Article Directory :: Authors :: F :: Erin Ferree Articles

Articles by Erin Ferree

• Why All The Search Engine Secrecy?
  The search engines try to be good at keeping their methods of ranking websites top-secret. You never quite know exactly why such-and-so company wound up in the #1 slot and your company is way down on page 3. You wonder if it's because the search engines like it better. Or because it knows the secret handshake. So, you start doing research—and there's a lot of conflicting information out there:
  Published 29Oct2008, viewed 218 times

• Keep Your Logo Simple
  The job of your logo is to communicate what your business is all about in an instant. But if you try to say too much in that instant, it's more likely that your clients and prospects will either not get the message at all or that they'll get the wrong message—and wind up pulling the wrong information out of an overcomplicated logo.
  Published 29Oct2008, viewed 251 times

• The 5 Jobs of your Logo's Color Palette
  Picking colors for your logo can be difficult. Just how do you go about choosing appropriate colors? Everyone has favorite colors, and many people also have colors they hate. But, whether or not you personally like a color actually has little to do with its appropriateness for your business's brand. You should make your choices based on the colors that will best perform the color palette's jobs.
  Published 29Oct2008, viewed 263 times

• Getting Your Website Noticed by the Search Engines
  You've just launched your website, marking the end of a huge effort and the beginning of a whole new way of doing business. Now, all you have to do is sit back and wait for visitors to flood in, right? But, people have to know your site's there in order to visit. So you go over to Google and search on your field to find your business. You don't see anything on the first few pages.
  Published 29Oct2008, viewed 213 times

• The 4 Jobs of Your Logo Font
  Many entrepreneurs think that the font for their business name is like a trophy wife—just there to look pretty, all perfect hair and manicure. So, they try to find a font that looks cool, often without looking at any of the features of the font itself. But, the font in your logo is a busy little element. It works 4 jobs!
  Published 18Sep2008, viewed 195 times

• The 6 Jobs of Your Logo's Icon
  This is a case of the icon's job description not being well written. In a perfect world, entrepreneurs love their logo icons—and personally identify with their meaning. But, that's the logo icon's last, and least important, job. First, it must do several more important jobs for your company.
  Published 17Sep2008, viewed 448 times

• Designing Temporary Materials to Get You Through A Branding Emergency
  What if your urgent problem is that you have no marketing materials for your business? Having something to market your business with is better than nothing. In some cases, it might even help you get to the next step in your brand.
  Published 16Sep2008, viewed 191 times

• Branding Is Like A Fairy Tale...
  It may not seem like the story of Little Red Riding Hood has much of a parallel to your business's brand. But, a good brand can be a lot like a story. Instead of being a story of a little girl going on a journey, and overcoming different challenges, the brand is the story of how you take your customer from just learning about your business to becoming a customer.
  Published 15Sep2008, viewed 210 times

• How To Avoid Having Two Separate Businesses To Market Even If You Offer Two Services
  I get a lot of questions from small business owners who have two major problems they solve or two services they offer in one business. I'm not really sure why this is so prevalent—but I have a feeling that it might have to do with the reluctance that a lot of small business owners feel when it comes to paring down their services or target audiences.
  Published 14Sep2008, viewed 208 times

• The Three-Part Harmony in Your Logo
  Just as a harmonized song is made up of a set of three notes, every small business's logo should be made up of three pieces of art: the icon, the font, and the color palette. These three pieces all work together, singing the same basic song, to tell your business's story. In your logo, each of them gives you an opportunity to build in meaning and symbolism.
  Published 13Sep2008, viewed 207 times

• The Four Red Light Factors For Your Business Brand
  Making decisions about the 4 following Brand Definition factors does make you stop and wait a bit but ensures that you proceed through the branding process safely and create a brand that will help your business to reach its goals safely and comfortably.
  Published 12Sep2008, viewed 225 times

• Where to put your contact info on a trifold brochure
  When you're designing a trifold brochure, you have to put your contact information someplace on the brochure. The only question is, where?
  Published 07May2008, viewed 242 times

• How A Strong Brand Identity Helps Overcome Customer Reluctance
  Many small businesses, especially one-person businesses, don't see the point in investing the time, work and money in creating a brand identity. After all, they're very good at whatever it is that they do, and they should be able to make more than "just a living" by simply putting up a website, being themselves, and delivering a high-quality service, right?
  Published 06May2008, viewed 227 times

• Rebranding Is an Excuse to Party in Your Business
  Once the redesign is done, many small businesses launch it silently. They change their logos, business cards, and websites one day—sometimes without so much as an announcement or a "By the way... " to their customers. Not only are they potentially confusing and alienating them, but they're also missing out on a great excuse to party!
  Published 04May2008, viewed 197 times

• How To Stand Out At A Trade Show
  If you're setting up a display at a trade show, you have to do more than just pay for a booth space, put on a nice outfit that morning, and walk in the door for your company to get real results. You have to think about how you'll cut through all the "noise" to get in touch with your target audience.
  Published 03May2008, viewed 253 times

• Search Engine Optimization: It's Not Who You Know, It's Who Knows You
  Just as with prom queens, your small business's website's search engine ranking results are about popularity. It's not the links on your site that contribute to raising your ranking but the links coming into your site from other sites that help you to rank better.
  Published 02May2008, viewed 229 times

• Why your Business Brand Shouldn't Be An Exact Mirror Image Of You
  Customers and prospects are more concerned about their needs, their businesses, and their situations than they are about how good you are. What they want to know is how you're going to help them. And if you're a one-person business, they're likely to be more concerned about the fact that you're the only one there rather than being thrilled about your experience.
  Published 01May2008, viewed 222 times

• How Your Business Should Act Like A Snowflake
  Just like snowflakes, your business will have several different types of uniqueness. On the surface, you'll want your brand and marketing materials to look unique, so that when all of your materials go out, they can stand out from your competitions'.
  Published 30Apr2008, viewed 212 times

• Why You Won't Get Instant Gratification From the Search Engines and What to Do About It
  So, when it's time to get your website listed on the search engines, it's only natural for you to want to be up on Google right away. I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten from clients right after I've let them know that their site is launched, saying "But, I Googled myself, and I'm not there! Why not?"
  Published 29Apr2008, viewed 288 times

• Why Starting A Relationship With The Search Engines Can Be Hard
  ...Search Engines have a lot in common with singles. They've been hurt, and they aren't so quick to trust any more.
  Published 07Apr2008, viewed 251 times

• Your Small Business's Search Engine Ranking Emergency
  No one wants an emergency—but if you've got one on your hands, it's good to know the steps to take to "stabilize the patient." If your small business emergency is that your website isn't showing up on the search engines, there a couple of steps you can take right now. You just have to check 2 things to perform Search Engine CPR on your site:
  Published 06Apr2008, viewed 267 times

• Do You Really Need To Come In First Place?
  Whenever I talk to a client about search engine placement, this track meet comes into mind. The client comes to me wanting to be #1 for their chosen search term. But for many small businesses, being ranked first is not truly that important—and depending on the search term, being #1 may hurt their business.
  Published 05Apr2008, viewed 262 times

• The Search Engine Trinity
  Like Cajun food, getting a small business listed on the search engines also is based on a trinity of components. These components give your search engine efforts a base to be built off of, and ensure that you'll be successful. Those are: the ease of getting listed, the effectiveness of your listing, and then finally, the level of placement.
  Published 04Apr2008, viewed 315 times

• How To Make Your Website Structurally Sound
  You've decided to build a website. Great! Your first step is to determine its structure—the pages you want to include and the information you want provide to visitors. But how to begin? Your first instinct may be to make your site different from everyone else's. After all, trying to differentiate your business is what you've been doing throughout your branding process.
  Published 03Apr2008, viewed 253 times

• Time to "Get Over" the Rainbow (in your logo, that is)
  Ah, rainbows. They're beautiful things, stretching across the sky, like Mother Nature apologizing for wet, nasty weather. It's no wonder that so many people love them. But, love can quickly turn to hate if you use a many-colored palette in your business brand.
  Published 02Apr2008, viewed 324 times

• Signs It's Time To Redesign Your Company's Brand
  When you first start a small business, you create your brand based on your hopes and plans for the future of the company. Sometimes this is based on experience, but more often than not it's based on a guess. Then once you actually start doing business, you may find that your business isn't following the same path you set out on.
  Published 09Dec2007, viewed 260 times

• How to Make Sure Your Website Won't Need a Do-Over
  When you were young, do-overs were an easy way to resolve an argument, fix unfairness or quickly change history. Why wouldn't you want to be able to do this with your business website? Unlike the playground game, designing a website takes a lot of time, work and money — it's just not a task that you're going to want to start over from scratch again!
  Published 08Dec2007, viewed 331 times

• The Domino Effect of Changing Your Logo
  It's a rainy afternoon and you've got a hot cup of tea and a box of dominoes. You set them up on end, one next to the other in a snaking line across your dining room table. Then you bump the first domino and watch as the rest fall down, one after the other.
  Published 07Dec2007, viewed 334 times

• The Building Blocks of Visual Vocabulary: Flexibility
  Just like the sidekicks help out a superhero, your Visual Vocabulary together with your logo helps put the kapow into your brand identity. These Visual Vocabulary "sidekicks" are the graphics, font styles, colors, and layouts you use in your materials, and even the type of paper you print your materials on. One of the best features of a Visual Vocabulary is its flexibility.
  Published 08Oct2007, viewed 283 times

• Why Entrepreneurs Divorce Their Logos (And Why It's A Bad Idea)
  Remember how excited you were when you first designed your logo? How beautiful you thought it was, and how you couldn't wait to get your first batch of business cards printed so you could show it off? How you excitedly described its meaning and subtleties to your mom (and your clients?) And the rush to the trademark office to get your new love "made official"—what excitement when the papers finally arrived!
  Published 07Oct2007, viewed 245 times

• Signs It's Time To Redesign Your Website
  Designing your first website is a stressful undertaking. It requires you to dig deep into your business in order to write the copy for your site. You need to work with a designer and go through the process of creating a site that looks unique and works well. And finally, after all that, you're finished and it's time for the site to go live. Unfortunately, websites don't last forever.
  Published 06Oct2007, viewed 296 times

• 9 Keys to an Effective Logo
  The right logo, with the right characteristics, will boost your visibility, credibility and memorablity – which means more business for you! These characteristics include...
  Published 05Oct2007, viewed 324 times

• What Rushing Your Design Project Really Means
  If you don't plan to allow enough time for your project to be designed, printed and delivered, then you may still be able to have your project completed in time, but the design will have to be rushed. This means that your designer will put aside other client's work and work late nights, even weekends, to get your project out - but at a price. And the price takes several forms other than just financial.
  Published 04Oct2007, viewed 283 times

• Get Your Website Launched!
  There are many elements in a website design project. Elements may include the overall strategy, the site map, site contents, design, coding, and more. It's tempting to keep tinkering and adjusting the various components until they're perfect. But you should remember that while you're editing the website, it stays on your designer's temporary server for testing or on your desktop — and never gets launched.
  Published 03Oct2007, viewed 259 times

• 13 Tips for Finding a Graphic Designer
  Are you ready to hire someone to design your logo, collaterals, or artwork for your website? Well, here's just the information you need to get the best results from hiring your first (or your first successful) graphic designer. To assure that we begin on the same page, a graphic designer designs your marketing materials — the print- and web-ready art which are then turned over to a printer or coded for the web for the final outcome.
  Published 25Sep2007, viewed 297 times

• 9 Tips for Getting the Best Work From Your Graphic Designer
  A graphic designer's goal is to provide you with the logos, artwork and page designs that best fit your business, personality, industry, and target market and conveys your offerings and differentiators. The experience of reaching that goal can be extremely smooth and pleasant if you know what to expect upfront, and if you understand that you do need to work with your designer, as opposed to just letting them loose to create with little input.
  Published 24Sep2007, viewed 308 times

• Types of Logos: Text, Symbol and Combination Logos
  There are three basic types of logos: text, symbol, and combination logos. The type of logo that will work best for your company depends on a number of considerations, such as the size of your company, the uniqueness of your name, and a variety of other factors.
  Published 20Sep2007, viewed 300 times

• How to Make Your Website Search-Engine Friendly
  One of your ultimate goals when creating your small business website will be to ensure that the website can be found by clients and prospects using Internet search engines (for example, Google, Yahoo!, and so forth). But there's not a lot of understandable information available about what the average small business owner can do to improve the number of search engine "hits" their websites get.
  Published 19Sep2007, viewed 305 times

• Font Basics for Branding Your Small Business
  You've designed your logo. Now you need to create some great marketing pieces to promote your business. But what pieces to create? There are so many options available that it can be difficult to decide which pieces will be the strongest and best way to publicize your business. No matter what that business is, we recommend these pieces as a first step toward marketing it.
  Published 18Sep2007, viewed 286 times

• The Layers of Your Brand
  Branding is a hot topic in marketing these days, but it's defined in different ways and looked at from different angles. There are many components that make up a brand, and we call each component a Brand Layer.
  Published 17Sep2007, viewed 266 times

• Follow Up With Your Clients
  A follow-up tool such as a post card, HTML newsletter, or note card is essential to make sure that your services stay "top-of-mind" with the people that you meet. It's said that a prospect needs to hear from you seven times before they will make a purchase. So it's important to create tools and a system to enable you to followup with your prospects once you've made that initial connection.
  Published 16Sep2007, viewed 281 times

• Business Card Basics
  Making a great first impression often begins with your business card. Your business card is typically the first of your marketing materials that a new client will see. It should clearly tell your client who you are and what you do at first glance.
  Published 15Sep2007, viewed 256 times

• The Great Two-Sided Business Card Debate
  A business card is one of the most important marketing pieces that you'll develop for your company, since it is typically the first piece of your marketing materials that a new client will see. One of the most debated points in business card design is whether to print information on just one side of the card or to use both sides. There are many views on this controversy, and here are some that we frequently hear.
  Published 14Sep2007, viewed 312 times

• The Art of Website Maintenance
  Now that you've designed and launched your website, you have a powerful marketing tool for your business. But, your website is only as useful as the content is current. The process of keeping the content on your site current is called website maintenance, and it's important to keep both visitors and search engines supplied with new information.
  Published 13Sep2007, viewed 262 times

• How Search Engine Optimization Helps Small Businesses
  You've probably heard people talking about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and wondered if it would help your business. The answer, in short, is absolutely!
  Published 23Aug2007, viewed 319 times

• No Logo?: Launching a Business Without a Logo Can Sabotage You
  The initial lack of customers and cash flow often causes new small business owners to put off designing a logo and marketing materials professionally "until they get a few clients" or "until they get started." Unfortunately, designing their own marketing materials when they launch their businesses instead of having them professionally created will make getting those initial clients more difficult.
  Published 22Aug2007, viewed 288 times

• 15 Reasons Small Businesses Need a Brand Identity System
  Business and marketing experts urge small business owners to "brand" their businesses with a logo and a set of consistent marketing materials — a brand identity system. But they rarely explain the reasons behind this advice. A logo and consistent marketing materials can increase your sales and revenue, because they convey the following impressions...
  Published 21Aug2007, viewed 750 times

• Three Brand Identity Myths That Will Bring Your Business Down
  "Brand identity" is the combination of consistent visual elements that are used in your marketing materials. A basic brand identity kit consists of a logo, business card, letterhead, and envelope. It can be extended to include a Web site, brochure, folder, flyer, or any other professionally designed pieces. Many business owners have misconceptions about brand identities that can damage their businesses.
  Published 20Aug2007, viewed 260 times

• Stop Making Excuses. Your Website Must Match Your Other Marketing Materials
  At first glance the title of this article sounds obvious — that your website would look like all your other marketing materials. Of course that's just something that would have to happen, right? But I run into more and more entrepreneurs who want to break this rule. Creating a website that looks significantly different from all of your other marketing materials just tends to be a bad idea.
  Published 19Aug2007, viewed 289 times

• Why Isn't Your Website Working Well?
  One of the biggest problems that small businesses face is ineffective websites. A website is often one of the largest start-up marketing expenses for a small business; unfortunately, many small businesses never see a return on that investment. Why do most websites have this problem? And how can you fix it?
  Published 18Aug2007, viewed 284 times

• Good Design Doesn't Get Done In A Day: Part 2 of 2
  With all of these considerations, it might seem that you need to start planning your design project many months in advance of your event. But the truth is that a lot of these steps can be done quickly. It still is advisable to allow as much time as possible to address each step thoroughly and without rushing the project. If you follow this method your finished design will usually be better and more effective.
  Published 17Aug2007, viewed 242 times

• Good Design Doesn't Get Done In A Day: Part 1 of 2
  Lead time is one of the most often overlooked aspects of a design project. For some projects it's not a huge concern — you just need to get your designs reasonably quickly so you can start marketing. You should expect quick service from any designer.
  Published 20Jul2007, viewed 245 times

• Designing Your Email Newsletter
  Another commonly-asked question is how to design the newsletter to make it the most effective. This breaks down into several questions and considerations:
  Published 19Jul2007, viewed 298 times

• A Logo Without Your Name... Can Be A Big Branding Pain!
  Why a small business shouldn't design a logo that's only a symbol (like Nike's swoosh).
  Published 11Jul2007, viewed 293 times

• Why You Need To Get An Email Newsletter Service
  An email newsletter is one of the most convenient and easy ways to keep in touch with your clients and prospects. So you've made the decision to design an email newsletter to use as your follow up tool in your brand design toolkit? The next decision is how to manage the newsletter from a technical perspective.
  Published 10Jul2007, viewed 315 times

• How to Determine Whether You've Chosen a Good Niche
  Choosing a niche—a small, focused target market—for your services can be very beneficial to your business. It will help your clients to focus on and identify the services that you offer, and it will help you to develop deep expertise in a single area—and "niching" will help you to raise your rates and create a successful business.
  Published 09Jul2007, viewed 301 times

• Define Your Difference To Stand Out and Make Your Business Shine
  Thoughtfully defining your business—and your differentiation—will help you to understand who you are, what you do, and what makes you different. Not many small businesses take the time to answer those core questions about their business, but those answers are essential to creating a strong brand identity, focused messaging, and effective marketing materials.
  Published 08Jul2007, viewed 341 times

• Focus Your Definition
  You have so much important information that soon all of your marketing materials are crammed full of text and information. Most small business owners have this problem. They are so excited about their business and everything they can do for their clients. They make the mistake of putting it all into their marketing materials.
  Published 07Jul2007, viewed 282 times

• Marketing Tips
  General graphic design and marketing tips for small businesses
  Published 06Jul2007, viewed 326 times

• The 9 Advantages to Using a Visual Vocabulary in Brand Identity Design
  Visual elements are a major part of your business's brand identity design. The keystone of that design is the logo, but in many cases, the logo isn't enough to convey all of your brand attributes. A visual vocabulary is a way to reinforce and add to the messaging that is contained in your logo.
  Published 27Jun2007, viewed 274 times

• Attract More Clients With A Brand Identity
  How A Logo Impacts The Know-Like-Trust Factor
  Published 26Jun2007, viewed 348 times

• Logo Files: Versions of your logo that you should own
  Your logo is the most important graphic element in which you will invest for your business. You should own the logo in many file formats. Having a library of logo files will enable you to send vendors the types of files they need (for example, other designers, printers, or other service providers).
  Published 25Jun2007, viewed 365 times

• Building a One-page Website
  You've designed your logo, and you're ready to print your business cards and other marketing collateral materials. You want to include your website address (also called a URL) to build your credibility. However, you're not quite ready to write and design a full website. What to do?
  Published 23Jun2007, viewed 297 times

• 5 Easy Ways to Establish Your Brand Online
  The Internet is a practical and accessible tool to build your brand. Here, we list 5 of the easiest ways to leverage the Internet to your best advantage:
  Published 22Jun2007, viewed 337 times

• 9 Keys to an Effective Website
  Many small companies choose not to invest in a professionally designed website, although a well-designed Web site may raise the company's level of professionalism and exposure – AND drive business and sales!
  Published 21Jun2007, viewed 296 times

• Creating Your Home Page
  Clients often look to us at elf design to provide them with ideas about what belongs on a simple home page. In response, we often direct them to several home pages that we have designed in the past, as well as some other samples, to help guide them and to begin our conversation about what to include on their home page.
  Published 29May2007, viewed 365 times

• Pages to Include in Your Website
  Building a Website may appear to be very complex, but it's really an easy process. The best way to start is by developing a map of the pages and content that you want to include. This depends upon the type of business you have, and how informative you want your Website to be. Below is a list of sample pages for you to review while you plan out your site.
  Published 28May2007, viewed 378 times

• Color Part 2: Formats and Systems
  There are several color formats and systems available for mixing and specifying colors. Here, we explain three of the most common systems: RGB, CMYK, and Pantone colors.
  Published 22May2007, viewed 389 times

• Starter Website Plan for a Service Business
  For many small businesses, getting even a basic website up can be a daunting task! To simplify the process, we've created a basic site map for a starter website for a service business, which requires a minimum of work on your part
  Published 21May2007, viewed 431 times

• Color Part 1: Accuracy
  Color is one of the most difficult parts of a design to show accurately to a client. Color perception can be affected by many factors, including:
  Published 27Apr2007, viewed 386 times

• 9 Keys to Building a Stand-Out Brand Identity
  Brand identity is the combined effect of visual elements in your marketing materials. A basic brand identity kit consists of a logo, business card, letterhead, and branded envelope. This basic set of materials can be extended to include a website, brochure, folder, flyer, or any other professionally designed pieces.
  Published 26Apr2007, viewed 452 times

• Planning Ahead For Visual Consistency: Information your designer should give you for future referenc
  While we recommend that you contract with the same designer or design team while creating your brand identity materials as possible, we know that this scenario is not always possible. Whenever you work with a designer other than the original who created your logo, stationery and marketing materials, we suggest a few practices that will prove invaluable for ensuring a consistent look and feel across all of your marketing communications.
  Published 21Apr2007, viewed 546 times

• Splitting a Brand Design Project Between Two Design Firms
  Splitting a branding project typically results in a lack of consistency between pieces in your marketing kit. All of your brand materials should have similar design elements. When a project is split among different design firms, often those firms don't have a similar style, and you can wind up with print collateral, for example, that looks dramatically different from your website.
  Published 20Apr2007, viewed 518 times

• To Tag Or Not To Tag?
  A tagline is a succinct phrase that communicates some of the basics of your brand. Ideally, your tagline is also memorable and helps your target audience relate to your business. If used correctly, a tagline can be a powerful part of your marketing strategy.
  Published 19Apr2007, viewed 362 times

• Four Brand Identity Myths That Will Hurt A Small Business
  Having a brand identity is extremely important to your business's success. However, many business owners have misconceptions about brand identities that can damage their businesses.
  Published 18Apr2007, viewed 317 times

• All About Visual Vocabulary and how it can help your small business
  Think of your logo as the "superhero" of your brand, and the Visual Vocabulary elements as its "sidekicks"; in many design applications and finished materials, your logo won't appear by itself. It will have the help of all of these Visual Vocabulary elements to accomplish its job of communicating and connecting with your target market.
  Published 11Apr2007, viewed 1299 times

• Choosing the Right Color Palette For Your Brand Identity
  Color is a highly personal experience—everyone has favorite colors, and other colors that they absolutely don't like. So, how do you determine which colors that will work for your business identity, and that will send the right message to your potential clients.
  Published 10Apr2007, viewed 706 times

• Contact Information To Include On Your Business Card
  The logo and graphic elements that you include on your business card are quite important, but having the right text and contact information on the card is equally important. Here are my tips about the elements to include:
  Published 28Mar2007, viewed 369 times

• The Building Blocks of Visual Vocabulary: Consistency
  Your Visual Vocabulary consists of the secondary design elements that are used in conjunction with your logo to form your brand identity. Your Visual Vocabulary is composed of the graphics, font styles, colors, and even the type of paper you choose. Once you have determined the elements to use in your Visual Vocabulary, it is important to use those elements consistently throughout all of your marketing materials.
  Published 27Mar2007, viewed 393 times

• Digital Printing vs. Press Printing—A Comparison Guide
  When it comes time to print your brand identity materials, there's one overarching question for you to consider—whether to print the resulting materials on a digital printer or traditional press. There are many differences between the two processes, some of which are outlined below.
  Published 03Mar2007, viewed 417 times

• A Logo Isn't A Tattoo! Why Your Personal Tastes Have Nothing To Do With Your Logo
  As a business owner, one of the most important business decisions you'll make is choosing the design of your logo. Many business owners make the mistake of basing their logo choices on their personal preferences. But your 'likes' should have very little to do with your logo design.
  Published 02Mar2007, viewed 455 times

• Create Your Marketing Machine to Plan for Marketing Success
  The answer to push-and-pray marketing is to plan your marketing in advance: to sit down and create a Marketing Machine so that your marketing runs smoothly and effortlessly all year long. Creating a year-round plan for marketing can really improve the number of sales that you'll be able to make, and keep a steady stream of clients and income coming in. There are several things to consider when creating your Marketing Machine:
  Published 01Mar2007, viewed 422 times

• What Is A Brand?
  Creating a brand is one of the most important things that you'll do in the establishment of your small business. But defining what "brand" means can be a tricky task. There are so many different approaches to branding a business and so many elements of a brand. The most accurate definition I know is: A brand is the collection of perceptions that your customer has about your business.
  Published 28Feb2007, viewed 413 times

• Connecting With Your Customers Through Your Brand Identity
  Your logo and marketing materials have many jobs, but one of the things that they can do really well for you is to introduce you to new clients and to help those potential customers feel a connection with you and your business. Alas, many small business owners overlook this valuable role for their materials when designing them, and so any connection often happens by accident alone.
  Published 27Feb2007, viewed 408 times

• The Truth About Your Competition
  There's more to identifying The Competition than just finding other businesses that offer similar services to yours.
  Published 26Feb2007, viewed 415 times

• The Great Fear of Niching... and Why You Need to Get Over It!
  Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, I recommend that you try niching your services. It will help your clients to focus on and identify the services that you offer, and it will help you to develop deep expertise in a single area... and niching will help you to raise your rates and create a profitable business.
  Published 25Feb2007, viewed 393 times

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