Statistics reveal that almost half of new businesses fail within their first year. Considering the amount of new businesses being launched each day, those are not pretty figures to contemplate. One of the most common reasons businesses fail is thanks to a poor investment in quality marketing materials, including those which help brand the company.

So honestly, in all this branding talk, how important can a logo be? And why should I focus my energy on having one created when my company name and product can sell itself?

Logos are an integral part of any brand building project and if you want to have your company succeed, a good and strong brand is what will get you through a weak start, heavy competition, tough economic times and even low funding. Your brand is your promise to your customer; it’s your guarantee that you will deliver what you signed on, and it’s your expression of who you are and what your company is about. Your logo is a summery of all of these, wrapped neatly into an identifiable square (or circle or triangle..)

A well designed logo will do the following for your business:

• Bring uniformity to your online and offline marketing – stick it on your website, newsletters, brochures, business cards and even stationary, stamps, coffee cups and hats.
• It will carry with it the promise of credibility, honestly, integrity, loyalty and capability.
• It will create visual impact your customer can readily identify with.
• It will place you apart from your competitors and signal you to be a well organized, professional set-up, even if in reality you are a one man show operating from your garage.

Take our client Biographica. When we met with them, our brief was to design a logo that reflects the flowing and ever changing nature of the Amazon region. And the logo does exactly this. Strong colors and swirling graphics results in an impressive logo that strongly conveys the evolving, fluid nature of the Amazonian region. A spiral tunnel formation represents evolution, while shades of green and water drops represent the Amazon. The leaf stencil effects on the edges of the icon draws attention to the landscape and plants of the surrounding rain forest.

When it comes to a company or business logo, having a clear focus is important – you have to be sure about what your identity is and have the design reflect your message. Once you’ve developed a logo, it’s tempting to use it differently, but brand dilution is just that – dilution –  and your logo needs to be the central focus of all your marketing plans.  It might also be tempting to redesign your logo after a few years. With a well executive plan, your logo should be flexible to move with your company’s growth, so a redesign – which can lead to brand confusion- is avoidable.

Which brings me to my next point, can you design a logo by yourself? You can if you are a designer. And you can also use the free templates that are available on most web creation sites. But beware of doing so. In most instances your design will be readymade and not reflective of your business’ nature, nor be of a high resolution, which would lead to problems when it comes to printing brochures, banners and even business cards. Instead, seek the expertise of a professional web design house like ourselves and let us design something suitable for you. You’ll be surprised at the time and cost it saves you to get your logo done professionally. Here’s what American historian and esteemed writer Daniel Boorstin once said about a logo, ““An image … is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.”

With the right logo, your brand and company image will stay in the client’s mind long after the sale’s been made and will attract new and potential clients to your doorstep. It’s all part of the impression you create to gain and retain clients. You don’t have to be a McDonalds, Starbucks or Coca-Cola to have a memorable brand. With the correct planning and empathetic designer you can create a strong and powerful logo for your company.

Not much has changed since then- a good marketing strategy continues to be essential to any business. Without one, any efforts to attract customers and brand products and services will be ineffective. Before you write your marketing plan, you need to know the difference between a strategy and plan. A marketing strategy has been defined in many ways, but simply put, it’s one that’s shaped by your overall business goals and supports your end needs. Its sole purpose is to identify and communicate the benefits of what your business has to offer your target market. It outlines the approach you’ll use to meet your objectives.

A marketing strategy should include a description of your products and services, a target profile of potential and current customers, and your company’s stand with regards to competitors. It should also define strategies you’ll be using to build your business such as ‘improve online communication’ or ‘build brand awareness’ etc.

A marketing plan or a marketing tactic as it’s sometimes known, is a practical application of your marketing strategy. You have the means in place via a strategy, now all you have to do is apply them via a plan. A marketing plan cannot exist without a marketing strategy. In the above instance, your plan could be ‘sign up to social media sites and discussion forums to improve online communication’, or develop a newsletter to build brand awareness’.

A good Internet marketing strategy can do the following for you:

• Improve market visibility
• Build brand awareness
• Promote your services to the right target
• Gain customers
• Brand you as an expert
• Make your products/service more trustworthy

Before you begin drawing up your strategies, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is our industry going through any changes? Can I take advantage of them?
• What are the company’s strengths and weaknesses as defined by a SWOT analysis?
• What do customers really want?
• How can I target the right audience?
• Can I improve my customer service?
• Can I adapt or modify my products or services?
• Is the price right?
• Are my distribution channels enough, or do I need to explore further?
• Do I have tracking tools in place to ensure my campaign is being carried out correctly?

Running an online marketing campaign is obviously quite different from running one offline in say print on television. In some ways however, it’s easier as there are plenty of tools to help you do the job effectively and cost efficiently. Online marketing strategies follow traditional marketing campaigns in that they have to be both short term and long term.

• Short term strategies could include forum discussions, signing on to search engines etc.
• Long term strategies could include a well crafted website, blogging, social networking sites, opt-in lists etc.

A credible Internet marketing strategy focuses on where consumers are – in most instances, Google search engines can help you identify this. All searches start with a single keyword or key phrase, and your website’s ranking will be determined by Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So the bottom line is to know what your customers search for and tailor make your campaign around this search criteria.

The following are some of the top Internet Marketing Strategies adopted by successful online companies over the past two years. In the great wide world of online marketing, things move fairly quickly and what’s new today might be very old news tomorrow. Having said this, the following strategies stand the test of time, and are easily adaptable to new technology which may arise.

Organic search results: Organic searches are results by indexing pages based on content and keyword relevancy, rather than from advertisements or from those who’ve paid money to gain rank, such as with overture.com. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are the top search engines, which provide both organic and non-organic search results.

Keyword research: There’s no getting past it; keyword searches are vital to the success of your online campaign. If you enter the wrong keywords, chances are customers will find it hard to find you. By targeting wrong keywords, you’re not only throwing away your money, but also the chance to gain a higher rank.

Social media like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn: more and more companies are putting top dollars into social media with remarkable results. In 2009, results showed over 150 million active users on Facebook, 76 million for MySpace, and 50 million for LinkedIn.

Video marketing: In a recent blog post I wrote, I mentioned 90% adults, 18-30 years explore video-sharing sites like Youtube. If this is your target audience, can you really afford not to use video sites?

Public relations sites: You might have heard the saying ‘any publicity is good publicity’. While this is not always be the case – negative publicity can hurt your business – free publicity is another marketing strategy worth researching. And press releases rank pretty high up when it comes to free attention. Use the many public relations sites available to push your release forward and draw attention to the particular theme you’re promoting.

Blogging : There’s not much to say about blogging which this post, Is Corporate Blogging Right For Your Business? doesn’t already cover. The best part about blogging is that it allows you to built up a steady stream of loyal readers who will be willing to act on your advice.

Link building: Search engines adore popular sites, and one way to build popularity is by linking to other relevant posts and sites.

Web design: A good web site is designed around attracting and keeping audience attention on it, and allows visitors to be guided to choices they may make. It’s easy to make mistakes while designing a site so in this instance, investing in the services of a professional is a good idea.

PPC: Pay per click has become one of the most important online marketing tools, to the extent hundreds have  built businesses around it. The key to PPC advertising is to use attractive key words and key phrases; and the benefit in doing so? An easy and convenient solution to your marketing needs, with high returns.

Newsletters and email marketing: And last but not least, newsletters or ezines have blasted onto the scene allowing even the smallest of businesses to attract a large client following. Their main purpose is to keep clients and potential clients informed about products, services, and the latest happenings in the industry, but they also use to subtly guide the client into making well informed decisions such as investing in an ebook, buying a newly launched product, or signing up for a new service.

Before you pour your corporate heart out into your blog, it is important to step back and think about if blogging is really right for your business. That’s correct; not all companies elect to have blogs, and the success of those who do, depends on a number of factors, some of which can be challenging. If you think a corporate blog is a good idea for your company, there are a few considerations to ponder.

For instance, what is the Goal of your blogging attempt? Most people, business owners or otherwise, get carried away with the idea of starting a blog. It’s easy to set up and run a blog, but harder to maintain it. And without a well defined goal, a blog lacks direction. This means the audience you attract will be varied and without focus. An easy way to determine your goal is to do the following:

• Visit competitor blogs, lots of them
• Read about blog publishing
• View comments
• Participate in blog forums

Once you have a goal is mind, the next step to consider is the Voice of your blog. Who will be writing it? The company’s CEO? Marketing Manager? Publicist? A freelance writer? Will you have guest posts? Set up forum groups? Who will manage them? This is a big step to blogging. Almost all blogs fail in their first year of being set up, because of a lack of time and commitment in maintaining them.

If you’ve heard the saying, Content is king, then it holds all the more true in the instance of blogging. Recycled posts, copied posts, and boring posts, have a limited lifespan. Blogs which are popular produce fresh output on a regular basis. Various companies set up their content delivery in different ways: weekly posts, an editorial calendar based on the corporate calendar, daily headlines etc. Whatever you elect to use, it should be consistent so readers know what to expect. How you acquire this content too is important. Most blogs will get theirs the following ways:

• A designated in house person writes it
• Via PLR and recycled content
• Paid freelance writers
• Guest bloggers
• Free ezine articles

Some bloggers will talk of their life, hopes and dreams, and this works well if the blogger has some kind of celebrity status which others may wish to emulate. Other bloggers will try and sell their products and services directly on their blog. This too works well, but only with a limited audience. The best way to market a blog is via a soft sell approach, and by providing information which matters.

Blogs also face their own set of Challenges, namely trying to attract both a large audience, and a correct audience, to make it worthwhile. There are also certain technical aspects to running a blog which need to be fully understood, before a blog can be promoted. In addition, comments need to be managed, rules and policies implemented, and guidelines drawn out. In certain instances, there are legal implications which need to be addressed, and most corporate blogs will get their legal department involved to a limited extent.

While it’s true that corporate blogging can be a highly valuable communications tool for a company, it’s equally true that its creation and success depends on a strong time-money commitment, and the decision to start a blog therefore needs to prove its value. Unless you can justify this time/money outlay for your business, blogging may not be the right marketing tool for your company.

Now you can, the folks at Old Time Computer came up with the creative genius of transforming the iMac from super sleek to old school.