Tag: Business

Why Branding is so Important

Your brand is the core of your business.

Company Branding

As I have written in some of my other posts, maintaining brand consistency extremely important to customer relationship management, marketing, product development, advertising, company relationship with employees,and basically every facet of your company.

This article by Ben Erickson is a perfect breakdown of why maintaining your brand should always be at the top of your list. He does a great job of explaining how branding is important to your customers, differs by business size, and the team you will need to maintain it all. I highly recommend checking out his post What is Business Branding?

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

9 Steps to Creating a Personal Brand Strategy

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Check out this great infographic below on 9 ways to create your personal branding strategy.

You can’t just create a LinkedIn profile and hope for the best, a lot of thought and work goes into creating and maintaining a personal brand. When creating your personal brand strategy, you need to determine who you are versus how you want to be perceived, or more who you want to become. Changing that party image to one of professionalism and experience. A few tips are:

  • Define who you are
  • Set specific goals
  • Be original, don’t just be your job title
  • Connect with those in your industry, create a network
  • Start conversations and monitor your online personal brand

9 Steps to creating your personal brand strategy infographic

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6 Tips For Strategic Thinking

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Strategic LeadershipI recently read a very interesting article in Inc. magazine by Paul Schoemaker; 6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

The article focused on the six things that strategic company leaders do well.

  1. Anticipate upcoming changes in your industry by looking beyond your current business strategy and expanding your external networks.
  2. Think Critically when faced with a problem. Question everything to determine the root cause, so the same issue does not recur. Challenge current belief; do not assume that all management or business fads will work for your business. Look beyond the fad and understand the entire impact of a change.
  3. Interpret all the data available when making a decision. There is so much information available at our finger tips today, use it to find patterns and test hypothesis. By doing this, you will decrease any associated risk when a final decision is made.
  4. Decide where you stand on an issue and hold your ground. Develop a system that works for you for making decisions. Even if you are not 100% sure about your decision, be vocal about how you feel about an issue. Don’t sit on the sidelines.
  5. Align your goals with those that you work with. Try to learn what motivates the others on your team and bring the uncomfortable issues to the forefront to discuss. By doing this you will open up a dialogue for new ideas and build trust between team members.
  6. Learn from your mistakes. This is a simple lesson that we have been taught since childhood. Do not ignore or pass the blame when a mistake happens, because no matter how perfect you are mistakes will happen. The most important thing is how you, as a leader, respond to a mistake. When a mistake happens, ask your team for an honest debrief of the situation from their perspective to better understand why things went wrong. If you are in the middle of a project and you feel that the current course of action is wrong, speak up right away to shift the focus of the project in a new direction. Do not wait and hope the current path ends up “okay”.

Check out the full article on Inc.com to learn more about how to become a better strategic leader.

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How Colors Affect Purchases

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Does color affect a customers’ purchase experience? Will it increase the chances that a customer will by your product?

The answer to both of these questions is YES! Color is one of the most important factors that a customer considers when making a purchase, both consciously and unconsciously. Check out the infographic below on how colors affect purchases.

Here my 3 favorite facts:

  • 85% of customers say that color is one of the primary factors that they consider when choosing to buy a product.
  • Color can increase brand recognition by 80%.
  • Colors can even entice the right “type” of customers. Using orange in your ad will entice impulse shoppers, so use shades of orange for big sales. Budget focused shoppers respond best to navy blue and teal.

Also, check out below what emotions your brand’s colors invoke when your customers see your logo or product. The infographic also breaks down how time, overall design, and words can impact purchase decisions.

In the comments below let me know what you think of the infographic and/or if color has ever swayed your decision to make a purchase.

How do colors affect purchases

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10 Ways To Generate Trust With Your Landing Page Copy

Via Scoop.it – Being Your Brand

Demian Farnworth of The Copybot describes ten ways to generate trust with your landing page copy.

10 Steps To Creating Great Copy

  1. Match Ad Copy with Landing Page Headlines
  2. Write Seductive Headlines
  3. Create Compelling Landing Page Copy
  4. Display Impressive Numbers
  5. Supply Endorsements
  6. Highlight 3rd Party Certification – are you an accredited business? If so, flaunt it!
  7. Display Press Mentions
  8. Don’t Skimp on Design – if your design looks cheap, it doesn’t matter how great your content is because no one will stay on your site long enough to read it
  9. Tone Down Those Terms and Conditions
  10. Testimonials – Customers trust other customers more than they will trust what your company says

Check out the whole article to find out more about the 10 ways use content to build relationships with your customers.

Via blog.crazyegg.com

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Human Talent or Party Animal?

Risk Employees and Social Media

Human Talent or Party Animal? When an Employee’s Social Media Content Becomes a Legal Liability

Yesterday, during the “Oops! Social Media Mistakes and Learnings” Social Media Week event, the panel discussed why it was important to have an internal policy in place for what your employees are allowed to post on their social media pages.  This is a great article breaks down the best items to include in the policy and how to motivate your employees to follow the policy.

To find out more about what the “Oops! Social Media Mistakes and Learnings” panel discussed check out my blog on Social Media Week Miami.
Check out this article Via thecustomercollective.com

Via Scoop.it – Being Your Brand

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