Summarizing a few key points for online marketing:
E-commerce:
Learning the basics of creating an E-commerce site for business has excellent value in reaching a broader audience than a brick & mortar business. Since customers are investing more time shopping and comparing products on the internet, designing a robust marketing strategy for your e-commerce store is worthwhile. Also, take into consideration the money saved on overhead.
User-centered design knowledge:
Learning about design aspects that turn off users and cause them to leave a website has immense value. Just knowing you have seconds to grab the users interest to create a potential lead any business with a website should be aware of this information.
Branding Your Business:
In a well thought out brand design, so crucial in creating trust and loyalty from your target audience. Having a reliable branding voice is also vital to creating loyal employees. This gives them something to believe in and stand behind. Your brand is built through your business, logo, website and social media platforms.
Website Creation Process:
Learning what is significant about a user-friendly website is essential in generating new business to increase traffic and lead generation. Having good navigation that is quick and easy to find answers that new user to your website is essential for capturing a new lead. Reinventing the wheel is not necessary with web design, following already established expectations to how a website should function is key. Definitely, putting in efforts in implementing usability tests is crucial for customer satisfaction on your website.
Usability pioneer Jakob Nielsen is interviewed on how to conduct a simple user test.
Performing a Usability Test is valuable to business both big or small for understanding just what potential customers to your business are experiencing when visiting the website. For conducting a usability test, a business does not need a lot of participants, just testing 5 people can give useful insights into the user experience.
The first goal with testing participants is to decide on practical tasks to be performed as a ‘customer.’ Prepare by deciding which tasks to test, have the participant proceed with one task at a time.
As the participant works through tasks, the facilitator will sit next to them.
Remember this is to watch how the participant goes through the process of using your website, so as the facilitator you give no directions because you are looking for the experience of the test subjects.
You are also looking for a running monologue of the user’s experience with the test scenarios.
Other important factors to track in conducting your usability test is recording keystrokes and visual expressions for each task. When the test is done, then going through the data collected to decide what was a failure in user experience or a winner.
The video relates to the usability test that I worked on designing this last week, well its an interview with Jakob Nielsen, the usability guru. Also, I am going to be performing a ‘simplified’ usability test on a peer from my class to practice what I have learned.
Reference
“How to Conduct a Simple User Test with Jakob Nielsen.” YouTube, 28 May 2010, youtu.be/r0A6IW2TFFI.
For this assignment, we are given a scenario; that as a web designer significant issues are discovered in the testing. The client does not want to pay any more to fix the problems and just “roll” with the site as it is. How would I deal with the problem?
In my Customer Service class, a student had described a company’s service he had received as “Customer Service on Steroids.” I took his point as a mantra I wanted for future business.
So, I will be referencing the steps I have learned in that class.
First of all, I would like to say; I am hoping to make any situation as a “win-win” for all involved. To best resolve issues by keeping everyone’s dignity intact, and also have all involved feel that there is some sort of satisfaction for the end results.
The Problem-Solving Process:
Identify the Problem: Begin the problem-solving process with apologies for any inconvenience that they have felt caused by you or your organization. Taking responsibility will show your client you are aware there is an issue, and you are working to resolve the situation. Then gather information about the issues at hand that need to be dealt with to resolve.
Compile and Analyze the Data: To efficiently determine a course of action, you need a thorough understanding of the problems.
Identify The Alternatives: Let the client know you are willing to work with them to find an acceptable resolution to the issue.
Evaluate the Alternatives:
What is the most efficient way to solve this problem?
Which are the most effective options for solving these problems?
Will the options being considered solve the problem and satisfy the customer?
Will the selected alternative create new issues?
Monitor the Results: Once a decision has been made, monitor the effects of the results. Do not assume that your client is satisfied, especially if any negotiation has taken place to resolve the issues.
Also, keep in mind, that rolling with the site with issues, could become a calling card of the work you did, and could possibly affect future business. So finding a win-win situation to find a solution for all involved is critical for their business and yours.
Reference
Lucas, R. W. (2015). Customer Service Skills for Success(6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.
Coming up with new and relevant ways to expand your client base should be apart of your everyday operations in running your business. Setting aside at least an hour a day just to focus on building your client base will be rewarded in sustaining a thriving business.
Have Friends With Benefits
Finding resources from local businesses that have a relationship to your business but not your competition is win-win for all involved. For example, you have a business that requires a membership to receive your services and you are surrounded by other businesses. Talk to those business owners about providing a special discount to your members, and you will do the same for their customers.
Always Listen
Talk to your client base, listen to what they are saying about you and your products. Your loyal customers will give you the inspiration for how to attract new clients.
Speak To Your Audience
Checking data analytics to find your target audience is valuable to get your brand and message in front of your potential new customers and to speak to the emotional needs that your services or products can provide to them. Using Google Analytics is a great way to start.
Create An Irresistible Offer
For effective marketing, you need to be able to answer the user’s question in one clear sentence.
“20 days for 20 dollars to find a new way to improve health!”
Close The Sale
You must be able to provide enough information, answer questions and concerns, show value for your services and products so your potential new customers will buy with confidence.
In order to boost the success of marketing efforts, it is necessary to have a strategic branding voice for your products & services. Good branding conveys emotional engagement to the target audience. The element of human engagement is also essential in the branding tone.
Taglines
(Zulily’s current “Tagline.”)
Something Special Every Day
Zulily’s taglines expresses a vital brand feature referencing that they have sales and events every day for moms.
According to “Elements of a Successful Brand 2: The Tagline”;by Lee Frederiksen, Ph.D.; Lee explains what a Tagline should do:
A good tagline should elicit a response from its audience. It should do one or more of the following:
Clarify (what you do, how you are positioned, etc.)
Express an important brand attribute
Support your positioning
Help people recognize and remember you
Know Your Audience
Find Your Niche to Speak too
Zulily’s branding is targeting moms with incredible prices on clothing, home décor, toys, gifts and more. They use colors that are softer, the fonts are simple and clean, and the brand feels fresh in the design. The website shares the energy of happy toddlers. The overall design feels like a young mom lifestyle.
Emotional Engagement With Your Target Audience
Zulily has partnered with Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research
This is how they show empathy through their branding. They are an advocate for childhood cancer research. Partnering with an organization in their community has a strong emotional appeal to family and community.
This humanizing element to their branding strategy, shows the company has values, and a company that stands for something stimulates loyalty from their audience.
STOP designing & look at the website through a visitor’s eyes to find and fix usability issues.
Is your design killing off visitors? Have you added everything that supposed to be on a website, and then some? Are you trying to be everything to everyone, and still you are not attracting new visitors or customers?
There are many common mistakes made in the design that do not enhance the visitor’s experience just frustrates them. Within seconds they left for the other guy’s website that has all their answers.
Make Information easy to find!
Visitors have questions they are seeking to find; if the answers are not clear, they will leave.
Answers to Visitors Questions:
Product information
Pricing
Contact information
Other essential information on the website
Where are these answers? Are they above the fold? Can the visitor clearly spot where to go…or was there a clever title disguising the information?
Don’t Make Visitors Think!
Call to action is above the fold
Provide a clean layout
Make your navigation easy to follow
Visual grouping of relevant content
Space is Valuable is Used Correctly
I like the concept of thinking of the website as real estate and inventory the value that each area has for the visitor entering your domain.
Having a good tagline is considered valuable real estate. Your tagline can be an efficient way to get your message across.
Get Rid of Distractions
Is the website screaming go away?
Popups are annoying
Clutter says to visitors; “ Too much of nothing you want to deal with, try another site!”
Videos that incorporate autopay send the visitors to exit the site!
Final Thought
Sometimes the design ego needs to wait in the hall because the visitor’s experience is what the website needs to be about.
My PLN project is focused on entrepreneurship and starting a new business plan.
Spending time with researching, finding resources and answers to many of the questions involved with opening a new business will increase the chances of success of my business.
Putting together my business plan with help to work through documentation necessary for possible investors and/or financing.
I feel other aspects of research prior to opening is things not to do in business planning, look into areas not to waste budgeted money or other advice from established entrepreneurs.
Another part of preparing a business plan is a marketing plan for your business. Designing a reliable strategy for using social media platforms can have an effective ROI for your marketing budget.
Working through designing a business, setting goals, examining the unknowns, creating a marketing strategy will lead to a path of triumph for success beyond the first year of operation.
Young Entrepreneurs Forum has put together ten key areas to work from in developing your business strategy. Designing a solid business plan will help to separate reality from expectations. In starting a new business, you need to be well informed about your industry, competition, and potential opportunities.
These simple vital ideas are a great starting point for me to develop a business plan. I would take each of these concepts and put into a binder. Each key point would become a section to work on developing the necessary information in creating a business plan. From those areas I can research by asking questions, surfing the internet, also reading books and articles.
Reference
“10 TIPS FOR STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS in 2017.” YouTube, Young Entrepreneurs Forum, 15 June 2016, youtu.be/wxyGeUkPYFM.
Video Links #2
The top 7 things NOT to do when starting a business
Taking Evans talking points into account that they are areas of business I feel is beneficial to put thought into before you are stuck in a bad situation. Looking at business partnerships as a marriage, before going all in, to try working on small projects together to see if you are compatible with working together 24/7. Get out and hustle, having creative ideas to use for building a business before you spend, such as using interns. As for limiting your beliefs, I will always be open to learning from other people or resources. To find success remember to be fluid in finding answers.
Reference
Carmicheal, Evan. “The Top 7 Things NOT to Do When Starting a Business.” YouTube, Evan Carmicheal, 13 Jan. 2015, youtu.be/QsNdXC_2b1o.
Video Links #3
How To Write a Business Plan To Start Your Own Business
Young Entrepreneurs Forum has put together nine essential steps to begin writing a business plan.
The explanations of each critical point are explained well enough to grasp the information you are gathering for a new business. I would go on clarifying the necessity of each step for a business plan will do more than just preparation, but possibly help to determine if your business concept will be viable.
I feel this is a relevant source for the beginning stages of a business plan. Again I would take each of these concepts, make them a topic of research in a binder.
Reference
“How To Write a Business Plan To Start Your Own Business.” YouTube, Young Entrepreneurs Forum, 29 June 2016, youtu.be/Fqch5OrUPvA.
Video Links #4
Small Business Marketing 101: Creating a Marketing Plan
Dragons Awakening has put together essential marketing questions you should ask before diving into a marketing plan. With a plan well-designed marketing plan, you are driving business in all phases of ups and downs in revenue.
Having the answers to these questions will be my roadmap to designing a marketing strategy plan. I found the questions for understanding your marketing need to be the focus from startup and forward on, as apart of operations to continue acquiring new customers, retaining customers and how to win back a lost customers. Remember your customers are online looking for answers!
Reference
“Small Business Marketing 101: Creating a Marketing Plan.” YouTube, Dragons Awakening, 5 Mar. 2016, youtu.be/12ELgUPG4D8.
TeamBeachBody has leading coaches Bonnie Engle & Amy Silverman to explain how to build your personal brand and grow your audience through your social media. This would begin with thinking about what attracted you to the business. Was it the lifestyle, friendships, the ability/freedom, fun, or finding solutions to peoples answers? So how do you craft your messages, so your audience feels the same way?
I am happy to find this message structured for the fitness industry; it will better serve me to finding a branding voice. They continue to talk about finding a voice that feels natural to you and how to translate that into your social media content.
Reference
“Creating Your Own Personal Brand.” YouTube, TeamBeachbody, 13 Oct. 2016, youtu.be/a-te19fAIis.
Planning how to deliver your social media messages are essential for a business & marketing strategy. Warren starts with the importance of understanding your target customer to be able to convert them to a loyal customer.
Links are provided to different analytics or research to go into each platform to find best uses as it pertains to your business.
I feel staying up to date on how social media platforms are being used in the industry is vital to be able to stay on top of current trends, also to be aware if your message is not appropriately focused to your target market.
Benjamin gives you steps that will help the new business owner narrow down options as you create the perfect name. But having a name is not the only part of the process, the critical step is finding out if you can legally use the name because of federal trademark laws. Don’t worry if you are struggling; companies change names all the time.
I feel would I use Benjamin’s steps in preparing for marketing strategies. I would also use the links provided to government agencies and domain registers; this will give the feeling of something real is happening for my startup business plan!
Careful consideration is necessary of what your business structure is going to be since they are creations of state law. This is another area that needs the business owner’s attention because of the implications it will have on how IRS taxes your business profits. Andrew provides brief explanations of each type of structure with links to follow for more information.
In choosing my business structure, words that caught my attention was “what’s your tolerance for risk to personal assets?” After reading on, taking into consideration how I will set up a business structure is important because of the potential of lawsuits.
Understanding the process of taking out a business loan can seem intimidating, so having a guideline of what the bank’s expectations are and how to prepare to meet with the banks is provided in this blog.
Making sure I have a detailed qualified business plan prepared since it is often apart of the financing application, I would work on correctly putting together a knowledgeable plan that will have added benefits if financing is necessary. I feel this information is valuable in understanding the loan process, options and types of loans, gathering your documents, and expectations from lenders are broken down into manageable information put together to guide any business owner looking into financing.
Marketers are using Facebook Graph as a powerful marketing tool. Christian Karasiewicz breaks down the many uses Facebook Graph for developing and building your audience for your services/products on Facebook. Learning about the fans on Facebook, the business can use this information in communicating more value to them.
For building a more significant audience before opening a new business, the opportunity to have begun developing content to speak to this audience is powerful in predesigning posts for scheduled posts. I could identify potential local competitors, find out peoples interests, and increase brand awareness.
By Nicole Fallon, Business News Daily Managing Editor
Nicole Fallon has put together a practical step-by-step guide for digging into entrepreneurship.
Areas that Nicole shared explanations, options and some resources that I will focus on:
Assess your finances
Determine your legal business structure
Register with the government & IRS
Purchase an insurance policy
Choose your vendors
This article has multiple links throughout to government agencies to help with putting together a solid plan for starting my business. Nicole is straightforward in talking about how easily these details can slip your mind, or you will deal with later, that these important details should not be neglected.
Barbara puts out thoughtful questions that any new entrepreneur should ask themselves, to have realistic expectations about themselves since opening a business is time-consuming.
Questions to consider about yourself:
Are you a self-starter?
Can you get along with diverse types of people?
Are you risk-tolerant?
Flexible and self-disciplined?
Taking into consideration my personality type, work ethic, and expectations will guide my process of starting a business. These considerations will benefit in understanding my limitations. Working through the relevant links provided for resources, I could consider what would be better to hire for consultations or to handle the work necessary for the business.
This article breaks down areas of budgeting with explanations of the financial needs of the business. The article also gives a list of questions that a startup needs to address in budget planning.
After reading the list of questions, I felt stress about how to budget for financial obligations, I think a good beginning is figuring out the areas that I understand how to get the answers, then continue with researching the unknowns. Then following their guidelines for preparing for long-term budgeting and scheduling a time to work on continued budget planning throughout the year will be a better plan for success.
In running operations of a small business, it can be overwhelming, the number of apps and Software-as-a-Service (Saas) tools from competing service providers.
Megan Totka helps to begin to narrow your search down to:
Research and Development (R&D)
Production
Sales and Marketing
Operations
For each of these areas, Megan clarifies what it means to business then reviews apps and software accordingly. I would focus on the areas of business that needs improvement so I can determine where to get the most “bang for the buck.”
The areas that I would investigate finding Saas/apps for my business would be:
There are many “startup to-do lists” for getting your business up and running. Well, she is adding another list to go through, that is knowing about business laws.
The more you know, is always better for protecting yourself, take for instance the email law, this is the CAN-SPAM Act. Another area that I feel is important for any business that is collecting customers information for their computer systems is Privacy laws requiring Data Security. Among many of the business laws that are expected; such as business licenses, Federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws, and taxes.
Reference
Furgison, Lisa. “20 Business Laws Every Entrepreneur Should Know About.” Bplans Blog, 12 May 2017, articles.bplans.com/20-business-laws-every-entrepreneur-should-be-familiar-with-in-2015/.
Embedded or Linked Slide Presentations, Book Reviews, Social Networking Sites
Your logo can create a lasting impression on people. It is important to understand how your logo speaks to your brand with the messages it sends to your customers.
The messages you could focus your logo to ‘say’:
Exude expertise & professionalism
Show sophistication
Exude confidence, spirit, or playfulness
A sense of nostalgia
Focus on a niche in the market
The takeaway is a logo should be adaptable and effective. Taking time to study other logos for the impression people get from those logos will hopefully fine tune the message I want to send with my logo, brand & business.
Amy teaches how to put a marketing plan together in 3 phases:
Attraction
Promotion
Sales
Businesses should always be looking to attract new people, using a Graph Search is very valuable to get to know the business’ fan base already on their page. This will help you find out where people are spending their time.
I would work on building a solid marketing plan for my business and put time into developing a great Facebook page, creating enjoyable content and posting consistently. If your fans know that you always there and able to answer questions you become a resource, they trust.
Host Racheal Cook interviews Francesca Cervero on Yogipreneur Radio.
Many new studios start with spending a lot of budget for branding, imagery, photoshoots, and expensive websites are where the initial budget does not need to be the priority. These expenses do not start to pay for itself in the beginning. There needs to be a focus on how they are going to do business first.
I appreciate the point of view these experienced ‘yogipreneurs’ explaining transitioning your yoga career to business owner of a studio? What expenses do you need to focus on now and what expenses could wait? Creating a sustainable, livable income should be considered when switching from teaching on the side to opening a business.
Reference
Cook, Racheal. “How Much Does It REALLY Cost To Start a Yoga Business?” The Yogipreneur, 24 Aug. 2016, theyogipreneur.com/episode29/.
With so many details involved with starting a new business, finding a location needs careful consideration in the plan. This means to figure out what you can tolerate in finances but also is the location ideal for the business you are planning to open. This part of the process is tedious and exciting but is an essential step. Some mistakes in a startup can be corrected later; location is sometimes impossible to repair.
I would take into consideration the demographics of potential locations and if there’s sufficient population of my target audience to support my business. More to consider in finding a location is foot traffic and parking. What is my competition in the neighborhoods of potential locations? This slideshow breaks down 10 key points that I would use as guidelines for finding the ideal location.
Luke Tucker gathered a collection of tips for starting a business from successful investors & entrepreneurs. Luke identifies these tips and follows up with an “actionable” tip to use the advice. These tips I found are filling in the finer points in the critical areas of starting a business. As going through the process of putting together a business design, these tips are useful in expanding the research for better clarity to the plan.
In preparing for starting a business putting in the time to work out the unknowns of the business plan is time-consuming but well worth the efforts to finding success. I have found there are many common factors shared in all the resources I have gathered for my “Personal Learning Network.”
Find your passion in what you are looking to do, because starting a business takes a lot of your time and it will be more beneficial if you love what you do!
Take time to assess yourself in understanding the demands involved with opening a business.
Sweat equity, find resources and answers, ask questions and do research to limit costly mistakes.
Continuing education about business, social media marketing, other aspects of business is essential to preparing, maintaining and growing your business.
Get advice, consultations, and find mentors for guidance.
Know your market, demographics, economics necessary for your industry.
Remember, customers are spoiled with choices for their answers, products, or services, so excellent customer service, branding, and a grand marketing strategy are necessary to build customer loyalty.
“The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low cost producer is the only winner.”
Philip Kotler Professor at the Kellogg School of Management
“How to use social media to build my personal brand.”
My goal is to open a business when I finish my certifications and recognizing the importance social media plays in marketing my business; I want to establish an excellent branding voice.
In the meantime, I am starting from scratch in my business plan, I want to develop my branding voice to engage potential customers. I love collecting tips and strategies as a resource to guide and develop my business; researching for a PLN, Personal Learning Network, will give me the opportunity to design a compelling branding voice for producing content in any social media platform.
A business that has created unique branding and is able to carry that statement through to the staff speaks volumes to the importance of living what you believe. This can become the comprehensive guide in creating new content for any marketing plan on any medium or platform.
Following CoSchedule’s process, I feel will help with making my branding feel cohesive across all social media for my business. Their plan would help identify areas of branding that might have been missed in relation to content. Their plan also is a quick reference for anyone needing to recheck work for editing before publishing.
“If your logo didn’t appear with your content, could your audience identify the content as coming from your brand? Would someone viewing your content on different channels know it all came from the same brand?” questions Erika Heald. She explains how inconsistent branding happens as the business grows.
In her blog, she explains how to break down the branding that you have already established for business into a simplified form for reference. I found her design is great for working on creating content to reference. In her chart, you have your ‘voice characteristics’ then followed with “Do & Don’t” on how you want to convey that voice.
In marketing when they say brand voice, they are referencing the authentic personality of your brand. The brand voice is the outline of your social content. From blog posts to Facebook, Twitter to Instagram you should speak seamlessly to your audience.
I found interesting was Stephanie’s exercise of “we are, we are not” to help set boundaries in your social media not to cross.
Outline my verbal identity:
Will you write in shorthand?
Will you use slang?
How about emojis?
I will take into consideration my demographic and psychographic information about my target audience to better frame my content appropriately.
Lauren Pope talks about her love of style guides when working with clients. To have a process that everyone buys into when creating content will have tangible results. In having a style guide ready, it will work as an agreement about the right way to communicate with users.
Brief descriptions of Lauren’s elements for a style guide:
Voice is a description of the unique, distinctive voice of your brand
Tone is how to use your voice in different situations
Style is a house ‘style’ for what your writing looks like
I found this information is useful in fine tuning some of the subtler points of my branding.
“Why is the tone of voice important? It’s the expression of the people behind the brand. A tone of voice both embodies and expresses the brand’s personality and set of values” explains Harriet. Harriets blog is an in-depth explanation of the importance of establishing your business tone and breaks down key points into developing your tone.
To have my branding tone support building trust but also influence and persuade my target audience will help in the long term relationship with my consumer. Pinning down the businesses core values will help with communicating the business’s message through social media.
Finding your voice in branding yourself in your content and not be a copycat of other peoples styles, can feel like you are frozen in your tracks. How do you add your genius to your content? Struggling with ideas to be authentic to your own brand in writing content for videos?
Marie gives some great ideas to make your content feel authentic to your brand. So challenge yourself to take one idea and express it 5 different ways. Another thought is to use your own life to share your stories. If you are using your own stories to inform your users, this way you can say what you want to say from your own experiences.
Reference
Forleo , %. (2012, July 16). How to Create a Brand & Find Your Voice. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://youtu.be/0CLNCd2XWgo
Video Links #2
Social Media Hacks for Building Your Personal Brand — 3 Strategies
Benji Travis and Sean Cannell from Video influencers share tactics and personal branding techniques for growing your brand online and your YouTube channel. They take into consideration how people use different social media for personal use.
They suggest beginning with 1 or 2 platforms to master when you are developing your brand. In understanding your niche will help you choose the platforms to begin with, such as if your niche is a female base, then maybe having a deep understanding of Pinterest will be the right area to focus your branding voice. Video is a powerful platform to use in building your online branding presence. What I noticed in the video, they referenced themselves subtly throughout the video to remind you whom you are watching.
Reference
Travis, B., & Cannell, S. (2016, September 10). Social Media Hacks for Building Your Personal Brand – 3 Strategies. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://youtu.be/luIn1b7wW7o
Sunny shares how she builds her community and her social audience to have potential customers or loyal ambassadors to her brand. Some of her strategies, that I took away from her video, are to have all her social links in her videos and in the description of videos. She will produce videos in advance with scheduled released dates but makes sure to not have anything in the content that does not reveal ‘date’ of production, so everything can feel timeless when posted. Another strategy in video branding is have your branding colors and fonts consistent on all videos, so her audience will always be aware that they are watching something produced by her.
Reference
Lenarduzzi, S. (2017, February 21). How to Build Your Brand Using Video. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://youtu.be/Op12UhQaJIk
Video Links #4
DIY Branding – Pinterest Inspiration Board, Mood Board, Color Palette
Christina Drawdy when working with clients to create a branding design begins with working on Pinterest with an inspiration board. This gives the client a chance to show her what they would like her to use when designing their brand. Using these techniques is about finding what speaks to you, what resonates with you, what shows your personality.
This will in working out branding design in hiring someone to work with, so there is no disconnect to my in goals.
She continues in demonstration to show how she pulls colors and elements to create a color palette I can use.
Key terms Christina uses when working on an inspiration/ mood board:
(Try to pin a minimum of 50 items)
Script fonts (for inspiration only, because might not work well in design). You will probably use a script font and a clean, simple font for your design
Color; pin colors your eye is drawn too, to build a brand that is unique to you
Textures
Geometric patterns/ patterns
Quotes
Reference
Drawdy, C. (2017, November 09). DIY Branding – Pinterest Inspiration Board, Mood Board, Color Palette. Retrieved February 01, 2018, from https://youtu.be/cDKSwPPTK4Y
Sometimes a business loses itself in the process of building a business. Donna energetically explains how to bring out the essence of you for your branding.
Triple C Effect
Charm
Commitment
Character
The window to your soul! I found that Donna brings in a style design that will begin with YOU finding your emotional engagement to your audience. Emotional engagement is expressed in many teachings of connecting to your audience, but nothing I have found brings you into the mind frame of doing it. She takes you into your freedom zone to how to communicate with your tribe!
Reference
Arrogante, Donna. “How to Find Your Brand Voice.” YouTube, Brand Essence TV, 25 Apr. 2014, youtu.be/Kl1roA5N9a4.
“Like a first date, you need to woo your audience with your voice. Set the mood to find a little inspiration.” Explains Adriana Lopez about finding your voice to speak to your audience. Your brand voice must be consistent with your product or your message and must have some personality to interreact or gain their trust.
Questions to ask
What is the perception you want people to have about your brand?
Do you want to change people’s perception about a product?
How do you want to make people feel or react to your product?
Making time to look at my services objectively as it pertains to the future audience will prove valuable.
“You have put in the long hours and finally finished making that killer product or service, but your work is not yet done – now you need to introduce people to this offering.” Chuck Cohn explains to maximize your marketing ROI.
Finding your branding voice to target your ideal audience is a consistent reminder this is necessary for a marketing plan. To have a sufficient ROI for marketing is in determining what your audience needs, wants or feel from your business products or services.
Chuck simplifies the process into 2 key topics:
Sharpen your focus
Obtain data
I will go through the process of narrowing the target market down into central niches to send better structure marketing for building my brand.
“How do you set yourself apart on Instagram?
I can resonate with different audiences and different niches and build up audiences within different niches instead of just my own personal brand. I understand how different people react to different things, and I think what’s given me that ability is just having different backgrounds myself.”
Lydia Belanger does a question and answer with Instagram Icon Luis Garcia to find out how he has found success through branding himself with Instagram.
I found Luis story inspirational in his creative ways to find mentors to build the incredible following he has developed mainly focused on Instagram.
Reference
Belanger, L. (2018, January 31). This Army Veteran’s Mastery of Instagram Began With Cold Emails to Potential Mentors. Retrieved February 01, 2018, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/308287
Nothing is better than getting straightforward answers from the source!
Pinterest provides guidelines to best utilize Pinterest for your business branding on their website. They provide general rules on how to best present your assets on their platform. They just stress that you do not make it appear that Pinterest is sponsoring your platform. This includes pictures of dos & don’ts. This article provides basic guidelines to get started on Pinterest so not to get in trouble with them by misrepresenting or misspeaking your use on their platform. Some of the suggestion take aways possibly should be considered when producing your own content, such as do not put their watermark in your pictures, well you should create your own watermark for branding your pictures for when they shared.
Creating a strategy for brand awareness means understanding how to best utilize a social media platform. With a brand awareness plan for Pinterest can lead to purchases made through this popular platform that has over 150 million people a month. Lola Catero shares many tips for how a business can find Pinterest a valuable resource for finding a bigger audience. Understanding that many pins do not come from brands, I need to make sure that my content branding engages with users. Properly taking steps to exploit this popular social media platform is essential for brand awareness.
Michael Stelzner interviews Jenna Kutcher, host of the Goal Digger Podcast. Jenna shares how to build a loyal following through images. Jenna found that creating a business in something she was passionate about, and putting her own unique twist on it, became a successful business. I had learned early on from using Facebook for my yoga business, as an instructor that I had more engagement from the audience by using real pictures of people I was teaching, versus using stock photos to share my message to my niche. Using Jenna’s tips to create my ‘visual personal brand’ will help develop my skills for marketing.
Do people recognize your brand and still do not engage with you? Maybe your consistency is robotic. Are you always telling the same story? Then its time to rethink consistency with finding a compelling brand voice.
Try working with:
Simple
Authentic
Inspiring
In considering keeping it simple, can I say my message with half the words I think I need while staying away from buzz words? I like the idea of putting my words through a “google filter” meaning; do you google this: buzz words? Addressing being authentic is just being honest. Don’t say a process is easy when it’s not. Inspire means for me to decide what difference I can make in peoples lives. Emotions drive decisions.
Photography is an emotional commodity. Having a well-designed brand should evoke a feeling, tell a story. Since photos of my yogis will be apart of my marketing plan means I need to focus my branding on the images I produce also. In this SlideShare, I will take into account the same concepts photographers use for branding themselves.
Brand essence = experience
Brand positioning = know your competition
Target customers = know your niche and speak to them
Find the verbs you want to express: fresh, edgy, friendly, fun, inspired, community, creative, energetic, unique, soulful, real, emotional, playful
This SlideShare breaks down each of the areas with an interesting perspective into incorporating into your branding design. The slide: ‘The 5 dimensions of brand personality’ I will use for producing content to targeted niches. The 5 categories will help create the emotion in the content to those targeted niches. The slide: ‘The 12 main brand archetypes’ I found useful for creating a dimension into marketing your branding voice to the target audience. This SlideShare explanations structure I find would be useful if stuck in creating content and need guidance to connect with your audience emotionally.
“A brand is more than a name or logo – it is a promise and contract with every customer with whom you are dealing. And if people feel that the offering does not live up to what they expect from the brand, they will decide to stop buying.” Richard Branson
“…..Brands are NOT nouns but VERBS.” Jean-Marie Dru, Disruption
“Create a cause, not a business.” Gary Hamel
This SlideShare helps to put perspective back into your brand like can you combine a purpose with passion? With working out all the details for designing your brand, step back remember to brand you!
The message is consistent throughout all the research I have found on branding your business in today’s world for success. A branding voice is essential to speak to your target audience.
Tips for finding your ‘voice’ to build trust and loyalty:
Know your audience
Speak to your niche
Determine your core values to your business
Be authentic
Live your value
Create the element of human engagement
Use emotional engagement
Keep your branding consistent across all forms of social media
There are many ways to increase the usability of a website for the potential customer’s experience better. One way is to use breadcrumbs in the design strategy. Providing Breadcrumbs is vital for the user to navigate through a website with a vast database and feel lost in the information presented on web pages.
Pierce College Website:
Pierce uses tabs as a form of breadcrumbs to show where you are on the website. You can see that you are on the Academic Catalog page, also that you can still return to the homepage or other categories that are within the site.
Stop Signs
Creating for usability is customers to be able to navigate the website to answer their questions. The design should have in place clear signs to the content they will find. If the design is not user-friendly in the organizational design, the user will leave the website.
Pierce College Website:
The stop signs on the Pierce website has the search box, access to MYPIERCE, CANVAS and the ABOUT US. Along with more areas that are related to your college education. The stop signs are apparent to the information that will follow when you access those groups.
Reference
Krug, S. (2014). Don’t Make Me Think Revisited (3 ed.). (E. Bayle, Ed.) New Riders.
Just like a good recipe we borrow from mom, you can make it your own, but you still need to know the basics that make it a good recipe.
When designing a website, sometimes we get caught up in trying to be everything to everyone, which speaks volumes when you have frustrated everyone.
So start with a purpose, decide what the critical information is to your target audience. When you are clear about that, then make it clear to your audience.
Make everything that is essential to say on the top half of website or above the fold. Your homepage does not have a lot of scanning time to make a good first impression, so make sure you got your best bra on!
Keeping Life Simple
Sometimes the best answer is using what your audience already understands as the basic functons of using a website. To get a user on a website and quickly navigate is the best answer for good design.
Make obvious clickable buttons.
Make the homepage clear what the website is about.
Eliminate clutter, not everything is essential.
Group things logically in a clearly defined
If it is important use headings and subheadings.
Visually-Stop Shouting
Just like the fashion advice, take the last piece of accessory off before leaving the house. If the website is busy, complex and full of distractions, step back and take another look. Visual noise can take away from the user engaging with the website.
Everything That’s Not Apart of The Solution Must Go:
Clutter, clutter, clutter…let it go!
Is there more visual distractions than information?
Shouting! This is too many invites to buy, exclamation points, and pop-ups take away from the content.
Disorganized…I like the word “ransacked.” A good visual word to explain, “You are making my head hurt.”
When correctly put together, the website will not only be appealing to users but will encompass the message of trust and loyalty.
