Our newest website design launched over the weekend and is a marked improvement from Maximum’s previous site. Maximum came to us with an old, out-dated site. It was difficult to find when searching, and didn’t work on all browsers. They needed a fresh look and a site they could use as a business tool – both to bring in new business, but also to direct phone callers when requesting information about their used parts for sale.

Websites are a major touchpoint for every brand. With all of our web projects, we make it clear it’s not enough to just look good online. If nobody can find the site, or there’s no good content to keep them there, a website is very ineffective. We provided a new design, giving the company a facelift, and are powering the site with the blog engine Wordpress. This allows Maximum to update and maintain the site themselves, as well as providing easy opportunity to make the site more search-engine-friendly with permalinks, keywords and tags.

Check out the site and let us know what you think! Maximum Equipment and Marine has been servicing boat enthusiasts for over ten years. You can also go direct to their Used Outboards and Parts listing by visiting usedoutboards.ca.

Gordon’s foul mouth and the fact that everything is sped up and edited for television (much of the actual “work” is glossed over) aside, I’ve noticed a trend in Gordon’s approach. There are some common issues to most of these restaurants, and I see a parallel with our branding for small business process. The look of the restaurant is always addressed, often with a makeover of it’s visual identity and interior design, but what’s more important is how he positions it.

I’ll refer briefly to a recent episode to illustrate this. A New Jersey restaurant in an affluent town, surrounded by over 60 other restaurants was floundering. The owner was a successful chef in his previous career, cooking in top restaurants in Manhattan. Transitioning to running his own business was not such a success and his passion was gone. His standards dropped, and his restaurant was on the verge of collapse. The original menu included fish, risotto and other fancy dishes, but the owner’s specialty was pasta. Additionally, they were only open for dinner.

Chef Ramsay’s visit brought a new look to the restaurant, but more importantly a new focus. The result was a restaurant that offered a smaller menu, focused around the concept of “fresh pasta made daily”. Now open for lunch as well as dinner, diners understood this restaurant as the only one to offer this. The owner’s passion was restored (“pasta is like a blank canvas – you can do anything with it”), the menu and therefore the restaurant became more manageable, and the public had a clearly defined story to differentiate the restaurant.

I used to think that chef Ramsay did all the work, and just got the owners to do as he says. A lot of pieces are missing from the show due to time constraints, but I’m beginning to think a lot of extra research and preparation are done behind the scenes. A major part of each relaunch is an overhaul of the type of food (always fresh, always consistent), as well as a reduction in the size of the menu. When chef Ramsay challenges the owners and/or head chefs to get passionate about their food and set high standards, he also flushes out what they do best and what makes them different.

When chef Ramsay redefines and reduces the menu, the main attraction of every restaurant, he is essentially repositioning the business. The key to successful branding for a small business is a narrow focus and a unique story. By being different, you avoid the clutter of the marketplace – an issue for all small businesses, but especially for restaurants. By filling or creating a niche that is uncrowded or new, and then offering a unique experience (story), getting noticed and being remembered is easier. Not only that, it makes decision-making and advertising a breeze compared to when you were trying to be everything to everybody, and ended up being nobody.

The moral of the story? Be remarkable. Be different. Avoid the clutter and tell a good story. Focusing your business’ positioning is a major step in the branding process and the results can be utterly groundbreaking.

The Importance of a Name

Many small business owners feel it’s their right to name their company whatever they want, as if they are naming their children. For small business owners who have had early success but need marketing to go to the next level, cringe at the loss of brand recognition a rename might cause. What neither realize is that a poorly named business causes all sorts of problems in many areas. If it doesn’t communicate well, or differentiate, or stand as the pinnacle of your story, heaps of extra resources (time and money) is required to “make up” for this deficiency.

The best names capture the imagination and create an immediate connection with your audience. Sure, it takes time for your organization to become a “household” name, but a correctly chosen moniker inspires interest and identity from day one.

The name is present always, in every form of communication – conversations, emails, voicemail, websites, stationery, products and presentations. The wrong name is unmemorable, confusing and ultimately damaging. Choosing a name is a fundamental task in building a business and should be tied to a business’ position, differentiation, vision and mission. If you’ve chosen your name without considering these things, you may want to reconsider.

How to Name

There are a myriad of exercises and techniques that help generate potential names, but all of them should stem from the brand strategy. With a solid understanding of who you are, what makes you different, and who your audience is, you can embark on this exciting and sometimes nerve-wracking journey. Here are some qualities of an effective name:

Meaningful
It communicates the essence of your brand and supports the perception your are trying to create.

Distinctive
It is unique from your competition, and easy to remember and spell. It is brief and appropriate, but not generic.

Forward-Looking
It allows for growth and change, is able to withstand market shifts and preserves possibilities.

Expandable
It allows for “brandplay”, building extensions that are connected and compelling.

Protectable
It is legally defensible, and can be owned and trademarked. A good domain is available.

Positive
It has no negative connotations and produces positive associations.

Visual
It works well in graphic implementations such as a logo, in text and throughout the brand touchpoints.

The results of the brainstorming process should be wide and varied. Each name needs to be considered in context. You also need to consider such arbitrary things as how it sounds (rhythmic) and ease of pronunciation. It’s no small task, but the right name will drive all forms of publicity.

When to Rename

There are a whole host of reasons why an organization might want to rename themselves, effectively leading to a brand overhaul. Often there are several reasons, overlapping and culminating with a major change in direction or focus. Here are several reasons to change your name:

a) Your name no longer fits who you are and what you do.
b) Your name has a trademark conflict or is not unique to you alone.
c) Your name misleads or misinforms.
d) Your name is no longer current, looking backwards instead of forward.
e) Your name does not differentiate (position) you from similar organizations.

The benefits of changing your organization’s name is the advantage of a clean slate. Rather than trying to reposition yourself with messaging, or a new brand identity, and a lot of effort in your advertising, a name change hits the “reboot” button and clears the path for innovation, forward thinking, repositioning and strategic planning. Your new name will fit you better now, look to the future, differentiate you, make you more modern and help avoid confusion and conflict. No doubt, a new name is very appealing.

Before plunging in, you also need to consider the negative effects of a name change. Even with all those positives, there are drawbacks. They may be minimal, or conquerable, but they should be examined.

Most of what you need to consider falls under the umbrella phrase, “brand equity”. This implies that there is existing value in your current name. The questions are:

a) Does the value of the brand rest in the name?
b) Have you invested a lot of time, money and effort into your name?
c) Does your audience identify with you BECAUSE of your name?
d) Can your relationships compensate for a period of climatization?
e) Will you lose clients/donors?
f) Will a name change alter your core values?

In the end, if there are some results that are unfavourable, but can’t be avoided, the question will ultimately be, will the good far outweigh the bad? It is best to consider the pros and cons in a list and compare the positives to the negatives. I suspect that if an organization is successful already, but needs a rename for any of the above reasons, a rename will likely strengthen their relationships and open the door for growth through clear, unique communication. The campaign alone, that lets everyone know about the name change, is a fantastic opportunity to re-introduce yourselves, re-educate your audience, re-assert your values and generate renewed enthusiasm for your business.

Types of Names

There are a wide variety of name types that can be considered. Below is a list of some common ones:

Founder
Many organizations are named after those who founded them. The benefit is that usually, an individual name is unique and defensible. The downside is that the organization will always be tied to a person.

Descriptive
A descriptive name explains the nature of the organization. The benefit is clear communication about your intent. The downside is that the name can be limiting down the road, or if kept wide open, too vague as a description to be defensible or meaningful.

Fabricated
A made up name is completely unique and easy to copyright. The drawback is the extra effort required to educate your market up front. Over time this gets easier, and a good tagline can overcome much of this barrier.

Metaphor
Things, places, animals, etc. can be a powerful tool to tell your story. It communicates a quality or the essence of your brand. If the metaphor is too hard to comprehend, however, this approach could prove to be detrimental.

Acronym
These are tough to remember and difficult to copyright. An acronym can be a nice, short name, recognizable among your niche, but rarely starts out that way. Often acronyms are the result of saying a name that’s too long, for too long. It gets shortened overtime, sometimes before your brand story has become solidified in the minds of your audience.

Unique Spelling
Altering the spelling of a word can differentiate you on a topic that is popular. It allows you to defend a well known word or phrase, but may not be enough on it’s own.

Many good names use a combination of these, such as marrying a unique spelling of a common descriptive word, with a fabricated name.

So What’s in a Name?

A lot. More than most people consider when choosing one. Is there a magic bullet, one single name like a soul-mate, that is perfect for every business? I don’t think so. To think, “I will know it when I hear it” is a tricky concept. If knowing means: it meets all the criteria you’ve laid out and embodies the brand story, than your intuition rests on strong foundations. A well chosen name will embody the feeling of, “it couldn’t be any better”, as it gets repeated over and over again.

Does this mean that a name that wasn’t chosen with all this foresight is useless? No, but if you had known all this before choosing, would you have been so quick to pick a name and lock it in forever? If you’re at the naming crossroads now, I recommend you put some thought into it.

The successful applicant will have 3 or 4 years of post-secondary design education and preferrably 1 year of experience in the industry.

The Work

Semantic Design offers Branding & Design for Small Business and Non-Profits. Much of the work is print design, but is transitioning to more strategic brand strategy, logo development and web design. The ability to think conceptually and strategically and then execute visually is essential.

We are a small studio, so your ability to take direction and work unsupervised is expected. Because we are small, we work closely with the client. We are always accessible and available. You will be required to answer phones and email and manage revisions and timelines accordingly.

The Skillset

You are creative, self-motivated, trustworthy and reliable. You can take a job from concept to completion and have a high-level proficiency with Adobe CS4.

While knowledge of software and good design is a requirement, preference will be shown to applicants with a positive, enthusiastic and hard-working attitude. We are looking for someone passionate about design, up-to-date on industry trends, with an appetite to continually learn and tackle new challenges.

Additonal assets are knowledge and skills pertaining to brand development, marketing strategy, web design, social media, SEO, Microsoft Office, and photography/video.

The Offer

Semantic Design is looking for a committed, long-term employee that will become a key component in our success. Compensation will be commensurate with experience and opportunities for professional development will be provided.

This is NOT a freelance opportunity. Interested applicants should send their resume and portfolio (or link) to careers@semanticdesign.ca. Only qualified applicants will be contacted.

Literally

I’m a firm believer in definitions. When removed from a marketing context, the definitions for the word “brand” or “branding” shed light on why they’ve been applied within that context:

1. kind, or make, as indicated by a stamp, trademark, or the like
2. a mark made by burning or otherwise, to indicate kind, make, ownership, etc.
3. a kind or variety of something distinguished by some distinctive characteristic
4. a burning or partly burned piece of wood.
5. to label or mark
6. to impress indelibly

Brand

A brand is a feeling, belief or association in the minds of your audience about you that is positive or negative.

Branding

Branding is a detailed, disciplined process that fosters recognition, trust and loyalty. Because the brand rests in the mind of your audience, to brand something is to influence perception. By changing or encouraging a certain perception, you can affect behaviour.

Brand Strategy

Aligning an organization’s vision with it’s customer experience is the goal of brand strategy. An effective strategy unifies behaviour, actions and communication around a central idea. It builds on a vision, aligns with business strategy, is derived from your organization’s core values and culture and proves a deep understanding of your customer’s needs and perceptions. Brand strategy defines who you are, your positioning and what makes you different and valuable.

Positioning

Positioning is said to be the scaffolding on which companies build their brands. It’s a strategy that fuels planning, marketing and sales. Positioning changes, as the market and your target demographic changes. It transcends over-saturated markets and creates new opportunities.

Will Burke, CEO of Brand Engine explains the importance of positioning like this, “If you can’t say that you are the only, you need to fix your business, not your brand”. Positioning is where you differentiate.

Staying on Message

Your audience is interacting with the brand on several fronts and through several channels. They need to hear one voice. Consistency of language, customer experience and visual identity all contribute to a unified, and therefore crystal clear message.

Big Idea or Tagline

The big idea is like a lightning rod, surrounded by strategy, behaviour, actions and communications. A simply worded statement (or statements), internally it acts as a guide for distinct culture and externally as a powerful message to help consumers make choices. Big ideas lead to or double as taglines, and lead to other creative processes such as naming.

Brand Identity

Brand Identity is tangible. Your audience can see it, touch it, hold it, hear it, and watch it move. It encourages recognition and highlights differentiation. Through design, brand identity embodies the intangibles such as emotion, feelings or core essence. It’s also called corporate identity or your logo, but extends beyond that with shapes, colours, photography and typography.

Brand Architecture

This is the hierarchy of brands, messages, or branches within a single organization. It is the inter-relationship between the overall brand, and the “sub-brands” within it. Strategically, the individual messages have to speak out, without disrupting, but instead enhancing, the larger brand. From a Design standpoint, there needs to be correlation with the larger identity through colour, logotype, and other methods or a complete separation from the parent brand.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are brand champions. Employees, Board Members and Volunteers are now called “internal customers” because their unique understanding and interaction with the brand is far reaching. Reputation and goodwill are extended beyond marketing through stakeholders. Gathering insight from stakeholders will inform a broad range of solutions and directly affects messaging and positioning.

Customer Experience

A major brand essential is attention to customer experience. It is the biggest contributor to your brand’s perception. Customers experience the brand through a variety of touchpoints, and each one needs to be considered. It builds loyalty and enduring relationships.

Brand Names

Your name is used every day, in a multitude of ways. You hear it in conversations and voicemails, see it in emails and on business cards and so on. The importance of a name cannot be under-estimated, and the effect of a bad name is unthinkable. Your name is an essential brand asset, working for you around the clock, 24/7. Ideally, your name becomes timeless, while the rest of your brand evolves around it.

The new logo uses modern fonts and colours but adds a twist of personal attention with a hand-drawn graphic. The graphic pie-chart calls on a sport playbook feel but references business at the same time. This approach encapsulates the Mentor Works approach – hands-on, behind the scenes, objective advice, strategy to improve business. The small portion of the pie-chart that is highlighted emphasizes incremental improvement, sometimes in very specific areas.

The website followed the lead, reinforcing the message and keeping things simple and clean. Using business imagery, the strategy for the website is to provide quality information on a wide variety of topics and is driven by a blog that is constantly being updated. The home page needed to reflect the message of improvement and the tagline “Move your business forward” was developed to give the viewer a sense of what mentorship will bring.

Many business owners flinch at the concept of a business coach. Many think they are doing fine on their own, or feel it’s an insult to their abilities if they have to bring in outside help. The same independent drive that pushed them to start on their own however, can also be their downfall as they fail to seek qualified advice from an outside source.

At Semantic Design, we work with many small businesses. After asking probing questions about their current business model, their future and their systems it’s obvious that no one has all the answers. Everyone has questions and struggles. Everyone could use some advice. It is our firm belief that EVERY small business could benefit from a business coach. In fact, every business of any size could benefit in some way. Semantic Design has one. Can you guess who it is?

See what Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google says about having a business coach:

How Does Video Improve Search Rankings?

Aside from giving people a different “channel” to peruse your content when they’re on your site, it also helps bring them there in the first place. The fact is, we all love to watch video. Internet users are watching video online in epic proportions. Google (who coincidentally owns youtube), is always trying to make search more relevant to the user, therefore video search results are claiming top rankings – even when video is not being searched for specifically.

What’s the Trick to Video Marketing?

Like everything related to your marketing, it helps to have a plan and a purpose. You have to know why you’re doing something to do it effectively. I am not encouraging random videos about what you had for breakfast. Your content has to have value to the person you are trying to reach. In addition to that, it’s extremely helpful if you know the best keywords to include in the title, description and meta tags for your video. By combining strategy with data and a dash of creativity, video can be a powerful tool for your business.

Want proof? Check out this article:

Small Businesses Search For Leads With Website Video

by James Burchill

According to the latest quarterly report from WebVisible, the average small business advertiser spent $2,149 on search advertising in Q4 2009, an increase of 30% over Q3 2009 and 111% over Q4 2008.

Video capability was the fastest-growing website feature for small business advertisers over the past year, with 19% of advertisers showing video on their websites in Q4 2009, versus just 5% in Q4 2008. The data represents nearly $22 million in U.S. small business advertisers spending in Q4 2009 from more than 12,000 individual advertisers.

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To understand what branding is, you must first understand what a brand is.

What is a Brand?

Often a question like this is explained with more questions. As an organization, ask yourself, who are you? who needs to know? how will they find out? why should they care? These are the essential, foundational underpinnings of a brand. Well known brand expert and author, Marty Neumeier, sums it up like this:

“Brand is not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.”

A brand is therefore a feeling, belief or association in the minds of your audience about you that is positive or negative. Because it rests in the minds of your audience, you cannot control it. Whether you’ve implemented a brand strategy or not, you have one. Your customers have already formed an opinion. Once formed, it’s hard to change. There is no better argument why EVERY business needs to understand branding.

So Now What?

What you CAN do is influence perception. By changing or encouraging a certain perception, you can affect behaviour. By affecting behaviour, you can increase performance.

The act of branding then, is a detailed, disciplined process that fosters recognition, trust and loyalty. It requires leadership, focus, accuracy and readiness to invest in the future. It can be considered reputation management, but it is pro-active, not re-active.

The result of the branding process is a positioning platform that makes crystal clear why you’re different than everyone else. It focuses on your target audience exclusively. It abandons trying to be everything to everyone. With your core purpose and values exposed and simply-stated, knowing what to say and to whom, becomes obvious.

Branding makes it easier for the customer to buy and positions the organization for growth and sustainability. Branding makes it easier to sell by communicating a strong, clear, intelligent message. Finally, branding makes it easier to build brand equity. Future success is dependent on public awareness, and long-term attention to a strong clear message is just the ticket.

What About Logos and Websites?

It’s important to understand that branding is NOT logo design or web design or any kind of design for that matter. Neither is your logo your brand. Branding is the process that provides concise, clear direction and motivation for all your brand touchpoints.

Touchpoints are the places that your audience interacts with the brand. Designing your brand identity and various other touchpoints is the next step in your marketing. Deciding which touchpoints to address and what they look like however, depends entirely on your positioning platform.

If you’re still wondering whether small businesses need branding, I ask this simple question:

Your audience will build your brand without your input. With no direction from you, will you be happy with their perception?