Posts Tagged ‘Branding’

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How Your Policies Affect Your Brand’s Perception: Language, Tone and Content

January 21st, 2011

No! No! No!There is a networking group here in Portland, Maine that I’ve considered getting involved with. They host events where women can network with one another and there is usually a speaker who makes a presentation. The group meets over dinner and the group announces their events using e-mail.

However, when they send each email announcing an event, they also include this text:

Your registration is a commitment to attend, therefore a meal has been ordered in your name. If you find you need to cancel your registration, please do so by February XX, 2011. If you find you are unexpectedly unable to attend, you may find someone to take your place but please let us know so we can expect your substitute. Early notification is important as we may be able to find a replacement for you from our waiting list if we have one. However, in the event you have to cancel and both parties are unable to provide a replacement, you will be invoiced for the registration fee plus a $5.00 administrative fee.

I fully understand that a meal is involved and there will be no refund if I cancel too close to the meeting date. But the way I read this, I will get fined $5 if I tell them I won’t be coming (and no substitute is found). However, if I just don’t show up, there will be no fine? I don’t think credit card policies will allow them to just make another charge without my authorization. How can it be more of a burden for me to tell them I’m not showing up, rather than just not show up?

I have many issues with this text:

  • As stated above, the policy makes no sense. As a working mother, things come up. I fully understand not getting a refund, but it makes me mad to think I could offer to be of some assistance (maybe someone gets off the wait list) by telling them I can’t come, but now I wouldn’t because I would be risking the $5.
  • It’s very heavy-handed and has a harsh, penalizing tone to it. If I was considering checking out the group, I would hesitate. In fact, I’ve more than hesitated, I’ve written them off unless they have some sort of phenomenal presentation scheduled.
  • I really think they should change this policy, but if they don’t want to, it should be on the registration screen, and not in every promotional email. Your emails are supposed to entice people to participate. Get your readers excited about the event and your group. This just leaves a bad taste in your reader’s mouth… email after email after email.

Language and tone affect your brand identity

There are so many ways that your brand is built by you and your own organization, that is not part of the design of your brand identity. Take a look at how you present your policies to your clients and prospects. These are similar to customer service touchpoints, but you may never get to directly interact with your prospect.

We often don’t like to talk about things like cancellation or termination fees, but they need to be presented in a way that is straightforward. Harsh cancellation terms may be making your prospects wary of closing the sale. But even when reasonable, you can even make them more palatable by softening your tone and language.

As a final note, I did call this group and spoke with someone there to confirm I had read the policy correctly. I did.

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Posted in Branding, Business | 5 Comments »

Our Most Popular Posts of 2010: What Do You Want for 2011?

January 16th, 2011

I spent some time reviewing our Google Analytics to figure out our most popular content and blog posts from 2010.

Here is the list of the ten most popular blog posts from 2010:

  1. 8 Essential Elements to a Comprehensive Brand Identity This posts summarizes the eight most critical elements that are necessary for creating a comprehensive brand identity. Also, if you’d like to see some case studies that accompany this piece, drop me a line and I’ll send you our portfolio book that goes along with this post.
  2. Get the Right Logo Files from Your Graphic Designer. This post explains the difference between vector and pixel-based graphic files, and also explains the difference between an eps, a jpeg or a gif file.
  3. 5 Tips to Make Your Web Site Say: “Open For Business”. Five things to keep up-to-date on your web site to make sure it looks current. Quick tip: Has your copyright date changed to 2001?
  4. Don’t Let Your Developer or Content Management System (CMS) Drive the Design This article outlines how we keep our web design projects design-focused.
  5. Web Site Redevelopment Process: Well-Fit Case Study. I was glad to see this article gain traction because it took a lot of research to pull together screen shots from four different iterations of the web site for this growing company. It’s very helpful for showing how a brand can remain consistent even as the web design evolves.
  6. 10 Reasons To Be Your Designer’s Best Client. This post outlines how everyone wins when there is a good relationship between designer and client.
  7. Improving SEO in WordPress: H1, Title Tags & Custom URLs (Video Tutorial). The meat of this post is covered in a video tutorial that demonstrates how to use the settings and plug-ins for WordPress to make your web site easy to find. This posted late in the year and I expect it will keep getting reader’s attention.
  8. Logo Development Process: Greater Freeport Chamber of Commerce. This post showcases the newly redesigned logo for the Freeport Chamber of Commerce and talks about what went on behind the scenes that drove some of the design decisions.
  9. Your Logo: Be There and Be Square. This post explains why square versions of your logo, for avatars and favicons are an essential part of your brand identity.
  10. Connect your Words and Design for the Most Impact. A quick and light-hearted case study based on campground signage.

Interestingly, our all-time most popular post among readers comes from 2009:

The Logo Development Process: New England Breeze Case Study An interesting side note is that we are currently redesigning their logo, because of a legal name change for the business.

What would you like to read and see in 2011?

I’m interested in hearing what you would like to read and hear more about. I’m happy to see our web traffic continuing to grow and I’d love to learn and hear more about you!

Judging by this list, I see you all as very interested in truly educational blog posts‚ posts where I show and make a case for good design. I also need to do a better job showcasing our new design work as it goes live. I hope to do case studies on some past logo design and web site design work in addition to new design work.

What else would you like to read or learn more about?

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Posted in Design Basics, Design Trends | 2 Comments »

How to Add Value To Your Small Business with Effective Branding

January 7th, 2011

Yesterday, I was asked to talk about small business branding to a group of business owners in Portland, Maine. The diverse group, called The Portland Resource Group, wanted to learn more about what branding is, why they should care about their company’s brand (or their personal brand) and how a strong brand identity can add value to their business.

Jump the slideshare presentation.

What is branding?

There is no universal definition of branding. But some phrases you’ll hear when talking about branding is:

  • a brand is the company’s essence or identity
  • it is a promise to your customers
  • it is your reputation

Regardless of how you define it,  a strong brand identity helps you attract better clients who are willing to pay a premium for your product or service.

Have a strong brand becomes a promise to prospects that you, your company, your product or your service is worth paying additional money for.

Your customers, clients and prospects are willing to pay more because:

  • you are the market leader
  • you have a great reputation
  • it gives them comfort and peace of mind
  • your product or service has status

A few examples of brands who have been able to capitalize on this effect are: Tiffany Jewelry, Duracell and Energizer Batteries, Rolex Watches, etc.

Let’s take the example of Tiffany’s. They also have excellent craftsmanship and classic design. But much of their product is a commodity—silver, platinum, diamonds, etc. Yet people are willing to pay much, much more money to be able to present a Tiffany’s product in a Tiffany’s blue box. These people could choose a local retailer, a national chain or a wholesaler, but they are willing to pay a premium for the Tiffany brand.

See the presentation slides

Below is the rest of my presentation to the group. It covers:

  • Why graphic design at the heart of branding
  • Branding is more than just a logo
  • Your Brand is a Combination of: The identity you build and the perception / messages that come from others
  • Brand Equity Case Studies

How to Add Value To Your Small Business with Effective Branding

Resources

Here are the links to the information listed at the end of the presentation

  • White Paper: Graphic Design: The Crucial Step Toward Higher Brand Equity, Increased Revenues (Educational Endeavors Case Study) Download now.
  • 8 Tips for a Comprehensive Brand Identity. Read the blog post here. To receive the printed book with case studies, please drop me an email.
  • Survey & White Paper on Email Domain Names. This will be released next week. Follow this blog for the announcement.
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Posted in Branding, Business, Design Basics | 2 Comments »

Even Non Designers Are Learning About Design and Branding

December 17th, 2010

Over the years, having trained as a professional graphic designer, there have been times I felt that other people didn’t “get it.” They just couldn’t see or appreciate good design. This is frustrating and saddening for me.

In design school you spend a lot of time learning about typography, grids and visual hierarchy. You learn to appreciate the nuances of composition, proper kerning and color management.

Then, you get thrown out into the real world and realize that a lot of people don’t care about these things. In fact, a lot of people can hardly recognize these subtleties even when they are pointed out.

Therefore, designers get a bit of a bad rap for being overly picky and are prone to stressing out about things the average person doesn’t care about.

Some people who don’t seem to value design may be quick to point out that nobody would notice or care about the details a designer would notice or care about.

But, that’s not true.

Let me give you an example. I quickly notice poor printing. I recently looked at a colleague’s business card and saw that the solid blue on the back was very uneven and streaky. He hadn’t noticed the effect previously and felt that his low cost business cards were well printed. But once I pointed it out to him, he joked that he could no longer stop seeing the streaks.

The bar is rising. Everyone is learning about design.

The web has brought everything to everyone, very quickly and easily. One negative (as seen through a designer’s eye) is that anyone can quickly create something, print something or publish something. Much of this stuff is junk. However, on the positive side, people are also better informed that ever.

Many of the things that designers obsess about used to seem like hocus pocus to an outsider. But now that people have so much educational content at their fingertips, and now that so many people have dabbled in their own design, I think we’re actually seeing a backlash towards better design.

I think we’re actually seeing a backlash towards better design.

People are reading about graphic design, website design and branding like they never did before.

American Express has launched an online project called: Project RE:Brand This combination web site, blogs and videos highlight the importance of design and branding to building a successful business by partnering real businesses with branding experts. American Express is helping to bring the idea of high quality graphic design and branding to the masses of small business owners.

What if you can’t recognize a well designed website, logo or brochure?

As a business owner there are many different areas of your business that you need to oversee. Some of these things come naturally, but other areas do not. Would you ever tell someone who didn’t like keeping their books that they could just ignore it? No, you’d likely advise them to turn over the day to day bookkeeping to an expert and then learn enough to understand their financial statements.

The same is true for design and branding for your organization. If you are unable to recognize and understand the value of design and branding, find an expert to help you. Build a relationship with that person, the way you do with your CPA. You need to include them in your business plans, share your goals, and be open about your shortcomings.

Remember that even if you can’t see a poor printing job, there are many others who can, and they are probably judging you poorly.

Again, some will counter that no one should be judging you by the quality of your printed business cards. But the reality is that first impressions, such as those that come from poorly printed business cards are almost subconscious. For people who care about these details, they now see you as someone who doesn’t care, without even consciously making that judgement.

Surround yourself with experts who know about design and branding and use their expertise to benefit your business.

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Posted in Branding | 4 Comments »

You Can’t Control Your Brand, But a Strong Brand Identity Helps

December 16th, 2010

One thing that can be difficult for people to grasp is that your brand is not completely shaped by yourself and your organization. There are external factors that help build your brand.

As a graphic designer and brand identity specialist I hear the confusion that surrounds the conflicting ideas of building a brand identity and dealing with the external factors that also become part of your brand image.

A strong brand identity can help you promote an ideal vision of your company, product or service and can help you manage some of the external brand perceptions.

Frequently, small business owners:

  • Don’t take a comprehensive approach to their brand identity, but should
  • Don’t properly use and share key files (such as logo artwork)
  • Don’t empower their employees to share and build their brand
  • Don’t effectively use customer stories and media coverage to their benefit

Take a look at this slide show, it’s a visual metaphor for how a strong internal identity strategies can counteract external influences.

You Can’t Control Your Brand, But a Strong Brand Identity Helps

Did this help you better understand the outside effects on your brand and also how a strong brand identity and message strategy can help you maintain your brand image?

Note: I replaced the original slide show with this version from SlideShare.

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Posted in Branding, Starting a Business | 4 Comments »

Balancing Consistency With Customization in Your Content

December 10th, 2010

I spend a lot of time preaching the benefits of a consistent, unified brand identity. Rather than mixing your message and diluting your identity, the repetition of key visuals, text and graphic elements can all strengthen your brand’s position.

But, there are times when people get consistent to a fault. You need to remember to tailor your message based on your audience and your medium.

Put your message into your reader’s context

How engaged are our your readers? How you explain your business proposition to a prospect who has requested an estimate should be different than how you describe your business at your family reunion. This is also true when considering what type of information you share with an interested prospect ready to make a purchase, compared to a distracted web surfer.

How much time or space do you have? Twitter’s 140 characters is probably the most restrictive place you communicate in, but other environments may have their own biases. Are there limitations based on time, or functionality of the medium?

What is the context? Explaining your work as part of a case study on your web site allows you to go into a lot detail and show a lot of examples. If you are reaching out to connect for the first time with a prospect (whether it’s in person, by email or by phone) that level of detail becomes overkill and potentially confusing or off-putting.

What is the mindset of your readers? With the popularity of Facebook company pages, more and more people are connecting with companies and brands. But most of us view Facebook time as personal time, a time to spend with friends. Seeing ads pushed out as Facebook content is a huge turn off.

The Social Media Challenge

One place that many B2B companies are struggling is transforming their brand’s message to the more informal social media channels. When an organization gives away formal printed marketing materials, there is a level of craft that is expected. The writing is well-edited, the design should be highly professional, and the printing high quality as well.

Social media has a speed that makes much of that irrelevant or impossible. There is no time for such carefully honed masterpieces. But you should work to keep your message true to your brand.

For example, you can’t just take the content from one source (say an ad) and plop it up on your Facebok wall and expect people to care. You need to think about the concept and strategy that went into the ad at the start and figure out how to tease that into an interesting status update.

The balancing act

There are ways to keep your brand unified in the vastly different media that we all communicate with, and still sound human.

  • Have some boilerplate copy that can be used to fill out company profiles and biographies. But write other content in a style that makes sense for the media and audience.
  • Have a plan for what types of content you want to share and what topics you will engage with. Not all of it has to be completely business related. But figure out how you’ll draw the line.
  • Maintain brand standards when possible by using a company logo or a professionally photographed head shot. Keep company colors, typography and other visual elements.
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Posted in Branding, Business, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Keeping the Momentum: Bringing Innovation to Market

November 3rd, 2010

Momentum Convention LogoLast week I spent a full day in Augusta, Maine at the Momentum Convention sponsored by MaineBiz. My favorite part of the day was Doug Hall‘s key note presentation. He is a native Mainer filled with energy and excitement about Maine, innovation and commercializing ideas and… well, he’s just full of energy, period.

Hall started by defining innovation as meaningful uniqueness. But he has a true capitalist streak, and he also made sure to mention that it also has to be something customers are willing to pay for.

This guy talked my talk. I don’t want to just create to be creative, I want to create something that is meaningful to my end customers. Since most of my customers are business people, it often means designing something that will make them money. It may be directly in the form of a book they sell or an e-commerce web site, or less directly by designing a results-driven marketing web site.

Bringing innovation to market

Hall went on to explain that to get a profitable innovation to market we need to:

  1. create
  2. communicate
  3. commercialize

In my role as a designer, Visible Logic is usually hired by our clients to help with #2—communicating. I am charged with building web site or brochures or book covers that help our clients communicate what they are offering to their end customers. Basically this is marketing.

Doug also had a 3-step summary of how marketing should work:

  1. problem: identify your customer’s pain point
  2. promise: promise the benefits that will alleviate the problem
  3. proof: use the product or service as the proof of how you’ll fix their problem

Obviously, I’m oversimplifying Doug’s talk. I suggest you seek out an opportunity to hear him talk or go and take some of his workshops if you can. I hope I’m able to some time.

Takeaways

In the meantime, I want to be able to take his energy and proven methods of creating profitable innovation to all of my design projects. How do I plan to do this?

  • Help my clients to be more benefits focused. Often when I am designing a web site or a brochure my client gives me a ton of information about themselves, but not much else. I need to sort through that information and present their business as the solution to their client’s problem. In the layout of a web site or a printed brochure, the benefits-related text needs to lead. In all mediums, the design needs to emphasize and visually articulate the benefits.
  • Ensure that the text is following the same focus as the design. We work with a number of talented writers and they need to part of nearly every project we do, even if the client does realize the importance up front. As a branding agency steeped in graphic design talent our clients see us as designers first. We need to do a better job showing the benefits of marrying great copy to great design.
  • Remind our clients that people will pay a premium price for a well branded product or service. Hall showed a large variety of consumer products that showed some sort of new innovation. For example, he showed some Olay moisturizing products that featured a new anti-aging formula. In addition to the new formula there is a new brand identity with new packaging. It is the commercializing (and branding) of the innovation that makes a profit for the company.

As I mentioned, Doug Hall was full of energy. You could certainly call him a motivational speaker as I came away from the keynote address full of ideas and excitement. But he said he didn’t want to be just another speaker who suggests a new “system” that you never implement. He was hoping to be an inspiration by using data-driven models for sparking and commercializing innovation. I hope the details of his talk continue to play in my mind as I help bring new products and services (for our clients and for Visible Logic) to market.

What did you takeaway from the Momentum Convention in general, or from Doug Hall’s keynote speech?

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Posted in Branding, Business, Design Trends, Web Design | 4 Comments »

Social Media: Promoting and Protecting Your Non-Profit Brand

November 2nd, 2010

These slides are from my presentation at the recent Social Media Breakfast Maine.

It was great to present along with Marc A. Pitman (@marcapitman), the author of Ask Without Fear! and founder of FundraisingCoach.com, and Cyndi is the Executive director for SARSSM (Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine).

After presenting at the Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism I made some changes to the presentation. You’ll see more about the basics of how a brand is built and then I focused mostly on using FaceBook as the most relevant social media channel for most non-profits.

Non-Profit Brands-Online (Social Media Breakfast, Maine)

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Posted in Branding, Design Basics | 4 Comments »

Are You Losing Business to Competitors or to Something Invisible?

October 26th, 2010

When we work with a client on a branding project we spend a considerable amount of time looking at who their competitors are. Knowing and understanding your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses can help you find your own niche where you can dominate.

But the reality is that many times your prospects are not choosing between you and your competition, it’s a decision between you and doing nothing. And with the recession, the choice to do nothing—and keep one’s hard earned cash tight in hand—is often a very alluring choice for your potential customers.

Branding helps you to Sell the Invisible

Selling The InvisibleI recently read a book called Selling the Invisible. Written in 1997 by Harry Beckwith, it’s not a new title, in fact according to it’s cover it’s considered “A Classic.”

It was recommended to me as a small business owner. The book is a compilation of very short articles on how to market a service-based business. Unlike a product-based business, there is nothing tangible to show or demonstrate to your prospective client. Therefore you are Selling the Invisible. The book is filled with all sort of tips and ideas, but here are my key takeaways, especially as they pertain to building a strong brand identity.

  • People Hear What They See. Since people cannot see your service they are relying on all your brand touchpoints to create an image of you and your service. Your business card, your web site, your office or even your shoes all need to project the right image. No amount of words can overcome the visuals.
  • Attack the Stereotype. You need to have a firm grasp on the first thing a prospect thinks about when they hear about someone in your line of business. Some examples he gives are: “Accountants are humorless. Lawyers are greedy.” If you keep your head in the sand and don’t do something to counteract that stereotype, it will outdo any of your brand building work.
  • Say only one thing. This is what psychologists calls The Cocktail Party Phenomenon which means that if we start overhearing another nearby conversation we can no longer concentrate on the conversation we are presently having. Beckwith writes that “people cannot process two conversations at once.” Therefore, your brand identity and messaging needs to clear and consistent.
  • Eliminate your prospect’s fear. The overwhelming reason people continue to do nothing, rather than buy from you is that they are scared. Unlike a product that can be seen and tested, you are selling something sight unseen. While Beckworth talks about offering to take on small projects to start (which is definitely a reasonable course of action), I would also suggest that this is where branding can help your prospects overcome their fears. A consistent and professional brand identity helps people to recognize and trust you and your business. A professional brand image helps people to feel comfortable with the idea that you know what you are doing and our prospects will have confidence in you before you even work together.

If you are a small business owner who has a service-based business, I recommend this book. And I recommend you think about how a professional, consistent and compelling brand identity can build trust with your prospects, help you make more sales, and command higher prices for your services.

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Posted in Branding, Starting a Business | 8 Comments »

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