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Why Your Premises Should Emulate Your Brand

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
In the twenty-first century, offices are much more than a set of booths, each one with a tower computer and a waste paper bin. Working environments are now much more user-friendly with opportunities for collaborative working and they are designed to consider the needs of employees to a much greater extent. Your office should emulate the ethos of your brand, be an open, welcoming and bright space, and be the optimum area for the most productive working. Take a look at how you can create your perfect premises no matter what industry sector you work in.

Location

If you run an advertising agency, you need to be in the thick of a city center environment; close to the big brands, next to excellent transport links and amongst other like-minded businesses. Clients will be attending your offices for meetings, to view your latest presentations and to brainstorm ideas for their next marketing campaigns. It’s vital that they have confidence in your credentials the moment they work through the door. Your interior needs to be sleek, modern and a hive of activity. City center premises can be older and more traditional, or you could opt for an office in a more minimalist and modern building depending on the ethos of your brand.

Space

How you use the interior space is up to you. You could opt for a more traditional zonal system where you cater to those colleagues who need to knuckle down alone in more private spaces as well as providing meeting rooms for those brainstorming sessions and collaborative meetups. You may forego the tried and tested cubicles, for a more open, transparent office environment. If you’re implementing something new, you’ll need to utilize the services of an outfit like BCI Worldwide international logistics company who can kit out a brand new office without you having to lift a finger. They use intuitive project management systems and logistics platforms to track all tasks required throughout the lifecycle of your project installation. By outsourcing a project like this, you are tapping into external expertise and networking with fellow professionals to achieve your desired office environment.

Technology

For some businesses, the latest technology is vitally important. For others, it is more of a luxury. Don’t get too hung up on having the biggest, best and latest gadgetry. What’s more important is the staff team that you surround yourself with and the minds that you manage to merge together to think outside the box and create initiatives that enable your business to grow. Having an attractive premises and office environment will hook those perfect candidates attending an interview for a role within your company. They’ll be eager to work in a dynamic space and one that is conducive to being at the forefront of your particular industry.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article

Your premises can reflect your brand in the most subtle of ways. If you are an honest, transparent and collaborative company, show this off in your office space. By doing this, you can reflect your company’s core values and promote your business vision effectively.

Creating a Buzz Around Your Brand: Targeting as Many Potential Customers as Possible

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Generating sales and profit is a challenge for any newly established brand. People are unaware of your existence or wary of your products and services. You haven’t had the opportunity to gain their trust and loyalty yet and competitors are reluctant to let them test the waters with your newly posed competition. So, how do you go about encouraging consumers to take a risk and purchase your products? It’s time to make a name for your company. Here’s how to create a buzz around your brand, drawing the attention of as many potential customers as possible.


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Corporate PR

Corporate PR forges the potential for relationships to develop between your brand and your customers. It opens up a conversation, then leaves you to make sales and prove your worth. A good corporate PR agency will ensure that your company appears in all the right places. It will land you reviews in widely read and influential publications and interviews with widely watched television programs. These agencies place you in the spotlight and give you the chance to really showcase what you’re about. Perfect! The more visible your company is and the more consistently it appears in the public eye for positive reasons, the more familiar consumers will feel with your image and the more likely they are to trust you with their purchases.


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SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a business technique that helps to direct as many people to your website as possible. Every single day, millions of internet users employ the help of search engines to find the pages that they’re looking for. If they want to find the answer to a question, they’ll use a search engine to find a site that will provide them with the relevant information. If they want to know what time a certain store opens, they will use search engines to direct them to the company’s site, preferably directly to the page detailing their store details. If they want a certain product, they will use a search engine to find the brands that supply it. It’s not surprising then, that to turn over the maximum profits possible, you want to be featured high in the search engine’s results. The closer you are to the top of the list, the more likely people are going to click on your link and the more traffic directed to your site. Once consumers are on your page, the products will sell themselves. So, how do you go about directing the maximum volume of traffic to your web page? The answer? By educating yourself. Take the SEO class online to gain a full comprehension of SEO. There are so many more factors that will help you to excel in the field than you could imagine: marketing personas, marketing funnel, search fundamentals, searcher intent, search framework, channel selection, branded searches, document relevancy, URL optimization, link neighborhoods. The list goes on and on. So, it’s time to start swotting up!

Customer Reviews

With increasing numbers of people gaining their information online comes another issue that your company needs to prioritize: online customer reviews. Nowadays, individual, non-professional reviews can have a more beneficial or negative effect on your sales than ever before. The internet has given everyday people a platform to express their love or disdain for a product, service or brand that can reach a worldwide audience. So focus on gaining positive feedback. If you offer high-quality produce and impeccable service, you can’t really go wrong. However, if you do receive a complaint or negative feedback, contact the individual who has made it. Discuss the problem with them. Question what they dislike about your service and how things could be improved. Chances are, you can easily rectify the situation by offering a refund, exchange or other means of compensation. This will ensure that you maintain a good relationship with this individual consumer (they will recognize your company as going above and beyond their call of duty) and encourage them to alter their review. Hundreds of thousands of people will have access to this and trust it, so it’s essential that you put wrongs to right. You can also use the situation to ensure that you don’t make the same mistake again. You will be able to constantly improve, ensuring that you don’t receive negative complaints in the future.

If you follow all of these steps, it won’t be long until your brand is part of the public consciousness. People will feel familiar with your company and place their trust in you to provide them with everything that they expect from their transaction. This means you will have more happy and loyal customers and the increasing profit that comes hand in hand with them.

Build Your Small Business Brand in 10 Easy Steps

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
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1. Define what your brand is

Find your niche in the market. What are the special requirements or problems that your customers have and how can you help them to solve that. In order to do this effectively, you need to find out about brand competitive analysis and why you need it. This will establish what makes you unique.

2. Personify your brand

Think of your brand as a person who has their own distinct personality, opinions, beliefs and look. This helps you to build a picture.

3. Emotive brand positioning

Who does your brand hero-worship? This will shape your identity in all of your brand materials and communications.

4. Play the long game

Establishing a brand is a sprint and not a marathon. Dedicate some time to the planning stage. Make sure that you can deliver what you promise. This helps you to build long-term trust.

5. Be consistent

Experimenting with styles may be fun but it is confusing for the client. If you are consistent it will reinforce your brand character and people will know exactly what to expect.

6. Do not be boring

Whilst consistency is a good thing, being boring is not! Don’t just say the same thing over and over again. Instead, you should stick to the same message but find innovative new ways of stating it.

7. Coping other brands is not acceptable

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but this is not the case in the business world. You can get into serious legal trouble by copying people. It also does not make good business sense. Consumers are on the hunt for brands that are original and authentic. They are looking for something that matches their beliefs and lifestyle. Many of the large brands have picked up on this and are trying to look like small independents.

8. Be bold and seize the day

The beauty of running a small business is that you do not have layers of bureaucracy to wade through when you want to make a change. This makes you supremely flexible and adaptable and enables you to react to changes in the market quickly. This gives you the edge over big business.

9. Don’t look cheap and desperate

It is always a good to offer discounts to attract customers but it is possible to overdo this. You risk diluting your brand positioning. As an alternative to cutting prices, you could offer more for the same price. This adds value without looking cheap. Promotions should be targeted and short-lived.

10. Try not to be too obvious

The days of printing your logo on everything and hoping for the best are over. Generate some intrigue and be a little more subtle and mysterious.