Small Business Marketing Guide - DIY (do-it-yourself) BRAND MARKETING STRATEGIES to HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Marketing Materials are an art. I mean sure it COULD be just a print out ~ color copied at kinkos… stuck in a folder… with someone’s business card haphazardly inserted… We get tons of those in the mail and at conventions. They are no fun! So when asked to discuss Marketing Materials, i decided it was more fun to SHOW you some of the fun ones that have found their way across my desk… If there’s one thing about creating marketing materials i think is critical, it would have to be – BRAND IT TO EVERY LAST DETAIL! Seriously. Stand out. Take whatever it is that makes your branding unique, what jumps out about your product, best use of your service, whatever it is ~ and take it all the way! But make sure it looks good, not a hair out of place. Because your attention to detail from the handwriting on the envelopes, to the state of the materials/products you are sending all say a lot about you, and your company.

So on the next page, you will get the cliff notes version in pictures of some of the many marketing materials i’ve received, all noteworthy in their own way! Enjoy! And I hope to add yours to the list soon!

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Brands often feel like that best friend you had in kindergarten that you kept in touch with through college and beyond… you’ve grown up with them… remember the awesome adventures you had together, trouble you got in together… and those things they did that you thought you’d never forgive. Even if it was something as silly as taking the last red lollipop, knowing it was your favorite. But you made it through… until they made friends with your mortal enemy… but sure, after a week of not talking, somehow you worked things out and are friends again.

Silly isn’t it? But i often see brands and my relationships with them like friendships or acquaintances. Each one has a personality of it own… is constantly evolving… and sometimes totally rubs me the wrong way. But the most important thing is ~ there is no real constant. If the brand is too stagnant, i may outgrow it or get bored and move in. If it moves to fast, i may hate it for one phase, but love it again as it comes closer to my tastes.

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I feel like i grew up online. My personal brand barely existed without being online in some form… perhaps email and IM were where it all started, moving quickly to free websites, to my own domains, to my own network of sites… my world – my brand – has nearly always been digital! NOTCOT the name itself came about because of a late night rhyming session to make a random email address between high school homework…. notcot@hotbot.com … So i suppose i can’t speak much to the transition from real world to internet….

BUT… this last week i went more offline than i have in years… all while still checking in on my sites and skimming emails about twice a day briefly for a whole week (sad, isn’t it? how that feels like not working at all?)… it’s certainly helped give me more perspective. Knowing this article was in the works made me more conscious of branding i encountered all around me in my day to day! Also being around older family members who were less techy than usual… seeing the ways they look for information and discuss brands was fascinating! (No, they don’t use maps or google on their phones… and many were just starting to try to make sense of their iPhones and looking things up on wikipedia was this slow and new thing that would come up during dinner conversations…)

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Gut reaction to Direct Marketing ~ makes me think of the things that appear in my physical mailbox and my digital one. In trying to figure out what to tell you this week, i noticed something when i went to grab a glass of orange juice from the fridge… the BEST random mailers i get seem to end up on my fridge. In from the mailbox, played with a bit at the table, and then either trashed/recycled or there they go ~ magnet grasped onto the fridge like works of art (keep in mind i’m 26 and kidless, so the fridge is more filled with tetris magnets and random snippets that inspire me versus fingerpainting masterpieces).

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Here’s some eye candy to get you thinking about branding ~ feel free to click any of the images above to find out more!

The first thing that comes to mind when i think of Branding and Identity are these three questions…
1) Who are you?
2) Who do you want to be?
3) Why are you special?

And then take that, mix it all together, and be consistent and unapologetic about it. Because ultimately your Identity (be it as a brand or a person or an entity or a product) is who you are!

That being said ~ from a visual perspective ~ what i deal with as far as branding and identity on a day to day basis beyond the usual (business cards, etc) are things  like… email signatures, twitter/aim avatars, favicons, etc ~ all those little details on your websites and in your pocket. THIS is where the consistency begins to be key. Don’t let the details slide ~ inconsistent branding with a different logo, or a different version of your logo all over your site, materials, business cards, press releases, etc ~ is just confusing and messy and doesn’t reflect well! So take a peek at the growing list after the jump ~ and i’d love to hear more that you think of as well!

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