Branding

Let’s Talk: What’s Your Biggest Business Challenge Right Now? BY PAMELA WILSON 20 COMMENTS Tweet 0Share 0Share 2Pin These past few weeks, I’ve been speaking personally with Big Brand System readers. It’s the latest incarnation of my Big Brand System Focus Group. The last time I ran a focus group was back in late 2012, and a lot has changed since then. But one thing hasn’t changed at all. It turns out that back in 2012, and today in 2015 I had the same reaction after speaking personally with many of you: “Wow: this is an amazing group of people!” Challenges as varied as you are One of the most important things you can do when running a focus group is to ask a consistent set of questions of everyone you talk to. It makes it much easier to compare answers and draw out the similarities and differences. This year, as in 2012, I asked focus group members: “What is your biggest challenge right now?” Among the many answers I heard were: How to re-position and reinvent my business How to appeal to a market that’s willing to pay me well How to manage my projects, increase efficiency, and systematize my business How to morph my hard-won expertise into a new business venture How to market my business within a specific geographic location It’s your turn: tell me about your biggest challenge Now I’d like to give you a turn. Cruise on down to the comments section, and tell me: What challenge is keeping you up at night right now? What business puzzle are you working on? What’s holding you back and not allowing you to move forward in your business? I’ll start As mention in the Weekend Digest newsletter where I invited folks to join my focus group, I am looking for ways to serve the Big Brand System audience with the limited time I have available due to my amazing full-time job. Speaking with you has given me some great ideas, so thank you. OK, your turn: What’s your biggest business challenge right now? Tweet 0Share 0Share 2Pin Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: business challenges, business journey wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not get the free Weekend Digest newsletter? Every other Saturday, you’ll receive one email that’s chock-full of information about the intersection of business, branding, design, and marketing. Join us. Click here to read my most-popular posts. Your Marketing Gift Guide BY PAMELA WILSON Tweet 6Share 11Share 2Pin Your Marketing Gift Guide Pop quiz! If you’re buying a gift for someone’s birthday, do you: 1. Go to the store and pick out the wrapping paper, the ribbon, and the gift tag? Or, do you: 2. Think about the recipient, shop for something they’d like, and then wrap it? It’s the second option, of course! You can’t wrap up the gift until you’ve thought about the recipient and found something they’ll love. You can’t wrap it until you’ve got the perfect gift in hand. Start with your ideal customer To create a marketing “gift” that resonates with your ideal customer, you have to start with a deep understanding of the person you’re trying to reach. Marketing today works best when it’s: Useful. Helpful. Friendly. And what’s useful, helpful, and friendly will vary according to each person. (Need help creating a marketing “gift?” Read 9 List-Building Gifts You Can Make This Month.) To create effective marketing, put yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes. Think about their tangible and intangible traits. Tangible traits: Their age Their gender Their geographical location (if your business is local) Their education level Tangible traits are easy to pinpoint: they’re facts and figures you can look up. Intangible traits: Their need for security Their need for recognition Their need for power Their need for love Intangible traits aren’t as easy to figure out, and may require you to use your imagination, coupled with real conversations with your prospects. Intangible traits might reveal themselves over time as you get to know your ideal customer. For more on finding your ideal customer, take a look at my Ideal Customer Finder. Wrap your gift so it appeals to the recipient Once you truly understand who your marketing “gifts” will go to, you can turn your attention to the wrapping — the design elements that will surround your gift, highlight it, and draw attention to it. A deep understanding of your ideal customer makes it easier to: Choose colors they’ll relate to, and avoid those that will turn them off. Find fonts that resonate, and steer clear of fonts that aren’t a good fit. Think before you wrap Making the extra effort to think about the gift recipient before you focus on how you’ll wrap the gift makes all the difference. It helps you take yourself out of the equation, and create marketing messages that appeal to your ideal customer both in content and appearance. Don’t get caught up in the wrapping paper I see many small business owners get hung up on the presentation of their marketing message before they’ve done the work of understanding who they’re trying to reach. This post is your reminder: don’t get caught in this trap! Read more about finding your ideal customer in the posts below: Your Marketing Elimination Diet: How to Lose the Dead Weight and Find Your Best Customers Now The Marketing Starting Block: How to Step Off Right and Win the Race How to Define Your Target Market Are you stuck in this “ideal customer” stage? Feel free to let me know in the comments, and I’ll be happy to share some ideas. Talking Content Marketing with Big Brand System’s Pamela Wilson BY CLARK BUCKNER Tweet 0Share 0Share 4Pin Pamela Wilson This interview was conducted by Clark Buckner from TechnologyAdvice. He’s based in Nashville, and his company provides expert comparisons between the best crm solutions for small business owners, customer loyalty plans, innovative employee programs, and much more. Be sure to also check out their technology conference calendar. Clark asked me some of the same questions I’ve heard from many Big Brand System readers these past few months. Enjoy — and if you have follow-up questions, let me know in the comments section. –Pamela Pamela Wilson, owner of Big Brand System, spoke with me about how her company started and how to incorporate design with content marketing. Wilson is an award-winning graphic designer and marketing consultant. Aside from running her own company, she is also currently the Director of Special Projects at Copyblogger Media. Wilson described how her company began, and how Copyblogger was actually woven into the history of Big Brand System. After having run a design studio and marketing consultancy for nearly 20 years, Wilson wanted to build an online business. In 2009, she signed up for a Copyblogger program called Teaching Sells, which not only taught her about creating successful online training programs and multimedia membership sites, but also gave her the opportunity to interact with the Copyblogger power team including Sonia Simone, Brian Clark, Tony Clark and the others who were running the course. Applying what she learned from the course, Wilson started Big Brand System. Her first post in early 2010 was aimed at reaching small business owners who desired more knowledge about marketing and design. She wanted to help small business owners who knew the power of fusing marketing and design together, but may not have had sufficient funds to hire a design or marketing firm. Building an Online Audience Consequently, Wilson started a process of reaching out and building an audience. Knowing that writing guest posts was a great way to expand her audience, she courageously sent a guest post to Copyblogger in March 2010, which they published. The post received an overwhelming response from readers and visits to her blog shot up exponentially. Seeing such great results from guest posting, Wilson became hooked on the process. Copyblogger eventually asked her to guest post on a regular basis, so she did. Wilson gave much of the credit for her growing platform to Copyblogger, which was instrumental in building a strong audience base for Big Brand System. Combining Design and Marketing At that time, Wilson noticed that design and marketing were hot topics by themselves, but few were speaking about design and marketing together. However, she knew that strong design decisions and fantastic marketing create a powerful combination. She took it upon herself to write on design topics. Copyblogger obviously liked what she did as they kept requesting more posts tackling design topics like: How to format a page How to make a page more readable How to use images on a blog The kinds of content Wilson has been creating for Copyblogger has been a great match for her endeavors with Big Brand System. Guest Posting Strategy Wilson accentuated how critical your bio is when writing a guest post because the bio allows readers to click through to your blog so they can sign up for your mailing list. Having done this key step in guest posting, Wilson saw a huge surge in sign-ups to her mailing list. Eventually, Wilson started guest posting for other blogs as well. Content Marketing Wilson describes content marketing today as focusing on communicating and teaching. Basically, it’s about conveying useful and entertaining information with the primary goals of connecting with people, building trust, and building authority. Additionally, design also plays a significant part in content marketing in that running a compelling website or printing a piece of engaging marketing collateral requires polished, professional, intentional design work. Smart design earns authority and builds relationships. Working with Copyblogger Considering that she had not worked for someone else in over 22 years, Wilson described her working relationship with Copyblogger as a natural transition. Since the Copyblogger team works remotely, she has always been able to keep things moving forward under her own discipline and run her own schedule without someone micromanaging her. The Rainmaker Platform One of her first big projects with Copyblogger was contributing to the new Rainmaker Platform product. Wilson suggested interface and labeling tweaks, and helped create an easy-to-follow new user onboarding process. She is also working on developing a series of webinars directed toward Rainmaker users to make it easier for them to use the product. Wilson underscored the power of webinars in helping people utilize the full potential of a particular product. Following a few months of beta-testing, Rainmaker has finally been launched and released to the public. Wilson explained that the main goal for Rainmaker is to free content creators from technology, allowing them to focus on creating fantastic content and reaching their audiences. Wilson described Rainmaker as a very powerful platform in that it brings all things under one umbrella, like: A/B testing Automatic landing page creation Podcast setup and delivery Web hosting What’s on the Horizon for Pamela Wilson and Copyblogger Wilson expressed that one fun thing about working for Copyblogger is the ability to take a peek into what’s coming down the pipeline. Content marketing is maturing and becoming the new face of marketing. One of the reasons Wilson is very excited about Rainmaker is that it gives people necessary tools so they can focus on creating really great content. That said, Rainmaker is a very valuable tool at an interesting price point. In terms of her involvement, Wilson is also developing something with Brian Gardner of StudioPress where they will focus on providing education for the StudioPress audience. Copyblogger’s Authority Training Program Wilson illustrated that Authority actually consists of two things: Authority member site: Features webinars, seminars, Q & A sessions, and a forum. Authority is available separately, and is included as part of the Rainmaker Platform. Authority/Rainmaker conference: This annual event features a single-track educational experience, with high-profile speakers and ample opportunities for networking. The Future of Big Brand System With so many things going on with Copyblogger, Wilson brought in Piper Larson as content manager for Big Brand System. However, Wilson still makes sure she is able to post twice a month and send out newsletters for her company. Finally, Wilson made perfectly clear that she will continue to share great content at Big Brand System and is not walking away from her company because of her growing involvement with Copyblogger. For more information on Big Brand System, visit www.bigbrandsystem.com. Also, check out Pamela Wilson at www.copyblogger.com. The Long, Winding, Sometimes Rocky Trail to Success, and Why It’s Worth the Trip BY PAMELA WILSON Tweet 11Share 9Share 100Pin The Long, Winding, Sometimes Rocky Trail to Success, and Why It's Worth the Trip Wouldn’t it be nice if business success was easy? If there was a formula for success, like all the self-help gurus would have us believe? My answer to those questions is no. I think it’s good that business is challenging and difficult at times. It’s only through fighting past the tough times — and puzzling through the challenges — that we learn. And once we’ve put the effort in, we appreciate the success we’re able to create more than if it was handed to us. “Your best teacher is your last mistake.” –Ralph Nader The trick to enjoying running your own business is to expect the ups and downs, and the twists and turns. Welcome them. Embrace them. And take full advantage of what they’ll teach you. Here’s what to look for: Economic ups and downs Right now, the economy in the US seems to be slowly heading up again after six long years of struggle. Most businesses felt the recession in some way. Some didn’t survive it. A changing economy is to be expected. Over the life of your business, you’ll see the economic climate go through times when it favors your business, and times when it squeezes your opportunities to a bare minimum. Income that disappears You’re humming along, and things are going well, when suddenly the rug is pulled out from under you. Whether it’s losing your biggest client, a sudden turn in the demand for your product, or a health problem that means you have to dial back your hours, your income will dip from time to time. An inadvertent hit product or service Sometimes the products or services you least expect to do well turn into sleeper “hits” that sell beyond your wildest expectations. This is not a bad problem to have, of course, but it’s something you may need to make adjustments around. Potential projects that fall through You’ve been working on reeling in a new client for months. Or you’ve been talking to a potential partner. The new source of income is so close, you can taste it. And (you’re embarrassed to admit) you’ve even started planning how you’ll spend your new income. And suddenly — it’s gone. Plans change, and you won’t be able to count on that source of income in the future. Sales that fall flat A service or product you offer has been a reliable source of income for months and years, and sales have begun to taper off. You know you need to make a change: will you keep it and update it? Pull it and replace it? Potential partners come out of nowhere Sometimes — when you least expect it — you’ll meet someone who will change the course of your business. Oftentimes you don’t realize it at the time, but looking back, you’ll see that change started to happen when you and that person crossed paths. They may become a business partner, a brainstorming partner, or simply a source of inspiration. Once you find them, your business changes for the better. You’ll get discouraged If you’re lucky, you’ll have a long and winding trail to walk as you build your business over the years. There will be ups and downs, and in the down moments, you may feel discouraged. Expect this: it’s natural. “Success is never so interesting as struggle—not even to the successful.” –Willa Cather You’ll celebrate small victories There will be many small moments of victory, and you’ll be a happier business owner if you find a way to celebrate them. Mark them on the calendar, keep a journal, report your successes to your business colleagues and family members. Every small victory deserves recognition, even if you’re the only person celebrating. Guaranteed: your business will shape shift Businesses evolve. Try to go into your business with a strong vision of what you want to accomplish, and a weak vision of how exactly you’ll accomplish it. Because as time goes on, the tools and techniques you’ll use will change. You’ll respond to your customers, you’ll learn new skills, and you’ll have more opportunities at your disposal. Don’t get attached to exactly how you’ll get to your destination. What should you pack for the journey? Pack your bags with plenty of persistence. You’ll need it for the trip. Remember, it’s the journey, not the destination. “Achieving a goal is nothing. The getting there is everything.” –Jules Michelet Take along your flashlight. Your business journey will feel like walking through the woods on a dark night. The flashlight in your hand will show you where to place your feet in the space directly ahead of you, but you won’t be able to see beyond that. And that’s OK: that’s how it works! Use your listening ears. This is how you can “see” ahead of you. By listening to what your customers need, you can stay ahead of the game. So when that client bails out, or the big job falls through, or the partner loses interest, or sales fall flat … you have a plan B. Here’s what it boils down to … The process is what it’s all about, not the goal. The goal is just what you’re pointing toward. Human nature dictates that as soon as we accomplish one goal, we set a new one for ourselves. So you see, it’s not about the goal. It’s about the trail we travel to get there. Let go of your goals. Embrace the process you’ll use to get there. That’s where the learning happens, that’s where the adventure lives, and that’s where business gets done. Tweet 11Share 9Share 100Pin Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business Tagged With: business challenges, business cycles, business journey, goals wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not get the free Weekend Digest newsletter? Every other Saturday, you’ll receive one email that’s chock-full of information about the intersection of business, branding, design, and marketing. Join us. The 5 Essential Keys to a Tantalizing ‘About’ Page BY HENNEKE Tweet 61Share 11Pin About page best practices It’s an easy mistake. Once you know it, you’ll see it happening on most websites. Let me ask you: What’s the purpose of your about page? That’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s about your company. Your history. Your products. Maybe some stuff about you personally. That’s it. Right? Not quite. That shouldn’t be the main focus. The about page on your website is a “sales” page, encouraging readers to get in touch or join your newsletter. And like every sales page, your about page should focus on your readers, engaging and inspiring them. Let’s look at the five essential keys — five “best practices” — for creating an about page that converts. 1. Explain why people should work with you The question your about page should answer is this: Which problems do you solve for your customers? Pamela’s about page, for instance, doesn’t start with an about me section. Instead, her headline is: Let’s Grow Your Business With Great Design and Marketing This headline addresses you as business owner by talking about your business. You instantly know how Pamela can help you. My own about page takes a similar approach. The headline asks you: How can I help you grow your business? And after the headline I specify the two ways I can help you build your business: Looking to hire a copywriter? Or want to improve your own writing skills so you can win more clients? To attract people to your company, start with explaining how you can help them. Show them they’ve arrived in the right place. 2. Boost your credibility To get people to hire you or buy from you, you need to establish your credibility as an expert. Answer these questions: What work experience demonstrates your expertise? How does your education contribute to success? Which awards have you won? Do you have client testimonials or quotes you can include? Have you appeared in any well-known publications? Pamela, for instance, mentions she’s been helping small businesses and large organizations create “big brands” since 1987. By using a specific year she changes a wishy-washy statement into a credibility-boosting fact. Specific names, brands, years, or other facts boost your credibility. Your about page isn’t a complete resume of everything you’ve done. Carefully pick the facts that substantiate why you’re the right person to help your readers. 3. Show your passion What drives you? What do you believe in? Sharing your passion inspires and energizes readers. Your best clients are the people who resonate most with your way of doing business, with your beliefs. A “mission statement” provides a great way to show what drives you. And I don’t mean a corporate statement full of gobbledygook and written by committee. I mean a statement that gives us a glimpse of your passion. This is how Pamela describes her passion: She believes that your business may be small, but your brand can be BIG. And this is how I formulate it on my site: Henneke Duistermaat is an irreverent copywriter and marketer. She’s on a mission to stamp out gobbledygook, and to add sparkle to boring business blogs. What do you believe in? What do you want to achieve with your work? If you struggle to define this, think about what you don’t believe in. I list on my site: I don’t like to do as I’m told–expect honest feedback to your suggestions. I don’t polish existing text–you get most out of working with me when you involve me from the start of your project. I hate gobbledygook, and refuse to write phrases like market-leading, best-in-class, and state-of-the-art–hire me to write simple content that converts. Sharing your beliefs filters out the people who aren’t right for your business. Your mission appeals to the clients you love working with most. 4. Add a dash of personality Why do people choose to work with you? Of course you need to have the right expertise, knowledge, and skills. But your main attraction as a small business owner or freelancer is your personality. People choose you because your content resonates with them. They choose you because of who you are and how you work. What’s your personality? Are you friendly or more corporate? High-energy or more analytical? Serious or fun? For more help with defining your brand and personality, download your brand personality worksheet. Rather than tell people you’re friendly or fun, show it to them in your writing. For instance: To make your content friendlier, use everyday words and ask more questions To show you’re energetic, make your sentences shorter, and use sensory and emotional words To display more seriousness, include more details, avoid exclamation marks, and use slightly longer sentences Personality isn’t just about your writing. Your imagery and design play an important role. Include at least one photo: Show a welcoming smile Don’t cross your arms because it looks like you’re blocking the outside world Look directly to the reader or towards your content, because readers naturally follow your gaze Choose clothing that suits your personality — a jacket looks more corporate than a t-shirt Consider wearing your brand colors An about page without personality is like a book with a ho-hum cover. Nobody wants to read it because nobody gets excited. 5. Invite people to take action What is the purpose of your about page? What’s the next step your readers should take? Do you want people to email you to ask for a quote? Do you want them to check out your product pages? Would you like them to join your email list? Pamela has a clear call to action on her about page: Get my free Marketing Toolkit and start growing your business with great design and marketing And she gives you further incentive to sign up by sharing testimonials for her emails: “Look, you’re guaranteed to learn something every time you read Pamela Wilson’s blog. I know I do.” –DEREK HALPERN, Social Triggers What would you like your readers to do? And how can you encourage them to do so? How to create a sparkling ‘about’ page Average is boring. Blending in is dull. Make yourself stand out by being yourself. Attract the right clients by being YOU. In a world of pixels, viral cats, and meaningless likes, we’re all looking for the human touch. For real voices. For personal connections. Tweet 45Share 61Share 11Pin Filed Under: Copywriting, Marketing, Small Business, Website Design wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not get the free Weekend Digest newsletter? Every other Saturday, you’ll receive one email that’s chock-full of information about the intersection of business, branding, design, and marketing. Join us. Click Demystifying the Art of Action Planning BY KARYN GREENSTREET Tweet 19Share 21Share 7Pin Demystifying the Art of Action Planning Do you have an area in your business where you want to grow, change, be more successful? Sometimes it feels like you can’t get there fast enough. Setting goals can seem intimidating until you realize goals are simply stated outcomes: be more profitable, finish a big project, launch a new service, or help more clients. It’s more than a mere wish list; it’s stating what you want from life. The trick is to get from goal setting to goal attainment. That’s where we hit potholes and brick walls. Being a planner rather than a jumper will get you results quicker. Start with Big Picture Goals Before you jump into details, start with big outcomes you want for your business this year. People often confuse goals with projects, and the easiest way to split them apart is to ask yourself the questions, “Why do I want to do this? What outcome am I hoping to get?” For instance, you might say that one of your goals is to launch a new class for your audience. But there’s a reason you’re launching this new class, right? Maybe it’s a free class to build your mailing list. Maybe it’s a paid class to show your expert status and build income. By asking yourself why you want to achieve something, you get to your core goals. ACTION STEP: Take a moment and write down three big picture goals you have for this year. Brainstorm Your Projects Now that you have your goals in mind, let’s talk about how to achieve them. There are many paths that will lead you to the same goal, and choosing your projects wisely will help you get where you’re going. Start by brainstorming all the projects that can help you achieve the same goal (don’t worry at this point about committing to a project, just write down as many as possible to limber up your creative juices). For instance, say that one of your goals is to build your expert platform. You could boost your blog audience, write a book, teach a class, do more speaking engagements, start a column in a national magazine or website, hire a PR firm, or create a podcast. All of these things will show you’re an authority in your field. How do you know which projects are the best ones to tackle? Here’s a checklist to help you decide: Which ones inspire and excite you? Which ones align with your personality and skill set? Which ones match the way your audience likes to connect with you? Which ones fit your budget? Which ones are likely to get you to your goals the fastest? ACTION STEP: Pick one or two projects to work on this year. You can always add more later, but choosing too many projects will overwhelm you and cause you to lose focus. Start the year right: don’t overburden yourself. Tap Your Task List ACTION STEP: Take one of your projects and begin writing a to do list of tasks needed to accomplish that project. Next to each task indicate whether it’s a task you will do or whether you’ll need to outsource it to someone else. Also note whether a task will require a specific resource, like hiring someone to update your website, or taking a class to learn a new skill. Say that your project is to create a new class. Tasks might include writing a lesson plan, creating worksheets or a student guide, selecting a teaching method, picking dates for the class, setting a price for the class, creating a marketing plan for the class, etc. ACTION STEP: Organize the tasks into a logical order. For example, you’ll need to write a lesson plan so you know how long the class is, and what you’ll cover, before you can set the price. You’ll need to write the sales copy before the sales page can be put up on your website. ACTION STEP: Take an educated guess as to how long each task will take. Tally up those tasks and the timing for each one, and calculate when the project is likely to be finished. Allow for some “stretch time” in your action planning; you never know when you’ll hit a bump in the road that might delay your project. Get Moving, It’s Easy You have an action plan for your project. That’s great! Now it’s time to start implementing that plan. This can be the place where people freeze. You look at your to do list and it feels like climbing Mount Everest. The problem is we look at the whole action plan and automatically think we have to do every single action all at the same time. Our intellectual brain knows that’s not possible, but our emotional brain sees it that way. ACTION STEP: Look for one action you can take right now. Just one action, no more. If your task is to write your sales page, your one action might be to write the headline. If your task is to set your price, your one action could be to calculate your costs so you know your class will be profitable. By breaking project and tasks into smaller and smaller increments, we achieve everything – on time, on budget, and with grace and satisfaction. Tweet 19Share 21Share 7Pin Filed Under: Online Business, Small Business wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not get the free Weekend Digest newsletter? Every other Saturday, you’ll receive one email that’s chock-full of information about the intersection of business, branding, design, and marketing. Join us. Click here to read my most-popular posts. About Karyn Greenstreet Karyn Greenstreet is an internationally-known small business consultant and mastermind group expert, and has owned five businesses since 1981. She helps you transform your business with proven techniques and strategies to increase profit, work efficiently, and create a clear business and marketing model. She has taught over 270,000 people worldwide through her website, Passion For Business.

 On a world wide web full of words, images cut through the noise and get to the point. A well-chosen image will enhance what your words say, and add meaning to your communication. The good news is that finding great stock photos — even free stock photos — is easier than ever. There are dozens of websites that offer free stock images. Their business models vary: Some are supported by advertising Some are supported by user donations Some serve as portfolios for a photographer’s work The free stock photo image resources here — as of this writing — allow you to use their images for free, even for a commercial website. In some cases, sites request you credit the site and add a link, but it’s requested as a courtesy and isn’t required unless otherwise noted below. What won’t you find here? There are some fantastic (and free) stock photo sites that you won’t find here. Why? Well, I’m picky. And I eliminated any free stock photo site that didn’t have a search function. You may love scrolling through beautiful images as much as I do, but I’m betting you’re busy, just like I am. That’s why the free stock photo sites below all feature a search tool on the site. Because we need to have the ability to search for specific images, or topics. A robust search function can dramatically cut the time you spend searching for the right image. Pixabay.com Pixabay.com Pixabay is an old favorite free photo site that features photos, illustrations, and vectors. Their images are vetted by a team of volunteer editors, and require no credit. Creating an account on the site will allow you quicker access to your image, which you can download in a variety of sizes (this is a very handy feature). If you’re a photography buff and want to pay it forward, Pixabay may accept your image and share it with site users. Kaboompics.com Kaboompics.com Kaboompics offers major image categories, and has a search feature, too. Their image collection isn’t huge, but the images they do have are high quality are quite large — large enough to be used for print design. The only thing you can’t do with Kaboompics images is sell them: the site is devoted to keeping these images free. Magdeleine.co Magdeleine.co I love Magdeleine because it offers not only search but photo categories. It also features the work of a wide variety of photographers. You can search by color, too! That’s a neat feature when you need an image that will blend with existing elements on your website. A warning: some photos on this site require attribution. Please see the image you want to use for details. FreeRangeStock.com FreeRangeStock Free Range Stock has some great images, and it has some “meh” images. Some of them look a bit amateurish. But sometimes, as they say on the site, you just need a photo of a rock. And they have that, and more! You need to register to the site to use the images. But once you do, they’re free for commercial use. Registering gives you access to their “lightbox” tool where you can save groups of images. FreeImages.com Free Images Free Images offers a large collection of stock photo images that are free to use. Their only caveat is that they prefer you not use images with identifiable people in them if you’re going to use them in a way that implies the people endorse your product or service. For that kind of use, you’d normally want to have a written model release from your subject anyway, so this is a good rule to go by for any free image. All stocked up? Now have some fun If you’ve grabbed your fair share of beautiful stock images, you might be ready to crop, apply effects, or add text to them. For ideas and inspiration for editing you new images, take a look at What’s the Best Image Editing Software for You? What “Authentic” Audience Building Means [Audio] BY PAMELA WILSON Tweet 15Share 5Share 201Pin Authentic marketingYou’ve heard it many times: the best way to market your business is to “develop an authentic relationship with your prospects and customers.” But what does authentic marketing look like now? And what’s the difference between doing this for a brick-and-mortar business vs. an online business? nancy-vanreece-200pxThese are the questions my new Nashville friend Nancy VanReece and I pondered a few weeks ago with Clark Buckner of TechnologyAdvice. We met at Chago’s Cantina in Nashville, and over the sounds of a busy Mexican restaurant, we hashed out how to build an authentic relationship using the latest tools. Listen in, and read below for more resources. Your business is offline If your business is primarily offline, it’s easy to peer into the lives of your prospects and customers to try to understand what motivates them. LinkedIn will show you what’s happening in their professional lives Facebook will give you a peek into what’s happening in their personal lives Twitter will tell you what’s on their minds Instagram will show you a slice of the world around them It might feel like you’re stalking them. I like to think of it as “benevolent stalking,” which allows you to find common threads from prospect to prospect and customer to customer. Because once you understand their lives better, you’ll be in a better position to offer them solutions that will help them with their challenges. Some examples: Through Facebook, you discover that many of your customers are young moms, so you expend the children’s menu at your restaurant’s menu, and begin to offer crayons and large sheets of paper to families with kids whenever they come in. The result? More families visit and your place is full. Through LinkedIn, you find out that many customers are frequent flyers. You decide to offer travel-sized bottles of your all-natural body care items, and they fly off your shelves. Through Instagram, you notice many customers are living in apartments where they can’t paint the walls. You increase your inventory of wall decals, and in your marketing you mention that they apply and remove easily, and are a quick way to customize any space. And you can’t keep the wall decals in stock! That’s how to apply benevolent stalking to an offline business. What about an online business? Your business is online When your business is mostly online, you face a particular set of challenges. You can’t depend on making a personal, face-to-face connection with your audience. This means you’ll be judged by things like consistency, for example. Does your online business “show up” on a regular basis? That means regular appearances on social media; a consistent blog posting schedule; a “like clockwork” appearance in your customer’s inboxes. Responsiveness is important, too. When your customers have a problem, are you there to help immediately? Every business runs into issues delivering their product or service at one time or another. The goal isn’t to eliminate issues completely (that’s impossible), but rather to have systems in place for handling issues when they happen. Online businesses can use the same social media channels to get to know their customers. There are a few other tools that will help you get to know your online customers. Take a survey. Use tools like SurveyMonkey to ask your audience about their current challenges. If possible, use open-ended questions and a large text area where they can reply. This will allow them to answer in their own words. Host a Q&A call. My favorite (free) tool for this is FreeConferenceCallHD.com. Ask for questions in advance, and invite your audience to attend a call where you answer them live. Not only will you get to know what’s on their minds, you’ll create a valuable piece of content you can later share. Run an informal focus group. Put a call out to your online audience that you’d like to talk to them for 15-20 minutes. Ask them about their lives, their challenges, and what they enjoy about your online business and would like to see more off. In-person authenticity, anyone? Where we can meet in 2015. Whether your business is online, offline, or a combination of both, we have tools and techniques now that weren’t available ten years ago. But there’s nothing as effective as meeting in person, is there? That’s why I’d like to take a moment here to let you know where you can find me this year. I’d love to have a chance to meet in person. The events below are on two different sides of the world: which one is closest to you? Authority/Rainmaker Authority/Rainmaker in Denver, CO I’ll be speaking about design at this two and a half High-end Fonts for Free: How to Go Upscale with Your Typography BY PAMELA WILSON Tweet 9Share 14Share 17Pin High-end Fonts for Free: How to Go Upscale with Your Typography Why would you want to spend time looking for the perfect font? Your fonts add meaning to your words. Look at the examples below. Surfer font This font isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t inspire the kind of confidence you need to hand your money over to a stranger to invest it for you. alegreya font This font looks upscale, straightforward, and traditional. Just the qualities we’d like to see in our financial adviser. Surfer Font The font here works great. It looks happy approachable, and friendly. Alegreya Font There’s a disconnect here between the business name and the font. It looks too formal and uptight to be a place where kids will go to have fun. Picking the right font to fit your message is crucial. When you’re using a font that aligns with the brand personality you want to communicate, you get extra help reaching the audience you want to reach. What makes a great font, upscale or not Readability: Fonts give voice to your written communication. But if the font is difficult to read, it’s like turning the volume down to 0. With so much written content to process now, readers simply won’t take the time to puzzle through your hard-to-read font choice. Readability is the first (and most important) trait to look for in a font. Personality: There are tens of thousands of fonts available today, and each one says something about your business and your brand. Use the results you get from the Brand Personality Quiz to select the right fonts for your brand personality. A match with your message: You may have chosen two fonts for your business, but when it comes to applying them, how should you use them? Match your fonts with your message: communicate urgency with a font that’s larger and bolder. Encourage reading with a font that’s set like a book, with nice orderly paragraphs. Have fun with the limited number of fonts you’ve chosen: there’s still plenty of room for creativity even when you’re working with a small selection of fonts. Want to learn how to use your fonts in an “upscale” way? Read Type Styles of the Rich and Famous. Ready to go upscale? 3 font combinations that will take you there The three examples below look upscale, classic, and high end. And — believe it or not — they’re all 100% free. They come from the vast treasure trove that is the Google Font API. Later in this post, I’ll share resources for using Google fonts on the web and on your desktop. For now, enjoy the font combinations below. Allura and Volkhov Allura is a lovely script font with a hand-made look and wide open letters. Paired with the classic forms of Volkhov, we get a combination that looks upscale, yet approachable. Get Allura and Volkhov. Allura Font Molegno and Rosarivo Molengo might not look upscale by itself, but when you put it next to Rosarivo, you get a combination that looks fresh, inviting, and high end. Get Molengo and Rosarivo. Molengo Font Sail and Raleway Sail is a beautiful script font with high contrast between the thick and thin strokes of the letters. The rounded forms found in Sail pair perfectly with the circular shapes found in Raleway’s letters. Get Sail and Raleway. Sail Font Tap into the power of the Google Font API It’s easy to use the free fonts in the Google Font API on your website. Discover how to apply Google Fonts to the Genesis Framework. And you can use Google fonts on your own desktop, too. Find out how to use Google Fonts on your desktop. Time to explore your font options If you’re chomping at the bit to learn more about fonts, check out the free font resources here. And if you’d like some guidance choosing the right fonts for your website, take a look at my inexpensive Beautiful Typography guide. Beautiful Typography PS: In case you’re wondering, that cheesy over-the-top image at the top of this post is from BigStockPhoto. :-) Tweet 9Share 14Share 17Pin Filed Under: Design, Typography Tagged With: font combinations, free fonts wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not ge The Unglamorous Secret of Success BY PAMELA WILSON Tweet 21Share 7Share 100Pin Success secretsThis past year has been an interesting one for my career. Let’s back up a little … Actually, I never really thought I had a career. What I had was a business. I still have a business. Over the years, I measured my success by whether my profits went up or down; whether I was getting regular referrals; and — in recent years — whether my audience was growing. And all of the above have grown steadily over the years, I’m happy to say. More recently, I’ve realized that I have a career, too. I’m now working for Copyblogger Media. A few weeks ago, I was given the responsibility of taking over management of the Copyblogger blog. It’s one of the most successful marketing blogs in the world. I’m truly honored. Today, I want to tell you why I’ve had the success I’ve had, both in my business and my career. It all boils down to one trait — the most important one of all, I’ve found. The unglamorous reason for my success Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. –Napoleon Hill I love the quote above. To me, these three traits are the “3 Ps” of business success. Patience means not expecting exceptional success right out of the gate. It means recognizing you’ll have to put in time if you want to see results. Persistence means not giving up, even after you’ve been at it for a while, and despite not experiencing immediate results. Perspiration simply means hard work. It means squeezing every ounce of creative thinking and effort from your day, and pouring it into the projects you’re working on. Of these, the one that has made the biggest difference to my career is persistence. The “P” word that changes everything It’s not glamorous. It’s not fashionable. And it’s not always fun. But persistence is the single trait that will make the biggest difference in your life. There have been plenty of times I’ve wanted to give up over the years. Let’s review: When I found myself — shortly after starting my business — moving from the United States to a foreign country where I’d have to run my business in another language and culture When my biggest client (in terms of invoicing) dropped me suddenly — through no fault of my own — from one day to the next. This has happened twice in the life of my business! When I devoted a full year to establishing a presence on the web, and my new online business wasn’t earning enough to make it my primary focus. (Yup: that happened here on Big Brand System.) I realize that from your vantage point, it may look like I’ve had an easy time. Like my business and career have been smooth sailing all the way. And I’m here to tell you that’s just not true. The one trait that has seen me through I used to smile and tell people, “Persistence is my middle name.” It was a joke. But you know what? It’s kind of true. The twists, turns, challenges, and defeats I’ve experienced? Persistence is the trait that has most helped me get past them. In some cases, it may have looked more like this: Persistence … in the face of factual evidence to the contrary. –Garrison Keillor Because sometimes you have to persist, push, and keep going even when you think, “Life is trying to send me a message.” Yes, sometimes Life throws a wrench in your plans. But you have a choice about how you interpret every turn of event. You can see it as a sign to give up. Or you can see it as a sign to learn, adapt, and forge ahead, maybe along a slightly different path. Guess which one I tend to choose? Persistence means seeing challenges as opportunities. –Pamela Wilson I leave you with the wise words of the Weebles commercial of my youth. Next time Life throws a wrench in your plans, or you feel like giving up your dreams, remember: “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” Don’t give up. Keep going. It’s fine to wobble, but don’t fall down and stay there. You can do it: I believe in you! Tweet 21Share 7Share 100Pin Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: business challenges, business journey wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not get the free Weekend Digest newsletter? Every other Saturday, you’ll receive on This classic Big Brand System post shares an important question we can all ask to get to the heart of our marketing message. It may seem too simple to be effective, but this exercise is powerful. The magic question that gets at the heart of all marketing efforts is: And that's important because?And that’s important because? It’s a question that helps you to make your small business marketing more effective, because it starts with the obvious, and forces you to dig deeper. When you’re done, you’ll know exactly how to target your message, because you’ll understand what really motivates your target market. Let’s see what asking this question does in practice. Here’s an example: Your business sells yoga accessories. Let’s get down to the heart of what you are really selling. If we dig into the real meaning behind your marketing message this is how the process might go: “We sell yoga accessories.” And that’s important because? “Our products help you practice yoga more efficiently.” And that’s important because? “When you practice yoga efficiently, you improve. As you improve, you want to practice more.” And that’s important because? As you practice more, you feel better. Your physical and emotional life are in balance. And that’s important because? When your physical and emotional life are in balance, you’re happier. Now We’re Getting to the Heart of Things When you can dig down to a basic emotion like happiness, you’re reaching a marketing message that will resonate with your target market on the deepest levels. “And that’s important because?” becomes your shovel. Use it to dig down beneath the surface of every marketing message you’d like to use. Ask this question until you can’t ask it anymore. Don’t stop until you’ve reached basic human needs like happiness, security, status, the desire to be loved, the need for power or control, the search for peace of mind, or the yearning for more free time. When you position your product or service as meeting one of these basic human needs, your target market responds because they share this desire. How can you dig beneath the surface of your marketing message to find the basic human needs lying under the surface? Tell me how your digging goes in the comments. Why Symptoms (Not Solutions) Are Your Copywriting Secret Weapon BY AMY HARRISON Tweet 72Share 64Share 11Pin Why Symptoms (Not Solutions) Are Your Copywriting Secret Weapon You’re feeling under the weather so you go to your local doctor’s office. Before you can speak, a prescription is thrust into your hand. “This is what you need” You’re directed out of the office towards the pharmacy where you can ‘buy’ your cure. Are you going to buy the prescribed treatment with confidence? Are you even going to buy at all? Of course not: the doctor hasn’t proven that she understands your situation and that she’s capable of advising you about the best possible action. But this is exactly what many businesses do in their marketing copy. They sell the solution first, when they should really be selling the symptoms. Selling the solution: a business example Recently I worked with an analytics firm to improve their website copy. The firm provides large manufacturers such as Nestle and Unilever with analytics insight. My client’s product lets manufacturers see how products are performing, even in multiple stores and in multiple countries. This means they can push promotions that are working, and ditch those that aren’t. It’s a great product and their web copy was very focused on the solution: “Choose this product to align syndicated and point-of sale data in multiple countries and from a variety of data sources and time periods.” On the face of it, the copy seems pretty positive. It’s got benefits and it’s aimed specifically at the target market. There’s just one problem with copy that only focuses on the solution… Your customer may not know what they need When your customer visits your site or sales page, or picks up your brochure, if you only sell the solution you might find they dismiss it outright because they don’t realize they need it. And just as we trust a doctor who takes the time to acknowledge our symptoms before prescribing a cure, you can build trust and confidence by doing the same with your customer. Let’s go back to the above example. My client and I found the copy worked much better when presented as a symptom: “Are you struggling to reconcile product data across different countries and currencies? If so, click here to see how [product name] can help” In short, selling symptoms is a way of getting your customer to say: “Yes — that’s what’s been bothering me!” Remember, in the world of your business, you are the expert doctor to your customer so you need to diagnose first, prescribe later. How to identify your customer’s symptoms To unearth effective symptoms, you need to get down to really specific details. It’s much more than just describing the overall problem. It’s like the difference between knowing you have the flu (illness) and knowing how to identify that you have the flu (aching limbs, headache, fever etc). There is a copywriting secret that will help you recognize if your content is highlighting a symptom. If your customer ONLY reads that symptom, (with no supporting content or images), would they know that it is talking specifically about them? If the answer’s yes, good chance it’s an effective symptom. If you’re not sure, you may need to drill down into a little more detail. For example, let’s say you’re a business coach and you’re pinning down the symptoms for your customer. Look at the following points we might use in our copy: General term: Struggling with clarity and focus Translated to a specific symptom: Not knowing what tasks she should be doing first to move her business along. Not knowing how to prioritize her marketing efforts. General term: Feeling uninspired Translated to a specific symptom: Lacking new ideas for the business, not enjoying it as much as in those early, energetic days. General term: Feeling overwhelmed Translated to a specific symptom: Never managing to complete her to-do list for the day. If your customer goes by just the general terms, it’s harder to discern who the service is aimed at and what the problem is. The specific symptoms are much more illustrative. Always aim to add more details. For example, If you are a copywriter and you hear your prospects objecting to hiring you, you might write down a general term like: “Copy doesn’t help market their business” But what else might this mean? What are the underlying symptoms? They don’t feel their web content effectively sells what they do No one shares or comments on their blog posts Their site isn’t ranking in the search engines When they send out a newsletter they get no responses The symptoms tell a more vivid story of your customer’s problem. How symptoms win over reluctant customers Let’s say you have a restaurant owner who is struggling to fill the restaurant consistently, despite getting great reviews and having thousands of happy customers. He ‘thinks’ the solution to getting more people in is by advertising in the local paper. You know however, that marketing to a business’s current customer base is much more effective. Now, if you started your sales or web copy with the solution: Choose this product to find out how to make more sales from current customers You might lose this customer, because in his mind he doesn’t think he ‘needs’ that solution. Symptoms stop this from happening. Look how we develop this concept: Symptoms Running under-capacity. Customers not returning frequently enough. Great reviews and feedback, but not enough new people visiting. Problem Not marketing enough to current customers or encouraging customers to return. Cure Reward current customers for spreading the word. Result Increased capacity without expensive advertising. The details here help you sell the solution by starting with the symptoms. It goes like this: Here’s what you may have recognized (symptoms) This is what’s causing them (problem) This is what you need (cure) This is what is possible with the cure (results) In that order, you can start to build a compelling argument that gets your customer nodding along with you from the start. Here’s how this looks when it becomes copy: As a restaurant owner running under-capacity (1) is a real problem. If you know your customers are happy (because you get great feedback) but they don’t return as often as they like (or tell their friends)(1), it can be tempting to send out on advertisement to try to win new customers. However, there is a more effective way to increase traffic without expensive ads. We can show you how to market effectively (and affordably) to your current customer base to get more people dining at your restaurant (2). Because your customers already love what you do, we use simple incentives to get them coming back more often, and bringing their friends (3). You get a full, bustling restaurant every night while keeping marketing costs down. (4) Writing copy this way makes it very specific to the customer and the problem, while continuously driving the reader towards your product. Symptoms not only get your customer’s attention in your copy, they build trust by demonstrating your expertise and understanding of your customer’s situation. Want more help using symptoms in your copy? Sign up for the free Cookies and Puppies Irresistible Copywriting Course over at Write With Influence. The Power of a Well-Placed No BY PAMELA WILSON Tweet 31Share 99Share 11Pin The Power of a Well-Placed No If you’re in the early days of your business, you can skip this post. It’s not for you. Because in the early days of your business, it’s important — for survival’s sake — to say “yes” more often than “no.” But give it a year or two, and you’ll discover that saying “no” — carefully and strategically — can be the best move you can make for your business. Why no is the hardest word to say We know that our businesses will succeed if we aim to serve our customers and build our professional networks. So we say “yes” to anything that we believe will serve our customers. And we say “yes” to any opportunity to build our networks, whether it’s doing favors, making an introduction, or lending a hand. But with every opportunity we pursue, we tie up our time. Opportunities have a cost. What’s “opportunity cost?” Opportunity cost isn’t easy to measure, but it’s a crucial factor in every business decision we make. It might be hard to gauge, but you must find a way to weave it into your decisions and discover how to say no when the opportunity cost is too high. Let’s start off by defining it: Opportunity cost refers to the value of the alternative decision you could have made. For example, let’s say you own a web design business. You offer a special discount on simple website designs. Doing so means you bring in five new customers this month. Great work! But you tie up all your time, and you sell it at a discount. Because your time is booked, you can’t take on the big client someone is going to refer to you next week, who could have represented $35,000 in income over the next six months. When resources are scarce — and by resources I mean time, money, and energy — considering opportunity cost will help you make better decisions for your business. Short-term choices and their long-term consequences We know this inherently, but we’re not always able to act on it. As with any other change, awareness is the first step. Let’s look at a simple short-term choice, and how it has long-term consequences. You like ice cream. You really like ice cream. So you keep a varied supply of ice cream tubs in your freezer, and after every lunch and dinner, you eat a nice, big bowl. Short-term happiness. Long-term result? You might be carrying around more weight than you’d like. Some business decisions are like that tempting ice cream. In the short term they look great! An influx of money, or recognition, or new contacts. But when you consider the opportunity cost of the same decisions, you might see a different story. The scarcity mindset vs. the plentiful mindset Here’s the thing: If we’re completely honest with ourselves, a lot of our business decisions are driven by fear. We’re like those chipmunks who stuff their cheeks full of seeds because winter is coming, and we have to prepare. When we operate from this mindset, we believe that we have to say “yes” to every opportunity that comes our way, because tomorrow holds nothing for us. The opposite of this mindset is the view that there will be plenty tomorrow, and there’s no need to hoard. Like standing on the edge of the ocean, the future brings new opportunities that lap up to the shore and tickle our toes. The opportunities will come if we are present and ready for them. In my business and life, I’ve found the plentiful mindset works better. Holding a plentiful mindset means standing in a place of power. You’re saying, “I believe in myself, my abilities, and the possibilities of the future.” How to say an empowering “no” I’d like to encourage you to look at the opportunities that come your way this week, and consider their costs. Ask yourself: When you tie up your time and energy, what are you giving up? What’s the price you’ll pay for taking advantage of this opportunity? What are you walking away from, or making impossible by saying yes? If you don’t like your answers to the questions above, it might be time to say no. It might be time to stand in a plentiful mindset, and envision the things you’ll be available for if you don’t tie up your time, money, and energy in the latest opportunity. No: the smallest and most difficult word If you’re not used to turning down opportunities, saying “no” will feel very uncomfortable at first. If it helps, use empowering words that will make you feel great about your decision: “This isn’t a fit for me right now.” “I have a policy about not doing ___, so I won’t be able to help you.” “Thanks for reaching out. I am not currently ___.” “I appreciate you thinking about me for this, but I’m not available to help ___.” What will you say no to this week? Is this a tough one for you? I want to hear about it in the comments. Talk to me about the best “no” you’ve said, or a tough “no” you have coming up. Typography Tells a Story Well-designed fonts are beautiful to behold. Their angles and forms can be an inspiration. But they also have a “personality,” and if you tune into what their shapes are trying to say, you can make those traits work for your business. Let’s say on the other side of your town a company is developing an upscale neighborhood high on a hill overlooking the ocean. They’ve decided to call it “Grandview Estates.” Their tagline is “Rising Above the Rest.” [Pretty snobby, right?] Now let’s say you’ve been asked to design the sign that will sit at the entrance to the neighborhood. You’ve been told that the sign needs to “reflect the caliber of people we want to attract to our estate properties.” You know what that really means. You need to attract rich people! Time to break out … Type Styles of the Rich and Famous Because you know, dahling, the rich and famous won’t be seen with just any old font. Only the best will do! Here’s what to look for when you’re using fonts to speak to an upscale audience. 1. Classic Forms The rich and famous would like to think that they’ll always be that way. Using fonts with classic forms that have been around since Roman times will help them perpetuate the illusion! Even though the font should look like it’s been around since Roman times, you should stay away from Times Roman. Why? Because it’s overused. The rich and famous want to be distinct. That eliminates the Georgia typeface, too, and any other typeface that’s on the standard system menu when you first fire up your computer. Instead, try serif typefaces that have some personality, like: Crimson Textcrimson Gentiumgentium Latin Modern Roman latin-modern Liberation Serif liberation 2. Calligraphic Feel Classic typefaces include those that look like they’ve been penned by the hand of a distinguished calligrapher. What better way to say “I have so much money I don’t know what to do with it” than to look like you have a personal scribe who addresses all your correspondence? These typefaces have the swashes and flourishes that will do the job: CAC Champagnechampagne England Hand DBengland-hand Freebooter Scriptfreebooter Quilline Script Thinquilline Scriptina scriptina3. Set Them Loose and Open Now that you’ve chosen fonts from the lists above, let’s look at how we can set them so they communicate the upscale vibe we’re looking for. One way to accomplish this is to set the serif typeface in all capital letters, and open up some space between the letters. You’ve seen this before: grandview-serif For maximum effect, don’t spread the letters out too much. You want the words to be readable. 4. …or Tight and Solid You shouldn’t spread out the letters in a script font at all. They’re designed to look like a calligrapher has written them in one sitting, sometimes in one continuous stroke. So set the script letters tight together so they flow from one to the other. The idea below uses a script font set nice and tight, and a serif font on the second line. Fancy, schmancy, huh? grandview-script After weeks — maybe months — in development, your new website is finally live. The job is over. You can sit back, relax, and watch your website work for you while you rest on the sidelines. Well, not exactly. Don’t Forget to Water Your Website Watching your website site go live is a victory, but it’s not the end of the battle. Maintaining, updating, and monitoring your website is a job that will last as long as your business. Your website is not a stagnant entity that you build and leave standing against the test of time. It is a growing, evolving organism that needs regular updating and support to thrive. Neglecting your website is like planting a new bed of flowers but failing to water them. Your website needs someone to regularly check in, monitor growth, and provide nourishment so it can live up to its full potential. Set a Schedule for Maintenance It’s easy to get so wrapped up in your business that you can forget to perform maintenance or even check in with your website. As soon as your site launches, set a schedule to remind yourself to check in. A maintenance schedule will be different for each business. Set dates that match your business and relate to the following categories. Time-sensitive content maintenance: When do you need to update the copy or graphics on the site that relate to timely promotions or offers? When will you launch a new product or service that will need to be highlighted? Do you have a seasonal theme on our site? Any time you add time-sensitive content to your website, schedule a time to revisit the material. User experience maintenance: Schedule a bi-weekly or monthly review of your website. These regular site reviews will help you identify places where you can improve your site, revise your copy, and create a more streamlined user experience. It will also help you identify inconsistencies that you may have missed or forgotten to update (change in staff, hours, product prices, features, etc.). Framework update maintenance: Most website are built using a framework that requires regular updates. It’s important to keep these updated to the most recent version. Website evolution maintenance: Best practices for websites continue to change. So schedule a time to review trends in website functionality, SEO, and design and make sure that your site is following those best practices. You can do this quarterly. Online business maintenance: If your website supports an online business where your goals and needs are more demanding, you will need to schedule additional maintenance checks related to those unique needs (such a product updates, database management, user management, etc.). As you add these dates to your calendar, schedule the time with any team members (especially if they are freelancers) so they are ready to work when you need them. The Secret Is in the Support One thing is certain. In the ever-evolving online world — your website will need support. Plan ahead to make it easier to deal with the problems when they arise. Keep a record of all your login information and the contact details and support email addresses of your web host. If you use a developer or designer, keep that person’s information at hand. If your site goes down or something isn’t working right, don’t panic. Take a deep breath, and search your contacts so you can reach out for help. Your website will be one of the most powerful tools you have for marketing your business. So don’t neglect it or overlook its demands once it goes live. Use these tips to support and maintain your site so that it can grow, flourish, and help you build your business. Our Little Secret Here’s a surprise for you. Every typeface mentioned in this post is available at fontsquirrel.com for free. This page shows you how to install fonts. I promise not to tell the rich and famous you used a free typeface to attract them to their overpriced neighborhood! This post was first published on January 26, 2011, and has been updated with new images. Enjoy! Choose and use the best fonts for a professional-looking brand Beautiful Typography Carefully-chosen fonts are a powerful way to communicate your brand style. And you don’t need special training to choose and use fonts like a pro. Find the font guidance you need in the Beautiful Typography Guide. Get the Beautiful Typography Guide Tweet 19Share 19Share 16Pin Filed Under: Design, Logo, Marketing, Small Business, Typography Tagged With: fonts, free fonts wd-15-3D-transPamela Wilson here. If you enjoyed this article, why not get the free Weekend Digest newsletter? Every other Saturday, you’ll receive one em A few weeks ago, I flew to Australia on the invitation of Darren Rowse and the Problogger team. I spoke at Darren’s 2015 Problogger Training Event, which took place at the beautiful RACV Royal Pines resort on Australia’s Gold Coast. This post is an excuse to share my photos — and my experiences — with you. I want to share a few lessons I picked up: I think you’ll find them as valuable as I did. There’s a mix of business and life lessons — some profound, and some very simple. Enjoy. Do things that scare you, Part 1 I have to confess: I was NOT looking forward to the 15-hour flight. At all. And if it wasn’t for the invitation to speak at this event, there’s a very good chance that I never would have made that flight. I mean, look at this face. This is me, getting off the four-hour flight to Los Angeles, ready to transfer to the plane that would fly me over the Pacific for fifteen hours. Do I look excited? 1-flight But this is me once we landed in Sydney (my husband was with me on the trip). This is the face of someone who confronted her fears head on, and triumphed! It’s also the face of a sleep-deprived person, but that’s nothing a nap and some coffee won’t cure. 2-flight Lessons learned: Face your fears. Do what scares you. Travel is always worth the effort. Don’t be afraid to be iconic Once you arrive in Sydney, you discover it’s hard not to stare at the Sydney Opera House. It’s an incredibly audacious design: soh-1 And it looks great from every angle, even close up: soh-3 And at dawn: soh-4 And at night: soh-5 You really can’t take a bad photo of this place! The funny thing is that this incredible icon that represents Sydney around the world had a troubled history. The architect selected ended up resigning from the project, and it was finally finished ten years late, and 1,457% over budget. And yet, look at it: soh-2 All is forgiven and forgotten when you have an end result like that. Lessons learned: Push the envelope and don’t be afraid to be different, especially if it expresses your true self. Hang on to your vision and persist on your quest, despite the challenges along the way. See the unusual in the everyday Birds. You see them wherever you live, right? But the birds I saw in Australia were just a little different. birds-1More colorful. More tropical, like this cockatoo, which you can find all over Sydney. birds-2 And they’re friendly. Like this guy who became my best friend one evening at an outdoor café. (OK, I may have tossed him a few crumbs from my plate.) birds-3 Lessons learned: Keep your eyes open and see the beauty in the everyday things all around you. Do things that scare you, Part 2 Once I arrived at the Problogger event later in the week, I had to shore up my courage to enter room after room full of energetic and friendly people, 99.9% of whom I’d never seen in my life. group-1 This can feel quite daunting! But I was happy for every conversation I struck up, and every connection I made. I now have a pile of business cards on my desk, and a “heap” of new friends. Lessons learned: Everyone else feels as intimidated as you do, so reach out, grab a hand, shake, and start talking and listening. You’ll be glad you did. Enjoy good coffee A few days into the trip, it struck me: Australians know their coffee. There’s a long history of Italian and Greek immigrants in Australia, and they brought their coffee know-how and culture to the country. coffee They don’t just know how to make coffee. They know how to enjoy it, too. Coffee isn’t something you slurp out of a take-out cup while rushing to your next appointment. It’s something you stop, sit, and enjoy every sip of. Lessons learned: Life moves too fast. Find an excuse to slow down, enjoy, and drink in the moment. Do things that scare you, Part 3 If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be getting up on a stage almost once a month to address a group that had gathered to hear me speak, I never would have believed you. As a matter of fact, public speaking was high on my list of Things That Terrified Me. Actually? It was at the top of that list! But at some point in the last few years, I remembered back to my high school days. I attended a large high school (2,500 students) and was elected student body president when I was just 17 years old. That meant that on a regular basis and at a young age, I found myself standing on stage in front of a mic addressing huge groups of people. I’m not sure what happened between those brave teenage years and adulthood, but somehow I became cautious to the point of limiting what I thought I could do. A few years ago, I decided it was time to get over this fear. And I’m glad I did. What image does the idea of selling conjure up in your mind? Do you think of a pushy car salesman? A sleazy guy selling insurance door to door? When Daniel Pink, author of the book To Sell Is Human, asked people what word first came up in their mind when he mentioned “sales,” he found that the majority of words were negative. Smarmy. Slimy. Pushy. Manipulative. Aggressive. Yuck. Having to sell makes many of us feel queasy. We fidget. We procrastinate. And we wish we weren’t in business. We wish that someone else would do the selling for us! Perhaps you worry you may come across as pushy. So you water down your messages. You want to be nice. And the result is that people don’t even realize what you offer. You might miss out on orders because people don’t understand what you can do for them. Want to sell more, and charge more, without feeling pushy? Want to be comfortable when selling your products and services? Start with these 4 simple and lovable sales tips. 1. Reframe the concept of selling The old concept of sales is like a one-way street. The buyer is considered naïve and passive. The seller knows the “secrets,” tells you why you need his product, and shoves it under your nose. Well, wake up. The world has changed. Your buyers aren’t stupid. They’re smart. They know their stuff. They google to find information. They compare products. They know what prices are offered elsewhere in the market. As a seller, you’re not in charge anymore. It’s the buyer who decides whether to buy from you or not. Your job as a seller is to provide information in an engaging way to allow buyers to make up their minds. More importantly, your sales information filters out the people who aren’t right for you, and attracts the people who love your product or service offer. 2. Never mention cost without stressing value Would you like to charge more for your services? Make sure you point out the value of what you do. A quote or proposal, for instance, should stress the value of your services before revealing the cost of a project. In the background section of your proposal, explain the project purpose—what the project means for your client. For instance, as a web designer, you might have been asked to design a new home page. But why is your client interested in this? Perhaps they need to increase signups for their email list. Perhaps their current home page doesn’t reflect the brand culture well. Or maybe people have complained the home page is too busy and they can’t find what they’re looking for. In the project scope of your proposal, highlight the value of your services by listing each step you’ll undertake and explain why these steps are important for your customer. For instance, as a painter you can explain how you sand the wall using two types of sandpaper so the paint will last longer. You can also explain how you clean the wall so the surface will be smooth. Or you can mention the environmentally friendly paint, so your client doesn’t need to worry about toxic smells. Often clients don’t know what’s involved in your process and why it leads to better results. So don’t be shy. Whether writing a sales email, product description or service page, explain what you do in detail and why your client should care. Show how you transform your buyers’ lives. Align your offer with their goals. 3. Let others do the selling for you I grew up in the Dutch countryside. A place with a strong work ethic. A place where blowing your own trumpet is frowned upon. So when I left my corporate job and had to start selling my services and courses, I was stuck. How could I explain I was the right person to help out? How could I explain my skill set without sounding like a windbag? This is when I discovered the persuasive power of testimonials. I simply let others sell on my behalf. Think of your testimonials as mini case studies demonstrating the transformation your product or service offers. Structure the testimonial like a before-and-after story. Here’s part of a testimonial for my Enchanting Business Blogging course: The before story: I knew an engaging blog would attract visitors and promote sales. But boring corporate copy was all I could muster. How could I make manufacturing toilet cubicles interesting? How the course helped: The course taught me how to attract customers with enchanting headlines (yes, for a rather dull industry). It helped me engage readers with hypnotic flow, and promote our products using fascinating stories. And what the result was: Potential customers now come to us for information and advice. This lifts us above our bigger (but duller) competitors. The before-and-after story reassures potential buyers because it demonstrates how your service helped people like them solve the same problems they’re struggling with. That’s a powerful way to sell without feeling like a windbag. To get persuasive testimonials, interview your customers by phone or face-to-face. Ask them to explain what problem they were facing before they hired you, and then ask how your services helped solve that problem. 4. Maintain your natural voice You might have come across old-fashioned copywriting examples. You might think sales letters require exclamation marks. Yellow highlights. AND WORDS IN CAPS!!! But this is not true. As small business owners, we have a huge advantage. We don’t have to sell to everyone. We can pick the audience that’s right for us. We can work with our raving fans. We can show our personality and be natural. When writing a sales letter, a proposal or a promotional email, think about your favorite customer. How would you explain your offer to her? Why does she enjoy working with you? What would she like to know? Write as if you’re having a conversation with your customer. Answer her questions. And don’t change your tone of voice just because you’re selling. Treat your buyers like friends Dirty sales tactics are designed for selling to strangers. But thanks to the Internet, the world is becoming a global village. We make friends across the world. And we buy from people and businesses we know, like, and trust. So treat your buyers like friends. Be genuine. Be helpful. Be yourself. Lesson learned: Look back and recognize the courage you’ve shown in the past. That courage is still inside you! You can tap into it at any time. Don’t let the years you live make you scared to try new things. Reflect, remember, relate My trip to Australia was amazing on so many levels. I had the pleasure to spend time with online friends I’d never met in person, like Jacqueline Stone: jacqui And Siita Rivas: siita I pushed myself to do things I wasn’t sure I was capable of, like flying across the Pacific and back, and addressing a large group of people for almost an hour … two days in a row. I stretched myself, and my world expanded. And it was worth every bit of the preparation, time, and effort spent. Lessons learned: When you have a once-in-a-lifetime experience, take some time to reflect and record what you’ve learned so you can carry it forward into the rest of your life. Share your thoughts in the comments This post is a little different than what I usually write about on Big Brand System. Have you ever sat down to write content for your business, only to… Get distracted? Feel overwhelmed? Get stuck halfway through? You’re not alone. Writing can be tough, but it’s essential if you want to attract customers and clients. If you want to know that the next time you write you’ve got tools to stay in the zone until you’re finished, these tips are for you: One: embrace overwhelm (and give it a swift kick) Writing is a creative project. It’s not like washing dishes, or doing laundry where there is a set pattern and outcome. Which is probably why dishes and laundry are common go-to chores when people want to put something off — there is comfort in knowing exactly what you need to do and what will happen. When you sit down to write, there is a space between the idea in your head and the finished piece. And this space is a magnet for overwhelm: TOPIC OVERWHELM You might choose a topic for a piece of content and find that it’s spiraling out of control in your mind, getting bigger and more complex until that laundry starts looking very attractive. HOW TO KICK TOPIC OVERWHELM If you feel like this: Think about choosing a topic for beginners instead — those topics are often easier-to-write, in demand by prospects, and overlooked by competitors Have a place to capture future ideas (also known as sticky thoughts — see further down). You can always come back to this list and see if your ideas will fit into the content you’re writing, or if they deserve a post of their own Make sure you can sum up in one sentence what your content is going to be about. If you can’t do this, you might be trying to cover too many things in one piece of content. PERFECTION OVERWHELM I love working on content projects with large businesses, but I also get frustrated with how slow they move when creating (or more accurately, approving) content. Pieces are passed from committee to committee, from manager to manager, and focus group to focus group, looking for the comfort of mass approval and ‘perfection.’ If you’re a small business, you can move much faster when creating content. However that doesn’t mean you’re immune to perfection overwhelm. This can be a real productivity killer if you’re constantly tweaking content until it’s ‘just right.’ HOW TO KICK PERFECTION OVERWHELM There are two main ways you’re going to solve this affliction: Go for ‘good enough’ Set a firm deadline ‘Good enough’ isn’t average, it’s good enough for what you need your content to do. Yes you want to be professional, but don’t forget that if you’re publishing online you can usually change content after it’s live. Nothing has to be set in stone. A deadline forces you to focus on completion rather than perfection. Some posts will be fantastic, others will be less so, but the skills you’ll get from those productive writing hours will be invaluable. Two: Distract your mind with checklists You sit down to write a piece of content. Your to-do list lies next to you: “write blog post.” A couple of hours go by. You’ve written a good structure but you’ve still a long way to go. Glancing over at your to-do list, “write blog post” is still there, taunting you. Despite your effort, you still have not completed your task. If you only have one thing to tick off, your brain thinks “not there yet, not there yet” like a bored child on a long car journey. And just like the parent of the child, it can make you feel irritable and frustrated. On a car journey, you might play games and distract the child’s attention to the journey, rather than focusing only on the destination. You need to do the same, and a checklist is the perfect game to play. Breaking down all the little steps that go into writing a piece of content does two things to improve your productivity: It shows you’re making progress, boosting your confidence You can use the same checklist as a system for future writing, making it easier next time What might you include on your checklist for a blog post for example? Choose a topic Highlight 4-5 points to make Create a placeholder title Draft sections Edit Polish subheadings Create headline Choose an image Format Final polish, proof, and publish Once you’ve conquered any overwhelm and have a checklist to follow, it’s time to write. And this next step is an important one. Three: Fall in love with the chaos of a first draft Don’t worry if your first draft is nothing more than a rambling expansion of your thoughts on the subject you’ve chosen. Don’t self-edit, don’t look at the squiggly red lines that tell you there’s a typo, just keep going and know that: Your draft will not be as bad as you think it is At this stage, momentum is better than high-quality This isn’t the stage where you should even be thinking about writing a great sentence, it’s really just a place to develop your thoughts and put them in order. It’s a bit like spring cleaning — there’s always that point where you’re knee deep in junk thinking: “this looks worse than when I started!” What we’re aiming for at this stage is not brilliance, but completion. Because you know what happens then? You get to check it off! Four: Use a notepad to capture “sticky thoughts” Often when writing you can be distracted or knocked off course by thoughts that spring into your head, for example: Do I need to explain that term I’ve used? Should that subhead address the reader directly? I must remember to link to that resource I mentioned If you think about them too long, they can clog up your momentum and get you stuck, so have a notepad nearby to capture these ‘sticky thoughts.’ Here’s how it works: If a thought pops into your mind that doesn’t directly relate to the next sentence you’re writing: Jot it down quickly on a separate notepad Forget about it Ideally you want the notepad just out of sight so you’re not tempted to glance over to it and start thinking about these thoughts instead of writing your content. Come back to your list once you’ve completed your draft. See what you need to include and what you can deal with another time. Five: Take a break to avoid Writer’s Eye No matter how productive you’re feeling, take a break between writing and editing, otherwise you get writer’s eye. Writer’s eye is a very serious condition which I’ve just made up. It means that when you work on the same piece of writing for too long, strange things happen: Everything takes twice as long You make errors You miss things Even Stephen King advocates letting drafts settle before you come back to work on them again, and he’s not a bad writer. 😉 How long you wait is up to you. I like to leave my drafts overnight because: I have more energy My subconscious seems to help me out with new ideas overnight So after your break, when you edit your draft, what are you looking to do? Tidy up those sentences so that they make sense Make sure your content flows logically Make sure you’re making one point per paragraph Make sure it’s formatted and spaced out so it’s easy to read Make sure sentences aren’t too long Create eye-catching subheadings Develop a strong headline Choose a suitable image Feel free to copy that list of things to add to your checklist and yep, check them off when they’re done! Where to next? Your content is part of a long-term conversation with your customer, so always give them somewhere to go next. If you’re writing a blog post you might want to link to your newsletter or related articles, or a relevant product. The more you practice writing pieces through to completion, the faster you’ll get, the more productive you’ll be, and you’ll have a wealth of great marketing pieces working hard to attract people to your business. Perfect for anyone who wants to have a Big Brand! Here’s how it goes: “The XYZ Organization revealed their new logo last week. Customers complained bitterly that the new image didn’t represent their hopes and dreams. And when XYZ Organization admitted the new logo cost $40,000, a protest was organized and customers complained loudly about “wasting these funds on a frivolous expense.” Why people don’t like it when logos change I’m going to answer this one based on my vast experience with human nature — something that can only be acquired after you’ve lived as long as I have. 😉 I think people get attached to logos because their identities get intertwined with those little symbols. It’s like the logo represents the “team” they play on. And 99% of the time, they’re not consulted when a logo is being changed. Instead, the change is foisted on them, and they have no choice but to adapt to the new symbol. That piece of their identity is gone, and they have to replace it with something new they didn’t pick out themselves. And that’s not easy. Change never is! That’s why I recommend caution if you’re thinking about changing your company’s logo. Read on to find out more. Why I recommend caution when considering a logo change We’re surrounded by marketing from the time we get up in the morning until the time we shut our eyes at night. That’s why I preach the gospel of consistency around here: if you want your marketing materials to be recognized as coming from your company, you need to make sure they’re visually consistent over time. Here’s what usually happens: You put out a logo and begin to use it. At the beginning, it’s new and shiny, and you brand everything with your new logo. You’re consistent about using it, so it appears (as it should) on your website, in your emails, on your social media accounts, in your print materials, and even on t-shirts and pens. You see your logo a lot. Inevitably, you get tired of it. It might take two years, it might take five, or seven. But at some point, you start getting antsy and you want to redesign. Stop. Wait. And think hard about whether you should really do that. Here’s why: You may have become overexposed to your logo. But your customers? Well, because they see so much marketing besides what comes from your business, there’s a good chance your customers are just starting to associate your logo with your company. So don’t be in a hurry to make a change. Unless your logo is terribly outdated or doesn’t reflect what your company offers, try to live with it a little while longer. What makes logos cost so much I’ll go into more detail below, but here’s my take in a nutshell. Surgeons cost a lot, because you’re paying for their many years of education and professional experience. It’s the same thing for logo designers. And when you hear about an extremely expensive logo design project, you may think that any company that pays a designer tens of thousands of dollars to design a logo is just foolish. Or wasteful. I think the problem is that we don’t see the majority of the work the designer does. Oh sure, we see the final product — a brand-new, shiny logo that you may or may not like. But what we don’t see is the extensive implementation system any good designer creates so that the logo is used consistently and correctly over time. This identity system takes months to research, create, write, and produce. It’s not just a logo — it’s an identity system Here’s what’s involved in creating a full-fledged identity system that helps organizations to keep their branding consistent over time: Inventory all existing materials to review current font, color, and logo usage Interview “power users” of the new logo: people in departments like marketing or development. Create a new logo. Good designers know that for a logo to stand the test of time and look as fresh ten years from now as it does today, it should be a sophisticated combination of art and mathematics. Good logos rely on precise proportions. The average viewer may not notice these — instead, a logo just “looks right.” Create a first draft of a “style guide” which will be used to implement the identity system developed. The style guide includes sections that present the official logo, and specify official colors (web and print version), and typography. It shows how these elements should be used together to present a cohesive visual style. Style guides usually contain a section that outlines unacceptable uses for the logo, too. (These “What Not To Do” sections are usually pretty amusing!) The style guide is an extensive document. Designers typically spend much longer developing the style guide than they do the logo itself. From my own career, I know I may have spent 20% of the time on a logo redesign project creating and getting approval on the new logo design. The other 80% was spent on research, writing, and creation of the style guide. Why so much effort on a style guide? Larger organizations and businesses have many people working on elements that represent their identity. And these people come from diverse backgrounds: marketing departments; freelance designers; and department heads who need to print a t-shirt with the company logo for the next picnic. And somehow — across all these implementations of the organization’s identity — the organization’s visual identity needs to look consistent. In order for this to happen, the style guide should be easy to use and understand, and the user should grasp immediately how they can best represent the organization visually. All those $20,000 logo design projects you hear about? The logo itself may have only been $4000 to create. Researching, writing, creating and producing the style guide is where the other $16,000 went. How to save money on logo design Create a wordmark yourself Wordmark logos are simple, text-based logos. They’re much easier to create than symbol-based logos. And, especially when you’re just starting out, they may be all you need. Here’s how you can design your own. Know your audience The more you understand your target market, the better you can market to them, period. Whether you create a simple wordmark logo yourself, or you hire a designer (more on that below), it all starts with an intimate understanding of the people you want to reach. Offer a thorough description of what you need If you decide to work with a designer, make sure you’ve gathered your thoughts and plenty of examples so that you can give them a deep, thorough understanding of what you need, what you don’t want, and how you plan to use the design they create for you. Why having a competition or inviting a student to create a logo is a bad idea It’s tempting, isn’t it? “I’ll ask that commercial art student to do my logo. What could go wrong?” Well, a lot could go wrong. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get a good logo design from a student. But if you do, you should consider yourself extremely lucky. Logo design is among the most difficult and sophisticated of graphic design tasks. The ability to design a timeless, proportionate wordmark or symbol to represent an organization is something most designers take years to develop. To a certain extent, when you contract a designer to create your logo, you are borrowing that person’s aesthetic sense, manual dexterity, and artistic eye. These skills take many years to develop. When you hire an experienced logo designer, you’re hiring someone who has gotten years of bad logos out of her system (take it from me). She’ll be able to identify and give you what you need quickly and efficiently. Why I don’t think competitive logo sites are a good idea I feel the same way about competitive logo design sites like 99designs as I do about hiring a student or running a public competition for your logo design. The best logos are born out of a deep conversation between client and designer about what the organization’s needs are, the vision they have for their new logo, and (if it’s a redesign project) what they don’t like about the logo they’re replacing. At sites like 99designs, that relationship is non-existent. The only details the designers know about the client is what they’re able to glean from the project description. And truth be told, clients often don’t know how to describe their project very well. It’s the designer’s job — in their initial meetings — to ask probing questions so they get the answers they need to do good work. This is all lost on competition-based logo design sites. Instead, designers throw a bunch of images at a problem, hoping one of them “sticks.” And if you’ll indulge me, I want to state one more issue I have with sites like 99designs. It’s the concept of asking designers to work for free. Yes, I know — the winning designer gets paid. But the vast majority of designers who participate in these competitions do not get paid. Is there any other career where this would be acceptable behavior? We wouldn’t ask doctors or accountants to provide their services for free and then decide which one we liked best so we could pay them. But somehow there’s this image of designers as “people who like to draw” and who get some kind of pleasure out of “doing their designs” even if they don’t get paid for them. And because designers don’t know if their work will be compensated, the temptation to recycle ideas is always there. I think this is why there’s a sameness to design solutions presented on these sites. If a designer wants to earn a living and they don’t know if their work will be compensated, why not develop five basic solutions to logo design projects, and every time there’s a competition they want to enter, just adapt these five solutions to meet the requirements of that week’s “client?” How to find a competent logo designer So if you don’t go with a competition-based logo design site (and I hope you don’t), how do you find a graphic designer with logo design experience? There are a couple of ways. Start the old-fashioned way. Ask a business colleague whose logo you admire if they’d share the name of their designer. Do a Google search for graphic designers in your geographical area. I’m a fan of working with local designers, because it means you can enjoy a face-to-face meeting. In-person meetings offer a wealth of information (even from things like voice inflection and body language) that are lost when the meeting is virtual. How to hire and work with a graphic designer … coming soon How to review a designer’s work before hiring, and what to look for when speaking to a designer you’d like to hire are topics for a new post. But for now, I hope you understand a bit more about what’s really behind those five-figure logo design projects you hear about in the news. And I hope you see that designing a beautiful logo that also stands the test of time isn’t easy. But it’s worth it. When your logo is clear, clean, and easily recognized, it’s a brand asset that you’ll be proud to own and use. Imagine going to a new restaurant. You walk in and are greeted by a pleasant hostess, who seats you at their best table. The food smells amazing, and you can’t wait to order. Unfortunately when you open the menu—it’s in Japanese. There must be some mistake. You wait for the waitress to come and ask for English menus, only to find she speaks French! At this point, you are so fed up (not to mention hungry) that you just leave and head to the pizza joint down the way. The restaurant lost a customer (possibly a loyal one—or even a brand ambassador), and your customer experience has been ruined. Customer experience is about brand consistency Brand consistency is crucial to your organization’s customer experience. This is true in the visual design of your logo, website, and other brand images, as well as the content you create to represent your brand online and off. If a customer experiences a different look, feel, or voice in one or more of the channels your company uses to communicate, it instantly dilutes their trust and confidence. Unfortunately, maintaining brand consistency is easier said than done. As your organization and team grow, it’s imperative to create guidelines to ensure everyone is on the same page. That’s why when it comes to your visual identity, you create brand guidelines. And likewise, when it comes to your messaging, you create a personality document. What is a personality document? A personality document is a guide which lays out the voice and identity (or personality) of your brand. It ensures brand consistency in voice and messaging across all customer touch points. This includes both online (website, blog, other content, social media platforms, even guest blog posts) and offline (store locations, events, conferences), and by all employees. It should be included in your communications strategy and align with the objectives and tactics presented there. It must be used by all team members speaking for your brand, through all four media types (paid, earned, shared, owned—per the PESO model). A personality document includes: Key messages, elevator pitch, and boilerplate (standard wording) Mission statement and values Target audience overview Tone and voice guidelines Qualifiers Industry specific lingo (to use and to avoid) You’ve got personality….. Personality documents range from the basic to the very detailed. A good rule of thumb is the larger the organization, the more detail the personality document should be. Why? Team members are more degrees of separation away from the core leadership. Because of this, messaging and voice has a greater tendency to become altered and distorted. The Freelance Studio Denver, Co. a User Experience Agency Just think about what happens when you play a game of telephone. In addition, the more nuanced or sensitive your industry, the more specific it needs to be. For example in the financial, insurance, or medical industry, there are very strict guidelines as to what you can and cannot say. These need to be included in your personality document—along with any specific disclosures or language which must be used (or avoided). The elements of a personality document Let’s break down each of the main elements of the personality document to help you create a template for your own organization. Key Messages: Key messages tell your consumer who you are and how you can help them. They are written for the consumer and speak directly to their needs. You should have one overarching key message, and several secondary messages. Mission Statement: Why do you do what you do? Why does your business exist? While the key messages are the external messages you want to project, the mission statement has an internally-directed focus. They must be clearly related and connected, but can have slightly different perspectives. Ideal Customers(s): Who are you talking to? This section is where you’ll lay out your buyer personas and any other information relevant to understanding your customer. If you have actual customer profiles, include these here. Voice and Tone Guidelines: What five adjectives describe your company? Would your employees and customers agree? List these out and describe how your organization lives them. In the end you should have several sentences formatted like this: “Our brand is (insert adjective) because we (insert reason).” Qualifiers: These will relate to values and mission, but also help represent the unique aspects of your organization’s personality. They are the nuances that make you different and help define you. They also help provide structure for what is and is not OK when it comes to presenting your company voice. These statements should look like this : We believe _____ We never _____ We always _____ We hate _____ We like _____ Our customer look to us for _____ We are at our best when _____ Industry Guidelines and Language: This is where you include any language, restrictions, or other guidelines specific for your industry. When thinking about what to include here, consider the following: Are there legal guidelines you need to follow? Are there certain words or phrases that must be avoided? (Either for legal reasons or because they project the wrong message or are offensive to certain consumers.) Are there restrictions as to advice you can give or how you can represent yourself? Be alive. Be relevant. A personality document must be a living document, and it cannot be created in a vacuum. The best personality documents are created with input from all levels of customer touch points, and combine the values, mission, and goals of the organization with real-life interaction with consumers. The information both of these sides provide is what creates the perfect knowledge base to guide your organization’s voice. It should be distributed to all team members and revisited semi-annually. Smart organizations continue to evolve about the best way to communicate with their audiences. Your organization’s personality is an important part of who you are as a company and what defines you for your customers—don’t be afraid to let it shine! Get your free Brand Personality Recorder brand-consistency-3DReady to apply what you learned in this post to your own business? Register here for immediate access to the Brand Personality Recorder. It walks you through the steps for creating a brand personality document for your own business. Get the Brand Personality Recorder Get your personality down on paper so you can benefit from communicating your business’s identity with breathtaking consistency!