Category: Legal Branding

Why Branding Doesn’t Cost as Much as You Think

Steven on October 15, 2019

Branding is one of the most essential components of a successful advertising strategy. While it’s vital to get the word out about the goods and services your business offers, it’s all for nothing if you can’t communicate why customers should work with you. You need to emphasize the special qualities that make your business stand out in a crowded market.

Good branding doesn’t have to be fancy. Like all the essential components of a quality marketing strategy, a little branding goes a long way. There are ways to establish your brand identity even when you don’t have a big budget.

Here are seven ways you can create an effective branding strategy for your company while spending much less than you’d expect.

1. Build Your Identity

Your branding should communicate the core elements of your business’s identity, as well as what services you provide and what industry you work in. You don’t have to hew to industry trends, but your branding should give customers an idea of what your company does with just a glance.

You can start with in-house graphic design if you’re not ready to outsource. Free design and branding tools like Canva or Looka can help you develop logos, graphics and promotional material for your company.

When your business expands and you want to invest more in branding, you’ll also have a good starting point for the designers you work with. Even if not professional, your homemade branding will show others what you consider to be your business’s values and major appeal.

2. Know Your Audience

Market research can take many forms, but it has to get done somehow. Surveys and test ad campaigns are some good ways to gather information.

Once you have a healthy amount of data or a good feeling about your lay of the land, you can start building customer or audience personas. Personas — archetypes of the people you want to sell to — will help you structure your branding strategy by clearly outlining what you think your audience is after.

One example of a persona you might use could be a DIY enthusiast who is after supplies and information. They want knowledge that is reliable, straight-to-the-point and a little rough around the edges. You can then use this simplified version of your audience to inform your branding.

3. Establish Your USP

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is what makes you different from the competition. Identify your USP, then use it to guide your brand voice and demonstrate why customers should choose your company.

“High-quality” and “customer-focused” are phrases that every business wants to use to describe itself. You’ll need to be more specific, and really dig into why your company does what it does.

How many years have you provided top-tier customer service? What kinds of projects have you worked on? How have you overcome challenges? Do you offer something with unique features that no other business can compete with?

Eventually, you may loop back around to describing your business as customer-focused and one that delivers high-quality products. It’s not the best place to start, though. People have heard it before, and they want something a little more substantial.

4. Care About the Consumer

Value your customer’s time. Bad business writing costs smaller companies an average of $420,000 every year. That’s because when you ask customers to slog through marketing-speak without speaking directly to them, they tune out.

There are many different tips and tricks you can use to grab a potential customer’s attention in both branding and writing. However, one of the most effective philosophies to have — which will help make your overall strategy more successful, no matter what you do — is to care about the customer. Treat their time as more valuable than your own. Good branding earns every second it spends in front of a customer’s eyes.

This can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Start with your research, put yourself in your customer’s position and build on your USPs.

5. Be Part of Your Community

You can create better branding by making your business a part of your community. Better local contacts will help you stay on top of the latest developments and also build a network that will help you know what people need. You’ll also be building relationships with local personalities or industry influencers that you can leverage or build into powerful marketing partnerships.

6. Go Big on Visuals

When designing any part of your branding or marketing strategy, you have an opportunity to use visual design to underline and strengthen your message.

Follow the basic visual design principles that professional graphic designers use. These guidelines will help you reduce clutter, strengthen your message and be clearer in your branding. All this will help your marketing do a better job of communicating what your business offers to customers.

7. Remain Consistent

Especially at first, keep your branding consistent. Repetition is how customers become aware of your company. If you are cycling between logos and branding you don’t have faith in, it’s less likely for you to become familiar and recognizable. You should avoid iterating on your strategy too often. Slowing down will help your message stick in customers’ heads and also give yourself a chance to collect data on what works — or doesn’t — in your current branding strategy.

This also means establishing a consistent web presence, like a blog or set of social media accounts. It will communicate to customers your company’s core mission and beliefs, as well as what your business can do for them. Blogs, interestingly enough, are one of the most trusted forms of information on the internet. A professional-looking blog with some informative, relevant content can help you explain how your business stands out from the competition.

There are other practical reasons for being consistent in your online presence. If you haven’t posted in several months, it can leave potential customers with a bad impression of your brand — or worse, lead them to believe you’re no longer in business.

Why Branding Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive

Branding is one of the most important parts of any marketing strategy — and it’s worth the investment. However, good branding doesn’t have to be expensive. A solid plan does not require glossy graphics and fancy web design to work. Instead, good branding is about knowing your audience and communicating with them in a way they’re receptive to.

Any company can benefit from basic design and branding principles. While bringing in a professional agency can be a good idea in the long term, smaller businesses with less to spare for marketing don’t need to wait — branding doesn’t always need a big budget.

For the end, here is the research about brands with strong personalities and how it influences their purchasing decisions.

Source: Adzooma

About the author

Lexie is a branding enthusiast and web designer. She loves checking out local flea markets and taking her Goldendoodle on hikes. Follow her on Twitter @lexieludesigner and check out her design blog, Design Roast.

Legal Branding

A Business Database Is the Key to Better Business Performance

Steven on October 15, 2019

There was a time when data was as an ancillary to business and was in no way related to the core business goals. People used to gather data with the purpose of performing other business tasks with ease. Sales data was mainly for accounting purposes, and manufacturing data helped to ascertain quality and output. Data used to have only one dimension and meaning, and it did not add any value to the business.

With time, all that has changed drastically and data has now acquired multiple dimensions. Data has transformed into one of the most valuable resources for business. By its ability to add value to the firm, data is now as relevant to business as any other asset. Every aspect of the company from supply chain operation to manufacturing, marketing, and customer relations are now heavily dependent on databases that capture all business activities and point towards business performance.

Need for managing data

Databases are storehouses of data and preserve and process data generated from various business processes. Data is made from all activities of business at all levels and by using suitable technology the data is driven to the database first and then extracted, manipulated and analyzed according to the firm needs. Proper analysis of data provides valuable insights for business. Hence, the demand for DBA consultants is growing. They are responsible for managing databases of all types and help businesses to organize data for meaningful consumption.

The value-adding aspect

The real value of data lies in the manner of using it. The capability of the DBA consultant helps to unearth the hidden value of data and pass it on to the business process. The consultant must have good knowledge about the business process so that he or she can understand the relevance of data in the proper context of business and present it to the user in the most appropriate manner. Since all business aims to satisfy customers, data analysis reveals consumer behavior that provides direction to the business. Any changes in consumer behavior are captured through data collected from the field and business owners can decide on what actions must be taken to adapt to change for business gains.

Database management services

Database management is a highly technical job, and as it does not relate to the core business functions, business owners rely on outsourcing the service. There are many professional service providers offering database administration services across all platforms. Different technologies provide the framework for databases that suit business, but they all have a common goal of creating a robust data system. By outsourcing the service, you have the peace of mind that the database is in safe hands and you can make proper use of data for making the right business decisions.

Depending on the scale of operations and the demands of business, you can opt for remote DBA services that provide comprehensive database management services 24×7. Such provider might also offer data entry services when required, and with your data entry outsourced you would be able to focus more at your core competencies to increase your business efficiency.

Finally, the services empower entrepreneurs with the expertise of managing data efficiently so that the powers of data enhance the business prospects.

Centralized systems

On the off chance that your business is developing and you have the staff to enable you to run it, monitoring the expanding measure of information can be precarious. Great database frameworks can enable you to deal with all your business-basic information midway, securely and safely – at whatever point you need it – to help your odds of accomplishment.

Managing customer data and relationships

In the event that clients are the soul of your business, at that point, a decent customer relationship management (CRM) database ought to be at the core of your development plans. Full-highlighted CRM databases are normally amazing enough to store and process everything, from client contact subtleties, collaboration history, and records, to new prospects, leads and business openings. Some CRM frameworks can even enable you to run and track promoting efforts, for example, email bulletins. See more on client relationships with the board.

Efficient inventory tracking

Dealing with your stock well can at times feel like an exercise in careful control. It’s anything but difficult to have excessively – sitting on a rack gambling wastage, or excessively little – frustrating your clients and harming your notoriety. In case you’re following your stock physically, it’s additionally simple to miscalculate, make information section blunders or lose spreadsheets and notes. By utilizing a stock following database, particularly close by electronic information trade and standardized identification checking, you can maintain a strategic distance from those dangers and limit lost deals while expanding your chances for development.

Planning for growth

Most business databases have some type of announcing capacities – from examining input information and profitability following to envisioning future patterns and clients’ needs. In case you’re arranging a technique for development, a hearty database framework can be your business’ most significant asset.

Improved customer visibility

So as to give your customers the degree of individual consideration that they ache for, you should have the option to rapidly access accounts, contacts, errands, occasions, and any important individual information. Salesforce gives an advantageous stage in dealing with the majority of your client-related data, making it feasible for you to regard each client just as the person in question was your solitary client. Furthermore, by better understanding your clients, you’ll be in a situation to more readily conjecture their future activities ‘ Salesforce CRM improves figure precision by as much as 42%.

Better Support

A device is just on a par with it useful. Salesforce gives unrivaled help, so on the occasion that issues emerge, steps are promptly taken to guarantee that everything gets too rapidly back to full usefulness. Maybe the best part is that with the whole stage situated in the cloud, support should be possible without carrying specialists into the workplace, and without paying costly upkeep costs.

Expanded effectiveness and efficiency

Between computerizing tedious errands, rousing better cooperation, and dispensing with the requirement for administrative micromanagement, Salesforce trims away at inefficient procedures and repetitive exertion, leaving a hyper-proficient framework that will give your association and your client’s genuine incentive for each move made. Subsequently, organization efficiency increments. Truth be told, the selection of Salesforce has been appeared to build deals efficiency by as much as 34%.

Legal Branding

How to Utilise Accounting and Marketing to Get the Best Possible Results for Your Business

Steven on October 13, 2019

Accounting and marketing make up some of the key components of every business. However, most of the time, people tend to forget the crucial role they can play and the benefit they can bring if they are utilized in concert with each other. In fact, it’s absolutely imperative to do everything within your power to maximize the cooperation between these two departments as it will give you the ability to grow and develop your business in a healthy and organic way. So, in order to help you out, today we are going to take a look at how to utilize accounting and marketing together to get the best possible results for your business.

The basic connection

First off, it’s important to understand the basics of both of these departments and how they are connected. Namely, the marketing department comes up with sales and awareness strategies with the goal of increasing the overall sales of a business’s product or service and the profit they will receive. On the other hand, the accounting department keeps a constant track of the business’s financial condition and thus directly determines how much money can be spent on marketing.

This whole process has become extremely quick and efficient with the use of modern technologies which means you can instantly use the information you get from accounting in order to maximize your marketing department’s efficiency. While this move towards digitalization is slowly taking place all over the world, places such as Singapore have recently launched plans to help the entire accountancy sector make a more determined move towards digitalization. In fact, there are many tools such as Xero accounting from Singapore that can allow you to have a constant real-time view of your finances and any changes that are occurring which can allow your marketing department to use that information to come up and determine the success of their strategies.

Determining success and measuring results

The best way for a marketing department to know if their campaign is a success is to look at the results which they will receive from nowhere else but the accounting department. This is a crucial part of every marketing campaign, not only because its goal was to have good results in the first place but because the results will show you if you are taking the right approach or if you need to switch things up in order to start seeing the results you want. Having a constant reference point of how a certain strategy is doing will also help when it comes to the realization of that strategy and give you the relevant information to help you guide it towards success.

Creating realistic projections

When coming up with a marketing strategy, the marketing department can often overestimate the results it will have, which could negatively impact the business as a whole. This is where the accounting department steps in to determine just how accurate those projections are based on past experience and concrete data. This process of making projections that are as realistic as possible is crucial when making both current and future financial decisions and won’t only impact these two aspects of your business but your business as a whole as well.

Price assessment

Price assessment is one of the most important aspects of a marketing campaign as it will determine the marketing goals that will be set. Finding the optimal pricing will also ensure your business can make a profit. With that in mind, the only way to correctly assess the prices of your products is to closely work with the accounting department which has all of the relevant information when it comes to the costs of the product and will ultimately give you the most realistic price which will highly impact the marketing departments whole strategy.

Making long term plans

If you are able to utilize both marketing and accounting to work together in your business you won’t only be able to create accurate projections of your future but you will also be able to use that information to create concrete long-term plans for your business. Marketing departments can give accounting departments business forecasts, which assist accounting in allocating resources effectively. Marketing may also provide accounting with information regarding which products or services are best sellers. If all of the information is shared between these two departments, you will be able to use it to decide on which aspects of the business to focus on.

Conclusion

Finally, it’s important to understand that having marketing and accounting work together will ultimately help you form an understanding of the bigger picture behind your business’ success or failure and will deepen the knowledge you have of your own business. That is why accounting and marketing are both integral parts of a business and having them work together will help you run your business more efficiently and successfully.

Legal Branding Local Branding

7 Tips for Building a Business Partnership

Steven on October 8, 2019

Forming a great business partnership is not an easy task. Like in the dating world, when you first meet people, they’re often eager to show themselves in the best light, which means that picking the right person for you becomes a lot harder. Other than picking the right person, you also need to learn how to set boundaries, as well as establish and nurture a healthy professional relationship. With that in mind and without further ado, here are seven tips for building a business partnership that you need to hear as soon as possible.

1. Look for the same vision

The first thing you need in order to build a lasting business partnership is to find someone who shares your vision. A lot of people make the mistake of finding someone who shares their interests; however, interests (in the business world) are universally the same – growth, profit and success. When it comes to the vision, however, this is often more unique, due to the fact that it’s more individual, even intimate. It’s about the journey, rather than the end goal. So, talk to your partners about your aims and aspirations in order to check if you see eye to eye.

2. Exercise transparency

The next thing that’s necessary for a lasting business partnership is trust, and the only way to build trust is through transparency. You see, sharing your piece of mind when it’s pleasant, inoffensive or complacent is a simple thing. What you need to do is learn how to be the bearer of bad news and tell your partner what they don’t want to hear. Still, you don’t have to be blunt, and there’s nothing wrong with being a bit more… well, tactical when it comes to your phrasing. This is also important, seeing as how you need to check whether you’re entering the business world with someone who shoots the messenger or buries their head in the sand when things get ugly. Naturally, it also goes the other way around.

3. Put everything on paper

While trust and verbal agreement may often be romanticized as the cornerstone of the business world, what you need to do is put everything in writing. This means that you need to make a contract by which you determine ownership and clearly define your roles in this enterprise. Lastly, provided that things don’t go as intended, which is something that happens quite often, you need to have a solid and effective dissolution plan. As soon as this is set in order, you can proceed with your partnership.

4. Show your appreciation

One more thing you should keep in mind is the fact that respecting your partner might require you to go beyond mere words. For instance, getting them a birthday gift is something that’s not required from a business partner, but it’s still a nice gesture. Providing them assistance with their professional tasks (without being meddling or doubting their capabilities) is also a great idea. For example, imagine a scenario where your partner is going to Christchurch for a meeting with important clients. Getting them a car rental at Christchurch airport would take a minute of your time, but to them, it would be a major sign of appreciation.

5. Maintain great communication

Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that communication tends to be vital for success in the business world. First of all, you need to have a clear line of communication with your partner. Having each other’s emails is not enough, and you need to communicate via a call or an IM service of your choosing. Having a sit-down at least once per week is also a great idea. Even more importantly, you need to have these talks in private. Even if you have your disagreements, to the outside world, you need to look like a unified front.

6. Strengths and weaknesses

Previously, we’ve discussed the importance of dividing your roles. Well, this thing is a lot simpler to pull off if you and your partner have similar strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to complement the weaknesses of your partner with your own strengths and have them do the same to you, in return. So, this needs to find its spot on your list of requirements when choosing a business partner.

7. Show some support

One of the things you need to understand about your business partner is the fact that they’re probably the only ones who know exactly what you’re going through at the moment. This is due to the fact that their fate is tied to your enterprise in a similar way and the fact that any success or failure might rub off on them in a similar way that it does to you. This is why some support on your part might mean a world to them, even if you don’t have a well-developed personal relationship. Keep this in mind when going gets tough.

Conclusion

As you can see, a lot of these tips (if not all of them) are applicable to any kind of relationship in your life. When choosing someone who is going to have this kind of impact on your life, you need to be extra careful. Moreover, you need to give them the same kind of respect and attention that you hope to receive in return.

Digital Branding Legal Branding

Eight Reasons Your Business Should Become an E-commerce Store

Steven on October 1, 2019

Do you avoid putting your business online because you aren’t sure where to start or how you’ll handle the demand? It does take some effort to get your online store set up and manage the additional business. However, it also gives you another source of revenue, particularly during times when cash flow is a trickle.

The amount of U.S. online sales for the second quarter of 2019 was around $146.2 billion. Global studies that show around 40% of consumers bought something online. If you don’t have an e-commerce store, you’re missing out on potential profits that may put you ahead of the game. As a small business owner, anything you do to improve sales could mean the difference between success and failure.

In addition to increased potential revenue, discover eight reasons to transition to an e-commerce store.

1. Collect Customer Data

An online presence gives you a way of connecting with people in your target audience. Offer a discount, a newsletter or other content. Use this information to draw in the buyers you want most, then get them to sign up for your mailing list.

You can even target people in a specific location with your online advertising. Draw customers from your area to your online store while encouraging them to visit your physical site.

2. Put Inventory in the Cloud

No matter what type of business you run, an easily accessible inventory is a must to see what you need and what you have too much of. Small businesses can compete on an international scale with cloud computing. If you have sales agents out in the field, they can also access the inventory via the online portal and mark items sold.

Bon Bon Bon creates artisan chocolates in Detroit, Michigan. When they took their stores online, they knew they needed a highly-responsive e-commerce design to highlight their unique confectioneries. They highlight the ability to build your own box, a customized experience similar to what you’d see in a brick-and-mortar store.

3. Automate Customer Service

Customer service can make or break your store. An online presence, on the other hand, gives you a chance to automate most interactions. For example, you can add a live chat feature to your website’s product page. Most bots are automated, able to answer common queries — like a product’s best uses or ingredients — without human interference.

Train agents to deal with customers who buy online and in-store. A multi-channel customer service approach makes your brand highly attractive to young professionals.

4. Offer a Wide Variety

With drop shipping, you don’t have to worry about display space. Therefore, you can offer a wide range of products in your online store. E-commerce is an excellent place to experiment with items you wouldn’t usually carry but would like to test out. Order a limited quantity and see how they move before committing to a large volume.

Costco is well-known for its wholesale stores. However, they also have an online presence where they offer things you can’t purchase in-store. They separate offerings by the department, including a section called “Business Delivery,” where businesses can order in bulk and have items delivered.

5. Solidify Your Branding

Reaching people and making your brand a household name is difficult on a local level. Sure, you can attend local trade shows, send out coupons in mailers and advertise in your newspaper, but many people will simply overlook these efforts.

On the other hand, you can send out highly targeted digital ads, drive people to your online store and convert them into buyers. A website offers the opportunity to post articles on topics related to what you sell. After, share your expertise on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

6. Market Special Promotions

You likely offer specials from time to time, but it’s difficult to let everyone know about your promotions. With an online store, you can begin to collect emails. When you have a new announcement — BOGO sale going on! — send the ad to everyone at once.

You can also advertise specials on Facebook or Google, targeting users based on their location. This method, called geolocation, ensures only consumers within a certain radius gets the message.

Taylor Stitch offers to clothe online and in brick-and-mortar stores. You’ll find similar items in both. However, one advantage to the online store is expanded sizes and more color choices compared to what you’ll find in the physical location. Once shoppers know their sizes and how things fit, they can go online and place additional orders without the need to visit the store and try pieces on.

7. Tap into Different Needs

Some people are very tactile. They want to come into a store and touch items before buying. Other people hate getting out in the crowds and would rather shop at home. If something doesn’t fit or they don’t like it, they’ll return it to the store.

An online version of your store taps into the needs of different users and allows you to reach people where they’re most comfortable.

8. Sell More for Less

The overhead costs of online stores are far less than renting a building, hiring employees to staff a retail location and paying for utilities. Instead, you only have the cost to host and maintain your site, plus employees needed to fulfill the orders.

When you open an e-commerce store, you create a new outlet for selling goods without spending additional money. The result is more profit for your business.

E-commerce Is a Process

In the beginning, your online store may not pay for itself. However, as it starts to turn a profit, and you become smarter with your marketing efforts, you can invest more time and money into dynamic advertising geared at specific, individual users.

Your strategic campaigns will become highly-personalized and more successful. With a little effort, you’ll find your e-commerce store is a vital part of your business model.

About the author

Digital Branding Legal Branding

Five Key Takeaways for Building a Customer Portal in 2019

Steven on October 1, 2019

Andrea Pretorian manages content at BitIRA, where for the past year she’s been leading efforts to get women more involved in crypto and blockchain. When she’s not crusading to empower people with knowledge, she’s likely firing up her camera or learning to play drums. She’s prepared this awesome article below to help you build a better customer experience and scale your business:

Building rapport with prospects is a critical step on the way to conversion, but it’s just important to maintain—if not, develop—relationships with existing customers.

In our world of cryptocurrency IRAs, we have to tackle a healthy dose of lingering skepticism. Alongside the public’s knowledge of the wild west days of early crypto, some reservations may from a thirst for more information surrounding retirement savings and investment options. But the nuances of these specific needs betray the same central problem every business faces: retention, which in turn relies on keeping customers satisfied and engaged.

Earlier this year, we released our My BitIRA portal to give our customers 24/7 access to their accounts. We were strategic about how exactly we went about doing this.

1. Listen to what your audience asks for.

Ask your customers for feedback. This can be a quick online survey you share with your audience or even a brief add-on to a phone call. Offer up a few quick ratings to gauge where you most need to grow, and then end with an open-ended question.

It became clear that our users wanted to be able to check their account information 24-7, as well as flexibly initiate transactions. We knew that these two features were vital to our portal, which we then built to center around them.

2. Know when to say no.

Listening to your customers is extremely important, but this is only true when you also remember that your business is the industry expert. While you should meet your customers’ needs, it is also your job to remain the authority and to serve your customers with best practices. They are paying in part for your expertise, and so it is your responsibility to wield it towards their best interests.

Practically this often means saying no to some requests. It’s a good idea, whenever possible, to shed light on why and to turn this into a learning moment for your public. In fact, a lot of strong brand product and messaging relies on this.

For us, there were some features that wouldn’t have made sense within the portal because they could compromise security or lead to complications. We have to be protective of the process behind transactions in order to make sure that our customers continue to receive the service and security that they expect.

3. Use design to translate your product.

As you dig into the feedback on what your customers want, you will find that specific themes and trends emerge. These should inform not just what you build, but they should also guide how you design and explain it. Great features and applications of your product can go missing if you do not explain them in a way that makes sense.

Our cryptocurrency IRA customers said that they wanted more control over their accounts. We created our portal to grant customers access to their accounts at any time of the day along with the ability to launch transactions and read curated news content. We saw an opportunity to give our customers a level of transparency that translates into more control over their retirement—which is just what they were looking for.

4. Go where the people are.

How is your audience actually engaging with your brand and your products? Knowing as much as you can about the platforms and devices they are using—and even sometimes demographic information including age and geography—can help you optimize their experience. The easier it is for users to engage with you, the more likely they will continue to choose you over the competition.

For us, knowing that 40%—or almost half—of our users were on mobile devices, we knew that we needed to make our portal mobile-friendly. We designed it to be efficient and easy-to-navigate on both desktop and mobile so that all of our users could have the most positive experience possible.

5. Stay true to your values.

As you work to build solutions to meet customer needs, make sure you always stay true to your core brand values. Being very aware of these during the entire design and execution process will keep your voice consistent and your offerings strong.

Security is a top concern and value for us. As we designed this portal, we focused on making sure that we not only built a secure platform but also subjected it to rigorous quality control checks and heavy testing. While we continue to add more functionality to it, it was—and remains—important that our users know, first and foremost, that we are following industry best practices to protect their security.

While the release of this portal has been a critical step forward, we’re always looking to see what new features and strengths we can add to our products. Our customers are on the path of growing their retirement savings with us, but we’re on the path of growing with our customers and our industry.

After all, at the end of the day, it is the commitment to growth and action that sets apart successful brands from the rest of the pack.

Digital Branding Legal Branding Personal Branding

3 Ways to Increase Brand Awareness with Content Marketing

Steven on September 26, 2019

What measures the success of a business? Without a doubt, the number of sales and revenues are pretty clear indicators. However, those are not the only things you should keep track of as a business owner. The way you interact with the masses is often much more critical.

No matter what service or product you offer, it can be rather challenging to encourage your potential clients to buy it if they have no idea who you are. That brings us to another indicator of success – brand awareness.

Let’s face the truth, increasing awareness is not as easy as riding a bike downhill. As a rule, positive changes don’t happen overnight. It is a long-term goal that can be reached through consistent actions and a well thought-through strategy.

Now, let’s look at some common techniques that businesses use to reach this goal:

SEO;
Advertising;
Branded packaging;
Effective use of corporate social media accounts.

Each of these techniques can potentially help you in this endeavor. However, some of them may not suit everyone due to high costs or other issues.

Are there any alternatives? Luckily, there is another way to reach the goal. Content marketing is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness and, in this article, we are going to tell you about some of the most effective ways to alert potential customers through delivering high-quality content!

source: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/content-word-wooden-background_4973634.htm#page=1&query=content&position=14

Content Marketing for Brand Awareness

The key to success is a solid strategy that considers your company’s spirit, the needs of your target audience, and a bunch of other factors. Another vital thing is the quality of the content itself. If it’s not written well, the chances of success will be much lower. Thus, if you have never done anything like that before, you might want to get some help from a professional writing essay service or freelance specialist.

This technique is much different from traditional advertising that focuses on bringing one-time profit. Unlike it, content marketing focuses on what really matters. It delivers relevant, compelling, and value-adding content that establishes your authoritative voice notifies people about you and eventually grows your customer base.

As you can see, content marketing is not much about selling stuff, it is about adding value, and it really works! How to get your content marketing strategy off the ground and succeed? Here are some of the best ways to do this:

Newsletters

For decades, marketers and businesses were using email as a primary channel for advertising and marketing. Today, despite the broad availability of alternative channels, email still remains widely used.

Email newsletters are great for keeping your customers engaged and increasing brand awareness. Such newsletters can share news, give valuable tips, deliver new and relevant information, and even offer free services/products.

Here are a few tips to help you get started:

Make sure it is valuable, relevant, and engaging;
Create an eye-catching topic to make the customers want to open your letter and read it;
Include contact details and links;
Engage potential clients in friendly, personable, and encouraging conversation.

If you follow these tips, you will create excellent newsletters that will help to keep your company at the forefront of customer’s minds, so be sure to try this method!

Blog

Running a company’s blog is another effective way to empower your content marketing strategy and increase brand awareness.

As a matter of fact, having a corporate blog can give you plenty of benefits if you approach it wisely. Thus, if you still don’t have one, be sure to change this as soon as possible!

Have no clue where to start? Here are a few ideas on how to build your brand through the corporate blog:

Choose topics that are interesting and relevant to your audience;
Make sure that each article brings real value;
Don’t hesitate to adopt some SEO techniques to make your articles more visible on the Web, but don’t get too hard on it;
Deliver unique content.

These tips should help you create an excellent blog that grows customers’ awareness and trust. Also, be sure to check out what your competitors deliver to their clients. This can help you get on the right track and grasp the general idea of what works well.

Social Media

Finally, building a brand is possible with various social media channels. Today, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have already become viral tools for marketing, advertising, interaction with the audience, and other goals.

source: https://www.freepik.com/premium-photo/new-idea-creative-concept-business-woman-hand-holding-light-bulb_2752038.htm#page=1&query=brand%20awareness&position=13

Wrapping Up

Businesses have discovered the benefits of social media and use them to accomplish their ultimate goals. It is another effective way to grow brand awareness with the help of high-quality content, so be sure to try it!

Legal Branding

5 Tips to Increase Productivity in the Workplace

Steven on September 24, 2019

Assuming that the motivation of your employees is their own personal thing that every one of them has to resolve on their own is not just lazy but also quite counterproductive and inefficient. Sure, some people are determined on slacking and there’s nothing you can do about it, however, the majority of your employees are just looking for slightly better work conditions in order to unleash their full potential. Fortunately, with just a couple of tricks on your side, you can make your workplace productivity skyrocket. Here are five such tricks.

1. Restructure your team

The first thing you need to understand is the fact that there are some people who, although decent employees, just don’t work well with others. While their performance might not falter, they might often get into arguments with their coworkers or do other things that make the performance of people around them go down. While firing these people (after identifying them first, of course) would be the simplest solution, in the digital environment, you might have a more humane alternative. Simply allow these people to work from home as telecommuters and you’ll do everyone a favor without having to fire anyone.

2. Show appreciation

When it comes to motivating your employees, all you can do as an employer is show some appreciation for the effort that they’re investing. While some may immediately think about promotions and raises, these aren’t great solutions to this problem. Sure, you give one promotion and motivate them for a couple of days, weeks or months. Still, what do you do the next time they’re in the same spot? Promote them again? Realistically speaking, how often do you expect you can do such a thing? The same thing goes with giving one a raise. Therefore, you need to look for alternative ways of demonstrating appreciation.

3. Minimize distractions

Another thing you can do to boost productivity in the workplace is to minimize the number of distractions that your employees are exposed to. First of all, you should give every person in your employ enough personal space and do as much as you can to make the room soundproof. For instance, you can order rugs online in order to lower the volume of foot traffic across the room, thus making the place both quieter and more serene. Other than this, you can also invest in some silent peripherals like noise-canceling earphones and silent keyboards. This way, you give your entire team a significant boost.

4. Ownership of the workplace

The next thing you need to do is make everyone feel like the company in question is their own. In theory, this means that you should give them some shares in the company, however, there are a couple of ways you can do this even without undergoing such trouble. For instance, by giving them more responsibility or a chance to customize their work hours, you may ensure that your employees take you more seriously. Apart from this, the method of allowing them to work from home (which is something that we’ve already discussed) can be seen as a major reward for some of your employees.

5. Help them out

The last thing you need to understand is the fact that it’s basic human nature to care for your own wellbeing first and then worry about others. Each of your employees is primarily concerned with their own income, job stability and career path. Provided that you can satisfy these three basic needs, it’s completely realistic that you expect optimal productivity in return. If you can just show them how giving their best is in their own interest, you’ll already ensure that your business is in a much better position. For instance, by telling them how good their participation on a major project would look in their resume, you can easily make them want to volunteer for it.

Conclusion

As you can see, all of these methods are fairly simple and their effect on the productivity of your staff is quite self-explanatory. Just keep in mind that motivation isn’t always an intrinsic thing. Sometimes, suitable short-term rewards, work environment and even coworkers may have a strong psychological impact on one’s abilities and motivation. Fortunately, all of these things are something that you, as an entrepreneur, have direct control over.

Digital Branding Legal Branding Personal Branding

Why Is Automation Important in Business

Steven on September 13, 2019

Changes in global trade policies brought increased demand for business to perform high-level complex functions which were labor-intensive modules. The advent of cloud computing and technological advances have made automation a reality, bringing not only quality and consistency but also governance and reliability, improving return on investment by a removal/reducing manual effort which improved operational efficiency.

1. IMPROVED OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY: Particularly in the service industry, automation has given leverage to overcome the traditional barriers between information and communication, by enhancing customer onboarding and engagements that help generate revenues. As per Industry reports, it has been observed that customers prefer a company if they can interact with them. We know the operational cost associated with opening and maintaining a call center. Small business cannot afford to have one, but automated phone lines they can afford to look after their huge client base by providing basic information about their products or services, process payment, and other non-essential queries.

2. QUALITY & CONSISTENCY: Quality is a crucial parameter that cannot be undermined, whereas automation makes sure that all actions are carried out the same way to ensure the consistently good quality outcome, with reliable on-time results. With Automation, generating reports to scheduling social media posts or be it to deliver email marketing campaigns can be performed with ease. Data has become the driving force for contemporary business operations, which has helped firms gain key insight into consumer behavior, audience engagement and their buying patterns. Without automation, it is impossible to think about handling huge amount of data and to safeguard clients and staff information. Automation software’s like BiG EVAL provide data quality solutions for the whole life cycle of data to turn the principle into value in / value out. Hence, automation software has become an indispensable tool for business operations, which can help us maintain, recover and save data This, in turn, can provide a high level of service to your customers at low costs.

3. TIME SAVINGS: Time management is of prime importance when it comes to service deliverables. Most of the employees have been observed performing repetitive tasks which are viewed as counterproductive and boring. Automation can help automate many of these repetitive tasks, which can either reduce headcounts or deploy your employees to do something more important or scale your business. Hence this has two aspects, one that allows to use staff members more effectively and secondly to hire only staff which are necessary, cutting down on expensive outsource workers and extra staffing. Just imagine what a 30% increase in staff productivity would contribute towards business operations?

4. GOVERNANCE & RELIABILITY: Automation can handle complex work, eliminating hours of manual work without any error. One of the prime concerns with companies is to avoid human errors. Automation has not only brought expertise but also reduced processing errors. Making an error would mean operational loss with high penalty or compensation, also putting reputation at stake.

5. REDUCED TURNAROUND TIMES & COSTS: Leveraging automation would mean, teams, spend less time creating tickets, working on them and eliminating unnecessary tasks. Manual work is synonyms to perform one task at a time which is labor-intensive and need long hours, which would increase the overhead cost. Automation helps streamline the process, increase accountability, transparency and centralize processes which in turn helps to optimize the flow of information throughout, example – production, billing, servicing and more. Hence, we can claim it as the key ingredients for any company to grow and serve more clients…

6. BETTER COLLABORATION: Creating and maintaining several spreadsheets, account data is no easy job either, let alone retrieving any specific information out of them on time. Automation platforms increase transparency into business operations by consolidating data in such a way that at any point of time one can figure out the performance of the organization as well as the of the team members. Even though the implementation of automation is not cheap, need dedicated developing team who can respond to challenges posed by the change in market trends and requirements, and there are no immediate returns, still, automation is a necessity to sustain in the market.

Automation and predictions

Experts believe that there will be a complete re-embodiment of chatbot features with enterprise expectations. From being just providing simple service desk functions, chatbots may have voice and chat enabled cognitive knowledge engines that can address a range of customer requirements. Automation coming in aid to governance and compliance will be a reality, for example, EU’s GDPR will enforce organizations to automate their processes to enhance their accuracy, speed, and governance. Such encouragement will initiate setting up of automation centers by the enterprises which will be a move towards governance and compliance. Risk management, auditing, controlling and change management activities will gain prominence. For any automation please check Wyzebulb for connecting all your apps.

Legal Branding

How a Blog Influences Business Marketing Strategies

Steven on September 9, 2019

The digital world has become quite a noisy place. For brands, this means that the struggle to stay on the surface, memorable, and noticeable is now greater than it has ever been. It’s not just that other companies, your competitors that have come to take over a slice of their digital pie, it’s also about individuals who clog the internet’s arteries with the content of all sorts, making it much more difficult for people to find your content which actually delivers value.

Any brand’s marketing strategy serves to overcome these complex hurdles, and it’s never a simple strategy with a handful of approaches that delivers results. Any marketing expert will tell you that paid ads alone have no chance without the support of organic engagement, ongoing content creation, email campaigns, social media, and many other digital marketing features. This time, let’s focus on how your blog impacts your marketing outcomes and how it can help you preserve your brand’s relevance.

Build authority around your brand

When Microsoft speaks about internet security and shares their tips on how to make your online behavior safer – the entire world shuffles in its seat and listens up. This kind of authority is built over decades, and it takes time to take the throne of any given industry, and even more to retain it. You might not have the scope, or the reach of Microsoft and similar players, but your goal should nonetheless be the same, to become a leader in your field.

Blogs are a perfect tool for just that. Blogging has become a key resource for defining and refining your brand’s voice, one that lets you show the world how useful your products or services can be without directly selling them. That is why marketers use blogs to build trust in the brand’s given industry so that they can leverage that trust down to the line to increase sales, subscriptions, social media participation, and more.

Increase engagement rates

Your marketers thrive on engagement. When they spot a content piece that spikes your customers’ interest and gets them talking and discussing relevant topics, they’ll be all over your content team to deliver more, equally effective content. Why? Because ultimately, engagement on your website and on social media profiles where you share your blogs, lead to greater recognition from search engines, better SERP positioning, and more visibility.

When people start talking about and sharing your content, more people will see it, share it, and talk about it. This incredibly brilliant cycle of engagement helps your marketing team spread brand awareness through your blog posts, and increase your chances of conversions.

Boosts conversion rates

And this is where marketers truly flip of pure joy at the mention of successful blogs for any brand. All the resources you invest in a wide array of marketing tactics serve a common goal: to get more visitors to become your customers. That, however, cannot be done with the help of a single isolated blog post, no matter how successful it may be. It takes dedication, consistency, and creativity to constantly deliver blog content that shows just how relevant your brand is.

To achieve such creativity and consistency, many brands work with a reputable digital creative agency to take over their content creation needs and create a blogging strategy that will complement their entire marketing output. Only a well-rounded marketing approach, sealed with a blogging strategy, can boost conversion rates consistently and on a long-term scale. Each effective call to action you add to your blog has the potential to turn your readers into buying customers. And each time you write a gripping blog with valuable information, you slowly qualify those leads one at a time.

Inspires loyalty among your customers

Once a purchase is made thanks to all that blogging effort, you have the opportunity to use your content to transform them from one-time shoppers into loyal customers. Unlike your paid ads and other content that’s promotional in nature, your blog is anything but. It has all the potential in this world to instill trust in your readers. And when you consistently deliver content that exceeds their expectations, they will look to you for tips and advice.

Suddenly, your paid ads and your sponsored posts no longer seem so intrusive, now that you’ve earned their trust. They might even perceive them as a useful way to find out about deals and sales, contests, and freebies. Blogs are a potent tool to help give meaning and substance to all other marketing tools you choose to use.

Solve real customer problems

Your brand already exists in order to solve a problem for your customer, enhance their quality of life, or provide them with the kind of entertainment they crave. Sometimes, however, your customers need that nudge in the right direction to realize that your brand can have a meaningful role in their life. Enter: blog posts that offer real-life solutions for real-life problems related to your industry.

Not only do you build authority around your brand, but you effectively provide free advice to your readers, who will recognize the value of what you’re sharing. They will also recognize your brand’s place in the problem-solving equation and reach the conclusion on their own, without pushy sales tactics.

Blogging means playing the long game, where you reap some immediate rewards, but the benefits that come later can shape your brand into an industry leader that it aspires to be. Recognize the potential your blog has for your marketing success, and you’ll be able to use it for all other aspects of your business growth, too.