While having a smartly designed logo and website is sure to help your business promotion, it’s only a small piece of the puzzle. Does your design look like it belongs to your company? Does it FEEL like your company? A company newsletter shouldn’t just match the corporate identity system, it should feel like the company itself. This feeling or vibe that your business design is sending out creates an impact. Branding is the impression that the audience receives.

What kind of emotion is your graphic imposing on your client? If a customer is put-off or feels uncomfortable with your company’s design materials, they’re likely to find another company to go with.

So how does one go about branding? Where do you start?

What are your company’s core values? How do you want the public to view you? Do you want to be a bold leader or a comfortable service provider? The image you want your business to portray starts with a little research staring with your competition designs.

Have a professional help you to design the logo that reflects the goals of your company. Carry this approach through everything your customer is going to see – business cards, brochures, signage, etc. Be as consistent as possible with your new look.

Research your market. You must know who your audience is and where to find them. Only then can you advertise to the right people.

For example, I once received an opportunity to advertise in a movie theater. Why would I do that? Most movie goers would not be my target market of business owners, nor would they likely call me because they saw my ad before the movie. I would however take an ad out in the local comunity play program because local business owners may see my ad and realize I do support my community.

Start marketing. Now that you know what your company’s image should be and you’ve designed the materials to help you promote that concept, market it. By networking, blogging and advertising, you’ll be placing your brand in front of people over and over. Remember – know your audience. It’s all about making matches – finding the matching audience to your business.

By figuring out “who” your business should be and how it should be viewed aesthetically and emotionally, you’re saving yourself a lot of advertising dollars. Money and time is wasted when trying to market to a crowd that won’t care to notice you. By branding yourself and reinforcing it to the right people,your consistent message will establish itself in your marketplace.

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

Never leave a blank space for your photo (people think you are being secretive)

If your company is people centered and so is your social media presence, use your face. People like a real person

Make the photo interesting but your face easy to see and smile

Don’t be “cutesy” unless you are a circus clown or comedian for a living

Like you probably shouldn’t post something like this, but my 11 year old drew it and I like it!

Make your face fill the frame…simple but some still do it

Use caricatures related to your job if you want to have a little fun…but be selective

If your presence on the social networking/business networking sites is information oriented then post your logo. Only do this if your logo is recognized by the public at large, otherwise it will not be necessary

Use the same avatar/photo in all your social and business networking sites. People relate you to it…it becomes synonymous with you and thus is a form of branding

Online social networking becomes too much when we spend more time trying to insure an online presence for our activities and end up neglecting the other equally important aspects of running a business. It becomes too much when we spend all our time on online forums answering questions, but not necessarily generating business from answering those questions.

And it becomes too much when we can’t effectively automate the technology enough so that we can maintain a presence, but also have enough time to focus on running our businesses and most importantly actually have time to live life.

Remember to keep a reasonable balance when it comes to online social networking. Don’t get so caught up in the buzz that you forget to maintain a presence in your offline life as well. Use online social networking to make connections and do business, but use it as just one tool among many…not more important or better than any other tool you would use to help you sustain and run your business.

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

Some things a logo must have is:

Size:
How small can you make your logo? 1″ wide? 1/2″ wide? 2″ wide? If you printed it on a pen, would you be able to recognize it or read it? Or maybe the smallest application you will ever use it for will be a business card. That’s ok. Just remember that a logo can go small, can also be easily read from far, far away. So, even If you want to see your company’s logo in lights one day, start by visualizing it on a flash drive.

Format/Colors
What if you have to put your logo on a black background or on top of a photograph? How does it look if it’s reversed? In some instances, it works to just make the logo white instead of black. Did you know if your logo has a face in it, the eyes will go white, that will not be a endearing feature. 3-dimensional objects with shadows will invert causing the shadows to be highlights. When reversed these objects become all messed up. Are you going full color, one color or two?

Easy to copy
How many times have you run an ad, or sponsored an event, or tried to take advantage of some free publicity and someone asks you for an electronic file of your logo? It’s always good to have a vector-based .EPS version of the logo that can be scaled or reduced without distorting or pixelating. I’ve seen many a great logo turned to garbage because of bad reproduction.

Easy to read
Is it clear what your message is?

Get out there!
If you have a great logo but nobody sees It, Is It really a great logo?! Get it out there. Put it on everything you have. Make sure people connect it with the positive experiences they have with your company. It doesn’t need to be huge. It just needs to envoke emotion when they see it.

If your logo meets these minimum requirements, you should feel good. You should like your logo. I’ve tried to change mine many times, I just can’t do it. It has been with me since 1995 and while other designers think I should change and that maybe it doesn’t even fit into some of these requirements, it works for me and continues to promote my business the way I want it to.

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

Theme: Will you use emotion or a symbol for your depiction? Think about your graphic, will it be clipart, photograph or a graphic design?

Font: What font styles do you like? Do you want some unique or designed especially for you?

Color: What colors depict best your image? Remember full color tends to cost more in printing, but looks great on the web and other materials. Consider how your design will look in one color, two colors or full color.

Tagline: Keep it short & simple! One or two words to describe your services, product. What do you want to be known for? Brainstorm process: Write down words that describe your business then look up in the thesaurus, what might be other more exciting words to use? What words have invoked a purchasing response in you own experience?
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Once you have these thoughts processed, either start to design your graphic or look for an experienced graphic designer to come up with your new logo design, make sure your tagline is included in the design. Most designer will provide 4-5 samples to start, then have you choose your top two from there and upon final proof will provide all the files needed to change your marketing materials and update your new look.

My best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights