Digital Branding

How To Come Up With A Business Name

on December 4, 2018

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

on December 3, 2018

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

on December 1, 2018

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.

SaaS Branding

The Pros Of A Balanced Scorecard

on November 29, 2018

Recent research indicates that companies which use the Balanced Scorecard approach usually outperform those without a formal approach when it comes to performance management.

Here is a look at the benefits using a Balanced Scorecard will offer:

Better Strategic Planning

The Balanced Scorecard provides a robust framework for communicating and building strategy. Business models are visualized in Strategy Maps, forcing managers to consider cause and effect relationships. The process of coming up with a Strategy Map ensures that a consensus is reached when it comes to interrelated strategic objectives. That means that both future performance key enablers like intangibles and performance outcomes are identified to create a holistic view of the strategy. If you are wondering about this approach, here is a good post on how to use a balanced scorecard.

Improved Strategy Communication

Since strategies with all their interrelated objectives are mapped on a single piece of paper, it becomes easier for companies to communicate their strategy both externally and internally. This makes understanding the strategy easier and helps engage both external stakeholders and staff in the review and delivery process of the strategy.

Better Management Information

A Balanced Scorecard approach pushes organizations to think about and design key performance indicators that suit their strategic objectives. This way, companies measure the things that matter. Research shows that is true as companies using the Balanced Scorecard approach usually report much higher quality when it comes to how they manage their information and increasing benefits dictate how this data is used to guide strategic decision making and management insights.

Improved Performance Reporting

Companies that use a Balanced Scorecard often report and communicate performance better than those that don’t have a structured approach when it comes to performance management. Increasing transparency needs and requirements can be met if organizations create more meaningful management dashboard and reports to communicate their performance both externally and internally. This approach helps organizations identify what they should report, and a Strategy Map template is one effective way of visualizing performance, particularly if the various measures and objectives are communicated in traffic light format and color-coded management dashboards.

These are some of the compelling benefits the Balanced Scorecard has to offer; however, they cannot be realized if a Balanced Scorecard isn’t properly implemented or if one takes too many shortcuts when implementing it.

Digital BrandingLegal Branding

Social Media Marketing Advice To Ease Your Mental Health

on November 27, 2018

Using social media in order to market your business may sound like a good idea, but sometimes, doing so can sap away your energy and lead to anxiety. If you find yourself anxious with a sense of dread before logging in, here are some of the ways that you can alleviate these feelings:

1. Take A Break

Though some online sources will have you believe that if you step away from your social media page your business will die, it’s simply not true! Only come back to social media marketing when you feel at ease doing so and can give it to you all. Sometimes, that feeling never comes, and that’s okay, too! There are other avenues in order to reach out to potential and existing clients. In the meantime, allow yourself to recharge by focusing on the more relaxing creative aspects of your business.

The fear of losing clients is real, but do keep in mind that the people who like you will follow you wherever you go. The people that were disinterested or casual dealing with your business were simply never serious in the first place!

2. Don’t Get Overwhelmed

One of the reasons that business owners dread the thought of posting online is simply because they have too many social media pages to create content for according to Chicago based psychologist Clarity Chi. However, one way to circumvent this problem is to become more selective and focus on one or two social media pages that you feel confident working with. For example, some business owners really like how concise Twitter is and it doesn’t need you to post photographs with every Tweet. You can let go of the pressures associated with running online social media accounts by channeling your energy into one or two pages. Most importantly, you can use this time to put more effort into building personal connections with clients.

3. Post Less With Quality Posts

Most business owners make the mistake of choosing to post several times a day in order to get better search engine rankings. Unfortunately, what everyone ignores is that making many posts in one day really just burns you out and in turn, your content quality will start to suffer. Only post when you have something informative to share with clients that they will find helpful.

Does your content matter? Take a moment to consider what you’re about to post, how it can help others, and whether it makes sense to let it go to the public domain. This type of self-reflection gives your content a much-needed boost. Build a network of solid friends equaling a few hundred versus a network of many friends. Numbers do cause undue stress and also make it hard to curate content in your feed that won’t cause depression.

4. Step Back For Creativity

Did you ever notice that the more time you spend online, the more doubtful and competitive you become? When searching through hundreds of feeds and pages a day, it’s only natural to feel like you’re not good enough compared to other people. Take a few days off and go back to the basics of your business. What is it that you love to do? Whether it’s web design or making pottery, get creative and lay the foundation for a better “you”!

5. Be True To Yourself

Authenticity is a word that we often hear, but it isn’t always applied to social media. When you post information online, you have to remember to be as honest as you reasonably can be. You create a persona when you post snippets of your life online, and you want people to connect with you, not just an entity. What causes the most anxiety when it comes to social media is putting up a fake front and acting differently from how you would normally act.

You can combat anxiety by deciding to be true to yourself as well as your brand while promoting your own personal values. Don’t forget that the pressure you put on yourself is the pressure that’s often reflected in your own social media posts.

Former CEO and co-founder of YouTube, Chad Hurley, described the feeling of pressure most people associate with social media the best. He explained that sometimes, you’re most effective when you ignore what others are doing. Many people copy the latest trends and jump on bandwagons without setting their own paths to success. The point is that you don’t need to mimic others when there are so many opportunities out there for you to individually shine.

Not everyone responds to pressure in the same way, but it’s clear that social media is not a one-size-fits-most solution to business marketing. Sometimes, we need to step back to really understand the role that social media plays in our business strategy development. Instead of choosing to follow the crowds, you need to evaluate how you want to proceed with your company’s marketing.

Digital Branding

3 Red Flags to Look Out For When Choosing an SEO Company

on November 27, 2018

Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/digital-marketing-seo-google-1725340/ 

Most businesses are taking to the digital world to help get their products and services out to the people that they are marketing to. But with everyone on the World Wide Web blasting information out to the world, it can be very challenging for a company to get noticed with all the competition.

This is where SEO agencies can help. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, refers to the practice of optimizing digital content so it gains prominence over others when certain keywords or terms are run through a search engine. A website is ranked based on the authority and authenticity of the content, with link building services a popular way to increase backlinks and improve ranking. Certain algorithms of search engines like Google and Bing can be very tricky to navigate; SEO agencies help by removing the burden of optimizing content so that their clients’ websites will rank higher on search results.

While websites like BestSEOCompanies.com can help with choosing an SEO agency that will provide results for your business, it’s also important to get your hands dirty and do a bit of research when choosing the best SEO company that you are confident will bring you the results you need. A lot of dubious SEO companies will make offers that are too good to be true just to get you onboard, and will then under-deliver or give results that aren’t what you signed up for.

Here are a few red flags to look out for when finding an SEO company for your business:

Pricing

How much an SEO company will ask you to pay for their services can be a direct indicator of the quality of work that they will do. If an SEO company has a very low price point for the services they want to provide you, you’re most likely getting poor quality work that will either have very little effect on your search engine rankings or worse, get you punished or blacklisted by the search engine.

Conversely, an SEO company with a high asking price might also not be aware of the conditions that they operate in; there are a lot of SEO agencies that provide high-quality work at reasonable market prices. It’s best to shop around and make a comparison so you can determine the average price for the amount of work you need done at the quality you want to have.

Timeframe

One thing businesses have to understand about SEO is that results do not show up in a matter of days. The indexing process takes a longer time than say, a week. Thorough research has to be done on the content that you provide, and the keywords that your target market uses regularly.

Additionally, search rankings done by Google, for example, are done on a periodic basis. The search ranking schedule alone should tell you that any SEO company who says that they can make your website land on the first page within two days to a week is probably overselling their capabilities or is unaware of how search engines work

Content

Reputable SEO companies will actually provide you with a few samples of the work they do based on previous client submissions. When examining their body of work, be on the lookout for content that has too many links. Overlinked articles will actually be penalized by search engines and will result in lower rankings or potential blacklisting.

It would also do well to ask about the quantity of the work that they submit to search engines. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have all advised that over-submission of a site to search engines can actually decrease your search ranking. So be wary if a company makes claims relating to the quality and quantity of the content they submit.

Local Branding

What Is an RTO and What Would You Need to Start One

on November 27, 2018

The education industry is a vast and diverse one, however, not all of its beneficial aspects are intellectual and altruistic. By becoming an RTO (registered training organization), you can provide an invaluable service to those who desperately need it while making a profit for yourself along the way. RTO is an organization that provides vocational education and training (VET) to students in order to prepare them for their specialized careers later on. Now, even though there are over 5000 RTOs in Australia, most of which are in specialized niches, there’s still some room for growth and advancement.

1. TAFE vs. RTO

Before we proceed to discuss this important issue, it’s important to mention that there are a lot of people who mistake the term TAFE (technical and further education) with the term RTO. While on the surface, these two terms may sound somewhat similar, the fact is that TAFE is government owned and RTO is privately owned makes all the difference in the world. Other than this, TAFE is less niched than RTOs, which are mostly oriented towards equipping one to deal with a very narrow, specific set of services. As for the popularity and the issue of how widespread both of these organization types are, last year about 2.4 million students enrolled in various RTOs across the country, while only about 739,000 did so in various TAFE organizations.

2. RTOs in the business world

One of the greatest differences between RTOs and the traditional, formal, education, lies in the fact that RTO has a great application in the business world. First of all, an RTO expert can make an estimate of skills that are in the greatest demand by your business, as well as compose a development of training program that will allow for it to satisfy its needs. Other than consulting and planning, an RTO can provide training equipment, personnel and reliable RTO materials that are necessary for this task. Most important of all, sometimes knowledge isn’t enough and, in that case, RTO can produce a nationally-recognized qualification or a certificate. In other words, the RTO system isn’t just an element in the present-day business world, it’s one of its supporting pillars.

3. Steps to start an RTO

In order to launch your own RTO, you need to apply for a registration and fulfill several vital steps. First of all, you have to complete the application, pay all the fees for initial registration, go through an initial annual RTO registration charge (right away) and, of course, meet data provision requirements. Keep in mind that this organization isn’t just educational but also financial, in nature, which is why it’ll have to undergo a thorough audit. Later on, if necessary, you’ll have to make certain changes to registration and renew it year after year. Australian Skills Quality Authority is in charge of this and their decision is final, yet, their decision can be contested and changed, provided that you manage to persuade them otherwise. Still, the body reviewing your registration usually tends to be fair and unbiased.

In conclusion

Regardless if you’re someone with an aspiration of starting your own RTO or merely aim to collaborate with one (individually or as a business). Knowing how they work, why they are relevant and what types there are may help you understand them better. As for the registration process, getting familiar with the organization in charge of their approval and supervision might help you trust them substantially more in the future. Either way, all of the above-discussed is a common knowledge that’s more than worth possessing, even though a lot of people still remain oblivious when it comes to specifics of this topic.

SaaS Branding

6 Essential Attributes Of Transformational Leadership

on November 26, 2018

Positions of leadership are meant to be for service; you are more of a servant that is working hard to shape the way for others to follow. The strategies discussed below are meant to help you become a better leader and are worth implementing in your daily life.

1. Understand Your Leadership Style

You should start with understanding the kind of leadership style you have; your strengths and weakness so that you know which areas need improvements. You can start by answering this leadership style questionnaire to help you have an idea of how you do things.

After that, you can read about the various attributes of a dominant leadership style and see if the qualities you exude help or hinder your leadership. You will know what to address and how once you know which areas need improvement. There is a big difference between styles – for example read the differences between transformational vs transactional leadership principles here to get an idea of the differences.

2. Be A Role Model

You will know you are a role model when your followers idealize you. Idealized influence is often a sign of excellent leadership and is among the four primary components of transformational leadership. Such a leader has a character and behavior that encourage others to want to be the same. How they walk, talk, and related with others is something the team members desire to emulate.

So, work on being a role model, and you will exude the qualities that make you be seen as a good leader.

3. Have A Positive Attitude

Any transformational leader should be upbeat, having an optimistic attitude that members can find to be a source of inspiration. A leader that seems weak, disheartened, or apathetic will never inspire his or her group members.

You should never seem dreary or disheartened even when things look bleak. While it does not mean that you always need to have high hopes things will get better, you should exude optimism in the face of uncertainties.

4. Listen & Communicate Effectively

A leader will encourage one-on-one communication among the members of the team. Every transformation leadership will never fail to express sincere care and concern, and this can should be evidenced through verbal and nonverbal communication.

The channels of communication should always be open so that member feel that their leader is always reachable and available to listen to their concerns and give recognition for their contributions.

5. Inspire Creativity

A transformational leader is one that perks intellectual stimulation in others. The under your leadership often need encouragement when it comes to expressing their creativity. Therefore, always provide ample support when your present new challenges and help your followers to exercise their creativity to come up with solutions confidently.

You can achieve this objective by the challenges your present and what you wish to achieve (the goals) are within your team members’ abilities. The aim should be to get them to stretch their creativity to the limit without feeling that their shortcoming regarding the same is a barrier to their success.

6. Be Passionate

As a leader, you should show that you genuinely care about the growth, goals, and success of your group. That is how the member of your team will look to you for guidance. You should not come across as being only focused on achieving set goals, but how you do it; having the passion and enthusiasm to guide your followers through the process.

Kind of different ways of doing things, of expressing your zeal, or showing you are there for your group. It is about showing you care and you appreciate the input of each member of the team.

instagram opens new marketing opportunities
Digital Branding

How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Brand

on November 26, 2018

Gone are the days when Facebook was the only platform where people could promote their brand or market their business. Now is the time when there are a lot of other social media platforms that are quite famous with higher user engagements than Facebook and here by those platforms we are talking about none other than Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest etc.

Encourage followers in Instagram marketing

Instagram is the application that has a lot of hype nowadays, and well, all the hype for this application is quite justified as there are more than 700 million monthly active users on Instagram and this figure is increasing each day. You might be wondering that what’s so special about this platform and why is it so famous nowadays. Well, there are two reasons to why Instagram is growing. First of all, it’s an easy to use application with no complications and second, it’s a visually based platform where your pictures and videos do the talking.

Now, if you are someone new to the digital marketing world and if you want to promote your brand then we’d suggest you to start with Instagram because it actually is a pretty effective platform that can bring you a lot of followers and customers within a short time span.

Want to know how to get started on Instagram? Well, here’s what you need to do;

Set up Instagran

1- Set up your business account

The first thing that you need to do is to set up your business account on Instagram, and that too is very easy. All you need to do is to sign up, put in your information, put your brand name, and get started. You will be guided by Instagram on what steps you need to take to make your account perfect for your brand. If it’s for your brand, then keep your personal account separate from your business account. Keep one thing in your mind that your audience cares about what you have to offer to them and how you are offering it to them. They clearly don’t care about your selfies or anything related to your personal life so make sure to stay brand oriented and focus on telling people about your brand.

2- Content matters the most

Sure, you can opt for buying Instagram followers but you need to make some effort on your own too, and that’s possible if you post quality content. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or any other platform, your content will always be the king, and you cannot drift away from this fact. So, the first thing you need to put all your focus on is your content. Make sure that you’ve got the best photography skills and the best-edited posts because that’s what will bring you more and more followers.

Use hashtagsin Instagram marketing

3- Using hashtags

Hashtags should be your number one priority because they will help you increase your visibility. At the end of the day, it’s all about increasing your visibility because that’s the only thing that will bring your more and more customers. You see Instagram allows you to put a total 30 hashtags under each of your posts and you need to think of these 30 hashtags as 30 different opportunities to come in front of your customers. So, never forget using the hashtags and give some extraordinary captions too.

Conclusion

These are some of the main tips that can help you promote your brand on Instagram. You can also use ads to increase your visibility and gather more customers. Use these tips, and we promise you that you will see some positive results within a short time period.

Digital Branding

Video Marketing Tips to Get You Ready for 2019

on November 26, 2018

Video marketing and video content, in general, will become more prominent in 2019. More and more marketers are using video content to convey key messages for one simple reason: the audience responds better to videos.

The video marketing landscape is about to get more competitive as we get closer to 2019, so it is time to bring your best game and craft a campaign that separates you from your competitors. These next tips and tricks will help you get ready for 2019.

Photo credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-person-watching-video-on-laptop-1321732/ 

Tell a Story

I cannot stress enough how important it is to tell a compelling story when producing video content for marketing purposes. While promotional videos worked really well a few years ago, the way forward is capturing the stories around your products and delivering those stories in a positive and engaging way.

Storytelling should be a big part of your video marketing campaign. The best agencies like Spiel Creative now focus not just on the short-term, in-the-moment stories, but also on the bigger picture; they use long-term brand stories to convey their message to the audience. You should too.

Make Demos Interesting

Just because you need to start telling stories, it doesn’t mean you should drop making product videos altogether. There are still ways to utilize product videos and product-related tutorials to engage the audience. That said, you need to make demo videos and other relevant content more interesting.

One of the ways you can do that is by employing 360-video technology. Rather than displaying the product in a more conventional way, you can add a 360-degree view of the product in video format. You can then use the content on your product page and other outlets.

Go with Explainers

Animated explainer videos, as well as whiteboard videos, are also going to be more popular in 2019. They are as effective as they were this year, but with a few added tweaks you can now use to boost the level of effectiveness further.

For example, you can make an explainer video that also works when the audience is only listening to the audio rather than actively watching the video. This is a content consumption pattern that it is certainly a trend you want to follow.

Think Mobile

Don’t forget that the majority of your viewers use mobile devices, which means you need to start tailoring your content for mobile audiences first. Avoid text and captions that are too small, elements that will not work on smaller screens, and videos that will not work without sound.

The latter is another data-driven strategy based on viewers’ content consumption pattern. We see people staring at their screens without wearing headsets, tuning in to videos with clear captions and engaging content that they really enjoy.

Rely on Data

Analytics and data-driven decision making are also becoming more prominent in 2019. The decisions you make regarding your video marketing campaign and the content you put out must take the available insights into consideration whenever possible; by “whenever possible,” I mean most of the time.

Data and other supporting information give you the reasons behind usage patterns and other insights you gather from the market. A good video marketing campaign is one that gets evaluated and refined regularly. The more you rely on data, the more you will understand your users and how to best cater to their content needs.

(Always) Deliver Value

While storytelling is the core of many successful video marketing campaigns in the future, delivering value remains one of the most important objectives to achieve. You cannot expect viewers to continue watching your videos when they don’t deliver value.

At the very least, you must deliver relevant information about your products and services. Adding information about how to benefit more from the products and services you have is also a good way to add value to your videos.

Commit!

Consistency is another important element if you want to have a successful video marketing campaign. You cannot build a larger and stronger audience base when you only upload one video every two months.

You need to invest in making more content while maintaining – if not improving – your production quality at the same time. Ideally, you want to release a new video every week to keep users excited and wanting for more. That takes a lot of commitment.

Involve the Customers

Telling stories about your products and services doesn’t always mean telling YOUR SIDE of the story. You can also explore the products’ stories from the customers’ standpoint. In fact, you should. Testimonials and user stories are some of the most engaging video content to produce right now, and it will continue to be impactful in 2019.

Always find ways to connect with your real customers and the audience in general. You can feature their stories to build even stronger relationships with the viewers. Besides, you can never go wrong with investing in relationships and maintaining genuine connections with your audience.

Use Video in Other Activities

Video marketing – just like other digital marketing instruments – cannot stand on its own. However, there so many ways to use video content to help the rest of your digital marketing efforts. You can, for instance, use videos to boost conversion rates with a stronger and more compelling call to action.

There is no better time to start crafting and fine-tuning your video marketing campaign for 2019 than right now. We are still a few weeks away from the New Year, but getting a head start is never a bad idea.

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