You’ve poured your time, money, blood, sweat, and tears into building your business. But now you’ve made it. Why not optimize your operations processes and marketing strategies to make things a little easier?

Some companies right here in Houston, Texas learned how to gain an edge on their competition by using digital tools effectively. Here are the stories of five local Houston companies and in no particular order.

1. Astral Catering

This superior catering service advertises the fact that they are an affordable option for fine food services in the Houston area. One look at the website and your mouth will water with the elegant pictures of fine cuisine.

This company is making efficient use of their website by using it as a place that brings all their options, packages, menus to life with vibrant pictures and full menu details about all the catering services they provide. This is an excellent example of quality branding: the website looks great and feels delicious.

Astral Catering uses their website as a place to showcase their gourmet food and catering menus and options.

 2. Urban Swank

A unique brand out of Houston, Urban Swank is a lifestyle blog whose entire business revolves around the use of digital tools. According to their website, the definition of the brand Urban Swank is “Uniquely different; embodying one’s own personal flair and style.” Shanna Jones and Felice Sloan founded this website in 2011 and they have been successfully blogging about the food, fashion and travel industries in Houston ever since.

Their digital public relations and online marketing efforts are paying off with this website that has received awards and recognition for achieving excellence. This company does a great job of creating engaging content and marketing that content effectively, thus they are able to thrive purely from their online footprint.

UrbanSwank is a lifestyle blog dedicated to reporting on travel, food, and fashion in Houston Texas.

3. OOPS Steam Cleaning

Oops Steam Cleaning company has a unique approach to their online reputation management that makes them stand out in your mind and leave an impression. We have personally heard their ads on the radio and have been impressed with their presence and sense of humor. On their website you can read their numerous customer reviews and they even feature a link to the “unhappy customer” reviews. The company does a good job at responding to negative reviews and addressing customer complaints.

One thing we noticed was that their website features hundreds of reviews but their Google+ profile and Yelp page only feature a few. An even better way to capitalize on a strong online reputation would be to encourage customers to leave reviews on those platforms and then feature them on the website or provide links to their review profiles.

This carpet cleaning company from Houston takes a unique approach with their online reputation management.

4. Rawfully Organic

This co-op was founded by the chief co-operator Kristina in 2007 when she and a group of 12 neighbors got together with the common goal to make shopping for organic produce more convenient and affordable for everyone. Since then the co-op and website has grown enormously and there are physical locations where people can shop as well as the convenience they provide with the ability to order online from the website.

Their website features a clean and catchy call-to-action for their newsletter signup, something everyone will see when they visit the site. Their online shopping experience is smooth with seamless integration with their website. The blog featured on the site is impressive with truly unique content including this recent post with a poem written by the founder of the co-op.

Rawfully Organic is a co-op that offers users the opportunity to order produce online that is sent to their door.

5. Marbella Spa and Salon

The Marbella Spa and Salon website captures your full attention as soon as you hit the page. Lively jazz music playing in the background accompanied by the salon video background creates the feeling as if you are actually in the salon.

These are just a few examples of companies in Houston that are finding success with online marketing and branding their businesses, well – better! Thanks for checking out our blog! Our passion is helping Houston companies achieve BIG visions on down-to-earth budgets through digital marketing strategies, and if you have an idea about growing your business, give us a call! It’s our pleasure to serve you.