the definition of some of the “woo-woo” inspired new age thinkers that are using the same term.  In our definition, conscious marketing starts with identifying your core values as a company, the authentic needs of your consumer, the real and tangible benefits of your services and telling stories, providing facts and allowing your consumer to decide to buy your services because they need them and you want to work with them.

A paradox is that often times it is the subconscious of the buyer who decides that the product or service that you offer is the right fit for them. You know conscious marketing when you see it and more importantly feel it – in your gut or your heart. Conscious marketing is the path to more loyal clients.

Marketing Coaching is a specific coaching practice that works with primarily entrepreneurs and small business owners who cannot afford to grow their business by purchasing.

Unlike pure life or business coaching in which the coach assumes that the client has the answers inside of them and the coach asked empowering questions to help the client find the answer, marketing coaching uses online education and follows it with coaching techniques to help the business owner implement their own marketing systems.

On-Core Ventures uses the Duct Tape Marketing online environment to guide people through a proven system that is cost effective and results driven.

Marketing coaching is good for technological proficient business owners that have some comfort with marketing and sales and want to implement cost-effective programs.  They have the time to spend ten hours a week working on their own marketing programs – every week for six to twelve months.

At On-Core Ventures, we use the Duct Tape Marketing University environment and we provide a web development framework and support of that environment for clients to build out their own websites.  We assign our clients exercises that help them develop their expertise and we edit and review their work products.  This allows the client to use tools rather than worry about selecting them and installing them themselves and the web environment is secure and managed professionally for them while they are in the program

Over 40% of mobile searches for products and services do not go through Google. These go through other online directories and most of these are conducted by apps like Yelp or AI tools like Siri or Alexa.  These go to one of the many online directories including Yelp, Super Pages, YP.com and many more. There are hundreds of these directories.  Almost half of business owners have never claimed their directories entries.

You need accuracy because full content (there are 14 types of information that the major directories support including photos, business descriptions, and videos) increases your chances of getting found online. This is true even in Google searches which gives more credibility to companies with the top 14 information attributes filled out and good information on directories other than Google my business.

Reputation Management is a twofold process.  Frist – customers and clients must be asked for reviews for online use whether those reviews are on the client’s website, or Google, Yelp, YP.com, Facebook and so on.

Secondly, submitted reviews need to be scanned and the company notified of all new reviews particularly negative reviews.  It’s also a best practice to respond to the reviews as they are posted.

Local SEO consists of a number of different techniques and the term is interpreted differently.  At On-Core Ventures, we use the following Local SEO practices.  When we are working with local businesses in our home area of Pittsburgh, we assist or we create content that is locally focused and uses local information – so if we are working with a pest control company we do not try to market to people with pests that do not exist in our area and we follow the seasonality of the pests in Western Pennsylvania – including the Baltimore Ravens. (you cannot live or do business in Western Pa and ignore Steeler fans)

We also recommend including promotion through Google my Business and Social Media of events that are locally focused, like a restaurant participating in a Farm to Table dinner or the Taste of Cranberry.

We install the Yoast local SEO plugin to make sure that Name Address and Phone number and other website information is stored properly from a technical perspective and that information maps to the directories that we publish information.   We will not do web work or marketing coaching for local brick and mortar businesses if they are not using our local presence management services for directory publication and reputation management.

We strongly encourage our clients to have a weekly blog with information that is timely and keyword rich got their ideal clients, and focused on the local needs of their customers.

The net effect of this is that through the use of active solicitation of reviews and heavy editorial content development.

Google is constantly trying to filter out the garbage form web search.  You used to be able to use tactics that were deceiving to get on page one of Google.  Today you have to provide valuable and relevant content.  There are over four trillion pages of information on the web.  You have to publish content specific to the ideal client profile that you want to attract and provide them the exact information they need in order to decide to buy your product.  Most people do not want to work that hard to get business and they try to shortcut the process and they end up on page six of Google. For a detailed blog on this topic.

It is relatively easy to get on the first page of Google for your company name and your key categories if you follow the process that Google recommends. By doing this you can make Page One of Google your new business card.

Referrals are one of the best ways for a business to grow and get business.  We advise our clients to be members of strong contact referral organizations and to create specific mutually beneficial referral relationships with other business owners that sell products to their ideal clients.

68% of people that are given a referral will give a referral back.  So, it is really simple – what to get a referral – give one and ask for one in return.  Our founder guest wrote a blog in BNI of Western PA’s site that describes how he created his coaching practice through the use of BNI the world’s leading referral organization.

Forming strategic relationships for referrals is a key strategy for any small or big business.  We have ten ideas that you can use to create these referral relationships in this blog

The customer journey is the process that your customer takes to make a buying decision.  In the past customers (buyers) were often lead through a sequential sales process because information about solutions was scarce.  Today, information is everywhere.  Customers are in the full control of the customer journey – the buying process. We have two detailed blogs on the customer journey – an overview of the process and how to map your customer journey.

While SEM and SEO are closely related, the terms are not interchangeable. It’s important to know which is which when you’re studying them, implementing them, or evaluating a professional who offers services in one or both of those areas.

The short answer is, the term SEM covers all search engine-related marketing activities, while SEO refers specifically to making your website more appealing to search engines. For a complete treatment of this question see this blog.

The most important, foundational step of your SEO strategy for blogging is knowing who your clients are and which keywords to use to attract them.

Keywords are the words or phrases people type into search engines when they’re looking for products or services like yours, and having those words in your website tells engines and their users that your site is what they’re looking for.  For an in-depth review of how these work together read this blog entry.

Search engine marketing is a blanket term that covers all client attraction activities related to search engines, including SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

It’s important to use both in conjunction. The competition is often too stiff for SEO to work by itself, but without good SEO, it takes a huge budget to maintain high search rankings, and people who do click through might not stay long enough to make a purchase.  For an in-depth look How to Get More Clients Through SEO and Search Engine Marketing