Search CompleteMarkets

... , but your marketing emphasis and direction changes constantly you get the idea. The two must be compatible. Its time to evaluate your overall marketing components. Dont start with your latest advertising campaign. Save that for last. Begin at the beginning, as if you were a start-up business. Take my company, Sound Marketing, as an example. We chose our name to represent audio productions used in marketing, training, and education. Sound as a noun reflected the audio aspect; as an adjective it meant healthy, reliable, good. Since education and training can be construed as both internal and external marketing, we decided on Sound Marketing as a name that reflected both our image and our mission. We wanted a logo that reflected our commitment to corporate structure, with a sense of artistic freedom. We selected an award-winning designer of music album covers, rather than a traditional graphic artist. This artist designed an S' logo that intimated perpetual motion and creativity, coupled with a conventional block-style print. The result: a logo that reinforces our image visually. Weve made only one change over the years: from a bit-too-conservative gray to a more vibrant blue. This story reinforces the need to start your evaluation process with the basics: your logo, your print style, your signage, your office decor. Do they reflect the real corporate you? From there, evaluate your brochures, newsletters, flyers, direct mail pieces, yellow page ads, and finally your print and media advertising. At each point, visualize your corporate image and ask if it fits with that image ...

... changing constantly-I think you get the idea. The two must be compatible. Evaluate each component of your overall marketing in the same way. Don't start with your latest advertising campaign. Save that for last. Begin at the beginning, as if you were a start-up. For example, my company's name, Sound Marketing, was chosen to represent the audio productions used in marketing, training, and education. As a noun, Sound' reflected the audio aspect; as an adjective, it means healthy, reliable, and good. Since education and training can be construed as both internal and external marketing, we decided on Sound Marketing' to reflect both our image and our mission. We wanted a logo to reflect our commitment to the corporate structure, but also to express a sense of artistic freedom. To achieve this, we selected an award-winning designer of music albums, rather than a traditional graphic artist, to create our logo. This artist designed an S' swash that hinted at perpetual motion and creativity, coupled with conventional block-style print for the word marketing', but dropping the crossbar in the letter A. The result: a logo that matches our image. We've made only one change over the years, switching from a bit-too-conservative gray to a more vibrant blue. From the logo, move on to evaluate your brochures, newsletters, flyers, direct mail pieces, Yellow Page ads, and finally your print and media advertising. At each point, ask if your corporate image fits the image of the piece. You may be surprised at how frequently image diverges from ...

... All Back Trust: It's The Bottom Line 4/30/2013 12:00:00 AM by CompleteMarkets Editor , Chris Burand This content has not been rated yet. Do your customers trust you - and, if so, what for? Wal-Mart is known for low prices. A very young boy was heard to say that when he grew up, he was going to build a company bigger than Wal-Mart by offering even lower prices — everything would be free! It would appear that much older sages haven't developed any better strategies. Despite Wal-Mart's phenomenal achievements, there's a darker side to their success. A plethora of articles cite the small businesses put out of business by Wal-Mart's arrival to their towns, discuss how Wal-Mart's gain is their suppliers' losses, and point out how Wal-Mart discourages artistic freedom by not selling certain recording artists, books, and magazines (since they're such a key retailer of these products, not carrying them makes a huge difference) . Other articles complain about Wal-Mart's architecture, low wages, and various types of discrimination. Meanwhile, insurance agencies and many other businesses work hard at building and advertising great products and great service. Yet, even when they succeed, they don't attain Wal-Mart's success. Wal-Mart simply says, "Trust us to always have the lowest price" and it works! The key is that Wal-Mart does not just sell price. They have built trust that they will always have the lowest price. They learned a painful and expensive lesson during Christmas 2004 for temporarily violating this trust, when customers found other stores offering better prices and abandoned ...

...by not selling certain recording artists, books, and magazines (since they’re...

...t rather the canvas where skilled artists go to lovingly apply the strokes fro...

... the designers, but a collaborative effort benefits everyone involved. Corporate identification is art and science. Developing a corporate look is both art and science. Research, planning, and design are all significant components of the completed package - for good reason. Ownership of a visually powerful corporate identification has tremendous value to a firm. There are more than 690,000 trademarks now registered, many for unusual names or symbols that are clearly worth protecting. Some companies go a step further: Owens-Corning registered the color of its pink insulation, as did Coca-Cola with the shape of its Coca-Cola Classic bottle, and NBC applied for registration of the sound of its chimes. Design has value. In addition to objectivity, an outside marketing services firm brings its understanding and knowledge of the subtleties of design. Graphic artists, illustrators, designers, and art directors can conceptually interpret a company's goals while attending to the small details, which can be quite powerful. They scrutinize the design for balance, unity, cohesiveness, composition, and reproduction value. They understand the implications of specific colors and select colors accordingly, also giving careful consideration to the warm and dark tones they use. Give the planning stages their necessary attention, maintain communication with all involved parties, define your company's goals, and select the best leaders to direct your corporate identification implementation program. With everything in place, you'll avoid identity crisis and present your company in the best light. Richard Barry is vice president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm founded in 1976. He can be reached at 40 Oval Road, ...

... to be and what your hosts are wearing. Let's add five more rhetorical garments to our word' robe. 26. Have you ever wished.. This is a lyrical opening which can penetrate defenses which leap into position against more hard-boiled attacks. In use, too often even the most professional practitioners shoot a coat of dulling spray over Have you ever wished . .. by having an introduction so long, tedious, or dynamic the opening itself becomes ancillary instead of primary-a harsh switching of gears. Don't do that. Harshness destroys wistfulness. I'm looking at a letter selling computer software. The actual letter begins: Dear Friend. Have you ever wished that you could produce incredible-looking documents, construct bigger than life posters, build dazzling looking slide presentations-or even touch-up photographs and drawings, just like a world-class graphic artist might do? A workmanlike job-although I'd have hyphenated bigger-than-life, ' taken the hyphen out of touch up, ' and dumped the weak looking' after dazzling. These are tweakings, not objections. The opening does stand up. But this opening starts two-thirds of the way down the page. A batch of rock-em, sock-em display type above the greeting shouts: Now two PC Magazine's Editors' Choice Award-Winning Software Programs can be yours . . .Get three of the world's easiest to use desktop publishing packages, bundled together for only $49.95! You save $527 off the price [and on it goes..] A legend above a Have you ever wished.. greeting isn't damaging per se; it's damaging when it's exclamatory. When you're writing a letter, pretend you're in a play. Who are ...

...ell.” Remember that the best con artists attract infatuation. Just because so...

...ner, supervising in-house graphic artists and art directors, or functioning as...

... be read by students, housewives, artists, or others likely to seek part-time ...