A Tale of Three Woes

Using an email address other than your domain name, or one that promotes your brand, makes completing the sales cycle tricky.

In this day and age of independent contractors and sales agents, it can be bothersome trying to figure out who is who selling what on behalf of who. Poor branding efforts dilute a clear sales channel, and that’s not good for the consumer. If it’s not good for the consumer, it’s not good for your company, plain and simple.

Let me explain why:

Parent Company X owns subsidiary, Company Y.

Company Y produces items to sell, but for the time being doesn’t have their own in-house sales staff.

Company Y decides to outsource sales to Company Z.

The employee at Company Z doesn’t use a branded company email address such as j.smith@CompanyZ.com so all of the ‘official’ correspondence conducted on behalf of Company Y is sent to potential and existing customers using a personal email like john.s@hotmail.com.

Unless a customer is keenly aware of who this individual is, it’s unlikely they’ll be recognized as a viable business contact. It’s so important that your branding rings clearly in one’s mind so customers know what company is making contact and what product is being presented. Can you see a trust issue here?

Company X wanted Company Y to be the brand behind the products, but they failed to capitalize on that investment by not providing guidance and the necessary resources to Company Z. Company Z is at a serious disadvantage, but it impacts each company. These types of things actually impact commerce in general. It’s a big food chain.

When a potential customer is confused from the start, chances are they won’t go beyond the first contact. That is unless they have prior knowledge of the situation and know who’s contacting them. But not everyone being contacted by this representative from Company Z will have such knowledge, nor care to find out the details. They just discard the email, a sales opportunity lost.

Are you making sure your brand is being given the proper amount of respect and representation while working through third party contractors that are marketing your products? If you aren’t, you need to be. Providing the necessary training and branded email tools isn’t difficult. Doing so will only boost your ROI!

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Business Email Marketing

Marketing is more than placing an ad in a circular, sending out a brilliant piece of direct mail, or cold-calling clients about your product or service. While those are great things to be doing for your small business, embracing your marketing as a total communication strategy is even more effective.

Here’s why: 

Convincing your patrons to respond has become a little more time-intensive. They’re not so eager to just act on a good tag line. They want to know who they’re doing business with, and they need to know they can trust you.

But that’s the thing. No one really knows they can trust anybody. What you need to know is how to manage perceived trust. Perceived trust isn’t established easily or overnight, but it can be achieved with ‘ISYOT.’ I See You Out There is a way to look at effective brand recognition. We’re not as quick to buy from those we’re unfamiliar with. Recognition feeds trust, that’s why a strong web presence is so important. It’s much easier to develop an ISYOT presence online using iPhones, iPads, Kindle Fire, and others like them.

Still, it’s not a quick thing, and it will take a diligent effort.

How does communication strategy relate to your online presence?

Marketing is all about strategy, but adding the component of communication ups the game. The only way to be effective – and by that I mean not work 24 / 7 and still do a great job for your clients – is to come up with a strategy that gets people talking. Automation will really help. Tools like HootSuite, SocialOomph and Ping.fm make it easy to get messages out to many places at one time.

Learn how to be effective in these areas:

• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook Business Pages
• Blogging
• Commenting on industry blogs
• Article marketing
• Networking
• Online press release

Seem impossible? It’s really not, if you go about it strategically. Use an egg timer and Excel, schedule your email posts and status updates – know what time is going where, and track everything from passwords to returned responses. Track for at least 60 days to see what works for your company, and where you can improve your efforts. Taking a couple of hours a week on this will help familiarize a public audience with your brand.

All your direct response mail, advertisements, and trade show event marketing improves when people know who you represent, what they can expect from your company, and ultimately – what they can expect from you.

When you focus on developing a trustworthy reputation through marketing, communication, and  strategy, you’ll be where you need to be when customers are looking for you.

Leave us your comments, our CommentLuv plugin pulls your latest blog post into your response for our viewers. We love to hear from you! Are you using scheduling tools to help you communicate your brand?

Related Post: Your Small Business Should be Blogging

Here’s another example of the design process … Web site design, this time. We’ve just rolled out a new Web site home page design for Sprue Brothers Model LLC. Sprue Brothers is an online hobby retailer for scale model builders. The “sprue” in the business name is significant. All plastic scale modelling parts arrive on a frame called a sprue. The store’s logo reflects this and now so does the Web site.

Before and after screenshots are below:

Before Website Redesign

New Home Page Design

My husband (and team member), Gerald, came up with the idea of sprue borders. Our graphic artist, Scott, took the concept and ran with it. I put it together as a working Web site. Despite a few technical glitches, this was a fun project that came together quickly. It’s also one that will continue to improve over time. Gordon, we hope your new landing page serves you well.

Have you looked at your Web site lately?

Is your Web site in need of a face lift? Believe it or not, most Web sites would benefit from a makeover every couple of years. It’s not only the look of a site that can become quickly dated, but also the technology running the site. If you’re doing your own Web site coding in Dreamweaver or FrontPage, and you’re not a code geek, your site is also likely accumulating excess bits of code … stuff that doesn’t really seem to cause any problems now, but give it time … it will.

So take a few minutes this week to review your Web site from the eyes of a first time visitor. Does it portray your business the way you’d like it to? If you’re using a blog rather than a static Web site, is your blog installation up-to-date? Do your links all work? And if you know what you’re doing, take a look under the hood and check your HTML coding. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask me.

Another Reason to Subscribe by Email to Inside Line

We’ll have a free gift for email subscribers to Inside Line this week. Mum’s the word … can’t tell you what it is until it’s ready to go, but I will say that it’s NOT some bonus offer for buying some guru’s Internet marketing course. In fact, it’s not even educational … just something to use and enjoy, and the only string attached is that you must be a current email subscriber to Inside Line. Are you an email subscriber yet?

When I was first contracted to create a logo design for Via-Cell, their idea was a genie, possibly emerging from a lamp, holding coffee, food, and other goodies that can be ordered “via” their “cell-” phone and web-based system. I went to work sketching what I hoped would become the next Chester Cheetah, Tony Tiger or Michelin Man.  

Unfortunately, a lot of the logo design process consists of sketching out what DOESN’T work. In this case, the primary use of the Via-Cell mark would be tiny, used on app button-sized and even smaller icons, including bookmark icons and buttons within their own application.  We had to whittle away the details and – despite my Illustration-loving ways – to arrive at a simple, recognizable Icon that would still embody their brand: a Magic Lamp that brings your wishes with a touch. (Their marketing tag-line at the start was even, “Your Mobile Bazaar.”)

Their web site went online recently, and they hope to expand rapidly beyond their Woodside, CA neighborhood. The system utilizes no special software or dedicated equipment and works entirely through the internet.

A recent article in Website Magazine cautions e-commerce entrepreneurs: “Keep Your Graphic Designer on a Short Leash.” Ouch! It wasn’t a case of reigning in their renegade Artist, it was an experience we shared as we zeroed in on the brand and its end-use. Note that the Via-Cell Site is also designed to communicate the process at a glance, without reliance on text or even English-language proficiency). Point-of-sales pieces for merchant use are being developed with the same quick, visual message.

Stages Of Logo Development

Well, at least Via-Cell has plenty of  ideas ready at hand should they decide to develop a Mascot or “The Animated Series.”  K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Scott!

If you’re interested in more articles like the one referenced above, consider signing up for your own copy at Website Magazine, and see what industry professionals are talking about.