Branding is a very precise process and is a very important aspect of marketing.  It is also very difficult to perfect. Your company or product’s brand is critical to success. It is with this image and concept that your customers will recognize your product or service and judge whether it is right for them or not.

Internet marketing creates an even greater need and opportunity for brand cohesion for a company and brand identification among consumers. However, there are times that marketers have to bite the bullet and realize that a brand isn’t working as it should, however well known it may be.

Making the choice to alter or scrap a brand is difficult, particularly if it has been around for some years. Much of successful branding relies on consistency and persistence. However, if a brand really isn’t working and needs a change, there will be warning signs. Look for these three signs that your brand might need a makeover.

The Brand Does not Reflect New Products or Services

The point of a company is to grow and expand. There are numerous instances where a company starts in one direction and then grows and evolves over time. When this happens brands can encounter some problems. If your brand no longer reflects your products or services wholly it may be a good time to reconsider your branding campaign. You want to allow your brand to grow and evolve as your company, products, and services do. Yes, consistency is important. But you will be doing no one any good by keeping an old brand attached to a new company offering. Evaluate how appropriate your brand is for what your company offers. Does it communicate the entire picture? Is it too narrow now? These are the things you need to look into.

You Have a New Target Audience

Your brand is directed towards a particular target audience. You want to communicate what your company is and what you offer in a way that specifically speaks to your desired customer base. However, just as your products can outgrow your brand, so also your target audience can evolve.

Sometimes when a company starts out, we aim too narrow with our targeted audience. A brand can become too narrow for the audience that we are hoping to reach once your company’s market begins to grow and expand. One of the worst things you could do with your branding is exclude certain people and groups from your marketing campaign. Evaluate your brand to make sure that it includes everyone you wish to reach. If you find that your brand is too narrow or you are not actually reaching your target audience, you should definitely consider making some adjustments.

Customers See Your Brand Differently Than Intended

Another issue that can easily occur with branding is that it is not perceived the way you intended it. This can be one of the more difficult things to deal with and recognize. You put a huge amount of effort into creating a brand that you think communicates exactly what you want about your company only to find that your audience sees it completely differently.

One way to find out if your brand is having this issue is by very simply asking your audience. Survey your target audience about your brand. Find out how they really see you and what your brand says to them. See what they call your brand. Do they have a different or shorter name for your brand? What do they identify with most about your company? These are important questions that your audience can answer so that you can create a stronger more accurate brand. If you find that your target audience has a different perception of your brand, you should consider altering things.

Author Bio:This is a guest post by Eliza Morgan who is a full time blogger. She specializes in writing about business credit cards. You can reach her at: elizamorgan856 at gmail dot com.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

3 Signs it is Time to Change Your Brand

Technorati Tags: brand, niche, offering, target

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For Gordon Ramsay, his legal action states that:

Negative and critical public comments regarding the plaintiff could have the effect of decreasing the commercial value of his name and any commercial ventures associated with it.

For those of us who are less famous, the impact of negative comments may be less significant but they can potentially have a more significant effect on our future well-being.  Conversely it is important that you establish an online presence that will help you in your business and community activities.

If you need help in doing this, you will find reputation.com, the online reputation management company can help.  As they say:

We establish a distinct online presence and help you monitor your improvement — you can track articles, stories or other mentions of you, your most visited pages, how many people are searching for you and the location of those people, the top results for your name and your overall popularity ranking over time.

In some ways, building your personal brand is the easy part.  You then must monitor what is happening in cyber-space to ensure that no one is trying to undermine your brand by giving critical and damaging assessments of you.  That monitoring process requires an ongoing effort that is much more than just Googling your name from time to time.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter can help information to go viral and explode across the Internet.  If you know about anything that could undermine your personal brand, then it is better to know about this as early as possible.  You may then need to take counter-offensives to nullify the adverse comments.  Here again reputation.com can work with you on this.

You will have some presence on the Internet whether you like it or not.  It may be one that is very supportive to your other endeavours or it may be weak or even negative. Rather than ignoring this new reality, it is much better to evaluate how you rate on the Internet and take actions, however minimal they may be, to neutralize any damaging information.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Protect Your Personal Brand

Technorati Tags: defamation, Gordon Ramsay, reputation

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Traditionally internet marketers use the power of key words in articles, titles, and metadata descriptions in order to get high search engine rankings. But there is now a fresher, more attractive and most importantly not as “obvious” SEO technique that is making its way in cyberspace—infographics. Just like the name sounds, infographics are illustrations (graphics) that artistically display a set of data or statistics (info). Because they’re fun and manage to showcase what some may consider a “boring” set of stats in a new light, they often go viral.

For example, the popular American technology news website Mashable regularly generates infographics which just so happen to find themselves on popular social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest — since people share infographics to friends and repost , SEO is completed with minimal effort. Of course, your infographic has to be good before it makes its rounds in cyberspace. To learn how to make one, continue reading below.

Artistic Presentation

What makes consumers interested in an infographic in the first place are the images and vibrancy of the illustrations. Typically infographics are drawn in a cartoon, caricature-style (or just something that is readily exaggerated). Other times infographics are made of drawn out maps or even just beautifully drawn words. Internet marketers typically hire graphic designers for the job, but there are a few sites that can help you create a similar effect for free, such as Tweet Sheet, StatSilk and Wordle that are designed to help artistically-challenged people.

Set of Stats/Data

Of course, no matter how good your illustrations are it would mean nothing if they weren’t used to accompany a set of stats. Think of a concept that would have stats readily available, like what’s the iPhone really costing you? The true price of an emergency room visit. Blenders throughout the ages. Or whatever other out -of-the-box topic that relates to the website you’re originally linking back to, which leads us to our final tip.

Link Back

Lastly and by far most importantly, you need to have a link back to the original site you’re trying to promote—otherwise, the infographic can be shared a thousand times and it wouldn’t increase your search engine rankings in the very least. So add the link back at the bottom of the infographic as well as in the metadata description. Also allow the infographic to be able to be shared directly on social media sites with one click of a button to encourage more reposts.

Author Bio:  This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7@gmail.com.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Can Infographics Boost SEO Efforts?

Technorati Tags: art, data, infographic, stats

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When you’re starting an online business, you probably have no shortage of ideas, motivation, and grand plans for the future of your enterprise. But there is one notable area where you likely have a short supply: finances. Unless you have personal reserves or an already-set collection of investors, there’s a good chance that your ideas will have to initially be implemented with a tight budget in mind.

This budget extends to your marketing efforts. While it is important to advertise your business and work to gain exposure, it is impossible to take out large ad campaigns or to simply throw money at the situation. Instead, you need to find approaches that maximize the benefits while minimizing, as much as possible, the costs you need to occur for them to be realized.

Along those lines, here are a few tips for marketing your startup, working to gain some initial exposure, and for accomplishing this without paying a dime:

Use Social Media

This goes without saying, but social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for boosting your exposure without incurring any costs. To this end, create a Facebook page for your business and open a Twitter account. Post status updates and Facebook and try to accumulate “Likes” from among your colleagues, family members, and friends. Doing so will insure that a larger number of people see your business on their News Feeds.

Study The Competition

Even if you aren’t in a niche industry, your business likely has a specific focus that is closely matched by only a few internet competitors. Study these competitors to get an idea of how they market themselves –especially, how they market themselves for free. Do they post articles on forums or other sites? How do they utilize social media? Does it appear as though they have mailing lists and newsletters?

Communicate

A successful marketing campaign cannot simply be done behind a façade of internet anonymity. Instead, it is important to talk to people in the industry, whether on the phone, at conventions, or through email. Ask them advice but also ask them to spread the world. You may even get some helpful tips in the process.

Go Offline

While limitless, the internet still has its limits when it comes to marketing. This is especially true for a small startup that is looking to gain traction and exposure. If you operate in a niche industry or have a determinable customer base, you may have more success looking to reach this demographic offline in the early going. Does your target consumer group interact offline? Is there a place they go (ie a given retailer) or a way they communicate? If so, you may want to make yourself a part of that community.

These are just a few tips for increasing your exposure during the early days of a startup, when visibility is low and money is tight. The options available in this situation may not be as appealing as those you could find on a larger budget, but when done correctly they can return dividends nonetheless.

Author Bio: Sam Peters is a blogger who frequently writes for entrepreneurial and tech blogs covering topics from online marketing to the newest gadget and mobile web news.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Free Marketing Tips For Internet Startups

Technorati Tags: budget, low cost, start-up

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There is nothing quite like celebrating New Year’s Eve in Scotland. Whether you are in a local pub, on the streets of Edinburgh or enjoying a party with friends and family Scotland seems to be in its element at Hogmanay.

Hogmanay in Edinburgh

Scotland’s flagship Hogmanay event is in Edinburgh. With leading music events and DJs this is an all ticket affair. The concert is part of the larger street party in Princes Street. You can still have a great time in Edinburgh without buying a ticket – there are lots of great pubs in Edinburgh and many will be having parties to bring in the New Year. Alternatively there will be a torchlight procession from Parliament Square to Calton Hill with a fireworks display.

There are many other events at the theatres and concert venues that make Edinburgh such a great city for a party. The Usher Hall has the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra – have you ever heard; Auld Lang Syne played by a fiddle orchestra? The Queenshall will do things in a traditional Scottish way with a Ceilidh hosted by the band Heeliegoleerie and with a piper to bring in the New Year.

Hogmanay in Perthshire

If all this sounds a little too much perhaps a more peaceful time in Perthshire might be the way to bring in 2012.  Auchterarder might be a good place to stay. There is a good assortment of pubs in town to choose from and there is a great array of shops. What better way to clear your head on New Year’s day than to stroll along the Oak Walk from the town?

Should you still feel you want a big party you can bring in the New Year at Perth race course. This offers a mixture of the traditional Ceilidh and disco at the racecourse just to the north of Perth.

Hogmanay in Pitlochry

Pitlochry is one of the Scottish towns that goes a bit crazy for New Year. They close their main street and have a proper party. The pubs and hotels of this beautiful Scottish Highland town make a special effort to welcome the guests.

There is something to do for Hogmanay wherever you stay in Scotland and you will find the Scots have the best parties you could wish for on New Year’s Eve.  Why not plan on spending this Hogmanay in Scotland.

Author Bio: Abhishek Bhan is a writer for Mackay’s Agency which has a range of self catering Scottish cottages to choose from in several of the places mentioned in the article.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Hogmanay, New Year’s Eve Scottish Style

Technorati Tags: ceilidh, edinburgh, hogmanay, New Year, scotland

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Response Expectations

Most of us have got beaten down by the way things seem to get done.  Perhaps a non-scientific indication of that is shown by some quick searches on Google.  The number of items in the Google search is an indicator of the degree of public interest in the phrase that was searched for.  Here are the results we found at this time.

One might infer from these numbers that a slow response is almost inevitable and that more often than not inappropriate responses will be given rather than the appropriate responses one wished for.  Getting a fast, speedy or timely response is clearly a much less probable outcome.

IT

If rapid responses are the exception, does anyone regard them as a priority that deserves extra effort and resources?  In this article, we will discuss the two sectors that seem to feature most prominently in such online discussions.  All sectors of society now rely on electronic communication and insist on always-on availability of information.  It is therefore not surprising that the IT industry believes that the speed of response is critical.

You have to be fast in today’s marketplace and no department feels the heat more than IT, according to four of the Enterprise CIO Forum Council members.

People must have an attitude that ‘faster is better than best.’ Something that solves 33% of a problem today is better than something that solves 100% of a problem in 18 months. Many companies sacrifice speed for perfection or false precision. Often data or solutions can be ‘good enough’ to take interim steps and action.

Of course faster is also more costly and here the IT department must balance the need for a response with the cost of achieving that.  That is why a major computer supplier such as Dell offers Speed of Response Options.

Get parts and labor fast — upgrade from next-business-day on-site service, which comes standard with Dell ProSupport, to same-day or mission-critical on-site service.  This will help keep client systems up and running, and minimize data center downtime.  This  flexible approach to technical support allows you to choose the response time you need to support your business. This flexibility helps you not just keep your users up and running and your data centers operating at top speed, but also enables you to keep your IT budget under control.

Public relations

Another area where rapid responses are needed is that of public relations, for businesses and for governments. Adverse publicity is often utilized by critics who know how to work the media.  Unless prompt action is taken, what starts as a minor negative incident can mushroom into a very costly major event  A typical example of what is being done can be seen in Washington DC where the White House has beefed up on its online rapid response.

The Obama administration has created and staffed a new position tucked inside their communications shop for helping coordinate rapid response to unfavorable stories and fostering and improving relations with the progressive online community.  Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response.  This signals that the White House will be adopting a more aggressive engagement in the online world in the months ahead.

Lee’s Twitter account could also become an interesting window into the status of the always emotional, occasional testy dance between progressives and the president.

The reason why politicians would aim to get involved in social media is that social media are giving individuals channels within which they can ensure their views are known and shared.  A major organization can either get involved as a participant in the debate or remain the subject of the discussion. This is an area that many businesses realize they should be involved in but they are unclear on how best to do this.

Lost Opportunities – Potential Customers

Given that most companies will take the easy way out and remain faceless entities that do not get involved, this is an area where a company can easily stand out from the crowd and from its competitors.  All that it takes is to think ahead and plan the resources and the format of your Timely Response, both for potential customers who may contact you and for important happenings in the market place.

An appropriate and informative timely marketing piece not only shows you understand an issue well (and are relevant and capable of addressing it), but also shows that you are a proactive person within a dynamic company that is not afraid to take a stance in their industry and with their customers. You can also offer potential calls to action that may trigger your customers to approach you for expert advice or information.

This is not a major cost activity.  All that it takes is that you are alert to opportunities (which you should be anyway) and that someone has the responsibility for acting as the voice of the company. The key requirement is that the response be rapid. Delay will mean that you’re just lost in the crowd.

Post from: The Other Blokes Blog

Rapid Response – When is it needed?

Technorati Tags: government, public relations, rapid, response, slow, timely

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