Bearing the Burden

(There will be only one other article this week.)

As a business owner, if you purchase the services of any professional freelance creative, you will be expected to indemnify the creative consultant against any lawsuits.

Why?

The freelance consultant is not able to research every industry and be aware of all the players in your competition. It is your responsibility to know whether or not what you are asking the freelancer to produce will infringe upon the trademarks and brand rightss of your competition.

Some business owners ask freelancers to use work which has been produced by the competition as a model. What parts of that model are protected by law? The owner who hires the creative needs to know that and not expect the competitor to be friendly if he discovers that his marketing materials are being pirated.

Jessica Matthews wrote: "Indemnify This."

Traditional Branding Is Dead

When a mainstream marketing source says that traditional brand management is obsolete, its time to lay the corpse to rest.

Martin Lindstrom author of Brand Child and Brand Sense recently wrote on The Blake Project blog that the days of Corporate management of marketing brands is over and that now the customers will control the brand.

Read his article: "Preparing for the Brand Power Shift."

Tomorrow's Leader

Short term leadership is easy compared with life long success. If you want a long career as a leader of the pack, you have to consistently convince the pack that you are worthy of long term leadership.

Jonathan Farrington wrote "Influencing Really Is That Important!"

Sure, I remember your company

A car is a Car, right?

Then why does GM have more than one brand? When did you last see a Fortune 500 CEO driving a "luxury Chevrolet?" Even the phrase "luxury Chevrolet" phrase sounds like a contradiction in terms.

But, brands are more than intra-mural. Do the words Cadillac and Mercedes generate the same impression in the corporate world?

The difference between brand identity and brand is the difference between the name and the mental impression which is generated by the name.

Creating a brand identity is relatively easy compared with managing the development of your brand. If your company is in business for any length of time, it is impossible to avoid creating a brand - but it may be a very unfortunate brand if you don't manage the development. Some brands are like lead weights, they drag the business down.

Peter Da Vanzo provides some elementary advice to manage brand building on the internet with the article: "Brand Building Tips (On A Budget)."

Real Gold: Brand Identity Info that You can Use

When it comes to branding, there are two major missions.

1. Establish your identity so clearly that your market never confuses you with your competion.

2. Maintain the reputation and mental positioning that your product requires.

The problem for the small business owner is that most branding information is either written for the big business world or it is insufficiently substantive.

But today's recommendation is an article which focuses on the first branding mission: Establishing your identity. This article is not shallow but substantive. It is written by a source that focuses on the big business world and it is written for the consumption of big business executives.

But this time, it is also useful for the small business owner. Brad VanAuken wrote: "The Brand Identity Checklist."

Your Brand is not your Logo - How To Destroy it.

Too many small business owner's confuse brand and brand identity. However you can't really blame them when a lot of article writers who should know better use the term brand when what they mean is brand identity.

Your company brand is your public corporate reputation. If the general public thinks that your corporation is reliable, trustworthy and customer friendly - that is part of your brand.

But another part of your brand is what the general public thinks that your company does. Some companies have ruined themselves by trying to do too many things under one brand identity.

That is why some companies, for example, Nestle, have separate brands for separate products. Sometimes consumers are surprised to learn that two products are from the same company. This is actually good for marketing as the segmentation of identity allows for more flexibility.

However, some business owners ruin their company's reputation. Ed Roach wrote a "tongue-in-cheek" article entitled: "Dork Your Brand!"

Didn't even have to ask

Have you ever watched a medical show in which the surgeon holds out his hand and the assistant places the correct instrument in the surgeon's hand without the surgeon specifying which instrument was needed?

Have you ever been a regular patron of a restaurant, where the wait staff knew exactly what your order would be even before you placed it?

If you really want to be successful in client relationships, you should work on providing your clients what they want - when they want it.

Ivana Taylor explains how to achieve this level of service in an article entitled Use Better Delivery To Enhance Your Image Problem

Can you appear tonight on our TV news program?

Almost every news program occasionally has guest experts. Have you ever seen your competition featured as an expert? Have you ever wanted to know the steps necessary to take to be viewed by the Mainstream Media (MSM) as an industry expert?

Dan Forbush recently provided an article for reporters and bloggers to reprint as if they had written it - even though it was actually produced by PR News Wire. Even though the article pretends to be written by a different entity, the blog to which this posting links decided to make it clear to the reader that this was a RELEASE from PR News Wire.

The article is entitled: Steps for Turning Your Organization into a Heavily Quoted Source

Have You Tied Your Hands Behind Your Back?

Getting into Internet Marketing involves choices some of which are more expensive than others, but even among the expensive choices there are often low cost alternatives.

Some of the questions to ask about websites are these:
Is it scalable?
Can I edit or add pages?
Can I easily change hosting companies?
Does the website help to build a brand identity?
Am I using content disseminating technology to build traffic?
Does my content create conversions?

Dawud Miracle discussed one of the problems inherent in some low cost choices in his article, "Do You Own Your Website?"

Without Numbers, its not a Value Proposition

Every so often, I run across an article that contains some great ideas, but it does not adequately address the announced topic.

If the author of today's article had stated that the topic of the article was "How To Differentiate Yourself Effectively From Your Competition." This would be a fantastic article.

But instead he announced that the article is about writing Value Propositions. There's only one small problem. Nowhere in the article does he address tangible, measurable outcome.

Without he NUMBERS, its just differentiation and positioning. What is sometimes called a USP. But a USP and a VP are not the same thing. You have to be able to give verifiable statistics of the value of your service or product in order for it to be a value proposition.

Nevertheless, the article is still very good in covering the ground which it does cover.

Corte Swearingen wrote "Creating A Value Proposition."

Economic Slowdowns favor certain Businesses

During a booming economy people are more likely to take risks than they are during a slow economy. Those companies which are perceived as being less risky and more trustworthy have a better chance of prospering during a slow economy than do edgy and avant garde companies.

The Brooks Group wrote an article containing three sets of three items each that focus on how to improve sales during an economic slowdown

How big is your Booster Club?

Do your Fans brag about you?

Do you even have any Fans?

Would you like for your business to have a lot of people who champion your Brand?

Ed Roach wrote "How To Make Brand Champions."

Nurturing Relationships

I am a big believer in business relationships. Unfortunately, those who believe the way I do about business relationships are few.

I believe that business relationships should be two way. Some businesses have Customer Loyalty programs but they are not loyal to their customers.

I believe that business relationships should not be based on being transactional but rather on character. Transactional business relationships are like affairs and flings, they tend to focus on selfishness and a year later are awkward.

I believe that today's small potatoes may be tomorrow's King of the Hill. Businesses that treat their small clients differently than their big clients are sacrificing long term brand loyalty for quarterly profits.

I believe that sharks should be avoided. Any business person who betrays an ally is very likely to betray me.

I believe that takers are not worth the investment of time and energy. A taker is one who demonstrates over and over that he "is only in it for himself."

I believe that givers are always worth more than I can ever invest. A giver is not simply someone who gives to me nor is a giver someone who does something for personal glory or satisfaction. A giver can be impoverished and still be a giver. A giver is a giver in their heart and character, one who possess a generous spirit.

Another thing about business relationships is that, unfortunately, there are also "rules."

Mark F wrote an article about the rules of vendor-client relationships.

Avoid Ruining Your Brand During A Bad Economy

During bad economic times, some business are too short sighted. In order to make short term profits they resort to tactics which continue to have negative consequences on their company after the economy recovers.

Steve McKee wrote an article in BusinessWeek entitled "Five Don'ts for Marketing in Tough Times."

Transparency can destroy Mental Commodification

Have you ever found yourself faced with a long term client who is beginning to waver about whether or not to switch to your competition?

The reason this happens is because of mental commodification.

Although you are always trying to differentiate your company from your competition, on some level this client has decided that the difference is relatively insignificant.

But what would happen, if instead of your TELLING the client that you are different, the client was able to SEE the difference?

Sean Hazell wrote an article entitled, "Take Your Customer to Work Day."

How to start a Business Newsletter

This posting is not going to contain a whole-hearted endorsement of an article. However, the article which I am going to recommend that you read, does contain many good ideas.

I will provide a link to the article at the bottom of this posting, but the article is "Starting An Ezine" by Corte Swearingen. Tips 2 and 3 are very good. The other three are good, but ....

Regarding Tip #1: If you do not plan to publish your ezine as a downloadable or as an e-mail attachment, then I agree with Corte's tip #1. However, if your audience agrees to receive your newsletter as an attachment, then a PDF is greatly superior to HTML e-mails.

Regarding Tip #4: Let your audience community "drive" your content. Too many business newsletters focus on "telling" the audience some viewpoint or philosophy which the business wants to promote, instead of focusing on what your audience wants to hear.

Regarding Tip #5: PREselling is like salt in a cooking recipe. Too much salt will ruin a recipe, too little salt makes some foods taste bland. I strongly recommend that you keep your PREselling content to less than 20% and that you treat it as delicately as great copywriters treat the inserting of keywords into copy. In other words, keep it to a minimum.

Corte Swearingen wrote: "Starting An Ezine."

Branding - Is there a real ROI or is it just a Gimmick?

Many new entrepreneurs and small business owners completely misunderstand the meaning of the word "brand" and therefore misunderstand "branding."

Brand is NOT your Logo, your product name nor your tagline. These things are tactics for creating a brand identity. But a Brand and a Brand Identity are NOT the same thing.

However, you can not have a brand if you do not have a brand identity.

What is a brand? A brand is the mental reaction that the general public has to being exposed to your brand identity.

The words "Chevrolet" and "Mercedes Benz" are brand identities. The reaction which you have when you read those two words is the brand.

So? Are brands really important or are they just a gimmick?

Having a good brand is much more important than having current inventory!!!!!!!!

A good brand can recover from a financial disaster, faster than any competitor with no brand or a bad brand.

Brad VanAuken wrote "The Business Impact of Strong Brands."

When you need some Publicity

Sometimes availability, advertising, publishing, contacting and marketing just don't seem to be enough - and a business owner decides that what we need is some good old-fashioned publicity.

Today, I am suggesting an article about publicity BUT before I do, let me tell you that I disagree with the first point in the article. Expressing a USP frequently sounds like blowing smoke. (blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH.) I strongly recommend that you consider a Value Proposition and make that as unique as you can.

Ritu Pant wrote "Five Publicity Strategies ..."

If you Want Commitment, Then You Have To Give Commitment

Many companies have what are called "loyalty programs." But what they tend to be is bribery and commoditization programs. If you really want your clients to be loyal to you, you might want to start by first being loyal to them.

If you want love, you got to give love. If you want good branding, then you better give customer service and satisfaction bountifully. If I am your customer, I don't want your discounts and your rebates - I want to know that I can trust you and that when I have a complaint that I will have my problem resolved as if I were your absolute best friend.

If I have a choice and the service is available from all three, and my choices are Comcast, at&t, and Earthlink. All things being otherwise relatively equal, I am going to go with Earthlink. Why?

Because even though Earthlink does not offer me six months at half price or a hundred dollar rebate, Earthlink has always (at least as far as my memory remembers) made me happy when I had a problem. And if it can be resolved, they resolve the problem with very little hassle.

I can not say the same thing about Comcast and at&t.

Steve Yastrow wrote an article (on Walt Goshert's blog) entitled "Turning Customer Loyalty Upside Down."

Quit Trying To Dazzle and Start Selling

Wow! That was brilliant!

Place an Order?

We'll get back to you on that, we want to consider our options.

Have you ever gone to a website and had to wait until the most fantastic and gorgeous multimedia presentation that you have ever seen L - o - a - d - e - d and then spent 1 to 2 minutes running before finally showing you the website?

Recently I tried to read an article and was shown an advertisement which was supposed to go away in ten seconds, it had a countdown feature, but when the countdown reached 3 seconds it resetted itself and started over, the first time it happened, I ignored it but when it happened again I started thinking about it. It took a few seconds but quickly dawned on me that the site assumed that all of its visitors would have their cookie settings set to "accept all." That is just as stupid as the company that places downloadables on its site in a format which is not "universal."

(Universal refers to formats such as HTML, PDF, JPEG, SWF, etc which are accessible on Windows, Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X and Unix/Linux without purchasing a proprietary application.)

Many small business website owners get talked into using audio, video, or flash as a means of impressing their visitors. Do not misunderstand, I am not talking about using audio samples to sell music or recorded materials, nor am I talking about using video to build a social media community, nor am I talking about using flash in a widget or to present a 300 by 100 sidebar graphic. I am talking about full-screen splash intros on a investment advisors website and background music on a mortgage brokers website. The use of "stuff" which does not actually SELL your service or product but is only for the purpose of Impressing or Dazzling or Entertaining is a marketing mistake.

Do you think I am wrong?

Don't take my word for it. Read what Clayton Makepiece wrote about worthless movie-style TV ads in the Major Corporation market.

A different form of integrity

When it comes to Character development, one of the most important keys to developing personal integrity is learning how to be consistent.

Well .....

When it comes to Brand Development one of the most important keys to developing marketing recognition is .... (drum roll, please) ..... learning to be consistent!

Ed Roach wrote "5 Tips to Branding A Powerful Presence." One Guess as to the prime directive.

Trying To Put The Garage inside the Car

Some things work one way but not the other. Apartments go inside buildings, but buildings do not fit inside apartments. In HTML, div goes inside body but body will not fit in div.

In marketing, Variant testing may be used to tweak an established brand, but an established brand should not be sacrificed for the sake of the results of short-term Variant results.

Anne Holland wrote an article on this topic for her Marketing Sherpa column.

How To Establish Your Brand

Branding is NOT the ingredients which you use to support or build your brand.

Your Logo is not your brand. Your Value Proposition is not your brand. Your catch slogan is not your brand. The sign outside your office is not your brand. The design of your website is not your brand. These may help you in supporting your brand (and may not) - they may even make the difference in whether you have a brand or not - but they are merely tools to help you promote your brand.

Your brand is the long-term mental impression which your public has of you. What they remember about how you treated them, what they remember about the goods or services which you sold them, their overall impression of their experience in interacting with you.

Brad VanAuken wrote a good checklist to help you in your efforts to promote your brand in the minds of your public.