Post-Brexit it’s part of the delivery disaster that has turned what was a simple process, into a logistics nightmare!
If you have a EMEA tax-paid delivery solution that actually works Post-Brexit, I’d love to hear from you.
“I’m a small business with a small budget, why should I spend money to create a brand? Isn’t that sort of thing just for the big boys with big money and bigger competitors?”
On the contrary, branding is a vital ingredient to attract customers and keep customers. Without a meaningful brand, no one will know who you are, or more importantly, what you stand for, and will have nothing to buy into?
Branding is so much more than just a logo, it is a valuable marketing tool designed to represent you and to be your shop window.
The way your business is perceived can be the difference between success and failure. It’s way beyond a company slogan or corporate colour, it’s more of a persona, the face of your company, clearly and consistently communicating to your audience, your intent and the benefits working with a business like yours.
In this blog, we will give you tips to take into account when creating your brand, and explain the importance of branding in a little more detail.
1. Do I really need a brand?
Brand helps potential audiences understand more about your company and if you’re likely to be right for them. It will influence their first impression form the basis of the way you will interact going forwards. It will also play a part in their likelihood to use you again. For this reason, you need to make sure you have a strong brand, which represents you in a positive light. If you are a very small business it’s likely to be a reflection of your personality or business ethos. If you’re a large business the brand may be driven by unforeseen factors: Stakeholders, Corporate agreement (franchise), management, competition, market forces.
Most brands have one of six key elements:
Whatever your size, with a brand in place, it will be easier for you to remain focused on your objectives, and it’s the driver for communicating what you do and how, in a consistent way.
2. How do I define my brand?
Imagine your company is a person, what kind of personality do they have?
What do they look like?
What do they ‘sound’ like – Simple, straight talking? Warm and friendly? Knowledgeable and innovative?
How would they stand out in a room full of people?
What are the distinctive features that make them memorable – for the right reasons?
Using this analogy will help you understand how you interact with your potential or existing customers/clients.
Essentially your brand needs to be a visual summary of what they want you to be to them, tailor it so that it is and you will increase the likelihood of them using you, again and again.
3. Sounds simple – I can do it myself and save money.
By going it alone you may save money, but you risk giving the wrong message to your clients by creating the wrong image. Hiring rtfacts may add to costs initially but will certainly earn you money in the long run. Our experience and expertise will add professionalism to your brand and innovative ways to attract customers/clients will be used.
4. Do they really need to know that?
The answer is most likely yes. It is important to brief the designer with as much information as possible as this will heavily influence the end result of your brand and outcome.
• Who are you
• Who are your customers
• Who are your competitors
• What you do
• What do your competitors do well
• What do your competitors do badly
• What’s your background
• What you want to achieve
• How do you want to be perceived
• What your target market is looking for
To compliment the above information a recent rtfacts brief sited the following reasons for a brand refresh:
• We are now a business with a stock market value of £xxxx millions
• Our operations have expanded in both breadth and depth
• Our capabilities, reputation and market profile have increased considerably
• We are about to move to a high profile and very new headquarters
Visually we need to be Simple, professional, modern, understated elegance, financially secure and strong.
Emotionally we need to have Integrity, Expertise, Professionalism, Enduring, Entrepreneurialism.
You also need to think about how you plan to use your brand. We will then make sure the look and feel works across all mediums – New and Old, from stationery to brochures or website to digital signage.
5. These are a few of my favourite things
When it comes to the look and feel of you brand, let rtfacts guide you with colour, typography and photography. Always keep your target market in mind and what will appeal to them rather than what appeals to you personally. Often clients get too caught up in their own likes and dislikes and forget about the main objectives of the brand.
6. Why a brand voice and what does it say?
Creating a unique personality for your customers/clients to connect with will set you apart from your competitors and keep you at the forefront of their minds the next time they need your product/services. It will also help you attract the right kind of customers/clients.
Your brand voice will communicate what makes you better than the rest, how you serve your customers/clients, your customer benefits, product quality/value, and your unique selling point (e.g. eco friendly, value for money, or homemade).
7. So where do we go from here?
Keep a high profile, use your brand consistently as a constant reminder to your customers/clients. Ensure all staff emails contain a signature with your logo, company slogan and a link to your website. Leave your business card with anyone of interest.
In short, always present your brand professionally and make sure the use of your brand always adheres to the brand guidelines across all media, to avoid confusion.
Finally don’t forget to stick to your brand promise. Keeping your word will keep customers/clients happy and will prompt them to spread the word.
If you are looking to create a new brand or are in need of a brand refresh, don’t hesitate to contact us today, we will be happy to discuss what we can do for you over tea or coffee.
Call us on 01442266590
or email design@rtfacts.co.uk
Dacorum Digest – Award winner!
Established resident’s magazine for Dacorum Borough Council
After a re-design by rtfacts back in Autumn 2015, Dacorum Digest was shortlisted for the CIPR awards 2016 (Chartered Institute of Public Relations), and won GOLD!
The objectives of the magazine are to keep residents informed with a lively and forward looking schedule of content, that is of interest to all communities and age groups in the borough. The publication was merited for the look and feel, and for its clear messaging, in a readable and user-friendly style that was well liked by its audience.
Doubly pleasing for rtfacts as the first digest we designed (Back in 2004) was also an award winner and held up as an example to all other councils of how a community Newsletter should look. History repeating itself!
We’ve already talked about how to create a successful website, but sometimes driving traffic to a well planned out website, won’t always give you the conversion rates you’re looking for. Some visitors… actually let’s be honest MOST visitors need a little persuasion before making a decision to buy into your services/products.
Repetition is key in creating higher conversion rates. Most marketers know that consumers need to see an advert more than once before they decide to make a purchase, some say even several times. This is why Remarketing ads have proven to be so successful
How does Remarketing work?
Remarketing ads, also known as retargeting ads, allow you to display adverts targeted specifically at people who have already visited your website, and engaged with your product. The remarketing ads that rtfacts create are displayed on a vast array of websites, allowing you to reach visitors who have browsed away from your site, and reminding them why they should come back. We can also tailor your ad based on whether they have:
– briefly visited your website
– viewed a specific product
– didn’t complete the checkout process
– purchased a product from your site
– visited your download page but didn’t download a product.
What are the Key benefits of Remarketing?
1. Google’s display network gives you great exposure
Google’s display network reaches 90% of internet users globally, and covers partner sites across the web such as Youtube, FT, Wired, and Mumsnet
2. Brand awareness
Remarketing is a hugely useful and cost effective form of advertising to create brand awareness. The more consumers become familiar with your brand, the more likely it is they will come to your website the next time they decide to purchase a product/service you provide. Putting your brand in the back of their mind when they are shopping is hugely powerful and the numbers can be staggering.
3. Targeting a specific audience
As mentioned above, you can target a particular audience depending on their browsing behaviour on your website. For example, if a particular product was viewed or added to their basket but was not purchased, an advert for that product can be displayed when the visitor is browsing another site prompting them to return and make that purchase! Initially rtfacts will show ads to all visitors and then we can refine by age and gender. Having this kind of flexibility makes it a powerful marketing tool. We don’t run the campaign like other agencies – where it feels like Big Brother stalking – we agree how many times to show the ad to users and often what timescale.
4. Higher conversion rates
This kind of targeting creates higher conversion rates for your advertising campaigns. Someone who has already shown interest in your products/services is more likely to click on your ad and make a purchase. Also the more your brand is recognised the more chance there is of people trusting you and returning to make a future purchase.
5. Lower costs per sale
Having a higher conversion rate and a faster return on your investment, reduces the overall advertising cost per conversion.
6. Budget control
With Google remarketing ads you can control your budget and reporting tools. It allows you to view which sites in the Google Display Network have the better success rates giving you more flexibility with costs and messaging. An asset that is certainly helpful in making cost effective decisions for your campaign.
Just some of our remarketing work:
rtfacts have created a number of remarketing campaigns for clients with pretty impressive results. The average engagement rate for most UK websites is 2%, retargeting allows you to keep the interest of the other 98% of your visitors. Compared to the average display advertising CTR (click through rate) of .05 – 0.1% our retargeting campaigns are usually around 0.25%. Meanwhile the conversion rate for many of our clients went from 2% – 5% and on occasion up to 10% especially when we use dynamic creatives.
Client: Basho
Client: Putteridge Bury
Client: Young Education
Our retargeting clients include fashion, software, travel, training, education, legal, health, automotive, events and IT.
Please be aware that some websites are not permitted to run remarketing i.e. medical, divorce, adult services, political, religious, negative financial status, medical information.
If you want to know more about remarketing and how you can benefit from it, get in touch today.
Call us on 01442266590
or email design@rtfacts.co.uk
Raise your hand if you’ve ever found that your website just isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped? All that time and money spent and it just doesn’t seem to be getting the response you need. In fact your website doesn’t even appear on the search engines results!
There are many factors to take into account when creating a successful website, and without the proper guidance and support it is very easy to find yourself in this situation. In this blog we will take a look at what some of these factors are and how they can make a difference.
Steps to creating a successful website
Structure is key
The first thing you need to establish is your site map and site navigation. This is to ensure your visitors can navigate easily through your site to get the information they need quickly, or perform the desired action with ease, (register, make a booking, make a purchase, make an enquiry etc). In today’s fast passed online activities it is advised to make sure your visitors can get to wherever they want to be within two clicks. It is vital to plan plan plan, that way you have more chance of visitors staying on your site for more than just 30 seconds!
Our design team tackle this approach by mapping out your site structure and creating a blueprint of your site, showing a virtual navigation tour using online software, which is easy to share with the client. We have found this very helpful in giving the client a virtual taste of how their site could work, and also highlighting parts that need tweaking, in order to make the journey more simple and effective.
Establish your content
Before you get into the design look and feel of the website, you want to think about the content and who your target market is. This is important, as your content will have a huge impact on the design and layout of the site itself. So if you get this established first it will make the design process and lot smoother and quicker. There is nothing worse than getting a design and layout established and then having to fit in heaps of content that wasn’t catered for.
The most important thing when it comes to content is you want your copy to be minimal and straight to the point. These days, people spend very little time reading content on a webpage, and if your site is text heavy they won’t bother to read most of it. You risk them missing vital information or not getting a desired response. So make the key messages short and to the point and keep your call to actions punchy. Always keep your target market in mind, make sure you are telling them what they want or need to know, not what you think is interesting, and avoid using any technical jargon they may not understand.
Our approach to this is to discuss with you the content you want to put on the site including whether you need a gallery, or videos and so on. Then using our blue print structure we can guide you with a rough layout. This will prove helpful for you to come up with the right amount of copy and where to position certain content in order for each page to perform how you need it to. At this stage we can tweak things quicker and easier than if we went ahead and designed the font, colours and graphics first.
Get the Look
Once the structure and content is established we can get to the fun part of creating the right look and feel to suit your company brand and audience. All the hard work in planning before this stage will make the process a lot smoother and, much more efficient.
When it comes to designing a website we stand by the term less is more. You may or may not have noticed that over the years websites have developed a very clean and simple look. This is due to the fact that they perform better, mainly because the visitors find it easier to get the information they need in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Text is bigger, there is more white space (empty space), images are of a higher resolution and larger, and colours are kept to a minimum. These are all factors that make the experience a lot more pleasant for the visitor. The content is clearer to digest and colours are easier on the eye only making the important calls to action stand out, rather than everything fighting for attention.
Time to build
We work closely with our developers to ensure they understand from the beginning how we need the site to perform. During the design process we will always check with them whether there are any aspects that may cause complications when it comes to the build of the site. Also if there is a particular function needed we always like to pick their brains to see what the best solution may be. Once the design process is complete we will hand over all the information needed for them to build the site to your requirements. Our designers will test the site and ensure the design is not lost during this process so that the live site reflects the agreed design and works across all devices, including phones and tablets.
Be Seen
The work doesn’t end there, in order for your website to be seen you need to make sure it is SEO friendly and that you are taking the steps needed to help it rank high on the search engines. Here are some helpful tips:
– Update your content regularly – search engine crawlers re-visit your site regularly to check if any content has changed and will rank it accordingly.
– Link your website to other sites (but not just any site, it needs to be relative or you will be penalised)
– Make sure your web domain uniquely identifies your company and is easy to remember.
– Make sure your page titles contain relevant keywords to the content on that page. Don’t use homepage as a title on your homepage as it’s been found that Google lowers your ranking.
– To avoid being ranked lower, ensure you use multiple keywords on your page in a creative way that is relevant to your business and follows the density guidelines (5% for large copy and 10% for short copy). You can find out more on SEOChat.com
– Highlight your keywords in the meta tag description section, our Content Management System allows you to easily access this. The description will appear on the search engines results and should clearly describe your business, adding your location is always a good idea if you are of interest to your local area (i.e. restaurant, shop, tradesman).
As mentioned this is a continuous task, so if you are too busy with other commitments we can help take the load off your shoulders. Our trusted SEO team can make this whole process less painful for you. But if you want to look into it further here are some useful links:
• Google Webmaster Help Center
• CafePress Tutorials
• SEOChat.com
• UsingEnglish.com
Taking the all above into account, it’s no mean feat creating a website that will get you the results you need. So it is good to know our friendly team can help. Working with us, you will have one designer working on your site from start to finish, who you will have direct contact with. We believe this is the best way of working together as they will know from the beginning who you are, what you do and what you need, ensuring nothing gets overlooked and you get the right website for your business.
Want help in getting a website that will perform the right results? Contact us today, we will be happy to discuss what we can do for you over tea or coffee.
Call us on 01442 266 590
or email design@rtfacts.co.uk
When life gets back to normal business is going to react quickly and getting in front of people is sure to be a priority, YES WHEN IT’S SAFE TO DO SO OF COURSE! It’s not enough to just be present at an event you also need to get noticed, make the right impression and be remembered.
Getting it right can make a huge impact on your company’s success, particularly for small companies. Simply because exhibitions are one of the very few chances to have face to face interaction with your target market where they can experience your products/services first hand. It is also a great chance to get immediate feedback, which could influence how you market your business going forwards. When you think that a vast majority of visitors have an influence on the buying decision of their company, there probably isn’t another format where you can market your business to so many potential customers.
To help you achieve desired results, we have outlined some key factors to take into consideration when designing and marketing your exhibition stand that will hopefully not be virtual or on Zoom or Teams (other platforms exist i’m sure)!
Before booking your stand make sure you’ve covered all bases
Make your stand attractive!
Just some careful thought and design principles can make a significant difference on the amount of impact your stand can make in a crowded event.
Hopefully having read our top tips, you will now have a better idea of how to make a success of your exhibition. Not only that but also how much we can assist in ensuring that your company will stand out from the rest, giving a professional and lasting impression to your target market.
We have 30 years of experience designing, printing and managing all sorts of exhibition stands. If you would like to discuss what rtfacts can do for your business.
Call us on 01442 266 590
email roger@rtfacts.co.uk
OR Sign Up
Resources
How to make your small exhibition stand a success
7 Tips for making your exhibition a success
How to get the Most out of Exhibitions and Trade Stand
Have you ever thought it would be great if you could combine a flyer and a promotional item into one? No? Well we have, and we’ve found just the thing! A great promo item that everyone could do with (and the more the better), with enough print area to give out more than just your website address, logo and phone number. Something quite original that will make you stand out from your competitors and stay in people’s minds.
A promotional item that says more
USB wallets are a great way to shout about what it is you do and why you are better than the rest. And what’s more the USB stick itself can also contain more information, maybe a link to your website, some promo videos or other multi media information.
The rtfacts team can brand up your USB wallets and USB stick giving a sleek and professional look, with short sharp marketing information that get’s straight to the point and sticks in people’s minds (no pun intended).
Contact us today for a quote.
Call us on 01442 266 590
or email design@rtfacts.co.uk
