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Branding Trends Marketing

The Miracle of Branding: Why Brand Your Business

why brand

According to entrepreneur.com, branding is the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol, or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products. A brand is what sets your business, company, product, or service apart from others. It is what you an individual. Branding is a promise to your customers. It is what tells them what to expect from your product or services. So, where do you even start with branding? Well, you could go onto our website and Buy-A-Brand or Build-A-Brand. You could also take inspiration from other brands. But what makes branding great? And why should you even brand something? In this post, we’ll provide an all-encompassing rundown of what makes branding great, including why branding is essential and three examples of great branding. 

Branding Leads to Customer Loyalty 

Good branding can lead to customer loyalty and retention by elevating a business and building recognition. Think to yourself about your favorite brands. Did you have a clear image as to who they are? Did you feel certain emotions when thinking about them? Do you remember specific experiences with them? If yes, then that is excellent branding. It builds an emotional connection with your customers. Customers are attracted to brands with similar values to them, and once you attract your customers with the benefits that you have established with your branding and create an emotional connection with them through those values that loyalty can last a lifetime. 

Branding Helps you Stand Out.

Branding is what sets you apart from everyone else. There are a lot of small businesses out there that may sell the same products as you. What will set you apart is how you present yourself. A good brand has a clear purpose. It has meaning. Don’t just buy a brand logo because it looks cool. Buy a logo or create a logo that has meaning.

Establishing Your Brand Will Make it Easier to Introduce New Products and Services

It will be easier for you to introduce new products or services by establishing your brand and creating that secure emotional connection with your loyal customers. Your customers are already interested in your brand, and they will be listening to what you release, thus making it easier for you to have already a loyal customer base for your next product or service. 

3 Great Examples of Branding

  1. Apple – Minimalist, Innovating, Simplistic
    1. Apple is the first example in Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle framework. Apple’s brand shows you that they build beautiful computers that are cutting edge technology. They set themselves apart from other competitors by highlighting their innovative products. Their messaging then emphasizes that if you are an Apple customer, then you are also innovative and creative. 
  2. Nike – A Timeless Brand, A Consistent Brand.
    1. Nike’s branding and messaging strategy focus on empowerment. There is a unified message of empowerment and performance from their tagline “Just Do It” to their name, the Greek Goddess of Victory. Their models don’t smile. Instead, their photos are taken while doing physical activities. 
  3. Trader Joe’s – Groceries Meets New-Age Marketing
    1. Trader Joe’s is a national chain of grocery stores; however, based on their branding, you wouldn’t know it. It has branded itself as your neighborhood grocery store. They have a wide variety of high-quality food at a low price. They attempt to make customers feel at home in their causal, nautical-themed atmosphere. 

Why Brand? The Way We See It Your Business Isn’t A Business Without It.

Branding your company is extremely important. Branding is what makes your company unique. It sets you apart from other competitors and helps build customer loyalty. For more information on branding, reach out to those at Unmatte. Also, look at our Buy-A-Brand and Build-A Brand pages to see if we can offer any branding services your business may need. 

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Trends Marketing

Marketing Ted Talks You MUST Watch & Why

marketing ted talks

Ted Talks are the best way to learn about the important things. They are educational, well thought out, and always interesting. Here are a few of the best Marketing Ted Talks to watch to improve your marketing skills.

Marketing Ted Talks with Seth Godin with The Tribes we Lead

The Blah Blah: Seth Godin talks about how mass media was a fail, but tribes are the growing thing. Mass marketing means average ideas. It’s when companies are trying to ‘hypnotise’ people into buying, voting, ect. He brings in tribes as a form that is taking down mass marketing. He says these tribes are about leading and connecting people and ideas. The internet, now a days, allows different interests/ hobbies to have their own tribe, or group. These are groups of people who have the same interests or hobbies and can form their own community from anywhere in the world.

The Moral: Godin believes that the new form of marketing is for companies to build their own tribe and be the ‘king’ of it, and to “find the true believers.” He says, “You don’t need everyone, you just need a thousand.”

Marketing Ted Talks: Seth Godin with How to Get Your Ideas to Spread

The Blah Blah: Seth Godin is clearly the one to listen to about marketing, he makes it simple to understand. Starting off by talking about sliced bread, for fifteen years after being ‘invented’ people still were not buying it. He goes into talking about how to get ideas to spread, not just getting the idea. Seth then uses an example of an image of a cow, a normal, black and white cow is not exciting. It’s the day to day thing, and won’t grab attention. But, he then edits the photo to make the cow black and purple. This is not exciting. He mentions that the things that are not normal are going to grab attention. However, if they stay like that, they will slowly become another normal that doesn’t grab attention.

The Moral: You need to advertise in an unconventional way. This is what will get your company sales. To keep this going, you need to change up your advertisements every so often.

Rory Sutherland with Life Lessons From an Ad Man

The Blah Blah: In this Ted Talk, Rory Sutherland talks about how advertising is more about the approach you take than the product itself. My favorite example from this was the potato. He brings up how potatoes look gross and that made people not want to eat them. He then went into the potato being rebranding. It was told to be a food of royalty, and how it was guarded while in a regular potato patch. This made it more desirable, and the potato became more wanted.

The Moral: Desirability is the reason people do anything.  Why can’t people live without your product or service?  Sell that!

Andrew Stanton with The Clues to A Great Story

The Blah Blah: Andrew Stanton talks about storytelling and how it impacts your advertising. He says “storytelling is joke telling” and that you need to know your punchline. Stories allow us to connect to people or things. It’s stories that can get us to relate to a company or product, which results in follows and customers. Then he goes on to talk about Mr. Rodgers and how he carried the quote, “There is no one you cannot learn to love once you’ve heard their story.”

The Moral: A company or product should make people care, in some way. Stories pull us in, make us care, and cause us to buy.

Dan Pink with The Puzzle of Motivation

The Blah Blah: Dan Pink opens his Ted Talk with the candle problem. He asks how you can attach a candle to a wall, without the wax cannot drip onto the table. He goes through a few possible ‘solutions’ and then says they are wrong. The actual solution is to use the container the tacks were in, connect that to the wall and put the candle in the container. When it comes to motivation, your viewers (the candle) want a solution (the wall). You are the container.

The Moral: Problems don’t always have an easy fix, even if they might, you want to show them YOU are the way to the solution. If you show your viewers that you can lead them to a solution, they will be more likely to buy your product. You have given them motivation.

Find more in the Trends Category of our notes.

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Target Marketing Branding Marketing

Marketing Books That Have the Answers to Everything (6)

Marketing is an ever-changing topic making it is essential to keep up to date on the latest trends and developments. Any person related to this field needs to stay informed of how to market to your audience in the modern age properly. In this post, we’ll be converting the top 6 marketing books that have been published within the last year. 

Social Media Marketing 2020 by Stephan Anderson 

Social Media Marketing 2020 by Stephen Anderson will tell you how to build your brand, understanding the basics of influencer marketing, why you have to use Instagram and Youtube, how to monetize your influencer Instagram profile, tips for nailing your brand and more. This book provides an all-encompassing overview of how to market on social media in 2020. Buy it on Amazon starting at $12.99

 

Dynamic Digital Marketing by Dawn McGruer

Dynamic Digital Marketing teaches you how to increase online visibility and presence, attract your target audience, generate leads, and convert those leads to profitable customers. It offers step by step guidance on topics like: 

  • Gain invaluable insights on what works based on the McGruer’s 20 years’ experience in digital marketing
  • Avoid pitfalls and missteps by implementing the same proven success strategies used by key influencers
  • Harness the power of search engine optimization (SEO), social media, content marketing, online video, and more
  • Amplify your brand, cultivate customers, and increase profits
  • Incorporate e-mail marketing, customer analytics, strategic web design, and influencer partnerships in your overall digital marketing strategy

You can buy it on Amazon for print or on Kindle. 

Digital Marketing for Beginners by Oliver J. Rich

Digital Marketing for Beginners is an excellent handbook for starting in the digital media  world. It has digital tools and methods that will take your brand to the next level. You will specifically find: 

  1. Career profiles in digital marketing that you can take up and make a living
  2. Understand the role of a digital marketer and how that will boost your online business
  3. How to craft a marketing strategy that attracts sales and builds your brand faster
  4. Ways to analyze your competitors and apply their valuable business tricks
  5. Methods of targeting clients, acquiring them, and keeping them coming back
  6. The various social media tools for advertising. Above all you’ll take a look at the three most popular social media platforms for businesses
  7. How to re-brand and sell products and services. Branding is more than getting the right logo, however the right logo does enforce a better brand.
  8. Analyze eight types of digital marketing, but truly understand them.
  9. How to track your efforts using Google Analytics

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Digital Disruption by Steve Dennis

This is a brand new book that equips the physical retailer with eight essential strategies to deliver a great customer experience. Furthermore, these strategies include making your business: 

  1. Digitally Enabled
  2. Human-Centered
  3. Harmonized
  4. Mobile
  5. Personal
  6. Connected
  7. Memorable
  8. Radical. 

You can buy it on Amazon. 

Note from Staff: Heads up, even if you’re not selling a product or service – maybe you’re trying to spread awareness.  You are a retailer!  To clarify, the retention of customers account for more than 60% of your yearly sales, repetition.

How to Build a Personal Brand on LinkedIn by Dr. Keir Finlow-Bates

This is the perfect read for people short on time. Dr. Keir Finlow-Bates teaches you how to build a personal brand to help you receive more recognition at work, connect with your decision-makers, and generate high-quality inbound sales leads. However, the best part is that by using this book, you can fraud your LinkedIn image in as little as 10 minutes per day. Get it on Amazon.

Note from Staff: Building your personal brand can be easy if you’re confident in the audience you want to attract.  Furthermore, once that battle is over you’ll be able to communicate effectively via LinkedIn.

Marketing for Entrepreneurs and Small to Medium Businesses by Kelly A. Mahoney 

This book is targeted directly to smaller businesses. Being a business owner, you know you’ll wear a lot of different hats.  Certainly you can live without the stress.  In short, this book discusses how to: 

  1. Create winning approaches to the market
  2. Avoid common pitfalls, which will save you time and money
  3. Accelerate revenue and growth 

You can get it on Amazon for $11.50

Note from Staff: This was a great read when we started unmatte.com – it helped us keep our approach simple.  In other words, we can vouch firsthand that when you’re branding yourself, especially as a smaller business, this is one of your go-to manuals.

These books are all great resources to learn about new digital strategies.  Most importantly, Contact us if you have any questions about digital marketing strategies or would like a consultation. 

Categories
Trends Marketing Target Marketing

Generational Marketing: Generation Z.

Generational Marketing is very effective when it comes to target marketing.  Every generation is different, which means you need to adjust your marketing strategies to reach out to each one individually. With birth dates from 1995 to 2012, Gen Z grew up with the growing age of technology. Gen Z is all about social media. Marketing on social media can give you one of the most massive audiences, and age ranges at one time for your company. Now, this doesn’t mean any social media. Some platforms are more preferred for your target audience. A few of the best platforms to use are Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. These are the most used social media platforms for Gen Z teens and adults.

Allowing you to send short photos and videos to friends before they disappear, Snapchat is famous for keeping in touch with friends with short snippets of what you’re up to. Snapchat has filters that can be used on their photos and videos. From the infamous dog ears to holiday photo frames, you can interact with your post.

Snapchat even adds filters to advertise different things. From movies to elections and also the Grammy’s and Oscars. Your company can make a Snapchat filter, and bring attention to your company in a fun and subtle way.

Generational Marketing Happens On Instagram As Well.

In the photo-based app, Instagram, users share photos of anything and everything. From food to pets to family, everyone gets to have their portfolio-like page of memories. Like Snapchat, Instagram also allows its users to post a story that goes away after 24 hours. They can add polls, stickers, emojis, and gifs to their photos and videos. Having an Instagram and posting on your feed and story are both great ways to reach out to the audience you are aiming for. You are putting yourself on their level and causing yourself to be more relatable. You are on their platform, and they will see your company.

YouTube is also a great place to advertise. Millions of people are watching videos every day. From playing music in the background to watching their favorite creators, countless ads are being shown before and during the videos. Even if they don’t see your ad, they may hear it. Putting an advertisement directly in front of someone so there is no doubt that they will see it, can be the most effective way of getting your company and product out there.

Overall, Generational Marketing Is Very Effective.

The best way to reach a generation is by putting yourself in their place. Learn their social media preferences, figure out what stores and products are more popular amongst them. These will lead you in the right direction when it comes to marketing to them. If your target audience is on Instagram everyday and watching YouTube, then an email advertisement is not going to do the job. However, if you are advertising on Instagram and you have an ad in front of the videos by their favorite creator or music genre, you already have a much higher chance of getting their attention and getting more customers. You need to go directly to your audience rather than stand, awaiting them to make the first move.

Tip: If you need some more tips on trends in 2020, visit our 2020 Marketing Trends & What You Should Know article.

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Branding Trends

Brand Requirements & The Do’s and Dont’s

Variious Brands Amongst Each Other, What Stands Out?

Being a good brand, requirements must be met. Although it seems like it, a brand doesn’t become successful overnight. It takes hard work, dedication, and consistency for it to happen. Not sure what makes a good brand? Ask yourself what you want from a brand you purchase from. There’s your answer. Everything has requirements, and the requirements to be a good brand come with do’s and don’t’s.

DO be reliable. DON’T cheapen your product to save money.

An unreliable brand will go downhill and quickly. Forget repeat customers; forget positive reviews. If you have a good product, customers will come back. They will give you the positive reviews that will help to grow your business. If you opt just to save some money, then the chances are that your product is going to reflect that, and that pushes your customers away. You no longer have that great product they love. Reliability is key.

Brand Requirements Should Be Consistent. DON’T be scattered.

You need to stick to a schedule and time frame. When someone orders your product, they want it fast. They don’t want to wait weeks before they even hear that it was shipped. They want answers to their questions. You need a consistent time frame between an order being placed and an order being shipped. Having orders shipped quickly shows a brand that is on top of their game. But, if one person waits a few days and another waits a few weeks, you are losing a customer. They will find another place to get the same or similar product at a much faster pace. It can be hard to answer customer questions, but responding within a few days shows that you are reliable. And, again, you need to be consistent with the time it takes to read and respond to inquiries.

Keeping up-to-date brand guidelines help you avoid lacks of consistency.  As a result of lacking brand requirements, your company could fall short in sales due to your clientele not being satisfied with the effort put into your brands outlook. Due to the gradual decrease in the human attention-span, your brand has to focus on providing your clients with quick, clean, and moreover effortless communication.

Brand Requirements Deserve Uniqueness. DON’T follow everyone else.

This one should be visible—unique means standing out amongst competition. It may be hard to come out with new products that don’t have something similar, even the slightest bit, out there somewhere. But you can adjust your product to be different than the rest. Don’t make a logo that sounds like you focused on catchy words and bold designs. You need a logo that stands for your company, because this is your brand’s label. It is important. You want your logo to represent your brand and have the ability to draw customers in.

These are just a few of the requirements for being a good brand.  Basically, you want to be unique, reliable, and consistent, because without the latter two, your brand is going to struggle. They go hand in hand with each other, and will only benefit your brand. Following the requirements of a good brand is a choice, and one that only you can make. You can opt-out, and have a failed brand, or you can go all in and set yourself up for success. Stand behind your brand and do what is best for its growth. As a result, your audience will value your brand the same way you do.

Categories
Branding Marketing

Brand Guidelines: Where’s The Heart?

Why Do Brands Have Guidelines?

Being a brand is an achievement. Regardless of what your brand is for, clothing, shoes, sportswear, etc., brands still have specific rules they need to follow. Ruby Porter can co-sign, brands should be respectful of those interested, but most importantly, a brand needs to be honest.

A Promise Is A Promise, Dude.

Brands want to make sales, especially now, to try to keep their company going. The only problem is that they might be taking the best route to do this. Brands may post advertisements that they are having a promo, or that prices have dropped, or that sales will benefit those still working. As long as a company is fulfilling these claims, everything is okay. But, when they are promising things, they cannot keep is when there is an issue.
Brands should not take advantage of their customer’s being in a vulnerable state.

They should not use that to make sales or to manipulate their customers into buying during a time where they may not be able to afford it. This ruins that brand-customer relationship being people are not going to want to buy from you. They lose their credibility, and, more than anything, makes the customer feel used. It’s degrading to the individual, and the result is them no longer buying from the brand.

No one likes to be manipulated or lied to, and it seems like a brand doing this is worse than someone we thought we knew. ‘You can have this if you get that,’ and only getting that initially ordered item will make us made. We will reach out to the company about the issue, and if our complaint is ignored or we are told, the expected order cannot be completed. We then realize we were manipulated into ordering because of the promo, but nothing about it is different than a standard order.

Respect Is Given, When Respect Is Received.

A brand needs to respect their client, or they will lose their following. It can be hard to rebuild your reputation after self-sabotaging for the sole purpose of making a sale. Being hired and having more responsibilities can get to all of us, and in a time where money is tight, or we don’t know when our next paycheck from work will be, the last thing we need is to be humiliated by our favorite brand. Being humiliated by something, or someone, who is not a direct person we can communicate with, it may be a long wait before an apology. However, before that time even comes, more customers than not have already made the subconscious decision that they would no longer support the brand.

In The End

Brands do not have free range over how they act or what they choose to do to benefit themselves, and unfortunately, some brands may still think they do. But this hurts the customer; this serves the relationship and shortens the spread of mouth about a company. People can be vulnerable. And then they are taken advantage of by a company they thought to be loyal to their customers. The clients’ opinions/feelings about the company is a significant representation of how the company treats its clients. Growing the amount of negative opinions and feelings only decreases the respect that a company is receiving from the public.  Avoid doing that by being a genuine brand, that truly appreciates and respects their clients. Learn about unmatte.com and how we choose to provide our family of clients with the BEST service.

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Branding

Your Brand Should be the Leading Character

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Figuring Out Brand Representation

When it comes figuring out how your brand should be represented, think of it as the leading character of a novel. It should be the one running the show, and at the forefront of it all. When I think of a character that has three of the top qualities that a brand should have, I think of Harry Potter.

Harry Potter & Brand Coincidences

Everyone knows Harry Potter. Whether they have or have not seen the movies or read the books, everyone knows something about Harry Potter. Throughout seven novels and eight movies, he continuously shows top qualities that include determination, reliability, and respect. Just like that, a brand should consistently show the same characteristics: both in and out of the public eye.

Harry lost his parents to Lord Voldemort, after being given to his mom’s sister and her husband, he spends eleven years living under a staircase as a regular human being whose family life wasn’t ideal. When he gets thrown into the wizarding world, he finds out the truth about his parents’ death, and it’s within this first novel that he is faced with Voldemort. Every year he faces Voldemort, and every year he is determined to do so and to win. If an eleven-year-old boy can begin his journey of fighting a man who killed thousands, then your brand should be able to have the determination to stick to your product.

To be successful, you can’t back down or take breaks. You need to go full force and with everything you have. If you show your employees and your customers that you have the determination to deliver a great product, chances are your employees will have that same determination, and your customers will be drawn to that.

 

You Can’t Go Wrong With Harry Potter, Don’t Go Wrong With Your Brand.

It is undeniable that Harry Potter is reliable, he never second-guesses his fight with Voldemort. When Dumbledore needed his help, he accepted without question. He wanted to help and knew it could bring him closer to Voldemort, and either the end of him or the man who killed his parents, and that didn’t stop him. Harry was determined and reliable to help get the job done.  Your brand should be the same.

  • Your customers should have a product of exceptional quality each and every time.
  • You can’t flake on your own company – Give your best 100% of the way.

This will ensure that they come back and continue to use your products.

Finally, Harry Potter shows respect to those who deserve it. Now, this doesn’t mean you can pick and choose who your brand is respectful too. But it does show how far respect can go. Harry respects his friends and, in turn, they respect him. They stand by and fight alongside him. He even shows respect towards his aunt, uncle, and cousin even though they don’t respect him. Your brand should always respect its employees, and it should respect its customers: whether they respect your brand or not. The level of respect that you and your brand give out speaks volumes about the brand as a whole.

So, What Does It Take?

It doesn’t take much to be a brand with good character. Determination comes when you start your brand, but now you need to put in the hard work and effort to become reliable. As for respect, that should come naturally and shouldn’t be an issue. Popular brands have many qualities, but these are just three of the most important ones. Let Unmatte provide you that brand character. We value great storytelling, and your audience do too.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Trends

2020 Marketing Trends: What You Should Know

Here at Unmatte, we try and focus on providing brands with the opportunity to rise to the occasion. Marketing trends help you eliminate the BS from your brand and allow you to create actionable tasks that help interact and engage with your audience. Here are a few we think are best for 2020.

Society & Marketing

The world of marketing is continuously changing to keep up with our growing society. The most popular marketing trends nowadays have to do with the internet. Marketing is all about advertising and selling your product, and companies will try to put their ad’s anywhere and everywhere. This also means that there are countless possibilities for companies and marketing their products. You are not just limited to billboards anymore, though if that is what you prefer, you can have billboards that have a changing sign.

Get To Know Your Client

Some companies like to follow and get to know a little about their clients. This is a great way to personalize an ad to one specific person. With the ability to ‘meet’ a potential client, you can talk to them about the product as it is in regards to what they need or the timing they have left in their day for something new, and you can get personal. This seems to be one of the most effective ways of marketing, as well. Taking the personal approach, you show the customer that your product is for anyone.

An example of this is with at-home workout programs. If you are looking for new people to join, you can find an aspect of their life that may be similar, if not the same, as what you are going through. Clients want relatable. They are more likely to go for a product or program if it works for their specific needs and requirements.

Content Is Everything

When it comes to content, there is no loss of possibilities. Make your advertisements fun and short, Don’t drag on, because this risks losing someone’s attention. You need to talk to them like you would someone you already know. If you drag on, they will lose interest sooner and delete your message, or stop reading. Most importantly, if the audience is not drawn to the post when it is in front of them, they will scroll right past. It should be pleasing to the eye and make the reader want to open that ad.

Do Your Best! Do It All!

Marketing is tough and ever-changing. There will always be countless options on which route to go, but, in the end, you need to be what the readers want or need to be seeing at the moment your ad is within their sight. Try a call to action, where you ask them directly if they need your product or services. Be what the reader needs, and they will open your ad. Once they open your ad, you have their attention. Keep their attention, and you have a new client.  Single Grain has created MORE marketing trends to focus on throughout your journey, take a look at their lengthy-list.