In this world, running a business successfully needs very strong implication of marketing and selling strategies. For promoting a business and its products and services, promotional products such as bags, mugs, coasters, calendars, caps, pens, mugs, chocolates and sweets can play a great role. Distribute promotional products [...]]]> Distribution of Promotional Products Increases Company’s Brand Name

In this world, running a business successfully needs very strong implication of marketing and selling strategies. For promoting a business and its products and services, promotional products such as bags, mugs, coasters, calendars, caps, pens, mugs, chocolates and sweets can play a great role. Distribute promotional products among existing as well as prospective customers to get desired results. By offering these products, you can ensure that clients and business associates are happy with your cooperation. In order to get a business recognized; the trend of distributing promotional products and business gifts come in vary effectively.

Promotional chocolate and personalized sweets are considered as one of the popular promotional products that can be distributed among the new customers, old customers and also the masses sometimes to create brand awareness. Distributing these chocolates and sweets plays a great role for any business in making brand awareness and market value. If you want to distribute imprinted promotional chocolates, you can search a company that provide you with customized packages and services such printing your brand name, logo, contact number and message to make these promotional products an effective brand enhancer.

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Chocolates are good for health

Everyone wants to distribute promotional products that are not only yummy, but also helpful for health. Promotional chocolates have been considered as such products that contribute to individuals health. This is because; they contain antioxidants, flavonoids, and steric acid. Some of the common benefits of chocolates include:

•    Increase in brain activity
•    Improve circulation by reducing blood pressure
•    Help with digestion by inhibiting diarrhea.

Today, personalized sweets are also considered as extraordinary ways for promoting a business. They can be distributed at the time of fairs and festivals, presentations, conferences and during day-to-day communication with clients. Being available at economical rates, these personalized products are sought after by businessmen throughout the world.

If you want to buy customized promotional sweets and chocolates, then you can search an online promotional store. Most of the online stores also offer you the facility of home delivery within least time. In fact, the online process of searching an authentic online promotional store offers you a wide variety of choice to suit your purpose, budget and business requirements.

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Among many different approach of marketing, there is one relatively new yet very popular form of marketing now collectively known as “Viral marketing”. It uses rather unconventional methods to make your product popular and it is akin more to a guerrilla style marketing, but why marketing your business using [...]]]> Viral Marketing: Help your Business Improve Brand Visibility

Among many different approach of marketing, there is one relatively new yet very popular form of marketing now collectively known as “Viral marketing”. It uses rather unconventional methods to make your product popular and it is akin more to a guerrilla style marketing, but why marketing your business using this? Viral marketing is considered to be the hottest topic in the world of web promotion and such internet marketing campaigns usually involve the use of word of mouth and other sophisticated marketing strategies that helps to publicize the online business and thereby generate more traffic to your website. Viral marketing campaigns can be extremely successful for different sorts of business ranging from small industries to corporate giants. If well executed then it helps to succeed in spreading the business or websites to thousands of people within a very short time. It is cheap and the trick lies in the fact to inspire people to discuss about your marketing strategies that increase product awareness and sales.

In today’s competitive world, SEO companies have started to adopt alternative forms of internet marketing like video clips, internet games, text messages and many more. Marketers basically identify the targeted people who are likely to respond to the advertisements and then tailor the campaign accordingly. It is assumed that once these visitors accept the advertisement, they spread it to others and they keep on spreading it in the same manner thus increasing the base. Today, viral marketing has become so important that advanced algorithms are used to track the rate with which it spreads and the ultimate solvency that the advertisement is supposed to achieve.

Viral marketing is so called as it can reach anywhere from blogs and forums to social networks in order to advertise your individual business. All that is required is to connect people over the internet regardless of the community that they belong to. You can just chat, participate and share your views with the community members while promoting your business at the same time. Your topic can be anything like appealing topics, news, events etc, and at the end you use a signature promoting your business or anchor text links that your potential clients can click on.

Viral marketing has developed from a marketing scheme to a fine art and there are multiple ways of achieving the targets and making a successful viral marketing campaign.

•    Newsletters: These are very effective marketing tool and are extensions of email. A useful content can very easily increase the number of viewers to your website.

•    Chat rooms: A chat room displayed on your website encourages the interaction among your visitors and that helps you to promote yourself. The chat rooms can also have some extra events like sharing the knowledge with an expert who can answer to all the queries on a fixed period or time.

•    Video clips: Introducing an interesting and attractive video recording clip on your website can catch the interest of your viewers and this will definitely generate more traffic.

•    Games: Flash based games are little costlier but they are effective tools to start your viral marketing campaign. Once they get established nothing else is required.

•    Blogging: You can facilitate bloggers to interact among each other and this is a fantastic way of spreading the message regarding your product or service. Bloggers always have the information about the recent products or services and they share it with bloggers.Tweet

As a business owner, with [...]]]> Business branding is about consistently expressing an idea, and more so doing this repeatedly over a long period of time. For your business name to receive recognition and command loyalty you will need to build trust from your customers and this does not take a short time.

As a business owner, with an intention to successfully market your business brand, you require to have the ability to identify a marketing plan and implement it to multiple and prospective customers effectively. The marketing idea should be seamless, that is from the moment a customers sees your advertisement, to the point he tries out your product or service.

One thing marketers have failed to use is experimental marketing. This kind of marketing allows business owners to be innovative and hence keep up with current market trends. The best time to seize such opportunities is during events where customers interact with different business brands, for example during business conventions or exhibitions.

These business exhibitions normally create fresh and personal connections with customers hence the chance to experiment on new and creative marketing ideas. The other advantage is that business people can touch on customer’s emotional side and hence leave a lasting and memorable impression and in the process pass on the business brand message.

Competition for customers is becoming tough every passing day hence a marketer needs to always come up with new marketing ideas. He should create an impression in the market that without his products or services life will not be normal. This then calls for alertness in the part of the business owner in order to effectively establish his business brand.

There are still more effective marketing tips which you can find by clicking the link below.

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1. deliver value

2. know who you are

3. differentiate from your competition

4. have [...]]]> Last week, I spoke at TechCocktail’s Mixology Conference in Chicago about Creativity & the Importance of Building a Brand People Love.  Before the audience Q&A, we discussed the top five things that a business should do to build its brand:

1. deliver value

2. know who you are

3. differentiate from your competition

4. have a voice and personality

5. build a strong identity

Over the next few weeks, I’ll write or video blog about each of these and share our experience at crowdSRING both in building our own brand – and in helping thousands of companies around the world build (or rebuild) their brands.

Today, in the first of this five part series … a few words about delivering value.

Young entrepreneurs often ask how they can improve the odds that their startup or small business will succeed. While there are many different things that they should do, one of the most important is to create real value.

Find a simple, elegant, and/or creative way to solve a common problem. I talk about creating value in the following short (2 minutes, 36 seconds) video.

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 Fundamentally, there is a connecting tie to the organizations DNA. In this case the culture and path of the company is defined by the traits that the organization embraces.

 Fundamentally, there is a connecting tie to the organizations DNA. In this case the culture and path of the company is defined by the traits that the organization embraces.

Renowned brand expert, marketing professor and author Kevin Lane Keller [...]]]> Think about any great brand. Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Starbucks and Apple are just a few examples. Great brands do not happen by accident; rather they are the result of careful and creative brand planning and the timely execution of innovative marketing strategies.

Renowned brand expert, marketing professor and author Kevin Lane Keller has distilled strategic brand planning into three complementary models that grow in scale and scope as they progress. These models help in developing brand strategies and business marketing ideas. Keller’s extensive research into the understanding of consumer behaviour has improved the way many companies apply their marketing strategies and the way they build, measure and manage brand equity.

Like a set of Russian nesting dolls – the three models are interlinked and build on each other. The first is a component of the second and the second of the third. Keller sets out his three interconnected models for strategic brand planning to establish a unique brand positioning, create intense and actively loyal relationships with your customers and to allow you to better understand the financial impact of marketing expenditure and investment in an eBook entitled Brand Planning.

Brand Positioning Model
The first model is the brand positioning model. Positioning is defining your offering and image so that it occupies a distinctive placement in the minds of the target market.

Within the positioning model there are four distinct components which should be considered to create superior competitive positioning for your brand. These can be summarised as follows:

Competitive frame of reference. This defines which other brands your brand is competing against. It’s important to know which these are so that you may focus your analysis.

Points-of-difference. These are the attributes that set one brand apart from another. In essence, these are benefits that customers strongly associate with a brand, and believe they could not find with a competing brand.

Points-of-parity. The opposite of points of difference, points of parity are associations that are not unique to a brand and may be shared with other brands.

A brand mantra. This is designed to give more focus to the brand’s intended positioning. A brand mantra should articulate the “core brand promise” in three to five words. This should not be the same as the ‘slogan’ used in advertising and is for internal use.

Brand Resonance Model
The second model is about creating loyal relationships with your customers. This model builds on the brand positioning model, and also includes four steps which should be followed in sequence. Brand resonance refers to the relationship and extent to which your customers feel that they connect and have a relationship with your brand.

Think about the following steps carefully and how you would build on each sequentially to build a strong brand resonance with your customers.

Brand Identity – Who are you?

Brand Meaning – What are you?

Brand Responses – What about you? What do your customers think or feel about you?

Brand Relationships – What about you and me? How much of a connection, and what kind of association do your customers want to have with you?

These are the stages of brand development – and the objectives at each stage are different starting with deep and broad brand awareness ending with intense, active and loyal relationships.

Brand Value Chain Model
The third and final model is the brand value chain model that describes how to trace the value creation process in order to better understand the financial impact of marketing costs and investments.

At its core this model assumes that the value of a brand lies with its customers. Based on this, brand value creation starts with a company investing in marketing to real or potential customers. This marketing activity in turn affects the customer’s mindset with regard to the brand, when this mindset is multiplied across a group of customers this results in certain outcomes for the brand in terms of its performance.  In this way – the investment in marketing can be assessed.

Naturally this model also assumes that there a number of linking factors between each of the stages. These links determine the extent to which the value created at a preceding stage is transferred (or multiplied) to the next stage.

When these three models are combined, they provide crucial micro and macro perspectives that are required for brand building. This enables marketers to create brand strategies that maximise profits and long-term brand equity, while being able to track their progress as they implement these strategies.

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Brand Vision
One key way to achieve the vision [...]]]> Brand vision has evolved from brand positioning. Where positioning is defined as the specific niche in which a product sees itself as occupying in the competitive environment and by differentiating its superiority to competitors, the brand vision is what the company ideally wants to reflect outwardly.

Brand Vision
One key way to achieve the vision is to provide innovative solutions to market needs. Traditionally brand vision was driven by team workshops with each person contributing to the combined vision of the company. Although this route might be ideal for teambuilding exercises, it often resulted in mixed messages and confusion with regard to the brand positioning and mission. It is critical to any brand that its employees reflect the vision accurately and consistently. They are representatives or extensions of the brand after all.

David Taylor, author of “Brand Gym” and “How to Energize Your Team to Drive Business Growth”  believes that brand manifestos are a better way to work on the vision for your brand, allowing you more freedom to express yourself, and what you really want to “fight for”. Through this process you will discover your guiding principles, beliefs and the issues you want to take a stand on.

Inspirational Brand Vision
Every brand is different. It takes a lot of understanding to get their message across. By using creative brand communication strategies it is easy to gain the attention of your consumer. David Taylor’s approach is straightforward and no-nonsense to ensure that you end up with an inspiring vision and a hands-on action plan to drive growth.

The key to creating a brand manifesto is to engage not just your head, but also your heart and gut feeling.

Creative tips to assist the creation of a brand manifesto, include:

If you were on a protest march in the street to fight against something, what would you write on your banner? And if you were to flip this into a positive and fight for something, what would you write?
What is the bigger role your brand can play in everyday life? What sort of “legacy” would you like to leave behind after 5 years on the brand.

Communicating the Vision
By introducing brand visioning to employees it assists to build engagement, energy and alignment.

David Taylor’s Brand visioning process scrutinises the following areas of business:

Searching for true insight: creating a springboard for visioning by using different ‘insight catalysts’ that cover consumers, markets and competition
The visioning journey: creating a compelling brand purpose, a big idea and a rallying call; combining product ?sausage? and emotional ‘sizzle’
Test-driving the vision: bringing the vision to life by exploring it within your business and with consumers
Brand-led business: translating the vision into a business building mix that covers ‘hero product’ innovation, communication and internal engagement

Once the brand vision is clearly understood it is easier to create the brand communication strategy. The brand communication strategy in turn is used as part of the marketing strategy to drive sales and company growth.

Taylor’s guide to the essential steps of achieving persuasive brand communication are as follows:

Understanding the brand and setting objectives
Getting the team right
Keeping the brief and briefing tight
Getting the most from production
Brilliant brand activation
Developing and executing the campaign

Brand vision is the inception of any great marketing communication campaign. Know and understand the vision for your brand, live it and make it exceptional.

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Indeed, a great brand name tells a story about [...]]]> A great brand name is one of the most important assets of a company1. It conveys the brand identity, it tells people what the company does and why it does it better than others, and it gives space for creative design and communication developments.

Indeed, a great brand name tells a story about your business, a story that transforms your brand into a broader idea: the business, the product, the service, but first and foremost, the promise you make to your customers. One phrase – preferably no longer than 4 syllables or 4 characters – that can tug the heartstrings of your audience.

Creating a brand name that wields this much meaning is quite a challenge.
But such a challenge becomes even greater when it comes to the Chinese market!

The nature of the Chinese language makes the art of naming brands and products even more complicated: characters have “multilayered” connotations and the slightest change in pronunciation can greatly alter the meaning of a word.

Such a multilayered nature gives space to countless creative routes (and constraints). In fact, multiple-meaning words can be used in brand naming to break the normal codes of expression and better convey brand values.

This code breaking quality can be used for simple wordplay – i.e. 51job.com where 5 pronounced as [w?] sounds as [w?] “I”, and [y?o] as [yào] “want” – but also to create names integrating a poetic dimension, as words having multiple connotations can be used to deviate from the normal means of expression and create an emotional gap between what is said and what is actually perceived by consumers. Such a gap can have a stronger capacity to transform the brand into an idea, an emotion, an abstract image and thus strongly engage potential brand loyalists.

We call these brand names “poetic” for their capacity to evoke an emotional response in consumers through the creative use of meaning, sound, context, images, or rhythmic language choices.

Chinese brand names that draw from this poetic-like dimension can be classified in three main categories:

1. Brand names integrating a poetic dimension by sourcing directly from China’s literal history tradition
2. Brand names creating emotional touch points with consumers by twisting the meaning of characters to express the brand message
3. Brand names sourcing from the brand attributes to communicate on the brand identity in a non-conventional way.

1. Brand names sourcing directly from China’s literal history tradition

In this category, Revlon provides a good example. Revlon’s Chinese brand name is [lù huá nóng] that literally means “glimmering with the bright spring dew”. However [lù huá nóng] is also a verse of one of Li Bai’s poems: Qing Ping Ci 2.

Li Bai, who lived during the Tang Dinasty (701-762 AD), is regarded as one of the greatest poets in China’s literary history. His words have been looked upon by generations of Chinese scholars and have often been indicated as the exemplification of the best poetic practices.

Qing Ping Ci is an ode to the beauty of women. The verses that the famous poet coined back then have become over the centuries canonical expressions to refer to female beauty. Therefore, the allusion to the poem combined with the image of bright spring dew glimmering in the sunlight creates a powerful brand name that makes Revlon’s abstract meaning reach such a legendary beauty.

Also, the pronunciation of  [lù huá nóng] is quite close to the English pronunciation of “Revlon”. The name is short and easy to pronounce, and has a round sound that is very well suited to represent the famous cosmetic brand across the country.

2. Twisted poetic brand names

When OLAY tapped into the Chinese market in 19893 it adopted the Chinese brand name of [yùlán yóu].

OLAY’s brand promise is to give women the skin care products, tools and advice to help them love their skin.

Then how does the poetic dimension of [yùlán yóu] help OLAY connect with Chinese women?

[yù] is the character for jade. In China, it has traditionally been used to describe women’s natural beauty. [lán] for orchid, represents the chasteness of a girl. These two Chinese characters have been used countless times in China’s literature history to compliment or to refer to beautiful women.

Besides, just like Revlon, [yùlán yóu] recalls OLAY’s original name in terms of pronunciation. It has a beautiful sound and multilayered meaning – a cream to make your skin soft (like an orchid) and smooth (like the jade) – but also a promise of unchanging beauty. Both represent and promote the brand promise among Chinese consumers and have helped raise the brand awareness domestically.

[h?g?n dás?] – Häagen Dazs Chinese name – is clearly a phonetic transliteration of the original brand name. Still, this brand name also integrates a strong “poetic” twist that evokes the feeling of enjoyment and pleasure, both key to the brand message.

Literally the combination of the 4 characters means nothing.[h?] expresses happiness, surprise, amazement or joy; [g?n] translates to root, origin, source, cause;[dá] translates as reach, arrive; and [ s?] is tear, divide.

But on a deeper level, the combination of characters evocates the feeling of joy and cheerfulness and the idea that Häagen Dazs is the source of every joyful moment. Hence the emotional connection: when eating Häagen Dazs people will be happy ever after.

Meanwhile, the characters lead also to the brand design development:

3. Non-conventional poetic brand names

Apple in Chinese, follows the same lines of the original brand name: an apple – something that has really nothing to do with PCs – to convey the creativity and uniqueness of a brand that has matched design, technology and originality in one branded concept.

’xu? bì’ – Sprite in China – (snow green/jade) also belongs to this category. The Chinese brand name does not communicate the product category of the brand, nor does it directly convey any of the functional attributes of the sparkling drink. Still the name stands for snow, white, crystal transparent on the one hand and for green, jade, clear blue, on the other hand, which evokes the idea of freshness, nature, and transform the brand in an abstract idea: pure as jade, cool and refreshing as snow. Indeed, sales skyrocketed in China after Sprite adopted this brand name.

So what makes for a great brand name and when are poetic names the best choice?

Naturally many factors are to be taken into account.

The industry, first of all, plays a relevant role here. Some industries, pharmaceutical for instance, might prefer descriptive names as these are best suited to convey product attributes and brand reliability.

Secondly, the brand identity, values and tone all need to be taken into account to determine the sort of name that could be best suited to represent a brand in China. Look at Baidu and Google. Whereas both brands operate in the same industry, Baidu’s poetic name has been a great mean to convey the brand identity while creating an emotional bond with netizens4. Google’s name ["GuGe"], instead, has been unwelcome by Chinese consumers as its poetic, traditional feeling does not exemplify Google’s creative, young, innovative brand identity and character5.

Surely, the brand target market also plays an important role here. What tugs your consumer heartstring? What do they look for when they prefer a certain brand over another? A poetic name is definitely a good choice when it helps introduce a company to its customers, to characterize it with the public at large and to differentiate its offerings from the competition’s.

This being said, the most important advantage of poetic brand names is to create an emotional touch point with customers. Whenever a poetic dimension can provide your brand name with a set of associations and images that meet your customer needs and desire, poetic naming can be a good choice as it promotes your image and gives your brand a unique allure and differential factor.

1. 2004, Aaker David A. “Brand Portfolio Strategy: Creating Relevance, Differentiation, Energy, Leverage, and Clarity” Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

2. The full poem follows:
In English: “Her robe is a cloud, her face a flower/ Her balcony, glimmering with the bright spring dew/ Is either the tip of earth’s Jade Mountain/ Or a moon- edged roof of paradise.”

3. http://i.mop.com/jcxian23/blog/2006/10/15/2412995.html

4. Baidu’s name originates from a Song dynasty poem which is more than 900 years old. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one’s dream while confronted by life’s many obstacles. “Hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood.”

5. 2006, May, “Are you listening Google?” Labbrand http://labbrand.com/english/view_news.php?id=185-Are-you-listening-Google-

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