How To Make Your Brand Matter

How To Make Your Brand Matter

You can either look at branding as a buzzword, or something very valuable for the continued success of your business. For the sake of this post we’re going to investigate the latter definition. Every company has a brand whether they’re aware of it or not. However, not every company has a brand that matters. In this post we’re going to examine what makes brands matter and how to transform your brand from boring to brilliant.

What Is A Brand?

The moment a person thinks about your brand the feelings they feel, or the thoughts they think are the backbone of your brand. Your brand extends way beyond your logo and what font you use on your website. Think of Apple. The moment you think about their company, or hold on of their devices in your hand you automatically think about simplicity, sleek design, attention to detail and beauty. What kind of feelings do you make your customers feel? Sadly, most brands aren’t making their customers feel anything. Most brand are bland and don’t inspire action in one direction or another. The worst feeling your customers can feel when interacting with you is ambivalence. In another way you can think of your brand as the experience you deliver to your users.

Make Your Brand Matter

How do you exactly engineer a brand that makes people stop in their tracks? It takes more than a fancy website and sleek logo. It takes asking the right questions to get to the center of why you do the work you do, and what it looks like.

1. Why Are You Different Different is good. People have more choices than ever. By trying to cater to every style of customer you end up appealing to no one. By taking a stand about what you believe in you can create a brand that others believe in as well. This goes in line with what makes you different. Why would a customer choose you over the competition?

2. Discover Your Values Your company values run deeper than your products and services. Your values are your core reasons for doing business in the first place. Why are you doing what you do? Is it for freedom, for love, or for making a difference in the world? Patagonia has a deep environmental ethic that runs throughout their entire business. As a result, every aspect of their business caters to this ethos. From their website, to their products, to their images and even storefronts.

3. How Will You Communicate This? In what style will you communicate this message? Will you be stylish and clean, or brash and crude? Whatever you choose is up to you. But, it will come across in your web copy, your overall design and how you interact with your customers. Building a brand that people care about takes time. It takes being honest, and it takes brining every aspect of your business into alignment. However, the results are well worth-it. By building a brand that matters you’ll start to cultivate passionate brand evangelists who will do most of your marketing for you.

Top Productivity Apps For Small Business Owners

Top Productivity Apps For Small Business Owners

As a small business owner you’re going to have a ton of tasks to manage and keep track of every single day. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and this is where the power of apps can come in. By managing your workflow and reducing the time spent doing aimless things you’ll be better able to advance your business. In this post we’re going to cover the top productivity apps for small business owners, and how they can be used to transform your business. Most of the apps below will work across any smartphone or tablet-like device.

Asana Asana is shared task-management software that helps you track every moving piece of large-scale projects. When working on projects with multiple people it’s easy for emails, conversations and ideas to get lost in the shuffle. Asana makes sure every piece is accounted for, and you can track the progress of each project. You can set due dates and assign tasks to specific team members as well.

Dropbox Dropbox is an extremely popular could storage app. It allows you to store backups of your website, copies of documents and anything you need really. It makes it easy to share documents with multiple team members, and syncs easily across multiple devices. Whether you’re collaborating with multiple team members, or looking for a place to backup your files Dropbox will be able to help.

DocuSign If you need to sign digital documents, then DocuSign makes it easy. All it takes is a number of clicks and you’ll be able to sign a document and forward it on to the right party. If you’re constantly on the go, then you can sign documents from whatever device you’re opening the document on.

Evernote Evernote is a very useful note taking app that sync seamlessly across all of your devices. It makes it easy to manage to-do lists, take random notes and have a place to store random digital media items. There is also a paid version of the app, which gives you a greater suite of tools, including more admin features, a higher storage capacity, and the ability to easily collaborate with other app users.

Doodle Doodle is a great scheduling tool, which will help you keep track of your schedule across multiple platforms. If you already use Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo calendars, then this app will help you keep track of your meetings and appointments across all three.

CloudOn If your business relies on working within the suite of Microsoft Word tools, then CloudOn makes it easy to edit these files when you’re on the go. If you need to make quick edits to a PowerPoint presentation, but only have your iPad, then this app has you covered.   Managing your time as a small business owner doesn’t have to be stressful. Any of the apps above will help you to manage your to-do lists, collaborate with team members, and keep track of the day-to-day. Take control of your time and take control of your business with a suite of helpful apps.

Why WordPress Is The Best Choice For Non-Technical Business Owners

Why WordPress Is The Best Choice For Non-Technical Business Owners

When the time comes to create your website, you’re going to have no shortage of options to choose from. In fact, the decision-making process can be very overwhelming. It’s hard to cut though all of the marketing messaging to truly find a platform that works for you. Luckily, there’s one platform that outshines most other platforms when it comes to an intuitive platform, that will help you build a beautiful website in no time at all. In this post we’re going to dive into why WordPress is the best choice for business owners with little to no technical know-how. WordPress began as simple blogging software, but it has now grown into a full-fledged website builder with a massive and interactive community.

1. Easy To Use Backend

WordPress has a very easy to use backend. They’ve had the same backend for a number of years, which means there are a number of tutorials to guide you through anything you may be unsure of. The backend is straightforward and doesn’t require any knowledge of code to actually customize the look of the theme as well as implement many additional features.

2. Small Learning Curve

Customizing your WordPress theme couldn’t be easier. Most themes also come with easy to follow documentation that will allow you to set up and populate your theme rather quickly. A lot of other website building platforms require little technical knowledge to get up and running, but the curve increases very quickly. WordPress is easy to setup, and also requires little technical knowledge to customize.

3. Massive Theme Selection

There are literally thousands of WordPress themes available for you to download, both free and premium. The free themes are great for getting started, but if you really want to take your website to the next level you should consider upgrading to a premium theme. Most premium themes cost less than $50 and can leave you with a truly customizable, professional website.

4. Great Plugin Selection

Plugins add increased functionality to your theme without having to outsource plugin creation, or invest a ton of money. There are thousands of WordPress plugins, both free and paid, that add things like increased payment support, homepage sliders, upgraded security and much more. If you want to add a specific feature to your website chances are there’s a plugin for it.

5. Large Support Community

Since WordPress has been around for such a long time there a large dedicated support community. Most premium WordPress themes come with dedicated support, while the large free theme community has a very active user base. If you keep running into a problem, chances are someone else has faced the same problem, and the solution already exists.

6. SEO Optimized

When you’re relying on search engine traffic to send you new customers, then your website must be optimized to rank. Luckily, most WordPress themes are primed to rank in the search engines right out of the box.

7. Very Inexpensive

Like we mentioned above you can get a WordPress theme up and running without too much of an investment on your end. Aside from purchasing a domain name and hosting, you can even get by with a free theme. As you can see, WordPress is a great choice for business owners looking for a beautiful website without having to learn to code first.

× How can I help you?