Colourful branding, for a colourful company!

Marketing is a way to get your business known, it helps to give your company top of the mind awareness and often it can be used as a method of differentiation. Not all businesses want to market in the same ways as their competitors and in a market full of companies offering similar services and products, a company’s approach to marketing can make all the difference.

One of the best ways to be noticed amongst your target audience is to get to know them. Academics call them ‘salient beliefs’, these are the attributes consumers are looking for and if activated they allow consumers to form overall attitudes on the product. These attitudes can make the difference between a consumer choosing your product over a competitors.

But how do you get to know your consumers?

Market research is an option and has been used by many companies to create successful campaigns. T-mobile is living proof that identifying consumers attitudes about a situation and appealing to them in your marketing communications can make you stand out. They carried out market research at the beginning of the recession and found that consumers were turning to friends and family, spending increasing amounts of time with them and they also found that unplanned get-togethers were becoming more popular. This research led Saatchi and Saatchi to create the ‘Life’s for sharing’ campaign and the famous Flashmob in Victoria station. It quickly created a buzz online and became a viral marketing campaign as people had captured the moment on their phones and uploaded it straight to Youtube.com therefore emphasising the role of ‘sharing’. Footage was also made into a TV advert and stills used for billboard, magazine and newspaper adverts. By appealing to their customers current attitudes and almost saying ‘we understand and we can help’ T-mobile contract sales increased by half compared to the same period the year before.

Another way to understand consumers is to put yourself in their shoes. What do they want? How would you like to be told about if you were them? What sort of media do they use? If your target audience are fans of social media then focus on that and do something creative, let them take the lead in sharing the links and encourage them to make spoof adverts, offer to put the best on the brand website. Think about what your customers would respond to and cater to it. After all if you can make your customers feel special they are more likely to remain loyal to your brand.

The best advice that can be given for companies not wanting to do the same as competitors is to try something new, take a new slant on an old idea and don’t jump on every bandwagon that goes past. Being different is bound to bring with it potential dangers and others may think your ideas are off the wall but do bear in mind: people used to believe the world was flat and those that suggested differently were the ‘weird’ ones…

Article Written by Carli Smith

Visit Inferno Designs for more on Company Branding and Marketing Consultancy.

Website Design - Where do I Start?

It can be a scary prospect creating the first website for your business, even if your business has just begun or if your business is already established making the technological move to have your own website can be daunting but as you might have guessed essential.

The majority of businesses are at least listed on Google places even if they don’t have their own website so securing your own domain is a logical and valuable asset to have. Individuals are using the internet for even the simplest of tasks and are more likely to research their options online before heading to the high street. Therefore having a website could make the difference between a consumer choosing between you and a competitor.

A small price to pay when it could mean the difference between survival or bankruptcy.
You could brave it alone, head out into the vast arena of the internet and build your own website using Wordpress.com, buildyourownsite.co.uk or one of the other sites available. If you are technologically minded or have a friend who is willing to help out this might be a viable option, especially if funds are extremely tight.

However web designers aren’t as expensive as first thought and the service you receive will make your website stand out from those that have been built by an unprofessional individual. You will be guided through the process from start to finish and you can be as hands on, or hands off if the case may be, as you like. If you build up a good relationship with your designer you will be able to develop your vision together safe in the knowledge that they know what they are doing.

When thinking of setting up your new website, whether that be alone or with the help of a designer, think about:

1. The ‘feel’ of the site – what do you want to project? A professional image? Corporate or fun
2. Information to be contained – what will the website be used for? Purchasing goods? Finding out information?
3. What sections do you want on the website?
4. What will your website be called? Is that domain available?
5. Is your current logo suitable? Can they be used online?
6. Will you be using any other social media sites?
7. Research similar sites and see what they have done – will yours be similar or completely different? You could build up a mood board of the type of thing you would like and maybe ones that you don’t.
8. Get quotes from different website designers; ask your friends or business colleagues for recommendations. Word of mouth recommendations are the best way to recruit website designers as if someone has experienced their work then that’s the best advertisement they could have.
   

If you would like a professional website designed contact Inferno Designs, we will ensure that you get the guidance and expert help required to stand out from the crowd online!

Article Written by Carli Smith


Visit Inferno Designs for more on Website Design and Website Optimisation.

How often should I be sending my e-shots?

Providing you have followed the rules of permission marketing, your customers have asked to hear from you and if your newsletters have been written properly they will be of some interest to the reader. But how often do you send them out? Every day? Every week? Every month?

It could be likened to speaking to a friend, if they have something interesting to say you don’t mind when they contact you but if they ring you every day and tell you something relatively boring then you begin to dread their phone call and if possible you attempt to ‘unsubscribe’ from the friendship…
If you are a business, individuals find it much easier to unsubscribe to your e-shots than they do to cut off from a friend so unfortunately the odds are against you!

It would be simple to recommend that businesses sent their mail shots out every month as that would ensure customers wouldn’t forget about you and hopefully there would be enough interesting information to be included in the e-shot itself. However if your business is fast paced, evolving on a regular basis and in touch with consumers regularly why not give them more regular updates? It could be that once a week or once a fortnight would be a better option for your business as if you left it a whole month you could have missed many opportunities to alert customers to good offers and new information.

So as usual, it depends!

When you send out e-shots depends completely on the individual business but by following these basis rules it will ensure your database doesn’t dwindle:

1. Ask your customers how often they would like an e-shot.
2. Measure click through rates and see if e-shots are a valuable communication tool for your business, if not there may be better ways to utilise your marketing budget.
3. Keep a similar format – that way recipients know what to expect and can easily navigate the email.
4. Make sure your offer different formats as some formats aren’t compatible with certain types of browsers – nothing worse than spending time and money when a customer can’t even open it…
5. Don’t be afraid to try something different!

Article Written by Carli Smith


Visit Inferno Designs for more on Email Marketing and Online Business Marketing