Building your brand into a brand leader isn’t easy. There are 2 areas that can really help you grow your brand, passion and consistency. Passion is incredibly important. You have to understand that even if you are a start up or a one-man operation, or are well on your way, you are still a brand. You have to care passionately about the way your brand is nurtured, developed and presented to your target audience. Everything that leaves your building, every impression that your staff and your company make, is lasting. Take advantage of this opportunity to get your customers and potential customers to remember you in the way that you want them too!

Passion is something that you have to feel deep down inside; you have to be driven by the belief that your brand should be the #1 in its category. I can’t give you the passion, but I will ask you to think about this! For example, one of the greatest investors of all time is Warren Buffet. Mr. Buffet invests only in brands, or products that he really understands. He once wrote in one of his annual reports “A brand is like a moat around your business”. This point is significant! A brand can protect you against competitive attacks, it can protect you from market fluctuations, it can protect you from having to get into a price war, and it can protect your premium price positioning. When all things are equal, consumers will usually buy the brand leader!

Consistency is probably the easiest part of the marketing communications to control, but frankly most companies fail in this area. What you should do is ensure that everything that comes out of your company looks like it should. Every piece of communication should be part of a “look” that you have agreed on. I really do not care what it is; it should always look like it’s part of a family, part of an ongoing series of communications. There should be no difference. If it’s a letter, they should all look the same. No different typefaces, different margins etc. This is an area that should not be a request in your company; it should be a mandate.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Ask your self this question, In which business are we really in? And stay far from the dark world of commodities…

I am astonished!!! I just witness how in three days a clan of marketers – brand managers, advertisers, researchers - drove a brand into the huge world of commodities, these people approach the brand building process as a conjunction of ideas- do not matter if the ideas were good or bad- and were clearly afraid to innovate and challenge the rules of their game.

If you are planning to maintain your brand as far as you can from the dark world of commodities, why not innovate by reconsider the category in which you compete and create your own rules.

As Theodor Levits from Harvard business school once exemplified it: “The once- powerful railroads were blindsided first by automobiles and then by airlines. This happens because railroad companies define them selves too narrowly as being in the railroad business rather than the transportation business.”

But redefining your industry does not mean hiring a new ad agency to think a fancy new slogan ad and spend millions of dollars communicating it.. To make it work, you have to approach your brand building process strategically and communicate it each day in every interaction with your consumer, offering high-quality products and services that your customers rally want and that will reinforce the values offered by your brand and expand the emotional connections your customers fell with it.

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple with the mission of bringing back the brand from the darkness the first thing he did was redefine his business. “What Apple is about, is not making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that very well. Apple is about more than that. What Apple is about, its core value is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better. That is what we believe.” Excerpt form Steve Jobs’ speech to software developers

That day Apple created its own game, and became something more, since then Apple has launched products like the i-Mac and G4, and most recently has become the center of the digital music world with the iPod and i-Tunes store.

James Dyson invented his own game when he created the Dyson vacuum cleaner, a vacuum with a unique shape and a clear collector bin, so you can watch the dirt cycloning around. He made fun the vacuum cleaning experience.

If you speak to Richard Branson he would tell you that his business is to create FUNKY business, I wonder who competes with Virgin in this business

Yes, you can think this could be risky if you already are by far the #1 in your industry, but Howard Shultz is trying to transform Starbucks into the largest digital music retailer in the world, he most be crazy.

But maybe brand building is about being rationally crazy.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Building a product into a brand leader is not easy, but I truly believe that you can improve your branding impression if you follow these 2 rules; Passion & Consistency as well as the 4P’s of Branding that I have developed, PRODUCT – PLACEMENT – PROMOTION – PEOPLE. These 4 P’s will enable you to check the way your brand is interpreted. Each of these very distinct headings has an impact on your brand, and the brand in turn will affect each of these areas. For those of you who have gone through Marketing 101, you will see that the only difference between the 4P’s of Marketing and my 4P’s of Branding, are People, and people affect the brand more than any other area.

Product

Imagine this scenario, it’s lunchtime, you have decided, after working in your office all morning, that you would like to have an orange for dessert. You drive to the local supermarket, go to the fruit department, and find that there are only 2 oranges left, they both look the same until you pick them up. That’s when you notice that one of them has Sunkist stamped on it. Which one will you buy? Well if you are like 99.999% of the country, you will by the Sunkist orange. Why? Because over the years, Sunkist has promised you an orange that not only looks good, tastes good, but is also good value for money. Now comes the kicker, you see, there is very good chance that you would probably still buy the Sunkist brand, even if you had to pay a penny or so more for it. That is what building a brand leader is all about. At the moment of truth, if all things are equal then there is a good chance that the “brand” will be the purchase choice, and even command a premium price for the product.

Placement

Next is Placement. In my brand concept overview I have listed Distribution, Location, Stores, Transportation and Plant. Now these are generic headings, and you may well be able to add more that are pertinent to your specific industry. I want you to imagine that all of these areas are like a full-page advertisement for your company. They should all have the communications message that is consistent with the rest of the campaign approach you are now working on. I know that this is somewhat unusual, but every single piece of communication affects the end user or consumer in some way shape or form. You see it really is the logo on the truck, but it’s also the logo on the driver’s shirt, the cleanliness of the truck and the way in which the delivery person interacts with the customer. They should act the way you want them to, the way you want your brand to be enacted. This should all be scripted, leaving nothing to chance or choice! They are your brand image.

Promotion

Promotion is the area that we think of most when discussing brand and brand impression. Promotion covers the vast area of communication. From the very essence of the brand to it’s image, Advertising, Sales Promotion, Direct Mail, Internet advertising, Public Relations, Marketing, Sales Force, and Point of Sale. There are so many different elements, that it would take a whole series of articles to even get started. However, I would strongly recommend that you remember what I said at the beginning, “Consistency” should be pervasive throughout all of the components. Sometimes you don’t have to have a great design as long as you are consistent with the creative and the message.

People

As I mentioned earlier, People are the one area that makes my 4P’s of Branding different from the 4P’s of Marketing. People are involved in every step of the production of your product or service, and people are the Brand. Your employees, Dealers or Distributors, End Users, Vendors, Friends and honestly the Rest of the World. Every employee represents the brand, the people in the Accounting Department, Shipping, Research, Legal, Shop Floor, Marketing, and on throughout the company. It’s not just the Sales Department! Think about this - your accounting department calls someone in your clients accounting department on a regular basis. Maybe it’s to chase money, to clear up a billed consignment that perhaps got lost. But this is also a chance for your accounting person to get a little closer and find out how your company is doing with them, the customer. This is a great opportunity to get inside information.

How are we doing? Why do you think our competition is getting the lion share of the business? How can we do a better job for your company? And many other questions that you would like answered, I would go so far as to try to get these two people together, give them the opportunity to get closer, go out to lunch on you. It will pay back dividends in the long run.

There are many more opportunities to make your brand grow, make sure you follow the golden rules, passion, consistency of message and multiple quality impressions, and your brand will be on it’s way to becoming a brand leader.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Measuring brand equity allows a company to establish a baseline and track changes in its brand equity over time. If a company consistently works to improve the strength of its brands, it must trace progress, or risk "flying blind." Changes in a quantitative measurement of brand equity can show the company the effects of its work, and greatly aid in setting marketing and management priorities in the next business planning cycle.

Once a brand equity measurement system is established, a company can better understand and therefore determine if equity in a given brand can be leveraged or transferred to an entirely new product or service category. Thus, a firm can increase the return from the investment in building a particular brand over time by extending that brand’s equity into new categories.

A company may want to measure its brand equity to aid in assigning a monetary value to a brand. Wall Street measures the strength of a brand by looking primarily at current and historical financial measures, with minimal use of information directly from the "voice of the marketplace" (i.e., current and prospective customers). While historical financial performance is important in understanding brand strength, it does not tell the whole story, especially in terms of what the future might hold for the brand. This potential deficiency derives from the choices made in defining brand equity.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Branding is more than product recognition or a simple logo. It is the overall intellectual and emotional impression people have when they think of your company and its product. It is a strong and consistent message about the value of your business.

A memorable and trustworthy brand reinforces customer loyalty. It helps them remember that your business provides the perfect solution to their problems. Therefore, to succeed in branding you must understand your customers’ needs and issues.

Brand building is an ongoing business strategy that has an easy-to-measure cost in time, money, and effort. Its value, on the other hand, is harder to establish because it involves measuring emotional associations that may not immediately translate into revenue. Branding is an essential element of success, however, and it should be reinforced during times when business is booming and when sales are slower. You want customers and potential customers to maintain a positive association with your company and its services.

You control the messages you send out through marketing, advertising, customer service, and your Internet presence. Branding is a combination of everything your company uses to present itself. Here are a few key elements to analyze and enhance in your branding strategy:

1. Professionally designed marketing materials (logo, stationery, ads, and the like): These tell customers your company is strong, confident, and credible. Your marketing materials should reinforce your company’s image and positioning over and over and over.

2. Consistency in advertising: Develop a tagline to succinctly describe your company - and use it! Develop a campaign that can provide different messages, but it recognizable as your brand.

3. Excellent customer service - always! Make sure your entire staff positively represents your business image.

4. A strong and professional website: It must be easy for viewers to navigate and understand. It should let visitors know what your company does and why they should care. Provide compelling, easy-to-understand, and interesting content. Make it easy for visitors to make purchases.

5. Differentiate your brand: Make sure your customers and potential customers understand why you are different from the competition. You want to establish a superior benefit with you target audience that encourages long-term loyalty.

Branding is not what you say about your company and products; it’s about your customers’ perception of your company and products. To strengthen your brand, make sure you can answer the following questions: What do you do that is different from anyone else? Why do you matter to your customers? If you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have an effective brand.

ACTION ITEM: Take a good look at your company and product/service strengths. Determine your primary strengths and benefits and then make sure your branding strategy (marketing materials, advertising, sales, customer services, logo, etc.) reinforces this. Simple, eh?

Wendy Maynard, your friendly Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a free weekly ezine for entrepreneurs, business owners, and freelancers. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and make more money, sign up for her FREE ezine and marketing report now at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com

Ask any marketing executive and they will tell you that a company’s name is golden. There are certain associations that people have with a name, one that invokes emotions — good or bad. Let’s examine three case studies of branding involving companies that have merged and where the buyer kept the name of the company they bought or are considering purchasing.

In the late 1990s with bank mergers in full swing, United Jersey Bank was faced with a dilemma. Having started to open branches in neighboring states, the "United Jersey" part of their name was beginning to become a hindrance. Bank executives knew that the name would have to be changed in order to continue to grow, while at the same time continuing to avoid being merged out of existence. The solution? The bank purchased a small, local bank based in Summit, NJ named Summit Bank. Once the merger was completed United Jersey Bank was renamed Summit Bank. Unlike the United Jersey name with its New Jersey correlation, few people associated Summit with the town of Summit. Instead, United Jersey Bank capitalized on a very positive name, summit, and started to market themselves as the peak of all banks. The campaign was a success as the name change was well received by consumers.

In 2005, KMart purchased Sears, Roebuck, and Company and the newly joined entity was renamed Sears Holdings. While it is much too early to tell if the decision to keep the Sears name is a success, most people have associated KMart with bankruptcy, run down stores, and as being a poor competitor to WalMart and Target. Sears, on the other hand, has pretty much put their woes behind them after forfeiting the spot as America’s top retailer a generation ago to WalMart, and after laying off 100,000 employees, and closing out their famous catalog business. Branding experts will tell you that both names carry plenty of baggage [the stores will keep the KMart and Sears names too] as some see the merger as only a temporary fix. Thus, the Sears name may not be enough to save the combined retailer.

In the airline industry, several of the legacy carriers will more than likely find themselves out of business over the next few years. United, for instance, could find themselves a takeover target of a regional carrier. Skywest Airlines, which also flies as United Express [by providing regional jet services to United], may see a "buy" opportunity and offer to purchase the venerable, but bankrupt carrier. To "unite" the two companies, Skywest could consider tossing their regional sounding name and take on the reknowned United moniker. The new carrier would then be able to carry on the legacy of a 75 year old name and achieve instant recognition on the world stage while at the same time distancing itself from the problems that beset the original United.

With a wave of mergers and acquisitions anticipated over the next few years, more opportunities to purchase a "golden" name will arise for savvy dealmakers. These dealmakers must call upon the skills of branding experts to take the pulse of consumers’ "feel" for a name. Neglect that or pick the wrong name and you are certain to invite disaster.

Matt runs two very successfully branded aviation sites: the Corporate Flight Attendant Community at http://www.cabinmanagers.com and the Aviation Employment Board at http://www.aviationemploymentboard.com

In the world of advertising there are many forms of media that can be utilized to get an advertisers message to its intended audience. Newspapers, television, radio, Internet and billboards are effective tools in this effort but one form of advertising that is often overlooked is Cinema Advertising.

Most people see cinema advertising as the little slide that is shown right before the movie starts, but it’s much more than that. Cinema advertising does offer slide advertising, but it also offers something that is called rolling stock that is similar to a television commercial. Some theatres offer dynamic digital advertising opportunities in place of slide advertising while others offer advertising opportunities on large LCD screens in the theatre lobbies.

They offer advertisers an opportunity to present their message to a captive and receptive audience in a family oriented environment. Hollywood spends billions of dollars each year promoting their movies and these massive marketing campaigns lure hundreds of millions of people to the movie theatres every year. It’s an audience of brand conscious teens, tweens and young adults with high disposable income and active lifestyles that makes this medium very attractive to a marketer.

Some toy manufacturers and beverage companies are aware of this and have taken full advantage of the opportunity. Other industries have followed suit, as they are starting to adhere to the title of this article, “Brand Young and You Brand for Life”.

Some may call cinema advertising intrusive but they cannot deny the fact that it is highly effective. The recall rate of cinema advertising is upwards of 70% while the recall rate of television sits at approximately 23%, the reason for this is that advertisers have a totally captive and receptive audience. They finally can advertise directly to the elusive teen and tween market in their own environment.

With the Tivo age growing this has forced marketers to become more innovative in their media planning efforts. They not only have included cinema in their media mix but they have also included other forms of advertising such as guerilla marketing, trash can advertising and even beach umbrella advertising.

This is all in an effort to reach the masses, but man does not live by advertising alone. An effective public relations plan should be in place to work hand in hand with any advertising campaign. The goal of the campaign is to get as much attention to your product as possible during the course of the campaign. So an effective public relations plan would only enhance the results, as it will allow the marketer to utilize the media to assist in getting their message out.

Louis Victor is the Executive Vice President of New Age Media Concepts, a Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Firm.

For more information on Cinema Advertising or Public Relations go to www.namct.com.

For media inquiries contact:
Louis Victor
New Age Media Concepts
888-463-9237

Colour is essential to building a strong brand.

Many of you know my passion for wearing red ties. I believe congruency with your personal and corporate brand is essential for professionals in the services-based industries, especially consultants, coaches, speakers and trainers.

A Special Report by Mairi Macleod in the New Scientist Magazine on 18 May 2005 argues red is the colour if winning is your game.

She reports the Washington Redskins, Manchester United and the Welsh rugby team have all been playing with an unfair advantage. Just seeing their red kit is seemingly enough to cow their opponents into submission even before a ball is kicked.

The report highlights how Russell Hill and Robert Barton of Durham University in the UK tracked success in four Olympic sports: boxing, taekwondo, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling.

According to the report, in these sports athletes do not wear national colours, but are randomly assigned either red or blue.

The article journals of 441 bouts, reds won 242 and in all four sports reds triumphed in more contests. And the red advantage was higher in close encounters: 62 per cent of red-garbed competitors won these. But in pushover contests there were similar numbers of red and blue winners.

"If you’re rubbish, a red shirt won’t stop you from losing," Barton says in the article.

The same is true in soccer. Five teams in the Euro 2004 competition who had predominantly red in one of their two kits all did significantly better while wearing red, scoring around one extra goal per game.

Such effects could be due to instinctive behaviour, says Barton. In animal displays red in particular seems to vary with dominance and testosterone levels. Human competitors might experience a testosterone surge while wearing the colour, he says, or feel submissive when facing a scarlet opponent.

Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar from the University of Liverpool speculates that primate eyes may be particularly sensitive to red. "The significance is then a matter of context," he says. Red fruit is good; red competitors are bad.

Performance director of the Great Britain taekwondo team, Gary Hall, says most of his athletes don’t have a strong colour preference. But he says that if red is an advantage the sport should consider changing kits. "We should take out any anomaly like that," Hall told New Scientist.

Source: New Scientist Magazine on 18 May 2005

Colour is essential to both personal and corporate branding.

Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries.

You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com. Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com.

There should only be one, over-riding reason why you’re doing anything in your marketing.

Know what that reason is?

Of course! To increase the response rates of your sales promotions!

Because that leads to…

Making Yourself A Nice Little Boat-Load Of Cash!

Today I’m going to let you in on a little-known secret about how to use "pictures" in your sales promotions, the right way… and the wrong way… so you can start turbo-charging your existing promotions, immediately!

First of all, if you’re using pictures — whether in newspaper or magazine display ads… online… or in sales letters — make sure, no matter what, you’re using real-live photographs and not drawings.

People "bond" better to other people, not to "drawings of other people".

Think of any picture of a little infant you may have seen. You can’t help but smile, right?

The truth is, you wouldn’t have had that same reaction if you were thinking about a "drawing" of an infant now, would you?

Second, if you’re going to be using photographs of your goods or services, show your products or services actually "being used".

See, assuming the people who want your products are reading your ads in the first place… action-shots draw your prospects "into" your sales messages, making your prospects visualize themselves using your product.

For example: Most of the time, when people are selling swimming pools, they show you a beautiful empty pool surrounded by an immaculately clean deck.

But wouldn’t you be a lot more likely to picture yourself drifting lazily on the surface of your pool, with a cool drink in your hand… the sun beating down on you from up above… beads of sweat pouring over your eyebrows and dripping onto the edges of your sunglasses… if you saw a picture of someone doing that exact same thing in that photo of the swimming pool you were looking at?

And don’t you think you’re a lot more inclined to buy a pool if you can actually see yourself in that pool relaxing, right now?

Here, try something: I want you to close your eyes right now and totally immerse your thoughts with nothing else but that picture of yourself relaxing in your pool… without a care in the world.

Your kids are having fun close by (and not fighting with each other for a change)… your partner’s on their way in, wading over to you with a fresh cold icy drink… and there’s not a cloud in the sky.

O.K… Now… Snap out of it!

How did you feel?

Refreshing, right?

So you understand then, you want your prospects visualizing themselves using your products, so they start getting involved with your product in their own minds.

This brings them much closer to buying your products.

Here’s an example of what can happen when you use pictures of your product in use, in your marketing. First, go to this website and look for the picture of the couple using the wine-cabinet, about a third of the way down the page.

I had my client use this exact same photo offline, using this web copy as a long-form sales letter.

Want to know how the sales letter did?

O.K., I’ll tell you: We sent out 40 letters to a cold list, at an average cost of $2.25 for each letter: it was a $1.38 each for the printing, 83 cents for the postage on each letter, and another 4 cents for the envelope.

The first mailing, my client got 10 orders worth $20,970 Dollars, and since your second and third mailings will usually give you at least the same number of orders your first mailing produced… we’re expecting another $21,000 Dollars worth of business from this mailing.

Not bad, hey?

There was one tragic thing, though. The painful part of this was…

He didn’t have 400 names instead of only 40!

So remember:

If you’re going to use pictures, use photographs… and nothing else.

If you’re going to show a photo of your goods and services, show your product or service actually being used.

And lastly, I didn’t tell you this before, but I’m going to tell you now: Always put captions underneath your photos. People tend to look at photos with captions, and then read the caption itself, but many times, photos without captions get ignored.

Why?

It has to do with your early programming from way back in elementary school when you were trained to read using textbooks, and then later on, newspapers.

All the photos always had descriptive captions underneath them, didn’t they?

And think back… what was the first thing you did when you saw a photo with a caption?

Chances are, you looked at the photo and then you read the caption.

Well… just like bakery bread-slicing machines… some things never change.

What’s going to happen is, your prospects will be doing the exact same thing when they’re reading your sales promotions: First they’ll look at your photos, and then they’ll read the captions underneath.

Good pictures always lift your response rates. Start using them the right way, immediately… and you’ll guarantee this.

P.S. Here’s something else I bet you’ll find unusual: Did you know, studies show men actually prefer seeing pictures of men using your product, and women actually prefer seeing pictures of women using your products? Yes, it’s true!

Craig Garber is America’s Top Direct-Response Copywriter. You’ll find hundreds of marketing tips to increase your sales, and his insanely popular FREE Unconventional and Irreverent Daily Direct-Response Marketing Tips, on his website, http://www.KingOfCopy.com

All You Need is Branded Email
Or
Always Branded Email There to Remind Me

For the past 75 years, almost every form of popular communication has transformed from black and white to color. Newspapers, television, and computers are only a few examples. (Well, some computers went from green and white to color…)

That leaves this question: Why hasn’t everyday email communication done the same? Think about it this way – your company probably spends quite a bit of money on building brand image. Billboards, newspaper ads, radio ads, jingles, TV commercials, logo creation, business cards, corporate letterhead, and websites are just a few of the places that corporate marketing dollars might be spent. Why leave out one of the most used (if not the most used) form of communication that you have?

Everybody Wants to Brand Their Email

Branded email can be classy enough for more conservative companies (legal, banks, medical, etc) and showy enough for businesses to highlight products or services that have to have that graphical edge. Most companies can develop a template (or set of templates) that’s geared toward how you want to use them. The ability to choose from more than one template is also a nice feature to have, so you can vary the emails you send based on purpose.

Me and Branded Email Down By the Schoolyard

When you’re considering a branded email system, do your homework. And if the company has a free trial, take it. You don’t want to purchase something and end up hating it. Keep in mind, however, that most companies, however, won’t develop a custom design for you to use during your free trail, so you won’t get the full experience until after your purchase. But while you’re researching, here are some things to look for:

• Spam Filters – See what they say about spam filters. A good system can get past most spam filters (with the exception of extremely strict filters). If you’re testing the system, can you send an email to yourself? (If you test lots of systems and none of them get past your filter, consider getting a better one, or making yours less strict)
• Email size – If the system embeds or attaches the images to the email, stay far, far away from it. You don’t want all of your emails going out at 300-1000k in size. That would be a long download even on a broadband connection. The typical plain text email is 5-10k; your emails shouldn’t go over 100k, and even that is pushing it. – Do note that Outlook, by default, will embed any image in an email when you click send. You have to turn this off through the Tools > Options > Mail Format > Internet Format > HTML Options checkbox (MS Outlook 2002 and 2003)
• Usability – Make sure the product is easy to use. The last thing you want to do is waste precious time trying to use a bad product while sending your email. You should be able to set your account up, and send emails like normal.
• Functionality – If your email contains links to specific pages or areas in your website, you can send traffic directly to your catalog, your affiliate/reseller site, your online video, anywhere you want them to go. This is a much better opportunity than “Hey, go check out my site at www.EmailAppeal.com!” As the old adage goes, on the Internet you’re always 1 click away from losing a customer.
• Dynamic Capabilities – Be sure you can easily change your contact information, picture (if the system allows you to upload one) and any other sensitive information on your template.
• Control – Do you have control over the aspects of the design, or can the user change the design at will? Brand control and consistency is a big deal in any business.
• Security – Does the system require you to send your email through a different server or to a different email address? This is a security risk whether they say so or not, as your emails are all being routed through a third party server. A good system will work without requiring you send your email through a third party.

I Want to Know What Branded Email Is

Branded email can fall into the following categories, each works a little differently than the next:

• Stationary – Microsoft Outlook comes with its own stationary tool, and there are quite a few other stationary companies. Drawbacks – These systems typically provide little or no customizability, no functionality; no usability; can be email size issues

It’s the End of the Article as We Know It… and I Feel Fine

Branding is alive and well in the world today, and its next frontier is email. More and more businesses are switching to an email branding system, and plain text email is slowly losing its grip on business communication. Find a system that fits your business, and start branding today.

Copyright 2005 Jason DeVelvis – www.EmailAppeal.com

About the Author:
Jason is a long time web developer and the owner of Email Appeal, an email marketing company located in Holland, OH. You can contact him by calling 866-665-3887 or by visiting http://www.EmailAppeal.com