Branding for businesses: Small-scale & Large-scale

Branding, as defined by the American Marketing Association is essentially the art of naming, assigning, signing, designing, using symbols or as a combination used to identify a product or service. Therefore one must understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your potential customers to see you as the only one that implements a solution to their problem. business branding helps create a perceptual image in the minds of your audience. Whenever i think of a particular product for example, cosmetics, the first brand that comes to my mind is Bodyshop. This is also known as positioning. Branding for business is what sets your business apart from the others.

The most sought after element of branding is achieving Brand Equity. Companies create brand equity for their products by making them memorable, easily recognizable and exceptional in quality and reliability. A clear mission, vision and consistency will help attract your potential customers, help hire the right people and develop products parallel to your vision.

Mass marketing campaigns help create brand equity. It is all about enforcing the right method of communication. Brand communication can be well-established if the company is authentic, consistent and has a good story that crafts the initiative of your business venture.

Practicing what you preach is the best way to please your customers. Keeping it consistent will bring you loyal customers and topped with a good story will help build trust and appeal to the customers.

The success story of conventional letterbox

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The digital side of marketing can be cost-cutting, but in the real world, a survey has shown that letterbox flyers can be more obtrusive and expensive. Letter flyers relatively grab more attention than digital marketing. Roy Morgan’s research shows that most of the leading retailers in Australia spend half of their marketing budget in this traditional channel of marketing communication through letterbox flyers. One of the most significant advantages of giving out flyers is that it will never go unnoticed. Interested people will always keep the catalogue making it easier to refer to. This conventional method has been ranked #1 among all marketing strategies as reported in Australia, which means it is sure to give a high throughput success rate.

So how can you make it more useful? Rather than just slipping a black and white paper in the letterbox is not going to make much difference. Make sure your company poster stands out from the rest of your competitors! Make it bright, use colours, use your logo and write texts that will engage your potential customer. Be direct and be precise. Using call for action texts always works. Before that, always do a background research on the type of customers you intend to target. Knowing your target customer is the key to formulate an active marketing scheme. So design your flyer in a way that will beat the rest, and will give you a definite outcome eventually. The popularity of your brand name is directly proportional to the quality of publicity you do. Thus, with the traditional letterbox flyers, you can expect a better response from prospective customers.

The long-lasting effect of infomercials

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Call to Action is one of the most influential marketing channels, also known as infomercials implemented by companies to attract customers. Here are some great tips for an effective CTA:

  • Confidence and only confidence is the key to an effective CTA. It is essential that you know what you want your customers to do. Be clear about your mission and vision; rest works like magic.
  • Always be direct and make your intentions clear. Do not beat around the bush and cut to the chase. You will be surprised how many people respond to that.
  • Customer benefits should be visible in the advertisement. Sometimes, mentioning deadlines for offers or sales makes customers take rash decisions, which might as well be a benefit for your proposition.
  • Always include contact details so that your potential customer can get in touch with you without difficulty. Make sure to highlight it so that it is easier to find.
  • Try creating a sense of urgency. Another way to aid someone to take a rash decision: Customers sometimes leap without thinking twice, which is what you want them to do.
  • Make your CTA flyers visually enticing. Use a splash of colours to make your poster stand out.
  • Since the English language reads from left to write, always keep your relevant texts to the left to emphasise your points.
  • Do not get stuck on a single CTA poster, as one marketing strategy will not work for Be innovative and try out new methods. You can invest a little bit extra in better results. Always remember, no publicity is bad publicity.

4 Most Common budget Mistakes of Startup and Small Business

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Every organisation, big or small requires a goof balanced budget sheet to maintain their financial accounts and create new nosiness goals and opportunities. Startups especially, need to focus on building a reasonable budget to have a clear agenda about their do’s and don’ts during their course of business. Some of the common mistakes made by startups while making their budgets are listed below:

Some most common Startup Budget Mistake
1. No Budget plan at all

The importance of discussing finances and accounts with a proper professional before starting a business cannot be stressed upon more. To make any business or startup successful and thriving, one needs to assimilate and estimate the correct quantity of investment one will need and allocate the funds accordingly.

2. Not making a budget plan for marketing purposes.

No organisation can thrive without advertisement and marketing in today’s’ world. Separate and sufficient funds need to be allocated for marketing purposes so that optimum marketing strategies can be applied, which will, in turn, increment your profit. Advertising through social media and other virtual platforms, all require some solid investment. Proper investment and budgeting in marketing can prove to be somewhat beneficial for any start-up.

3. Miscalculation of the breakeven point

Business organisers and owners cannot distinguish between fixed and variable costs due to which there are errors in the assumption of all costs that remain steady and the ones which vary concerning time, labour and other factors. This results in a wide profit margin which in turn is a downside for your startup.

4. Under or overestimation of startup costs

Several business owners are often taken aback by the expense of a startup. Most of them either ignore to account for several factors or underestimate the cost of certain aspects of the business, both which lead to miscalculation and hence a shortage of finances. Talking to a professional always comes in handy to become aware of all the expenses and legal requirements.

Organisations and optimising colour schemes

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Colour psychology is how people respond to colours which in turn invoke different types of emotional changes in their current behaviour regarding the subject. Recent studies have proven that when people see the colour red, their rate of reaction not only amplifies but also becomes quite forceful. They seem to have a boost in energy, and there is a reduction is analytical thinking. A sense of urgency gets developed due to which they make faster decisions regarding the topic and their hearts begin to race.

This same psychology is used by several companies all over the world to optimise their advertisement strategies to attract new customers. Some organisations also apply this psychology to their day-to-day business and logos so that it has a much vivid effect on their customers. The type of colour scheme one uses to design their logo, or the interiors of their office dramatically influences the enticement level of their customers towards their product or services. The font, the words and the layout, everything plays a significant role in design. Red being a dramatic colour is associated with love as well as anger. It is programmed into a psyche such that we can sense danger whenever we see the colour red, which in turn creates a sense of urgency in the people and they’d want to click on the font which you’ve boldly mentioned in red. Being a bold and bright colour, it naturally catches attention and comes in several hues for one to use in their advertisement schemes.

How to Use Big Data for Small Business

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Every small organization or retailer has a tough time starting up as they are unaware of what to do first or next. Every retailer wants its brand name to be known globally and wants to collect umpteen quantities of customer data, but don’t really know how to go about it. The answer to that question is pretty simple. Everything needs organization, and without an agenda to collect this Big data with insight and what you want to do about it, your entire plan can go haywire.

One needs to be clear about all the rules while collecting data from different users in different countries, as every country has a different set of privacy policies. While collecting the Big data, make sure you organize it in structured formats and not in a haphazard manner, as it is of key importance to know what kind of user data you’re acquiring. The best and the safest way to keep your retailer name and fame is to start small. Every retailer needs to identify themselves their strength and work on their weaknesses so that even if you target a small user crowd, you get effective results. Start branching out by bringing in other data sources once you have settled in and completed a few campaigns. Collecting your user database will help you target your prospective customers; deliver to them the latest offers and features of your company’s services and commodities. You can use all this data to streamline your audience based on geographical regions, age, sex and many more, making your marketing job is the future much more facile.