Simplicity is key:

Keep your logo design simple and uncluttered. A clean, straightforward design is more memorable and recognizable.

Be unique:

Aim for a logo that sets your business apart from the competition. Avoid using generic or overused symbols or clichés.

Versatility:

Design a logo that works well in various sizes and across different mediums. It should be just as effective on a small business card as it is on a large billboard.

Color psychology:

Carefully select colors that align with your brand’s personality and resonate with your target audience. Ensure your logo remains effective and understandable in both color and black and white.

Typography:

If your logo includes text, choose a font that complements your brand’s message. Ensure it’s legible and not overly complex. Custom typography can add a unique touch.

Scalability:

Test your logo’s scalability to make sure it remains clear and recognizable when resized. It should retain its impact, whether it’s small or large.

Timelessness:

Avoid chasing design trends. A timeless logo will serve your brand well for years to come. Steer clear of overly trendy elements that may quickly become outdated.

Meaningful Symbolism:

Incorporate symbolism that relates to your business’s mission, values, or products. These subtle elements can add depth and meaning to your logo.

Geometric Balance:

Use basic geometric shapes and symmetry to create a balanced and visually appealing logo. Symmetry often appears more pleasing to the eye.

Negative Space:

Explore the use of negative space cleverly in your design. Hidden or dual meanings within the negative space can make your logo more intriguing. Think about the famous arrow hidden within the FedEx logo!

Consistency:

Ensure that your logo aligns with your overall brand identity. Consistency across all branding materials reinforces your brand message.

Test on Various Backgrounds:

Ensure your logo looks good on different colored backgrounds. It should remain visible and effective in various contexts and textures.

Professionalism:

If you lack design skills, consider hiring a professional logo designer. Their expertise can elevate your logo to a higher level.

By focusing on these design tips, you can create a logo that not only represents your business effectively but also leaves a lasting impression on your target audience. Remember that a well-designed logo is an investment in your brand’s success, and it could represent you for years to come!

–

Written by Jack Vale in partnership with Arena Prints screen burning services. 

The post Design Tips for Business Logos appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

When two of your favorite brands collaborate to create a limited-time product, the joy you feel as a consumer is often unmatched. This relatively simple marketing tactic can help boost a brand’s revenue at up to 25x less cost than digital marketing methods.

Examples of brand collaboration

Still not too sure what we mean by ‘brand collaboration’? It can be tough to think of examples, but there are some brand collaborations that have been going on for such a long time that it doesn’t feel like a collaboration:

• McDonald’s & Marvel/Pokemon/Doraemon and many other movie franchises. The fast food giant frequently partners with these companies to produce toys to go inside their meals for children. 
• Supreme and Louis Vuitton. This is a great example of two very different brands collaborating to expand their respective audiences. Both are fashion brands, but Louis Vuitton traditionally appeals to a more mature audience, whereas Supreme is favored by younger people. When they worked together to produce bags, both customer groups were excited to try them.
• Balenciaga and Crocs famously collaborated back in 2021, when they released ‘Balenciaga Stiletto Crocs’. Of course, these shoes weren’t designed with sales in mind, but rather increasing publicity for both brands. Since becoming an internet meme, both Balenciaga and Crocs will have benefitted from the extra coverage.

So, why do brands collaborate?

As can be seen in the few examples given above, there are two main reasons a brand would consider teaming up with another brand to produce a product, content, or other marketing materials:

1. The brands want to create new content for their own audience, so partner up with other brands to spice up their offering.
2. The brands occupy relatively similar domains, so they work together to produce something which will capture the imagination of each other’s audience, therefore growing their own.

These reasons can be broken down further into smaller reasons, which could also be key drivers for brands to collaborate:

• Brands might want to dramatically boost their following on social media, which could be achieved through increased exposure to collaboration.
• Create new opportunities for customer feedback. A collaboration is sure to get a brand hearing from its customer base!
• Similarly, an inspiring collaboration could promote more user-generated content like forum posts, reviews, or even memes.

–

Jack Vale is a writer in partnership with Tablebases.com, leading supplier of table bases for business and homes.

The post Why Do Brands Collaborate? appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

In short, video is an excellent modality for effective branding.

But it isn’t just about providing a video — it’s about providing video content that is clearly and identifiably branded. And the best way to brand something? By using your logo.

Let’s get into the specifics of the most effective ways to include your logo in a branded video.

Add Your Logo In Your Intro

Video credit: Dribble

There are plenty of suggestions, tutorials, and opinions on the most important content to include in your video intro. But for branding purposes, your logo should definitely be involved. If you haven’t gotten one yet, try and get one from a logo creator software like DesignMantic. 

However, it’s not really enough just to highlight your logo on the screen at the beginning of the video content. You want your logo to have an impact, and you can help it along by including a music sting, sound effect, animation, or brief clip to add weight to your great logo design.

Research suggests that the first ten seconds of a video is all-important when it comes to capturing interest and inducing engagement. After that, the likelihood of sustained engagement falls off sharply.

So make sure that your intro, with your logo, is included within that first ten seconds. 

Branding your video with your logo isn’t just about reminding them of the name of your company — it’s about giving them a taste of your brand personality. If you can include your logo in an intro that involves a thought-provoking question or something funny, it will connect the two in the mind of the viewer, giving them a reaction of, “Oh, I recognize that logo — I like this brand, because it’s interesting.”

And Don’t Forget About The Outro

Intros and outros are often used as a group for video marketing purposes, because they are both integral to video branding. But your bumpers don’t have to match up completely.

It’s a good idea to avoid simply repeating your intro as an outro. That’s a good way to make sure your audience clicks out of the video before they get to the end.

You do, however, want your outro to match your branding stylistically. So you can certainly use your logo once more in your outro content. Just mix up the accompanying content around it.

Product (And Brand) Placement

Paid product placement is a big deal in movies and TV, with companies spending millions of dollars to have their products represented in the media. 

Since you’re creating your own content, it’s the perfect spot to include your own products — and you don’t even have to create an extra placement budget. Along with the products themselves, you can insert the brand logo.

How you do this will vary depending on the type of content you’re creating, but here are a few examples:

• In creating a tutorial, make sure to use products that your brand makes, and show the products themselves, complete with logo. Take a look at the example of the tutorial below. This makeup tutorial by L’Oréal  prominently features their products such as the micellar water and mascara. Viewers can get a clear view of the company’s brand identity design on their screens. 

• In creating an informational video, cite expert advice backed by your own brand. You can include a link to your website and make it a clickable version of your logo.
• In creating a testimonial, make sure that the product or brand is mentioned by name and include the logo on-screen when the name is spoken. In this video, HP created a testimonial video for their Indigo Digital Presses and it showcases their logo in the bottom corner throughout the duration. So while the product is mentioned by real customers using it for their businesses, the company also incorporates its icon which can be seen until the very end.

• In facilitating customer-created content, ask them to pose next to or display the branded product.

Add In A Watermark

Watermarks are excellent identifiers, and you can add one into your video to make sure that everyone knows where the content originally came from. 

If you think about it, there’s really not that much of a difference between a logo and a watermark and the two can work interchangeably as well. With a watermark, you are basically using a simpler or monochrome version of your brand symbol to mark ownership of digital content such as videos or images. Most of the time these are included with opacity to the max so that they don’t interfere with the video content or cover part of the screen. A logo on the other hand, like the above examples you’ve seen, are pretty much visible and have a dominant role in video branding, like this tutorial. 

Sometimes, you could use a watermark or a logo to help people become familiar with it and increase brand awareness. Consider the example given above to get a better idea. 

The image above is actually from a tutorial by Tronix which I captured to show the difference. You can see it being used as a watermark in the side of the video below which tells the viewer that it is unique content created by the brand. As it shouldn’t be distracting or overpowering, the symbol is lighter in color. 

There are plenty of free (and paid, of course) software programs out there that allow you to insert a watermark into every frame of your video, or just into certain sections. Software programs like InShot and Kapwing are free and easy to use. Just upload your logo and/or other text content.

Logo Bug

A logo bug is similar to a watermark, though it is usually placed in the video in a way that won’t interfere with the actual video content, such as in the lower corner away from the main action. In the example here, Callaway Golf has incorporated their logo bug within the tutorial video about their golf clubs. 

Logo bugs also serve as a continual placement of your logo, providing a constant reminder of the brand behind the video. 

You can choose to use your full logo, if it shows up well against video backgrounds. Alternatively, this might be a good time to create another version of your logo design to adapt it into a simple, stripped-down iteration.

Be Careful About Placement

Many videos that are branded with a logo place it in the lower right hand corner. This is very typical practice, unlike websites, which typically place the logo in the upper left, interestingly enough.

However, there should be caution used here. It’s good practice to provide closed captioning for your content— not only is that more inclusive for the hard of hearing, but viewers are often watching short videos on lunch breaks, at work, at school — places where they don’t really want the video to be loud or even heard at all. Around 50% of consumers say that captions are important because they watch content with the sound off.

Image: Wave.video

But captioning tends to run along the lower third of the screen, and may extend almost to the corners. So extensive captioning could actually obscure your logo if you’ve chosen that placement.

Consider other placements, such as the upper right hand side. Or you could go the website-design route and place it in the upper left.

Using Your Logo In Video Branding

If you’re getting ready to unleash some video content, congratulations! A branded video is one of the most effective ways of advertising your company, garnering shares and likes, and attracting new customers or viewers.

Video content is always a good idea, and the scope of creativity for videos is practically endless. No matter what company you run or brand you represent, video has a place in your branding process.

Remember that it’s more than just where, when, and how you place your logo throughout your video content — it’s also a matter of the quality of the video itself.

After all, a great logo isn’t going to help your brand if the video content surrounding it is irrelevant. 

The best plan is to think about content first and usage of the logo later. Focus your skills and energies on creating a great video that provides value to the viewer, whether for educational, informational, or entertainment purposes.

Once you have the framework of a great video, then you can fit your logo in using one or more of the ideas we’ve listed above.

The post How to Use Your Video for Branding with a Logo appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

Understand Your Data

Keeping data safe first requires every organization to understand the data they have in their possession and then forecast what the damage would be to customers if this information fell into the wrong hands. Once you know the type of data that’s in your possession, the next step is to figure out who inside your organization has access and manage internal permissions appropriately. This type of internal discovery can help data security leaders craft risk assessment models and conduct data penetration testing that will help companies mitigate risks. Businesses should also be careful to only collect/store customer data that is needed.

Keep Your Employee-Customer Communication Methods Secure

Keeping customers updated on your policies and being transparent about what type of data is collected and how it’s stored will provide them with the assurance they need to allow your company to handle their data in a secure manner. Using safe communication tools such as encrypted online faxing and two-factor authentication can go a long way toward establishing consumer trust.

Create Data Breach Processes

Guarding data is not only about making sure that firewalls secure your data perimeter. An onion model made up of layers of monitoring and management is the best way to safeguard against risk. If your data is breached, it’s critical that a crisis communications plan is already in place and can be acted upon quickly. This will help to prevent customer attrition, negative press, and even future legalities if parties are notified as soon as possible. The onion model also helps in locating breaches faster because of the more widespread monitoring that is implemented system-wide.

Make Security a Priority

Training teams to successfully protect customer data is a powerful standard against information theft and helps to protect businesses from liability. It’s critical that all team members know how to respond to incidents and how data leaks can occur unintentionally. Knowledge is power when it comes to learning how to protect hardware (laptops, USB drives, files, servers, smartphones) and make sure that physical spaces that house data are secure. On the digital side, knowing how to identify phishing scams and other digital vulnerabilities will help to keep the entire company and its customers safe.

Americans Feel That Their Data is Vulnerable

The Pew Research Center has collected data regarding how Americans, in particular, are feeling that they are losing control of their personal data. About half of all Americans feel that they have no control over entities accessing their online search information, and the majority of Americans think that they have no control over their data being collected by companies. In the future, companies will have to work harder to demonstrate that they are committed to keeping customer data safe. Providing customers with information about how their data is being used and extra security options will become an essential part of the customer engagement lifecycle in the modern digital age where consumers are demanding more and more personal data transparency.

—

Abigail Baker is a writer from Happy Writers, Co. in partnership with Faxage, an encrypted online faxing service.

The post 4 Ways to Brand Your Business as Secure & Confidential appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

Brand awareness goes a step beyond brand recognition where customers might recognize a logo and name the company to which it belongs. Brand awareness incorporates an ethos for a company, one that involves a concept of products and services as well as the experience of them. Take for example the Dove ad campaigns that have built a sense of understanding and well-being for all women by promoting not only looking good but feeling good about yourself whoever you are.

Not every company has the budget to turn their product into a proprietary eponym, nor to market on the large scale that a company like Dove has. There are, however, strategies even the smallest of companies can employ to create better brand awareness. After all, creating brand awareness makes it easier to build a loyal customer base, to broadcast a strong image of your business, to promote your business across multiple platforms, and to showcase products and services. Here are a few ways in which you can build stronger brand awareness:

• Social Media–Successful companies often use media platforms to create buzz by running contests that engage customers in marketing by asking them to submit brand photos, to vote for a favorite product, or to tell a story of their use of the product. 
• Quality web content–Promote not only your business but also it’s identity by creating web content that speaks to your target audience in a meaningful way. What do you want your company to be about and how can you create high-quality content to sell that image? Another powerful way to do that is to put the content in the mouths of customers. Let them tell their stories of experiences with your company.
• Build a unique personality: Humor may be one of the best ways to do this. Think, for example, of insurance companies and the way they use humor to brand a product that is quite serious. The “Don’t Become Your Parents” campaign from Progressive has been brilliant at eliding the seriousness of insurance while tapping into a younger audience.

One of the most successful strategies for building brand awareness has been the use of merchandising, that is using branded products to promote your business. Tony Hawk recently combined strategies when he used social media to promote a scavenger hunt in which customers had to monitor his Twitter account for clues as to where packages of Tony Hawk products had been hidden all over the world. Winners found skateboards, embroidered caps and shirts, food products, and more. They also were required to photograph their haul and send it out to their followers.

If you’re still not convinced, consider that a recent study showed that 66% of participants could remember the brand of a product for which they had received merchandise within the previous year. Another study revealed that companies using promotional products saw an 85% increase in positive brand image.

The trick, should you choose this strategy, is to do it well. You will want to consider: the items you choose and how they speak to the needs/desires of your target audience; the messaging you incorporate on items and how it speaks to company identity as well as inspires your audience; the quality of the item; and the ultimate aesthetic or style of the item. Take, for example, a company that projects an eco-friendly, organic ethos and that wants to offer embroidered shirts. That company may want to consider organic cotton materials or other natural fibers as a means to reinforce its overall message.

In short, merchandising is not just a means of advertising your company. Good merchandising helps tell the story of your company and its concerns; it creates avenues for partnering with other like-minded companies, and it gives you avenues to open up other channels of communication with customers. If market trends speak to you, then consider that in 2018 U. S. companies invested $24.7 billion dollars in promotional merchandise. That certainly suggests the strategy is worthwhile.

—

Ivan Young is a writer from Happy Writer, Co. in partnership with Seattle Fabrics, an outdoor and recreational fabric retailer.

The post Using Merchandise to Brand Your Business & Build Awareness appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.

That said, website photography alone has the potential to win the modern marketing game for your brand. Additionally, placing a particular emphasis on the photography of your brand and products can help your company stand out from its rivals in the industry.

Here are some of the most obvious (but overlooked) reasons why you need to focus on photography when trying to find the most powerful and effective way to promote your brand.

Let’s get you started:

Rank High in Search Engine Results

The accurate placement of relevant photos on your company’s website showing off your products and services immensely helps your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). So, when you add photos on your website with metadata plus captions, you create valuable data for search engines to index. With this small effort, you create SEO content that makes you rank high in search engine results.

Consequently, your website content becomes more visible on both search results and image results simultaneously. This exponentially increases your chances of becoming visible to consumers looking for similar products and services that your business offers.

Increases Traffic on Your Website

Another remarkable way of increasing the traffic on your website is by sharing your high-quality product photography on an influencer or a blogger’s website. When you share your blog posts with a precise explanation of your products with the help of your product photography, you get a chance to attract a broader audience that may or may not know about your brand. In online marketing, this strategy is known as guest posting, and it is now one of the most sought after. It’s because you get numerous advantages with it. First, you get a chance to increase your customer base. Second, you start ranking higher on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

With these two significant yet straightforward advantages, your brand gets all the attention it needs to move ahead of its competitors.

Make a Mark on Social Media

When you have the highest quality photographs of your products and services on your website, you’ll be more than willing to share them on your social media pages. And why shouldn’t you? These photos will help you gain and attract more customers, photography enthusiasts, and anyone who has a curious eye.

So with these photographs, you are not only making a mark on social media, but you are also earning the trust of your present and future customers. Seeing the pictures of your products, they will feel more than willing to invest in your brand.

To Sum it Up

At some point in our lives, we all have felt the power of photography. So, why not use it to your advantage and apply it to enhance your brand awareness? However, there are many ways you can do it. However, one of the most effective is collaborating with your website to reap the benefits of online marketing strategies.

With the help of this article, you get all the necessary information you need to get the benefits of great photography on your website. Make sure you use it to your advantage.

The post The Power of Website Photography in Marketing Your Brand appeared first on COLDEA Productions, LLC.