Branding is a key to success. In the cluttered global market your company's brand
is the way the outside world perceives your product or service. Many business problems
revolve around poor branding: your clients might think you're too small for a job,
or not technically capable, or charge too much. Common customer grievances could
be alleviated by a positive brand image.
Branding isn't necessarily tangible. It touches the emotive side of human behaviour
- you feel, see or relate to a brand. But because it has such power it needs to
be managed in any organization, no matter how big or small.
Here's a series of branding rules that govern how we believe branding should work.
Do you agree with them all? Are we missing some? Email me your tips, thoughts or
arguments. Let me know
what you think.
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Do you have a sweet and simple company logo?
When you think about McDonalds I think first of the Golden Arches. When I think
of Nike, I think of the Swoosh. It doesn't take millions of dollars and 15 marketing
consultancies to come up with a logo. What you should be after is simple shapes,
fonts, colors, everything. You should be able to look at the page from a distance
and know which company it's for. The best trademarks end up cemented into the minds
of individuals worldwide.
Some of the best logo's are extremely simple:
- Philips - a simple font
with the blue background
- Mini - the mini wings is simple
and easily recognisable
- Canon - the font of the logo
simple and is tweaked with only a slight tilt
It is most important to remember that your logo should be consistently displayed
wherever your company promotes itself.
You can have options with your logo. At SSW we use elements of the logo all over
our site; in the way we present the URL on our footer, to
our software product names. Here
are all the options we have for the SSW logo.
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Does your website put forward your company theme?
The initial point of contact for most businesses is their website. I've seen too
many websites which are just a dogs breakfasts - there are hundreds of different
templates all over the site so users aren't sure whose site they are on. Each web
page should be based on a template, no matter how simple or complex, so that each
page has the same look and feel.
Here are some of the basics of the SSW site:
- Headings have red and grey bars
- Tables and boxes are formatted consistently - see
About Us for an example
- Verdana is the standard font
At SSW we believe content is more important than graphical design, but we do care
that every document, invoice and proposals that is viewed by an external party follows
out theme. We've encapsulated these in the
SSW Rules to Better Websites.
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Figure: Even on this small image on Alexa, our theme is still clearly visible
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Are your products branded?
At SSW, after consulting, the second tier of our business is
software products. It should be obvious, as soon as our software is run,
which company built the application. And more than just plonking the logo in the
corner - the app should be recognizable even if the logo has been taken away.
Here are some of the basics of our software:
- Logo in the top left hand corner of the title bar e.g. ssw.ico file
- Consistent colors throughout the whole page
- The name of the product on the left side of the title bar
- Every SSW Product plays an Australian Bird Call when the software is started.
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Figure: SSW Software Branding
The setup exe for your applications should also be branded. We use Wise for our
setups.
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Figure: SSW Setup.exe's are branded
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Does your company have a standard font?
Every company should have a standard font that they use for all promotional material.
In order of preference, the font's we use are Helvetica, Verdana and generic sans
serif.
Category List photos should be company font.
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Do you follow the standard font for the mail copy?
Do you still follow the standard (Helvetica etc) for the mail copy?
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Do you brand your events?
Think of a sporting event and it's likely that you can think of a sponsor for the
event. For example:
- Australian Iron Man Series - Uncle Toby's
- Formula 1 - Mobile, Valvoline, Ferrari
- Wimbledon - Rolex
The list goes on...
What this highlights is a company's ability to successfully partner their brand
with events that their target market either attend or watch. Though on a much smaller
scale, every business should apply this same principle. So we say if you're going
to hold any events that are geared towards your target market - like a user group,
make sure there's some branding at the event. Here are some examples of how we brand
our user group:
- You should have a promotional sign.
- Any presentations should use a standard
PowerPoint presentation template
- You should use branded plastic bags
- Evaluation forms should have clear branding
When it comes to branding events, you need to remember that it's often the little
things that make the biggest difference. That evaluation form or gift bag that you
gave out to someone at one of your events could land in the hands of one of your
biggest clients in the future, so be diligent and consistent.
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Do you have cool business cards?
You should spend the extra dollars to ensure that you get nice cards and your employees
are proud of them. That way they will give them away at every handshake, which is
fantastic free advertizing for your company.
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Do you brand your employees?
Extend opportunities to use our branded shirts. Cool shirts with small logos. No
- not in the cattle branding style - but your employees are in effect, walking billboards.
The corporate uniform should be stylish, and the branding can be subtle and effective
at the same time. Branding employees is especially important at events such as conferences,
user groups and client meetings.
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Figure: All employees have branded SSW shirts.
Where ever your employees gather in large numbers, ensure they come branded.
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Do you brand your cars?
We also brand our employees when they're on the road. Those employees who are driving
company cars are essentially moving billboards for SSW.
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Figure: All our company cars are branded
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Do you use email signatures?
Email signatures great when:
- They add a little advertizing and branding so you know instantly who it is from
and that it is not junk
- They include your phone number (in international format)
- They are not constantly large (first reply on a thread is ok, subsequent ones should
be super short)
- You have a "short signature", a "mobile signature" and a "long signature"
The Short Signature
The short signature just includes your name, phone number and URL. For example:
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Thanks, Adam
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+ 61 4 1985 1995
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www.ssw.com.au
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Figure: The simple short signature is the one you will use the most
The Mobile Signature
If you use an iPhone or BlackBerry to send an email always include the "Sent from
my iPhone/BlackBerry/Mobile Device" signature. This means the recipient of the email
knows you are writing on the fly and won't be as upset if you make little spelling
mistakes or use acronyms.
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Figure: Let people know you are using a mobile device. You hope they will be more
forgiving of minor typo's or acronyms
The Long Signature
Is created in HTML and goes well on emails with Word used as the email editor.
Include some product advertizing and rotate on a monthly basis to coincide with
the advertizing on your home page and monthly newsletter.
Here's an example.
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Figure: The long signature for use on the first reply in a thread. Notice that the
phone number is in international format
Note #1: Use the long signature as your default in Outlook Web Access.
Note #2: Never use your long signature on internal emails.
More Information
How to set it up in Outlook
- Open Microsoft Outlook and go Tools | Options
- Click the "Mail Format" tab as seen to below.
- Go down to the signatures section and add in your signatures. Also add in your Reply
footer similar to the one shown below.
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Figure: In Outlook 2007 you will find Signatures here
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Figure: In Outlook 2010 you will find Signatures here
How to set it up in OWA
- Open OWA 2010 (e.g. http://mail.northind.com/owa)
- Click "Options" on the top right side.
- Go Settings | Mail and make following changes:
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Figure: There are 2 changes to make: add your 'E-Mail Signature' and change the
format to HTML
Warning: Unfortunately you need to setup up your signature in Outlook and
OWA. There is no way to share this.
Tip: You can automatically have your Outlook signature changed on sign in via
a script.
We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook
that will will warn you if you forget to include a signature in your email.
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Do you use a consistent phone message?
You should remember that any point of contact leaves an impression on clients or
customers so even the answering service on your phones should be taken into consideration.
If you have a mobile phone which is used for work purposes, we recommend that you
use a standard message like this:
"Hi, you've reached Adam Cogan from SSW. If you can leave your name, number
and a short message I'll get to you as soon as I can, thanks!"
Here's an example of how it should sound.
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Do you use sound?
Some companies associate their brand with particular sounds, for instance Intel
and those chimes to represent the Pentium series. One way that you can add a sound
to the repertoire of your brand image is to add some to your website. You need to
remember that sounds aren't for everyone. At SSW we use
bird songs to give our website a distinctive Australian feel.
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Do you brand your computer safe coffee mugs and water bottles?
How often are you sitting at your desk typing away and have an open cup of tea or
coffee or glass of water sitting right next to your computer? Do you know how much
liquid it takes to kill your computer? The answer is not much; some of our developers
found this out the hard way and on more than one occasion. There is an alternative
though, which if in the event spillages occur limits the amount of liquid being
released. Travel safety mugs and sports water bottles are a great way of protecting
your computer from unwanted damage from spillage, but they also make a fantastic
gift to clients, which is an opportunity for you to have a constant reminder of
your business in their face and their clients. We give our clients SSW branded Travel
Mugs and Sports water bottles as a way of saying thanks to our clients for engaging
our services. We also use them for ourselves in the office to protect our own computers.
The minimal outlay for these items can literally save you thousands and could potentially
start earning you money too.
SSW has branded Plastic Bags that we use for giveaways, and people within the office who want an extra bag to carry things to client site or home. This provides free marketing especially when the employee catches public transport home. It is a win-win as the person gets free carry bag, and we get free marketing.
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Figure: SSW Branded Plastic Bag