Chart of the Week: 64% of consumers are now belief-driven buyers who want brands to deliver on societal issues, as well as products

We all know that trusting a brand increases the chances of a customer buying from it. Building trust turns customers into advocates, providing priceless word-of-mouth marketing. On top of this, brand trust means customers keep coming back, which is hugely beneficial considering the fact that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition. But exactly what does brand trust mean to customers and how can it impact their decision making? Today, brand trust is everything to customers, meaning that once you’ve lost it, you’ve likely lost them. [si_guide_block id="50995" title="Download our Business Resource – Brand storytelling guide" description="This guide helps you explore the fundamentals of developing powerful authentic brand stories."/] In fact, according to Edelman’s latest research, businesses are trusted even more than governments, showing…

Brand logos are highly memorable and become a symbol of your company, service and products. This is why you need to create a good one

All famous companies have a trademark. It increases recognition and sometimes even determines the success of the company. A special combination of colours and symbols can capture the brand for decades or become another faceless corporate sign. So how do you find a balance between brand involvement and recognition? How do you create a logo that will work for your business? In this article, we will introduce the rules and a step-by-step guide to developing a corporate symbol.

What is logo and why does your brand need one?

According to psychological experiments conducted at the University of Amsterdam, 67% of two-years-old and older children are able to recognize the brand by the logo. A well-designed sign means brand recognition, which…

If you want to secure the top talent in 2019, you need to position your company as an employer of choice

As a marketing professional, you’ll be well adept at maximizing your brand in order to attract new customers. But have you considered how brand marketing can increase your candidate attraction efforts too? After all, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for organizations to entice candidates out of their current roles, with the ONS reporting that UK employment hit another record high at the end of last year. As such, if you want to secure the top talent in 2019, you need to position your company as an employer of choice. With this in mind, below we explain how brand marketing can increase your candidate attraction efforts and what you need to do to get in front of potential employees.

What does your brand say about you?

Before you get started, ask yourself, what does your…

If your brand logo or brand message is not connecting with your ideal consumers, the chance of brand recall in the future are slim

Branding is equivalent to telling a story, a story that resonates with your ideal buyers. Visuals form the core of this storytelling. In other words, visual branding is the first step to building a successful brand image and developing your business. First impressions matter and this rings true even with visual branding. If your brand logo or brand message is not connecting with your ideal consumers, the chance of brand recall in the future are slim. There are many examples of branding going haywire and the reasons can be anything - a bad logo or poor brand name or inconsistent visuals, and so on. While each brand has a different story, there are a few little design errors that every brand should avoid.

1. Creating a controversial logo

A logo is…

When your employees fail to understand your brand identity, it is nearly impossible to communicate it effectively to your consumers

Establishing a strong brand identity is like building a healthy relationship - you have to believe in yourself before anyone else can do the same. However, getting your sales team, customer service team and every other department on the same page can easily become an uphill battle. When your employees fail to understand your brand identity, it is nearly impossible to communicate it effectively to your consumers. [si_guide_block id="109627" title="Download our Premium Resource – Brand vision and identity playbook" description="This playbook will enable you to define your branding approach. Branding expert Debbie Inglis explains a structured approach to review and define your brand identity to make it more appealing to customers."/] To make matters worse, it only takes a single slip-up to lose your customers forever. A simple disconnect between your stated values and the…

Some of the best brands set themselves apart in their industry by coming up with creative brand names. Here’s what we can learn from them

If you don’t believe that having a good name will impact your business, maybe you should. After all, catchy names outperform long and complicated names on the stock market by 33%. Sometimes, being bold when naming a business pays off. These can be the names that stick in people’s heads and set up your business for success. A name is an outgrowth of a business plan. The right name will support the growth of your business and can help improve your chances of becoming successful. [si_guide_block id="109627" title="Download our Premium Resource – Brand vision and identity playbook" description="This playbook will enable you to define your approach, branding expert Debbie Inglis explains a structured approach to review and define your brand identity to make it…

Whether it’s the strategic partners, customers or employees themselves, digital branding relishes the all-encompassing feeling of a digital businesses profile

Digital Branding, as a term, has been coined as the cornerstone of modern marketing technique, where various digital channels and assets are used to communicate a brand’s positioning in the ecosystem as part of the multi-channel brand communication or engagement programmes. The competition across nearly every industry is becoming more fierce by the minute. For this very reason, developing an identity for your local business and devising a plan to reach out to your audience has never been more important than it is today. Your local business no longer needs intermediaries in order to have a direct interaction with customers. With the onslaught of digital branding, a message well-delivered has the potential to impact real-life experiences that can be transmitted through multiple networks.

[si_guide_block id="109627" title="Download our Premium Resource – Brand vision and identity…

Exporting is nothing new, but overseas markets continue to present opportunities for companies to grow

Advances in technology, internet communications and travel, mean we understand cultures and countries better than ever; making trading outside of your domestic market one of the most accessible strategic options available to businesses today. Let’s face it: twenty-first century business opportunities are global. If you have a domestic market, you could have markets everywhere. After all, it’s much easier (and less costly) to sell your existing specialism to new audiences, rather than creating new products and services. Yet, finding the right customers in new markets, and selecting the right key accounts in which to invest resources, can be tricky if you don’t have a strategy and a plan to engage them. You can’t ‘wing it’ when it comes to international marketing - or any form of marketing for that…

Chart of the Day: Public are largely unfamiliar with purchasing through chatbots

Chatbots are a viable option for companies who want to be ever-accessible to their customers. Able to help with common problems such as late deliveries or changing profile information, chatbots can always elevate more complex tasks to a human representative if need be. One task that customers aren’t ready to trust chatbots with is making a purchase. Research by SUMO Heavy has found that just 11% of people have tried making a purchase through a chatbot, with just 5% saying they would do so again. A quarter of people said they were not open to trying it and 43% said they were unfamiliar with the concept altogether. When reading this data, it's important to distinguish the different platforms that chatbots can be provided through. Chat services available directly on a…

Five common product branding myths

Branding is one of the aspects of running a business that people just can’t seem to get right. Here are a few nuggets of information that are not facts, but product branding myths.

There is a lot of information out there on the subject, but most of it is sadly incorrect. This has made it somewhat impossible for many businesses to properly exploit branding.

Myth 01 - Branding is all about the logo and colors

Technically speaking, if all you needed to make an excellent brand was a good logo and a perfect color palette, then brand designers would have become obsolete a long time ago.

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Branding is more than a combination of logos and colors. It is the…