Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category
Monday, February 8th, 2010
Determining your objectives sounds simple. But do you really know what you want? Success only comes after you’ve taken the steps to get there. You want people to recognize, trust, and choose your brand. On top of that, you want consumers coming back for more. Online marketing campaigns can help you reach your objectives; whether those goals are brand recognition, customer engagement, lead generation, or increased traffic to your website.
The swoosh, golden arches, and apple are just a few examples of how companies have effectively built their image in our minds. Strong branding allows your brand to stand out among competitors. Through online marketing, you increase your view to consumers, prominently displaying your brand’s message and engaging them. With the need for transparency being a priority today more than ever before, online marketing is one of many avenues used to remain present in your consumer’s everyday life.
Businesses have three main objectives: make money, save money, and build brand equity. Having access to consumers at your fingertips, literally, will allow you to make an impression on your target audience in real time, actively generate and convert leads, and act in a more cost-effective manner than when utilizing traditional marketing techniques; thus maintaining the main objectives.
As Social Media has taken the stage with many brands, coordinating between your company’s Traditional Online Media and Social Media aims can be confusing. Social should be viewed as online PR coupled with brand management, engagement and active advertising and messaging. When defining your goals or strategy, engage a mediator that will help you keep on target while educating you on key concepts that you or your company may be unfamiliar with. Also, keep in mind that there are both Quantitative and Qualitative metrics within online Media and Social Engagement. They vary by industry and company – you’ll want to define them as a baseline for your projects.
Obtaining your objectives, once you have clearly defined what they are, can be a simple process. If your online marketing campaign raises brand awareness, generates leads, converts leads, or engages your consumers, then you have met your metrics for success.
Tags: audience engagement, brand strategy, online marketing, online objectives, social media
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business News, Strategy | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
When brainstorming marketing prerogatives for the New Year, keep in mind the power of relationships.
 Build Trust, Build Brand Talking to people is a free marketing tool. It can often lead to meaningful connections, referrals, or at the very least, beginning a rapport with someone as you enhance the credibility of your business or brand. Nothing is more effective than building relationship, having conversations and making connections.
So get out there! Develop a monthly networking calendar, go out with the right mentality, build your network, jump into the conversation, and put a friendly, receptive face to your brand. If you are feeling really ambitious, host a meet up event and bring the people to you. By distinguishing yourself as a go-getting networker, you will put yourself in great a position to get more business.
With that said, it is important not to forget about your current customers. Developing a relationship built on trust through honest interaction and clear responsive communication, your clients will see your worth and value your advice. People are more likely to work with someone they trust and have a personal relationship with, than those they do not.
Tags: cheap marketing, cost effective marketinging, distiguishing brand, event networking, power of relationships
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business News, Strategy | No Comments »
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
2010 is the year that online marketing trends really take off. Businesses, moms, companies, vendors, consumers are all out there cruising the web. Twitter, Facebook, Google, iPhone apps, Bogs, YouTube: are the new vernacular and everybody using it and doing it. If you are out to market your goods, turn on your computer and get to work.
With real time benefits, more interaction and connectivity, and audience engagement, online marketing has become more hands on than ever before. For the first time, business can begin to understand their audience in an up close and personal manner. Who they are, where they spend their time online and how they spend their money–and use that knowledge to create strategy accordingly. Business have already started to employ SEO, RSS syndication, bookmarking, pull marketing, and audience sourcing through Social Media  platforms to get their products/services directly to their market.
It is important to remember, although marketing is taking a turn to digital, creating synergy between online and traditional campaigns is still crucial to effectively reaching your marketing aspirations. By employing traditional techniques like using a consistent brand and message identity across all channels and understanding objectives and metrics, utilizing these tools to the online sphere will boost any marketing campaign.
Tags: audience engagement, online marketing trends, SEO, small business, social media, Strategy, synergy
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business News, Strategy | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
One of the most cost-efficient ways of entering into the New Year is developing a solid business and marketing strategy. While it may be time consuming, the time spent developing a strong plan of attack, will not only save you money all year long, but it will give you a clear vision of how you will reach your revenue goals.
Developing an approach is a lot like performing detective work; you have to become the Sherlock Holmes of strategy. Asking the right questions, uncovering clues of the market, understanding the players involved all in order to obtain the correct answers to solve your business case.
Strategy begins with research. Good ole’ fashion research it acts as your magnifying glass for analyzing the market, recognizing and learning from competitors and having a thorough understanding of your target audience and how to reach them. By defining your customer, identifying who they are, how they make their purchasing decisions, what demographic they are in, will allow you to strategize an effective plan around how you will reach them and secure their business.
After discovering the aspects of the market you can then determine a realist budget
 Thinking like Holmes for your marketing campaigns and prioritize where you should focus your assets and attention on.
Sherlock gets it when he says, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. (A Scandal in Bohemia)” So go out there and get your data and form your theories of how you will succeed in this New Year.
Tags: business strategy, Cost-efficent, marketing campaigns, marketing strategy, research, target market
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business News, Strategy | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
 The story of your brand is not determined by words alone. A solid visual brand identity is key to creating positive associations with your brand and boosting your brand’s credibility. When a potential customer visits your website for the first time, their first impression will be based on its visual content. You want to make a strong first impression that is consistent with the core values of your brand and stands out from the crowded digital landscape. When creating your visual brand identity, there are a few important things to remember.
1. Visualize your mission
The most successful websites aren’t the ones that just look pretty. You want your website to have substance and depth. Make a statement with your website by getting back to basics and letting your mission statement and value proposition of your business determine your design choices. Choose powerful colors and images that truly embody what your business is all about and what makes your brand special and unique.
2. Be consistent
Since your brand will appear in many different places both on and offline, keeping your branding consistent is key. You don’t want to confuse your potential customers with distracting or inconsistent branding. Create brand guidelines that cover everything from colors and fonts to use to image placement. Make sure that your whole marketing team is aware of the proper branding procedures.
3. Think about the action
What do you want visitors of your website to do? What information do you want the consumer to remember after they’ve logged off? Visually highlight important information through the use of boxes or side bars. Differentiate key steps by switching up color or font of the text. Whatever method you choose, visually guide the user experience throughout all of your online media.
Keeping a consistent and dynamic brand is essential to your success. Always keep your consumer and the end-action in mind to ensure that your visual branding stands out of the crowd.
Tags: brand identity, branding design, mission statement, value proposition, visual branding
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Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
 Whether you’re endorsing your brand to the media or representing your brand at a networking event, there are a few important things to keep in mind when acting as a brand representative. Every action you (or your selected representative) take as a brand spokesperson creates a (hopefully!) positive association between your audience and your brand. The key thing to remember is that you’re not just representing a brand: you’re embodying an idea.
Here are a few other tips to keep in mind when speaking on behalf of a brand.
1. Remember the brand’s value proposition.
Value Proposition: Live it. Learn it. Love it. Your brand’s value proposition is the single most important aspect of your brand to keep in mind. Ask yourself, what value do I want to bring to my potential clients or audience? What words or ideas to I want clients to think of when they hear my brand’s name? Am I communicating my value proposition through my actions and words?
2. Remember your audience.
You can’t have a successful interaction if your audience thinks your message is boring or irrelevant. However, some spokespeople can take a less than stellar mesage and still capture an audeince’s attention. How can you do the same? Engage your audience by using appropriate body language and tone of voice. Get excited about your brand! Keep in mind the wants and needs of your audience and ask meaningful questions or present ways to fit the need. Bring your brand’s message to life by being an effective public speaker. According to Burrelles Luce, a leading media relations expert, a successful brand spokesperson should be:
- Accessible
- Engaging
- Visually-pleasing (this does not mean you need to hire a supermodel, just make sure you’re well-dressed)
- Use a positive and upbeat tone of voice
3. Remember to be direct.
No one wants to hear an hour-long speech or pitch that could be summed up in sixty-seconds. Be brief. Rehearse your 60 second “elevator pitch” in the mirror and to colleagues. If you can’t get your point across in less than sixty seconds, you need to revisit step #1.
4. Remember to bring your personality.
Don’t be afraid to bring your own unique personality to your brand. Consumers and audiences like a spokesperson they can relate to and who is different than the rest. As long as you’re within the guidelines of your brand, it’s okay to be yourself; just be your branded self.
Follow these four steps and you’re on your way to being the perfect brand ambassador! Does anyone else have any ideas about how to be a great brand representative?
Tags: brand, brand ambassador, brand association, brand representative, brand spokesperson, Branding, celebrity endorsement, public speaking, value proposition
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Thursday, July 16th, 2009
 Tucked away in the oldest corner of Shanghai—known for its traditional architecture, Chinese pearl shops and exquisite gardens —is none other than Starbucks Coffee. Interestingly enough, this Starbucks is merely one location of 111 in Shanghai alone. So the question becomes, how exactly does Starbucks do it? How is it possible that a single brand can appeal to each unique audience and succeed on such a large international scale? Although international branding is complicated enough to fill the pages of a five book series, here are a few helpful tips to create an international brand.
1. Create a clear vision
While this may seem slightly obvious, for many companies, it proves to be difficult. First and foremost, it is necessary to create a clear vision for your brand and your company as a whole. At this point, your company should identify its core competence, and understand how the company differentiates itself from its competitors. Based on your core competence, identify a succinct positioning statement. Keep in mind that the positioning statement should be concise, catchy and appealing to your target audience. Later on, the positioning statement functions as a direct interface between your company and the consumer by appearing via print and online advertising.
2. Increase Brand Tangibility and Visibility
 First, spend time developing your company logo, which plays an important role in your corporate identity. Lets return to the Starbucks example to give us some additional insight. Starbucks’ circular green and black logo not only assures the consumer that the coffee they receive is of the highest quality, but carrying a Starbucks coffee cup also makes a statement about you as a consumer. Starbucks Coffee brands itself as a luxurious and sophisticated company, as evidenced by its chic interior and expensive menu items, and this company logo is undoubtedly intertwined with this particular lifestyle.
Another means to increase brand visibility is to maintain a strong online presence through two primary outlets: your company’s website and social media tools including blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. By following Tip #1 and creating a defined positioning statement, the company will have no problem maintaining a consistent online presence. Finally, building a strong network of business contacts will further increase your brands visibility.
3. Understand the Balance between Standardization and Customization
 As you expand into new markets, it’s especially important that your brand delivers a clear and consistent message to your consumer. In the case of McDonald’s, consumers expect the same yellow “M” logo, greasy french fries, and speedy service whether they are in Madrid, Spain or Ann Arbor, Michigan. McDonald’s takes standardization to the extreme by creating their very own “Hamburger University,” where they train McDonald’s employees. Keep in mind that this type of standardization is not right for every company. In the case of Starbucks, they tailor their product mix slightly to each unique audience. In China, they offer different frappaccino flavors than in the United States. For a high-end retailer like Starbucks, this works. The overall message of this final tip comes down to the following: standardization and customization are not necessarily dichotomous. In fact, the tricky part comes in finding what’s right for your particular brand!
Tags: brand identity, brand image, Branding, international, McDonald's, public relations, Shanghai, Starbucks
Posted in Branding, Marketing | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
 Internal branding plays a key role in building a strong brand with a consistent external message. To build a brand that is understood by the marketplace, a company must first understand its value proposition, and ensure that all of its employees commit to it. Complete internal commitment is vital to any brand because without it your company will send customers mixed messages. Successful internal branding has many components such as: recognizing brand touch-points, internal team alignment, and employee on-boarding, all of which contribute to the ultimate goal of aligning internal and external brand messages to ensure that your company delivers what your brand promises at every opportunity.
Aligning external and internal branding messages, or making sure that what the brand promises is the same as what the brand delivers, can begin with recognizing your brand touch-points. Some of them are quite obvious, such as customer interaction and management, packaging and pricing. Others, such as employee protocol, company policies, practices, are less obvious. Take the time to identify your brand touch-points and create a map. Begin going through each process such as marketing, selling and servicing. Identify each opportunity your customer or employee has to interact with the brand. Creating a touch-point map will also allow employees to see how and where they are tied into the brand.
Is your HR team aligned with the customer service team? How does your HR team hire? Are the candidates that they bring in, in line with the brand? Is the customer service team in line with the product development team? Make sure that all departments within the company are on the same page. If your company markets itself as a high-end luxury goods brand and uses low quality materials in the manufacturing process, there is a disconnect.
You may need to tailor how the information is delivered to the team; what is relevant to one team, could be irrelevant to another. Once you have the departments aligned (or the heads of each team) getting the employees in sync will be that much swifter. People enjoy having role models, so making sure that the team leaders (or CEO’s) are on brand is crucial! Alignment falls short if the heads of companies aren’t promoting the proper message.
Getting your employees engaged is key to consistent internal branding. Consider the brand touch-point map that shows employees where/when they interact with customers and which interactions they have more control over in terms of the customers experience. Create a checks and balance systems that monitor the difference. You want this experience for the customer to be the same no matter where (in the world) they are interacting with your company or through what mode (web, in person, print, etc). Training is important because employees need to understand in order to really get why they need to act in a particular fashion- they just can’t be told to act a certain way without any real explanation.
Continuously reiterate and reinforce the brand’s core values. Try employee recognition programs by recognizing employees who have effectively and properly acted upon the brand’s core values. Consider setting up a rewards program for teams that have worked successfully in coming up with a new idea.
In conclusion, if your employees don’t understand the brand, then you can guarantee that your customers won’t get it either. If your employees are in sync with the brand, they will be inspired by the brand and will be a brand aficionado. Remember, a brand isn’t just the name or the logo. It is an experience. All of this equals greater customer trust and loyalty.
Tags: aligining, brand, Branding, customer touch-points, external branding, internal branding, value propsition
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