Dec 13

At the heart of every successful small business is a brand. What a brand is and how to build it is something that a lot of small businesses owners are keen to understand.


There are different aspects of a brand such as:

The brand identity. This is how your company looks and is achieved though the logo and brand colours.


The brand promise. This is the essence of what the company offers customers and how it positions itself. For example, the brand promise could be an offer of superb customer service or to offer the best value.


The brand experience. This is what customers or prospects experience when they interact with your company or your product.


The brand image. This is the internal and emotional reaction consumers have to your brand. It is impacted by what they see in your brand identity, where they see your brand, how they perceive your brand promise and if they have had a brand experience.


There are a number of ways that small businesses can use the internet to build their brand image. In this guide, we will focus on three


1. Put your business on the iPod


A video advert is the ideal medium in which to showcase your brand identity and to give consumers a feel for your brand promise and experience. Imagery and music in a video can immediately bring your brand to life in a way that email or printed communications struggle to do.


The problem for small businesses is that the cost of adverts starts at least $5,000 or $10,000. However, a Movie Brochure, costing a few hundred pounds or dollars, is a far more affordable way for small businesses to bring the business or product to life. Everyday Biographies is a gift company specialising in ghost writing childhood memories and autobiographies. It is a service which is a popular 60th or 70th birthday gift.


To bring their service to life, the agency, Marketing Small Business created a movie brochure for Everyday Biographies so that customers could view it on the site in order to experience the brand and the brand promise; email the link to family and friends who would be interested in buying the service as a gift or download an mp4 version to video iPod to enable customers to show friends and family away from the PC.


Associating the brand with the latest technology has created a very positive brand image. While enabling customers to show the service to others via their iPod made it easy for others to market the company via word of mouth and recommendation.


2. Market your business on You Tube


Once you have a a video such as a movie brochure for your business or your product, you can tap into the enormous video community on You Tube. Visitors to You Tube search for content across a wide range of topics. You can upload your movie brochure and assign relevant tags to it, which means it will appear to people who are searching for content similar to your movie brochure.


Everyday Biographies uses You Tube as a means of increasing awareness and interaction with its brand. A Movie Brochure showcases the Wedding DVD service they provide and You Tube users can link through to the website to see more examples. Thousands of You Tube users have viewed the Everyday Biographies movie brochures, therefore achieving wider brand awareness at minimal cost. In addition to You Tube, small businesses can submit movie brochures to MySpace and Google Video.


3. Marketing on Stumble Upon


The ideal way to promote your brand is through word of mouth recommendation. Stumble Upon is a network of several million users who are interested in sites that are recommended by like minded people or are interested in making recommendations themselves.


The users download a toolbar and when they find a site that they like, they register it. This site is then recommended to others in the network. If your site is recommended, then you will receive large increases in traffic as the network guides people to your site. So how do you get recommended?


1. Luck. Someone on the network visits your site and recommends you

2. Promote your site. You can kickstart your presence by promoting it.

3. Register your site at stumbleupon.com and pay for people to find it. It costs around 3p a visit so an investment of $30 will send around 1000 people to your site. If 30 or 40 of these people bookmark your site as one of their favourites on stumbleupon, this will result in free referrals to you as people regularly visit the sites that others have bookmarked.


Many sites registered with Stumbleupon.com report receiving between 10 and 15% of its traffic from that source. If your small business has a compelling product and a website that users like, stumbleupon can dramatically increase your web traffic overnight and improve your brand image via word of mouth recommendation.

Evan Mangan is a former Head of European Marketing for Yahoo! Mobile and is Managing Director of http://www.MarketingSmallBusiness.co.uk , a marketing agency which makes major brand marketing techniques available to smaller companies. To view some movie brochures view some movie brochures visit http://www.marketingsmallbusiness.co.uk/movie_brochure_example.html

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Dec 01

Building up a brand identity is necessary for the success of any business venture. After all, buyers generally like to procure things that they know or have heard about. And with so many different products vying for the customer’s attention, it can be a rather difficult venture for a business entity to make itself known. It can place advertisements in prominent television channels and newspapers, and set up hoardings and banners to be more visible amongst target customers. It can also use promotional items, such as promotional magnets to build up customer loyalty and increase the scope of its business.

As a corporate entity existing in today’s time, you need to be aware of a wide range of promotional items that are being used to build up brand images and reputation in the market. These could  be anything from mugs, caps, key chains and folders to pens and even promotional magnets. These promotional items are often handed out at exhibitions, seminars, trade shows, and business meetings to business clients, customers, and people visiting the stalls. Individuals receiving these gifts are happy with the same and carry a favorable impression for the company in question.

Why go for promotional magnets? These magnets are economical and can be procured in bulk from wholesale suppliers and online providers at reasonable costs. These are highly popular amongst different cross-section of people using them. And the best part is that people are reminded of your products and services, every time they see and use the same.

The promotional magnets come in attractive styles, shapes, and sizes. There are the business card magnets, the calender magnets, and car magnets – to name a few options. You can take your pick depending on the industry segment that you are in and the amount of money that you are willing to spend. There are numerous styles of promotional magnets, for all uses and every taste. The different types of promotional magnets are great as marketing tools and can go a long way in advertising your products and services.

You can personalize these magnets with contact and other information and make enhance your visibility. These magnets are weather resistant, durable, and completely flexible – all factors adding to their appeal. If procured from a reputed provider, you can be sure of these and other quality aspects.

So, whether you are a service contractor or a pet care professional, you would find these magnets to be really helpful in building up your business. To know about promotional magnets, business card magnets and more, visit promotionalmagnets.

James is a well known author who writes articles on Promotional magnets, business card magnets, Promotional magnet.

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Nov 18

Are you into business for a long time or have you just launched your new company? Are you introducing any new product or service? Do you want to build brand identity? Are you looking for the fastest and easiest way to reach the mass? Though building brand identity is not that easy, this article might help you with a few suggestions. Planning is important before you imply your marketing strategies.

You can invest in various marketing techniques but investing in sports and entertainment marketing is probably the wisest decision. There is no greater medium to reach the mass than sports. Spreading brand awareness through sports marketing is a great idea. If you are looking for a fast way to reach your target market you should opt for sports marketing.

People are interested in various sports. While some people are crazy about cricket some other find interest in hockey. So sport is the ideal medium to reach millions of people at a time. It has the capacity to draw the attention of the masses very quickly. Another advantage of sport events is that they can cross the boundary of nationality, culture and language. No other medium can offer you such great exposure. Local TV or radio channel or local newspaper might require minimum investment but they are unable to reach such wide audience. It is especially true for you if you are targeting the global market.

However sports marketing is not everyone?s cup of tea. Some expertise is needed if you want to utilize sports properly. You need to be well aware of all the nuances before you start action. If you don?t have the expertise it is recommendable to take help from a sports marketing firm.

A sports marketing firm can definitely help you to spread your brand awareness. They have the experience which helps them to identify the technique that suits your brand requirement. Sports marketing firms have the ability to make people believe in your brand though you have newly launched it.

Are you wondering what the secret behind a firm?s success is? What is it that you don?t have? Well, it is expertise and experience. Just as you are experienced in your own field they are well aware of the dos and don?ts of sports marketing.

Give them detailed information about your brand. This will help them to understand the requirements of your brand. You should also specify your campaign goal, target audience and most important of all is your brand message which should be strong and consistent.

Going for a sports marketing firm has several advantages. The firm makes sure that your brand name appears in the banners around the playground and in the uniform of the players. Not only that, you will also see your brand name appearing in the sports marketing news as well. Getting free news coverage is an added advantage for you.

A professional firm will organize successful promotional campaigns that will leave a deep impact in the audience?s mind. When people see that your brand is associated with their passion they will surely come to you.

Steve is a media professional and writes for different online publications. For more information on sports marketing articles or sports marketing news, he recommends you to visit http://www.brandweek.com

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Nov 17

One of the best ways to build your organization?s brand identity is to customize your documents, reports, presentations and proposals. Customizing your presentations and proposals with your organization?s colors, logo and information can serve to make a great first impression to your customers. Additionally, high quality customized documents and reports are much more likely to be kept by your customers. This article provides a quick overview of some of the options for customizing your documents and reports. Here are six ways you can customize your report covers to produce high quality presentations to build brand Identity.

1. If you are on a tight budget and don?t want to spend a lot of money on printing costs consider using a clear cover on the front of your document. This will allow you to print a high quality title page for your document that can prominently display your brand, logo, address and contact information on the front page of your document. This is the least expensive option for customizing your documents and is an excellent starting place for using your reports to build brand identity.

2. Using a presentation cover with a window is another inexpensive way to customize your documents and reports. With this option you can choose a report cover that is complementary to your company?s color scheme and have a window added. You can then print a title page that is designed to show some of the important information about the report through the window of the report cover.

3. A third option and one of the most popular options for customizing report covers is foil stamping. Foil stamping can be used to add a high quality clean imprint of your company?s logo, contact information and tag line to a paper cover. Foil is available in dozens of metallic and non metallic covers and can be used to provide a highly customized look and feel to your report covers without a lot of effort. Foil stamping is not highly expensive but does require the creation of a photoengraved dieset for use in the stamping process. Once you have paid to have the die created, you can reuse the die for all future runs and jobs.

4. If your organization likes the look and feel of plastic binding covers and wants to customize them, you will need to consider silk screening. Unfortunately, the heat from foil stamping does not combine well with plastic binding covers. However, silk screening can provide beautiful imprints on poly and clear binding covers and can make a great impression.

5. A fifth way to make a great impression using your binding covers is through offset printing. If you want to use a photograph or a lot of color on your cover you can consider having offset printed covers created. These covers can provide your reports with a flashy finished look and feel that can grab the attention of prospective customers and clients.

6. Finally, you might consider using embossing or debossing to create a textured effect on your report or presentation cover. Perhaps raising your logo or company name so that it stands out from the surface of the cover. This can provide a subtle and effective means of customizing your bound presentations.

If you are interested in building your brand identity using bound reports, presentations, documents and proposals these are great places to start. Perhaps you will choose one of these six options. Or, for an even more customized look you can combine several of these options. Either way, be sure to use every opportunity to let your customers know who you are and give them a reason to do business with you.

Jeff McRitchie is the director of marketing for MyBinding.com. He writes extensively on topics related to Binding Machines, Binding Supplies,Binding Covers, Index Tabs, Laminators, Laminating Supplies and more.

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Oct 15

Often small or midsize companies who create a new product or service tend to go straight to market while skipping the all-important activity of designing a brand identity. This is a huge mistake and one that can be easily avoided.

The brand identity of your product or service is the touchstone of your overall brand campaign. Your brand identity will ensure high levels of consistency across all aspects of your brand campaign, including: the messaging you choose for your ad campaigns, the logo you create, and even how you decorate your office.

Considering the following 5 key elements will guarantee you an air-tight, winning brand identity:

Determine Your Competitive Set: Your competitive set is the specific industry and niche in which you will be competing. In order to crisply define your brand, you must take a careful look around at those with whom you will be competing and define the arena in which they operate.

Create a Well-Defined Value Proposition: Your value proposition is 1 or 2 sentences that clearly describe why customers should buy from you. In other words: what value do you offer them? Why should they choose you over your closest competitor? A good value proposition statement shows you really know your business and your customer base.

Identity Your Key Differentiators: Your product or service must stand out from the pack in some way in order to be successful in the marketplace. How does your offering set itself apart? Put together 4-5 traits that differentiate your product or service from those of the competition.

Articulate a Clear Customer Promise: What is the one thing that customers can expect every time they interact with your company? Is it a friendly smile? Guaranteed lowest rates? Do you have someone available to talk with 24/7/365? If so, make sure you articulate this promise. And, make absolutely sure you deliver on it, every time.

Outline Your Key Value Dimension Rankings: Finally, you need to be realistic about where you will rank relative to your overall market niche on what I call your key value dimension rankings. Not every hotel has 5-star hotel service quality, but then again not every hotel charges 5-star hotel prices: service quality and pricing are classic tradeoffs. Your company will be able to most precisely define your brand when you can accurately assess where your brand will rank versus the overall competitive set in your market niche in terms of these ten dimensions: low price, first-to-market prestige, durability, luxury appeal, ergonomics/ease-of-use, the cool factor, pre-sales service, quality of purchase experience, post-sales support, and functionality/features. Determine 2 or 3 of these key value dimensions in which you intend to rank among the Top 10% in your competitive set.

Building a brand? The eBook “The Anatomy of a Winning Brand” takes you by the hand and shows you step-by-step how to develop your brand. Download your FREE copy at: www.jedcjones.com/brandmybusiness
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Oct 13

auditing and repositioning?i have to submit an assignment on this.could u pls also name some websites frm where i can get more information?i wll b really greatful.

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