Developing Your Brand Package

Your brand package consists of the tools and resources you use to communicate your image. The key to its effective application lies in the consistent use of your image package, which includes your business name, tagline and logo.

Business Name. Your business name is a highly personal choice; however, there are 2 criteria you should consider. First, the name should be descriptive. In other words, people should know what you do by hearing your name. Second, it should be easy to pronounce and remember.

Tagline. Your tagline is your business motto or catchphrase. It should tell people what is unique about you and establish some mental image. Ideally, it should also evoke a positive emotion. Try to limit your tagline to 7 words.

Logo. The most important element of your logo is that it should be memorable, and blend nicely with your business name and tagline to form your image package.

Your image package should speak to the vision you are trying to create for your business. However, what you choose for your business name, tagline and logo are less important than how they are used. The key is consistency and repetition. You want to make sure your image package is visible to customers and potential customers as often as possible. Here are 9 simple ways to do this:

1. Stationary. Put your image package on your letterhead, fax sheets, envelopes and all other forms of correspondence.

2. Business Cards. Likewise, display your image package prominently on your business cards.

3. Brochures. Include your image package on all of your paper and electronic marketing materials including brochures and one sheets.

4. Website. Your image package should appear on every page of your website. It should also appear on all website documents that can be downloaded by visitors.

5. Publications. Include your image package in all of your written content such as newsletters, booklets, and manuals. Even more importantly, write on topics that speak directly to the image you are attempting to create. For example, if you are trying to cultivate an image as a wellness expert, develop publications that provide useful wellness information for your readers.

6. Blog. As with other forms of publication, write blog posts that provide information and resources for your readers in the areas of expertise directly related to your brand.

7. Social Media. Create a powerful profile that embodies the brand image you are trying to cultivate on every social media website that you use (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook). You can also start or join user groups that are connected to your area of expertise.

8. Presentations. Whenever you make a presentation, make sure all of your presentation materials contain your image package (e.g., PowerPoint slides, handouts). Consider facilitating free presentations as a way of communicating your brand image.

9. Elevator Presentation. Many people overlook the elevator presentation because it is verbal, not visual. However, it is vitally important because a good elevator statement will tell people who you are (e.g., credentials), what you provide (e.g., value proposition), and who you serve (e.g., market niche) in a brief 20-second statement.

Gardening Business – Developing Your Elevator Pitch and Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

There are two (2) concepts that you need to understand and embrace if you want to succeed in business. These concepts are your Elevator Pitch and your Unique Selling Proposition.

The Elevator Pitch is:

  1. a short and sweet summary of what you do and it is not really about trying to sell to someone. So instead of telling someone “I mow Lawns”, you might say “We turn our customers gardens into Landscape Showpieces”.
  2. a pitch for other people’s attention
  3. what you tell people if you were in an elevator and you only have 30 seconds (or 100 to 150 words) to impress them or to engage them
  4. a pitch for someone’s attention telling them what you do and hopefully they will be interested to ask you for more information. It is an introduction to what you do and in the process you create some intrigue and hopefully generate some enquiry from the listener

Your Unique Selling Proposition is:

  1. the reason (or the compelling Point Of Difference) your customers choose you over your competition
  2. the foundation of your advertising program – it is what you communicate to your market-place. It may be your slogan or tagline.
  3. the foundation of your professional image – Your image and brand are a result of devising your USP, and your image and brand is carried through to all your livery – clothing – uniforms, letterheads, business cards, magnetic stickers, motor vehicle signage, web sites, emails, flyers, brochures
  4. the first impression new customers and prospects have of you
  5. most probably more important to have than your Elevator Pitch

If you avoid or skip defining your own USP, you’ll struggle to grow your business.

Your Unique Selling Proposition is what you tell the market place through your Flyers, Leaflets, Website, Business cards, Brochures, Radio advertisements and so on. It helps to remind prospects and existing customers why you are different to your competitors. It is a summary of all the benefits (as opposed to all the features) you provide to your customers.

This Point of Difference (your USP) that you articulate may be something as insignificant as the location of your business, the way you carry out your service, or the speed of service delivery. So when you develop these concepts or slogans don’t say something like “We provide excellent service”, because anyone can say that. In other words there is NO point of difference here!!!

Famous examples of good Unique Selling Propositions include: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less – or it’s free.”

Domino’s Pizza:

FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”

DeBeers’: “Diamonds are forever”

You can see why the Domino’s & FedEx slogans are so effective because they are very specific with their mentions of benefits & guarantees. These slogans or taglines are complete statements which can be verified by the customer and they don’t resort to marketing hype words like “ultimate”, “best”, “greatest”.

The “Advertising Age” voted the DeBeers’ “Diamonds are forever” the best advertising slogan in the 20th century. Also, DeBeers would have benefited nicely from the glamorous James Bond film and book with the same name.

In summary, with both the Elevator Pitch and your Unique Selling Proposition, you are communicating to prospects and customers how you take Prospects with a Problem or Pain to another place where there is Pleasure.

How Developing a Mobile App Can Drive Revenue for Your Business

For entrepreneurs, turning their vision into a business is a big dream and it does not come easily. There are varied challenges that come from different corners and with the development of technology the chances of success have also increased. Mobile marketing is the new trend and various mobile apps can now help businesses engage their customers in a better way and also keep their employees well connected and boost the bottom line. In simple words, taking advantage of new innovations and mobile technology ensures that your company remains ahead of the market competition.

From implementing specific features like GPS down to the fact that people are carrying computers in their pockets, today smartphones also open up a world of opportunities for businesses both large and small.

Here is how a mobile app can help you

Geo targeted push notifications:

It was earlier suggested that mobile devices would present users with information all over the world in an automatic way. Today, geo targeted push notifications can be used in various ways in businesses:

• Notify fans about events, concerts and updates about the availability of tickets

• A national chain can send city or region based notifications about specific discounts or offers based on the user’s interest.

• Retailers can boost their loyalty by sending special offers to their customers who have been purchasing for the past few years.

• Businesses owners can also announce sales or discounts on their products during specific seasons.

Mobile apps offer additional sales opportunities:

Another biggest opportunity for businesses using mobile apps is to open up a whole new world of customers and engagement opportunities. Interactions with the customers has become geo-agnostic and mobile apps maximize the opportunity to reach the users within no time. There are push notifications that might remind the users of a nearly abandoned shopping cart and also bring them back and offer a more seamless experience for storing login information, which means an easier path to purchase and make transactions.

Data gathering:

Another powerful advantage of mobile apps for online business is that they can easily trace the behavior of the customer and what they actually want. Important things that can keep the users engaged or even at times turn them off can be analyzed. Tracking signals from mobile devices are opening the world of data gathering and analytics for the marketers. It is by using this data that advertisers can understand the behavior of the visitors and also use the information collected to make essential changes in the marketing strategy.

Dynamic sale offers:

Once you get tied up with technology and start using push notifications, you will observe that many magical things will start to happen. Businesses can now gather essential customer data and track the ad campaigns to deliver best sales offers at the right time. Various mobile apps enable businesses to do varied things and implement dynamic sales strategies to boost revenues. For example, there are certain seasons when people do a lot of online shopping. Giving them discounts during festive seasons often increases the sales and ultimate revenues.

Wearable devices are drawing attention:

As per the International Data Corporation, the market for wearables is assumed to experience a composite annual growth of about 20.3%. From body sensors, wearable cameras to healthcare tracking devices, wearables are gaining popularity and are going beyond the healthcare industry and is going to be one of the most promising mobile app development trends of 2017.

Pushing through the funnel:

There are many customers who browse through the store, check various products and then walk out to another store without making a purchase. This is called bounce and online users bounce for various reasons and the reasons are even greater when it is on mobile. Some reasons are that the users might not have a credit card handy, or typing the information may be too tedious or there may be some other distractions and they may simply put their phone back in their pocket. One way to restrict this transaction abandonment is through automated address filling. Using the GPS of a phone, the transactional app can easily detect the user’s location and automatically fill the address data. Such mobile applications make the transactions easier and reduces the bounce rates.

Become competitive:

Many showroom owners complain that shoppers visit the physical store to inspect the goods in person and then after finalizing on the product, they purchase it online where the prices are usually cheaper. Price comparison tools help the retailers drive additional website traffic and sales and mobile apps are helping businesses to increase ROI by increasing their efficiency. With the apps, users can be narrowly targeted and customers can be lured back to make a purchase. All these efficiencies result in generating more revenues and enhance the overall customer’s experience.

How Joomla Is Beneficial For Developing Business Websites

Why Joomla is gaining popularity in Web Development Industry?

It’s been more than a decade when Joomla was introduced as an open source CMS framework in the IT industry to compete with several other CMS frameworks. Hopefully, this technology has captured the IT market with its features. Joomla has become the first choice of businesses for a web content management system. Gradually, e-commerce businesses also started showing their interest in the CMS platform, due to its highly cost-effective and enticing features that can benefit an online business with boosting performance.

As you know, it is a content management system – so, you can update, edit, add, delete, and publish content on the website, developed in this technology easily and quickly. Whether you run a blog, news portal, or have e-commerce business, there are lots of benefits if you opt for a Joomla website for your business. Let’s take an overview of all these benefits below:

Simple to understand and Use: Joomla performs well for every type of business. From educational site to business website, news website to e-commerce website – Joomla can effectively manage the web content. Developers create a very interactive user interface; one can understand easily and access it more conveniently. Therefore, a non-technical person can also access the functionality efficiently in a Joomla website.

Cost-effective: Joomla is an open source framework which makes it free to use. You can add customization at a very low-cost as some custom features are available in the form of template for free while some have a very affordable price. The only money, you will have to pay to the IT company would be the development cost.

Time-Effective: As mentioned above, there are several ready-made themes and templates are available that not only cuts the cost on the development, but also cuts the time of the development phase. Joomla has a huge count of plugins and templates available which can be set in any type of website, as per requirement very easily. You don’t need to write the code from scratch. Just add the right plugin and template to add the desired functionality and theme. Later, you can ask the developer to modify it as per your requirement.

Quality Solution: This framework has the good reputation in the market for its security and stability. There is hardly a consequence when a Joomla website found crashed or trapped. The security is always on the top for a Joomla website. A sign up for the security alert is enough to make you inform that you are using the secured and latest version. Thanks to the Joomla community which has thousands of members to debug and tweak the Joomla core for betterment and quality.

If you are thinking to install the third-party application, then make sure about the security. It could harm the database, if the application is directly accessing the database of your web application.

7 Vital Aspects of Developing Website Content for a Charismatic Small Business Website

Content is the indispensable ingredient of any site. It is the content that makes the website look attractive and appealing to the prospective buyers. The revenue generated by any website depends directly on the effectiveness of the content. Any small business if aiming at optimizing efficiency of the website needs to resort to website content development. A successful website results in featuring top in the search engine lists, converts visitors into buyers and assures constant revenue generation.

Which are the 7 vital aspects of website content development that can optimize website efficiency?

Unique Selling Proposition (USP): The USP should be clear at conveying the message and targeting the specific market segment. The content should be such that the visitor comes to know quickly, what the website is about.

Customized Content: The copy-paste command does not work for the making of effective small business website content. The content will not be impressive and he visitor will sooner or later come to know about it being copied and this could be detrimental for the website.

Physical Identity: A visitor on visiting the website should feel that there is person responsible to fulfill the commitments made by the website and its products / services. It is usually better to mention the physical address of the business identity to reinforce the trust and convince about customer service and after sales service. Sometimes the visitor, on not finding any physical identity to count on, can put off the sale in the last stage.

Keyword length: It is better to have a small number of visitors who buy the products/services than have a large number of visitors who do not buy anything. The purpose of lengthy keywords is targeting specific types of visitors who are clear about what they want. Keyword phrases with 3-4 keywords are usually known as long tail keywords. These long tail keywords have a targeted audience and this helps the website to list higher (on website engines) for those set of keywords.

Multipurpose Multimedia: The visuals are more effective than text. It is better to have the videos and podcast recordings embedded in the website. If you do not want to add weight to the website and want its downloading speed to be affected the least, it is better to store those multimedia files on a site that allows the content to be easily shared and accessed.

E-mail: An auto responder in the website can help to remind the visitor about his/her visiting the website. This is one of the best ways to keep in touch with the visitor. This help to keep the communication lines open and increase the business generated through the website.

Feedback connected to search engines: Latest technical advancements are such that the feedback provided by the visitors can be considered by the search engines as part of the content and consider it for listing on the search engine list. This is how the visitors and satisfied buyers can be made to make the small business website develop a effective content.

This is the way to an effective website content development.

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