HowTo Prepare a Social Media Marketing Plan

Small businesses are realizing the importance of online marketing and are exploring new ways to promote their business on social media platforms. Marketing on social media needs a lot more than just shouting on yours and other people’s wall or retweeting anything you get your hands on.

Without proper strategy online marketing could become ineffective and a waste of resources and time. But, what exactly is the proper strategy to promote business on social media and on the internet?
Social media and the World Wide Web are about interacting with each other. Unlike traditional media, web is not just listening, reading, watching and absorbing. It is about interacting with the content via hyperlinks, forms, images, and videos.

The first think that any social media marketer needs is a landing site. Where do you want to send people to? It is impossible for a social media marketer to make people leave their office seats and go buy something from the physical location. However, if there was a link to a place where people can go and make purchase with clicks then it is not that difficult. So, the first thing that any effective online marketing plan needs is a website design.

Secondly your website and your business should have proper branding. If you don’t know about brand identity go look up at it. For proper branding techniques you would need a logo design.
Then to promote your message on the social media you will need a lot more than just text. Text is less appealing and you can say a lot more if you use images or videos instead. Using banners and videos on your social media website can be very effective. Get some proper banner designs in all shapes and sizes to use on various social media platforms.

Small Businesses - Internet Marketing - Web Design

Gone are the days when only large corporations considered maintaining a web presence important. Today it is important for each business to not only have a web presence but to also make great use of internet for better marketing. Marketing over the internet is more effective, more target oriented and much cheaper. 

The first step to the Internet marketing is to launch a professional website. Launching a professional website could be cheaper but it could also be expansive, depending on your plans to expand it. Most small businesses start with a shared web hosting, they hire a web design company to design their website, and then they start using it as their marketing headquarter over the internet. 

The big question that all small businesses face is how to hire a professional web design company to do their website. The answer to this question is that you hire a web design company that fits your budget, has the expertise to do the job and offers other value added services such as graphic design, logo design, stationary design, etc. 

Hiring such a company would help you with your future marketing needs. Also a company capable of doing all that would fill your new website with beautiful logo design and graphics. You can use this logo as your brand identity. 

When searching for the right web design company for small and medium businesses, you should always check out their portfolios and read their client testimonials. While you are it, don’t forget to drop down email to other small businesses who have previously hired this company to do their web design. 

You not only need a web design, you would probably want to have a content management system so that you can update your website on your own without paying the web design company for that. 

The next step in your web and internet marketing strategy is to use the tools such as social media. We will talk about the importance of social media in the internet marketing in our upcoming posts.

Lessons in Brand Identity - Energizer and Duracell

Studying the logos of Duracell and Energizer, the first impression one gets is that how similar these two logos are. Whats more interesting in the study of these two brands is that they represent two similar products. Their marketing campaigns are similar and they even use similar mascots to represent their brand.

So what kind of marketing is that where you follow your competitors strategy almost religiously? I am sure that if they each try to market themselves in different ways they would both fail to make an impression. However, I have this feeling that using the similar tactics to reach the same markets actually divides the consumers instead of converting them into favor of one. I think the consumers like them both equally and if they don't like either of them then they wouldn't buy the opponent instead they would buy some third brand. 

So what is your take on this matter? Do you think that any of these two can work out a unique and different strategy or you think they should stick to this approach and why? 

Duracell Bunny	Energizer Bunny

Graphic Designers - From Hollywood to Uncle John's Flower shop

Graphic design is a multibillion dollar industry. You will find graphic designers everywhere.  From Hollywood studios to suburban concession stores, graphic designers work with almost each and every business you can think of.

Their work is diverse and there are many specialized categories of what a graphic designer can do. Some specialize in computer generated imagery (CGI used in Hollywood movies), some of them create graphics for TV and advertising industry, some of them design posters and banners, and some of them design logos and web or print graphics.

The skills required to do different graphic jobs have many levels. For example, a CGI expert would have a university degree and related experience in the research field to generate sophisticated visual effects. Designers working with Advertising firm might be college graduates with electives related to marketing. Designers working with small businesses designing websites or logos may not have a college degree but certification from some community college or specialized graphic design schools.

Working with graphic design is an artistic job, not only it requires knowledge to use advanced graphic tools, it also requires a certain creativity and innovation too. If a graphic designer is really talented then it matters very little what degree or certification he/she holds.

If you visit the websites of these graphic designers or the company’s they work for. You would see a section called portfolio there. This is where the company or the artist shows their talent by displaying the work they have previously done for the clients. Looking at the portfolio you can get an idea of how good they are and who their other customers are. You can then contact their other customers and ask them how they liked their services.

Graphic designers who work for small businesses should also have a little knowledge of marketing and brand identity. Artistic merits may sometime create a conflict of interest with the business interest of the clients they are working for. Most graphic designer realize the importance of this and keep themselves updated with the latest developments in the marketing. With the increasing competition faced from the graphic designers of other countries, these graphic designers also keep their prices lower and try very hard to satisfy the customer needs.

So even though it is a multibillion dollar industry, anyone can benefit from the services of a graphic designer. The real trouble is to find a good one. 

Logo Design - Creativity vs. Customer Satisfaction

As a design artist, more specifically as a design artist who designs other people’s brand identities, you might often face this dilemma when you kill your creativity for customer satisfaction. The symptoms of this dilemma might range from mild unhappiness to extreme frustration.

You will be asked to redo an extremely good and absolutely unique logo design idea just because your customer thinks it is girly, or masculine, too heavy on eyes or so easy to ignore. You would feel angry and you should. But, anger does not bring you any jobs. So you hide your anger and you redo the design keeping in mind your clients feedback and changing it to meet their needs. It kills your heart the way you are destroying an astonishing piece of work to satisfy some non-design person who does not even know what “tint” means. 

This half heartedness takes the focus away from you and the end product is something neither you nor your client can look at. 

They key is to take client input seriously and consider it as a creative challenge. For example you have done a logo with bright sun drowning in the horizon and your client asks you to decrease the orange and add more blue to the horizon. You can get frustrated and create a purple horizon, or you can take this as a challenge. Don’t get upset over how silly this sounds; instead think of ways to add more blue. If you put your creative mind to it you will definitely find out ways to use blue.  

To some very successful design artists customer input has helped them create some of the most memorable logos of all time. Raymond Lowey was considered father of the Industrial Design. Below is an example of sketches he did for the Exxon Logo. Most of his ideas were rejected and the one that was selected was not Lowey’s first choice. Below is a photograph of his suggested ideas and then the picture of the final logo. 

National Brand Identity - UK a case study

In the late 90s and early 2000, Britain became the first nation to aggressively attempt a re-branding campaign. The campaign never actually took flight but the nation was set in mood for a rebranding which later affected government’s image and eventually Britain’s image in the world.
The rebranding campaign was handled by the tourism ministry. It was called “UK’s Ok”. The purpose of this new slogan was to present Britain as a cool modern Western nation. The globalization was causing the traditional government-run departments to get privatized and there was an immense sense of change that needed to be addressed. The new tourism campaigns started projecting Britain as a modern vibrant economy with cutting edge, hi-tech industries and a diverse society of people from many ethnic backgrounds.

Even though the British government gave up the idea of persuading a national brand identity, but they still worked on it in the tourism ministry. The tourism ministry’s marketing campaign then started focusing on creating new image of the nation. A logo competition was announced and many graphic artists submitted their ideas. The purpose was to come up with something like a slogan, something that becomes as iconic as I heart NYC sign.

The tourism ministry's efforts sparked a controversial debate. Many conservatives and even some moderate liberals were furious over the idea of hiding the traditional image of the country and emphasizing more on modernism. Many of them claimed that the ministry’s efforts look like they are ashamed of Great Britain’s historical and cultural heritage.

This campaign was so inspiring that after this tourism ministries of many countries adapted  similar approach of national branding. Today we see iconic logos of Qatar Airways, Malaysia Truly Asia, Thailand and many more countries using national branding to bring more tourists.

Brand Indentity Design - Hire A Professional

Everyone can design things for their own little campaigns. But not everyone can design a brand identity that speaks of a mission, a brand identity that is designed to be good looking, attractive and which can be run anywhere in the print, on the web, or even on electronic media. That is why it is important for any individual or business, whether it’s a small business or a medium sized corporation to take this matter of creating a brand identity as a serious concern. Once you have decided to take your image and your brand identity seriously you better hire professionals to take care of your Professional Logo Design needs.

Marketing is a complex battle ground and to win in this fierce and hostile environment companies and businesses need to work with a multi dimensional strategy to create themselves brands that stand out of the crowd. The easy availability of desktop publishing tools and their ease-of-use is a common knowledge. This makes people believe that any one can now design their own marketing campaigns and designs.

There are so many companies offering design services and promising to build you a great brand identity. Now let’s suppose if using common desktop publishing tools was such a piece of cake then why would anyone hire these companies? It is not that easy to be creative; yet at the same time to come up with unique ideas for your brand identity. You may have Microsoft Paint installed on your old Windows XP machine but it cannot beat the creativity and brilliance of a professional designer with an aesthetic sense of graphic designing. Honestly, most business minded people lack this aesthetic sense but they don’t realize this fact and try those tools, which is something we don’t recommend. So if you are worrying about your corporate image, stop doing things on your own, instead hire a professional to do the job.