Here is the first official DuoLAB video of how we produce our beautiful, wax-dipped juice bottles. Check it out.

Still on the fence about a website for your small business? The fact is that a website can do much more for your business than give your clientele another way to find your company.

Grow Your Small Business

If you want your small business to grow, you must have a good online presence. Yes, word of mouth and sales pitches are still important, but today, word of mouth is called social media and your sales pitch is your website.

Your website is the face of your company, so make sure it’s professional, easy-to-use and provides the level of service as the rest of your business.

Showcase Your Business

Your website is your own little online kingdom…there’s a reason why they call them domains.

In your website you are free to showcase, talk-up and downright brag about your company and its achievements. This is why nearly every company website you visit has an ‘About Us’ section.

In short, your website is a place where you have a captivated audience that you can impress and dazzle right into contacting you.

Control Your Press

Whether you like it or not, chances are your small business is being talked about somewhere on the web…good or bad.

The beauty of having a website is that you can control, if just on your site, what people are saying. This is why websites often have a ‘Testimonials’ section.

Inform Your Customers

You can share a lot of information with potential clients, in a very short amount of time, with a website.

From frequently asked questions (FAQs), to your products/services, to your hours of operation and contact information—your website will not only be the face, but the voice of your small business when you’re not around.

Compete in Your Market

A good website can help your small business better compete in your market. How? You can use it to promote special promotions or offers.

Through the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) you can get your website to rank higher in natural search results.

Through a good web presence, you’ll be assuring that younger consumers coming up through the ranks will get to know you…generation Y’ers simply don’t use phone books or read printed newspapers.

Legitimize Your Business

Finally, a website can help legitimize your small business. There’s nothing more unimpressive than getting online to check out a business or service you’ve heard about and finding nothing but online yellow page listings and review sites talking about it.

In short, a website gives your small business street cred.

Where to Start 

Once you’ve committed to a website…where do you start?

There are a lot of folks out there willing to build websites for small businesses—from high school students to design agencies. You can spend anywhere from $500 to $5,000 or more on a website, depending on who’s designing it and what you want done with it.

If you’re looking for a simple, professional-looking website, the folks at DUO would be happy to meet with you and help you put together a clean, attractive and effective website for a very affordable price.

To learn more about DUO and the websites they’ve created for other small business owners, click here or contact them directly at 435.772-9202.

Bryce Casselman, Marketing Director at DUO

Whether at a tradeshow…walking down the street…or even at a parade, we’ve all been given promotional items that go right into the trash. On the other hand, we’ve all gotten promotional items that we’ve kept, used and enjoyed. So, what’s the difference?

Think about the promotional items you’ve kept; was it because it was a great, new idea, or because it was useful to you, or was it because it was just very, very cool?

When considering for a promotional items for our clients, these are the very questions we at DUO ask ourselves:

• Does this item have a wow factor?

• Is this item relevant to its intended audience?

• If we were given this item, would we keep & use it?

• What can we do that’s never been done before?

From these promotional brainstorming sessions have come many, many good ideas, but here are few that we are particularly proud of:

Affordable & Different

It may seem like a bit of a no-brainer, but the thing lip balm has going for it is…well, it’s affordable and not a pen. Now, although they might be a little light on the “wow” and “originality” categories, lip balms hit the “relevant” and “useful” factor with the average person really well.

Wrap Something Useful

When Cache Valley Specialty Hospital was looking to do a promotional item that would be useful and re-used, this tissue box wrap for doctor offices was inexpensive, practical and related to their field.

Easy as Candy

As a company, we decided to give orange-themed items to our clients as Christmas gifts and chose orange sticks as one of the items we gave away. Well, with some quick thinking by our creative department, this gift went from creative to down right, good branding.

Go Classic

When the Big Blue Club came to us looking for a special promo item for their donors, we came up with lots of ideas, but this clock won out with it’s classic appeal, unique branding and professional finish.

Bold & Beautiful

 When Intermountain Heart Center came to us looking for a high-end promotional item for doctors attending their seminar that coincided with the opening of, and included a viewing of, the third Twilight movie. We created this multi-textured, wax-dipped juice bottle that was perfectly branded for the event.

Here’s a link to a commercial on which Cache Valley Specialty Hospital and the University of Utah partnered.

Running this commercial during this year’s Potato Bowl was an idea that came out of a marketing calendar meeting held here at DUO. We really love working with the folks at CVSH.

Give it a watch…it pulls at the heart strings just a bit.

As we here at DUO reflect on the past year, and the many unique, creative and down right cool promotional items we’ve created for our clients, we decided to pick our favs…and here they are (in no particular order):

Juice Bottle for Cook Martin Poulson

We produced a lot of customized juice bottles during 2011, but felt that the CMP bottle came out especially nice.

Tissue Box Wrap for CVSH

We like this one we did for Cache Valley Specialty Hospital, because of the simplicity of the idea and how nice it turned out.

Customizable Tumbler

A popular item this year, these customizable cups flew off our shelves when our clients found out just how affordable they are.

Logan Country Club Promo Plan

This one shows how several pieces can be combined and sent out in stages, to give target audiences multiple, positive impressions.

Mobile Zipline Packaging

We wanted to create packaging that was a portable and unique as the Spectrum Sport’s product…the tube was the perfect solution.

Scentinel Fire Starter Tins

From the round tin to the artwork to the shrink wrap, this packaging made the list because of one thing…it stands out from the crowd.

Apogee Sunlight Converter

Unique in so many ways, this little item challenged us on many levels, but ultimately became one of our favorites we produced.

Privacy Link Cards

We love taking the typical and turning them into something unique…and this series of thank you cards turned out particularly nice.

Pet Check Packaging

This packaging is actually 2-in-1, designed with a specimen collector and envelope that can be mailed from anywhere in the country.

DUO Client Christmas Gift

We had a blast putting together our orange-themed client Christmas Gift, filled with Crush Soda, Chocolate Oranges, Orange Sticks & the aforementioned DUO tumbler.

If you’d like DUO to create your own unique promotional item, give us a call at 435.772.9202 or visit us online at www.DUO-2.com.

Kartchner Family Poses with Old Saint Nick

Recently, a few of the DUO team attended an event sponsored by Cache Valley for Hope Cancer Foundation. DUO has had close relations with Cache Valley for Hope since it’s founding earlier this year.

Cache Valley for Hope has become a charity that is very important to DUO and we have loved working with them. Continue reading →