Marketing Your Business - Maximizing Your Marketing ProfitsGetting the most mileage from your marketing
materials
By Dr. Andrew S. Linick, The
Copyologist®
You are aware that marketing is an activity in which you should engage
more and more. Let's try to think long-term while you are thinking
short-term. Don't just look at the week ahead. Look also at the months and
years too.
Your firm's identity will not come easily or quickly. It will be built
over time. Everything you do in the way of marketing will contribute to
your identity. If you spend $2,000 to produce an advertising brochure,
it's important to think of other ways the brochure can be used.
Some possibilities include: turn it into a sign. A customer handout.
The basis for a direct response space ad. Couple it with interchangeable
headlines and it becomes two ads. Use it as a major part of a mailing. You
might be able to use it for five years or longer. By getting the most
mileage out of your marketing materials, you'll save a fortune in creative
fees.
The $2000 figure is beginning to look a lot more reasonable, isn't it?
Your Brand Name
But while
you're getting as much mileage as possible from your marketing, you have
to do everything you can to create brand names for your product(s). There
are several reasons for this.
People trust brand names. They have confidence that a brand-name item
will perform better than a non-brand-name item. Brand names don't belong
only in the province of the big guys. They can be used by anyone who wants
to create them. Smart marketing people-big and small-want to create them.
Once you market, advertise and promote your brand long and hard, people
will identify and ask for it by name.
According to the Harvard Business Review, entrepreneurs are going to
have to start developing their own brand names. There is a new selling
environment. People want uniqueness. People want names they can trust.
Creating a brand name gives people what they want and gives you what you
want: consumer confidence.
A good approach to take is to give your customers more than their
money's worth. If you go the extra mile, provide extra service, give extra
quality, you'll be able to convey your customer-comes-first attitude in
your marketing. You'll be known as a better marketer. Word of mouth
advertising will spread your good will. And you'll gain many referred new
customers.
There is very little mystique attached to marketing direct to targeted
prospects. It's nuts and bolts and is fairly easy to dissect. BUT...
targeted direct response marketing is difficult to do properly unless you
have professional expertise or can retain knowledgeable
consultants/vendors. NOTE: People will
think of your product the same way your marketing shows it. Run cheap
looking ads and people will think of your product and service are also
cheap. Imagine the American public is about as intelligent as your
mother-and you know that she's not stupid. In reality, she is most likely
wise and a good representative of the public.
Your Personal Logo
What is
the one piece of marketing material you already have…one of the first
things you bought when you went into business? You probably don't think of
it as a marketing tool, just a delivery system for your contact
information. Your business card, of course. But almost no one makes full
use of this inexpensive promotional tool.
The most given promotional tool on a daily basis at trade shows and
when meeting people for the first time is a professionally designed
4-color printed card with your name, slogan, logo, contact information and
a description of what you do. Amazingly-people actually ask you for it.
How many people ever asked you to see your display ad or get a sales
pitch? So, the first positive step you should take in getting your
personal brand into the marketplace is to have a business card that
communicates your brand. This begins with your personal logo.
One example of how a powerful logo can gather huge amounts of publicity
and yield high visibility is when a creative art director was hired to
develop the "ILOVENY" logo to symbolize why you should visit New York, the
director did more than create a valuable branding graphic. She created a
slogan within the logo that boosted New York City tourism virtually
overnight. Soon other states and countries started to copycat this
brilliant combined logo/slogan idea.
One Visual Image, One Powerful
Meaning
Your logo is a single graphical symbol that
represents your personal brand. An effective logo tells prospects almost
everything they need to know about you. Your name. What you do. Your
personal style. And how your create value. Your logo should appear
everywhere. Place it on every piece of marketing materials you create.
From business cards and stationary to brochures-place your logo in space
ads and in interactive media . A newly designed or re-designed
terrific-looking logo benefits you and your company in several ways:
- Your logo becomes a surrogate for you-so well-known that when people
see your logo they get an image of your face or a good feeling for your
company or both.
- Your logo creates strong, widespread name band recognition.
- A personal logo gets you noticed-cutting through the noise and
clutter of today's advertising.
It can be as simple as your name
in an attractive typeface, or as sophisticated as some of the best
corporate logos. To get every dollar's worth of leverage out of your logo,
I recommend a personal logo consisting of three parts-name, slogan and
icon).
1) Your Company Name
Nothing could be
more basic than your company name. It's on (or should be on ) every
printed surface you use. It's how you answer the phone. And it's in your
flyers. So why do so many small businesses mess it up? Two reasons: they
try to get corporate, or they don't think their company name is important,
so they spend all of two minutes on it. Think again. What's more important
than the name of your business? Nothing else has the potential to
instantly identify who you are to your clients and prospects.
Your name must differentiate you from your competition. Look at name of
businesses similar to yours and you'll see 90 percent of them will be very
similar. In some cases, as in the medical field, the culture of that
profession demands it. Whether you're a sole proprietor, partner or
working within a large company, you industry will greatly influence the
way you can name yourself.
Depending on your business products/services, naming your business
after yourself may be a good move. Just don't use the words &
associates and enterprises. They are both over used and amateurish. Today,
consumers want to do business with you, not necessarily a corporate entity
or big firm. When you name your company after yourself, i.e. (Adams
Wholesome Vitamins, LTD, Famous Amos Cookies) you leverage any goodwill
and familiarity people already have with you. You also leverage your
reputation, since consumers or bus.-to-bus. prospects know right away that
they'll be working with you.
Avoid coming up with an important sounding, corporate-esque name. Many
companies do this in an attempt to capture some credibility, but is there
really any credibility in a corporate name if you are not selling to
corporate America? Some Naming Guidelines ---
- If you use just your name with no descriptive add-on, make sure your
slogan or other information on your business card tells people what you
do.
- Use the familiar version of your name. For example, if your full
name is Steven K. Husband, II but everyone calls you Steve Husband, use
that version (as you do). Exclude middle initials, suffixes and
designations from your company name-i.e., Husband Pearl Ties, LTD
2) Slogan
All of us can rattle off a few
dozen of the most famous corporate slogans:
- The ultimate driving machine (BMW)
- Think different (Apple)
- Moving at the speed of business (UPS)
- The best a man can get (Gillette)
- A diamond is forever (DeBeers)
- Something special in the air (American Airlines)
Companies create slogans for three reasons: 1. To tell people about
their product or service. 2. To motivate people to take action 3. To
convey a sense of the emotion they want customers to associate with their
product, service or company.
What if you're not a major corporation that has a multimillion-dollar
marketing budget. They can afford obtuse slogans conveying pure emotion
because they can also buy ads, send direct mail and open stores to tell
customers what they really do. You don't have that luxury. When you're
developing a slogan for your business it must do one of two things:
a) Tell people what you do and for who you do it. For example:
- Massage Therapy for Professional Athletes
- Designing Eclectic Fashions for Women Over 55
- Network Consulting for the Semiconductor Industry
- Wholesale Furniture for Specialty Retailers
b) Tell people what you do and the benefit of your services. For
example:
- Legal Representation that Keeps Divorce Civil
- Investment Planning for Your Family's Future
- Dance Instruction that Makes Good Parties Great
- Gentle Dental Care for the Terrified and Timid
Your slogan has one purpose-to tell your prospects something useful
about you and your business. But it's got to be brief. No more than 6 to 8
words-12 max and as tight as possible. Prospective buyers should be able
to glance at your slogan and get an instant impression of who you are and
what you're offering them, be it a great investment or a hearty laugh.
Strong slogans do not use overused words that have lost their meaning,
such as "solutions." They are specific, saying what you do and for whom
with precision.
Once a slogan is created, test it on others repeatedly. If the
responses aren't to your liking, keep experimenting. Always hire a
professional team an advertising copywriter and art director.
3) Icon
The icon is the graphic element
that goes along with your name and slogan. Not all personal logos have
icons. But the right icon can dramatically enhance the effectiveness and
retention of your logo. Your logo icon can be anything, from an
elegant-looking graphic shape (often called a "dingbat" by designers) to
an illustration that's suited to your target market, your profession, or
your interests.
A very common mistake to avoid is cliché icons everyone in your
profession uses. For example, how many real estate agents have you seen
with a house icon on their business card? Here's a good rule of thumb:
If a graphic image seems incredibly obvious for your profession-such as
a chef's hat for a caterer or a quill pen for a writer-DON'T USE
IT.
Five more tips in choosing an attractive, attention-getting icon:
-
- Don't use photos. They rarely reproduce well.
- Use something that can be drawn simply. Complex illustrations also
don't reproduce well, especially in small sizes.
- Match your icon to the culture of your target market. For example,
even if you're an avid surfer, putting a surfboard in your logo might
not work well if you're trying to sell financial planning to seniors.
- Hire a professional graphic artist/designer. This is the one area
where do-it-yourself won't do. Unless you already know how to draw, it's
worth the money to get something custom-done by a pro.
- Don't use a family crest. Such complex graphics rarely reproduce
well in a logo format. Icons are usually small, and the finely lined
detail of a family crest usually ends up a blurred mess.
Combining Everything
Together
Put all the pieces of a personal logo in place and
piece them together into a single unit. Your logo should appear to be one
coherent graphic-with all three elements working together. Have your name
dominate, with your slogan running beneath, and your icon off to one side
or the other. Look at some of the logos of competitors you know, or whose
ads you see in the main newspaper or yellow pages. This will give you some
ideas. Here are some others:
1) Colors
There are five main colors you
can use in your logo: red, orange, yellow, green and blue, and the
variations on those colors like aqua, gold and violet. There are also
three neutral colors: white, black and gray. You'll probably end up using
some combination of main and neutral colors in your logo. We recommend you
limit colors to no more than two max four. Too many colors will cause your
logo to look like a Dutch bed of tulips.
Colors on the red end of the spectrum are focused slightly behind the
retina of the eye and appear to move toward the viewer (try it). Colors on
the blue end of the spectrum are focused slightly in front of the retina
and appear to move away. That's why red is the color of energy, excitement
and attention, while blue stands for peace, tranquility and relaxation. In
marketing, red means volatility, blue stability. Do you think Coco-Cola's
color is red and IBM's isrful blue by accident?
Colors are expressive and tend to create moods or convey feelings:
| White = purity/ cleanliness |
Purple = royalty/luxury/regal |
| Black = stability/confidence |
Green = nature/coolness/profits |
| Yellow = caution/cheerful |
Red = attention, warmth. danger |
| Blue = leadership/strength |
Orange = tasty, healthy,
appetizing |
When selecting colors for your logo, consider the mood you want to
convey. This will be your principal color, used for your name and probably
your icon. We recommend using black as your second color. It stands out
and is less expensive to print than the other neutrals.
2) Typeface
There are two kinds of
typefaces: serif, the old-fashioned type you probably see in your daily
newspaper, and sans serif, the streamlined type without all the fancy
curlicues and flourishes. You'll need to choose typefaces for your name
and slogan. In making this decision, your most important factor is
readability. Keep things simple. Stick with proven basics like Times,
Goudy, Arial, Optima and Garamond.
Serif typefaces tend to be seen as more old-fashioned. They are used
more often for traditional, conservative businesses such as financial
services. Sans serif type is seen as more modern and creative, so you'll
often see it used by designers, architects, and creative freelance
talent.
Bottom-line? Pick a typestyle you like. Most companies will go with one
typeface for their business name, and another for their slogan. As long as
your typefaces are clean and readable, this isn't a problem. However,
avoid using all capital letters, especially in your name, It hurts
readability and comes across like shouting.
3) Size
How big should your logo be? Once
the three components have been assembled, a professional designer will put
them together as a single file in a program like Adobe Illustrator, so you
can size your logo however you like. That's the first step.
As for the right size, it varies depending on the medium. Once you size
your logo for your business card, you'll see why we recommend keeping your
icon simple. There's limited space. Complex drawings turn to mush. The
basic guideline is, don't make your logo smaller than your most frequent
prospects can read easily. Let's say you're marketing to the over-65 crowd
and your prospects have to squint at your business card to read your
slogan-you're in trouble!
Your personal logo will fit on a printed piece, be it a brochure or a
direct mailer, at a size anywhere from 2 to 3 inches in one direction, and
1 to 2 inches in the other. (Most company logos are horizontal, so they
would go 3 wide x 2 high.) You should also be able to blow your logo up
for use in outdoor advertising without it looking sloppy.
In the end, trust your good taste when sizing your logo or better yet
have an art director size it for you. Next, show it to business
associates, VIP's you respect and clients before you launch it.
11 Ways to Use Your Personal Logo to Build Customer
Loyalty Around You: Your personal logo (name, slogan and icon) goes
everywhere-no exaggeration. It's your personal brand. You want it on
everything you do, using the same colors, the same typeface. As with all
personal branding, consistency is everything. For example:
- Place it on the back panel of your personal brochure.
- Print it prominently on all your direct-mail postcards.
- Use it on your letterhead, mailing labels, envelopes and invoices.
- Make sure it appears at the top of each page of your Web site/E-mail
sales letters.
- Use it in all print or cable TV advertising.
- Print it on any outdoor advertising you do, from bus-stop benches to
billboards. Anywhere people pass by, from train and subway stations to
within taxis, trains, subways and buses.
- Put it on T-shirts, caps, and buttons for special events you may
sponsor.
- Let it stand out in PowerPoint presentations.
- Have it screened onto the window or door of your office.
- Get several polo shirts with it on the pocket, for your own use or
to give out as gifts.
- Provide it to event organizers so you can get in the sponsor
program.
Given time and consistency, your logo and personal brand can become
synonymous.
Sample #1:
In celebration of our
34th Year Anniversary* in business, we are proud to offer readers of, and
visitors to, Modern Opportunity newspaper and Website a one time trade
rate (50% off our regular rates) on three name/slogan packages: To qualify
for these special low rates mention code 34MO.
*Save
$2,500 Silver Package: just $2,500 (3-5 original names, two slogan, 2
revision steps) Retail $5,000
*Save $5,000 Gold Package:
now $5,000 (6-8 original names, three slogans, Unlimited revisions) Retail
$10K
*Save $7,500 Platinum Package: best buy $7,500 (10
original names, five slogans, Unlimited revisions) Retail $15K
Platinum Package plus: company name for email &
dot.com domain name package: $9,500 (Retail $20K)
Guaranteed satisfaction. Unlimited revisions. Will
register both names for one year for FREE!
Sample #2:
How much does it cost
to get a custom logo and/or business stationery designed? There are three
logo packages, and a stationery package available at 50% Savings:
*Save $750 Silver Package: just $750 (4-6 original
compositions, 2 revision steps) Retail $1,500
*Save $1,050
Gold Package: only $1,050 (6-8 original compositions, Unlimited revisions)
Retail $2,100
*Save $1,500 Platinum Package: a steal at
$1,500 (10 original compositions, Unlimited revisions) Retail $3,000
*Save $595 Business Stationery Package: a very reasonable
$595, includes 2 complete sets of business stationery from which to
choose. (business cards, letterhead, #10 envelope) Purchased upfront as
part of the Gold Corporate ID or Platinum Coporate ID it is discounted
$50.00.
For further information call 631.924.3888, email
linickgrp@att.net, website:
www.lgroup.addr.com Copyright©2003 by The Copyologist® All
Worldwide Rights Reserved!
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