The Secrets to Keeping Your Brand Design Fresh

By Sharon Lee 

Branding can significantly impact a business's success. A study by Lucidpress found that a consistent brand presentation across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%.

 

"Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business." — Steve Jobs

 

Achieving balance in branding is crucial because it ensures that your brand's message resonates with your target audience while maintaining brand consistency and clarity across all platforms.

 

When your brand strikes the right balance and consistency, it effectively communicates its values, identity, and offerings with a fresh approach without being boringly overwhelming or alienating your audience. This equilibrium helps builds interest, trust, loyalty, and a strong emotional connection with your buyers.

 

So, how do you define a balance so that you will not design yourself into a box? 

 

 In this blog post I will share nine steps to achieving and maintaining a balance. 

1.   Establish Brand Guidelines—define your brand's core values, mission, vision, and personality. Formalize this by creating guidelines for your visual elements (logo, colors, typography) and the tone of voice that captures these essentials. By developing this foundation you will achieve consistency while providing a framework for creativity. 

 

2.   Flexible Visual Identity—design a versatile logo and visual elements that can adapt to different contexts. For instance, consider variations of your logo within guideline standards or a theme that allows for different design options while remaining recognizable. 

 

3.   Embrace Modular Design—use a modular design system that allows for flexibility in layouts and compositions while adhering to brand guidelines. This approach will let you mix and match elements for various applications without losing brand identity.

 

4.   Focus on Storytelling—create narratives around your brand that can evolve over time. This enables you to introduce new ideas and concepts while maintaining a consistent brand message.

 

5.   Stay Informed About Trends—keep an eye on design trends and industry changes. This awareness can inspire fresh ideas and innovations that align with your brand's essence without straying from its identity. Continuous improvement is a must!

 

6.   Gather Feedback—seek feedback regularly from your target buyers and internal stakeholders. Understanding their perceptions can help you adjust your design approach while ensuring that it remains aligned with brand values. 

 

7.   Adapt to New Channels—adapt your brand's messaging and visuals as new platforms and technologies emerge. This way you can keep your core identity intact while preventing your brand from feeling stagnant.

 

8.   Encourage Internal Collaboration—foster collaboration among different teams (such as marketing, design, product development) to ensure a holistic approach to brand consistency. After all, diverse perspectives can lead to innovative ideas that still respect the brand’s core identity.

 

9.   Iterate and Evolve—allow your brand to evolve naturally over time. After all, consistency doesn't mean rigidity; it means staying true to your core values while being open to change and adaptation.

 

By following these steps, you can maintain brand consistency while still allowing room for creativity and innovation, ensuring your brand remains relevant and engaging without being confined to a narrow design box.

 

Achieving a balance in brand consistency while avoiding design constraints requires a strategic approach.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

And see my blog posts, What Types of Branding Are Best for Your Business and Starting Right With Good Design, if you are a relative newcomer to branding. 

 

Let us know what you think about this blog post.

9 Tips for Creating Ads that Work

By David Ronald

All businesses need promotion. 

After all, no matter how awesome your company’s product or service is, if you don’t advertise it, nobody will know about it.

Advertising is a little bit of a black art. Some ads are highly effective while others hurt more than they help. It can take a bit of trial and error to create an advertisement that really works. 

In this blog post I will share nine tips that will increase the odds of your ads being successful.

1. Determine what will make you stand out—identify and evangelize the key things that will make your prospects pay attention to your company’s product or service. Show your potential customers why your business should be their number one choice and why they shouldn’t even consider your competitors. If you do this effectively, there is a good chance they won’t.

2. Use a headline that grabs viewers’ attention—people are exposed to multiple ads each day and can’t possibly read each one. This is why you have to make sure that your ad actually grabs and keeps their attention. Some headlines are newsworthy, such as in the release of a new service or product. Others have a very strong benefit. Most are specific, as opposed to general, in their facts.

3. Focus on benefits—explaining the features of your products or services is important, but articulating the benefits for the buyer is what it’s all about. After all, people are more interested in what they get from your services than what you do.

4. Make people an offer they can’t refuse—buyers love a bargain, so offer them a good one increases the probability of a sale. Once you come up with your irresistible offer, make sure that you advertise it proudly. When people see that you have something great to offer them, they will have a difficult time resisting it.

5. Make your offer as risk-free as possible—people are nervous about spending their money. And if people fear that they’re going to lose their money and regret their purchase, they are unlikely to purchase your product. But, if you remove these doubts, people are given an incentive to give your product or service a try. So it’s a great idea to offer a money-back guarantee.

6. Use testimonials—people trust other consumers and want to know what they have to say about a company. You can’t make people look for online reviews about your business, but you can give them the same peace of mind by adding a testimonial from a current client who is pleased with what you have to offer. Seeing that other buyers just like them are happy with your product can encourage potential customers to give you a try.

7. Include a call to action—don’t just inform your prospects about what your company has to offer; encourage them to take action. Tell them directly to click on your ad, order your product, pay for your service, etc. For example, your call to action can encourage people to email you for more information, to fill out a form to find out more about your services, to join your weekly or monthly email newsletter or purchase your product.

8. Create a sense of urgency—you don’t want to just plant a seed with your ad, you want people to move forward. Consider, for example, making an irresistible time-limited offer. Or bring in an upcoming season or event when your product will come in handy to make people buy now.

9. Complete contact information—your ad should include a link to your website for more information as part of the contact information. If your offer include an offer to download collateral, consider making that item gated (ie, the viewer has to provide their contact information before accessing it). Include a QR code if your advertisement is in hardcopy format.

Every type of promotion helps a business succeed and advertising, when done well, will have a huge impact.

Thanks for reading.

Leave us a comment if you found this information useful.

A Brief Guide to Mastering Product Positioning

By David Ronald

Okay, so you’ve built an amazing product that has the potential to delight your customers and help them attain their business objectives.

A great product by itself, however, isn’t always enough—you need to communicate what makes your product different from every other product out there.

According to research by Gartner, 77% of B2B buyers state that their latest purchase was complex or difficult. This statistic emphasizes why clear and effective product positioning is crucial.  

When products are well-positioned, it helps simplify the decision-making process for buyers by clearly communicating the product's value, differentiators, and relevance to their specific business needs. This can lead to faster sales cycles and increased buyer confidence.

What is Product Positioning

Product positioning is the process of defining where your product fits in the market and why it's the best solution for your customers. It helps you manage customer perceptions and communicate how you want users to think and feel about your product.

Positioning highlights your product's value and sets the context for understanding why customers should care.

It’s best, therefore, if you put yourself in the shoes of your buyers and take a user-led approach to positioning your product. Doing so will create a solid image in the perception of your buyer.

Developing Your Positioning

Product positioning is an ongoing and evolving process that needs to adapt in response to changes in your industry and your customers' needs.

Here are five steps you can follow to develop the best positioning for your product.

1. Identify Your Buyers

You cannot sell your product to everyone, because not everyone perceives your product to solve their problems. 

The first step in determining your product positioning is to identify potential buyers. 

Begin by developing your ideal customer profile(s) - an ideal customer profile (ICP) is a short description of your perfect customer, based on characteristics such as industry, company size, and requirements, that align most closely with your product.

Next, determine your buyer personas. There may, for example, be an engineer who is excited by the technical attributes of your product; there may be a someone in finance who understands the cost benefits of you product; and there could be an executive who appreciates the strategic value of your product. 

2. Understand Your Buyers

Your customers decide to use your product over your competitors for a reason

If you can identify why that is and investigate what exactly makes them use and stick to your product, you can use that insight as the basis for positioning your product.

The why could be factors like pricing, a specific feature, customer service, associations with the product, or ease of use. The better you understand why customers use your product, the more customer-led your positioning can be to make your place in the market more prominent.

Use on-site surveys on high-traffic product pages. Ask questions such as these: 

• "Why do you use this product?"
• "How would you rate this product on a scale of 1–10?"
• "Which feature or product element do you use the most?"
• "How would you feel if you couldn't use this product anymore?"

A great tool to use in determining your positioning is perceptual maps. These are intended to uncover how your buyers perceive your product. Here's a simple example:

In this example, Brand A is perceived to be higher price than alternatives but provides better quality. Brand B is perceived to be lower price than alternatives but provides lower quality.

You can use perceptual maps with different labels on the vertical and horizontal axes to uncover your strongest attributes in the eyes of your buyers.

3. Analyze Your Competition

In parallel with developing an understanding of your target buyers, you want to position your product as a better solution than your competitors. But you can't do that unless you know the competitor's product and how they're positioning it.

Conduct market research to analyze your competitors' new and old products to understand how they're helping customers, which features they have, and what benefits they offer.

Identify whether you have any distinct features that can set you apart. If not, iterate on your product and focus on being more customer-centric than your competitors, so you have something that sets you apart in the market.

4. Identify Your Value

Your value proposition should be compelling. It's insufficient, for example, to provide a 10% cost savings than the competition, or a 2x improvement in productivity than alterative approaches.

Your buyers need a value proposition that's substantial and motivates them to switch to a new way of doings. Otherwise, why should they go through the hassle of changing? In order to be compelling, your value proposition should offer a 10x improvement, or better.

Ideally, your value proposition has been built into the product from day one. If not, find a unique product feature that sets you apart from your competitors. It's okay to be niche, at least while you are gaining traction in the marketplace.  

By developing a value proposition that is compelling and captures the attention of your buyers, you are going to make the lives of your sales team vastly easier, and they will love you for it!

5. Establish Your Positioning

A positioning statement is short description that says what your product is, who it’s for, and why exactly customers should care about it. 

Use this formula: (Product name) is a (product category) that helps (target customers) achieve (differentiating benefit your product offers) to avoid or solve (users' needs).

Here's a B2C example: 

"For athletes in need of high-quality, fashionable athletic wear, Nike offers customers top-performing sports apparel and shoes made of the highest quality materials. Its products are the most advanced in the athletic apparel industry because of Nike's commitment to innovation and investment in the latest technologies."

Here's a B2B example: 

"Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done. From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward."

One of my favorite quotes is from Donald Knuth, a computer scientist & mathematician, who stated that, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil”. In other words, don't rush to conclude that your have nailed your product positioning. 

Test your positioning with your employees (especially your sales teams), your buyers, and anyone whose opinion your value (such as investors and industry analysts). 

Keep your Positioning Up to Date

Your product will evolve as you grow, and customer behavior and buying trends will change with time. 

So it's crucial to iterate on your product positioning to ensure it stays relevant and differentiates your product in the market.

Regularly ask yourself these questions to ensure you're leading with the right product positioning:

• Have market trends or customer needs changed?
• Are there any new products in the market similar to yours? Are they doing something differently?
• Have you introduced any new product features or new products altogether which offer a new benefit to your customers?

Is there a better way to communicate your product positioning?

Are you getting good results with your current strategy? Compare your past and present metrics like sales, customer retention, conversion rate, referrals, social media engagement, and signups to get data-driven insights.

The answers to these questions will tell you if you need to revisit your product positioning strategy and make it more relevant for customers.

Wrap Up

By conducting thorough buyer and competitive research, identifying your compelling value proposition, and crafting a clear positioning statement, you build a strong foundation for downstream deliverables. Your messaging framework, for example, will be informed by your product positioning (watch for an upcoming blog post on that topic). 

The idea is to tell the customers what they need to know about your product so that they'll believe in it and purchase it.

Thanks for reading all the way to end.

Leave us a comment to let us know what you think.

Secrets that Website Designers Don't Tell You

By Sharon Lee

You want a website that captures interest, holds it, and brings you sales.

It’s easy to say, but not necessarily simple to do. Creating a website that becomes a major revenue driver can be fun. Or it can be a nightmare.

Have you ever had a run-in with a website developer who promised you a brilliant design but all you got was a big mess? No, you’re not an expert, but you know what’s good and what’s not. You also know when you’re being taken advantage of. All you wanted was a website that would help you succeed, and what you got instead wasn’t worth the pixels it was painted on.

In this post I will share some secrets that can help ensure you end up with the best website.

1. You don't need to spend a fortune

People say you get what you pay for, and sometimes, that’s true. But it’s not true that you need to spend your life savings on a good website. There are too many designers out there preying on your ignorance, charging exorbitant rates for their own profit. They blind you with jargon and fancy coding terms. Don’t put up with it.

Decide your budget and find graphic designers who can work within it. Look for designers that fit the style of site you’d like for your business. Visit other sites you like and see who designed them. Ask for quotes, take your time and shop around.

It’ll save you thousands of dollars.

2. Design is about psychology

A graphic designer needs to know color psychology and the associations people make with specific shades and tones. She needs to know what imagery will appeal to people, the type of people it’ll appeal to, and why it appeals to them. She needs to know what’s going on in people’s minds when they land on sites and as they navigate through yours.

Are smooth curves better than concentric circles? Is IBM blue the best color or is deep red a better choice? What will draw people to the right or the left? What emotional state should the site create? Should the design be modern and simple or colourful and bold or soft and comforting? Where do a person’s eyes travel, and what will make them stop?

Good designers know all this and much more. They understand that their goal is to influence a visitor’s psychological state of mind and perception of your business. The more designers know about how people behave, what makes them take action and ways they react to different elements, the better they can implement persuasive strategies into your site.

3. You don’t need to be totally unique.

It’s true that you need to stand out these days and look different from all the rest. The problem is that some designers take it a little too far, and they design you a site that’s so unique it breaks all the rules – and not in a good way. Your stunning site ends up being a confusing experience for visitors.

Designers need to create sites that follow web conventions and usability rules, because these are the ultimate guides to navigating your site quickly and easily. If you break them, you’ll confuse your visitors.

Shun conventions and you’ll create a visitor experience that’s similar to walking into an alien world.

4. Branding is a special skill, and not all designers do it well.

Most designers aren’t skilled in developing brand identities. They’re good at developing graphic design that reflects your brand identity, but if you haven’t supplied them with that crucial information, they’re just assuming.

They’re assuming your target market, and what appeals to those ideal customers. They’re assuming the values of your business and its marketing message. They’re assuming its personality and the type of experience your customers will have when they work with you or buy from you. You know what they say about assuming, right?

It’s far better to work with a specialist to build your brand identity before you hire your web developer. Otherwise you’ll just attract the wrong kind of people, and the entire website will be a waste of money.

5. Maintaining a website isn’t expensive.

Since graphic design and website development is usually a one-time expense, unethical providers try to loop you in as a customer they can bill every month for recurring charges.

When someone offers you an upsell maintenance package, ask what they’ll do for that money. Then go to Google and find out just how easy it is to do what they’ve offered you.

Not interested in maintaining your site? By all means, hire someone to do it for you. Just be sure you’re not being overcharged for quick and easy jobs.

Designing a website involves many factors and, when done right, produces results. There are pitfalls, however, and I’m hoping this post will help you avoid them. 

Thanks for reading.

Drop me a comment to let me know what you think