Crea%ng Brand Guidelines:

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Dominick Rich
5 years ago
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1 Crea%ng Brand Guidelines: Every business has its own personality and therefore needs a representa5on and iden5ty which reﬂects this. This can help to a:ract the clients you want, as well as let others that you might not be right for them. In order to create consistency throughout your company from the inside out, you need to establish brand guidelines. This helps to promote your key values and what it is you do. You can do this rela5vely easily by thinking about these components: What you are What you do What you want to be (seen as) For example: what are your brand associa5ons? Tradi&onal Dependable Luxury or Contemporary Innova&ve Low- cost Provide hot- desking Spaces SMEs want to be part of How do you iden5fy this and represent it? Agree with others in your company any words you like or words you don t like. That way you re all speaking the same language This way you re consistent with your tone of voice Agree which font/s and which size you re going to use for electronic and formal wri:en communica5ons Imagery - always best to source or take your own Have a chosen colour- way throughout your communica5ons both internally and externally to reinforce your brand s iden5ty Logos are great at summing up your business at a glance. Applying your core values to help create an image is a sure- fast way of truly represen5ng your business

2 Having a Gravatar (an image that iden5fies you from site to site when you comment on a blog etc) can also reinforce your Host s brand associated with the company s iden5ty. Find out how to set one up here h:p:// en.gravatar.com/ Once you have a logo - how are you going to use this? signatures/social media/branded le:erheads etc? How can you apply this to your marke%ng? SeBng a budget: First having clear marke5ng goals can help to set your budget. Most budgets are 1-10% of sales income. Understand your overall finances - how much disposable expenditure do you realis5cally have to spend on marke5ng? Once you can establish this, you can tailor what you want to get out of any marke5ng efforts and which op5ons are most beneficial in doing this Research local publica5ons and target industry specific websites to adver5se on, as well as any other avenues you can think of. Create a month by month account of where your money could go or is going and how much Plan ahead as much as possible and try not to commit to anything for longer than six months, this way you can review any returns on your adver5sing or your paid marke5ng efforts. Tracking progress month by month, means you have a good picture about seasonal differences and you can take this informa5on into account for further campaigns and strategies Types of paid for marke%ng : Tradi5onal print adver5sing Targeted online adver5sing - blogs, social media, other websites Radio/TV Direct mail Newsle:ers - if you have a subscrip5on Website - if you pay someone to manage this Google Adwords Pay per click adver5sing Branding a vehicle Sponsoring an event or personality Linkedin subscrip5on Paid for contact resources

3 Posters/fliers Membership fees - networking or business groups Billboards Banners Low- cost and free marke%ng: Social media - if you do this yourself Press releases - if you write these yourself Newsle:ers - free subscrip5on shots Posters/fliers - if you design and print these yourself Blogging - video and wri:en content Public speaking Wri5ng - offer a service to your local paper or community with a column or get involved in wri5ng for local publica5ons Publicity stunts Charity work Winning an award Webinars You may decide not to invest significant expenditure in adver5sing. Instead, you can invest your resources elsewhere. This is where doing your own PR as a small business comes in. Find out who the local journalists in your area are and send across stories about your space. Hos5ng community events can be great li:le newsworthy pieces to send over to your local paper. If you have a bigger story, meet with them and discuss this, face to face or on the phone - it s much more personal than just sending over a press release. You can them acer your mee5ng, sending across info that ll be helpful for them to put together the story or to keep on file for another 5me. Social media interac5ons can be free, but involves huge 5me alloca5on to do it well and if outsourcing then there is a financial cost to consider. Hos5ng networking events at your space and invi5ng local businesses and the media can be a great way of making connec5ons and is low cost in comparison to some adver5sing.

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