How to Improve Your Brand
I recently had the honor of serving on a panel on marketing for Women Business Owners. It became clear that many people don’t understand what their brand really is. Here are the core elements, some of which you may not have considered.(photo by Erica Benson)
• Corporate Identity
This includes:
your logo
logomark
theme line
corporate colors (PMS, CMYK, RGB)
font (no more than 2)
graphic standard
photos always associated with your company.
In the logo below, the top graphic is a logomark. The logo is the entire graphic with the words attached.
• Theme line / positioning statements In the logo above, which we designed for Selander and Assoc, the theme line “Where People are as Important as the Numbers” tells you who they work with and the next line tells you what they do. Your positioning statement should do the same thing, with some kind of adjective or positive tone.
• Consistent corporate image everywhere Same colors, same font, same artwork, same theme everywhere. In my logo below, the red (PMS 185) and purpley blue colors(PMS 2685) are always used and show up in all my marketing .
Be sure yours is consistent in:
Be sure yours is consistent in:
ads
brochures
websites
ezines
business cards
social media
videos
podcasts/ radio
commercials
car wraps, truck art
signage
promo items, shirts, mugs, etc.
• Public behavior of you, your co-workers and your employees A post of your people drunk at a bar may lead prospects to think your company is unreliable. If you behave badly in a public setting, it can ruin your image. (Think Reese Witherspoon.)
• Customer service complaints Handling customer complaints is also part of your brand, which is whyyou should monitor social media or have an RSS feed with the company name and product names.
Anytime a complaint shows up, try to resolve the situation in a positive manner. And if the comment is on google maps, ask happy satisfied customers to comment there. Recently a large company blithely opened a Facebook page inviting feedback only to have hundreds of angry and dissatisfied customers rant about their lousy service. They took the page down.
Your brand is so much more than just your logo. It is the image and visible presence of your business.
Remember, it takes years to build a reputation and minutes to destroy it.
If you have any questions, email me at orders@firedupnow.com. (For those of you who don’t know- I own a 30 yr ad agency, too.)
Happy marketing
Snowden
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