Monthly Archives: December 2008

Designing Brand Identity

How do you solve the branding puzzle, especially if you’re an existing business? Your brand is your company’s most important asset, so you need to do it right.

Alina Wheeler is the author of Designing Brand Identity, now in it’s second edition. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Alina Wheeler gives us four simple questions to answer. Answering those four questions is the start to designing your brand identity.

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Guest: Alina Wheeler – Author, Designing Brand Identity
Length: 23 minutes

(Email subscribers and feed readers – Click here to listen if you don’t see the player)
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #21 (for personal use only)

Alina Wheeler: Show Notes on Brand Identity

The Four Branding Questions:

  1. Who are you?
    – Seize every opportunity to tell your story.
    – Convey why you are the choice the customers should make
    – Be clear about what it is you have to offer.Understand your identity, reaffirm your uniqueness, share your passion. Go back to why you became an entrepreneur in the first place. “If you are not different (than your competition) then you don’t deserve to have a brand.”
  2. Who needs to know?List all the people in your universe that affect your success: Your best customers, vendors, communities, competition, media, advisors.
  3. How will they find out?Take an inventory of all touchpoints. Which are the most important for who needs to know. Website, blog, face-to-face.
  4. Why should they care? Is your business really filling a real customer need?

There is a lot of misconceptions about what it is. Brand Identity is a tangible expression. You can see it, touch it, hear it.

The Book: Designing Brand Identity
A step-by-step guide to creating dynamic mobile marketing campaigns.

Show Links
Alina Wheeler – Alina Wheeler’s website

 

 

Mobile Marketing Simplified

Mobile marketing was supposed to be hot in 2008. What happened? We’re not really much closer to using mobile tools on a local level than we were when the year began. Part of the reason is that it’s somewhat of an unknown for small businesses. Some of the big questions are “What is it? How can I use it? How do I get started.”

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Kim Dushinski answers those questions and simplifies mobile in to something more understandable. Kim is the author of The Mobile Marketing Handbook. and her company is Mobile Marketing Profits in Denver, Colorado. Kim says there are certain mobile tools that are better for small businesses than others. Also, mobile marketing is not right for everyone.

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Mobile marketing was supposed to be hot in 2008. What happened? We’re not really much closer to using mobile tools on a local level than we were when the year began. Part of the reason is that it’s somewhat of an unknown for small businesses. Some of the big questions are “What is it? How can I use it? How do I get started.”

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Kim Dushinski answers those questions and simplifies mobile in to something more understandable. Kim is the author of The Mobile Marketing Handbook. and her company is Mobile Marketing Profits in Denver, Colorado. Kim says there are certain mobile tools that are better for small businesses than others. Also, mobile marketing is not right for everyone.

Kim Dushinski: Show Notes on Mobile Marketing

 

What’s still needed for Mobile Marketing to go mainstream:

  1. More tools need to be available for local businesses.
  2. It needs to be more affordable to implement.
  3. Education for both consumers and businesses

Mobile Marketing Tools for Small Business

  1. Mobile Web – You must be able to be found by consumers accessing the mobile web.
  2. Text Messaging – Develop a text message relationship with customers. They must agree to get text messages from you.

Best Practices

  • Everything must be permission based.
  • Market your mobile campaign in a way the consumer understands the benefits and how to opt out.
  • Use tools such as Mobivityi2SMS, and mobileStorm

The Book: The Mobile Marketing Handbook

A step-by-step guide to creating dynamic mobile marketing campaigns.

Show Links

Mobile Marketing Profits – Kim Dushinski’s company