Radio interview – Ask Those Branding Guys radio show

Radio interview – Ask Those Branding Guys radio show

Why the Branding is the most valuable asset in your business?

It is a fact that your branding is the most important assets in your company, it is the only corporate asset that, managed properly, will never depreciate. Patents expire, software ages, buildings crumble, roofs leak, machines break, and trucks wear out. But a professional image will increase the value of your products and services.

But unfortunately branding has long been misunderstood. Too many business owners believe branding is a matter that only concern to big companies, but this is totally wrong; branding includes everything your company does, from the logo on its letterhead, to the way it handles customer complaints, to whether its uniformed personnel keep their shirts tucked in. It’s easy to limit your perspective of branding to the verbal and visual expressions your company puts into the marketplace, but there isn’t anything that anybody within your organization does that doesn’t affect at some level how your brand is perceived.

In other words, branding is your business reputation, all companies are careful to avoid doing anything that would harm their reputations, it takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute. Effective branding improves the visibility and respect for your product, services, or company. It attracts attention and drives sales. It also enhances margins, as customers are willing to pay more for products and services from companies they know and trust. Branding can also improve the internal dynamics of an organization and influence both recruiting and employee turnover.

Successful business branding is one of the most important aspects of building a successful company or business venture. Branding, when done right, will increase your visibility on the marketplace, draw your target market to you and increase your revenues. Branding is the solution for anyone who deals with people, even if you’re not in business.

One of the most crucial aspects of branding is continuity. There are many different ways to reach out to customers, publicize and promote your business and get your business name known and recognized. But sometimes it can seem difficult to transfer your brand image from one medium to another. What works well on a billboard may fail when transferred to a business card. When embarking on a branding or re-branding project for your company or business, you need consider all of the possible media which might be used to promote your business in the future, and consider how the brand image will translate across all of them fluidly, consistently and recognizably.

 

Is your business attracting the growing Hispanic market in the United States?

If the U.S. Hispanic market were its own country, its buying power would make it one of the world’s top 20 economies? Recession or no recession, U.S. Latino households earning $50,000 or more annually, are growing at a faster rate than total households? The U.S. Hispanic market is projected to account for $1.5 trillion in purchasing power by 2015? These stats are from a recent Nielsen report on Hispanic households in America. And I sure hope they whet your appetite to cater to this important and growing consumer group.

There are more than 52 million U.S. Hispanics, Nielsen says, and they are the fastest- growing ethnic group in the country. By 2050, the Hispanic population in the U.S. will grow by 167 percent, compared to just 42 percent for the overall population. One thing that makes Latinos a particularly profitable market is their youth. While the U.S. as a whole is graying, the median age of Hispanics in the U.S. is just 28 (almost 10 years younger than the overall median age of 37). More than half the U.S. Latino population is under 35 years old.

That means Hispanics are in the market for:

• New homes and everything that goes with them (appliances, furniture, décor, home services).
• Weddings and everything that goes with them (flowers, catering, honeymoons and travel).
• Children and everything that goes with them (clothing, accessories, toys, education and tutoring, extracurricular activities).

MediaPost reports that research firm IBISWorld has identified seven industries that will benefit most from the growing Hispanic population:

1. Residential buying, food (grocery and restaurants)
2. Retail (especially clothing and electronics)
3. Education (higher education and technical schools)
4. Financial services
5. Transportation (automotive and airline)
6. Entertainment
7. Media

Some additional facts for consideration:

• U.S. Hispanic purchasing power has surged to nearly $700 billion and is projected to reach as much as $1 trillion by 2007, nearly three times the overall national rate over the past decade. (Source: HispanTelligence®.
• The top areas where Hispanics spend more than non-Hispanics are: groceries, telephone services, furniture, men’s and boys apparel, children’s clothing and footwear. (Source: Selig Center.)
• The U.S. Hispanic market ranks as the third largest “Latin American economy” behind Brazil and Mexico.
• In 2002, there were 37.4 million Hispanics in the civilian, non-institutional population of the United States, representing 13.3 percent of the total U.S. population. Among the Hispanic population, two thirds (66.9 percent) were of Mexican decent, 14.3 percent were Central and South American, 8.6 percent were Puerto Rican, 3.7 percent were Cuban and the remaining 6.5 percent were of other Hispanic origins. (Source: US Census Bureau, June 2003.)
• There are more Hispanics living in the United States, than the entire population of Canada, which is 32.5 million. (Source: U.S. Census.) We are like a country within a country.
• Hispanic advertising by U.S. companies grew 24 percent in 2003, compared with 8.6 percent for the general market. (Source: Media Economics Group, research firm that tracks Spanish-language marketing.)
• By mid-century, 25 percent or one out of every four people in the United States will be Hispanic. The African American population by mid-century will remain at the current rate of 13 percent of the total United States population. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau.)

Are you targeting Hispanic customers in your marketing tactics and how is it working for your business?  if want to reach Hispanic consumers and introduce your product or service to this growing market, do not hesitate to contact us, this is a market we understand perfectly, we know the language, we have the experience, we have the connections and all the required elements to position your product and increase your sales and recognition

 

Tips to help you start your business on the right foot in 2014

Entrepreneurship is a hot topic in today’s society. The number of people starting businesses this year will likely be the highest ever. Business isn’t something that can be learned over night, nor is the learning the most important part in all honest. Building a business takes time, sweat, and persistence. If you want to be able to call yourself a successful entrepreneur, you’ll have to earn that title. However, it really isn’t that complicated of a thing to do (depending on the industry you are in obviously), and can be extremely rewarding. So here you have some tips that may help you to start a business in 2014.

 

Refine Your Idea

Before you get started, you’ll obviously need to have some sort of idea to run with. It doesn’t have to be unique (in fact, the best ideas usually aren’t), it doesn’t have to be super creative, but put some effort into this. Once you have a general idea of what you want to do, you should seriously consider niching down. What I mean by that is to focus on doing one specific activity for one specific group of people.

For example, if you want to start a freelance web design business, focus on one type of business to design web sites for, like maybe dentists. Or if you are thinking about doing landscaping, focus on a specific type of landscaping. There are endless possibilities, and it is better to be seen as the niche expert than a general business that doesn’t specialize in what a customer needs.

 

Get a plan

Many people think that they need to write a massive business plan if they want to start a business. However, this simply isn’t true anymore. In the modern day business culture, there is no reason to write a massive plan full of projections that are based on nothing more than conjecture. Your time and energy are better spent on proving you have a viable business model. This is oftentimes called the Lean Startup approach. You can read more about it here.

In essence, what you want to do is come up with a minimum viable business model which you can test. For instance, you may think your freelance writing business will do very well if you approach bloggers and pitch them to accept your writing. You would then test this by actually trying it, and if it worked you would scale the business. This is the basic formula that your business should follow regardless of the industry or scale.

 

Get Legal

You’ll of course need to legally file your business before you do almost anything else. While most businesses are legally Sole Proprietorships, I highly recommend that you file as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), regardless of what your business is. An LLC will protect you from personal legal liability in case your business gets sued, which is incredibly important for any business.

Say you get sued because you messed up installing a sink in a home, causing thousands of dollars in damage. The owner then sues you. If your business is a Sole Proprietorship, they can go after both the businesses assets, and your PERSONAL assets. That means they can take your house, car, and anything else you own. However, an LLC makes it so the business is liable for itself, and the owners are not legally required to pay such debts.

 

Get a website

It is really important that people can access your website at all times and that they can find the information they need in a simple way. A proper good quality website can really help you boost your business’ brand. So make sure that your website is up to date. You can even re-launch it to better suit your brand image. There are plenty of good website tips at the Flyte website. Make sure that you also optimise your website for mobile phones in 2014.  

 

Start Marketing

Once you’ve made the necessary investments, you’re ready to start marketing. This will of course vary widely depending on what kind of business you are starting, but the key is to simply make it happen in some form or another, which is what most people tend to do.

If you need some help creating a website or creating some marketing for your business, please contact us, we are here to help you.

How to create a big brand logo

The process to create a professional logo is complex and subjective, the result depends of the graphic designer creativity and knowledge, it is important to understand that the main purpose of your logo is to create a connection between your brand and clients and not to satisfy a personal taste, if you understand this principle, it could be easier for you to judge your logo, or even you can analyze the strategy that you are using to promote your product or service, if you don’t have a logo yet, this is an excellent guide to get excellent results. Here is a list describing some common principles applied by professional graphic designers and advertising agencies to create iconic and recognized logos.

 

1. Your logo should be Simple

Simplicity, this is the most important rule to communicate our ideas,  We are exposed  to tons of information every single day, everything must be simple to get  our attention and the  logos are not the exception,  simple logos are recognized immediately, the color is another important aspect, usually a good concept looks amazing in black and white, the shape by itself should send the message to your clients and prospects, Logos with more than 2 colors and special effects or shadows, become weak and useless in small applications such as favicons and apps icons.

 

2. Your logo should be memorable and understood for everybody

The human capacity to remember is an important detail to be considered to create your logo, a good concept is usually placed in your head at first contact, this value makes it memorable. The shape of a logo is an important part here, logos with details and complex shapes are hard to remember and the brand identity usually get  lost,  if you see the Target logo above, you don’t have to look twice to put it in your brain, even you don’t need to be an artist to draw this logo on a piece of paper, which means this brand is been positioned really good  in your head.

 

3. Your logo should be proper

A logo shouldn’t explain what the company does, if you sell shoes, you don’t need a shoe in your logo, the most important objective is to transmit feeling and emotions, the logo should inspire to your clients to think in your brand in the way that you want to be recognized, that is why before create a professional logo you  should keep in mind what is your niche or ideal client and what do you want to communicate, for example take a look to the BMW logo above, it is  luxurious, classic, elegant. This principle will help you to identify some issues in the way you are presenting your company, maybe you have a great and modern logo with a sportive style for a company that produces classic furniture.

 

4. Your logo should be timeless

Being timeless means that your logo is so perfect that it doesn't need to be redesigned to get the same impact in future years. Products and services every day are better and competitive, but a company that wants to be in trend with the latest fashion in logo design might think they should change their logo every year, but that is a grave error, the customer hardly learned the logo and got use to it in a year, for example the Coca-Cola logo was introduced in 1887 and it has never been modified.

 

5. Your Logo should be able to Use on a variety of formats and media

The way how your logo is presented and displayed is really important, if you want recognition this is a fact that you should keep in mind, in the past the marks, logo or trademarks were used only in printed material, but these days everything has changed, a professional logo should be clear enough to be used in print, in a very high-resolution, apps, banner, business cards, T-shiert and even movil advertising.

What happens when you remove your logo from your branding?

First of all, your branding is more than just your logo. Branding is the perception that people have about your business, for that reason you can recognize some companies even without seeing their name or logo. So taking your company logo and adding it to a random picture or marketing piece is not enough to communicate your company`s message.

You brand identity is a detailed combination of images, typefaces and colors that need to communicate the same IDEA or FEELING. Your message must be consistent and all your marketing communication should be more congruent.

It is always important to bring new and refreshing elements through your marketing, so you can occasionally change some visual elements, but they must remain relevant and related to the product or service you offer. You can change typefaces and shapes sometimes, but you must always reflect your corporate culture and transmit the emotions you want your customer to feel.

Big brands don`t change much in the way they present their products and services, and when they do, they have a good reason for doing so. In simple terms, your branding is what differentiates you from the competition. It might be a certain design, a type of approach towards society and the clients or a certain policy. Brands usually communicate their message through names, terms, designs or symbols, basically everything that leaves the company.

What happens when you remove the logo? It depends on how good your branding is. If you have not spent enough time creating a strong message, removing the logo will be comparable to disaster, because your logo has been the only way the consumers were used to recognize your business.

As a business owner you need to create a brand that communicates your message through a certain line of illustrations, colors and feelings that are repeatedly conveyed through your stationery and marketing material. The logo is really important and it is there to remind everyone who`s taking responsibility for the message, in other words, your logo is your business signature and it should be supported by the branding to communicate the message.

Logo design for an international non-profit organization

Brainstorming

More than creating a logo to identify HESED as a traditional sports brand, it is important to highlight the humanitarian cause, HESED is a non-profit organization which fights poverty using sports and culture by doing humanitarian and social actions around the world.  The word HESED is totally new for us, but since it is the brand name, we must have a clear understanding of  its meaning. HESED  is a Hebrew word that means loving kindness and loyalty, which are perfect adjectives to identify the brand mission and vision. HELP PEOPLE.

 

Research

As was mentioned by the clients, their competitors are Adidas, Reebok, Nike and other sportswear brands, but an element that makes the different from these commercial brands is that HESED will be using the entire profit to fight poverty around the world, reason why we must include in our research some references from other organization with a similar mission.

If we observe these logos, we can identify two groups, on top we have some sports brands suggested by the client and at the bottom we have some well-known humanitarian organizations, if we see the styles are clearly different, while the sports brands use lines with movements and sharp traces, the other group logos use elements related with their mission; except one, Bennetton, this is not exactly a sports brand, but it has a strong image in the fashion industry and its campaigns are usually linked with humanitarian content, which are common factors with HEDSED.

Sketching

Here we have some random sketches that I have created to experiment possible shapes and forms to create the logo.

Logo Characteristics

After some modifications and final adjustments this is our proposal. HELP PEOPLE, these two words define the HESED mission as a non-profit organization, but it is important to understand that work against poverty takes more than good intentions and a good heart, and this is what I’m representing in this logo, A strong and bold heart helping poor people around the world.



 

We understand this is not a traditional graphic representation of a heart, make it obvious could lead us to a weak concept and become one of the hundreds companies using a heart as a logo. Another important aspect is the simplicity and connection with the brand name,  if we see the construction process at the left, after selecting the right typography, after couple movements we have and strong and solid concept.



 

Final logo and usage samples

Here we can see how the logo could be used over different colors