Why do I need to plan my brand?
It might seem obvious, but having a brand is just documenting the values, style and business plan that you probably already have in your head.
Why?
Firstly, it helps explaining/training staff.
It helps keep your staff, and even yourself, consistent when dealing with the day to day running of your business.
It improves sales and conversions.
Most importantly, it helps referrals. Customers will quickly tell if you and your staff are consistent in how the business is run – leading to more referrals.
What is a brand?
When asked, most business think a brand is:
- Their company name
- Logo
- Colours
- Fonts
- Products
- Style and design
If you’ve documented the above, then well done!
However, this is what we call a style guide, just one part of a good overall brand document.
Have you planned out your brand?
There are many books on the subject so, I won’t go into that much depth. Here are some quick steps:
- Your core differentiation. What makes your business different? On the phone, online, services etc… Why do your customers pick you? Every business thinks they have the best service. Instead of listing vague points try specifying how you go about your customer service step by step.
- Your unique values. What values are most important to you?When push comes to shove how would you order your values? Here’s a free set of values cards, You and your staff can have a go at sorting these cards and find out how you would order these values individually or as a group.
- Your customer’s persona. Make up a fake customer based on each of your major audiences. What’s their age, sex, likes, hates and fears? These personas will also help with your blog writing.
- Your customers’ journeys. Map out step by step how your customers would make a sale with you. Where do they look first? Do they ask other businesses/people for advice? What are their concerns and questions at each step of the process?
- Be honest. Brands are like people — we all have pros and cons. Being honest helps us fix the problems. Identifying what a competitor does better comes across as honest and down to earth. Business that lie or toot their own horns too much are quickly seen through by potential customers.
Internet explorer is dead! Long live Edge.
IE has been the bane of web designers since 2005. It is rarely updated which consequently means that it is buggy to develop for.
IE’s rendering engine trident, is over 20 years old. Time for something new.
What does this mean for the average IE user? Well on the new Edge all of the more modern features that other browsers have will start to work. These include newer design styles such as: shadows, rounded corners and much more. Hooray! No more tricks or hacks just to get websites to work in IE.
Questions and Answers
Q: What makes a lead generation homepage?
A: Great question, a good way to answer this is to flip it around.
A bad lead generation page would be something that’s ugly, purely informative, lacks a CTA, no clear message and no clear way to contact the owner.
So keeping the above in mind, the content writter needs to include these items whilst keeping their users engaged. first impression is key and secondly you need to clear tell the user/customer what to do next through a CTA.
Just for Fun
Bic uses the same photo to advertise their pens and razors.
