Brand and Capture

Smile, Camera, Action! Using Video for Inbound Marketing

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is priceless, particularly when you're talking about inbound marketing campaigns. Everyone's familiar with the speed at which a video can go viral on YouTube. Teen heart throb Justin Bieber owes his mega-star fame to home videos of the young crooner posted on YouTube by his mom. Scottish singer Susan Boyle became a worldwide overnight sensation when a video of her Britain's Got Talent performance went viral. Celebrities and celebrity-wanna-bes have made adept use of Internet video sites like YouTube to promote themselves and claim their 15 minutes of fame. Post a catchy video on YouTube that catches viewers' attention and you can put yourself in the spotlight again and again.

Viral Videos and Inbound Marketing

The power of video to attract attention and promote brands and products hasn't been lost on savvy marketing directors. Coke, Pepsi and computer giant HP are just a few of the Fortune 500 companies that have discovered marketing gold in posting Internet videos and hosting online video contests. They and others have embraced the quirky creativity of amateur video artists to tap into the public's unquenchable thirst for another 30-second chuckle. In doing so, they not only tap a new, young, hip, tech-savvy audience but they create new perceptions about their brand, widening its consumer appeal beyond core demographics.

Poking a bit of fun on YouTube isn't a good match for every brand, but the power of video can be harnessed in a number of more traditional and highly effective inbound marketing applications to draw customers and sell products. Consider a few of these proven video enhancements:

• Add a demonstration video to your website, blog post or Facebook page to demonstrate how your product works. In a simple one- or two-minute video of your product in action, you can show customers how your product operates, something that might take pages to describe in writing
• Offer a list of how-to videos for do-it-yourselfers, naturally featuring the use of your product.
• Give your company a public face by filming a greeting, personal appeal, invitation or introduction by your company's president. Video is an excellent way to connect with consumers and establish a more personal relationship.
• Offer a video showcase of your products in use to spark customers' interest and suggest new uses for your products.

How does video fit into your inbound marketing strategy? We can help.

Photo credit: HeyGabe

Build Your Brand: Is it Time for a Refresh?

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Are you in sync with your target market, or are you trying to attract a different customer demographic? Does your brand portray the right image, or does your packaging cry out for an update? Is your firm considered fresh and vital, or do consumers write you off as outdated?

There are many smart reasons to rebrand your company or a key product. Rebranding can revitalize your firm, refresh its image, attract new customers and place you in a better position to compete successfully.

McDonald's successful rebranding as a nutrition-conscious eatery is an excellent example. Decried as a leading cause of American obesity, McDonald's introduced salads and wraps and started offering fruit and veggie choices in Happy Meals. Vegetarian burgers have been introduced in British Columbia stores with a rollout in California planned soon.

But rebranding also entails a certain amount of risk. We are naturally resistant to change, particularly when it comes to companies and products that have become an integral part of our lives. If proper strategy is not executed, rebranding can alienate and even anger customers. Despite McDonald's new, healthier menu choices and a switch to non-saturated fry oil, it didn't take away from the iconic hamburgers that made the chain a household name.

Rebranding is not an exercise to be taken lightly or rushed into. Successful rebranding efforts require strategy, careful planning, creative insight, testing, evaluation, preparation for the rollout, commitment and patience. Here are six steps toward successful rebranding:

1. Starting point. You have to know where you stand before you start making any changes to your brand. You need hard data that tells you who your customers actually are and why they buy your product. You also need data that indicates how your brand is perceived both on its own merits and ranked against competitors by current customers as well as by non-customers, staff, executives and other stakeholders.
2. Goal setting. You need a clear idea of what you want rebranding to accomplish. Do you want to build a new customer base? Do you want to rejuvenate your image? Do you want to change your product focus? Your goals for rebranding can be as minor as updating your packaging or differentiating yourself from local competitors with a new tag line or as major as a complete change in customer focus or expansion into global markets.
3. Action plan. Formulate a plan to meet your rebranding goals. What changes to your brand must be made to accomplish those goals -- name, logo, tag line, colors, graphics, design, website, social media, etc? A color or type face change may be all it takes to update a logo, but revising your product line or customer base may call for development of comprehensive inbound and outbound marketing strategies.
4. Evaluation. Just as you tested to determine your starting point, you'll need to test changes to your brand before full rollout. Beta testing with client, customer, staff and focus groups can provide data that will help you fine-tune rebranding changes to ensure a successful rollout.
5. Rollout. To be successful, rebranding requires a major inbound marketing effort on multiple social media fronts to make customers aware of rebranding changes and direct them to make the new association with your branding. Your rollout plan needs to address the emotional benefits of rebranding as well as any tangible benefits. Gaining emotional commitment is the key to a successful rebranding program.
6. Commitment and patience. When companies or products are rebranded, consumers need time to adjust and rediscover your brand. You have to give rebranding efforts a chance to catch on. Careful monitoring and management of social media directed by an experienced inbound marketing professional will produce the fastest results.

Are you overdue for a brand refresh? We can help.

Using Tag Lines to Build Your Brand

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You can build your brand with an effective tag line to go with your memorable logo. Tag lines give your brand a unique identity. A tag line is a short 3 to 7 word phrase that appears with your logo. When consumers hear or see your tag line, they should instantly associate it with a positive quality connected with your business or product. 

To be effective, tag lines need to be short, to the point and easily remembered. The best tag lines exhibit superior "stickiness"; that is, they stick in the consumer's mind. The hallmarks of an effective tagline are:

1. Memorable. To stick in the customer's mind, a tag line should resonate with the big picture, elicit emotion or define the brand's key essence. Make use of puns, jingles, alliteration, humor, created words and rhymes to create memorable tag lines. Oscar Meyer's "My bologna has a first name" is a powerful example.
2. Recall. An effective tag line should contain or at least invoke the brand name. An excellent example is Nike's ploy of ending ads only with its iconic swoosh, forcing consumers to supply the brand name.
3. Benefit. Your tag line should define a key brand benefit. In marketing it's always easier to "sell the sizzle, not the steak." People buy more readily into benefits than features. Allstate's tag line, "You're in good hands," is a sterling example.
4. Differentiate. An effective tag line should differentiate the brand from its competitors. The California Dairy Council has done this admirably with its "Happy cows come from California."
5. Positive. Your tag line should give consumers a good feeling about your brand. Stick with positive mental images; negativity doesn't sell. Coke has been particularly successful in creating tag lines with positive images, "Coke is it!" being the most iconic.
6. Exclusivity. Effective tag lines should be exclusive to the brand and not be so general that they could be applied to competitors. The ability to apply general tag lines like "Simply the best" to multiple brands blunts its effectiveness.
7. Strategic. Memorable tag lines express brand strategy. General Electric's "We bring good things to light" is a classic example.

The most successful brand tag lines enter the popular lexicon and become an indelible part of popular culture. While few tag lines achieve trend status as pop culture icons, your brand's tag line could be the next phrase on everyone's lips if you follow these 7 tips.

What are some tag lines you admire?

7 Tips for Building Your Brand With a Powerful Logo

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"A picture is worth a thousand words," the old saying goes; and that is never more true that in logo creation. A logo is a stylistic "picture" of your brand. Your business logo should instantly identify your company or product to consumers. Like Nike's swoosh or Coke's stylized red can or Hallmark's gold crown, no words need be spoken; your logo should be synonymous with your brand name. But logos are far more than powerful brand identifiers. An effective logo should invoke your corporate image and reflect the essence of your brand message. When a consumer sees your logo, you want it to engender emotions that are simpatico with the brand image you are striving to build.

Sounds like a tall order and, of course, your logo design alone won't create the consumer relationship you desire or earn your brand the consumer following you seek. You have to tie your logo to an aggressive inbound marketing strategy that creates the desired consumer associations with your brand. But the starting point is creating of a dynamic logo for your brand.

There are 7 proven design tips for creating effective logos:

1. Start with a strong, clean, uncomplicated, well-balanced image.
2. Strive for a distinctive, bold, uncluttered, well-articulated design that is easily recognizable at a glance.
3. Use graphics that are appropriate to your business or product.
4. Choose a logo that enhances and compliments your company or product name.
5. Select a clean, easy-to-read font that is quickly decipherable from a distance.
6. Design a logo that communicates a key characteristic of your business.
7. Make certain your logo will look equally attractive and be easy to read in both black and white and color. 

Once you've created a dynamic logo, aggressive inbound and outbound marketing campaigns will be necessary to train consumers to associate your new logo image with your brand and what it stands for. In the past, branding campaigns often took years to come to fruition. Today, inbound marketing campaigns that focus heavily on social media can accomplish your branding goals in a matter of months, weeks if some aspect of your social media marketing campaign goes viral. Only inbound marketing is capable of taking a logo/branding campaign from 0 to 60 in what often seems like the blink of an eye!

Got a great logo? Get a great logo.

3 Tips for Building Your Brand on Facebook

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No matter what demographic you want to target, Facebook is the place to build your brand. Already adopted as a basic lifestyle necessity by consumers in the lucrative under 30 demographic, Facebook is growing in popularity among fans 34 to 45 years old, the fastest growing Facebook population group. The increasing popularity of Facebook, which appears to be gradually replacing phone and written contact as the mainstay of U.S. personal communication, provides incredible opportunities and a few challenges to successfully building a business brand.

Follow these tips to tweak your Facebook content and optimize the Facebook presence of your business brand:

• Optimize thumbnail pictures. When Facebook creates thumbnails from your profile photo, it crops information during the process, creating a 12 pixel border of unused space around the image. Any information or graphic contained within this automatic border is lost during thumbnail creation. Instead of the 200 pixel width Facebook specs indicate are available for your profile picture, only 176 pixels are actually usable. Factor this into the creation of your profile picture so you don't lose critical information when thumbnails are created. Also remember that Facebook thumbnails have rounded corners and are square. Even though profile photos don't limit the length of pictures, when Facebook creates thumbnails, that extra length will be cropped away to fit the square template. Allowing for Facebook's automatic cropping will ensure that tumbnails created for your site contain your brand's essential information and graphics.
• Take advantage of FBML boxes. Facebook's new Public Profiles allow businesses to create separate default landing pages for fans and non-fans (not yet "liking" your page). Different content can be created to target different users. Creating separate content for fans and non-fans allows you to offer exclusive content or promotions to fans while encouraging non-fans to sign up so they too can receive exclusive material. Become a Fan incentives can be displayed in FBML boxes on non-fan pages to encourage fan registration. Here is an example from our Kuno Creative Facebook Page.
• Make use of vanity URLs. Brands with Facebook pages that boast a minimum 100 fans are eligible for vanity URLs. Vanity URLs allow you to put your brand name in your Facebook URL, making your site easy for fans to remember and find. To set up a Facebook vanity url, go to http://www.facebook.com/username and follow the instructions.

Are you building your brand on Facebook and Twitter? We can help!

Using Twitter for Inbound Marketing and Customer Service

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When actor Ashton Kutcher gained his 1 millionth Twitter follower, the quasi-event made nightly newscasts and Internet news feeds. Of course, that's old news. Kutcher is now battling pop singer Britney Spears for Twitter supremacy; both are nearing 5 million followers. You don't have to be among the Twitteratti elite to see Twitter's marketing potential.

The ultimate news feed, Twitter is one of the newer additions to comprehensive social media marketing strategies. With more than 20 million U.S. users, Twitter has the potential to expand your marketing reach exponentially. Twitter allows you to connect almost instantly with customers, as long as you limit your messages to 140 characters, or about two short sentences. Obviously, Twitter isn't a vehicle for providing in-depth information or cultivating deep customer relationships. It's more "Hi" at the coffee shop than weekend seminar. But don't underestimate Twitter just because customer contacts seem superficial. There's something about the constant accessibility, immediacy and repeated contact that appeals to consumers.

Twitter can be an effective marketing tool when used correctly. It has no peer when it comes to quickly disseminating timely snippets of information, making instantaneous announcements to large numbers of people, reaching people scattered in distant locations and obtaining instant feedback. Some of the most effective marketing uses of Twitter include:

• Broadcasting news such as the launch of a new product or an early weather-induced closing.
• Promote an event. Twitter allows you to easily issue repeat announcements to promote special events.
• Announcing special sales. Offering occasional Twitter-only unadvertised sales is one effective way to keep fans tuned in.
• Answer customers' questions. Personally responding to customers' questions or complaints builds goodwill and strengthens customer loyalty.
• Point out useful resources. Providing helpful links to web articles, websites or blogs increases your credibility as an industry expert.
• Obtain feedback. On Twitter you can run a poll, ask a question or ask for advice and receive valuable feedback from customers instantly.
• Introduce new staff or announce a job opening. Who better to become your next devoted employee than a loyal customer who is already emotionally invested in your business?
• Promote your brand. With each tweet you send, you increase consumer awareness of your company and products, and keep your brand firmly in front of consumers.

What is Your Inbound Marketing Elevator Speech?

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"Inbound marketing? Huh??" 

That is the response I received when speaking with my friend Ed, a very sharp investment banker from Seattle, about his desire to increase his company's brand awareness. I had discussed inbound marketing as one approach to doing this.

Many concise descriptions and definitions of inbound marketing are available. Keith Parnell breaks it down here. Rick Burns, of HubSpot, gives an inbound marketing tour de force here. We offer the ABC's here. And, of course, there is always Wikipedia. 

In speaking with executives like Ed, however, I found the need for an inbound marketing "elevator speech." Most executives aren't interested in details like inbound links and long tail keywords - they want to know what's in it for them, and more importantly, how the companies they lead will benefit. The elevator speech is the classic executive summary that can crystallize a concept for someone in a few minutes. 

And that's not easy to do, mind you.

For me, the inbound marketing elevator speech goes a little bit like this - inbound marketing is simply about having a conversation with your customer or potential customer. It's an incredibly open and honest conversation that may take place through blogs, emails, Facebook, Twitter and webinars. There is nothing about this conversation that is interruptive or unidirectional.

Perhaps Chris Brogan captured it best when, during his visit to Cleveland, he identified Vanilla Ice as the world's first social media/inbound marketing expert - Stop, Collaborate, and Listen - Mr. Ice opined. It's certainly legit - customers (and humans) have an incredible desire to be heard.  

What's your inbound marketing elevator speech?  

A Great Logo Design Goes a Long Way in Building Your Brand

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A corporate logo design need not be flashy, intricate or extremely modern to be effective. Effective logos do, however, have to elicit some sort of response. At the very least, all logos should inspire a basic level of confidence and, ideally, interest in your brand.

Style and Font

There are far more fonts available for corporate logo design than there are on Microsoft Word or Mac Pages, for example. New fonts are constantly being created and can even be custom designed for your brand. So, it’s worth exploring different options through a bit of online research and consultation with your branding company.

See what similar brands in your area are using as fonts. What inspires confidence in one industry may be confusing, meaningless or even detrimental in another. There are certain fonts that say “digital” or “cutting-edge” while others might say “traditional,” “reliable” or “powerful”. Figure out what you’re trying to say first and then seek out your ideal font.

Corporate Logo Design and Color

As mentioned above, simple designs can achieve everything you’re looking for, but a word of caution: Don’t be so simple as to seem common or derivative. In other words, your logo should never be mistaken for Clip Art.

Choose colors that speak to your brand. Much like fonts, colors and color tones or brightness levels suggest different moods, characteristics and strengths of your brand. Colors in combination also have different effects. Sample different color combinations across all of your sample font and design schemes.

Also consider color in terms of light, texture and shadow. A strong designer can suggest modifications in color, texture, shading and tone to differentiate your logo.

Convergence

Sample a few different designs in a few different color schemes each. In the brainstorming and creative phase, all options should be on the table, including fun and wild ideas. In the end you can tie all the elements—style, font, design, color—together with your brand message.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Outbound Marketing

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So we're constantly badmouthing outbound marketing and pushing inbound marketing. You know what I'm talking about - the relentless TV ads, direct mail and spam that gets delivered to your door 24/7. It's not all bad though. Some of it makes us laugh, and the rest, well...

The Good

OK, so it's not the e-Trade baby in the picture. You want me to get sued? You know the ad(s) - unbelievably funny. Kid talks smack with fellow golfer after a serious "Skins Beat-Down". "Dude, grab the reins. Get some analytics..." I howl every time I see that ad. I'm a total sucker for the talking baby gimmic. No, I don't use e-Trade, not since 9-11, but what the heck, this is advertising money well spent. Bring the ads, e-Trade.

The Bad

People who finish each other's sentences in TV ads drive me nuts. IBM does this all the time, as does Microsoft. C'mon man! Do something original. And Apple, OK we get that PC's suck. Why not show us some good stuff from your new Mac's or at least do something different. These ads hurt my head and make me wish I had a TIVO.

The Ugly

Every since the founding days of Nigeria I've been getting these e-mails asking me to open a bank account for some guy who supposedly lives there and can't do it himself. OK fine, I did that once, so why am I still getting these e-mails? I'm beginning to think it might be a scam.

Marketing Take-Away

If you're going to do outbound marketing, at least make it clever!

What are your favorite outbound marketing good, and ugly nominees? Maybe we should have a poll, or like me are you sick and tired of polls too?

5 Steps to Identify Your Branding Strengths and Weaknesses

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When was the last time you drafted your branding strategies' strengths and weaknesses chart?

1.  Start by simply identifying the services that you provide and which services you don’t provide.  Then, pinpoint the areas in which you excel and where you need improvement.

2.  Ask yourself what your brand represents today.  Come up with a list of adjectives.  Do these adjectives fit into your original mission statement and brand strategy?  Are they in accord with your day-to-day activities?

3.  Then consider, in the past year, what projects you have executed most effectively as well as what types of clients or customers are most drawn to you.  Notice any commonalities or patterns.

Remember, this is an internal audit.  Understanding your strengths and weaknesses is a way to see where and how your company and brand strategy can improve.  This is a tool that leads to the final product of a more specific, powerful and polished brand image.  

4. Determine where your brand is heading.  After looking at your present branding strategies and how they square up to your goals or the original vision of your brand, you might notice some disconnects or inconsistencies.  These should now command the primary attention of your brand strategy.  If they are positive changes that you want to pursue as the future of your brand - great!  If they are weaknesses or unfulfilled promises, consider how your brand can change course.

5.  Bring the internal audit into focus.  Ask yourself:  

•    Is my client base expanding or contracting?  
•    Do my clients adequately represent the types of clients I want to pursue?
•    Have I gained on or lost to my closest competitors recently? (key accounts, revenue, market share, etc.)
•    Do people understand my brand?   

Now, take some time to reevaluate.  Regroup with your team and your ad agency and begin redrafting your brand strategy.   You’ll soon find the effort worth the time.