Greetings Web Pundits,
This month, we're taking a look at online branding and postcards. Chew over a few introductory tips for how you can create and establish a business brand and if you've ever thought of postcards as flimsy, cheap throwaways, think again! We reveal the ways in which online postcards can help your business.
If that's not enough, we're also offering up our latest sites of interest and some useful Web tidbits including news of petitions, payments, products and pledges (that's a whole lot of Ps!).
Enjoy!
Do You Have A Strong Brand?
Businesses can spend a great deal of time and energy on establishing a strong brand. Why? — because it's commonly acknowledged that a strong brand is a powerful marketing tool for every business. A strong brand can help promote products and services and help cement businesses uppermost in people's minds.
Successful brands can become part of everyday language: hoovering (vacuuming), googling (searching the Web) and xeroxing (photocopying) for example. Branding is powerful, so let's look at a few ways in which you can harness brand power and create or strengthen your own branding.
Making your brand matter
- Company name — If you're starting from scratch, think of a company name that's easy to remember and that can be associated with a positive value or characteristic. Make it short, simple, memorable and UNIQUE!
- Design a strong logo — Create an easily identifiable logo (think of the Nike tick, Mac's apple, McDonald's golden arches). Don't under estimate the importance of design, colours and font styles; Cadbury, for example, trademarked their particular shade of purple and Coca Cola trademarked their 'signatory' flourish.
- Brand value — Start educating your customers and your employees about your brand values (for example, you may want your brand to be synonymous with quality, innovation or style). Think about writing some of these values into a short, snappy strap line, which sums up what your brand and business is about.
Once you've decided on your branding, begin the process of imprinting your brand onto the minds and memories of your audience. The best way to do this is through consistency, repetition and exposure. Add your logo and strap line to every piece of communication: your Web site, email signatures, business cards, letterheads, envelopes, compliment slips, advertisements, viral marketing, postcards, games, Christmas cards, office walls and company car. EVERYWHERE!
Rocket Mailing - Before
Rocket Mailing - After
Keep up with the times
Don't be shy of updating your branding. If your 'look' is dated, what are you telling people about your business? You don't have to be a big player like Air New Zealand or AMI to benefit from a fresh coat of paint — a new logo, new colours and a new strap line can help to create a fresh, modern and progressive attitude for your business.
We gave one of our Rocket sites, Rocket Mailing a fresh new look recently and you can see (right) what a difference it made.
Contact us for a free Web design quote, if you are interested in updating your look.
Postcard Power — Special Offer
Sending in postcards for prize draws has always been a cheap, quick and easy way to enter competitions. You can add an equally appealing, quick and easy online way for people to send you information by way of an online postcard (a nicely styled and presented form). For a low set up cost, you could help your business and increase its marketing reach.
How postcards can power up your business:
- Free feedback — According to blog search engine, Technorati, there are over 60 million blogs online, which suggests that the online community is not shy about airing its opinions! Sending postcards online is a quick, easy and relatively fun thing for people to do (and it's free), so you should get some useful feedback about what people like (or don't like) about your Web site and your business. The sample shown is a postcard we created for New Zealand Web directory NZS.com.
- Emailing lists — You can create a mailing list of contacts from the data you receive on your online postcards. Simply collate the email addresses of people sending feedback to you. You can them email them special offers or viral marketing games, which they could send on to their friends. (Remember that to avoid being a spam marketeer, you need to publish guidelines on how you will use email addresses).
- Brand marketing — You can use also offer free online postcards to your site visitors. They simply pick one of your postcard designs, send one to friend, who is then referred back to your Web site. This helps encourage repeat visits to your site and markets your brand and Web site at the same time. View NZTO's free postcard page in action (and send a friend a fluffy NZ sheep).
Special offer
Until the end of March 2007, you can get your postcard (form) designed and installed for just $300+gst, complete with spam protection scripting. This gives you a discount of $60+gst on our normal design costs.
If you want to have postcards on your site that can be sent by people visiting your site, it will take us between 3-5 hours to set up at a cost of $360-$600+gst.* Until the end of March 2007, we will give you $60+gst off the price.
Contact us to book your postcard in.
*Depending on your Web site set up.
Sites of Interest
Here's a selection of sites we've updated and/or marketed recently...
- World Wide Water (design)
Water treatment technologies for use in third world countries and for global civil emergencies.
- Benvenue Hotel (design and promotion)
Hotel and motel accommodation in Timaru with conference and wedding facilities.
- DW Homes (design and promotion)
Master builders based near Auckland offering house design plans and builds. House and land packages also available.
- Walking Legends (update)
Spectacular guided walks, tramping, trekking and hiking tours on the Lake Waikaremoana Track in Te Urewera National Park, Rotorua, New Zealand.
- Rhodes Rentals (update)
Car, minibus, four wheel drive and truck rentals from Christchurch and Dunedin-based offices.
- Fulton Hogan Road Signs (update)
Online shop for road cones and road signs by Fulton Hogan including temporary warnings, parking and danger signs.
- Villa Puri Indah (update)
Bali beach luxury vacation villa offering a secure family luxury vacation accommodation with large pool and gardens in Legian, Bali.
- Fresh Fruits (update)
Specialists in the procurement and supply of fresh global produce based in Auckland.
- New Zealand Rent A Car (update)
Budget car hire and rental cars throughout New Zealand with numerous locations across the country from Northland to Bluff.
