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How to Maintain Brand Consistency?

Your marketing efforts could include multiple and diverse initiatives that usually help expand your reach and stay top of mind. In order to ensure consistency, you should consider creating a set of guidelines that connect together the look and feel of all of your marketing materials. Also known as your brand standards, such guidelines will help you expand by creating awareness while developing the key differentiators your company has when compared to the competition.

Consider focusing your efforts on the following:

  • Your Colors – considering that you integrate colors in everything you do when it comes to marketing, advertising, communication and more, it is crucial to remember that this specific element plays a major role in leaving a lasting impression on your target marketing. As you commit to a palette, remember that every color has a different meaning and level of influence.
  • Your Logo – the design of your logo should be consistent but also is the case with its placement and sizing. Every communication is an opportunity to leave an impression on the recipient; from letterheads to postcards, from emails to brochures…
  • Your Graphics – The symbols and shapes you use for branding purposes should be consistent as well in order to help your audience to remember you as you work your way to stay top of mind.

Always remember that your brand is your promise to your customers and prospects about what they can expect, how you deliver and what makes you different in the marketplace.  Consistency should lead to strong equity increasing your customers’ levels of loyalty and commitment. Are you being consistent with your branding efforts?

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Trade Show Booth Design – The Lighting Effect

Tradeshow_3The setting, design and effect of your booth constitute the first impression that you will leave on the attendees of a trade show.  All of these elements can be turned into more effective resources if your lighting in your booth is set in a way to catch attention and entice people to learn more about what you do.

–          Dim lights are mainly useful in settings with a tone of romance such as a bar or restaurant.

–          Bright lights work best in a retail environment in order to keep shoppers alert and engage them in a fun experience.

The lighting of your booth creates the experience for your audience and adds a factor of engagement. As you design your booth and trade show setting, keep in mind the role of light so that you tailor a satisfying and appealing experience for your visitors as you introduce your company and services. With the right choice of light, you can bring focus to specific products/services or simply highlight your booth details.

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Effective Design for Trade Show Booth

Tradeshow_2Getting ready for a trade show could be an exhausting task that requires a lot of planning in addition to the actual set up of your space or display booth. Here are a few tips to help make your job easier:

–          Reach out to the management of the event and learn all the details including size, wall space availability, access to electrical outlets, and more.

Your products/services need to be the center of attention. As you plan your display, make sure that you do not overdo and clutter your space.

Keep your message simple and to the point. Stay focused on your core message that will leave a lasting impression and try to avoid bombarding the attendees with tons of messages that will go unnoticed.

Consider including a video on a widescreen projection/TV screen that can capture people’s attention.

Think about the reasons of why the attendees will stop at your booth – is it the product/service? Is it the design? Is it your welcoming message and nice attitude?

Keep it simple but be creative – Focus on building your brand and creating awareness for your product/service.

Consider opening up your booth by eliminating the table across the front and eliminating any barriers that will prevent the attendees from “walking in”.

You may want to implement the use of large, clean and attractive images. Keep it simple but consider bold for lasting impressions.

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The Right Font for Your Business Signs

SignMaking the wrong choice might simply hinder such a process.

Keep your audience in mind and think carefully about them when you start your design process.  Can you get their attention to read a lot of text?  Where will your sign be located? Is it going to be at a busy street where drivers are rushing to get to work or next to a cash register where your clients will have time to read it?

With the thousands of available fonts, try to keep the following in mind as you are making decisions:

  • Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, are usually perfect for brochures, newsletters and business plans.
  • Sans Serif fonts are easy to read with large size text.
  • Script and Cursive fonts are perceived to be stylish and used for invitations and place cards.
  • Text fonts are the most difficult to read.
  • Novelty fonts can work either way depending on how you use them.

Another element to think about is the use of capital or lowercase letters. The use of all capitals might project yelling. A combination of capital and lowercase letters should be the easiest to read.

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11 Eco-friendly Solutions to Consider

If you are a green company and deeply committed to more environmentally friendly printing and signage solutions, you may want to consider the following tips for eco-friendly printing:

  • E-Communication – replace paper communication with emails.
  • Double-sided – if for some reason you need to print handouts, and cannot use an electronic file, consider printing/photocopying double-sided documents which will save, not only the trees, but also money, space, and cost.
  • Overprint – sometimes it is best if you take time to know more about how many copies you need, instead of overprinting and causing waste.
  • Proofing – make sure the content and graphics of your to-be-print piece is proofed for any possible errors to ensure correct information before printing pages and pages of non-useful output.
  • Energy Star – do you use Energy Star equipment? If not, this is where you want to start.
  • Switch off – it might take some getting used to, but something as simple as switching off your equipment can bring you closer to running an eco-friendly operation.
  • Sleep mode – almost every technology has some kind of a sleep mode which will allow you to set your equipment to the lowest available setting that matches your needs.
  • Maintenance – proper equipment maintenance keeps your machines at a high performance level with efficient delivery.
  • Recycling – do you recycle internally? If not, you may want to consider doing so by placing recycling bins around your office to dispose of paper and recyclable products.
  • Electronic waste – make sure you have a process to get rid of your electronic waste.  It might take years and years for such equipment to break down in landfill. Reach out to your local waste management company and talk about options.
  • TakeBack Programs – ask your suppliers if they offer a takeback program that will allow you to keep upgrading on your equipment on an as needed basis without the requirement to fill the landfills with unnecessary waste.