Alison Hulett said, “The logo or trademark is without a doubt the ultimate ‘branding’ tool.” The logo is the backbone to the brand - this statement perfectly defines the position of your company logo and the part it plays in your visual portfolio.

The word “logo” means a name, symbol, or trademark designed for easy recognition. To better understand the place of the logo in organizational branding we should glimpse over history. The use of logos goes back to the early days of the Renaissance, around the 13th Century. Goldsmiths, masons, paper makers, and potters, were among the first trades people to use symbols - pressings into gold, chiseled symbols, watermarks on paper, and simple thumbprints on pottery. Trademarks are still used for the same reason; they were established centuries ago to recognize a particular product for recognizing a particular product. These “marks” made it easier to differentiate a quality product from the ones that were not well made. The value of the craftsmanship represented in gold, paper, stonework, pottery, etc., could be expressed through the special, distinctive mark on the product. It’s still helpful to think of a logo in those terms: your logo is your symbol-your mark-of guaranteed authenticity. A simple swoosh on a pair of athletic shoes transforms those modest sneakers into desirable, quality footwear with an unspoken guarantee of “authentic athletic performance.”

Logos are still the front door to products and services today. Uniqueness is key to the success of the identity of a business. This is of utmost importance to avoid confusion in the market place. The popularity of a logo increases through the consistency of its presentation.

A good logo provides a recognizable image portraying the quality and professionalism of a business. A professionally designed corporate logo will allow you to create your brand and effectively market your product or service. Your logo should be simple and readable. The viewer should “get it” immediately and be able to get a “sneak peek” into your brand through the mark itself. The challenge then, is to create a unique without being boring or institutional. Your logo should convey a sense of emotion and personality. Think of it as the layers of an onion. As you peel each layer-the typography, the symbols, the shapes and textures, and color palette-you learn more and more about the brand, rather more about the company behind the logo. Your logo should express the appropriate tone and voice articulated in your brand strategy. Since brand consistency ensures that consumers will easily recognize the products, branding is especially important to small and growing businesses.

Your logo should look different than other logos-especially those who share your same market space or prospect base. Having a “me too” logo designs, will weaken your organization’s uniqueness and the differentiation you tried so hard to establish in developing your brand essence. It is always advisable to approach professional branding or designing companies who have professional experience in conceptualizing your company logo and shaping them to reality.

Jennifer is an expert Internet marketing professional with years of experience in various industries such as: Business, Finance, Logo designs, Real Estate, Web-Design, Health & Medicine and many more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Salerno

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By: Jo Han Mok

Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Macromedia compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here’s a simple breakdown.

The Good:

Interactivity

Flash’s Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.

A standardized site

With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.

Better expression through animation

In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real “movie files” that are raster based and hence much larger in size.

The Bad and the Ugly:

The Flash player

People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You’ll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn’t have the player installed.

Site optimization

If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn’t be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.

Loading time

Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.

The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.

Article Source: http://www.articlestoreprint.com

Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code. He shares his amazing blueprint for creating million dollar internet businesses at: www.InternetMillionaireBlueprints.com

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by: Lynne Saarte

Whether you use them as reply cards, notices, announcements, newsletters, or even greeting cards, your color postcards have many benefits compared to other marketing collaterals.

As a matter of fact, your postcard is more than just a small piece of paper. It is a strong little piece of print marketing material that gets your message to your target clients without having to spend so much on postcard printing and even mailing.

With your postcard design and message already there in plain sight, your target clients are more than likely to read them. No more envelopes to open before they could even get a glimpse of your first sentence. What’s more, your color postcards are more convenient to fill out and return than any other need-response forms.

Postcard printing have been very valuable in more ways than I can count. In many aspects, custom postcard designs can be used to complement other promotional materials such as newsletters, magazines and other published periodicals. They can also be made to support order sheets and subscription forms for any type of merchandise.

Postcards can even be made to become newsletters themselves with articles and features that could really entertain your target clients. They can also enhance and emphasize your call-to-action in your surveys, notices and announcements.

To optimize your results from these marketing postcards, here are some of the techniques that can be applied to your print postcards:

Provide a prepaid return postage. Make it easy for your readers to respond to your call-to-action. If you need them to fill up and return your form, then pay for the postage yourself.

Pre-addressed card or envelope. And don’t make your audience look for your address. If you can provide a prepaid return postage, you definitely can also include a return pre-addressed return card or an envelope, if you happen to have one.

Colored paper. Instead of paying for a more expensive full color postcard, cut costs by using colored paper. They usually attract attention, more than the usual white paper.

Quick-fill order forms. Not only should you have plenty of room to fill in the necessary information from your target clients (e.g. name, address, phone number, etc.), your color postcards should also have easy-to-answer forms or surveys. You can always use tick-boxes for filling out the forms.

FREE. People are generally attracted to anything they can acquire for free. If you want your readers to return your custom postcards immediately, include free gifts or prizes that they can have in exchange.

Consistency. Whatever marketing campaign or message you have in your print postcards. Be sure to repeat them in the rest of your marketing collaterals. Consistency is the key to get your readers to remember you.

The last time I looked, my custom postcards were able to have the results I wanted. I hope your color postcards would be as successful.

About The Author

Lynne Saarte

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: http://www.printplace.com/printing/postcard-printing.aspx, http://www.printplace.com/printing/full-color-postcard-printing.aspx

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by: Len Hutton

Are you interested in using email marketing to enhance the traffic and sales of your website? It can be a confusing process if you don’t know where to start. You will need to establish your goals before you send the first email. What are you hoping to accomplish? Make sure these goals are clear and realistic. This will help you measure the success of the email marketing campaign. This is a great way to learn what works and what doesn’t for future email marketing campaigns. While your particular goals will vary, some common ones include increasing
sales, getting more traffic to the website; improve awareness about your company and what products or services you offer, and building a solid relationship with your customers.

As you start measuring the success of your email marketing campaign, make sure you are comparing the data only against your own information not that of the industry. For example did your sales increase by 10% and traffic to your site increase by 25% after your email marketing campaign rather than discovering the
rate that sales and traffic increased for the entire industry you are in.

Don’t be discouraged if your first email marketing campaign doesn’t do as well as you hoped, especially if you are a new business. It takes time to build trust with consumers. Make sure you use your original email address when you send out the emails. This will help it get past the spam filters.

Make sure you take the time to update your email listings. Remove any requests to opt out quickly and efficiently to respect the consumer’s privacy. You will be wasting your time to email to incorrect addresses or those who don’t want your materials. Never change the first part of a person’s email address even if the mail is undeliverable. However it is a good idea to look for misspellings in the email service provider name such as Yahoo being Yaho or Hotmail being Hotmall.

Some businesses like to use an email marketing template. Don’t get too comfortable with a successful marketing campaign though! This is because customers become bored easily with the same format. You need to keep their interest by mixing things up a bit in future email marketing campaigns. Opt in email marketing
software collects email addresses from your website. This is a great method that is simple for getting you a data base started. As your data base grows you can choose to send your future email marketing campaigns to everyone on the list or just a select target group based on their purchasing history.

You will need to design your email marketing campaign very well. It needs to be attractive to hold the attention of the consumer long enough for them to decide it is worth reading. You don’t want your efforts to be mistaken for common spam or junk mail right? Make sure all the content is spelled correctly. Keep the
text short and to the point. Readers who open your email may choose to delete it or save it to read later if it looks too lengthy. You want them to open it, be captivated, and read it. The first sentences need to identify your company and what you are offering. Place the important information first. Then reader is likely to keep reading. Give them a sense of urgency for responding by clearing stating the day the promotional offers expire.

Email marketing is an effective tool if you take the time to use it properly. It is anticipated to be the most used method of advertising on the internet by 2008. While this means you will have lots of opportunity to market your business, it also means there is going to be a great deal of competition trying to get consumers to look at their business. You will have to be creative and work hard to develop effective email marketing campaigns that are attractive, informative, and encourage the consumer to take action.

Len Hutton is an information publisher specialising in helping people start their own home based business. You can read up on how to create your own info products in one day without writing a single word by going to http://www.nicheresidualincomes.com/
How To Turn Other Peoples Hard Work Into A Part Time And Instant Internet Business
http://www.nicheresidualincomes.com/underground.htm

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Sounds crazy right? Well, maybe not so much…

There are a couple schools of thought when it comes to advertising. One of the more common methods is the “shotgun approach,” in which advertisers place their messages across as many media outlets as their budget will allow, usually without concern for things such as brand protection, ad effectiveness or consistency among current ads. The hopes with this approach are that they will have enough coverage to eventually hit the right type of client. While this may work, unfortunately it doesn’t guarantee we’ll attract who we want in the numbers that we need, nor is it cost-effective.

There is a better approach. With a little more planning, advertising dollars can be spent much more effectively across each media outlet and reach more of the type of client your business is dying to attract. This is known as targeted marketing.

Targeted marketing is a simple, but often overlooked way of advertising. In order to be effective and speak to the right client, first we have to identify who we’re trying to connect with. Each business and organization has their own “perfect” customer. No matter what demographs this may include, these are our big “bears” in the forest of consumers that the company is after. So how do we identify these types of clients?

Think like your bear.

This means we need to understand our perfect clients a little more. Just as the childhood show used to depict, Pooh was always willing to do anything for that pot of honey. In similar fashion, we need to determine what is important to our perfect client? What are their biggest motivators? What needs to be done in order to ensure they take action with us?

Sound like honey.

The next step, of course, is to put your message in front of your prospects. It does no good to have the world’s largest pot of honey placed out of pawing distance to your bear. Thinking like your potential clients though, will also help make more effective decisions when it comes to where you should be advertising.

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