Brand Identity - Lessons for Small Businesses

During the recession we witnessed a boom in many kind of small businesses all across the United States. Many of these small businesses are making smart decisions to build their brand identities. However, some of them fail hopelessly, not due to lack of passion but due to lack of knowledge.

To understand brand identity you need to understand what brand identity means. Corporate Brand Identity, is the persona or characteristics of an organization as it intentionally adapts and tries to promote using their marketing campaigns. It is implied by using coporate logo designs, web design, and other marketing created in synchronization with other design elements of the brand or the product.

A company, business or organization's brand identity promotes the business, describes its objectives, displays the values and culture behind the organization. With effective marketing it becomes symbolic to how your brand is generally perceived. From the visual appearance of your products, to the corporate logo, and from letter heads to all communications every things help businesses establish a brand identity.

Since most small businesses cannot afford a elaborate marketing campaign, still they can strengthen their brand identity by following some basic practices. First of all, hire a professional logo designer to create your business logo design. Getting a professional custom made logo design is not that expensive. Also if you need (well every one needs) a website you better give it to the same designer. That way your logo and your website will compliment each other better.

Once you got your logo design, use it well to promote your business's brand identity. You can use your logo on business cards, office stationary, banners, brochures, and every thing else you can think of.

Indian Identity Authority in Search of Logo Design

Indian government has recently formed an agency to issue a unique identification number to each and every Indian. The agency is called Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI. Imagine the enormous task this agency is assigned to achieve. India is the world’s most populous country and the second most population in a country after China. It has a population of roughly about 1.13 Billion people, and registering all of them and giving them a Unique ID is a gigantic job.

UIDAI, which is going to issue an Identification number to all Indians, is also looking for an Identify for itself. Recently the Agency launched a logo design competition to select the best logo design for the Agency and received 3000 submissions from all over the country. Again, keeping India’s population in mind this is a very small number of submissions, most probably because the prize money is not that significant (INR 100,000 $2200 USD). UIDAI recently got RS 19 Billion from Indian Government so it’s kind of cheap that they are offering just 100,000 to just one design.

While speaking to Press Trust of India a UIDAI official told that:

“The official said it is important that the powerful idea behind the project gets communicated to its recipients in a way that is motivating. He said the logo will act as a visual shortcut that communicates what the brand stands for”.

He further added, “It is our constant Endeavour to involve as much public as possible in this Endeavour. The selection of the logo will take place by April”.

Popular Ways to Promote Brand Identity With Logo

They say a diamond is forever, I would tell you that a good logo is also going to stick with you and your next generations for decades if not centuries. There are so many businesses out there with such beautiful logos, I mean even your competitors might get a logo much better than yours. So how do you beat them all? By using your logo for promotion of your brand identity and doing it more effectively than any of your competitors.

Get your logo printed on these China mugs and sell them to your clients. Or simply give them away for free. People love free stuff and each time they are drinking coffee in this mug they are thinking about good things in their lives coffee, comfort, and your business logo.

Print your logo on T-Shirts and distribute them on some special occasion or simply give them away for free.

Get your logo printed on Paper Bags. If you already use paper bag at your workplace thats good if you don't then you should start using them now as these bags are more environment friendly than plastic bags. Also make sure that the paper used in your bags is the recycled one and no trees get hurt when you promote your brand identity.

Print out I heart Stickers and distribute them to your Customers. I love such stickers and I love many things for example I love the book shop around the corner of my street if they distributed such stickers I would gladly display them on my car's bumper.

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.