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Value of Branding: How Brand Awareness Generates ROI

Sep20
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When should your company focus on brand awareness? The answer is yesterday. It’s impossible to spark interest in your business, boost engagement, and power growth without first establishing your brand in the mind of the buyer. The real value of branding is Brand Awareness. It boosts your ROI when it makes generating sales easier, improves customer satisfaction, and helps you foster relationships to promote growth.

 

Here are three important steps to help consumers become more familiar with – or aware of – your brand:

 

Establish A Memorable Identity.

Boost brand awareness by showing a little personality in all of your marketing efforts. Coca-Cola uses social media to connect with their customers and demonstrate their fun-loving spirit. A unique brand identity sets you apart from the competition, keeping your business front of mind when your prospect has a need. Producing a steady stream of informative, engaging, and entertaining content ensures that customers keep coming back for more, again and again. Read more

How to Reach Mobile Shoppers With Your Business

Sep16
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Consumers are increasingly choosing to make purchases online, according to an eMarketer report. This report shows that retail e-commerce sales will outpace those of brick and mortar stores by more than three times through 2019. Similarly, Gartner reports that mobile commerce is currently driving 22 percent of digital revenue, a number that is expected to increase as shoppers continue to crave the convenience and immediacy mobile devices offer. Even the devices themselves are being shaped for purchasing power. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S7 has a big screen for easier digital store navigation, and the Samsung Pay feature acts as a digital wallet and allows for seamless in-store payments.

Regardless of whether or not your small business has a physical storefront, a smartphone sales strategy is imperative to stay competitive and fulfill your customers’ needs. Here are some best practices to keep in mind to reach mobile shoppers more efficiently. Read more

What Is Brand Strategy?

Sep13
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Your brand is so much more than just your name, logo, or slogan – it’s the entire experience you provide to your audience. Your brand strategy establishes what your company is all about. It’s the pledge you make to your customers, the values you hold dear, and the personality you project. Every connection you make – from the messages on your website, to the customer service you provide, is an opportunity to grow and strengthen your brand.

A powerful brand strategy should:

Define Your Purpose.

Your brand isn’t your name, product, logo, or website – it’s all of the intangibles that make up your business. Your purpose serves as a key differentiator between you and your competition. Purpose can be seen in two different ways: functional and intentional. Your functional purpose relates to your commercial success, while your intentional purpose relates to your ability to be a positive force in the world. Having a clearly defined and effectively communicated purpose builds loyalty, and cultivating loyalty from your customers will yield more business. It inspires people to write about you, tell their friends about you, and serve as your brand ambassadors. Here’s more on defining your purpose. Read more

3 Ways To Use Pinterest To Rank High In Search Engines

Sep06
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Think your business doesn’t need to be on Pinterest? Think again.
Pinterest is one of the most popular social networking sites for good reason – it has great visual appeal, taking beautiful images to a whole new level. Not only can your business benefit from establishing a profile on the site, it’s an excellent resource to discover new ways to promote your website or blog. No matter your niche, you’re bound to find great opportunities to extend your reach.

Here are three ways Pinterest can improve your search engine rank:

Participate In Conversations.

When registering to comment on a blog, include your website address in your profile. Leaving a comment on a post will then result in a link back to your site. By making thoughtful contributions to posts related to your industry, you’re establishing authority while growing website traffic. Pinterest is a great tool for locating popular blogs where your input will be valued. Search the Categories section to locate topics that fit your industry, click on a pin tied to a blog post, register with the blog, and contribute to the discussion. Read more

How Do I Know If My Business Needs a Rebrand?

Aug30
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Your brand is so much more than just a logo or a slogan – it’s a promise and an expectation living inside the mind of your customer. Everything you do should be a reflection of the feelings you wish to generate when people experience your brand. If your business isn’t connecting with customers on a deep, emotional level, it may be time to consider a rebrand.

Here are three good reasons to rebrand your business:

You’ve outgrown your brand.

Your brand should convey who you are today. As your business inevitably changes over time, your branding should reflect that growth. If it hasn’t been updated – and no longer represents everything your business stands for – it’s due for a refresh. Read more

The Best Ways to Protect Your Intellectual Property Rights

Aug04
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Branding is a major part of business marketing and strategy. Your brand is what people recognize and relate to. Within this, your intellectual property or IP is what defines your company and makes it unique. It’s for this reason that companies spend a lot of money filing patents, copyrights and trademarks; it’s also the reason they defend any misuse of their IP so strongly.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property covers a whole number of different aspects. Essentially, it is the intellect of a company and is protected by rights. These rights defend a company’s intellectual assets including:

  • Trademarks
  • Copyright
  • Patents
  • Industrial Design Rights
  • Trade Secrets

There are also other things that are afforded protection including words, phrases and symbols. It’s important that companies have these rights because otherwise, another company could copy their design or product without any repercussions. It is also there to encourage inventiveness by protecting the value of the work for the inventors.

Infringement

If a company or an individual uses, copies or distributes anything that is the subject of intellectual property rights, they need to seek permission from the IP holders first. If they fail to do this, then they can be prosecuted under the civil or criminal law.

The level of infringement often differs depending on which area of the IP it relates to. For patent infringement to apply, someone needs to have been using or selling a copy of the invention without permission.

Regarding trademark, infringement applies if someone uses an identical or confusingly similar trademark without permission. In the event of infringement, the owner of the IP would engage the services of an intellectual property lawyer to go through the evidence and submit this to the court. In many cases, these infringements are settled before a court hearing. However, they can drag on for some time.

Criticism

Many groups have spoken out about the unfairness or strictness of companies when it comes to IP. They believe that they are too quick to resort to litigation and in many cases, this isn’t justified.

There is also criticism relating to the law as a whole, with some believing the different areas of IP shouldn’t be contained under one law. It is their opinion that these areas demand separate laws as they relate to different areas.

What are your options?

If you believe that your IP rights have been infringed, you need to seek the advice of an intellectual property lawyer. They have the specialist knowledge to advise you on your rights and possible courses of action.

Enforcing an infringement can be a long and costly ordeal, so it is best to make sure that you have sought the correct advice and have gathered as much evidence as possible.

These are just a sample of the things you can do if you think your product or invention is covered by IP law. Making sure that all your IP is correctly filed and registered, however, is the best way to ensure that you have no problems in the future.

How to Save your Brand after a Disaster

Jul28
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Disasters that could ruin the reputation of your business can happen at any time and are sometimes impossible to predict or prevent. When dealing with a crisis, it can be easy for business owners to throw in the towel. However, it is still possible to salvage your brand even in the worst situations. Here are some tips any business can use to recover after a crisis.

Be Transparent about the Nature of the Crisis and make Amends

Depending on the crisis in question, you’ll have to make sure that all the steps necessary to remedy the situation are taken to prevent it from occurring again. If you’re dealing with the loss of data, you should make sure you at least inform your employees of the situation so they understand what is happening. Loss of data could easily be construed as a breach of data, which are completely different issues.

In the case of loss of data, for instance, be sure to inform your customers that none of their data has been compromised. You should also do everything in your power to retrieve the information and work with a data recovery company. Data recovery prices vary from supplier to supplier, but you should work with a reputable team with a track record for results first and foremost.

Once everything has been made to retrieve your clients’ information, make sure that you inform them of what measures you will be taking from now on to prevent this issue from recurring. This might include working with a remote data center or having stricter safeguarding and backup policies. Either way, make sure you are transparent every step of the way. Read more

How and Why to Conduct a Brand Audit

Jun29
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Your brand is alive! It has a personality all its own, with elements beyond your control. Over time, you may discover that your identity has diverged from your original vision. Since brands tend to lose relevance slowly, it’s difficult to determine the precise moment that you should change – but a brand audit can help you decide if it’s time for a refresh.

Here are three steps to a successful brand audit:

Evaluate Your Identity.

Surveys provide an informative overview of customer perceptions. For the best results, ask open-ended questions, like:

  • How was your experience with our website?

  • Is our written material appealing? What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it?

  • How does our logo make you feel? What are your initial thoughts when seeing it?

  • What – if anything – would improve your opinion of this brand?

This article provides some useful tips for creating effective surveys.

Evaluate Your Strategies.

Read more

Delivering Sensory Experiences Generates Recognition for Miss Details Design

May10
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It’s a cluttered field out there when it comes to web design firms. We’re gratified to stand out from the crowd. Miss Details Design was recently recognized by Clutch, a Washington, D.C.-based research firm, as a Top Phoenix Web Designer. The research leverages Clutch’s proprietary methodology, mapping each firm’s focus on web design services against their ability to deliver world-class results for their clients.

We’re proud to be on the list!
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Why hiring a lawyer is good for your brand and your business

May04
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As a business, there are a few things that you need to help things run smoothly, and hiring a business lawyer is an important investment many businesses try to overlook. It might be that you’re not too happy about spending money on lawyer’s fees, especially if you are a new business. However, the cost of not having one could be even higher.

Why do I need a Business Lawyer?

Let’s say that you are running a business in Atlanta. You decide to use a symbol in your business advertising that you don’t realize is copyrighted. This could lead to a big lawsuit against you and the company. If you had hired Atlanta business lawyers hechtwalker.com, they could have helped with copyright and trademark issues and saved you from impending trouble. Unfortunately, it’s too late to hire one after the fact, and certainly more costly.

Having a lawyer can also help with other areas of business law and make sure you stay out of trouble.

What type of law firm do you need?

When you hire a lawyer, they will be responsible for a number of different aspects of your business. The chances are, they won’t know the intricacies of all the areas, so they will have to ask a colleague who is specialized in certain parts such as taxes, intellectual property or real estate.

If you choose a small firm, they might not have all the skills needed to deal with everything you require. They may have to refer you to other firms for additional help. Larger firms usually have the skills required under one roof so you can get help straight away. The only problem is their fees are likely to be higher.

How to choose the right one

The size and capability of the law firm are some of the choices you will need to make. However, there are other considerations you need to take into account. Along with how much their fees are, you need to find out the most cost-effective way to pay them. This could be by the hour or on a retainer, obtaining a list of charges will help you.

For example, do you like them? It might sound obvious, but you have to get along with each other so having some mutual respect will go a long way.

Interview all the potential lawyers to get a feel for how they operate. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and get written details. In the same way, give them as much detail as possible so you know what they can deal with and what they will have to refer to others.

Choosing the right business lawyer can save you from huge financial and legal problems, so it’s important to do your homework and find the best one for you.

Once you have found your lawyer, make sure to keep in regular contact and refer anything you are unsure about to them. It’s better to find out sooner rather than later if there’s a problem.

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