Successful entrepreneurs often start with a “random” idea, but they quickly focus their efforts and follow a “system” to organize their startup and maximize the clout of their activities. Too many entrepreneur “wannabes” never get past the idea stage, or strike out randomly in many directions, hoping that their passion will convince people to follow […]
Marketing Your New Business
Grow By Creating Markets, Versus Killing Competitors
For your business to continue to grow, there are really only two ways to get customers. One way is to take customers away from an existing player, and the other is to create a new market with a new product or service that didn’t exist before. Examples of recent “new market” big wins include Apple […]
Your Business Needs PR Buzz—Here’s How to Create It
Running a PR campaign can take a lot of time, money and resources. A lot of businesses choose to outsource this part of their business to dedicated third party service providers. While this is cost effective, it can still be a drain on the resources for small businesses since a lot of these service providers […]
Infographic: Branding for Small Business and Startups
My thanks to customlabels.net for this useful infographic on brand identity for small business. Earlier in my career I consulted for Apple Computer. I watched how zealously they guarded all the details of the big brand identity. It’s refreshing to see in this infographic some useful tips for minding branding for small business and startups.
What is Your Marketing Doing to Develop a Better World?
Is your business solely focused on profit-making or does it try to make a social impact, too—aligning profits with purpose? What does social impact mean? “Social impact has become much more than just a business strategy—driven by Millennials, social impact is, instead, a way of life and a way of being in the world. It has undeniably […]
How to Be the (Best) Face for Your Brand
In an ideal world, our products and business plans would speak for themselves, and all we would have to do is drop them into the laps of investors and watch the funding roll in. But let’s be honest: Our products aren’t great conversationalists, they don’t know how to answer follow-up questions, and they certainly don’t […]
7 Reasons You Should Care About Your Brand Voice
I’ll bet you don’t think about your organization’s brand voice every day! Well, that’s OK… if you think about it sometime. Whether your organization is small, mid-sized, or an enterprise, its brand voice is on display every day in every internal and external marketing communications channel it uses. Today, it’s especially important in content marketing channels. No pressure, right? […]
Startup Marketing Should Skip Traditional Advertising
The power and influence of paid media advertising, including print ads, TV commercials, radio, and even online digital campaigns is waning, in favor of unpaid earned and owned messaging from your website, social media, key market influencers, and existing customer word-of-mouth. But startups need to remember that even zero paid media doesn’t mean that marketing […]
The Case for Lower Case: A Rebranding Conundrum
Ever wondered if having your brand name written in lower case on your logo is appropriate? Logo design can come with a few challenges when it comes to creativity. Often, companies are predisposed to certain design and strategy rules that are more on the traditional side. We recently faced this challenge when a client came to […]
12 Visual Principles for Everyday Design
Design is essential and affects so much of our work. But design is also expensive. And the tech world, social media, the web, and business are full of designs we do ourselves. Profile pages, presentations, for example. Turning to designers is a luxury that takes time and money. And I care about quality too, so this […]
