KEEP YOUR IMAGE & MARKETING MESSAGE CONSISTENT
If you watched a football game on Sunday in which both teams came out in all different colored uniforms instead of one “team” uniform, would it be difficult to distinguish who was on which team and which team you wanted to route for? Keeping your business image [business logo, company name, tag-line, color used on marketing materials and website] consistent and your marketing message clear is how consumers will set you apart from your competitors and will connect with you in future years.
When I meet a client for an initial meeting I often ask them to show me what they have used in the past for marketing materials. We look at the website, business cards, brochures if they have them and anything that a potential client or current customer may see. That includes and email signature and company letterhead. If there has been an advertising agency or marketing firm affiliated with the client, there is a good chance that most of the materials carry the identity of the company in a consistent way. However, if the business has not had the expertise of a professional who understands how valuable it is to have all materials uniformed with their logo, Company Name, color & fonts, and tagline consistent, then we work on developing the “uniform” for their business and helping the consumer to see them, do business with them and remember where to reach them for future sales.
So, does your business have a consistent “uniform”? Quick check is to look to see if your business cards, letterhead, email signature and website all have the same logo, colors, tagline and fonts for the lettering of your business name. If you have a blue business card, but your website is brown and most of your marketing material is red…..YIKES, call me! That is equal to needing a trip to the emergency room because you have several broken limbs. You might have had a business that survived without consistent image and marketing materials, but look at the most successful businesses today and you will be able to identify their logo and products just by the packaging and taglines they use so why fight having this for your own business?
Increase the odds for success and contact a marketing or advertising agency to help you create your business identity and marketing message!
All my best to your success!
~Charlene
“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”
Tagged as Marketing Branding
Categorized as Business Topics
lol at the YIKES, call me part.
I would say I am still very new to “branding” as it is defined for a business’ image/identity. Based on the points you mention here though, I don’t really know if I would say that now. I assumed that doing all those things was common knowledge, and that people would automatically do that because it just makes sense. As I become more involved with branding and all that good stuff that it involves which normally a marketing team or design firm would be hired for, I am learning many companies don’t see the basic logic I’ve always thought was the ovbious thing to do.
The Port Candle is a shop my mother opened in October in Newburyport, and as the web/graphic design freak in the family, I became the website developer/designer/marketer/writer etc. As well as designer of all other graphics, logos, banners, the store signs, HTML email design and email campaign marketer, the list goes on and on.
Basically, I am the marketing team, AND the design firm, AND more. It’s probably the best thing to do, have the same person, do all those things, which as I now see as the definition of a “company brand”. It’s all the things that make up the identity, and visual image portrayed to those portential customers, and how they connect with a company.
I don’t even really know if any of that is wrong, or not part of branding, aside from the design aspect of it and using the same colors etc. I am not a professional marketer or advertiser. I don’t even have a complete understanding of “brand”. I am just a web/graphic designer with my own design blog, which has pushed me to learn EVERYTHING ELSE besides the design part of it.
I lost where I was going with this. You seem to have a somewhat, far better grasp on marketing, and branding than me though. It’s not that I KNOW how to do that suff, but I guess have come to see it as a common knowledge thing, that is the obvious thing to do.
Hope that made sense, or had a point, because am done now lol.
Hi Jared~
Your mother is lucky to have your help and having one person [or agency] to create your image is half the battle. And, yes, I have seen many businesses confused on what their brand is so most of the marketing material is missing what sets them apart from their competitors and has no theme.
Email or call me if you ever want to talk. ~ Charlene
I want to start my first blog, what blog platform do you use and recommend for me ?
I am fortunate that I have a spouse who is an IT specialist and set-up my blog for me. We use Wordpress, but my research on blogging directed me to understand that you must consider a few things. What are your goals, budget, technological knowledge, and if you want it to be a hosted verses stand alone blog. Many hosted sites do not have the ability to monetize your blog. For my blog I knew that I just wanted to offer helpful information about marketing and advertising to my readers and I am not selling anything with my blog. My goal was to support my brand of helping businesses to be successful. I highly recommend that you do a search about blog platforms before selecting what you want to use and if you have an IT professional who helps you with your website be sure to include them in on the decision making process for your business. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you will tell your friends. All my best to your success!~ Charlene
I totally love your blog! Thank you for the post, very informative. wty1d8
Thank you for leaving your comment and for reading my blog. I actually went to your site and ordered one of your DVD’s. My husband is part Pawnee so I wish to thank you for your work. Glad we connected!
Hello dude, can i post articles to your blog ? Let me know if you are interested
Hi~thanks for reading my blog! At this time I am the only person who is creating content for the Purple Diamond blog, but you are welcome to share my blog with others and post my articles!