1. Host your own blog. While there are many websites, like Blogger, that would be happy to let you improve their popularity, the best way to blog is on your own website. There are several programs that make this easy. You have probably heard of WordPress, which is one of the more popular and, with absolutely no cost to you, one of the cheapest as well. A good blogging program will make your blog easy to maintain and update while allowing you to personalize with podcasts, videos, and other media.
2. Research keywords. It’s important to have an interesting, well-written blog, but it needs to be full of keywords in order to attract relevant traffic that will fuel your brand. There are several keyword tools that allow you to research which keywords in your field are hot right now. Pick one or two for each blog post and use them several times in the text and in the tag. You’ll almost immediately see your Page Rank go up. It’s really that easy.
3. Be your brand. It’s important to use your logo design and other visual elements of your brand—but you probably already know that. However, you should think hard about what kind of language, images, and posts will work best with your brand as well. If you have any questions, talk to a branding consultant before you start your blog. This will keep you from making embarrassing and/or brand-breaking mistakes.
4. Stay relevant and organic. There are two blogging crimes that we see all the time in small business blogs: keywords stuffing and off-topic posts. Don’t start cramming keywords into every nook and cranny of your blog; use them where they make sense and fill the rest of the space. Search engine crawlers are good at identifying this behavior and even better at penalizing it. At the other end of the spectrum is the owner who blogs about their favorite foods and where they are going on their next vacation. Make sure your posts are relevant to your small business brand and that all keyword usage is natural in sound and feeling.
5. Link. Where should you link to? Anywhere relevant! Your blog should be linked to related pages of your website as well as your social networking pages and vice-versa. Creating this interconnected web of media will make it easier for customers to find you while possibly improving your search engine ranking. This also gives customers the opportunity to interact with your brand in a variety of ways, hopefully to become lifelong fans and customers.

Gap, who dominated the fashion industry in the late 1990s to early 2000s, has been defined by its blue-boxed GAP since its early days. In October 2010, Gap dropped the classic logo in favor of a Helvetica Gap design that looked like it was made straight out of a Microsoft Word clipart gallery. Designed by Laird and Partners, the new logo did keep an element of the iconic logo – a small blue window perched on the p – to make it more modern. The result was the opposite of the intended effect. The new logo looked uninspired, amateurish, and generic. It lacked a “wow” factor typically associated with a new logo.

As a result, Gap received strong public backlash for the new logo. Some customers on Gap’s Facebook page even threatened to boycott the brand if the company kept the new look. Within a week, Gap reverted to its classic logo.

Rebranding is not an uncommon. Shell, Starbucks, Apple, and many more have all changed logos from time to time, and they all worked. So what went wrong with Gap?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Gap has experienced some challenges that caused the clothing retailer to experience sluggish sales in the last few years. Reasons include over-expansion, ever-changing fashion styles and soft-consumer spending. Despite some losses, however, Gap INC was still pulling some serious revenue. In 2010, the company was pulling $14.2 billion.

Ditching the iconic logo was regarded as a typical reactionary, panic move. Gap was experiencing underperforming. To communicate a fresher Gap, they rolled out a new brand logo rather hastily.

Gap underestimated the attachment their customers had to the iconic logo. Just because times weren’t favorable, the company had to ditch the one valuable thing that has going for them.

The lesson here is, if it’s working well don’t mess with it. Don’t change an image simply because you think it’s time for an image change.

Don’t underestimate the savviness of today’s consumers when it comes to graphic design.

We’re in an age where even a high school student can create sophisticated logos using professional design software on their laptops. You want to “wow” your audience? Then don’t design something Microsoft Word-esque and attempt to pass it off as modern and contemporary. Your audience knows much better than that.

Rebranding calls for more than just a logo change.

You need to have a frame for the image change.  You don’t change the logo for change’s sake. A change in logo should reflect a change in product or organization. As such, you have to work at repositioning the product itself first before you change the logo. Some companies think that by changing the visual identity, they can convince consumers of brand evolution. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

You can create the flashiest logo you want, but if your product remains the same, consumers won’t take the change seriously.

Don’t launch a change with no forethought or prepared strategy.

You have to consider the possibility that there will be negative reactions to the new logo. As such, you should be ready with a response – consumers would be expecting it. Unfortunately, Gap had none – nothing on their website or press releases. It only confirmed in the minds of many that the logo change was a skin-deep decision.

Don’t backpedal.

After the public backlash, Gap reacted by asking the online community to come up with their own design ideas. The crowdsourcing was a final nail in the coffin; it further weakened their brand image. The worst thing you can do is ask the people who criticized your design to fix the problem for you. You should expect people to disagree with you, and if you explain fully well and stand to your decision. They might not like you still, but at least you have their respect.

Apparently, Gap committed many failures, including choice of design team and launch failure, but apparently it was Twitter, Facebook, and social networking community that brought the matches.

Ironically, the logo change may have deepened brand loyalty. It showed just how much the consumers loved the iconic logo. They put an emotional stake in the brand, making it their Gap more than ever.

If there is one thing that Americans love more than vodka, it would be stories. We are involved in a story of some sort at almost all times, whether it is a book, television, a film or just plain gossip. Companies that tell a story with their brands tend to do better than others because people buy into the narrative. Vodka marketing does not seem to use this device, with is unfortunate. It is hard to think of a story that I would like more than a vodka story.

This is exactly what Frozen Ghost Vodka is offering. The name comes from a ghost story, which has become the basis of the packaging and marketing as well. According to Frozen Ghost, there once was a farm in the Western Canadian wilderness that enjoyed immense success, led by a man named Tobias. The neighbors of the farm were convinced that this was due to the water supply and snuck out one cold northern winter night to divert the water to their own farm. Tobias confronted the trespassers and was hit in the head by a shovel and then thrown into the stream, which froze over the body.

The thieving, murdering neighbors were then haunted by the Frozen Ghost apparition until they confessed. The water from this stream, several decades later, is the source of water for Frozen Ghost vodka. If you are concerned about drinking vodka with an undertone of decomposing body, you will be happy to know that the legend is not believed to be true, and that the vodka is distilled no less than six times.

The packaging and the marketing for Frozen Ghost vodka use this story as an inspiration. Marketing phrases include ‘Enjoy it with all six senses’, ‘The supernatural super-premium’ and ‘Grab a bottle. This stuff disappears fast.’ This is creating a brand that is definitely more appealing than Grey Goose, Ketel One and other premium vodkas. In addition, Frozen Ghost vodka is smooth and easy to drink with just the right amount of punch. It is a vodka that you can drink neat or in a martini without making that face and without covering the flavors with a sweet cocktail mixer.

Frozen Ghost is raising the bar for other vodkas, both in branding and in flavor. Although it is considered a super-premium vodka, it comes with a reasonable price tag that is neither embarrassingly cheap nor outrageously pricey. Try some the next time you are out on the town; it will not disappoint.

• Increase in Small Business Administration Lending Programs. This will make it easier for small business owners to get an SBA loan, which can be difficult. Owners will also have the option of obtaining an SBA loan to pay off other debt, which may keep floundering small businesses alive.
• Small Business Lending Fund. This offers a financial incentive for small banks to increase the amount of money they lend to small businesses. You likely won’t get any of this money, but it will encourage banks to lend to you. This indirectly may increase investment in businesses like yours.
• New Tax Incentives. New business expense dedications will triple in the next two years so small business owners can recoup some of their start up expenses. Further, investments in small business will be exempt from capital gains tax, encouraging larger corporations to get behind this vital part of the US economy.
• More Deductions. You will be able to write off large capital expenditures such as property all at once instead of over a period of years. Business owners can also deduct health insurance costs right off the top. However, you will have to file a 1099 for every supplier that receives more than $600 from you.
• Global Export Support. If you are thinking about taking part of your operations overseas, this will help out. New positions will be opened in government agencies that help businesses deal with foreign exports, such as the Office of the US Trade Representative. A new grant program will help small businesses begin trading on a global scale. While many people have criticized this provision as encouraging outsourcing, its true effects remain to be seen.
• State Small Business Credit Initiative. If you need a loan and this loan would create new jobs, you may be able to get preferential loans. This is expected to create more jobs in small businesses and in manufacturing.
• Increased tax penalties for small business owners. Someone has to pay for all these perks, and in this case it may be the owners who don’t get their taxes complete on time. Penalties will be doubled and calendar year penalties will be almost quadrupled. Because this bill will increase the number of documents to be filed, this may pose a burden for owners who fall behind.

Although the bill has little Republican support, it nonetheless has the support of several business and trade groups. Like many pieces of legislation, the language is complicated enough that it may be years before we can accurately see exactly how the bill affects small business owners who are struggling to make ends meet in this difficult economy.

One of the biggest mistakes that a small business can make is trying to be everything to everyone. In order to send a clear brand message, you must first decide who you really are as a business. What is your persona? What makes you different from other businesses in your industry? If you look at some of the most iconic businesses on the globe, they send a clear message about what makes them different. Once you decide what makes you different, your entire brand, including your logo design, should be focused around this.

If you send a confusing or muddled message, your potential customers will not know what to expect from your business. This will leave them susceptible to the competition. Your marketing message defines what makes you different from every other brand that they encounter.

“All About Me”

What makes some brand messages appealing to the customer while others hold no draw at all? The answer may lie in what—or, rather, who—your brand it about. One of the key elements of a successful brand message is that it shows customers what they will get from your company or products—as opposed to what you are offering. This may seem like a confusing distinction, but it really comes down to pronouns. Instead of telling customers what you will give them, tell them how they will benefit. Everyone likes to deal with a company that is “all about me.”

Time for Branding?

If you think that marketing can handle your brand message for you, think again. Your marketing doesn’t really tell your customers what your brand message is; that’s a task for your brand and logo design. Your brand, logo design, and other visual elements should send a clear message about what customers can expect from you. Your marketing should supplement this by offering details, such as cost and features. If you have a strong brand with a strong brand message, what you are offering will be clear.

A brand message is one of the most important “products” that your company can offer, and the only way to offer it is through a professionally created logo design and brand. If you want to give your company the advantage of a brand that customers can’t say no to, talk to a professional logo design today. Give your company the advantage that it deserves.

1. Prove that you are bad with money. Banks prefer to lend to people who are good with money—mainly because money management is such an important part of running a small business. Therefore, the best way to avoid getting that loan that you need is by showing them that you couldn’t manage money if it rolled over and played dead for you. You can do this with repeated overdrafts, consistently low balances, and a low credit score. This alone may be enough to sabotage your small business loan, but there are four more tips for those of you who need them.
2. Fail to communicate. Successful entrepreneurs are usually good communicators, so failing to communicate may also help you sabotage your small business loan. Don’t return calls, turn your internet off altogether, and keep all needful documents anywhere but where you need them. If you miss a projected milestone or even a payment on a loan, avoid them even more strenuously. Banks like to deal with people who keep them appraised of their financial state, so avoid this as much as possible. Similarly, a failure to form a relationship with your banker can be a great way to sabotage your chances of getting a loan. Having someone who believes in you, has a history of dealing with you, and also knows the small business world in general can be a huge advantage—one that you don’t need if you are trying to sabotage that small business loan.
3. Give them as little information as possible. Things like business plans, resumes with your credentials, and other similar documents are none of their business, right? No one has the right to ask for your personal information, even a financial institution that is considering making a sizeable investment in your future. If they ask, get testy and refuse in the rudest way possible. Better yet, tell them that these documents don’t even exist.
4. Have no collateral. One of way of showing you are completely unworthy of a small business loan is by not having any other property to show for yourself. If you have no house, no car, and no property beyond a pup tent and a cat, tell your bank loan officer that as soon as possible. They’ll make sure you don’t get that loan you are trying so hard to avoid.
5. Refuse to invest your own capital. After all, this would show that you are confident in your business’s chance of success. We all hear about people who make it big with no collateral of their own. Hold out for this type of situation, even if it means sabotaging your chance of getting a small business loan.

1. Create a sense of community. Women are the caretakers of relationships in our society, at least partly because they are so good at maintaining that all important social context. If you want to reach female customers, make sure you have a well rounded social networking presence. You also may want to try offering group classes that are related to your product and even tutorials on how to use them. Last, make your store a fun place to meet and socialize. Women are likely to return to a place where they meet new friends and generally have fun.
2. Offer great service. Women are more likely to notice that your cashier didn’t say thank you or that they never received a tracking number on the article they ordered. They also are the most likely to struggle with heavy packages or to need help getting purchases to their cars. Train your employees to anticipate these needs and offer a helping hand. Your customers will return to a place where the shopping experience was made comfortable and easy.
3. Make them feel special. Everyone wants to feel like an A-lister, but most companies seem intent on treating their customers like nobodies. You don’t have to roll a red carpet; try saying hello and asking them about their day as they walk in the door. You’d be surprised at how far a simple smile will take you!
4. Offer multiple gift options. Women tend to be in charge of procuring, wrapping, and sending gifts in the family home. Offering gift packs, gift cards, and several gift options for them will not only increase your sales, it will make them see you company as a problem solver in their lives. Remember to offer services such as wrapping, packing, mailing, and delivery so they can get all of their gift services in one place.
5. Reach out to their children. Regardless of the social class and unique aspects of the women who comprise your target group, there is a good chance that your female customers have children and/or grandchildren. If you have ever shopped with children, then you know that they can really complicate a shopping trip. Offering small accommodations, such as a small play area or a candy dish, can help appease these tiny ones so their mom can get a little shopping done. If your customer has to leave your shop to deal with a bored or poorly behaved child, you have just lost a sale.

The moral of this story is that customers don’t like choosing between taste and calorie counting. Introducing this choice diminishes the overall brand. However, there is a choice that consumers dislike even more: choosing between quality and value. This is exactly what upgraded lines ask them to do.

Scope Outlast is a product that serves as a good example of upgrades diminishing a line. This latest addition to the Scope brand claims to offer breath-freshening power for up to five times as long as the original product. However, it costs around fifty percent more per ounce than original Scope. When a customer walks up to the drugstore shelf, Scope asks them to choose between the quality product and the value one. It isn’t hard to imagine that customer choosing another brand, one that promises quality and value in the same bottle.

A last example is Starbucks. The coffee giant has long marketed their coffee as ‘worth it’—that is, worth the additional money and time spent in line when compared to home brewed coffee. This fall, Starbucks introduced a line of instant coffee called ‘Via’. Customers were encouraged to test the new line and confirm for themselves that it indeed tasted as good as Starbucks coffee. This begs the question: why should any customer ever again wait in line for a four dollar latte? This branding giant inadvertently pointed out that its cornerstone product now has a lower cost and more convenient alternative that offers the same advantages.

Part of surviving as a small business is introducing new lines and new products as the market changes. However, as you can see from these examples, it is important to consider every new addition in the context of your overall brand. Offering an upgrade may imply certain disadvantages to the core product. With a branding consultant, steps can be taken to diminish this effect and ensure that all of your lines are successful and well branded.

What exactly is value? Don’t confuse this term with cheapness. Value means that the consumer is getting the most benefits for their hard earned dollar. The harder it becomes to earn that dollar, as in poor economies, the more benefits they expect. Subway, one of the top brands in this survey, promises fresh, healthy food for a relatively miniscule sum. Old Navy promises a variety of fashionable choices at an affordable price point. Neither of these brands is necessarily the cheapest option, but merely the one that has presented their brand as offering high value for the dollar.

This suggests a practical mindset and a love of getting something more for your money than an expensive designer label. It also poses new challenges for companies marketing to young adults. There was a time when young adults wanted decadence, premium brands, and unique benefits. However, those decades are over. No longer is the premium choice going to be chosen as a matter of fact by twenty-somethings. Like their parents and grandparents, these consumers are thinking about how to get the most for every dollar. If you want them to buy your product, you have to offer that little something more.

Clearly value is not the only brand aspect that appeals to this market. For example, Anthropologie and Bath and Body Works, neither of which is a ‘value’ brand, both were highly ranked in the survey. These brands offer not a low price, but a high level of quality and uniqueness. In other words, there is hope for premium brands marketing to this value-oriented group of consumers.  However, it is certainly notable value brands are being chosen more and more as the most loved brands of this age group.

Another key belief that the study found in this age set was the feeling that, while moving from job to job may be a necessity in the early years of a career, they long for the security that comes with staying with the same company for decades. This has interesting implications for companies trying to sell their brand to young adults. While they are willing to ‘jump ship’ and switch brands routinely to get a better value for their money, they likely also long to find a brand and stick with it. If you can position your business as this brand, you are likely to find huge success in the world of small business.

How does this fit with the Domino’s brand? There are several aspects of this new marketing scheme that are downright revolutionary. First, Domino’s is completely changing their brand with this new campaign. The fact is, few Domino’s customers order this pizza because of its taste alone. On the contrary, many are attracted to its low price—one of the lowest in the pizza delivery field, with pizzas available for as little as five dollars—and the speed of delivery. In fact, Domino’s has spent the better part of a decade selling their half-hour delivery time as a major reason to call their number. People who want speed and low cost order from Domino’s; those who want a high quality pizza instead choose one of the company’s competitors.

However, value is one of the most potent brand values a company can claim, and this means far more than low price. To the new consumer, value means reasonable quality at a reasonable price. Domino’s can never be the true low price leader when supermarket freezers are full of low quality pizzas at half the price and fast food joints on almost every corner offer one dollar hamburgers. This company needs to offer something worth picking up the phone, and this new pizza is designed to do exactly that. This offers a powerful message to businesses everywhere: that price wars alone do not make a brand. In fact, as we have seen with Domino’s, low price can destroy a brand by reducing the quality of the product as more and more corners are cut.

It should be noted that Domino’s is not just branching out in marketing content, but in marketing method as well. While they are retaining old methods of advertising, such as television commercials, they are also hitting digital media and social networking hard. You can interact with the Domino’s Pizza Turnaround on Facebook, Twitter, and the company website. The television placement on The Colbert Report was particularly revolutionary, with the host cracking jokes and generally making a fool of the company while also clearly enjoying the product. This came across as authentic, which shows how important nontraditional marketing can be for companies of all sizes.

Only time will tell if this campaign can revive the Domino’s brand, or whether the new pizza is truly worth all of the fuss. However, Domino’s deserves serious kudos for stepping outside the box when it comes to marketing—no pun intended.