Month: December 2018

Digital Branding

Can Buying Social Media Followers and Likes Work for Your Business?

If you’ve got a business you’re trying to promote online, you’re probably already aware of how important social media could be to your plans. If not, then you should be. Social media has become massive in the past decade or so, and for good reason. It’s a hugely powerful marketing tool that you’d be foolish to ignore.

The truth is, you can actually buy Instagram likes and followers and build a successful business from them. Now we’ve got that out of the way, let look at the main subject of this article. Will buying followers and likes on social media platforms like Instagram really work for your business? Let’s have a look at how they could help you grow.

More followers do not mean more customers

Firstly, you need to know that when you buy followers, most of them might not be real people. Even if they are, they’re not the same as getting a genuine follow because they’ve been paid to do so. They’ll be less likely to spend money in your business. But that doesn’t mean they’re worthless — they could still add value to you.

People like to follow what’s already popular

If some of your posts get thousands of likes, more people will see them and more people will think you’re popular. These days, people like to follow what’s already popular, so when real people see how many followers and likes you’ve already got, your brand can snowball and increase its traction. That means someone who sees an Instagram account with 10,000 followers is more likely to follow it themselves than if they saw one with 50 followers. It doesn’t matter that you bought those followers — you could actually get more real ones because you did so.

Having a large following gives your business credibility, and that’s why buying followers and likes can work.

How to buy likes and follows

There are a few places you can get followers and likes from but make sure you use someone good. It’s important that your followers look real so they don’t get removed, or so people don’t start realizing that you bought them. The right supplier will be able to do this for you at a reasonable price.

How to make the most of your existing followers

While buying likes is one way, you can still try and get more followers organically. Try offering them real value so that they keep liking your posts. Exclusive discounts, behind-the-scenes videos, competitions and things like that can work really well. Don’t treat your followers simply as people to be advertised to; give them something fun and entertaining and they should reward you. Post better images and videos to really help your word spread.

How to get more followers organically

Once people start liking your business social media account, they’ll be telling their extended friends to network about you. That’s how a good social media presence can help do a lot of the marketing legwork for you. Keep offering fun and value, and your followers can help do the marketing legwork for you. Some businesses come up with viral hits that get them thousands of new followers almost overnight. Try and do something like that and you could see your following explode.

Local Branding

How To Create An Eye-Catching Exhibition Stand For A Tradeshow Or Event

Participating in trade shows or exhibitions is a great way to get the word out about your business. Unfortunately, however, it can be a little bit hard to stand out at these events, simply because there are so many other businesses participating. That is why it is so important to put a lot of careful thought into your exhibition stand. To create an eye-catching display that attracts a lot of attention, try using these seven tips:

Make The Design Of Your Stand As Noticeable As Possible

Creating a showy, noticeable display is the best way to grab the attention of people as they walk by and any good exhibition stand designers will help you achieve this. This is one situation where you definitely don’t want to blend in with the crowd. From a design standpoint, there are plenty of different ways that you can set your stand apart from those of your competitors. For instance, you can choose a stand that has a tall wall where your logo is prominently displayed. Bright, vibrant colors also do a great job of drawing the eye of anyone who happens to be walking by.

Create A Well Lit Area

The right lighting can make a big difference in the appearance of your stand. Use LED strips or spotlights to draw attention to key features that you want people to notice. Avoid going overboard, however, since bright, glaring lights can wind up driving people away. The key is to position your lighting in such a way that it enhances your booth rather than detracting from it. The right lighting design can make a real difference in how people perceive your stand and in how easy it is for them to see your products.

Take Advantage Of Social Media

Showcase your exhibition stand online through the use of social media. If you make it eye-catching enough to stand out at the show, it most likely will also get a lot of attention online. Best of all, social media makes it easier than ever to reach your target market. Sharing photos of your booth is especially important if you participate in a lot of different trade shows or events throughout the year. The more often you display your booth online, the easier it will be for people to recognize it when they see it at a show. Social media offers a lot of unique opportunities to connect with potential customers, making it a great marketing tool.

Consider Offering Refreshments

When people go to trade shows, they typically spend about five hours checking out all of the displays. By the time they reach your booth, they may be starting to feel a little bit tired. Offering refreshments is a great way to draw them in. You don’t have to go overboard. A simple drink or a small snack is usually enough to get people to stop and check out what you have to offer.

Create A Theme For Your Booth

Designing your booth around a central theme can be an effective marketing option. If you have an existing marketing campaign going, you can use that as your theme. Alternatively, you can come up with a new theme that is based around one of your new products or a new service that you are offering. Every time you create an exhibition stand, you have an opportunity to share your marketing message with the world. Choosing a different theme for each exhibit is a great way to get the word out about the products or services that you are most interested in promoting.

When creating an exhibition stand, it is all about paying attention to the small details. If you are hiring a company to build your stand for you, it is important to talk with them about your business so that they get a better idea of exactly what you are trying to achieve. Participating in trade shows is a great way to not only reach new customers but also to connect with other businesses. To get the most out of the exhibitions you participate in, it is well worth building a stand that you can be proud of.

Digital Branding

How To Come Up With A Business Name

Starting a new business takes a lot of passion, energy, and courage. Now that you have a business plan or at least a one-page version, and you’ve probably already talked to other small business owners and potential customers in your niche or industry, you’re ready to go for it. But one thing is still missing – a name.

A good business name will make your customers remember you easily, could mean free publicity, and it could help you and your future employees remember why you’re doing what you’re doing. There are many specialized naming companies that usually charge thousands of dollars to help business find new, trendy, memorable, industry-wise names that aren’t trademarked. However, when starting a new business, your priorities are most likely elsewhere and your budget won’t allow you to spend that kind of money on just coming up with a new name.

In this post, we’ll share a few ideas on how you can name your small business by looking at some of the popular brands from around the world.

1. Using Acronyms

One of the best ways of coming up with a name is using the first letter(s) of every word in a phrase, or part of names/words. Some good examples of these short domain names in action include BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), AOL (America Online), and BENQ (Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life).

2. Mashups

You can mix two or more words that are ideally meant to your business. Good examples include Evernote (forever + note), Compaq (computer and pack), Lego (from a Danish phrase “leg godt” meaning “play well”), and Groupon (group and coupon).

3. Borrow some inspiration from literature and mythology

If you have a passion for history or literature, look no further than the Roman and Greek legends. For instance, Nike (the goddess of victory) and Asus (the mythical winged horse called Pegasus). A place, character, or object can also be a good start for a name; like Starbucks (in Moby Dick, Starbuck was a young chief mate of the Pequod) or Samsonite (borrowed from the bible character Samson).

4. Use Foreign words

Even if your business will serve an audience based on one region, using a foreign name (or a foreign sounding one) can be very memorable in the native language of your customers. Look at Audi, whose name is a Latin translation of the German name “Horch”; Daewoo, which means ‘great house’ in Korean; and Altavista, which is Spanish for ‘high view’.

5. Your own name

If other names don’t sound too convincing, why don’t you try using yours? Many of the renowned brands in the world are actually named from their founder’s or owner’s names. For example, Boeing is named after William E. Boeing; Bayer is named after Friedrich Bayer who founded the company; Cadillac was named after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, the French explorer; and Grundig which is named after the founder, Max Grundig.

6. Scan your map

The world map can be a great source of inspiration. Adobe, which is named after the Adobe Creek that runs close to the founder house; Fuji, which is named after the highest mountain in Japan; and Amazon, which derives its name from the largest river in the world by volume; are some great examples.

7. Mix things up

Trying different word combinations is another great way of finding a name for your business. For example, you can mix up your name with the place you live, such as IKEA (the name of the founder, Ingvar Kamprad, and where he grew up – Elmtaryd Agunnaryd) and DKNY (Donna Karan New York) did with their brand names.

8. Partner up with another company

If you plan to have another entrepreneur as your partner or merge your business with another, consider using fragments of both names rather than finding an entirely new name. Good examples of this are 20th Century Fox and Ben & Jerry’s.

9. Use Nicknames

Using nicknames or your kid’s names might sound a bit strange, but look at companies like Danone, which was named after the childhood nickname of the founder’s son; and Mercedes, which was named after the daughter of one of the founders. They don’t sound too strange anymore, do they?

10. Use a symbol

Taking a symbol or a key element of your work is another way to come up with a business name, by starting with that word. For example, Pixar is a combination of the word pixel and the initials of the founder: Alvyn Ray Smith.

11. Make the name descriptive

When you think of your company, what’s that one word or phrase that can capture what your company does best or stands for? list all of your options on a piece of paper and visualize a new banner or logo with your name on it. A good example of a brand that uses this technique is 7-Eleven, the supermarket chain, where the name describes exactly what’s special about the business – it’s open every day from 7 am to 11 pm.

12. Use Latin

For those who had a Latin language class in school, you probably never thought you’d ever get to use it in real life. But you were probably wrong. Latin is such a great source for business names. Good examples include two of the most memorable and well-known brand names: Acer, which is Latin for ‘able’, ‘sharp’; and Volvo which is Latin for ‘I roll’. You can also use Latin to start off a new name and then add another word to it as Verizon did with “Veritas” which is Latin for ‘truth’ and “horizon”.

13. View your product or service from new angles

What does your product or service remind you of? Look at it from different perspectives and ask your family and friends to give you ideas of what your product looks like. Good examples of brand names created from this technique include Caterpillar and Blackberry.

14. Try Abbreviations

You can also take a word with a strong meaning for your business and extract a short part of it as Cisco did – it’s from the word San Francisco, where the business was founded.

15. Make Grammatical Errors on Purpose

This method of coming up with a new name is a little risky, and there’s always the possibility of having to listen to people trying to correct your brand name for the next five or ten years. For example, Quora can be taken as a fake plural of the Latin word “quorum” (a public assembly).

16. Invent an Alternate Spelling

Choose a word that’s essential or symbolic for your company and invent a new spelling for it. For instance, Reebok is an alternate spelling of “rhebok” an African antelope.

17. Tell your story

If your business has a great story behind it, why not tell it in your business name. Names born this way include Virgin, which is the founder’s way of saying they were completely new to business; Kenvelo, where the founders were unable to decide on a name and the company was called ‘kenvelo’ meaning ‘yes and no’ in Hebrew; and Mozilla, which is created as the mosaic and internet-browser killer.

18. Talk about what you believe in

If you don’t like the idea of telling your story, you can use the business name as a way of reminding yourself and people who work with you about what you stand for, what you believe in, and why you’re doing what you do. For instance, Minolta means “your principle, what you believe in”.

19. Add a letter or remove one

You could have a really good name for your business, but due to various reasons, be unable to use it as it is. Why not to what Tumblr and Flickr did and skip the last vowel? You can also change or duplicate any letter in such a way that the word is still recognizable.

20. Pick a dictionary word

If you’re still looking for inspiration by the time you reach this point, then you can do what Twitter and Blizzard did and just pick a random word from the dictionary.

Digital Branding

9 Tips For Brand Building Through Web Design

Websites have gained much popularity in the marketing industry today. Brands are keener on building their name and growing their audience through websites. They’re even more popular because of social media, where its links can be attached. For starters, check out websites that will teach you how to create a WordPress website, for example:

  • godaddy.com
  • org
  • com

Building a brand entails you to do more – to work hard for it. It’s more than just your name, your logo, your advertisements, and more so, your product. Here’s how to build your brand through the non-traditional medium – a web design:

Don’t Forget Your Brand Logo

Firstly, and most importantly – put in your brand logo! When a user opens your website, make sure that your logo is the first thing they can see, recognize, and remember. Take note of the following tips:

  • Put it in the center-most portion or on the top-left side of the page.
  • Don’t hesitate to include your logo on the sidebar, header or footer. Make it subtle but clear.
  • Remember one word: VISIBILITY.
  • Make sure your logo isn’t too small (or even too big) when it appears on your website.

Put it on the topmost portion of your homepage, and design your site in such a way where even if the user navigates from one tab to another, your brand logo is still visible.

Study And Do Your Research

Search for other websites that are offering the same products as yours. If you don’t know where to start with your web design, you can get inspiration from them. However, don’t imitate! You can also research on the strengths and weaknesses of their websites and learn from it, to have a draft and an idea on how to go about with your web design.

Make A Detailed Plan

A branding plan is much like your business plan. Think of your brand – its face and image, the products that you’re trying to sell, your goals, your vision and your mission – and how you can integrate this all in your website’s design. The overall style of your website should be coherent with your brand so that it is easier for users to remember your brand. Don’t be afraid to state your company’s vision and mission on your website’s homepage as this will make your target market feel your purpose more. By opening the homepage of your brand’s site, your viewers will immediately have an overview of what your company is, and what it seeks to sell and achieve. Most importantly, photos of your products should be apparent on your website. Avoid putting them over busy backgrounds and utilize that white background instead.

Determine Your Brand’s Target Audience

When you know the target audience of your brand, you’ll know how to set the tone on your website. Be very specific. If your target audience is the socialites, then perhaps you can design your site to be more sleek, polished and elegant. If you’re reaching out to the hippies – go for bright colors, street lingo in your text and all those bold fonts that you can use.

When you have your target in mind, you’re sure that your website is relatable to them.

Be Consistent

Have an overall theme that’s visible through your web design which also correlates to your brand. For example:

  • If you’re trying to sell wellness products, you might want your web design to have a cold, calm and relaxing overall feel.
  • If you’re an online grocery shop, bright colors like yellow will entice your users to buy more, as that color has been psychologically proven to trick people into making them feel like they’re hungry.
  • If you’re a clothes company, complement the type of clothes (and season) that you’re selling: red for autumn/fall, dark colors for winter, bright colors for spring, etc.
  • If you’re selling gadgets, be neutral with your color scheme: remember that men (which forms a majority of your target market) prefer blacks, grays, and whites.

Maintaining your consistency will make viewers remember your website (and your product as well) more. This can, in turn, put you on the top of search options, too.

Use Colors Strategically

The color of your web design should match the overall theme of your product and the message that you would like to convey. When trying to sell children’s toys, use bright kindergarten colors like red, orange, yellow, and green – or think of a rainbow! You need something your users can easily relate to your brand, website name, and products.

Play With Fonts

Using simple fonts will make your viewers focus more on the places that you’re trying to promote. This will make your website function well. If you are a brand whose focus is on travel, your fonts have to be clean, bright and easily understandable. Use fonts wisely. Don’t overuse your choice of fonts – or make too many changes. Headings should all use the same font, so as with subheadings, title topics, etc. The fonts that you use should also match the logo of your brand.

Incorporate Your Mission-Vision Statement

When viewers open your brand’s website, see to it that your mission-vision is visible. This statement will give your target market an overview of what your brand is about and what it needs to achieve. Your web design should be able to incorporate this in a clear and clean way, usually at the leading portion of your website, right next (or below) to where your logo is.

Add-In Images and Other Multimedia

Without images, your website will be dull. No one will ever be interested in opening a boring page. More importantly, users are interested to see some photos of your products. If your brand focuses on homeware, it’s a plus to post pictures on your site of how these products are used in your home or space. Be sure, however, that the photos you post have relevance to your products. Don’t go crazy about posting images just for the sake of doing so even if they have no connection at all to your brand.

Make Your Website Easy To Use

Focus on building the functionality of your web design. Make sure your website’s design is functional and easy to use – even for the not-so-tech-savvy users. Even your grandmother who has just started using the internet should be able to navigate through your website. When your viewer searches for an item on your “search” option, do make sure that they find what they’re looking for, and that your website will load the correct product. Always make products and information about the items that your brand is selling readily-available. Even more important to remember (in marketing your brand) is to enable users to switch search immediately from one product or another (or go back quickly to a previous item they have viewed) without having to scroll through seemingly endless options.

With all these in mind, do remember that building a brand takes time, whether it be through traditional means or through more up-to-date mediums like your website. It doesn’t just happen in the blink of an eye. Branding is very important, and a well-designed website will help you. Put in all the hard work that you can and reap the products of your hard work later on – and that is a well-established brand.

Local Branding

5 Ways Promotional Models Will Boost Your Sales This Holiday

With the festive season around the corner and I’s a wonderful opportunity to boost sales. Every business owner is looking for ways to beat the competition. It’s high time you went on a creative streak to find a way to boost your sales. A wonderful idea to consider is to consider using promotional models. These can do a wonderful do of promoting your products and leaving a lasting impression on customers. Apart from boosting sales of existing products, the models are also essential when launching a new product. Take a quick glance at these 5 ways promotional models will boost your sales this holiday.

Image credit: uaestaff.com

1. Boosting your brand

It pays to create a lasting impression on the minds of customers. You have to have innovative ideas on how to create brand awareness about your products. Using promotional models will provide the right exposure to your brand needs. Additionally, your brand will get the promotion it requires. People will get to know about your products and develop the desire for them. So, professional models from an agency are a wonderful idea to introduce your products to the market.

2. Enhancing sales

The role of the marketing department in a business is to see a boost in sales. Innovative marketing ideas are required to make people get carried away by your promotional ideas. This is a wonderful idea to boost sales. Using promotional models is the trick to create a lasting impression on the market. This will make your brand gain immense popularity leading to growth in sales and better ROI.

3. Grabbing attention in the market

It’s a great idea to contact modeling agencies in Dubai for a male for promotional this festive season. These will help promote a particular product to target a specific audience to make market segmentation easier. This will ensure that your products grab the attention of people who need it. Additionally, marketing to the right market segment will help make our product gain popularity. The models can distribute fliers and give direct information about your products. These models will significantly make you a leader in your niche.

4. More successful product promotion

Regardless of whether you’re to sale in an exhibition or discount sale in your store, it pays to invest in promotional models. Attractive models are a wonderful idea to make people come to your store. These models capture the attention of people and help highlight your products and services. Having welcoming models at your entrances is a simple and innovative way to grab customers’ attention. This will significantly increase traffic to your store and more sales.

5. Offer an extra hand

Another way of investing in promotional models can enhance your sales this festive season is by giving your staff the chance to focus on core activities. The festive season is bound to be very busy. Therefore, you have to plan for ways of handling the huge number of customers. Apart from hiring regular staff that might not know what to do, hiring promotional models is a smart idea.

Wrapping up

The Christmas season is when businesses record the highest sales. To ensure you make the most from this period, hiring promotional models is a smart idea.

About the author

Ashly William is a freelance writer, with years of experience, creating content for varied online portals. Her content is published on many national and international publications. She has expertise in writing about Arts & Entertainment.