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10 Simple Steps to Creating an Irresistible Personal Brand Recently, while thumbing through my old high school yearbooks it occurred to me that even as far back as high school, we were being branded. Class clown, Most likely to Succeed, Class Cutey, were all brands we bestowed on those select few that made a favorable impression on us. While others, like Billy Schneider* who was named Most likely t ...Top Eight Mistakes to Avoid When Naming Your Business Naming a business is like laying the cornerstone of a building. Once it's in place, the entire foundation and structure is aligned to that original stone. If it's off, the rest of the building is off, and the misalignment becomes amplified. So if you have that gnawing sense that choosing a name for your new business is vitally important -- you' ...Attention: Entrepreneurs -- Is Your Business Name Working? During the past decade, I have noticed the prevalence of name changing, as I am sure you have also. Several of the organizations with which I am involved have chosen new and different names that they feel represent them and their missions more descriptively. Companies who were ready for a new start have changed names to reflect a new atti ...Boston Brand Building - Brand Identity Guru "Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir your blood... MAKE BIG PLANS. Aim high in hope and work." So wrote Daniel H. Burnham in the last century. The big plans are important. They capture your vision. The next step is to break them down into "do-able" chunks, chunks that can be done in even one day. That is what gives you a definite se ...Understanding the Different Methods of Offline Promotion No business can survive the long run without some form of consistent advertising. As a result, most business owners will eventually consider using advertising to promote their business.The toughest part of the advertising equation is in determining where and how to spend your advertising dollars. If you do it wrong, you could plunk down y ...Using RSS Feeds to Market a Poker Affiliate Program RSS, otherwise known as "Really Simple Syndication" is a file format that is used by webmasters to syndicate content on the internet. As a poker affiliate, you can use the power of RSS to make your web content available to other webmasters instantly and doing so can be a tremendous source of traffic.So what exactly is RSS? Basically RSS i ...What Can NASCAR Teach Us About Packaging? The first NASCAR race of 2006 ran recently at Daytona and I was surprised by the number of new product sponsors. For years NASCAR has been a “good ol boy" thing, however, marketers have finally realized that this is huge untapped and under marketed advertising segment.We have to admit that there are loads of stereotypes about the typical ...Branding Corporate Brand Company Have you seen the new commercial and re-branding from Bill Ford and the Ford Motor Company? As you know Ford is in big trouble. So they seem to be changing their positioning and re-Branding. Here's the brilliant re-positioning they came up with (and it pretty much includes everything):1. American Auto Industry is facing new challenges and ...Profiles in Branding: The Red Hat Society Unless you have lived in a cave for the past few years, you have seen them in your community. A group of women over 50 years of age dressed as pimps. Big red hats with feathers, boas draped around their shoulders, purple velvet suits, as gaudy as you can imagine. These ladies are no pimps. They are members of a popular women over-50 group, T ...Signature Brand: Effective Personal Branding Name recognition brings back memories. People will remember an individual’s name before they remember the name of their business. This simple fact can gain your business recognition, and give your business the Brand Identity necessary to move into profitability.So, what’s your name? Is it brandable? Do you have a signature that captures t ...Which Comes First, Branding or Marketing? Let’s see, which came first the chicken or the egg? While the jury is still out on that old story, I recently realized that many entrepreneurs don’t clearly understand the difference between branding and marketing.I’m here to set the record straight once and for all! The findings might surprise you and will forever change the way you loo ...Company Logo Design - Tips for Success Logo designs are typically a visual representation of a graphic or text or a combination of both that provides a unique identity to a company and its products. Logos help to create a visual recognizable identity for a company that effectively contributes to the company's branding.With the wide artistic possibilities, logo designers often ...Where's Your Business Going? Building a brand requires the same four questions necessary when planning a trip: When do I want to go? What do I want to do? Where do I want to go? How will I get there? It’s always a great time to plan a vacation, and it’s always a great time to build your brand.Consumers begin forming opinions of your product and organization as soon a ...Advertising Balloons - A Pioneering Marketing Gadget Poets would often look up to the skies for inspiration but with advertising balloons gaining ground and becoming oh so popular, it seems that looking at the skies will be daily occurrence for poets and everyone else.Indeed, one cannot blame people from craning their necks. Advertising balloons are attention-grabbing and eye-catching. This ...Crazy About Packaging “It’s the same old tissue, honey, it doesn’t make a difference, ok? It’s still going to work the same way”, my exasperated husband hissed into my ear as I grabbed cartons after cartons of some ‘designer’ tissue. DESIGNER TISSUE! Hah, can you even hear me say that? I can’t believe I actually wrote ‘designer tissue’. So, yes, for a graphic designe ...Let the Gimmicks Go Gimmicks are cute but they do not give you the aura of professionalism. Of course, it depends on what you are planning to do with your business. If you are selling Clown services, then use all the gimmicks you can find. If you are a serious accountant, then the gimmicks should go or at least be downplayed. By gimmicks, I mean the one liners that ...6 Reasons You Need a Blog for Your Business Although blogging has been around for years, it's only in the last year or so that it's really become big, especially in business.Some of the top corporations now have blogs, and you can read about these corporations, as well as get news.The main reason blogs are so popular is because they're personal. It gives the author an opport ...Authenticity: Your Advantage Over the Big Guys At a business conference recently I got a powerful message about the power of authenticity. Paul Ray, coauthor of the best-selling book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, gave a compelling presentation about how small business can leverage their authenticity to achieve greater success.Ray shared that if ...Corporate Branding and Trade Shows - 8 Tips for Trade Show Staff Trade shows are part of the marketing mix and the appearance by your firm should be a continuum of your entire marketing including advertising, public relations and events.While you may introduce a new product or showcase a service, many firms make mistakes by not connecting the overall corporate branding with the show. How can an e ...Going Loco for Logos You have just opened your business and are about to place your first ad in the newspaper or Yellow Pages. The rep asks you if you have a logo. Gulp. A logo? You panic and realize you have to have one and fast. After all, every business has a logo and look how successful they have become. Check out Coke, Microsoft, Honda, Wal-Mart, and the list g ...Starbucks: The Modern Day Coffee Phenom Starbucks: The Mastery Behind the MarketingStarbucks is a modern coffee mecca-empire that seems to be on the lips of every corporate yuppie in America. And this is not by coincidence, it's by careful marketing design. Why has Starbucks been such a great example of corporate branding success?Starbucks Coffee and C ...5 Ways to Build Your Presence on the Internet Branding. It is probably one of the most effective, yet least understood, techniques for building your presence on the internet.By branding yourself as an expert on your topic, you can easily increase your traffic to your site, as well as sales. By drawing potential customers to you, you'll decrease your marketing time while still increas ...Top Marketing Speaker Says The VW Toureg May Cost More Than A Porsche! I was reading my auto club magazine a few minutes ago and I happened upon an article that really should be of news to no one.Auto manufacturers are engaging in “platform sharing,” it says. This is when the same basic skeleton of a Ford Explorer can be found in its sister model, the Mercury Mountaineer.It goes on to say that the Vol ...What the Heck is Branding and Why Should I Care? There's been a lot of buzz lately about branding. But what exactly is it, and who needs to do it? Simply put, a brand is what makes your business uniquely YOU! It's the way you present your business and how the world perceives it. And, importantly, it's the way your clients remember you when it comes time to make another purchase. Branding encom ...The Keys to Sony Playstation 1 and 2 Success Sony Playstation 1 & 2 sold over 214 million units. Whew that is mind boggling! Ever wondered how Sony managed to reach this level of success? Success is about technological superiority, branding, costing, and popularity. Sony has over the years established and maintained a world-wide credibility. In the gaming world, Sony has gained and maintai ...Financial Services Giant Grabs Northeast Naming Rights Financial services giant Citibank North America has stepped up the ante for market share, name and brand recognition along the USA's eastern seaboard. As the country’s largest financial institution these announcements have industry implications and strengthen the trend of corporate involvement in high profile naming opportunities in the non-prof ...Image and Branding Advertising-Get over it or Go Broke! Out of 100 products, 90 never get past the initial development and testing stages, of the 10 that do 7 will fail in the market within 3 years.To make matters worse 80% of new businesses are gone within 3-5 years!WHY?Because a higher number of the Business Owners have no idea how to sell, promote, advertising or market their ...Hip-Hop's Influence on Brands It has been 35 years since its founding and hip-hop continues to thrive in urban America. Once a block party fad that started in the Bronx, New York, hip-hop is now a $4 billion-a-year-music industry that spans the globe. Although it has always been the voice of inner city youth and young adults, hip-hop has evolved to include the 25 to 34 year- ...Leadership - The Test of a Clear Vision Many leaders assume that everyone understands their vision. Often there is a big gap between their vision and what the people they lead see as the vision. Unfortunately many leaders don’t take the time to actually find out how well they have expressed their vision to their team.When the vision is uncertain, people tend to default to doi ...Create a Market Position for Your Medical Practice Carve out a market position to maximize your marketing investmentIn the marketing world, positioning is a relatively new concept. Introduced in 1982 by marketing gurus, Al Ries and Jack Trout, the idea behind positioning is to clearly define what your practice represents to the patient. Through this unique position, a level of mindshare i ...
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