Five common product branding myths

Branding is one of the aspects of running a business that people just can’t seem to get right. Here are a few nuggets of information that are not facts, but product branding myths.

There is a lot of information out there on the subject, but most of it is sadly incorrect. This has made it somewhat impossible for many businesses to properly exploit branding.

Myth 01 - Branding is all about the logo and colors

Technically speaking, if all you needed to make an excellent brand was a good logo and a perfect color palette, then brand designers would have become obsolete a long time ago.

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Branding is more than a combination of logos and colors. It is the…

It is one of the most significant parts of the business world in today’s era. But, it is usually tough to predict the future of the e-commerce market

But, still, experts have predicted recently that 2018 is going to be a great year for e-commerce. They have proposed some trends which are definitely going to work in the upcoming months of the year.

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Just have a look!

1. The Material Design

Material design is nothing but the ultimate concept of building such websites which are entirely based on rich contents that are vibrant, trendy, and serves all the needs of any business. Moreover, this trend has already reached up to the peak and thus it is expected that it will get a high rise in the…

Chart of the Day: Innovation and market expansion take backseats to refining existing products and services

Research from The CMO Survey shows that American CMOs are heavily focussed on their own markets, rather than broadening into new ones. Asking over 300 marketers about their spending strategies over the last 12 months, companies from all sectors put the majority of their spending on existing products/services in existing markets. Only roughly one-quarter of these marketers’ budgets were put towards new products, with even less going towards their efforts in new markets. This near-tunnel vision is explained when looking at what the CMOs believe their customers see as top priorities for the coming year. ‘Superior product quality’ (33%) and ‘excellent service’ (23%) topped these replies, both seeing increases from 2017, with ‘superior innovation’ coming in at 15% (no increase from 2017). The percentage spend of marketing budgets on…

Where to place your online ads: How to use scripts to filter your ad placements to select the most effective

This article is useful for those who would like to place advertisements on sites across the Internet, e.g. on YouTube, forums, mobile apps, and sites devoted to a similar subject. When you are using different targeting on the Google Display Network, Google selects placements for ads automatically, except placements added manually. After a short period of time, you can find interesting statistics, which shows that some placements perform well and some not so well for you. [si_quick_block id="124322" title="How to set up a Google Display Network campaign" description="Unlike search ads, which are text only, ads on the GDN can use a combination of text and images, and can be static or included animated elements. Learn how to start taking advantage of the Google Display Network with this quick win."] Try the following guidelines…

Three tools and frameworks to shape your brand’s positioning

Defining your business or brand’s value proposition is one of the most important tasks you will undertake as a marketer. A clear, differentiated value proposition is what will enable you to communicate to prospects and customers the overall benefits you have to offer and why you are better option when compared with your competitors. The value proposition is an articulation of the overall position your brand occupies in the marketplace from your customers’ point-of-view. Although you will always start with an internal view of how you want to be perceived, the customer will ultimately make a final decision. I’d therefore like to look at three practical frameworks that can be used to develop a brand proposition that will keep the customer front and centre.

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Does your business have what it takes to make the customer-centric shift?

To be a market leader, customer-centricity needs to be embedded within every facet of your organization. Modern companies need to truly understand what their customers and prospects expect, so they can deliver a customer experience that meets, and ultimately exceeds these expectations. The highly fluid nature of interactions across online, mobile, in-store, and customer service channels makes understanding customers more challenging than ever, yet vital to effective customer engagement. With new market entrants disrupting the landscape every day, companies need insights in real-time to capture the constantly evolving needs of their customers, and be able to accurately predict what they'll ask for next. The pace of innovation needs to be accelerated in order to outperform and differentiate yourself from your strongest competitors.

Understanding the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’

Therefore, you need to go beyond transactional data and unlock the attitudes, emotions and…

Apply the customer-centric methodology that has doubled the sales of many websites

When we first launched Smart Insights nearly ten years ago, we chose a brand name that hinted at the power of using a data-driven approach for businesses to get more from their online marketing. For even longer, I personally have had a passion for helping businesses learn about the latest digital analytics techniques and best practices through my training, consulting and writing. Since we launched, in our member resources, I and our expert contributors have worked hard to share best practices with our members on using digital analytics with the aim of increasing their conversion rates. At the same time, we have worked hard to improve our member onboarding experiences and increase our own conversion rates to our free and premium memberships    So I’m delighted to review Making Websites Win, a…

Find out how strong branding adds value to your business, and how to get started when it comes to building your own brand

Branding. The word is often thrown around in conversations about marketing, but what does it really involve and is it worth the effort? Broadly speaking, branding is the sum total of anything you use to differentiate your business from the competition, while also creating a unique identity that is recognizable and elicits an emotional response from prospective and existing customers. It’s essentially every strategic move you make towards crafting your image, and includes everything from your logo and brand colours right up to your tone of voice, tagline, product offering, and customer service.

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The benefits of effective branding

Increase recognition:Your branding needs to be consistent…

Chart of the Day: A review of the content types that engage B2B audiences

How to best engage audiences is a challenge in all sectors, but particularly in B2B marketing where there are so many potential formats that can be selected as suggested by our content marketing matrix. This new research considers the 5 most popular content types only, but is interesting since it goes beyond reviewing the content that supports B2B buying decisions, but also considers general content consumption by professionals: This chart shows that if you want to engage your audiences, publishing other types of industry content could be popular. Covering industry trends is significantly more popular with content around to approach business challenges less popular, but still worthwhile. This shows the value in creating an digital value proposition as part of your content marketing strategy. As the visual shows you should…

Follow Michelangelo’s lead and turn a daunting task into a work of genius by planning strategically, collaborating with stakeholders, and using your resources

Great marketing and great art have a lot in common. After all, marketing without art is just mkeing. To create something meaningful in either field, you need to be creative, innovative, and able to connect with your audience — all while being business savvy, on brand, and aware of the market in which you’re operating. It’s no easy feat, but great art has a long history of engaging people and capturing their imaginations: just think of the countless pilgrims who have flocked to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa since it went on display there in 1797. As marketers, we know how essential that kind of engagement…