The LocalPAGES Team is pleased to announce our Business of the Week winner, Pro Hanford Travel! Located at 300 W 7th St. Hanford, CA 93230-4526, this travel agency serves the local communities of Hanford, Visalia, Lemoore, Corcoran and Tulare.

Be sure to give Pro Hanford Travel a call for all your wanderlust needs. Their agents aren’t just knowledgeable in the industry, but they speak multiple languages too, ensuring that you get the best and easiest service as possible. Pro Hanford Travel agents will work with your budget, schedule and circumstances so that you can make the most out of your trip.

Pro Hanford Travel agents will be there to assist you whether you’re travelling via air, land, or sea. Just give their staff all the necessary information, and they’ll do the rest to come up with an itinerary that’s fun and cost effective at the same time.

How do they do it? Well, in their own words, “We take the time to get to know you, understanding your approach to travel, what you like to see and do and in what style. Then we match these factors with your budget, schedule and our insider connections with the best travel providers. Our travel professionals are here for you to talk to, answer your questions, and design a vacation perfect just for you. No web site or cell phone “app” can do it our way.”

Why choose Pro Hanford Travel over websites and other services? Simple. Passion + Experience. The agents at this travel agency have decades of experience in the tourism industry, so you know that you’ll be in good hands. To them, proving travel services isn’t just a job, it’s a passion.

Additionally, Pro Hanford Travel has been in the industry for several years, and their established business presence enables them to leverage their knowledge and connections to get you the best travel deals possible.

Missed your flight? Lost some of your belongings?  When you seek help, other travel agencies or websites can put you on hold or get you on the phone with a clueless representative. Don’t let this happen to you. When things don’t go as planned during your travels, you can count on Pro Hanford Travel agents to help you out. Since you’ve already dealt with them personally, they will automatically be familiar with your situation, and come up with the best possible solution.

If you’re planning to go on a trip in the near future and you’re in need of a great travel agency in Hanford, CA, get in touch with Pro Hanford Travel at (559) 584-7000.

One of the most difficult time frames for any startup company is between the very beginning of the business until the end of the second year. In that time frame, about one-third of the startup companies will end and even more will go by five years. The reasons differ and sometimes they are simple, but keeping up with your company from the very start is the best way to ensure that your business doesn’t become extinct within its first few years.

To help prevent this type of burn out for your company, always begin with market research to understand the wants of your customers. Talk to the people around your business, your target market and ensure that you are offering the perfect product to the perfect people. You’ll also get a great idea on your targets and allow them to get a feel for your personality, not just your business.

As any company can tell you, location is a big deal when determining the success of your new startup company. Whether it’s on the internet with a catchy URL or within the city somewhere, making sure you have enough traffic to notice your brand is beneficial to your success. Being right where you should be is the best way to go about getting the attention your business deserves.

There will be snags along the way as is the case with any type of startup business that ventures out there. Planning ahead is where people fail because not everybody makes sure to diagnose each scenario and develop a plan to get their company out of trouble should something happen. To stay ahead of the game, be sure to outline all of the troubles your new company can have and what possible ways there are to get out of the predicaments.

Just because you’re a company now doesn’t mean you can’t work the deals to save yourself some money. Keeping expenses down will help ensure that you are making more than you spend and that is one way to stay afloat. Make trades of your products, hire interns or simply do the extra work yourself in order to save some extra cash at the startup of your business.

Take the time to look at your progress and make sure that the business is running smoothly. Make sure that everything is accounted for and analyze if there is a certain area where you went wrong and how you can fix it. Analyzing your numbers now will give you a good idea of where your company is headed and allow you to make changes if you need to.

Don’t let your company fizzle out before it has the chance to grow, keep up with everything going on and don’t be afraid to make changes or take risks. You’ll be glad you did.

Image credit: Andy Arthur on Flickr

The LocalPAGES team is pleased to announce our Business of the Week winner, Ecovative! Located at 60 Cohoes Ave Green Island, NY 12183, this young company aims to help save the world—one environmentally-friendly product at a time.

Ecovative aims to replace plastics, foams and other environmentally-harmful materials with green and natural composites. The company is using new technology to develop “high performance, affordable, and environmentally sensible materials.”

The Birth of Ecovative

Mushrooms. Yes, it all started with mushrooms. According to the company’s history, “Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre were fascinated by mushrooms growing on wood chips, and observing how the fungal mycelium strongly bonded the wood chips together. This inspired them to think of new ways of using mycelium as a resin.”

Back then, the two were still in school, and in one of their classes at Rensselaer, they developed a process that involved combining insulating materials to create a matter that could actually replace Styrofoam™.  What’s special about this new material was that it was completely natural, renewable, and unlike Styrofoam™, it wasn’t harmful to the environment.

After graduation Bayer and McIntyre founded Ecovative, and they’ve been growing ever since.

About Ecovative’s Materials

The materials used for their products aren’t manufactured. They’re grown. According to their website, Ecovative grows their materials “from agricultural byproducts and mycelium, a fungal network of threadlike cells. It’s like the “roots” of mushrooms.” Naturally occurring processes enable the mycelium to digest the agricultural products and form a structural material.

Evocative’s materials can be applied to various things out in the market. The company has already managed to develop and produce materials that can be used in various industries, including construction and automotive.

One of Ecovative’s most revolutionary products is the EcoCradle Packaging, a material that can replace Styrofoam™. EcoCradle are custom made to meet each client’s packaging needs. “Ecovative’s team of scientists, designers, and engineers work with companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to small businesses, addressing unique packaging challenges and creating new packaging designs.” Some of the companies that Ecovative has already helped include Dell, Steelcase, and Puma.

Yep, Ecovative has definitely made a significant step into making our planet a better place. If you wish to learn more about their products and services, or if you just want to congratulate their team on their awesome products, you can contact this eco-friendly company in Green Island, NY at (518) 273-3753 or send an email to info@ecovativedesign.com.

No matter the size of a company, creating a brilliant marketing campaign can serve you well on many platforms, especially television commercials.

The same can be said in this instance for the powerhouse brand known across the globe. The sports worlds’ own ESPN has launched an absolutely brilliant advertisement to market their brand even further onto the masses. What they did in the commercial is simple, yet very effective in terms of getting viewers to laugh, smile and understand their message.

Their slogan at the end of the commercial sums it up well; It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports.

It gets straight to the point and premise of what they want to say about their network. As a company, your goal should be to strive for the same thing. You should give a genius advertising campaign while getting your message across to promote your brand to the fullest.

Although ESPN is known worldwide and already contain a market for sports fans of all kinds, they took an iconic figure in sports to produce an advertisement that grabs the attention of the viewer. For ESPN, this is mission accomplished.

As a company that is looking for a marketing campaign to reach out to clients, customers, fans or any other audience, take this video for example on simplicity and brilliance in the advertisement.

Here is the video:

ESPN Advertisement: It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports

Watch it, enjoy it and use it as motivation to create a perfect advertising campaign for your company in the future.

Image from ESPN.com

Did you know that when potential clients visit your website, that can usually form a first impression on your brand within just a few seconds?

The next few seconds following that are used to confirm those impressions and just like that, in less than 10 seconds, you have the opportunity to lose or gain a valuable customer. Making a first impression through your website should be one of the top priorities of your business considering the way marketing and technology have become hand-in-hand with one another. That first impression can make or break sales.

So, what do you want to have on your website in order to catch the visitors’ attention and get them to form a strong first impression?

Of course, you want to have your company’s logo in plain sight so the users could see your brand. That is what most website visitors focus on the most as it is the way people will identify your business in the future. Odds are the logo gets the longest looks and is what most people will remember as they leave your site at the end.

The next portion of your website that will get the most attention from potential customers is the navigation bar or navigation menus. Having an easy-to-use and simple navigation bar and menu to allow the users to flow through the website easily is beneficial. It could also help to have them designed to fit your personality as showing who you are and what your brand represents will help with future interaction.

Of course your website should have a search box. It makes life and navigating that much easier for the users as they can quickly find what they are looking for through a simple search.

As a business, you most likely will also have social media networks that you use in order to promote new items, services, deals or any other interaction with customers or “fans” of your brand. Your website should have the widgets to your social media profiles to make it easy for your fans to come in contact with you via those websites as well.

Your main page, written content and the of course the bottom of the page are all very important elements to your page. Keeping photos and graphics to gain the focus and attention is surely helpful to getting customers to look at your site that much longer. As well as the bottom of the page; this provides customers with vital information such as contact info, company FAQs and other important information that clients may need.

Remember, keeping an updated website is just as important as the service you provide because it is what brings the initial interest in your company to the forefront. If users are instantly leaving your website (or your business for that matter), then your services won’t even come into play. The first impression you make on potential clients and customers could dictate the business you will conduct with them.

Make a lasting impression.

Image credit: Sean MacEntee on Flickr

The LocalPAGES team is pleased to announce our Business of the Week winner, Drainworks Plumbing and Heating! Located at 46 Northview Dr. Glenside, PA 19038-1318, this plumbing company has been serving the Philadelphia area for well over 3 decades!

Drainworks is proud of being the most trustworthy and reliable plumbing and heating contractor in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia.  Unlike other plumbers that have a reputation of overcharging clients who don’t know much about water and heat systems, the guys at Drainworks will only charge customers a fair price. The company is committed to being in the business for the long haul, so its staff fully understands that they need to provide customers with a positive experience every time.

Think of the Drainworks team as your friendly neighborhood plumbers. Since they operate in the same area as their customers, they know vicinity well and can be on site quickly and easily. Additionally, Drainworks does its part in enriching and boosting the local economy of Philadelphia by providing people with jobs and opportunities. They’ve been doing this for years and they intend to keep doing it for years to come.

Drainworks offers complete plumbing services for both homes and businesses. Whether you have a mom & pop shop or you’re dealing with the industrial side of business, you’ll know that you can count on them.

Need someone to take care of your drain and sewer? Drainworks is Philadelphia’s expert in sewer cleaning. They even offer emergency plumbing for those times when you need someone pronto.

Drainworks can also fix and maintain your pipes. If the pipes in your home or business somehow get clogged, simply give them a call. Drainworks will not only fix the problem, but they’ll get to the bottom of the cause to ensure that your pipes remain clog-free.

Additionally, they can handle pretty much everything—from installation, maintenance, and repair of your sewage and heating systems. Drainworks provides complete services for your water heater, boiler, gas, and more.

Drainworks professionals are also available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you know that you can call them no matter what time of the day it is. After all, plumbing or heating crises can’t wait, why should you?

Yup, if you live in Philly, then consider yourself lucky to have the reliable plumbers at your service. If you need the full list of the areas that they cover or if you just want to say hi to this great Plumbing and Heating company in Glenside, PA, you can check out their website or call them up at (215) 333-8780.

Social media marketing has recently been an ever-growing trend in the advertising of a business. Companies take to Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets to get their brand out there to the masses through pictures, communication, special deals and other ways to stay in touch with the customers. However, as the idea of social media marketing grows, as does the basis of what you will do to accomplish those marketing goals over these networks.

So, how do you make your brand and advertising schemes go viral?

Take, for instance, the annual Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt. It’s almost a given that a majority of the people know who Tony Hawk is and what he has done for the world of skateboarding. Now, though, he is an entrepreneur; a business owner with clothing lines, skateboards, skateparks and many more ventures that have made him even more successful than he already was.

Back to the Twitter Hunt.

It all started when Hawk decided to leave a signed skateboard somewhere in the city he was in at the time. He tweeted the location of the skateboard and within about 10 minutes, someone had replied to him with a picture of the skateboard and informed Hawk that a few other cars were pulling up at the location as well. This sparked an idea in Hawk to turn this idea viral and it took over the entire globe.

Other companies had donated stuff for the Twitter Hunt in which, now, includes anywhere from 50-60 left in various locations across the globe that have people searching far and wide for the goodies. Talk about going viral in a big way.

Hawk now conducts this Twitter Hunt every year with different items from his line and donations from other companies. Some of the items range from skateboards and clothes to gift cards and radios. All companies involved are getting their brand out to the world the best way they can; by presenting it to people first hand.

As social media marketing takes over the advertising world little by little, the idea of Twitter Hunts or other ways to give to your customers through these networks will grow as well. Simply putting some of your products in random locations and giving a scavenger hunt feel through hints and clues will give your brand great recognition and keep your clients interacting with you. So take to the social media world and go viral!

Image credit: Josh Semans on Flickr

It appears that Mark Zuckerberg and the people at Facebook have agreed to acquire Instagram, the mobile photo behemoth that has taken over the photo sharing world.

The plan is for the Instagram team to build upon what is already a successful application and continue with the features that already come with it. Users will still be allowed to post their Instagram photos to other social media networks and have the option of whether or not they would like to post their photos to Facebook. They want to continue to build and grow on what they currently have with the application.

While many users have had a problem recently with the Instagram app expanding over to the Android market, Facebook isn’t expected to dramatically change the app and the hope is that it will just add the strong branding and infrastructure that Facebook holds.

The cost for Instagram: $1 billion.

This shows that small business ideas can turn into a big paycheck with innovation and hard work. Instagram has been a huge success with iPhone users and now through the Android phones as well. The move and integration with the Facebook engineering should only help continue to build the strong application for its many users already.

With the way that Facebook already shares photos and the innovation in which Instagram completes the same process, it is safe to say that these two mega-monsters could have great success together if the concept is done properly. Instagram users don’t require change to the application, so Facebook doesn’t have much work to do in terms of changing anything within the app. Simply spreading the brand further and giving it a strong infrastructure will more than likely do the trick in helping build on the popularity already instilled.

Both companies insist that Instagram and Facebook will work as independent companies.

It is currently unknown if the application will change dramatically, but if it does, the companies can expect quite a few people to jump ship if it fails. The most that should (and possibly could) change is the ability to turn geo-tagged Instagram photos into Facebook check-ins and a dual login, making the sharing of photos on both Instagram and Facebook quicker and easier.

From idea to $1 billion, Instagram creators made a bold move into the future of photo sharing and it is paying off for them and millions of users in a big way.

Image credit: beta75.se on Flickr

The LocalPAGES team is pleased to announce our Business of the Week winner, Road 2 Retail! Located at 3605 Long Beach Blvd. Ste 310 Long Beach, CA 90807, this product development company provides their clients “with over 25 years of experience in product design, development, manufacturing, and marketing.”

If you have an idea for a product that you know the world needs, but you’re not quite sure how to bring your vision to reality, then Road 2 Retail is great place to start. Simply submit your idea, and they’ll walk you through the 4-step process of bringing your invention into the real world. The steps in Road 2 Retail’s process include:

1. Product design and development – When you submit your idea, Road 2 Retail’s design engineers will evaluate it and generate concepts for your product, to give you an idea of how it will look, function, and cost. View every angle of your product’s concept using CAD/CAM programs and decide on how you want it to look.

2. Manufacturing – Once you decide on the appearance and all the technical details of your product, it’s time to move to next stage which is manufacturing.  Road 2 Retail owns facilities worldwide, and the production of your product is done in house to guarantee that it will be of highest quality.

3. Package Design – Handled by Road 2 Retail’s graphic design department, this stage involves deciding on how your product will be packaged. Packaging can make or break your product, so every little detail of the package—from the colors and fonts to size and shape must be thoroughly considered.

4. Intellectual Property Rights – All ideas need to be protected, and Road 2 Retail will help you patent, copyright, or trademark your ideas, products, and other necessary documentation.

Don’t let your great ideas collect dust and cobwebs inside your head; bring them into reality! If you’ve done your research, and know that the market has a great need for your product idea, then by all means, do something about it. Not sure how to proceed? Need to know more about this product development company in Long Beach, CA? Then call Road 2 Retail at 562-424-0228.

Small business suppliers are getting a boost from a new program website from mega-company IBM.

The website is Supplier Connection, which allows the small companies to keep in contact and connect with the bigger businesses and compete for the big contracts. This website will help the smaller firms gain access and have the opportunity to earn their share of the estimated $300 billion that large corporations spend on supply chains. It is also a great way for the smaller companies to get some mentoring from the bigger companies in their industry.

The website, which has already received some support from many large companies already, already boasts about 1,000 small companies in an attempt to connect the companies. It’s a simple, yet powerful concept that will empower companies from here on out.

The original concept has been tested by IBM since 2010, but just now has come to fruition and allowed for full capability.

A concept of this nature could be huge for the future development of small business as getting your brand out there through the bigger brands is the ultimate form of marketing. The ability to market your company by actually supplying to the bigger brands in your niche will earn your small business the right to move up the ‘business ladder’ in a quick, effective way.

The project was funded by a $10 million grant from IBM’s charitable arm, the IBM International Foundation.

As of right now, there are no numbers to demonstrate the success of the program as of yet, but given a year’s time should show more efficient results to base off of.

Image credit: Kansir on Flickr