If however your online branding strategy requires a lot of effort or handholding from you then the follow tips just might be what you need to help you build your plan.

• Start with a plan: develop a plan that will incorporate your goals, mission and brand so that you can have a synergized branding.
• Create a team: have a support team in place to help you implement your online branding which might  artist, virtual assistant, web designer, etc.
• Offer opportunities to connect: build in networking with your branding strategy so that you can connect with others who might be your target customer or potential joint ventures.
• Realize your potential: determine that you are going to be successful with your branding strategy and realize that you can reach your goals.
• Evaluate your efforts: make sure you monitor your efforts so that you can determine what’s working or not working as part of your branding strategy.

As you develop your online branding strategy, don’t be afraid to be bold and try new things. You never know will or won’t work just know that learning for the steps you take can help you grow personally and professionally.

Post from: EveryJoe

Online Branding: What’s Your Plan?

Image: Flickr and Gary Hayes

Viral marketing or branding is the process of taking your business branding message and having it catch-on and spread to your target customer with success. At the bottom of the image above, there are five key areas that you should include into your viral campaign:

• Involve your support team and affiliates to help increase exposure
• Create a campaign that will reach your target customers
• Discuss with those you are accountable too so you can get their input for your campaign
• Promote using social media, offline media and your networks
• Measure your efforts so you can make sure that you are making an impact with the campaign

Some additional things that you should keep in mind that could help you have a successful viral marketing or branding campaign are:

• Determine how your will implement your viral campaign.
• Do your research of how viral marketing/branding is handled by others in your industry so that you can see what works and doesn’t work.
• Create a plan that includes your current marketing/brand so that you can continue spreading your brand.
• Use social media networks to give your viral campaign momentum.
• Open up opportunities to affiliates to make money while they help you spread your viral campaign.
• Set a date to launch your campaign so that you will be encouraged to see everything through.

As you implement these simple steps as part of your viral campaign, remember that having a support team help you is a good thing to have in place.

Post from: EveryJoe

What Is Viral Marketing and Branding?

Image: SXC.hu

In the planting or gardening world, pruning is the process of trimming off part of a plant or tree. As in the picture to the right, once a tree is pruned, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to grow. As a matter of fact it looks almost dead. But when you give it time, it will grow into a beautiful willow tree. In applying the term pruning to a branding, this means that you look at your branding strategy to see what needs to be cut back or cut off in order for your brand to grow. Sometimes it may be an easy decision but in other cases it may be a hard decision.

Case in point, I love interacting with others through social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. However, if I spent all day on these sites, I wouldn’t get projects completed for my clients. Nor would I be able to implement growth strategies for my business. So I had to “prune” the time spent on social media websites by balancing the time and effort with what I needed to do to invest in my clients and my business.

As you look at your brand strategy to see where you need to “prune”, don’t be afraid to make changes. Sometimes the changes you need to make with your brand may not make sense to anyone but you. Be bold and make the change that you feel will grow your brand.

Post from: EveryJoe

Do You Need To Prune Your Branding?

Image: SXC.hu

Whichever one you choose to use, there are a few tools that can help you select the colors for your brand. Below are a three examples of tools that I thought would be helpful to you.

• Determine color by a word that describes your product or service: Cymbolism Words. The Cymbolism website also has a word-color association test that you can take by visiting their homepage.
• Aviary has eight tools available to help you develop your brand identity. They make creation accessible to artists of all genres, from graphic design to audio editing.
• Another helpful tool is Kuler which allows you to use a web-hosted application for generating color themes that was created by Adobe. You can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.

As you develop the color scheme for your brand, using these tools can help you be more precise and efficient. Also, it is always a good idea to outsource or receive advice to develop your brand.

Post from: EveryJoe

What Does Your Brand Color Mean?

Image: Flickr and faith goble

Do you use upbeat or slow? Is it bluesy or rock based? Regardless of what type of music you choose, make sure that it reflects your brand. In such things as video or presentation where you might add music, a good idea would be to have a consistent song that you use so that people can associate it with you.

Even when you do live speaking engagements, using the same song that you may have as part of your branding plan is a good idea. Your brand message is very important to the point that selecting the right song plays a part in it.

One of the steps about developing a brand included on eHow.com in the article “How to Use Corporate Branding“, the final step share a good point about using music or sound in branding:

Use sound, touch and smell to enhance your corporate identity. Appeal to your customer’s senses when you develop corporate branding techniques. Pay attention to corporate jingles and use music to reinforce your corporate brand. Pick packaging that reinforces your chosen image and leaves an impression with your clients. Attempt to create uniform scents for your retail outlets. Make each store unique while reinforcing its place within your corporate brand.

As you develop the ideas about what music or song you want to use as part of your brand, remember to be creative. Being creative means that sometimes you have to think outside of the box. The video below is an interesting example of how someone created a branding song in an interesting way. I’m not saying that you should develop yours like this but I thought you would get a kick out of what they did.

Post from: EveryJoe

What’s Your Branding Song?

Image: SXC.hu

For small business owners who may not have a big budget, it is helpful to have tips that will assist you in developing your brand message. To help you develop your brand message, I have included a few tips below:

• Make it easy for your target consumers to associate your brand message with your product or service.
• Ensure that your brand message can support the promise that you provide.
• Develop a plan to become a leader in your industry as you deliver your brand.
• Look for unique ways to deliver your brand message (i.e., social media, co-branding opportunities)

As you implement your brand message, keep it simple yet effective. To help you develop your business brand message, I have included the video below which is a good source of branding information.

Post from: EveryJoe

Brand Message For Small Business Owners

Image: SXC.hu

Remember that as you try different things, keep a log of what you have done to build your brand. This log will help you determine a trend of what’s working and what’s not working. Your brand message should solidify over time as you develop your brand strategy.

Some of the common things that can help you build a solid foundation for your brand strategy are below:

• Focus on communication. Know what you want to communicate through your media such as website, social media or newsletters. Make it concise, consistent, and to the point.
• Opportune moments. Recognize the moments that can help make your business successful such as possible joint venture opportunities.
• Consumer feedback. Build in ways to receive feedback from your consumers so that you will know how to better reach your target consumers.
• Understand your market’s trends. Research and find ways that you can incorporate the trends from your market into your brand strategy.
• Strategic forethought. As you develop your brand strategy, include padding that will allow room for quick growth or for changes that you may have to make in order to adjust to your consumers’ needs.

In the video below, details are shared in the interview with a business owner who has good information about building your brand and finding other businesses that you can partner with. For instance, one of their partners is Microsoft.

Post from: EveryJoe

Building Your Business Brand

Having “cheerleaders” support your brand message means that there are those who have made the choice to help you get the message out about your brand. If you don’t have “cheerleaders” for your brand then let me help you by giving you a short list of things that you should look for in a “cheerleader”.

• Encourages you to excel and succeed in your business
• Provides constructive feedback that builds you up even though it is correcting you
• Supports the vision that you have for your business
• Open to helping you get you brand message out to the masses

Although this is a short list, it should help you as you determine who can be a “cheerleader” for your business. Remember that when you are determining your “cheerleader” that they will become part of your support system. Having a strong support system is important so be wise in your choices for your “cheerleaders”.

Post from: EveryJoe

Do You Have A Cheerleader For Your Brand?

This is part two of the interview with Raia King she continues to share about business branding with good advice that business owner can easy implement. In this blog post, she shares how you can find customers, manage your PR, and ways  to make customers happy and keep them coming back to your business to buy products and visit your website.

Are there specific ways that a business owner can find out what their customers really want?

I often hear clients wonder aloud, “What do customers want?” My answer is simply, “Ask them.” Believe me, customers are not shy about giving you their opinions. If you ask, they will tell you the good and the bad points about your business.

Getting new customers is significantly more expensive than retaining existing customers, so time and money spent finding out how to satisfy and even delight your existing customers is certainly well spent. It can pay off tremendously by helping you increase your sales.

Whether you use a traditional written survey or an online survey, the methods of ensuring that you get useful information are the same. Below are tips to ensure that your survey is successful:

1. People are busy, so an effective way to give them a reason to take the time to fill out a survey is to offer some kind of reward for completion. You could offer a coupon for a discount on a future purchase, a gift certificate, or a sweepstakes entry for a bigger prize.
2. Make your survey questions clear and concise because the longer your survey is, the less likely people will take the time to complete it.
3. Make sure you can use the information you get. You not only want to know how your business rates, but why. Knowing about customer approval or disapproval without knowing specifically why customers feel that way won’t help you make the necessary changes.
4. At the end of your survey, have a few blank lines where people can give any comments about issues you may not have asked about in the survey questions. This section of the survey can often be the most revealing because you will learn about unexpected problem areas you can correct.

How can a business owner get free press coverage? What are specific things that they should include with their media message? Do you have details about how to handle paid press coverage?

As you can imagine, journalists, editors, and producers are practically assailed with press releases. Below are tips to improve your chances of getting the press coverage you want:

1. Focus your efforts toward publications and TV/radio programs that appeal to your target audience.
2. Make sure your press releases provide real news and value to media outlets.
3. Journalists, editors, and producers have very tight deadlines, so send them exactly what they ask for when they ask for it.
4. Make sure your press release answers: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
5. Be brief, professional, and friendly in all of your dealings with the media.
6. Pestering the media will not help your cause. While the process can be frustrating, try to remain focused and positive. Building publicity for your business is a process that will take time.
7. Work to build a positive relationship with the media. By providing stories that have value and by being easy to work with, you’ll increase the chances that journalists will remember you the next time they need a quote for a story related to your area of expertise.

In regard to what should be included with the media message, I find that TV producers like to see video clips of the business owner on TV. If you have video clips, include a link with your press release so the producer can see how you perform in front of the camera. If you haven’t been on TV yet, it can be helpful to post a video clip of yourself briefly talking about an aspect of your business.

I try avoid paid press coverage because it doesn’t give the same impression of objectivity that free press coverage does. Customers are more savvy than ever, and they know an advertorial when they see one.

Please share some specific ways that a business owner can keep customers coming back to their website?

Make sure that navigation on the website is intuitive. If people have to spend too much time looking for products or information, they’ll be less likely to come back. The novelty of technical bells and whistles wears off quickly, and if they slow down a user’s experience because the files are big and slow to load, customers soon grow tired of them. Generally a nice, clean, streamlined site is the best way to go.

The other important feature is regularly adding fresh content that is valuable to visitors. This will give them a reason to visit on a regular basis, especially if you have an opt-in email system that lets them know when you have added new products or content.

Post from: EveryJoe

Branding with Raia King, part 2

Understanding the importance of brand equity is one of the things that Raia King does to help business owners build their brand. Brand equity refers to the value of a product’s brand based on it having its current brand versus it having a different one. Continue reading as she shares in two parts the importance of branding your business.

Her contact information is below:

• Email: marketing@raiaking.net
• Website: http://www.raiaking.net
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MarketingForYou
• Phone: 610-251-0777

Please introduce yourself and the key areas of your expertise? How long have you been involved in this area?

I am an independent marketing and PR consultant and freelance writer. I work primarily with entrepreneurs and entertainers. I help them build their brand equity and increase their revenue. I also give marketing seminars specifically geared toward the specific needs of entrepreneurs and entertainers. I have been involved in this field for over 20 years.

When is it a good time for business owners to hire a professionals like graphic designers and marketing consultants to take their business to the next level?

Ideally, as soon as possible, but many entrepreneurs don’t have the money to initially cover such expenses. It’s important to present the most professional image possible at any given time, so if a new business owner can’t afford to hire a graphic designer right away, perhaps he or she can exchange services with a designer. Both parties get what they need and both get closer to achieving success.

Fortunately, the tools that can give a small business a big presence are becoming more affordable all the time. There is also lots of free marketing information online. On my website I offer free weekly email newsletters containing marketing tips. I’ve also scheduled some interviews that will cover marketing strategies from professional artists and entrepreneurs in various fields. I’m interviewing professionals who have used marketing techniques very effectively over the years to maintain a loyal customer base and a solid revenue stream.

As soon as it is reasonably affordable to start hiring professionals in fields such as graphic design, marketing, and PR…do it. This can be the step that finally takes a new business to the next level. While it is a cost, it is also an investment. These people are experts in their given fields and can dramatically contribute to driving sales.

Are there specific ways that a business owner should market themselves? Where should they advertise?

There are a multitude of ways a business owner can market a business, but advertising is a very important component of any successful marketing plan. The best place to advertise is wherever your potential customers are likely to be. You want to get your message in front of them no matter where they are. If they are an affluent demographic that listens to talk radio, then place ads there. If they are a young, hip demographic that spends a lot of time online, you may want to buy banner ads on the music websites they visit. The biggest mistake I see people make when purchasing ads is blasting their message out to a huge, untargeted audience. That is a surefire way to burn through the marketing budget without getting good results. Targeting your advertising as finely as possible is the key to a successful advertising strategy.

Post from: EveryJoe

Branding with Raia King, part 1