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Face it, you're talking to a person
April 08, 2010
An interesting tweet relating to Hubspot’s findings that those with a Twitter avatar displaying a photo stand to gain ten times as many followers as those without, kicked off a healthy debate which prompted me— the Marketing Donut Twitterer — to question whether I should come out from behind the logo and show my face. If it wasn’t already conflicting enough to know whether ‘I’ am in fact a ‘We’ during commercial tweeting hours, this dilemma hits me. It was almost enough to induce a psychotic episode.
There are valid reasons for presenting the Marketing Donut as a face. It could produce tangible gains in number of Twitter followers and the quality and quantity of interactions. But when you communicate with @MarketingDonut - or any of the Donuts for that matter - you may not always be talking to the same person. Holiday leave, sickness and just being plain busy can often mean a personnel shuffle when it comes to Twitter. Without blowing the lid on the Twitter Magician’s code here at Donut Towers, we try to maintain the same team member on each Donut account for reasons of continuity and to give each Donut its own distinct personality. But, as the theatre waiver goes, the performance may be subject to last-minute cast changes.
On the whole, it is me - James Ainsworth - behind the tweets and if you were to DM the Marketing Donut, characters permitting, I would sign off as ‘James’. But I hope you enjoy following the Marketing Donut Twitter account for a plethora of reasons, not least for the content we share but for that little sparkle of personality that comes through every day.
The salient point from the discussion was made by @benparkatbjs, “Surely it depends. If a one-man band, tweeting with your own pic is fine, but if you're a donut, surely donut logo better?”
In a recent blog post written by Jan Minihane on the topic, she rightly points out that face value is better for individual accounts. But Jan also concludes from further discussion with her Twitter following that corporate accounts with multiple staff should “Use your logo as you are promoting the corporate brand, not an individual. (unless most of the brand value is you, in which case you may want to go with a picture of yourself).”
And what of the deliberate tactic deployed by @web_D, “I have used really small text and oversized logos to encourage people to click and see the full version”?
Should the Marketing Donut — as a publisher of resources for small businesses — be identifiable by the branding that has been created already or -as a mainly one man Twittering band - should I have my world-weary face as the avatar, bedecked with some kind of Marketing Donut insignia or, if you please, a Twibbon?
If you really want to see me on Twitter then you can follow me here but don’t expect such useful small business marketing advice. You have been warned!
Strong, surviving or tired – Five key questions for established brands?
March 04, 2010
A strong brand will help you win more sales and keep more customers, so spend time on a health check:
1. Is my brand position strong?
Think about what makes your brand unique. How does your brand stack up now and in the future? Why should people care? What your brand stood for in the past may just be that, so have a look at what your competition offers, how they operate and what they do, as well as wider influences and trends.
2. Is my brand clear?
If you are clear about what you stand for and what makes your brand unique, are you clearly communicating it to customers? Be careful of jargon and complicated wording, and be single-minded too – a list of 5 or 6 messages will just lead to confusion, leave the detail for later once you have attention.
3. Does my brand look good?
How current is your look? Think across all your activity, from the logo and identity, to your web site and promotional materials. Are layouts clear? Is your imagery current and clear? Are there elements of consistency? Do fonts work together or look a mess. Brands that look current and relevant feel looked after and worthy of attention, so customers will feel you’ll pay the same attention to them.
4. Does my brand sound good?
All flash looks with not much to say? Ouch. Supporting your central brand promise by what you say and how you behave is critical. Think about how you and your people talk about, sell and service your brand – attention-grabbing looks might get you over a hurdle, but people soon wise up to brands that can’t deliver a promise.
5. Am I my only brand supporter?
Think about who talks about your brand, and where. Is it as much as it used to be? Word of mouth, recommendations, testimonials, social media and news stories will prove it has fans. Prove your brand is worth a look, and maximize every opportunity.
If you’re feeling uncomfortable about two or more of these then it’s time to spend time paying closer attention.
What makes up a brand?
February 10, 2010
So if it's not just your name and logo what is it? A brand will be made up of a collection of different perceptions that will have been built up after exposure to every aspect of your business. This can be a myriad of different things:
- Product design and experience
- Packaging
- Sales experience - your sales people or distributors
- Service experience - during the sale and after
- Advertising messages and straplines
- The way you look and sound - imagery, colour, fonts, personality and tone
- Your website, blogs or mentions on social networking sites
- The price, and how you discount
- Your reputation
- The shop, office or factory experience
- Uniform, badges, vans and trucks
- Your people
- The logo
- Your name
Any one person could be exposed to all or just one of these variables, that when mixed together form the brand in their mind. There are many ways you will be able to influence what the brand means to people, so you can steer its direction.
Left untouched and uncared for, without clear direction, your brand will take a course that will lead to fewer and fewer customers. So have a think about the list above – and see what sort of brand you’re presenting across the board. Is it all working to a common direction and goal? Is it the direction you want it to take? If not, you may just need to get clarity and some help setting the direction. It doesn’t take long and will be well worth the effort.
Brand positioning
February 05, 2010
People like to understand what they're buying into, and see if it fits their values and what they're all about. It could be quality, cool, innovation, value, leadership, surprise, luxury, expertise - the list could go on and for any one brand incorporate an appropriate combination of these.
That core brand promise and positioning sits at the heart of everything. We call it brand glue, and it drives many different business decisions and activities including your marketing. It knits everything together and is something that needs careful thought, so it reflects your brand truthfully and as far as possible is different from your competition.
Think BMW aligning behind a premium driving experience, Nike making sportswear for winners and Disney uniting behind a goal to provide happiness and magic. Things wouldn't be quite so effective or memorably unique if they positioned themselves to make expensive cars, colourful footwear and somewhere to take the kids with a good line in mouse hats.
Similarly, confused thinking and lack of clarity can reflect in a confused customer. Imagine if Tesco wanted to state they were the leading supermarket in the country, the best. Let's also add in great service and low prices. Ooo but lets not forget it's an innovative supermarket too for good measure, and the fact that they're pretty keen on the environment. Far easier to remember they want to do everything they can to help you with your shopping down to the tiniest little detail. Everything else is just features.
A well looked after brand will eventually become clearly understood and familiar, as well as something that customers are willing to spend their money on. That’s good brand positioning.
Choose brand consistency for 2010
February 01, 2010
The best way to increase profitability through your investment in design and marketing is for you to be consistent. There’s nothing worse for your bottom line than your image chopping and changing. The trouble is the damage from inconsistency is so subtle that many business owners are blissfully unaware of the negative effects on their target audiences. Brand irregularity includes conscious and subconscious confusion, distrust and irritation and can result in customers going elsewhere.
Here are our top five tips for achieving brand consistency:
- Firstly, invest in a quality well designed logo (and if your budget can accommodate it, some simple brand guidelines). This should then form the basis for every piece of marketing material that follows.
- Following on from here ensure your marketing material looks like it belongs to the same family! If there is no clear link between your business card, website and brochure for example, then your customers’ journey is disjointed and your message becomes unclear.
- The biggest and most obvious blunder is to randomly change colours from one piece of marketing communication to the next. Don’t do this! Decide on your brand colours which should be specifically chosen to communicate key messages and then stick to them.
- Select every aspect of your brand carefully. Understand that these brand characteristics all mean something and effect the people that experience your brand. These characteristics should include (but are not limited to) things like fonts, colours, logos, design elements and language style.
- The best way to achieve the above is to establish a long term working relationship with the right designer who can help build that unswerving, dependable and loved brand that will actually have a positive affect on your businesses profitability.
This blog post by Sara Brown originally appeared at sarabrown.co.uk
Let your logo speak a thousand words
June 03, 2009
‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is a saying that we have all heard many times before. It is an old Chinese proverb which means that a single image can be far more influential and expressive if crafted and designed properly with a vivid concept behind it.
The symbol, or in this instance, your business logo, conveys the message of a thousand words to customers old and new. This is why businesses whether huge, medium or small, always get their corporate image or logos designed in the best possible manner to create a unique identity in the minds of their existing and potential customers/clients. This is where logo design companies come into play.
I shall focus on logo designs for small business owners as big businesses can afford to spend fortunes on hiring a top notch designer or commandeering a glitzy ad agency to look after their entire marketing and branding regime. The humble small business owner needs to be very prudent in allocating their budget when it comes to having a logo for its business – So online logo design companies are the most appropriate and affordable option for them.
Why logo design companies? A reputable logo design company is:
Affordable
Professional
Experienced
Supportive 24/7
Fully equipped with a bunch of tried and tested designers.
Remember! You as a small business owner need to make intelligent decisions in order to survive and move up the ladder in this critical economic recession. But that doesn’t mean you should get entrapped by amateur freelancers offering graphic design services at cheap prices. You get for what you pay for in most cases and considering your logo could be someone’s first encounter of your business, trust me you do not want to end up with an awful logo design which will only hurt your business.
Do some research; ask fellow small business owners what approach they took, if there is a logo out there that you like find out the story behind it and when you have your perfect logo, let it speak a thousand words about your business.
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