As a small business, it is recommended that your advertising budget be 5% of your gross sales. The challenge for most small businesses is using these limited resources successfully. Small businesses can realize a return on their advertising investment by following a few simple rules. Here are the keys to successfully advertise your small business. Continue reading »
With the advent of the spell check tool in Microsoft Word and now in most blog applications online, it seems that more typos are turning up than when copywriters had to edit the old-fashioned way. Today, we see writers relying too much on spell-checking tools and completely skipping good ole’ manual editing, resulting in many typographical errors both in online and print advertisements.
The problem with too many typos and consistent grammatical errors is that people won’t see you as the professional brand of excellence you claim to be. How many people do you think believed the Stratford Hall Catalog when it mispelled a word right on the front cover of their printed catalog, “Reliability…always upholding the highest standards for every detal.” It’s downright embarrassing.
Sometimes you may use the wrong word completely, but the wrong word spelled correctly. This happened to the student newspaper from Brigham Young University when a front-page caption referred to leaders in the Mormon Church as “apostates” rather than “apostles.” The newspapers were pulled from the stands as quickly as possible, as you can imagine. Blog and Twitter updates, brochure and catalog printing – any marketing piece that holds too many grammatical or spelling errors can give your brand a bad reputation.
The “Typo” in Spellcheck
Because the spell checking tool is only programmed to alert you to words it doesn’t contain in its “memory,” it won’t let you know when you’ve used the wrong spelling of the word, such as “it” and “it’s.” Nor will it let you know when you’ve missed a letter and typed a completely different word altogether, such as leaving out the “o” in the word “hello.” And as with the catalog printing mistake mentioned above, spell check does not catch when you unknowingly use the wrong word. Even worse, it doesn’t let you know when your message implies the wrong meaning. Without thorough editing, it can be easy to let such errors slip through, only to show up blatantly after you’ve already printed a thousand posters.
Tips for Better Editing
Here are some methods you can use for a more thorough editing of your writing. Combine the use of at least three of these methods for the best results.
Bottom line: don’t rely solely on the spell check tool in your word software. Take the time to edit everything you write for your brand, so that you don’t end up with a newspaper caption or tagline for your catalog printing that gives readers the wrong impression.
When you’re first starting out in your business, it’s easy to jump at whatever advertising opportunities come your way. Discount magazine ad? Sign me up! Free month of radio ads when you buy one month? Where do I sign?
But you have to research all advertising opportunities. If the medium doesn’t have your target audience or doesn’t have the reach you need and want for the money you’re shelling out, then it’s just a waste of money. Not all advertising is good advertising.
Guidelines When Considering Advertising Opportunities
1. Don’t advertise in a newspaper, magazine or other medium that you haven’t read with your own two eyes. No one knows your product like you do, not even your well-intentioned family member.
2. Ask the advertiser for a complete media kit. If they don’t have a media kit, that’s a huge red flag that you do not want to do business with this advertiser. Ask for a sample copy of the publication and circulation numbers. The media kit should also include articles about the company, published elsewhere than their internal newsletter; a fact sheet on the company; and ideally, testimonials from others who have advertised with the company.
3. Don’t buy radio time in the form of ads or as a special guest unless you listen to the radio station yourself and you know it and its audience. Some people pay for radio time, thinking that they can become a radio talk show expert or add that title to their resume. The cost for all that radio time to become an “expert” is not worth it.
4. When you order a mailing list from a list broker, be sure to stipulate that you require 95 percent accuracy of addresses that are deliverable. Some addresses are naturally going to be old or incorrect, but the majority should be deliverable. Make it a condition of your contract that you’ll get your money back if only 94 percent or less of your direct mail pieces are deliverable. Be sure to get this in writing beforehand so you have a leg to stand on if it happens. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book – a list broker claims to have thousands of names in your target audience, but then only a hundred people actually get your ad. Don’t fall for it!
5. If a product review site asks for your ad, and then promises a review, run away. Your review and ad shouldn’t appear in the same issue, no matter what the salesperson says. People can see right through this and will think that your product was only reviewed because you bought ad space (and essentially, it’s true in this scam).
And finally, make sure to get everything in writing. It’s easy to let a salesperson sweep your thoughts away to a magical land of your product flying off the shelf once people see your new ad, but be sure you read all the fine print before signing your name.
I don’t have anything against Google, per se, but its AdWords program is getting worse. People just aren’t making more than beans off of most of their AdWords ads. When it first started it was easy, but now it’s gotten complicated and people aren’t clicking as much as they used to. And what about those people who don’t even know that they need your product, much less know that they need to search for it? Those people aren’t even aware of your Google ad.
Depending on what kind of business you have, AdWords may just not be right for you. You can do all your homework and research your customer and targeting that customer. You can even make sure that customer needs your product. You can create awesome marketing materials and an eye-catching Web site, but AdWords won’t help if your target customer doesn’t know your product even exists!
Yep, that’s a big problem (understatement of the year, I know!).
If Google AdWords isn’t working for you, then it’s time to get back to basics, or traditional advertising methods. Why? Because Google AdWords targets people who know what they are looking for and many people don’t know what they’re looking for because they don’t realize a solution exists. That’s where traditional advertising comes in – it reaches the people who don’t know there’s a solution for them out there.
Direct mail – this is a great choice when you have a very targeted consumer, especially a targeted regional consumer. Even if people throw away direct mail as junk mail, they at least look at a postcard or brochure to see who sent it. And, the fact is, many people read their “junk mail.” A 2006 U.S. Postal Service survey found that 80 percent of people skim direct mail. A letter may not work in this case, but if you have a solution right out in the open on a postcard, who’s not going to look? And if the consumer doesn’t even know there is a solution, you’re the first one to reach out to them!
TV ads – more people may be watching TV on the Internet, but not everyone is. Many people can’t afford to buy a nice big 30-inch computer monitor to watch “their” shows on. And many people still have “their” shows that they watch every week without fail.
Billboards – who doesn’t drive to work? Not very many people. And even those that work out of their homes or don’t work at all have to drive somewhere eventually. That’s why billboards won’t ever stop working. Until people can zap themselves from place to place, billboards will be a great way to reach thousands of local consumers.
Magazine and newspaper ads – Although the circulation numbers have gone down for each of these mediums, they’re still pretty good. And research has shown that Web site visits go up after advertising the URL in a magazine or newspaper ad. That means people are still reading and these ads still work.
If you aren’t getting the response you want from Google AdWords or any other type of Internet advertising, give it a break and try traditional again. Everything from handing out business cards to hanging flyers counts. It doesn’t have to be expensive or high tech to be effective advertising.
I hadn’t heard of place branding until today. At first I thought it seemed odd that a place like city would need branding, but then I thought of Las Vegas. New York City. Those places definitely have brands attached to them. Now it’s starting to all make sense.
Place branding is being used by more and more locations around the world to compete for their share of foreign and domestic investment dollars and capital. One good example is Cincinnati USA’s communication of its brand – the tourism site and campaign is all over the place! Of course, living only a few hours of Cincinnati maybe I’m more inundated by the TV commercials and ads than others. But being in the Midwest and about the center of the United States, I bet Cincinnati USA has reached much farther than the crossroads of America.
Cincinnati USA’s campaign shows that Cincinnati is not a boring city – it’s got sports, recreation, “family fun” and culture.
I’ve found 7 tips from the Branding Strategy Insider blog that work well for place branding:
1. Get marketing advisors on your team. Before you even start thinking about how to incorporate place branding, you need to get some people on your side that can help you understand the jargon used by ad agencies and place branding consultants. You might even be able to find a marketing pro on your Board of Directors that can help you recruit a few more marketing minds. These people can help you plan your strategy so that you don’t waste any money or resources and get the response you want.
2. Include thought leaders from your community in your plan. These community leaders can help influence others in your community to get on board in your branding initiative. When you brand a place, you have to have the community’s buy-in or it’s not going to work.
3. Focus your branding to a few industries. All of the companies in your place want to be part of your branding effort. Anytime you include them, it’s like free advertising for them. But at first, you should focus mainly on the big money makers in your town. A nicer way of saying this is include those who represent the majority of your gross domestic product. To balance the focus, you should include one or two emerging industries in your branding.
4. Get to know industry experts in your community. Become buddies with the execs at the companies of which you’ll be touting in your branding. Local experts can let you in on emerging trends in the area that will affect how well your place is received nationally and internationally. Use them to keep your branding info current and relevant.
5. Translate your place’s features to benefits. A marketing mantra is to sell benefits, not features. Do the same with your place. A state-of-the-art hospital is a feature; having experts near that up your chances of surviving a heart attack is a benefit.
6. Partner with nearby communities. If your place is interdependent with another close-by, there’s no reason you can’t both share the region’s assets. A capital investment made in either place can contribute to the region’s brand.
7. Make sure you have the time and money to do the branding. Branding doesn’t happen overnight. You need to make sure you have the resources to devote to building up your place brand. This is a hard challenge, but it can be done. Look at Cincinnati for inspiration when you think it can’t be done.
I came across a good slideshow (yes, slideshow!) about marketing – “Future of Marketing and Advertising” is actually the title. It’s a frank, somewhat humorous take on what works in marketing now and the trend of integrating marketing into the product. The slideshow is full of good quotes from marketing greats and CEOs, ranging from Seth Godin to Steve Jobs. You can find the slideshow here: http://www.webmyc.com/blog/2008/06/22/future-of-marketing-advertising/. There are 91 slides, so if you don’t want to take the time to look through it, I’ll highlight it for you here. That’s just how nice I am! Ha ha.
Products that Integrate Marketing into the Product
The author, someone named Bob, uses some photos to show marketing integrated into the product. He uses an iPhone, a Wii (or at least I think it’s a Wii) and a Starbucks cup. All of these products have a marketable piece to them as is. The iPhone marketed itself because of all of its cool features, the Wii looks cool and you just have to see it in action to understand it and want it, and it’s much cooler to walk into work holding a Starbucks cup than an “am/pm” gas station coffee cup. But what if your product isn’t cool? What if it doesn’t have any neat functions? It’s kind of easy to market the iPhone, but what about a car tire or diapers?
How to Integrate When You Don’t Have a Cool Product
Bob’s answer is to add content. Add content so useful that people don’t know what they did before they knew your brand. Another answer is to engage people. Get people interested in your product and do something interactive that will get people’s participation. Each of these answers only has one or two slides, which to me means they aren’t as important as Bob’s answer of utility.
Utility means a brand that gives something back to the customer – the brand is helpful. Don’t just give people info about your product, give them info they can use in other parts of their lives. So, Huggies diapers, for instance, could not only include inserts about their diapers in their packaging, but useful info for new parents, like about preventing diaper rash or treating diaper rash; or how to feed babies solid foods. If Huggies gives parents something other than their diapers they can use, something useful like this type of info, then their brand just got stronger through their packaging.
Which one of these answers do you use? Like a lot of things in marketing, it depends on your audience. Bob says to conduct surveys, focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews and the like to figure out what your audience wants and needs. Whatever you do, just make sure you get the message across that your product is useful. If your product makes people’s lives better, you’ve done your job.
Advertising Age has a correspondent named Martin Lindstrom that finds new and innovative ways of building brands. Lindstrom goes around the world, finding new branding techniques.
In one interesting video he explores branding through smell. He goes to a Crayola store and says that there is no smell in there whatsoever. How can that be?
Everyone remembers what crayons smell like. The smell can take you back to elementary school in a heartbeat. Lindstrom guesses that Crayola has changed its crayon formula to no longer smell as it did. No matter how Crayola got rid of the smell, there’s no question that it was a mistake.
If I was blindfolded and someone stuck a Crayola crayon under my nose, I would know right away what it was. That’s branding.
Lindstrom encourages brands to not only use the sense of sight to appeal to people and build brands, but to use as many senses as possible.
To do this, follow these three steps:
1. Develop a sensogram for your own and competitor brands to assess and compare the brand’s sensory appeal. Draw a diagram with five points that looks like a pentagram (don’t worry, nothing evil is coming from this!) and label each point with a sense: touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight.
Then map out how well your brand appeals to each of the five senses, using a 0 to 5 scale. Do the same for your competitors. Which senses do your competitors beat you on? Which senses do your competitors not use at all that you could use to take a bigger part of the market?
Finally, map out your ideal sensogram of which senses you would like to appeal to with a 5 rating within three years.
2. Identify and secure ownership of your brand’s sensory signals. Some businesses don’t even know they have sensory brand signals. Lindstrom notes how McDonald’s has a hearing sense appeal. When you put a McDonald’s straw through one of its plastic lids on a cup of Coke, it makes a distinct sound. I’m sure you can hear it right now. He says McDonald’s should take ownership of that sound. (How to do that, I’m not exactly sure. I’m guessing what Lindstrom means is in the next step.)
And I have to mention Subway. Every Subway smells the same no matter where you go. I had friends in high school that worked at Subway and I could tell from the smell in their cars that they worked there!
3. Exploit every opportunity to introduce brand communication with the senses. Identify which senses you want to own – Lindstrom suggests smell and sound. He suggests putting sound on your Web site since most people have computer speakers nowadays. You could put a short 7-second tune that gives off the feeling of your brand, which Lindstrom calls the “brand signature.” Something soothing for a spa Web site or something rockin’ for a Web site directed at teens.
You could also add some kind of unique smell to your product or packaging. I’ve noticed that certain magazine pages smell a certain way, but I’m not sure if I’d consider that part of the magazine’s brand or not. I think Lindstrom would.
I checked out the following post about a bad logo that got corrected within a few weeks’ time: http://www.jay-han.com/2008/04/22/small-changes-big-difference/. But that led me to look for other bad logos. I found a goodie page full of them at a real estate blog of all places! Check out http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/logos/when-logos-go-bad/2007/04/19/.
The logo from the first Web page mentioned, found by Jayhan, is not so bad. The logo was for Bank Islam, with the “k” of “bank” used stylistically to try to form a crescent shape around “Islam.” Many people probably didn’t get the fact that the logo was using a “k” as a design element, which is why it was changed. The “k” didn’t look enough like a “k” so the logo at first looked like something for Bani Islam.
The logos in the second Web site mentioned are much funnier. Many of them include something that looks inappropriately sexual, especially for the subject matter. The Arlington Pediatric Center’s logo, in particular, does not look good – it looks like a place that promotes pedophilia! Not good for any business, but especially a pediatric center. Doesn’t anyone look at these logos to see if any negative connotations can be picked up from them? Obviously not.
This leads me to think that these establishments need to know what makes a good logo. Here’s a short list:
1. The logo should not look like a man’s most important body part or any body parts surrounding said important body part. When you design a logo, have other people take a look at it, please! Get some opinions. Ask if anyone sees anything that could be looked at as sexual in the logo. This is generally not a good thing. Revise logo if so.
Reminds me of Mr. Garrison on Southpark, writing a book with all gay themes in it and he doesn’t see the gay themes. When the designer gets so involved in the work, he is blind to obvious themes.
2. If your company does anything internationally, it’s a good idea to check out local taboos or “naughty” words. Some of these funny logos were funny only in our language, in our customs. Ask people from other countries to take a look at your logo for any kind of offensive language or image that is culturally sensitive.
3. Don’t confuse people with your logo. When you show your logo to other people and they don’t get it, don’t write them off as dumb people who don’t know a good logo when they see one. Everyone needs to understand your logo and if people don’t, they might not want to do business with you. They won’t know what you’re about if they are confused by the message being sent in your logo. If your logo isn’t sending a message at all, that’s another problem.
Don’t make the mistake of generic packaging. Anytime you have an opportunity to connect your product with your corporate image, take it. Not only will your customers have one more point of exposure to your brand, but this also increases the likelihood of exposing new customers to your brand.
Examples abound: unbranded envelopes, basic business cards, blank cardboard boxes, and simple letterheads are just a few illustrations of places and products on which you should consider putting your logo. You will probably find that branding these items are not as expensive as you think. Besides, the payoff can be worth many times the expense.
Don’t underestimate the power of keeping your logo in front of your current customers. The competition can be ruthless. And competition frequently comes from the sheer number of opportunities available to customers. While they may be used to you, comfortable with you, and happy with your services, there is always the temptation to try something new. Your brand on your packaging reinforces your relationship with your customer and is one simple trick that can keep the competition at bay.
And don’t forget that new customers can be discovered through these new branding efforts. Many purchases are made because the customer simply remembers one brand before the other. They make their purchase not necessarily because they have the strong preference for one of the other brand. Instead, the company that won the purchase was simply the company that had done a better job of branding.
So, whether you are a small business that has not taken advantage of branding all your packaging or you are a big business that thought you might cut costs by using generic packaging, consider that unbranded items are unmemorable items. The cost of keeping your brand at the top of your customers’ mental list is worth the extra costs of branding generic packaging.
Nike has sued Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS), a New Hampshire outdoor-sporting-goods store, for bidding on Nike’s trademarked term “Dri-FIT” in Google’s ad system. When a user searches for Dri-FIT on Google, EMS is one of the first paid ads featured.
When the user clicks on the EMS ad, she is taken back to EMS’s Web site, which features other brands that use wicking technology since EMS doesn’t sell Nike brand clothes.
Google allows bidding on competitors’ trademarks, although there’s debate on whether that constitutes trademark infringement. The Nike debate is just one of the most recent in a hash of similar complaints. American Airlines sued Google for trademark infringement because Google allowed competitors to advertise against its trademarked terms. Google settled, but no clear policy or rule came from the lawsuit.
What’s a brand for, then?
My take is that Google is allowing trademark infringement by allowing others to use trademarked terms that were trademarked by Nike. According to Merriam-Webster Online, a trademark is “a device (as a word) pointing distinctly to the origin or ownership of merchandise to which it is applied and legally reserved to the exclusive use of the owner as maker or seller.” To me, Google is explicitly breaking the law by letting others use Dri-FIT. A recent search of Dri-FIT didn’t show EMS (I’m guessing because of the lawsuit), but others including Golfsmith, NexTag.com, Amazon.com and Shopzilla all showed up, meaning they all paid for the Dri-FIT trademarked term too. So, instead of Google only getting paid once by Nike for their own term, Google got paid at least four other times for the same term. Doesn’t that seem selfish? By letting competitors bid on and use other companies’ trademarked terms, Google gets paid a lot more than they would if they didn’t allow it. Hmmm. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what their motivation is!
If these other companies want to all bid on a generic term, like “wicking clothing” or “wicking material,” no one would say “boo.” Although Nike uses those terms to describe its Dri-FIT material, Nike didn’t trademark those terms like it did Dri-FIT. In Merriam-Webster’s definition, Nike didn’t legally reserve those terms, so it’d be okay. What’s the point of branding and trademarking if anyone is allowed to use your trademark?
Google’s side
Google’s position on all of this is that by letting competitors bid on branded keywords, it’s giving consumers more variety in their search results. (Yahoo and Microsoft don’t generally let marketers bid on their competitors’ trademarked terms.) So, Google is saying that it’s just keeping customers happy and doing what’s best for the customer, rather than what’s best for the retailer.
My side
I don’t think Google would like “googling” or the verb “to google” to be associated with Yahoo or any other search engine. I think they’re going to settle or lose this lawsuit and rightfully so. I think they’re guilty of trademark infringement. What do you think?
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