General Business Talk

As a small business proprietor, it is important for you to understand the benefits that you will enjoy from being able to promote your branding. Granted, you don’t have the budget for big-time promotion like larger companies do, but you can still make do with what you have. Just because you’re small, it doesn’t mean you don’t have as much chance as the bigger fish.

Relate More to Your Consumers

There are two things that you should remember when creating a brand for your small business. First, in creating a tag line, you should create a consumer-oriented slogan. Consumer-oriented tag lines are those that specifically point to your position in relation to the consumer, not the competitor. This way, the consumer can understand the benefits that they can enjoy from your brand.

One good example is the Nokia tagline: “Connecting people.” This two-word advertisement is very powerful, and it is to this slogan that Nokia owes it’s success. This is because patrons understand that Nokia’s phones are connecting them with each other, and thus, a greater appreciation for the brand is instilled in the consumer’s mind.

On the other hand, competition-oriented tag lines are those that point out how superior your brand is compared to the competitor. An example would be Coca-Cola’s “The Real Thing, ” which would imply that the competition is not as real as Coke’s products are. However, the meaning is lost to the consumer. As a small business owner who cannot afford large-scale advertising to support that claim, it is not wise to risk such a move especially at the start of your career.

Make Your Brand Visible

After you come up with a logo and a tag line, the next thing you should do is to promote it. Here are some inexpensive ways that you can implement your brand and market it to your consumers:

Use it in every correspondence you make.

When you write e-mails or business letters, make sure to include a letterhead that sports your logo and your tag line. This is one way of instilling your brand into the minds of your customers and potential clients. Your calling cards should also have a copy of your logo and tagline in it. The point is that you are marketing your business, not your identity as a proprietor.

Interact with the community.

When you can, participate in any community-oriented activity in your community. You can organise outreach programs or sponsor events. When you are interacting with your community, your logo and tagline should be visible all throughout the banners, streamers, and advertising paraphernalia used when promoting the event.

You can also try and solicit the advice of the people in your community through surveys and interviews, with the people who conduct these activities identifying themselves as part of your business.

Use the Internet.

The Internet is a giant repository of valuable information. To show your commitment to the people, publish articles depicting your knowledge about your market. Always include a tagline that leads back to your website, as well as information about your company and brand.

The importance of logo designing and its role in brand establishment is evident to any business. They are the symbolic representation of an organization. Its designing can be done at highly customized levels. Logos should be designed in vector graphics since this medium has the capacity to easily enlarge or shrink images without affecting their quality. The main intention of a logo is to create brand awareness among consumers. A logo gives identification to a company among its competitors, as customers associate a logo with an organization. Any brand that has become a household name has a logo for its market identification.

What is the importance of logo redesigning?

The logo that is re-designed can be done partially making few changes in the existing one, or design an entire new company logo which acts as combined representative of the organizations. Sometimes companies undergo merger, so their websites need to have a new logo for them. When two or more business entities decide to merge for a common goal, mergers and acquisitions take place. There are times when a particular product or brand reaches the saturation level and stops to give the desired profits. In such circumstances brand makeover helps, logo redesigning is one of the main step. Logo redesigning gives a new public image to a company. Logo redesigning can rectify any errors committed previously that aimed towards incorrect customer targets which gave negative image to the company.

Describe various forms and types of logos?

Symbol logo is devoid of letters and words, it contains only images, shapes and symbols. Many unspoken messages can be communicated through selection of symbol which has to be made very carefully as it might have diverse meanings in different cultures, especially when your business is spread globally.

Text logo contains mainly your company’s name, here graphical elements can also be inserted. Borders, lines, boxes, letters, etc can be used in logo designing for better interaction. Text logos should have trademark protection which would make it unique and outstanding.

Combination logo consists of both graphic image and business name. It works best for business that are small or medium sized, or a company that has started their business recently. This logo type helps in creating strong brand recognition and is visually very strong.

Those were some very initial questions of logo designing been answered. It is a very vast field and have very high contribution for brand establishment in the market.

Many companies clients initially call my company because they want a website design or a new logo. Often their motivation is because they are losing market share or their word-of-mouth referrals have gone down or their competition has stepped up their marketing.

And a website design and new logo are very powerful tools to drive business to your company. But, on their own, will not create long-term, sustainable growth for their company.

For this, it takes the comprehensive power of branding.

To meet their business growth goals and increase their revenue, we take our clients through a process to create a comprehensive marketing and branding strategy. It starts with an assessment and industry/competitor research. From there, we create our branding recommendations. These are action steps that our clients take to communicate their brand to their target audience.

A strong branding and marketing strategy is an investment that will pay dividends for years to come.

And so that we’re all on the same page, when I say brand, I mean the emotional connection that your customers have with you. It’s their immediate recognition of your logo, website, and other marketing materials. It’s their fierce loyalty to your company. It’s the ease with which your customers can spread the word.

Let me give you the perfect example of brilliant branding. Apple. Think about the Mac users you know. Now go to a couple of them and casually suggest that they switch to a PC. Then stand back a little.

Listen to them rant. Watch them turn all red in the face. Smell the angry sweat. And feel the waves of indignation.

Now that’s the power of effective branding.

As information continues to bombard us and consumers face infinite choices, services and products quickly become indistinguishable commodities. A strong brand is what will make your company stand out in a very, very crowded marketplace.

Strengthen your brand to powerfully communicate your company’s value. People ultimately make their buying decisions based on emotions, not logic. So you want your brand to powerfully connect with them on an emotional level.

The best brands are memorable, authentic, meaningful, differentiated, sustainable, and recognizable. So make sure your company carefully orchestrates its marketing to impact your customers and prospects across many different touchpoints from your logo to your website to your brochure. Over time, they will develop powerful loyalty to your brand, which will enhance sales, customer retention, and word-of-mouth referrals.

Take Away Point: Good brands build powerful companies. Ineffective brands undermine success.

How much should a logo design cost? The correct answer to this popular question is anywhere from nothing up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

To say that ‘you get what you pay for’ would be true most of the time but not all of the time. If you are not working with trusted professionals then logo design can be ‘hit and miss’. There are many cases where businesses have spent a lot of money and received poor designs and cases where companies have spent only a little and ended up with fantastic results.

The Internet has made the process of getting a logo design easier and more affordable than ever before. Many logo design firms have sprung up on the Internet and by using the Internet as a platform to do business have been able to reduce overheads and still offer a quality service.

In this article we explain how price should not be such a priority when it comes to getting a logo and then we look at the price ranges for some of the various options.

The Importance of Price

Price is often the first thing that people think about when looking at various options for logo design. It is great to get a good deal with a cheap logo design and to try and save a bit of money but stop and think for a moment about how important a logo design is to your company.

With your logo being on your stationery, website, building signage, advertising and even on vehicles it is often the first aspect of your company that customers come into contact with. Within a few seconds consumers will subconsciously examine your logo and create their first impressions of your company. These first few seconds are very important in conveying the right message to them and the quality of your company logo can in some cases help to determine whether you get those customers or they go to the competition.

Your logo is an integral part of your organizations marketing plan and a fair amount of the company’s budget should be allocated to it just as a healthy budget is usually allocated to other marketing activities.

Spending $300 on a Logo may seem like a lot but if you spread the cost out over a period of say 10 years it only works out to a few dollars a month (a small amount compared to a monthly marketing budget that could run into hundreds or thousands of dollars).

With these thoughts in mind it becomes clear that maybe price shouldn’t be the main focus when shopping around for a logo provider.

So let’s examine some of the options available to you when it comes to getting a logo, starting from the lowest price range and finishing at the highest price range.

The Free Model

There are plenty of ‘do it yourself’ logo design templates that are available online for prices that range anywhere from free up to around $30 or $40. You can create a basic design with some clip-art or purchase a ‘ready to go’ template, customize the name to suit your needs and you then have an instant logo for your business.

Some companies give you the chance to browse through hundreds of generic designs suitable for various industries and then order one that can often be downloaded immediately.

The downside with these options is that some of the components that users can incorporate into their logo design such as shapes, symbols and clip art are unoriginal and in use by many other businesses. Without any design experience users usually end up with amateurish looking logos and sometimes even have to include a small credit on the logo referring to the site that was used to create it.

You must also consider that you may not have ownership rights over your logo design as these rights may be retained by the website that sold you the design.

Logo Design Software

You can now purchase some quite sophisticated logo design software that can assist you in the creation of professional looking logos on your home PC. The downside is that the better software packages can be expensive, there is a bit of a learning curve related to using the software properly and these packages still require some artistic input on the part of the user. Why would you bother really for only one or two logos if you are not a design professional?

Custom Logo Design

This option is the one that I recommend above all the others. By having a logo design tailor made by a graphic designer to suit your company’s needs you are assured of getting an original, professional looking design that is suitable to your requirements. Your logo designer does all the design work while you, as the customer still get a considerable amount of input into the design process. Most reputable custom logo design firms will ensure that their work doesn’t infringe on the trademarks of other companies so you can be guaranteed ownership rights to your logo.

Generally you can get a good quality custom logo design online for between $150 and $350 depending on the complexity of the package that you order (the number of initial concepts, the number of designers working on your case and the number of revisions that are permitted).

Design Competitions

There are now several websites that allow you to hold a competition for your logo design. Firstly, you put up a prize which usually has to be around $300 to $400 or more and a briefing for designers to understand the project. Then, designers from around the world submit their designs and you choose a winner who is awarded the prize money (after the website deducts their commission).

This method can work well if your offer a prize that is a considerable amount and you get a good response from designers. However you should first confirm with the website that you will have ownership rights to the winning design that you select. This method, while an interesting concept, usually ends up costing more than a custom logo design though and offers a little more risk as well.

Traditional Design Firms

For larger companies with huge budgets, meeting with designers face to face to communicate is still the preferred method. This is the most expensive method though as it usually involves several meetings and discussions with designers at their offices. Prices for this kind of personalized service usually start at around $500 and depending on the firm and the importance of the project costs can be much more than this. The great thing about online design firms is that they can cut costs by avoiding coffee drinking sessions with clients and can operate out of cheaper office space instead of fancy design studios.

Think about why you need the logo. If it’s just for a website or a short term project you should be fine with some of the cheaper service providers. If, however you are building a future Fortune 500 corporation then you may want to spend at least $200 to $300 and possibly a lot more to make sure that you are starting off with a great logo design to suit your aspirations.

How much should a logo design cost? It should cost as much as you are prepared to pay. But remember that price is not everything when it comes to such an important decision for the future of your business.