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“Who Are You Designing For…You or Your Customers?” because most business owners can’t see that what they are asking a designer, marketing firm, or neighbour down the street to do is create the image of how people who have different tastes and interests will perceive their over all brand. They say that first impressions are very hard to change, but triple that when a person picks up your business card or brochure, sees your ad in the paper, or looks at your Web site before she even talk to you — unless you’ve invested the time in your Brand Identity to ensure that it is reflective, and supported, in all of your marketing materials.

Brand Identity and Brand Image

Let’s understand the difference between Brand Identity and Brand Image before we go any further. Your Brand Identity is how you want people outside of your company to perceive your company. Your Brand Image is how people outside of your company are currently viewing your company. The two are separate, but the same. Your Brand Image should constantly be reinforced and supported by your Brand Identity. One can weaken the other. Let’s face it, when it comes to how effective your marketing materials are…the initial perception people get is reality to them. You could be the best schmoozer in the world, but hand someone something that looks like you put very little effort into the presentation and all your schmoozing is for nothing. Convincing, begging, and bribing may not drive the message home that your first round of marketing materials was done to be “cost effective”; instead they may came out making you, and your company, look less than stellar.

Marketing Materials

First and foremost your marketing materials should be created with your customers, current and future, in mind. When you sit down to have someone create your marketing materials, the building blocks of your Brand Identity, my best advice is to remove yourself from process as much as possible. I don’t mean that you should not be involved, but you should remember…you aren’t trying to use these marketing materials to get you to invest into your company, product, or what have you. Sometimes that means you need to leave the confines of your office, ask your best customer some good questions on how she perceives your business and start looking at your company, product, or widget from the cus- tomer’s side of the fence. Design is an impression, not a true test to your companies’ capabilities, but like I said before, sometimes all you get is a first impression. Make it the best one you can.

How accurately do you think your companies marketing materials reflect the overall view of your company as a whole? Do your marketing materials work with or against the way your want your company to be perceived? How strongly do your marketing materials communicate the personality and ethics of your company?

This article was written on June 26, 2008, on the blog, Technosailor.com, by Mike Dougherty.

We at Reddy2Go have started promoting energy-efficient websites by using FatCow’s green Web Hosting. As energy awareness continues to grow, people are looking to make environmentally responsible decisions as consumers. As a service provider, we

• Appeal to our eco-conscious customers
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• Build our client’s reputation as environmentally responsible

Producing wind power ourselves is simply impossible, so we use FatCow, a company that has purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to offset energy use. RECs represent the environmental benefits of wind energy, and reduce the amount of electricity in the energy grid that’s produced by fossil fuels.

The folks behind the scenes at FatCow have already made eco-friendly adjustments in their lives, and we want to support our customers and clients by reducing environmental impact. That means that by using our services, your site is green, too! Get responsible, Go green.

Psychologists tell us that after horrific events, such as the September 11  or November 26 terrorist attacks, people tend to react initially with shock, fear, confusion, sadness, and anger, but then they want to take some kind of action. This urge to do something may result from a desire for revenge, but it also stems from a need people have to regain control of a situation, and to do so in the most effective way possible, using whatever special expertise they can bring to bear. This was certainly true for me. If he response about how computer graphics technologies can be used to stop terrorism—is any indication, it was also true for many others in the computer graphics community, though I’m sure pure altruism and patriotism on the part of the respondents were major factors as well.

Continue reading…

It’s a brand new year! 2010 is still spanking new despite the bubble wrap being ripped off. One week is a long time though for most people to forget the spirit a new beginning brings with it. Now if you are wondering what this is all about, I’ll dilly-dally no more. It’s about lists and the lust we all display for lists today. Look around you. From Facebook status messages to Twitter updates all you will see are flashing tiny URLs with headlines like “7 Ways to ..” or “Top 10 Methods ..” and “3 Sure-shot ..” List posts are everywhere. They work! Why? Simply because of the power of attention grabbing headlines which summarize the entire post in less than 10 words. But that’s not all. Allow me the liberty of listing out the top 3 reasons why a list post rocks or sucks! Continue reading…

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