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7 Things to Know Before Designing a Logo

Friday, June 7th, 2013

Know your target market Summer will soon be in full swing, and for many businesses, that means a slower pace and a good time to implement changes there had been little time to tackle before. For some firms, that could mean a new or re-designed logo. Before you start the process of having a logo designed, here are seven things you should know:

What will your logo say?
Not literally, but what is the message you’re trying to convey? A logo is the visual identity of your company, so knowing how to articulate who you are before deciding on how to represent your business visually is a must.
Clip art is NOT a logo.
A piece of art that anyone and everyone can use for their own purposes simply won’t represent your business in a positive light. Plus, clipart used for a logo infringes upon the creating artist’s copyright. Don’t believe it? Read the fine print on the agreement you accept when you download clip art. You will never be able to develop or enforce rights for a logo that uses a royalty-free image, and you put yourself at risk for being asked to cease-and-desist or being sued.
It’s not (much) about what you, your sales team, or your spouse likes.
Your logo represents your business in order to meet your company’s goals. It’s not about your favorite color or font or any other personal preferences. That’s what choosing your favorite paint color for your bedroom is for. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t love your logo, and that’s OK. Nothing effective has ever come from design by committee.
You need to be able to explain your logo to anyone.
If you can’t, return to #1. Your logo HAS to mean something about your business and value. It’s a non-verbal elevator pitch for your company.
You need to choose one.
Logo design is an iterative process that starts with a few choices that get narrowed down…a few color combinations that get narrowed down. If you feel the need for more and more choices, then go back to #1, because at that point you’re choosing between preferences, not meeting goals.
It’s not always going to be used big and colorfully.
Your logo is going to be used in a variety of ways and sizes, from a billboard to a business card. Always keep that in mind during the design process.
Don’t have a “me, too” logo.
How many swishes, globes and green leaves have you seen in logos? (Answer: A lot.) It’s impossible to know about every logo in existence, but avoiding clichés and stereotypes will go a long way toward designing a unique visual identity for you.

Logo design is not an art project or a pretty picture – it takes a lot of thought, planning, discovery, and time.Your logo will be the visual representation for your business for many years to come – what do you want your logo to say about yours?

I want to thank Carol Lynn Rivera of web.search.social, The Marketing Magazine for Smart Businesses for the inspiration for this post.

Posted in Branding, Business, Corporate Identity, Logos, marketing | No Comments »

4 Web Design Mistakes Small Firms Make

Monday, October 22nd, 2012

A web site is no longer optional for small businesses – it is (or should be!) an important ingredient of your marketing efforts. However, a poorly conceived and designed web site can do more harm than good to your business, with the potential of turning visitors away and toward your competitors. Are you guilty of any of the following common mistakes that small businesses make regarding their web sites?

Creating a site before understanding who your target market is.
Instead of focusing on how quickly your business can get a web site up and running, concentrate first on researching who your target audience will be in your specific market. The content and structure of what your site should be will become apparent and be more successful if you do this research.
Do it yourself.
There are many products out there that let anyone build a “website in a night” or DIY. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Web visitors form an impression about your web site, and by extension, your business, in under 7 seconds. Doing it yourself means missing out on the expert advice and guidance from a professional web designer who understands the best way to reach your clients, and stays abreast of current technology and trends. Don’t let a poorly designed or disorganized website drive your prospects away!
An unclear or NO call to action.
You’ve done your research and have an attractive website that targets your specific audience with content that clearly conveys what your business can do for them. What do you want visitors to do now? Call for more information? Sign up for your newsletter? Tell your visitors what the next step should be!
Out-of-date content.
You cannot simply “set it and forget it” when it comes to your web site. Your customers want and expect current information when they visit or they may assume you are not competitive, current in your field, or even that you’ve gone out of business.

Oops…did you recognize your web site in any of these mistakes? Fear not – it’s never too late to make it right! A web site is a flexible marketing tool perfect for fine-tuning your message to attract the kind of clients that want your services.

Tags: marketing, web sites, writing for web sites
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The Recipe for Marketing Success

Monday, September 17th, 2012

Recipe for Marketing

If you ate flour yesterday, an egg today, sugar and salt tomorrow and butter next week, would you have tasted a “cake?” Obviously not. Separately, these ingredients taste nothing like what they become when mixed together in the right proportions and baked for the right amount of time.

So, if you try email marketing for a couple months, or send out a one-time mailer, or advertise in one publication one month and a few months later in another publication, have you really tasted “marketing?”

“I tried marketing once and it didn’t work.”

I hear this from time to time from business owners. When I ask what they tried that didn’t work, the reply is usually an ingredient (activity) or two that they tried one time, but with no strategy or plan to get the right mix of activities and timing, or even an idea of how to measure success. Not surprisingly, they were disappointed with the results.

The Recipe for Marketing

Marketing, like cooking, is more than just the ingredients used. To get good results, marketing needs a recipe that combines the right mix of activities, timing and presentation to get delicious results. “Marketing” rarely turns out well if there’s no strategy and plan (recipe) for using the ingredients.

Even following a plan, continuing to taste, smell and test during the process is important, so the types or proportions of activities can be adjusted for the best results.

Strategy + Planning + Activities = Cake!

When you put thought into marketing strategy and planning, and add the right mix of activities to support it, the chances for success rise dramatically. Do you have a marketing plan for your business? Do you follow it? Are you testing every so often to see if your activities still support your objective? If you are, you’ll have your cake and eat it too!

Thanks to Don Kaplan, Kaplan Marketing, for providing the analogy and inspiration for this post!

Tags: marketing
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Tip 1 of 5 to Spring Clean Your Website- the Blink Test

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

Spring is right around the corner, although it seems like it’s been here for a while already in the Northeast! In anticipation of warm breezes through open windows, here is one tip to clean the cobwebs out of your web site:

Take the Blink Test. Look at a page of your web site for 5 seconds, then close your eyes. (No fair peeking!) Do you remember clearly seeing and understanding what your value proposition to your customers is? No?

People’s attention span when scaning a web page is about 5 seconds to find if there is anything of interest to them. If your business’ value is not immediately apparent to your visitors, they will move right along to another site. it’s time to clear out the “junk,” and focus on making your message focused and memorable.

Tags: branding, marketing, web sites
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Creative Valentine’s Day Newsletter

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

I just wanted to share a link here to the Marketing Mix Blog, which this week included my February newsletter, “Go on a Date With Your Clients and Prospects” on their list of five creative Valentine’s Day newsletters. Thanks Ilise Benum and Marketing Mentor!

Tags: Creativity, marketing, publishing
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Go On a Date With Your Clients & Prospects

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

If you were getting ready for a first date, you would probably take a shower, splash on some cologne or spritz on perfume, brush your teeth, fix your hair and dress attractively. (If you wouldn’t do these things, you can stop reading right here, because what follows won’t help you!)

Mr. Bigshot That’s great – you want to make a good first impression. But if you follow that with conversation that is all about YOU, the warm and fuzzy feeling will vanish pretty quickly. Your companion will leave feeling that you’re nothing but a conceited, egotistical person, and there will be no second date.

(more…)

Tags: marketing, networking
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JCPenny Redesigns Logo and Marketing Strategy Yet Again

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Less than a year ago, JCPenny (excuse me, that’s lowercase jcpenny now!) rebranded, using the winner of a contest for the logo design. Apparently that didn’t work out so well for the retailer, because tomorrow, jcpenny will be rolling out yet another re-branding effort. Who would have thought that holding a contest for a re-branding wouldn’t be as effective as hiring an experienced branding professional??! I’m shocked, I tell you.

So now, jcpenny has rolled out another branding effort, with a new logo design, along with a “simplified” pricing strategy (that, frankly, still sounds rather complicated to me). (more…)

Tags: commercials
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Branding is About Customer Service, Too

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Last summer my mother moved from her home into an assisted living community. Since her house would be empty while it was being renovated and on the market, I needed to get vacant property insurance, plus renter’s insurance for the assisted living apartment into which my mother had moved.

I called the local insurance agency she had done business with for 18 YEARS for her home and auto, and left a message for her agent to call me back. And then I waited. And waited. And waited some more. (more…)

Tags: branding, marketing
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