Friday, March 06, 2009

Business Branding & The Importance Of Colour

Business Branding & The Importance Of Colour by Stephen Campbell

Image is a vital factor in any business branding effort. Color is part of the process of building an image. If you might notice, several top businesses are recognized by their distinct colors. Therefore, you need to realize the potential impact that carefully choosing the color to use as part of your brand strategy will help establish your company's image amongst consumers.

Importance of Color : Although it might seem trivial, color affects the memory recall of consumers on your product or company overall. When they think of a certain color similar to the ones used by your company brand, then they will easily associate that color with your product. The presence of color will then stimulate one's senses and sending message signals without having to initiate a communicative pattern.

Now that you know the role that color plays in your brand strategy, the next big dilemma is choosing the color to use. However, even this one shouldn't be as difficult provided that you have clearly set out the guidelines and vision you have for the company. Once you have chosen the color, you must then use that in all of your business promotional materials to further enhance the prominence of the color in association with your company and its products or services.

Each color have its universal meaning that you must take into account before using them in your business branding efforts. Here are basic colors to consider:

Blue : The color blue, universally speaking, is a well-liked color. It exudes a feeling of trustworthy, responsibility, and security. That is why blue is also commonly used in the business industry because it is not only pleasant to look at, but it exudes a positive vibe as it is a color associated with the sea and sky. The message of stability conveyed by the use of this color builds up trust among individuals working within an institution.

Red : Another popular color used in several brand of company. The color red stimulates your senses rapidly, hence it is an attention grabbing color that creates the impression of being aggressive and energetic. This color is utilized by businesses who want to evoke emotion and quick response from potential customers. Fast food chains typically use the color red because it exhibits a hot, burning and intensify attitude.

Green : In terms of its universal meaning, green connotes health and serenity. But the meaning can differ though according to the shades of green used. Lighter shades of green produce a calming effect while darker ones exude wealth and prestige.

Yellow : This is a color closely associated with the sun. Therefore, it is a color that you might want to use if you want to establish a positive message of optimism and warmth. There are also varying shades for this color but their meaning ranges from creating motivation to producing positive energy. Bright yellows effectively captures the eyes, so you might want to use this color for displays and you can get people's attention, which is the first step in every purchase process.

Black : This is a classic choice of color for a business brand. Aside from that, it also connotes a bold, powerful, and sophisticated persona. Therefore, this color is quite common for expensive products or most sophisticated gadgets.

White : As always, white signifies simplicity and purity. Because any white object produce a certain level of brightness, it is good for use on signages. The same with black, it also helps you achieve a professional and powerful image. This color is best associated with products relating to health and sanitary care.

Use all these pointers when choosing a color for use on your business branding strategy and you will be able to produce more impact on your marketing campaigns.



For more info on business, sales & marketing strategies - visit : http://www.howtotalkbusiness.com/

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Friday, September 12, 2008

The Four Red Light Factors For Your Business Brand

The Four Red Light Factors For Your Business Brand by Erin Ferree

Where I live, there are 4 traffic lights between my house and the main road. So, before I can really get on my way in any journey, I usually have to stop, no matter where I'm going. Some days, I even have to stop and wait at all 4 lights. All this stopping and waiting gets tiresome—but it pays off by getting me safely to my destination.

Branding your business can be a lot like these traffic lights. There are certain things you must decide before you can really get started on the fun part—drawing your logo and designing your marketing materials. Frustrating, but making these decisions is a necessary part of making sure that you will create your brand correctly.

Making decisions about the 4 following Brand Definition factors does make you stop and wait a bit but ensures that you proceed through the branding process safely and create a brand that will help your business to reach its goals safely and comfortably.

Red Light 1: Who You Are

You need to know what your business's personality is, and how it is different from your personality. Which is always a tough question for a very small business of one or two people to answer. Ask yourself which pieces of your personality get shown to your clients and which you reserve for friends and family.

Also, you have to know why you're in that particular business. Is it because of your expertise or a feeling that you get from working with your customers? What are you trying to create for your customers? For yourself?

If you're clear of your personality and your motivation in your business, then you will be able to be clear when communicating that to your audience.

Red Light 2: What You Do

You can't create your brand until you know what types of services or products you'll be offering. What do you do for your clients?

You also need to know what formats you're offering those in. Are you doing consulting services, offering group trainings, or selling online products or a product that needs to go on the shelf? You may be selling several of those options, and if that's the case, is there one format that you'll concentrate on over the rest? Marketing online products is often a very different project than marketing consulting services, so knowing what you're selling can help inform your brand.

Red Light 3: What Makes You Different

In order to figure this one out, you have to first look at who your competition is. And "I don't have any" isn't a valid answer—that's a very idealistic way to look at things!

You may think that what you do is utterly unique, but your clients don't see it that way. They're always going to be doing research on a few different ways to solve whatever problem they're having—so while you might think that you're unparalleled, that's rarely the case in your clients' eyes (unless they've come to you on a very strong referral).

So, you have to find your competitors—or at least those companies that your clients have you quote against—and then figure out what their Brand Definitions are and how your business is different.

Red Light 4: Who You Can Best Help

To create your brand, you have to know who will be looking at it. Once you know who your audience is, you can take the first 3 red lights and write and design expressly to communicate those factors to that specific audience.

This is another area where entrepreneurs are a bit idealistic and like to say "But, everyone's my target audience!" While that's a nice thought, if you try to create a brand and marketing materials that will appeal to everyone, you'll wind up with bland materials that won't really work for anyone.

Think about the clients that you've had the best results with—and the best relationship with. You want to work with clients who you can really help and who are easy to work with as well.

Now, this process may be hard for people who are just starting their businesses to go through, but that doesn't mean that you can run through these red lights in order to create your brand. Instead, consider just creating some temporary materials until you have at least 6 months to a year in business to look back on to see what habits you've established and how your business really turns out.

Even though waiting to figure out these red lights may be frustrating, it will pay off by building a brand that will get your business to its goals safely and comfortably. Once you've turned all of these red lights to green by answering these questions, you're ready to move on to the "fun" part of designing your brand—drawing your logo and marketing materials.



Erin Ferree is a brand identity designer who creates big visibility for small businesses. As the owner of elf design, Erin is passionate about helping her clients stand out in front of their competition and attract more clients.
Her "Define Your Difference Branding Workbook" will help you with your brand definition - the most important step in the logo design process. http://www.elf-design.com/products-define.html


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Sunday, May 11, 2008

Branding Yourself For Great Success

Branding Yourself For Great Success by Todd Ash

To make it simple, branding yourself is about letting everyone know who you are and what are you specialized in. Branding yourself is part of the many things that will help you create success, because it will help you to attract people from all walks of life to be your friend, your network contact, a new client for your business, or maybe someone who wants to introduce you to other of the same type of interest. Branding yourself is a major part in internet marketing or the network marketing industry. Branding your name, along with the online business is very important. Branding yourself is the Key!

The point is this. Branding yourself is all about self-expression.The notion of branding yourself is not new. Your idea of branding yourself is a dynamic strategy everyone should use if they plan on being a big success.What prevents you from over branding yourself is the ability to express a quick summary or movie preview in a concise and articulate way. Particularly in any sales-driven industry, branding yourself is as integral to the success of your business as the company logo.

Branding yourself is for executives, entrepreneurs, and those who aspire to be either. It's for corporate employees, business owners, solo-preneurs, and those in particular professions, such as medicine, law, and architecture.

Having your business cards, letterhead, brochures, fliers, cards and labels in a distinctive and consistent style as your Website are also ways of branding yourself. Brand yourself by your interests, whatever you have a good amount of knowledge in. Brand yourself by lending a helping hand and you'll be in a prime position when the people you've helped decide that you've got what it takes to coach them. Branding yourself by your Domain Name: If you have already chosen your niche, you have perhaps also thought about how to market in it.

Brand yourself by adding pictures, audios, and videos to your website. Branding yourself is one of the most important marketing tricks on the books; it is about being an expert or learning how to be an expert and then telling everyone about your knowledge. It is one of the most important tasks you have as a small business marketer.

Branding yourself as an artist is becoming more and more important. Year by year you see more and more "celebrity brands" springing up and there is a definite reason why. Branding yourself creates opportunities and generally increases cash flow for the artists that engage in branding. Business cards and stationary items - Handing out business cards and stationary are a great way to brand yourself. Business cards are cheap to get and easy to create.

"Branding Yourself" is the application of certain techniques which will help you gain popularity on the Internet by making yourself well known, maybe as an Expert in your field. When people recognize you as an expert you will gain popularity by means of more free publicity than you can imagine.

How do you Brand Yourself? There are many techniques and methods, but it can be as simple as a hidden personality trait, a nickname (maybe something like "Wild Bill"), or helping others by consultation or assistance. Branding "You" (a phrase borrowed from Rick Beneteau) is a power that you can't afford not to understand and use.

Branding yourself is a major part in internet marketing or the network marketing industry. Branding yourself is one of the most important marketing tricks on the books. Branding yourself is the key to being different. A replicated site will get you replicated results. Fluency in a foreign language tends to stand out quickly enough and is guaranteed not to be forgotten.

If you have an online business one of the most important concepts you must learn in order to survive on the internet is branding yourself. One way of branding yourself is by writing articles.

Working hard branding yourself will get you opportunity. Personal branding is the way you clarify and communicate what is special about you, so that you don't have to talk so hard (or hope for the right question) to explain exactly why you're the best candidate for the gig (be it a job or a freelance assignment).

Understand that this is all ok. Because you can leverage this same site to brand and promote yourself and your products as well. But it's worth it. However if you have the right systems in place, you can brand yourself quickly while doing your marketing. This is a very powerful way to brand yourself and generate some nice targeted prospects in the process.

Successful branding comes from within---who you are today as well as the dreams of the kind of person you want to be. You can live your dreams if you put in the effort.



Todd Ash Is An Entrepreneur and A Master Of Network Marketing.To Find Out More About Succeeding Online Click Here To Visit Toddash.com For Free Information

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