The Impact Of Branding For New Businesses

What is a brand?

Branding is all about perception and essentially tells a business’s story, provides differentiation from competition and essentially tells a back story.

A strong brand has the power to instil a sense of trust and meaning in people. The way a business has positioned itself in the eyes of a customer can become a point of consideration in buying decisions. For example people choose to buy Apple phones over Android because they like the way Apple has positioned itself as a brand, even when the Android phones have more features.

Someone may decide to spend $80 000 for a high-end luxury vehicle when they could spend $15 000 and get a car that fulfils that same function. But they spend the money on the luxury brand because they know this brand is seen as exclusive and they want to put forth the message that they have money.

Building brand awareness takes time and brands like Nike, Mercedes and BMW have built it up over many years. For new businesses, building and shaping a brand can be a challenging undertaking.

Here are some ways that new businesses can build and shape their brand in the minds of their customers:

1.) Professionalism. Always approach everything you do in business with professionalism, especially when your business isn't as well known and lacks resources larger firms have access to. This helps to instil trust in people

2.) Customer service. Always strive for excellent customer service, especially if your business is small. Going the extra mile when your customers don’t expect it will help set your business apart from competitors. If something goes wrong (it’s bound to happen at some stage) sort it out as quickly as possible and consider a complimentary gift/voucher as consolation for the inconvenience.

Follow up after the sale. Give the customer a call or drop them an email and find out if they're satisfied with the purchase and if there was anything that could have been done better. Customer experience and professionalism are make or break areas for all businesses, whether you're involved in corporate signage maintenance and design or running a small corner café.

Word of mouth is a powerful marketing medium and in a world where social media is a click away, it's easy for customers to say something (Good or bad) about your brand.

3.) Collaboration can be an effective way to raise brand awareness. The key to successful collaboration is finding a brand that complements, but not competes with yours. Some good examples of successful collaborations include Nike/iPod or Adidas/Star wars. As a start-up it may be challenging to find companies willing partner with you, but if you can pull it off your business will gain invaluable exposure.

The end game is finding out what your customers value and shaping your brand to be in-line with this.

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•  License: Creative Commons image source 

This article was written by Michael James who is an avid cyclist, food lover, wine drinker and music fan. 

3 Simple Ways To Make Money Online

The internet is a wonderful thing and many people would struggle to live without it in the 21st century; not to mention all of the businesses that wouldn’t be able to trade without it. We tend to use the internet for a lot of things these days; for finding out information, to keep in contact with friends and family and sometimes just for entertainment but it can also be used to make a bit of money on the side.

I’m sure all of us would snap up the chance to earn a bit more money if we had it presented to us but I’m here to tell you it has been in front of your eyes all along. There are many ways to make money online but here are three of the simplest.

Writing Reviews –

There are plenty of sites online that will pay you to write reviews that will then be placed on their website. Every company wants their products to be reviewed positively as this will ultimately increase sales and you can take advantage of this by offering your skills. You don’t even need to be a particularly good writer either, just chose to review something that you are interested in and then let your passion take over.
You will earn money per review which can then be paid to you in the form of Amazon vouchers or a cheque if you accumulate enough. It doesn’t just stop at products either; there are many other things to be reviewed like hotels, shops and restaurants.

Blogging –

According to recent statistics, there are over 2 million blog posts written everyday which just goes to show the power that blogging online now has. When it first started blogging was just a way to write about your passions and hobbies and post it online but now it is much more than that and can be a viable way of making some extra cash.

If you build up enough of a following then companies will pay you big money to advertise on your blog because they know they will be reaching large audiences. You can also charge businesses a fee in order for you to write a blog post on your site that sponsors one of their products or services to help them spread the word.
Sponsored Tweeting –

Do you feel like you are a big deal on social media sites such as Twitter? Well why not start making a bit of money just for tweeting to your many followers. SponsoredTweets.com gives you the opportunity to state exactly how much you want to charge per tweet and what you want to tweet about. All you have to do then is sit and wait for companies to contact you to tweet on their behalf.

Businesses know that Twitter allows you to reach a wide and varied audience almost instantly and therefore they will be willing to pay to have someone promote them through this platform. The good news also is that you can control the final wording of the tweet so you don’t end up having to tweet anything that you don’t agree with.

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•  License: Creative Commons image source 

Chris Mayhew works for internet marketing company Marketing By Web who do SEO in Bristol and has seen first hanmd how people can make money over the internet. He has experience in SEO, social media management and blogging which can all help you earn a significant income.

Benefits Of Facebook For Small Business Online

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook has greatly changed the communication among individuals and even on the marketing side. As the number one social network site in the world, Facebook is steadfastly growing bunking on the ever-growing popularity of virtual communication that encompasses personal, business and corporative relationships.

While Facebook may have turned the world upside down and partly affected how people perceive the effectiveness of personal communication, these are also the factors that have made it the new "it" thing in marketing. And for some - albeit, debate for its potentiality and security - the new online shopping tool.

These are positive factors that can be taken as advantages for companies who want to step up customer relations and social market viability of their products on Facebook.

There are three advantages to the way Facebook has changed company-customer relations:

The Emerging Social Shopping Trends:

Social shopping is an emerging trend. People already use to do it. Women go shopping together or they gather around in coffee shops and talk about their latest finds and buys. They compare prices and check out shops that sell the most affordable products. Only today, this practice has gone social and many people are obviously caught up with this.While Facebook is not a social shopping network, its users are predominantly online people. They log in to Facebook to share their thoughts on the most mundane things. It includes their new gadgets or products and what store did they buy them. They share to their friends what they love about a particular store or what pissed them off. That's free advertising and indirect product recommendation.

And almost always, Facebook friends buy what their friends are buying.

Facebook as a Customer Support Tool:

Customers who like a particular product or company support always find them to like a product or company page. Some customers even use company or product Facebook pages to post inquiries, issues and problems.If a company is quick to reply, the customer friends and other followers will be able to see the efficiency and excellent support of the company.

The Social Network Attitude:

While review sites are still the most reliable sites for most consumers in belting out their complaints or impressive reviews, it cannot be discounted that Facebook users also post their concerns or opinions regarding certain products. If a company or a product has impressed a customer immensely, it's certain that the customer is going to rave about the product for days - complete with pictures and anecdotes regarding her latest finds, be it a new Kindle or Be Present Capri pants. The more social media presence there is for a company, the more it can access its customers and potential customers in the social media. Tapping millions of Facebook membership for product marketing and sales is not an easy feat, though. Company will need to use effective tools in order to catch the attention of Facebook users and direct them to particular products. But, the gains are worth exerting efforts for. Facebook users are the most potentially active online customers who spend great amount of time browsing the net, checking new products and trends. And if they're impressed enough, they spend for products online.

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•  Image by My Blog Guest

Justin Hernandez. He is a owner of Zinzz Chat Network. Full time web entreprenuer and Social Media Blogger. Follow him at @JustinNY.