Some interesting discussions occurred through the week on the topic of branding that have nudged me towards making it the subject of this post.
As one person said this week, " I don’t have to worry anymore about branding because I'm happy with my logo".
OK then. Where do I start. Certainly your firms logo is a key component of your businesses branding but it is by no means the only component.
Simply put, branding is everything you do consistently and includes the colours you use, the type of font and the size of the font, key visuals, sounds, music or any other verbal communication consistently used and therefore associated with you, smells, sounds, etc.
In short, it's everything you do consistently that your target audience see, hear, smell, feel and taste as part of knowing and experiencing your brand.
So when should you be happy with your branding?
Basically when two things happen.
1. The various aspects compliment the other aspects of the branding
2. When individually and collectively the branding elements each support and align effectively to the target market and their known unmet needs and desires.
If this isn't happening, trust me. Nice logo or not, you need your branding overhauled.
Until next time, good marketing and good luck.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Welcome to 2011. The Era of the Blog
Hello again everyone and a very warm welcome to 2011.
There are so many aspects of marketing and social media I'd like to explore on the Road Scholars marketing blog and make no mistake that over the coming weeks and months we'll get to them all but to kick things off today, I'd like to jsut reinforce for you some of the key points abbout business blogging.
Now as you all know there are literally hundreds of millions of blogs in every conceivable area and too often I believe the focus has been on getting your blog seen via first rate SEO and effective depoyment of promotional tools such as adwords. All good and all true.
However this is only half the story. say you do get found and someone reads your blog post. Wonderful but is that it. No it isn't our ultimate goal is not purely to be found but rather to wow the reader after having been found.
To do this I believe you need to apply (5) key blogging principles
that readily come to mind. They are:
1. Be very specific about who your target audience is (and who it isn't).
2. Continue to gain insight into the real issues, concerns, frustrations and desires these people have.
3. Through your dialog with your readers demonstrate your empathy for their situational nedds and the consequences of those unresloved issues. In short, show people you care.
4. Provide real value on a consisitent, reliable and predictable way that goes to helping them with their issues.
5. Continue to work on your skills, knowlege and gradually build your genuine expertise in the area in which you are positioning yourself a s a key opinion leader.
Over time, if you do these things your blog will be found, read and respected.
Please let me know what other principles you think we should add to this list of 5.
until next time, good marketing and good luck.
There are so many aspects of marketing and social media I'd like to explore on the Road Scholars marketing blog and make no mistake that over the coming weeks and months we'll get to them all but to kick things off today, I'd like to jsut reinforce for you some of the key points abbout business blogging.
Now as you all know there are literally hundreds of millions of blogs in every conceivable area and too often I believe the focus has been on getting your blog seen via first rate SEO and effective depoyment of promotional tools such as adwords. All good and all true.
However this is only half the story. say you do get found and someone reads your blog post. Wonderful but is that it. No it isn't our ultimate goal is not purely to be found but rather to wow the reader after having been found.
To do this I believe you need to apply (5) key blogging principles
that readily come to mind. They are:
1. Be very specific about who your target audience is (and who it isn't).
2. Continue to gain insight into the real issues, concerns, frustrations and desires these people have.
3. Through your dialog with your readers demonstrate your empathy for their situational nedds and the consequences of those unresloved issues. In short, show people you care.
4. Provide real value on a consisitent, reliable and predictable way that goes to helping them with their issues.
5. Continue to work on your skills, knowlege and gradually build your genuine expertise in the area in which you are positioning yourself a s a key opinion leader.
Over time, if you do these things your blog will be found, read and respected.
Please let me know what other principles you think we should add to this list of 5.
until next time, good marketing and good luck.
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