Brand Quarterly Nov 2011

Brand

™

Volume 1 | Issue 1

November 2011

Quarterly

Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

It’s A War Out There...

How To Get More ‘Bang’ For Your Branding Buck

Wake Up Your WOW! Confident Speakers Win More Business

Social Media For Business Beyond The Hype

Can I Please Listen To Your Sales Pitch?

Writing For A Blog

Brand Quarterly™

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The Eternal Debate Print Or Web?

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Social Media For Business

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Design 101

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Lessons In ‘Chain Theory’

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It’s A War Out There...

Cutting Through The Hype

Tips For Briefing A Graphic Designer

Customer Service Interlinks With Brand Power...

How To Get More ‘Bang’ For Your Branding Buck Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

From The Editor Welcome to the first issue of Brand Quarterly™ Thanks for joining us!

You’ll notice almost immediately that this magazine is different, what you’re not going to find in here is a whole lot of fluff or advertising - instead the focus of Brand Quarterly™ is to provide you with a visually appealing, editorially content rich resource which gets straight to the point of ‘Building Your Business From The Brand Up™’.

We’re passionate about brand development and implementation, so expect to be kept up to date in future issues on the latest trends, tips and expert advice on: design, packaging, advertising, customer service, websites, social media, print collateral, digital media, exhibitions, franchising, preparing a business for sale... the list goes on.

Our goal at Brand Quarterly™ is to show our readers that their company brand is a hell of a lot more than just ‘a great logo’ - it’s your business’ core values, and every interaction you have with customers and suppliers.

Each contributor has been hand picked for their level of expertise in their field, providing you with the tools you need to maximise your brand potential.

A great brand creates and maintains your reputation and is what you are really selling to your customers, not just your product or service for which there may already be many existing providers.

So enjoy, and don’t forget - be one of our first two thousand subscribers and you’re instantly in the draw to win an iPad 2.

Fiona Vesey Vesey Creative

Fiona P.S:

If you have any feedback, opinions or suggestions for future articles we would love to hear from you, please email studio@veseycreative.co.nz

Volume 1 | Issue 1 | November 2011 Brand Quarterly™ magazine www.brandquarterly.com Publisher/Design: Vesey Creative Ltd studio@veseycreative.co.nz

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Can I Please Listen To Your Sales Pitch?

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“Don’t Panic!”

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Wake Up Your Wow!

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Get Marketing Now...

Writing A Blog

Keeping Your Brand Promises In A Crisis

Confident Speakers Win More Business

A Simple Marketing Starter As the publishers of Brand Quarterly™, we take every care in the production of each issue. We are however, not liable for any editorial error, omission, mistake or typographical error.

The views expressed by all contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher.

Brand Quarterly™

Copyright: This magazine and the content published within are subject to copyright held by the publisher, with individual articles remaining copyright to the named contributor.

Express written permission of the publisher and contributor must be acquired for reproduction.

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Featured Contributors Fiona Vesey As a multi-award winning professional photographer, Fiona has a great eye for detail, which she brings to her role of editor at Brand Quarterly™.

Fiona is a co-founder of Vesey Creative, and has a background in Advertising and Sales. This gives her a great working knowledge of Branding, with the added benefit of the perspective of being involved in the day to day running of a business.

Cath Vincent Building on a 20-year career in business consultancy and communications, Cath is a motivational speaker and executive coach.

Her advice to every business leader and sales person is this: “If you seriously want to generate more sales, be more efficient and feel happier, then learn to master yourself and inspire others.

Or put more simply: Wake Up Your WOW!”

Ken Vesey Ken is the director and lead consultant at Approachable Consultancy.

Over the past 26 years, he has run several small business units, recruited staff, carried out management performance reviews, disciplinary meetings and exit interviews.

He has written policy and procedures, created quality documents and systems, developed personnel systems, employment and contractor agreements and probably every other document you need for best business practice.

Hazel Jennings A Brit with a 30 year international IT career, Hazel started her own consultancy, Dale Jennings Associates Ltd in 2010, offering vendor independent advice to non-technical business owners and executives.

An IT governance and management expert; Hazel sits on the boards of two national charities and the New Zealand Computer Society.

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Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

Andrew Vesey As a co-founder of Vesey Creative and creator of Brand Quarterly™, Andrew lives his passion everyday – helping people and companies to grow and be successful. He keeps himself busy, constantly learning more in his fields of interest and sharing that knowledge with others.

Andrew brings to the table 15+ years of training and industry experience in the areas of Graphic Design, Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Photography and Web Design.

Keri Sandford Keri is a Design and Marketing Coordinator with Vesey Creative. With 12 years in sales, planning and coordination, she easily brings together numerous Branding components and varied personalities into a cohesive plan.

In her regular column ‘Design 101’, Keri uses this experience to help everyday business people understand designers and the design process. Allowing for a more effective result from the design portion of your Brand.

Kerry Ensor Kerry is the founder of Auckland’s Social Media Mgr Ltd, focusing on guiding small business owners to connect to and engage with their customers.

She does this through the use of relevant social media tools combined with conventional marketing to create an integrated communications strategy.

Andrew Healey Andrew Healey is the owner and operator of Word Works Copywriting Services. Before working as a copywriter, Andrew spent most of his career in the sales and marketing arena, and he brings this wealth of experience to his writing.

“It’s all about communicating your message clearly and professionally”.

Brand Quarterly™

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From The Web A collection of informative, inspirational, exciting, and sometimes, downright entertaining articles, quotes and videos we’ve found on the internet.

Richard Branson On Branding The celebrated entrepreneur shares advice on defining your business image.

Click the image to view via Entrepreneur.com

Great Company Names Find out 5 important characteristics to think about when creating (or changing) your company name.

Click the image to view via Inc.com

Holy Brand Batman!

For something light, check out this interesting video showing the evolution of the Batman logo over the years. So many variations but still recognisable as the Dark Knight.

Click the image to view via YouTube

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Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

WIN With The Virgin Business Challenge Sir Richard Branson has issued a challenge to New Zealand businesses: Prove you have the mettle to go global – and win a six-figure boost for your company.

Click the image to view the official web page

Andrew Zuckerman: Music Andrew Zuckerman produces some amazing and inspiring works. This one is relating to artists in the music industry and what music means to them.

Click the image to view via YouTube

Chevrolet Sonic Bungee Jump General Motors took the launching of the 2012 Chevy Sonic quite literally, sending the car careening off a cliff for web viewers.

Click the image to view via YouTube

Brand Quarterly™

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The Eternal Debate Print Or Web? This article has nothing to do with the ‘battle’ between print and the web. It is about how the two forms of media aren’t the same, and why we shouldn’t expect the same results from our marketing efforts.

Both medias have advantages and disadvantages, and finding the right combination of the two can save you time and money, whilst serving to strengthen your brand.

Both medias appeal to different audiences - and working together, they make a stronger statement.

That stronger statement will only happen however, with consistent presentation. If your printed materials are completely different in color and style from your web marketing efforts, you are wasting your marketing dollars.

This consistency is, in fact, one of most cost effective and proven ways of building a strong brand and making sure that your marketing efforts are accepted by your target audience.

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In The Green Corner - Print • While you need to be aware of the recommendations and rules for print design, working with print layouts offers you more flexibility.

• Print is slower to communicate. Once a design is completed, you still have to print and distribute it, which can add a week or two to your timeline. Plan accordingly.

• It is more difficult to make changes once printing has occurred, and it adds extra costs.

• Ignoring the potential return on investment, and focusing purely on upfront costs - print is more expensive in every way.

• Print is, and in my mind always will be, a more legitimate way of communication. It backs up everything about your company in a strong way. Readers trust print more than they trust the web. The reason is because printing is more expensive, and overall, takes more effort. Print media is also much older; it goes back to 700 A.D., at which time the first printed newspaper was available in Beijing, China.

• Print also benefits (usually) from a longer “shelf life”, it controls the reader and keeps the reader better focused - no flashing banners and Facebook updates to check out. While they are holding that item, you have them in your world.

In The Orange Corner - Web • According to studies, reading from a computer monitor is 30% slower than reading print, and the human eye tires much faster. This means that information on a web site should be shorter and divided into more paragraphs - working with web users’ tendency to skim copy.

• Messy text with a lot of mixed fonts and serif styles (Times New Roman etc) should be avoided to a certain extent. Sans-serif fonts (like this one) are easier to read on the screen.

• Another potential issue is that every computer in the world will display your web site in a slightly different way - be it colour, layout or how much fits on the screen.

• Does that mean that your web presence can’t be visually appealing? Not at all. You just need to be very aware of the limitations of web design and make sure you test, test, test.

• There is also the question of legitimacy.

Anyone can launch a web site in a few minutes for free, with no knowledge of web design or the product/service they are selling.

To combat this, you need to provide solid information and proof you deliver on your brand values.

• Your web presence is available to your customers day and night; nothing needs to be mailed or overnighted, forms and brochures can be downloaded instantly and collaboration between you and the customer is always up to date.

• Web sites allow you to communicate to your audience more often, and that communication is relatively inexpensive.

It allows you to make the presentation interactive and dynamic, personalized and readily accessible.

• Making small changes on a regular basis will have little to no cost with web, making it very useful for testing new marketing ideas before making a larger investment.

Andrew Vesey Vesey Creative

And The Winner Is...

Generally speaking, putting all of your marketing dollars into either print or web exclusively isn’t the wisest way to go. A combination of using print and the web together will bring your message across much more effectively.

Combining both forms of communication medias is proven to deliver the best results and strengthen brand awareness. The most important thing that you need to remember is consistency over both medias. BQ

Brand Quarterly™

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Social Media For Business Cutting Through The Hype Social Media… Online Marketing… Facebook Marketing… Online Networking….

We are reading about it everywhere, Everyone is talking about it.

Buzz words abound… connecting, engaging, like, fan, interacting, comment, sharing, posting, viral…

This is new vocabulary to the local business owner.

The world is changing fast and it is not surprising that many are thinking “Yikes, how do we keep up?!”

It is important to keep all the hype and online marketing trends in perspective and ensure that they are implemented in line with your business goals and overall marketing and communications strategy.

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Benefits Creating a network of connections online is a very cost-effective way of reaching a wide range of audiences relevant to you and your business. The benefits include: • • • • • • •

Grow your brand awareness Connect with your current and past customers Create leads for new customers Expand your networks Communicate your messages Provide relevant and helpful information Increase your search engine rankings

The Social Media Revolution There has been a revolution in the way companies promote their businesses. There is an overwhelming move towards social networking. This article highlights some key statistics (follow the link below to a very powerful video clip highlighting what is commonly called ‘The Social Media Revolution’).

There are many, many platforms and tools with which to market yourself online.

Kerry Ensor Social Media Mgr

The key ones that we are all now well aware of are: • LinkedIn (connecting with management level – networking) • Facebook (create brand awareness and interaction with audience) • Twitter (commentary on industry news, increase awareness to key influencers) • YouTube (story telling, show-casing & hosting curated video content) • Google Plus (an emerging platform among the early-adopter group) So how does a business get started with their online marketing? We have come up with 7 key steps: 1. Have an online presence that YOU OWN, ie. your own website or blog or both 2. Have a presence across Social Media Channels that suit YOUR MARKET

Click the image to view via YouTube

To summarise, here are the key points of this change in customer behaviour: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Social Media is about people 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations Only 14% trust advertisements 93% of marketers use social media for business A new member joins LinkedIn every second 50% of the mobile internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook 7. eReaders have surpassed traditional book sales 8. The ROI on social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years 9. Some Universities have stopped distributing email accounts

Content Marketing And Story-Telling Underpinning the move towards social media is a change in the way businesses market themselves.

Marketing is now all about content. It’s not enough now to tell people what to buy, you have to engage their interest and prove your worth before you gain the consumer’s trust, eg. it is now proven that people will buy from companies that they KNOW, LIKE and TRUST. The focus changes from ‘What can we sell you?’ to ‘How can we help you?’

Do Not Stop Here (don’t worry you’re not alone, many companies do, but here’s your chance to stand out)…

3. Integrate the above with your marketing and business strategy 4. “Connect” by posting often – write articles, express your view, share some knowledge, use videos and images 5. Bring your offline network into your online network and build your audience 6. Participate and reciprocate, as if you were in conversation or networking in “real-life”. Give and you will receive.

• Comment online • Personalise your discussions – be yourself • Take the time to learn the techniques to organically grow your audience 7. Don’t Stop!

There are some technical how-to’s and tools (and of course Time) that you need to achieve the above (don’t be afraid to seek advice) but once you know how, it will start to become second-nature.

Before you know it, you are networking online, treating it as you would any other type of marketing activity and achieving all those benefits mentioned above. BQ

Brand Quarterly™

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When you’re creating and maintaining a brand, you’re working with designers.

Whether they are in-house or an external team, designers and branding are never far away from each other.

Design 101 is a series aimed at bridging the gap between you and the design world. Helping you to better communicate your vision with your designer and get an understanding of ‘how they tick’.

Keri Sandford Vesey Creative

Design 101 Tips For Briefing A Graphic Designer One of the most important parts of the creative process is the design briefing. The majority of issues in design projects can be traced back to poor communication - most of which can be solved during the briefing stage.

Let them do their job as a creative, but make sure you communicate your needs thoroughly at the briefing stage. If you are unsure of something, let them know - they may be able to recommend a solution.

Provide Detailed Information

• • • • • • • •

• Your brand values.

• Corporate identity requirements.

• Existing communication material which must blend with your new project.

• Objectives of the communication material.

• Words to describe the desired “look” and “feel” such as “contemporary” or “retro”.

• The desired emotional response from the audience such as “happy”, “angry” or “amazed”.

• Who your target audience is. They need to design for that audience, not for you.

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Include Specific Information:

•

Budget for production.

Logos, symbols, trademarks.

How any required files will be provided.

How many design concepts will be needed.

Specifications (no. of pages, quantity, paper stock, size, preferred binding).

Any special finishes (embossing, foiling, die-cuts).

Any packaging requirements (distribution companies have set regulations).

Delivery requirements including contacts and addresses, electronic file types.

Timeframes from concept to delivery.

Allow enough time for the design process. Often people try to ‘maximise their design investment’ by giving short deadlines. It is always best to get advice on how long you should allocate so you have the time to ensure the text and artwork is correct.

Planning ahead like this, will give you a much better return on your ‘design investment’ than rushing it through last minute. BQ

Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

TM

Lessons In ‘Chain Theory’ Customer Service Interlinks With Brand Power; Brand Power Interlinks With Customer Service Two of the key drivers to building brand strength are creating a distinct brand identity and developing a unique brand personality. Unfortunately, semantics often gets in the way of understanding how these two factors can influence brand power. Brand identity, for example, is often used in a limited, graphic-centric manner or used interchangeably with brand image. All too often, identity is seen as just the graphics, logos, colours, and symbols that generally make up corporate identity. Those elements are the appearance (which is very important) but not the substance of a brand, just as the clothes you wear are an important, even distinguishing, part of your identity, but not the substance of who you are as a person.

According to Jean-Noel Kapferer, author of Strategic Brand Management, identity precedes image: “An obsession with image tends to attach greater importance to appearance than to inner reality. But brand identity is a richer, more substantial concept to embrace.”

There’s also a simple way to sum up and understand the essence of the two terms: image is how the marketplace perceives you; identity is who you really are.

Owning a successful brand requires a lot of hard work. Developing the perfect product, determining your consumers and identifying your brand’s position 14

on the market all come into play when creating a brand package that will appeal and sell. However, the work does not stop with introducing and selling.

After successfully launching a brand, an owner or operator needs to ensure they maintain the level of quality that made this company stand out.

This is where customer service comes in. Poor customer service (whether it is actually poor or is just perceived as poor) leads to a negative brand image in consumers’ minds. On the other hand, great customer service can have significant impacts in positive brand perceptions.

You have done this, I know - called a customer service line and spending 10 minutes navigating through automated services, desperately trying to connect with a human being. Then, after finally being able to connect with a representative, you find that the person provides you with inaccurate information or chooses not to be helpful at all.

More often than not, language barrier adds to the frustration that caller gets when they call these helpdesk numbers.

Have you met this kind in your dealings with others?

– the companies that choose to be so unfriendly, bored or aloof, that you end up feeling like you did something wrong by seeking help!

Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

Well. You have a brand. I have a brand. Everyone has one. Look what happened to the Adidas Brand when the ‘customer’ took exception. But this cannot happen they screamed! It is a well-known brand!

People should respect that. This situation was a one-off. To quote another well-known brand; “Yeah Right!”

In today’s economic condition, customer service is an easy place to do cut costs. However, the negative implications to your brand when customer service suffers are far-reaching and long lasting. That damage can be hard to erase or reverse.

Human nature makes it easy for unsatisfied customers to tell people about their negative experiences with your company. Research tells us they can tell up to 20 different people. On the other hand, happy customers are usually less likely to go out of their way to tell the world about how great your company is. They usually only tell one or two.

It is important to go the extra mile to build loyal customers. It is also important to do the simple things that customers expect — such as giving them an easy way to get effective and friendly help when they need it. After all, an essential part of brand building is setting and meeting expectations for your brand. Make a point to study how customer service affects your brand in the minds of consumers and how consumers react to those perceptions.

As a company, we need to realise that our customers are our business’s bloodline. In simple Ken Vesey terms, ‘the customer pays our Approachable wages and costs’. No customers Consultancy – no income! We need to make sure our customers are always treated kindly so they will continue doing business or patronising the company and its offerings.

Make no mistake - ‘brand power’ is worth real money to an organisation. Indeed, for some, it represents the real value of the company. All companies that wish to grow want the power of their brand to grow at an even faster rate - brands propel growth more than any other company growth hormone.

Brands get you noticed. Brands help to make choices. As the number of possible choices customers can make become even greater in the consumer and business marketplaces, and as globalisation impacts more and more, so the power of a brand can get stronger and stronger.

A brand should give trust, understanding and certainty of product or service. Brands have rational and emotional dimensions and this is why they are powerful as marketing devices. They cut out much of the need to educate the market. BQ

Brand Quarterly™

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Andrew Vesey Vesey Creative

It’s A War Out There...

How To Get More ‘Bang’ For Your Branding Buck Two of the most common questions I am asked are: “We want to strengthen our brand/increase brand awareness, but can’t spare much extra money What can we do?”

“We need to cut our budgets - How can we do that without affecting our brand?”

Well, the first question I’ll ask you is: “How much do you currently spend on your branding each year?”

No matter what amount you tell me, I have one reply for you - WRONG. How can I say that?

After all, I don’t even know your business.

The money you invest into building and maintaining your brand is ‘in every facet of the game’. There are the obvious items like printing, web sites and brand/ marketing department staff, but there are many other areas to consider.

• A percentage of every staff members salary - after all, they are the face of the company and are the ones delivering the brand promise to customers.

• A portion of your fleet maintenance budget it hurts your brand if you can’t deliver on time, or turn up to a client in a run down car.

• A piece of your office maintenance expenses - Does the carpet need replacing as it’s in poor condition? That’s part of your brand image too.

“So, if that’s true, how can you possibly budget for your branding?” you ask.

The simple answer is - You can’t.

True, budgeting for the creation or rebirth of a brand is vital. You need to create a new vision, new designs and implement it all so the world views you as they should - that takes money. But a lot of the implementation and maintenance investment, is in reality, linked to your entire company budget.

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Want to beat the competition?

Time to review your strategy.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be some big company budgeting expert - because, frankly I’m not. So I will leave the review of your entire company budget and the allocation of resources to the number crunchers who know what they’re doing.

What I will do for you, is give you a number of areas that can be reviewed, based on the amount of money you have allocated in your budget.

Your three main options are: • Slimming down - fit into a tighter budget, without affecting your brand strength.

• Solidifying your brand presence - make better use of your current funds, so you can reinvest the savings into building a stronger brand.

• Investing in a stronger brand - reinvest the savings (as above) plus increase the return you receive from any additional allocated spending, making a major difference in your brand strength.

Whatever your goal, reviewing and making changes to these areas will be of benefit for your business.

Reviewing can be an internal matter if you have the knowledge already in-house. But for those that don’t, the investment in an expert to review and implement changes for you, can mean a much larger return in the future.

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Print Management • If you order something on a regular basis - maybe it’s time to start ordering twice as much, half as often. There are potentially large savings to be made with this practice.

• Review your marketing schedule and pinpoint what collateral you may be able to print at the same time - saving you money and preventing short deadlines in the future.

• With the constant fluctuations in paper costs (mostly upwards), it is always recommended to regularly check for alternative stocks. There is the possibility of getting the same quality for less, or better quality for the same price.

• Look at new paper alternatives (synthetics).

Some are more durable whilst being cheaper than paper itself - a winning combination.

Branded Apparel And Products • Review the quality vs cost of your apparel. If you pay slightly more, will they last longer?

If so, that can save you a lot in the long run (imagine paying only $5 per shirt more - but only buying half as many shirts each year!)

• Do you have a large number of branded promotional products that you give away?

Work out the most effective combination and scrap the rest. You can invest some of the savings into buying more of the limited range, or use it somewhere else.

Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

Marketing And Design

Brand QA

• Do you have sales staff doing work on design and marketing? Sales staff should be getting you sales, not spending their time elsewhere.

• Conversely, do you have marketing and design staff who don’t have enough to do?

Find other projects (or create new ones) for them to work on. You’re paying them whether they’re marketing or not, so you might as well get the benefit.

• It can be extremely cost effective to externalise this area of your business, especially factoring in salary packages, computers and software. You can have a brand/marketing manager in-house and outsource your design needs, or if you don’t currently have a brand manager, you can have an outside team to handle it all for you.

Social Media It’s ‘free’ to use and ‘everyone’ is on social media.

But in their rush to not be left behind, many people have forgotten to keep their brand image going.

You have quality assurance systems set up for all the other areas of your business, so why would your brand be any different? Because your brand extends into everything you do as a business, a brand QA system can make a big difference in your branding returns.

• Are the phones answered correctly?

• Does everyone use branded emails?

• Is every piece of marketing and advertising brand approved?

• DO you have a brand of “Visual ID” manual?

And is it current?

‘More Where That Came From’ There are many more areas you can review (which we can discuss in future articles). These are a few of the main areas where you can potentially get a lot more ‘bang’ for your branding buck. BQ

• Review your usage of social media and make sure you’re doing it effectively. Are your brand values showing through? Is it costing you too many paid man-hours?

• Find out any weak spots you can sure up, or other sites you need to be on. This can increase your social media gains rapidly.

Brand Quarterly™

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Can I Please Listen To Your Sales Pitch?

Writing A Blog It’s a typical day. I’ve got plenty to do and, as usual, my desk in in disarray — why can’t I master this thing called tidiness?

The phone rings.

“Good afternoon, Andrew speaking,” I say, trying my best to hide the anticipation in my voice.

“Good afternoon,” says a sunny voice. “I’m calling to let you know that you have been chosen ....”

Does this sound familiar?

Cold calling, though often necessary, usually provokes a negative response. The problem is that the sales person is interrupting the person they’re calling.

Most traditional marketing is based on this interruptive approach: an advert in the Andrew Healey middle of your favourite TV Word Works programme; a pop-up on your computer screen; spam in your inbox. Imagine if your prospects approached you and actually asked: “Can I please listen to your sales pitch?” This is a key principal of social network marketing.

By social networking I mean the writing of blogs and use of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Blogging One component on social networking is blogging.

Blogs are a wonderful thing if written properly. Here are a few points to keep in mind.

A Blog Should be Worth Reading A good blog provides information on your specialist field that is useful to the reader. Blogging is an effective way to build your reputation as someone with answers; an expert in your field.

A Blog Should Be Scannable Just like your website, a reader should be able to find what they’re looking for quickly. In other words your blog should be scannable. Scannability is achieved with short sentences; use of different colours and fonts; bold headings and bullet points.

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A Blog Shouldn’t Be ‘Salesy’ People are becoming increasing cynical about marketing language - particularly the young. Look at how the public turned on Adidas. Therefore, a blog should not be a blatant vehicle of selfpromotion. If you provide valuable information that the reader (your prospect) needs, they will find you.

A Blog Should Be Optimised Just like your website, a blog should be optimised to pull in traffic through Internet searches. This involves including key words and phrases in your blog that your customers use when searching for your type of business with search engines like Google.

Of course search engine optimisation (SEO) is an ever-changing science and one that I leave to those who know what they’re doing. Therefore, to get results, I recommend working with an SEO expert.

A Blog Should Be Linked To Your Website If you have a website, your blog should be linked to it. Why? Because this way you can pull traffic to your site and improve the chances of your website featuring in Internet searches.

Blog Often Any SEO expert will say that the more words you put out in cyberspace the better, so blog as often as you can.

The phone rings.

“Good afternoon, Andrew speaking,” I say, trying my best to hide the fatigue in my voice.

“Good afternoon,” says a sunny voice. “I would like to place an order please ….”

That sounds better.

BQ

YOUR

BRAND OUR

TEAM

Coming Soon To A Brand Near You

VESEY CREATIVE LIMITED presents in association with BRAND QUARTERLY a VESEY CREATIVE production ‘THE BIG REVEAL’ starring YOUR BRAND and OUR TEAM offering BRAND ESTABLISHMENT, BRAND REVIEW, BRAND MANAGEMENT, BRAND IMPLIMENTATION and BRAND DEVELOPMENT based on YOUR COMPANY VISION supported by a VISUAL IDENTITY MANUAL plus Graphic DESIGN, PRINT MANAGEMENT, WEB DEVELOPMENT and MARKETINg consultancy in conjunction with Strategy, tRADE SHOW DEVELOPMENT, SOCIAL MEDIA, PHOTOGRAPHY and COPY WRITING produced by FIONA VESEY directed by ANDREW VESEY

Brand Quarterly™

www.veseycreative.com

TM

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“Don’t Panic!”

Keeping Your Brand Promises In A Crisis You’ve spent a lot of time, energy and money developing your brand promise and business reputation. Your customers rely on you keeping them time and time again. Regulars will notice if you break them; probably grumble and possibly look elsewhere. Your business success depends on you keeping your brand promises.

As I write this, oil is landing on the Bay of Plenty beaches and some businesses face a bleak future. How would you cope? The Get Thru website reminds you that “Under the Health and Safety in Employment Act, businesses have an obligation to be prepared for an emergency.” Fair enough. Get your staff ready. Encourage them to keep emergency items at work. Tell them what you’ll provide for them in the office. Suggest what they should carry “just in case” when they are out and about. Just don’t forget to get your business ready as well.

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Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

To be fair Get Thru does suggest establishing a “Workplace Emergency Plan” for your business. It lists things you should think about but does not tell you how to develop your plan. Anyway not all business continuity challenges are caused by major natural disasters. Here is a framework you can follow; just answer three questions before you start planning.

1: What Are Your Customer’s Needs?

What is it about your products and services your customers would miss most quickly and most intensely if your business suddenly wasn’t there?

Those things, and only those things, are what you need to deliver to keep your promises. That and continuous communication.

Even as the Rena oil spill lands on the Tauranga beaches we are being reminded that good communication makes life a lot easier. People desperately want to know what is happening, how they can help, and when they can expect news, decisions, changes and conclusions. It will be the same for you if your business hits problems. How will you reach stakeholders and keep them up to date?

Social media to the rescue! A company Facebook page will keep people up to date in good times and bad. It will (almost) certainly keep working when the servers hosting your website don’t. Regular tweets may be keeping followers informed before they notice the problem. And don’t forget the phones, especially if your customers are shy of computers.

Good old fashioned “telephone trees” are a tried and tested way to get news out.

2: What Do Your Critical Services Depend On? Identify, component by component, exactly what your critical customer services rely on; files, phones, products (stock), e-mail, web site, computer systems, premises, people. Can you do without any of them?

Do you need your customer database to contact people? Or your accounts system to pay staff and issue invoices? How necessary are meetings?

Don’t forget your supply chain when identifying the dependencies. It is fairly pointless having your team set up to work from home if they don’t have the sales leads, systems or raw materials to do so.

3: What Events Will You Plan For? And, most importantly what you won’t. Regional disasters are thankfully rare but may be too much to cope with. A flood, fire or serious break in at the office can be just as devastating and won’t bother your competitors. Utilities like power, water and phones can fail. What if any of the following became suddenly unavailable?

• One or more essential supplies– raw materials or business services.

• Essential staff

• Office premises • Essential records of suppliers, customers, orders and payments • Essential equipment or technology What are the risks to your business from each event?

Think about reputational risks and financial risks as well as about keeping operations going.

1. How will your response change with the (guestimated) event duration? Muddling through may work for a day or two, but not a few months.

• Which services need to be “always on”?

• Which can be unavailable for a few hours? Days? Weeks?

• Which activities can you suspend or close down to keep the most important services working?

2. What changes on weekends and public holidays?

3. Does the event include a “period of grace” you should plan for? The bigger the event impact, the longer you have before people get back to “normal”. But their immediate needs may change in a way you should respond to.

Put It All Together Your plan needs objectives. In some cases you can actually enhance your reputation if you try hard and people notice you doing so. This is particularly true for “smaller” disasters like office or warehouse fires that only impact your business, not your competitors.

Hazel Jennings Your plan also needs a budget Dale Jennings Associates and some sensible spending decisions. You might choose to “sit out” short term problems like power cuts and tackle them with a good PR plan. But your critical services may need a back-up generator on site.

Dust off your swine flu pandemic plans. If you have one you have a crisis manual that tells people what to do and when. It’s a great foundation to build on even if yours needs updating. If you don’t several government ministries and departments still have influenza planning advice on their websites.

Most businesses will find the Department of Labour website most useful.

Of course pandemic plans only cover some of the events you are planning for. Those situations where staff might not be available or your premises are functional but unusable. Expand them to cover the other events you’ve identified when buildings, their services and their contents aren’t functioning. Then get your new crisis manual on-line.

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Nothing fancy is needed. Use a free tool that provides a secure space restricted to your staff; e.g. Yahoo groups, Dropbox or Google docs. Now everyone can get to the manual from wherever they can get an internet connection. Yahoo will even provide free e-mail for those staff without a workplace account.

Once the crisis plan is in place, train your staff and test the contingency plans. Think communications, legal, financial, operational components and then communications again.

Your cash flow and working practices may need to change during a crisis. Are you able to make those changes easily and legally?

• What supplier contracts should be cancelled?

Are they structured to let you do that unilaterally at short notice?

• Can you get at money to receive and make payments? How do you change who can authorises what and how much? What do you tell your bank? Will bad debt increase?

• How is your insurance? Do you need to change it to cover the contingency practices? Are you covered for loss of income in any and all circumstances? And for how long? Will you have time to fit out and start again in a different building?

• Can you pay your employees? The Department of labour points out that for “…solutions not covered by your current employment agreement, you and your staff must negotiate any changes in good faith.

You need to allow your staff time to consider and respond to any proposals.”

• Do your employment contracts contain provisions for changing the place of work?

Even if people are working from home, a new workplace means new health and safety liabilities. Get a checklist ready in advance.

Brand

Technology underpins most of the operational components or their contingencies. Where possible build your IT contingencies into your everyday environment to minimise costs.

Internet access and mobile devices make this easier.

But be sure to test them. There are almost certainly things nobody has thought of and these will trip you up first time you try them.

Whether your IT is in the basement or in the cloud the same basic questions need answering. How will you access your data and records? How will you communicate?

• Do you have a back-up of your data that you can get your hands on? Can you restore from that back-up? Individual files are easy, applications and databases are harder.

Remote access may form a big part of your contingency plans. Does it still work when you “move” to your “spare” servers? How many people can use this method at the same time?

• Do you know which telephone numbers to switch to a different termination point; be that another office, a mobile or an answering service? Have you tried switching them?

It takes time; minimally most of a working day, potentially much longer in a major event, to switch lines. Multiple suppliers (say one for mobiles and another for land lines), can introduce complications. So can local exchange limitations for new home workers.

What will you do in the mean time?

When you’ve done all that work, pat yourself on the back. It isn’t a trivial exercise. But you haven’t quite finished. Review and revise the crisis manual in light of your testing.

Then schedule regular future reviews and make sure they happen. A good way to ensure this is to include the reviews in the scope of your health and safety committee activities like fire drills. BQ

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Building Your Business From The Brand Up™

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Email us today and have your say: studio@veseycreative.co.nz

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Wake Up Your WOW! Confident Speakers Win More Business Jerry Seinfeld once joked that at a funeral most people would rather be “the one in the coffin” than “the one giving the eulogy”. It seems that public speaking is the number one phobia – but if you’re in business it could be costing you dearly.

Cath Vincent

It’s been said that there are two types of presentation: the one we gave and the one we wish we’d given. Or put another way, every person has two personas – the one who speaks confidently to a standing ovation, and the one secretly doubts our own credibility as a presenter and wonders whether anyone is really listening.

Now be honest for a moment, when you stand to speak, which voice comes out?

The bad news is that if you are not supremely confident every time you speak, you’re probably not winning all the business you deserve. The good news is that is that it is simple to make massive improvements and there are lots of good reasons to do so. Here are just three…

3 Business Reasons To Be A Better Speaker 1. Because it’s considered natural to be nervous, most people never take the simple steps needed to fulfill their potential when speaking. If you invest just a little effort in this essential business skill, you will stand head and shoulders above your competition.

2. When you find speaking in public effortless, there are heaps of FREE marketing opportunities such as network meetings where you can make your mark and become known as an authority in your field 3. People listen to confident speakers. There is no better or more costeffective way for your business to get noticed.

5 Easy Tips To Being A More Confident Speaker 1. If you slave over your preparation and getting the words just right – don’t!

Think of it more as a conversation you might have with a friend than a formal life-or-death situation. In fact, verbal communication accounts for only 7% of the impact you can make. Allow yourself the freedom to ‘talk around’ your subject knowing that the impact of the actual words is very small. That way your personality will shine through too.

2. If you do worry about forgetting your words, your message may be too complicated to remember. Boil your message down to just 3 key points.

The audience can’t process and remember more than that anyway.

3. People often tell me “I’m OK when I get onto the middle part” – you have to be compelling from the moment you start speaking. Whilst the body of your presentation can be free-flowing, you should learn your introduction and ending so you feel unwaveringly confident in delivering those two pieces. More time spent on these will pay dividends.

4. Don’t be afraid of silence. Allowing a pause shows confidence and gives the audience time to process what you’re saying. You can afford to speak a lot more s-l-o-w-l-y than you think!

5. Your job is to make it fun. Humour goes a long way in capturing audience attention. Clients often tell me “I can’t make legislation / technical specifications / annual accounts/ health and safety information fun”.

You have to get excited about presenting your material. Energy is infectious. The audience will feel what you feel. If you’re uncomfortable, bored or uninspired, that’s how they feel too. If you’re excited, they’re excited!

A final word to encompass these tips: Don’t Learn It, Love It!

BQ

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Brand Evangalists The Ultimate Branding Tool

Colour Me Loyal What Colour Really Means To A Brand

It’s A Fast Paced World Writing Content For Your Website

“Check Yourself” Your Basic Visual Idenity Checklist

Design 101 The Design Process - Step By Step

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Available Tuesday 7th February 2012 Subscribe At www.brandquarterly.com

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Get Marketing Now...

A Simple Marketing Starter We all want to have a great marketing plan in operation – and if you’re anything like me you want it now.

The down side for us ‘now-bees’ is that it takes time to plan and implement a full marketing system. So, for those of you who are yet to set up your full system here’s a simple marketing starter that can help get your sales flowing in the meantime.

Fiona Vesey Vesey Creative

1. Plan Your Marketing Strategy Your marketing strategy should target these five different groups of people: 1. Consumers – People who have never heard of you but may have a need for your product/service.

2. Contacts – People on your mailing list that have opted in to receive more information, but you haven’t had personal contact with.

3. Contemplators - People you are actively talking with and are making a decision.

4. Clients – People you are currently doing business with or have previously done business with.

5. Connections – Your referral network: professionals and community influencers who can refer business to you.

2. Create Your Marketing Calendar Sit down and plan how you will reach each of the five groups of people above. Block out time to focus on these marketing activities.

A few ideas are: 1. Consumers – Magazine/newspaper advertising, online advertising, social media.

2. Contacts – Regular newsletter (email or print) with product/market information and helpful tips.

3. Contemplators – Phone calls, emails and mailed letters – make sure you have a set schedule that doesn’t harass the prospect, but is regular enough so they don’t get side-tracked.

4. Clients – Focus on providing excellent client service, follow up after the job/sale is complete to make sure they are happy. Take a past client out for coffee. Ask for referrals and testimonials.

5. Connections – Keep in contact: Look for references to people in your referral network in newspapers, blogs, etc. Whenever you find something newsworthy, send a personal note to that person.

3. Review Your Progress Pick one day every quarter to review your marketing plan and calendar in detail – block out time in your calendar for that day.

• What has/hasn’t been working?

• What can you improve?

• Now look three months ahead - what events do you need to start preparing for?

4. Rinse and Repeat Make your goal easier: Keep your plan simple.

Keep repeating this cycle until you get your full marketing plan finalised. You can even use this as the base for your plan and build on it.

There you have it – A simple yet effective marketing plan starter.

BQ

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