The Create Design Studio Newsletter | November 2009

Developing your brand is about creating a relationship with your customers based on their perception of your organisation. Start not with what you sell but those who will buy it and find the appealing values that your organisation shares with them to give your organisation a personality they can relate to.

Successful branding helps to make sales easier because trust has been created between customer and organisation. Creating this kind of successful brand doesn’t happen overnight but it can be supported by making your organisation accessible to customers on the web.

A blog is a type of online diary, often used by businesses to publish articles about issues and events relevant to their industry that will be of interest to their customers and their peers. It can be hosted separately from your main website or the free blogging software can be installed on your web-server to integrate your website and your blog. Some smaller companies or freelance workers only have a blog as the software is versatile and can be used in a similar way to a traditional website with pages for services, products and contact information. You can update your blog as often as you like and as soon as you hit the ‘Publish’ button your articles are live on the web and can be indexed by search engines.

Blog-posts can be effectively promoted through the use of the social networking site Twitter where users write their current status in messages of 140 characters or less. These messages can contain hyperlinks that direct readers to your blog post, your website or to any other online resource you want to promote.

Your Twitter status can also be linked so it updates your Facebook status and your status on the Ecademy business networking site, meaning you only have to write updates once and all the people who ‘follow’ you will be informed. If you are trying to spread the word out about a new product or service it is obvious that linking your updates this way could provide an effective and low-cost way to promote them online.

These websites can also prove useful in other ways. By posting questions to those in your network others can respond quickly with personal recommendations and links to information resources. Additionally, social networking can enable you to keep in touch with friends and business contacts you may not often be able to meet up with in-person due to geography or lack of time.

Social networking has received coverage in the mainstream media and on the BBC news website an article by Claire Prentice  explains how small firms are harnessing social networking for their marketing. As many small firms cannot afford to spend large sums on advertising they have turned to the social networking websites to reach a global audience with a minimal cost. Promoting special offers, new services and even to fill cancelled appointments at the last minute, updates on Twitter or Facebook build trust between customers and your organisation because they know the information comes from the source.

Social networking sites invite your customers to enter into dialogue with your company and the feedback you receive can be used to improve your services. However, your organisation also becomes open to criticism. Approach criticism as a chance to improve your service and potentially win back a customers and even this aspect of social networking for business use can have a positive outcome.

Are you a newcomer to social networking online? Here’s some tips on how to begin:

Online social networking site http://twitter.com, uses short messages to help you stay in touch with other twitter users and http://www.facebook.com is a full social networking site that allows you to upload photos, update your status and instant message other friends online at the same time as you.

Business networking sites include http://www.ecademy.com which is a large site with users from all over the world with clubs and regional networking groups you can join. You may also like to look at http://www.linkedin.com for opportunities to network with other professionals.

If you’d like to start your own blog visit: http://wordpress.com or https://www.blogger.com. Try reading a few blogs to see the breadth of writing that exists on the web. You can search Google for blogs or you can visit a blog search engines like http://technorati.com which has a list of 100 top blogs to browse. Also try http://mashable.com for blogs about the world of social media online and a series of articles on ‘How to’ that should help you if you are struggling to use any of the sites mentioned in this article.

Create Design Studio have a dedicated service for those of you who would like to start your own blog but don’t know where to begin. Setting up blogs on your existing website, designing the pages, showing you how to login and write articles as well as using Google Analytics to see how well your blog is doing. Call Create Design Studio’s Managing Director David Woodroofe on 01962 737989 if you would like to discuss having your own blog. To see an integrated blog visit: www.createdesignstudio.co.uk/blog.

If you decide to take the plunge why not look up Charlotte Lamb, Creative Director at Create Design Studio, on Twitter by searching for @charlotte_lamb to read Charlotte’s Tweets on Graphic design.

We are active networkers at Create Design Studio and 80% of our new business comes from our networking both on and off line. We have developed a rich seam of contacts that continually turn up opportunities for us.

David Woodroofe can be found most Friday mornings at BRX Hart, and on Wednesday mornings at Alton 4 Business.

Charlotte Lamb is a member of Andover MBG who meet the third Tuesday of each month at 7.30am, and writes for the MBG blog. Charlotte can also be found on Twitter.

Some of the Peer Group Learning seminars from Business Link we attend are really useful ways to pick up information and informally network with other business-people.

We have set up our own Facebook page this week (search for Create Design Studio) so expect updates from us on there soon.

Lately we have been advising on and designing e-commerce websites. It appears that shopping on the web is now firmly established and more companies are finding their website is an effective way not just to provide information on their products but to sell them.

Handles 4 Homes Website

Handles 4 Homes is a company that specialises in all kinds of door furniture and sell successfully over the internet using their full e-commerce website. We designed their site so that they can update it themselves when they receive new products or want to add special offers and promotions, so it’s a flexible tool for them to promote and sell their products.

If you want to sell using your website first consider your products and how best to organise them in product categories so customers can find what they are looking for. The menu system you put in place is vital to help customers find exactly what they want. Once they have found the product they want to buy you need to consider a system to allow payment. Also remember that you have to deliver their purchase and detail on your website how much delivery costs, this is vital information for your customers.

Selling online could help your business to reach new customers, if you already have a website it could do more than just provide information and contact details. Updating your products, adding promotions and special offers all help to keep customers coming back for more. Because your website is available all day and night to anyone in any part of the world, and increasingly on mobile devices, there is great potential for driving sales through your website.

Create Design Studio can help you to build an online shop and advise on all aspects of selling online, from processing payments to marketing using email newsletters. Call Create Design Studio and talk to David or Charlotte on 01962 737989.

Low tech and low cost does not necessarily mean low effectiveness when you are marketing your company. Postcards can be a good way to build your brand by combining image and text to present your company to potential customers and convey information about your services, location and contact details.

The postcard below was designed for a new company specialising in massage. The photo shows happy and healthy people and sets the tone for the information on the card in a positive way. The text and images together help to convey that massage can bring health benefits to anyone and this builds upon the company’s philosophy.

Well... Postcard

Even as a budget-concious start-up you can have geat photography on your marketing materials by using a photo library, the image cost less than £40 for a large version used on a pull-up banner and was used on all the marketing pieces produced. Once bought you can use the image on your website too.

You might hand out cards at events, leave them in dispensers, do a letterbox drop or post them out to contacts. By leaving a small blank space on each card you can also label or code them in batches to see what distribution method produces the best sales results.

Tonicity Group Publicity Postcard

A postcard also give you the opportunity to receive information back from your customers. Add boxes for customers to complete and you can find out how effective your marketing activities are as well as keep in touch with those who return the completed cards.

Create Design Studio have lots of online and offline marketing ideas, for businesses of all sizes. Call Create Design Studio and speak to David or Charlotte on 01962 737989.

Our latest website for Venta UK: a local company who specialise in sales of safety lighting and equipment for all types of vehicle, but especially for the emergency services. This showcase of the wide range of products available from the company needed to be flexible enough to allow them to include detailed product information and photographs as well as information on their bespoke services.

Venta UK Website

The website needed to reflect the professional nature of the company and subtle enough to allow their product photos to take centre stage. Helping customers to find what they are searching for easily was addressed in their comprehensive system of menus.

To visit the Venta UK website please click here.

Create Design Studio are specialists in all aspects of new media marketing for small to medium sized businesses. If you would like to talk about your website please call us on 01962 737989 and speak to David or Charlotte.

When we were asked to produce a logo, website and stationery for the new Tonicity Clinic in London we jumped at the chance to create a complete set of branded elements.

Tonicity provide health and beauty treatments for women. They wanted their branding to reflect their customers age range and style and to be welcoming in tone.

Along with the website Tonicity needed business-cards and headed paper to allow them to begin spreading the word about the clinic.

Leaflets and flyers were also produced for them to use at exhibitions and conferences.

 To visit the Tonicity Group website please click here.