Print this articleThe American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them” that identifies the products and services of one business and differentiates it from other businesses.
Branding often appeals to the emotions – you want people to feel a certain way when they see your packaging, your Web site, your brochures and other marketing materials. If these items are inconsistent people will get confused. If you want your branding to make people feel like they can trust you, using copy emphasizing trust in your flyers and using copy emphasizing consistency on your Web site, your potential customers may get confused.
Here are some pointers on how to evaluate your brand and decide whether to rebrand:
Has your brand promise changed?
Your brand is your promise to the customer. It should convey to them what they should anticipate from your products. It should tell them how you are different from your competition. Your brand should be based on who your company is, what you want your company to be and what people perceive you to be. You need to review your promise first, because that promise is at the core of all your brand messaging. If your promise has changed, you need to rebrand.
Evaluate your branding look
If you created your brand look – the color palette, fonts, photos, etc. – years ago, you may need to rebrand. There’s no definite number of years that a brand can last, but if your look just isn’t capturing the feeling you want customers to feel, it’s time to update the brand. If your business has grown and now uses the latest technology, your brand should show that. Homemade-looking materials that worked years ago just won’t work now. You need to keep up with the changin’ times.
If your logo or another key element of your branding design is out of date, you can just update that one item – there’s no need to update every element of your brand if only one piece isn’t working.
Another tip is to not change your brand design just because you are tired of it. Many people haven’t even seen your brand yet, so if it’s been working and it still gives the feeling you want people to receive, don’t change it. If you’re a cliché person: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Update for consistency
If you add product brochures for each new product you make, you need to make sure it looks consistent with all of your other product brochures and other marketing materials. All of your materials should look like they belong to a family when viewed together. A family has certain characteristics that look similar, but that doesn’t mean they look identical. The elements that should stay the same are: color palette, graphics, fonts, and logo usage. Lay out all your marketing materials and see if you can tell they all represent the same company. If not, it’s time to rebrand for consistency.
Rebranding is not something to take lightly – make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons and that the rebrand will enhance your customers’ understanding of your business and will give them the feeling you want. Rebranding willy-nilly whenever you feel like it without doing some evaluation will just end up confusing people in the future.
There are two very important things you need to know about a catalog to really appreciate the marketing potential: the placement of the products and the information you’re giving people.
I guess a lot of it deals with whether or not you’re going to assume that people are only looking into the catalog to buy something, or if you’re trying to get people who look in the catalog to buy something. Understand the difference?
You need to be worrying about the latter of the two. This is a method of marketing. Here are the basics you need to be aware of.
Your prose needs to be simple and it needs to get to the point as fast as possible. This is about selling your product, sure, but it isn’t about going into detail about how great the product is. You need to provide people with the facts, which happen to be so great people can’t help but have interest in buying your product. How could they pass up an opportunity like this when you’re offering them such a great product for such a low price, right?
A catalog is selling the product based on the merits of how good the product is. You need to use simple, straightforward sentences that detail all of the great things about your product. That’s all. If you try to focus on too much selling people aren’t going to come away with enough to know whether or not the product is right for them. A company telling me the product is right for me isn’t the same as seeing all the facts and coming to that conclusion myself.
Next is the placement. Don’t give equal space to every product and don’t shove your best selling products into the back of the catalog. Give the best sellers special treatment. Give them half a page, give them a front seat, and treat them like a king so that your customers will be able to see that this is the product to buy.
You’re selling it to them not in words but in placement. They can see you’re giving this product so much of your attention that they’ll start giving it a lot of their attention, until you’ve got a sale on your hands.
Catalog printing services should be able to explain a lot of this to you if they know what they’re doing. Hey, don’t just trust me. Research the topic and ask your printing companies. I have a good feeling they’ll tell you exactly what I just have.
Let’s look at posters as a good example. First off, posters are a rather cheap form of marketing to begin with; you just have to put more of your time into it. Time isn’t the easiest thing to come by, but often you’ll have more time on your hands than you’ll have money, or that’s how it usually is for me.
But before I go into the footwork of posters, let’s go back to the ways of stretching your marketing buck. If you’re going to buy posters you’re going to want to go with wholesale printing and get the biggest order that you can.
See, the thing about printing is that the most expensive part of the printing process is typically going to come from actually printing the design as opposed to the number of posters you’re getting done.
To make it a little clearer, when a company first prints your order they need to set up the equipment to get your order going, and this start up is where the bulk of your costs will lay. So let’s say you’ve designed a poster that promotes your company but isn’t limited by any kind of timeframe—no upcoming sale or something like that.
What you can do is get the biggest order possible and set aside the extras for future use. You can get a massive order of color posters for cheaper than it would’ve taken to do two orders. Really, it comes down to planning ahead to what you’re going to need later on rather than just what you need at this moment.
Ah, the horrors of planning ahead. I swear a lot of people seem to fear this concept as if it were a virus. They live so thoroughly in the moment without any care for what tomorrow holds.
If you want to save your cash, then you need to know about these kinds of things and get the proper sized order.
Now, as for the time investment I mentioned earlier, the other great thing about posters is your ability to go yourself and put them up at various locations. You don’t have to pay to mail them out to a bunch of different people when you can just go yourself and have them at specific locations.
It might not be the fastest way you can get those posters up, but it will get them up, and the only thing you will have lost is time and a little bit of gas—or just walk if gas prices are getting you down.
Welcome to the world of inexpensive marketing. It isn’t the most entertaining thing, but it still works.
The first consideration is durability. If you give an item which only last a few days, then you are spending far more per time viewed as opposed to an item which sticks around for a year. You should think of it in terms of a billboard. Which is more valuable, a billboard which will be up for a year or one which comes down after three days? This obvious answer is ignored by those purchasing promotional items.
Items which are displayed out in the public are great choices. A tee shirt or baseball cap are salient examples. The wearer essentially becomes a walking advertisement for you. Close attention must be paid to quality and wording. A torn and frayed tee shirt does not convey the branding message you desire.
Color is very important. Psychologists have derived a quick guide to color selection. Blue is good for men in general while pink is obviously good for women. Those in the healthcare industry should receive white. Orange is perfect for construction, building or safety. Green being the color of money suits bankers and others in finance. Techies like gray. Who knows why?
Next time you are purchasing promotional items put sufficient thought into your selection. It can often be the difference between wasted marketing expenses versus high advertising ROI.
When people first start a new job or start a new business, when do they feel like they have officially “arrived”? Usually, it’s when they get their business cards! Getting your nice new business cards is an exciting time – for some reason seeing your name on a small piece of cardstock with your title and contact info is enthralling.
If you’re just starting up a new business or you’ve changed jobs and need to get new business cards printed, your basic options for where to get these cards is a traditional brick-and-mortar printing company, or an online business card printing company.
For this post, I’ll go with the online company for the following reasons:
Online companies are generally cheaper. They’ll save you money, plain and simple. They generally have less overhead costs and may not need as many employees. The savings the company gets by employing only a few people to multitask are forked over to you.
You have a plethora of options. You generally have many more designs and templates to choose from when you shop online.
You’ll get your cards faster. Online companies can start printing orders right away, so there isn’t as much backlog. A small backlog means you get your order quicker. Also, many processes are automated, so the process can get started overnight, without anyone having to run the equipment.
It’s convenient. You can shop and order at any time of day. You can shop in the comfort of your pajamas if you want to! Plus, with the rising gas prices you won’t have to drive to pick up your cards or to check out the proof – everything can be emailed or mailed directly to you.
Within the overall golf market there are many niche markets. As a small new business it is advised to select one of these niches for your focus. Let's assume you select the small niche of golf in California. This allows for much greater targeting of your audience.
You are now ready to build your brand. What color scheme would most appeal to California golfers? What would be an appropriate corporate logo? The knowledge of who your audience is enables you to effectively research and answer these questions.
Once you have finished creating the perfect brand and associated sales copy the work has only begun. You must then get your message in front of your audience. Studies have shown that it takes over ten exposures for a new brand to stick in a consumer's mind.
You have many tools for publicizing your brand. Many operate exclusively online. Others take advantage of all avenues including advertising flyers. Flyer printing can often prove to be surprisingly cost effective. Creative marketers have discovered an endless array of possible ways to increase brand awareness.
The reputation of your brand in the marketplace must be protected at all costs. This is done by treating both your customers and employees fairly and with respect. Happy customers and employees translate to happy sales figures.
With a strong and dynamic marketing strategy you ensure that your customers will not be drawn to the competition. That means making sure they have everything they need and that nothing is lacking. It also means your company must be willing to stay one step ahead of everyone else and make sure to implement all technological advances as soon as they arrive on the market. Failure to stay ahead of everyone else can cost you not only current customers but any you may have recruited in the future. You marketing strategy must include not only gaining new customers but maintaining them as well.
You and your business are very much alike in many aspects. For example, both would end up lonely and unfulfilled without any friends. A company builds its group of friends through networking.
Networking can come in many forms and fashions. Most popular today are the various networking opportunities existing online. There is a long list of possibilities in this arena. Some include cross promotional arrangements, newsgroup participation and social networking site membership. The Internet can provide for a large and rapidly developed network.
However, just like you, your business needs to also step out into the real world. A popular venue for flesh and blood interaction is trade shows. They often present a great forum to distribute your color business card far and wide. Business card printing rates allow for you to be quite liberal in their distribution versus other possible marketing materials.
After you have developed a wide network it is critical not to ignore it. Just like with friends in your personal life, your business friends need attention as well. Build and nourish your company's network and the dividends will quickly become evident.
You have decided to start your own small business. You'll be selling a product or service emanating from your true passion, whatever that may be. Let's assume that it is golf. The market for "golf" is quite large. However, it includes many smaller facets. They range from golf travel, to analysis and ratings of equipment, to sellers of the clubs themselves.
Within the overall golf market there are many niche markets. As a small new business it is advised to select one of these niches for your focus. Let's assume you select the small niche of golf in California. This allows for much greater targeting of your audience.
You are now ready to build your brand. What color scheme would most appeal to California golfers? What would be an appropriate corporate logo? The knowledge of who your audience is enables you to effectively research and answer these questions.
Once you have finished creating the perfect brand and associated sales copy the work has only begun. You must then get your message in front of your audience. Studies have shown that it takes over ten exposures for a new brand to stick in a consumer's mind.
You have many tools for publicizing your brand. Many operate exclusively online. Others take advantage of all avenues including advertising flyers. Flyer printing can often prove to be surprisingly cost effective. Creative marketers have discovered an endless array of possible ways to increase brand awareness.
The reputation of your brand in the marketplace must be protected at all costs. This is done by treating both your customers and employees fairly and with respect. Happy customers and employees translate to happy sales figures.
Any direct mail postcard marketing is going to have a lot of competition. I would hope all businesses would realize that they aren't alone.
My mail pile has plenty of different advertisements in it. Some of them I take the time to pick them up and read through what they have to say, and others get dumped right in the trash. What's different between them?
The ones I pick up have the right kind of designs, layouts, and colors. They scream out to be seen and I oblige them. The companies that accept they have a lot of competition and do their best to stand out among them are the ones I'm going to look at.
Put some serious thought to your postcard printing before you send them out. Is it appropriately attention grabbing? Will it stand out in a pile of postcards?
If you don't put enough thought I'll probably be throwing it in the trashcan.