Here’s an article that says it better than we can… maybe!

Here’s the link to the article just to give the author credit! http://www.mpdailyfix.com/why-branding-matters-stand-out-from-the-rest-of-the-herd/

In this digital age, a successful business needs to provide outstanding service, offer intrinsic value to its clients, build customer relationships—and stand out from the crowd on myriad online platforms.

To set one’s company apart from the herd, a business needs a brand. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

To understand the elements of small-business branding, you first need to know why it’s essential to a company’s success.

1. Branding is your business identity. Branding goes beyond your name, tagline, and logo. Your brand is who your business is to the world. What is your story? What makes you special? Differentiation is key for a dynamic brand. Your brand is your mission, vision, and story wrapped up in one unique package.

2. Branding is your business ambassador. It helps customers familiarize themselves with your business and builds trust with colleagues, customers, and prospects.

3. A great brand is memorable. If people can’t remember your brand, they will not be inspired to do business with you. People buy from businesses they know, trust, and like.

4. Social media demands a visible, attractive brand. It’s not a question of “should” you engage in social media anymore, it’s “how.” A brand helps folks identify your business in your marketing sphere.

5. Branding helps your business get recognized on multiple platforms. Getting your message out and keeping it consistent is only achievable when your brand is searchable, recognizable, and accountable. You need to manage your brand on different platforms (your blog, social media sites, etc.)

6. People connect with your brand through its story. Every company has a “how we came to be” story. Let your story be part of the brand that resonates with your customers.

7. Branding levels the playing field for small businesses. Entrepreneurs do not have an unlimited marketing budget. However, by honing your brand’s message, visuals, and style, you can go toe to toe with your larger competitors—and look good doing it.

8. Today’s connected, social savvy consumers demand it. People need to see you’re on top of your game with a compelling brand. A solid brand equals trust.

9. Small businesses are doomed to fail without effective branding. Sad, but true. Your ideas and outstanding service aren’t enough to cut it in today’s brutal business climate. Your brand is your story, and stories are essential to attracting and keeping customers.

10. Smart branding will bring your “red carpet moment.” Whether through social media, traditional advertising, or good old-fashioned networking, influencers and decision-makers are on the lookout for trend-setting businesses. Make the biggest impact possible by having a memorable brand.

When it comes to designing your brand, you need to plan well and find a great logo maker or designer that understands your company’s needs. Contrary to popular belief, a fresh, professionally designed logo doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Websites like FreeLogoServices, are cool resources to design your logo for your website, blog, Facebook business page, Twitter page, and other social media platforms.

When done well, a brand can help businesses gain new customers, expand their circle of influence, and stand out.

Dylan Mazeika is an online writer with a background in marketing and small business. He enjoys helping business owners with branding efforts through the use of a logo maker.

There is pretty much one word that describes this commercial for me and that would have to be “amazing”. Unless there is some magical program that the genius who created this commercial has, I can only imagine the hours it must have taken to create this beast. Every place you look covered in paint swatch cards… it’s just unbelievable. What’s even more suprising is that this is not the only one. I have probably seen atleast three others over the course of a few months. The love for this commercial probably stems from my love of those paint swatch cards. Basically if I walk into Lowe’s or Home Depot, paint companies are going to loose a few cents because I leave with a stack the size of a cheeseburger, and no paint or intentions of painting any room.

I don’t know if this one is the tallest model I have ever see, the awesome sense of style it brings, the funky music and stark simplistic setting or simply the transitions of clothing, but I have been enthralled with this commercial ever since I first saw it. I do have to say, it makes me want to go into that store, even though it really doesn’t fit my style. Great job White House | Black Market!

So in terms of concept, this one takes that cake. Not only is what the lady is saying straight whack, but what the husband responds to her with is one of the funniest lines I have heard in a while. The concept of people feeling richer because they use your product or participate in your brand is clever, but even more, the way that straight talk plays it out is fantastic. Congrats Straight Talk. Your advertising cleverness has far surpassed the whit of your product.

So we’ve found an Article about fonts that quite frankly, we probably could expound upon if we had a day or so to work on it, but because we have clients that we need to service today, we will just let you read what the fab folks at www.DesignInspiration.com wrote.

This article gives some insight into fonts and what certain font faces represent and mean. You might find it interesting and then after reading, take a look at your own logo and marketing material and see how you are coming off to your potential clients and customers.

Feel free to give us a call if you are feeling that your font might be giving the wrong impression… and for goodness sakes, don’t ever use Jazz Let.

We highly advise our clients to be creative when visiting a potential client. Don’t just leave a pen with your logo on it or a magnet with your phone number… they already have 40 of those with your competitors number on them. You’ve got to set yourself apart and that’s where we come in. We offer Schemin’ and Dreamin’ Sessions where we brainstorm to come up with different ideas of clever items you can drop off to your potential clients. The picture above shows a result from one of these creative brainstorming sessions.

A while back, our client, Springer-Peterson Roofing and Sheet Metal was doing just that. Leaving a generic promotional item with their potential clients. They decided they wanted to try something different. We gave them some ideas and they landed upon this cookie package with a clever sticker that says “People would think you were one smart cookie if we were your roofer”. Not only do they offer their potential clients a tasty treat, but the whole package is tied together with a unique saying that relates back to the service they provide.

Each package costs them less than $5 so they aren’t afraid to give them out. Just last week, they landed a $80,000 project and it all started with a couple cookies! We would say that was a pretty good return on their investment!

If it’s time to spruce up what you are doing in your sales department, don’t be afraid to give us a call and see how we can make you just alittle more unforgettable.

We know that Sarah got engaged to Matt by her updated relationship status on Facebook and we know that people approve by the 98 “Likes” it received within the first hour.  We also know that she ate at Chipotle on Main Street with Lindsay on Tuesday at 1:12 p.m. because she checked in. Sarah had a bad day on Wednesday, and we know that from her irate status update which occurred from her iPhone at 2:45 p.m.  We know that she loves traveling from all of her photos and we know that she even went to Spain with Becky and Alexis (who were tagged) in her photo album last spring break. We also know that she’s a fan of #Snookie from Jersey Shore, because she follows her on Twitter.

Social media has crept its way into our lives and we have learned to both love it and accept it with open arms.  These days, when two people decide that it’s time to exclusively date one another becoming “Facebook Official” holds a massive amount of weight in one’s relationship.

So, it should come as no surprise that teenagers and young adults are enthralled with the social media epidemic, but they’re not the only ones anymore.  Businesses have turned to social media in promotional and advertising efforts, and honestly—it’s a brilliant, effective, and often a successful idea.

By navigating the Facebook strings correctly, a business can target people down to their location and education level.  If you wanted to reach females, with a college degree, who are engaged and live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that can be done.  If you wanted to target alumni’s of a particular college or university, that can be done.  If you wanted to target males who are between the ages of 18-24 and have an interest in baseball in the Central Florida area, that can also be done.  Restaurant owners: wanting to advertise an upcoming drink special or menu roll-out?  Realtors: wanting to get the word out about a new development or a price drop on a have-to-have house?  Within seconds of posting your buzz-worthy news people will be able to see it, share it, interact with it, and hopefully respond to it.

The younger generations and business owners aren’t the only ones diving into the craze anymore, but the older and wiser crew has caught on to the epidemic as of late.  According to the highly reputable Pew Research Center, social networking use among Internet users ages 50 and older has nearly doubled over the past year.  Half of the Internet users between the ages of 50-64 and one in four users age 65 and older now use social networking sites.  While email and online news is still more appealing to older users, social media sites attract many repeat visitors and are continuously growing.

Interested?  But not familiar with the world of social media?  Call us!  We have various options and packages available.

I know that this video from www.Ladd-Design.com has been floating around the web for a few weeks now, but I finally sat down to watch it last night and I absolutely loved it. It was so intriguing to actually hear the impressions these logos had left on this young girl. My favorite is probably when she says that the Greyhound Logo, Puma Logo and Jaguar Logo were all Cheetahs. Funny thing is, the designer who worked on those logos probably did hear the line from their client, “We don’t want this to look like a Cheetah”. Guess you can’t please everyone’s eye. Either way, take a few minutes to check it out. It is so true how we can sit at our computers and design a logo and then show it to a client and they can see something completely different than what we see. Thanks to this video, we know have an extra step in our logo design process — analyzation from a 5 year old… and yes, we are accepting applications.

So the question is:  Should these “citizen journalists,” more commonly known as “bloggers” be protected by the same laws as professional journalists?  Does the rule of ethical journalism differ from person to person?  Should these citizen journalists be held to the same standards as a professional in a court of law?  Does this alter the curriculum and rewrite the textbooks when studying Journalism in higher education?  Do citizen journalists decrease the credibility of professionals?  And lastly, do you think I’m being a total hypocrite now or am I opening up your eyes?

Due to the increase in popularity of tablets, smart phones, 3G networks and Wifi, the ability to transmit news and make it accessible to billions happens at such a fast rate.  From your cell phone you can now record a video, edit it with right application, and upload it within minutes.  With a quick click of the mouse or tap of the finger your story, video, or photo can be readily available for the world to see.

So while I have a B.A. in Journalism and strong opinions on the matter, I want you to think about it!  Where do you stand?

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

1.      Seek the truth and report it
2.      Minimize harm
3.      Act independently
4.      Be accountable

The bottom two images are the results of our “Schemin’ & Dreamin’” Package that Cliff opted for in order to come up with a unique Christmas Gift for his clients and his employees. After a few hours of brainstorming, CE presented SGP with multiple raw ideas. After Cliff settled in on two of the proposed ideas, CE went into the creation phase, providing SGP with one of a kind Christmas Gifts for the year.

You can check out the website in all it’s glory at www.southernglass.net.

Let’s talk for a minute about the conundrum of “Size” and if it does indeed “Matter”.

We all know the standard size of a business card may be the old fashioned 3.5″ x 2″ rectangle. You may have also heard the rumor that it should be able to fit in a wallet, a pocket, or a rolodex. Here at CE, we hold tight to the belief that your business card doesn’t have to fit in a rolodex because it doesn’t belong in a rolodex (and yes, we stole that line).

This doesn’t mean you have to make it look like a pop up card or spend millions on some diecut, spot ink embellished, embossed card. We are simply thinking that you should maybe consider venturing outside the box.

These days there are many different clever options that are not so far off the beaten path that  will make your business card stand out from the rest.

We have the slim cards that are just that, slim. A little bit leaner than your standard business card, these little strands of card stock still fit the bill and pack a creative punch.

So next time you go to set up the old standard measurements, think to yourself … what can I do to “niftify” this card that will still get the important information out there without causing the receiver to yawn with boredom.