What’s
in a brand?
By
Graham Sibley, S A M Communications (www.samcommunications.co.uk)
Choosing the wrong name can cause untold damage, by creating
false expectations, misunderstanding and even, in the most
extreme cases, downright offence.
The
names you give to your business and your products
say more about you than you may think.
Creating
the right brand name will ensure that your target
audiences perceive you in the way you want to be
perceived. |
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What
is Branding?
Brands are vehicles for communicating your offer to all
relevant audiences, and when successful, they create expectation,
aspiration and loyalty among customers. But your brand is
far more than the name, or even the logo – these are
the public face – the identity of your business. To
be successful these must be underpinned very firm foundations,
as we will set out below.
Who are your audiences?
In naming your business or products you must ensure you first
understand what it is you want to communicate, and to whom.
For example:
 |
What
age and demographic group are your audience? |
|
If
you are a business-to-business supplier, what size
businesses are you targeting? |
|
Do
your target audience require dynamic or conservatively
reliable suppliers? |
Your brand name must reflect the answers to these and many
more questions. Go with a name that is not in line with what
you can deliver consistently, and then you run the risk of
unhappy customers. Brands are built upon reputation and word
of mouth. Therefore, it is essential to market a name that
creates an expectation in line with what you are able to
deliver. This means taking some time to research your target audience
preferences and needs. Match your offer to these, and define
ways that you are realistically able to differentiate yourself
from what is already on the market.
Differentiate Yourself
Your brand must stand out from the competition, so you need
to know what is already on the market, and how you compare:
|
Is
your offer innovative, or practical? |
|
What
aspirations and expectations do you want to arouse
in your target audience? |
|
What
makes you unique? |
Answering these questions will lead you to define the position
you should take in the marketplace, based on the demands
and requirements of the market, and the current competitors. Now you have a market position, you are able to get into
naming.
Check
the meaning – wherever it your name may appear!
Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately,
Coke did not discover until after thousands of signs had
been printed that the characters mean "bite the wax
tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax," depending
on the dialect.
Bacardi concocted
a fruity drink with the name "Pavian" to
suggest French chic, but "pavian" means baboon
in German.
Just two examples of how major brands have hit huge problems
internationally with their brand names, and which serve to
show the importance of careful naming.
Check the availability
Before going to register your brand name, you must do some
final checking to ensure you are not conflicting, or liable
to cause confusion, with an existing name.
This goes beyond
the standard checking whether someone is using the same
name in your sector or region. You must also
consider the implications of launching a name that is similar
to someone else’s, or that may cause customers to confuse
you with someone else.
Failure here can lead to confused customers and worse, legal
action from other organisations.
Branding
works for everyone
Don’t think that you have to be a major business to
have a great brand. Our work with large businesses, SMEs
and micro-business start-ups shows that creating the right
brand that accurately reflects the essence of their business,
appeals to the target audience, and stands out from the crowd
is always successful.
S A M Communications creates brand and marketing strategies
to enable sustainable growth in your business. To find out more, contact Graham Sibley on 01908 423303
or e-mail graham@samcommunications.co.uk
What
makes a business card memorable?
By
Matt Weston of Business Bricks
Entrepreneurs
have been exchanging little cardboard rectangles for almost
300 years now. Apparently the French invented business cards
in the 1700s. (I wonder what an alien invasion would make
of it?)
| |
Lynella
Grant (author of "The Business Card Book")
puts it best: "A business card is a handshake
you leave behind". It's a universally accepted
way of keeping in touch with people you meet.
A
business card is just a 3 1/2-inch by 2-inch
memory device - a simple trigger to help someone
put your name to your face, recall your business,
and give you a call or drop you a line. |
|
Dale
Carnegie, author of "How To Win Friends And Influence
People" used
to liken the human mind to an "associating machine" you
learn the treble clef scale EGBDF by associating it with
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (or
Football).
Carnegie
wrote that there are just three "natural laws
of remembering: impression, repetition and association."
Business
cards work the same way. An effective business card will
make an effective first "impression". Your
recipient should know what your business does and "What's
In It For Me" instantly.
If
your business card is a "keeper" it will get
seen every time your recipient opens his or her wallet. That's "repetition".
And
your card can help the recipient make the "association" between
your face, your name, your business and your USP (although,
as the experiment below shows, many business owners miss
a trick here).
WHAT
TO INCLUDE ON YOUR BUSINESS CARD
I did an experiment.I
rounded up the last 100 business cards I'd been given at
shows, meetings, networking nights etc. Then I dealt them
out into three piles:
| 1. |
62
cards only listed factual contact details i.e. company
name, name, job title, address, email, website etc |
| 2. |
22
Cards included a basic one-line company description
e.g. communications solutions & consultancy |
| 3. |
18
Cards included an elevator pitch, list of product benefits,
call to action or something else memorable |
The
first pile was the biggest. 62 cards said nothing more than "Me.
Me. Me. (And how to contact Me.)"
That's 62 opportunities missed.
SOME IDEAS
If
all your business card does is flatly list your contact
details, then you've missed an opportunity to imbed what
your business does in the recipient's mind.
It's
par for the course if you're employee #2026 at Big Biz
Plc and you simply enter your details into a standard Big
Biz Plc template - but if you run your own small business,
it's
a mistake.
I'm
calling for you to stamp your personality over your business
card. Think of that 3-and-a-half by 2-inch space as a "mini
billboard".
What
does your business offer that makes it stand out from the
crowd? Why should your recipient stay in touch with you?
Put it on your business card. "Less is more" but
make sure you get across what is most remarkable about your
small business.
Put
your one-sentence elevator pitch on the front of your card.
(Remember all the recipient really wants to know is
What's In It For Me?")
Why
not put a box entitled "Notes" on the back
of your card? Encourage people to write on your card, it
will help them remember you. What about including a message
asking the recipient to forward your details round to anyone
else he/
she knows on the reverse?
Jay
Levinson and Seth Godin, authors of Guerilla Marketing,
suggest you print something useful on the back of your
card (or the inside of a fold-out card) e.g. year calendar,
metric conversion, sunlight hours.
Whatever
you do, do something. Business cards are cheap as chips
nowadays. Don't waste the opportunity to really say something
about your business.
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