GET SET? Get Free business cards from Namaro

Get ready to take on the marketing challenges of 2009 by redefining your company’s personality. Send a confident message to your customers that you are ready for business by refreshing your existing logo or designing a new one.

Our process for logo design begins with careful consideration of what your company does, how you’d like your company to be perceived by your customers and how to differentiate your company from the competition. Armed with this key information, we will create several sketch designs, review your feedback and refine one sketch into your beautiful new logo.

Hire us to design or update a logo and we’ll print 250 business cards for you for FREE! Call 845-876-3009 or email us (Subject line: Free cards) at nrobbins@namaro.com

Brand repositioning 101: Free outline

Recently I developed this outline to help someone better communicate how to go about repositioning a brand. I hope it's helpful to you and please pass it on. And hey, if you need a new brand, think of Namaro ;)

Simply, brand positioning creates a specific place in the market for your brand and product offerings. It reaches a certain type of consumer or customer and delivers benefits that meet the needs of key target groups. The brand positioning of a company seeks to further distance itself from competitors based on a host of items.

1—Determining the Current Status of the Brand:
• Understand the company and brand
• Explore key issues, opportunities, and challenges
• What differentiates your company and brand from the competition?
• What are the equity drivers of the company and brand?
• What are the historical ways to communicate the company and brand equity to consumers and customers alike?
• Who is the current target customer base?
• What is his/her profile?
• What are the reasons for being a customer?

2—What Does the Brand Stand for Today?
• Understand current consumer perceptions and needs of your brand.
• Determine how far to move your brand without alienating customers and loyalty base.
• Identify how to position your brand to attract new users and ultimately convert them into loyal customers.
• Direct-to-consumer interviews "Why do they select your brand?" and "What was the key decision-making element?"
• Identify needs, both unmet and met in industry, determine the delights and dissatisfiers of your brand.

3—Developing the Brand Position Platform: Where Can We Take It Tomorrow to Grow the Brand?
• How far to grow, expand, and stretch the brand?
• Who do we want our brand to be?
• What is its personality?
• How do we want consumers to think and feel about your brand?
• What benefits will it deliver to the consumer?
• How will we promote the brand?
• Carefully review brand to ensure that it maintains the core values and essence of your brand.
• The new brand positioning will be:

1. Ownable: Unique to the brand
2. Leverageable: Important and relevant to the target
3. Sustainable: To other categories in the future
4. Extendable: Partnership marketing and other marketing programs

• 2 components:

1. Strategic: Developing the brand vision: Today, tomorrow and for the future
2. Creative: Review consumer insights with the goal taking your brand where it should go

• Determine four to five key benefits and potential platforms that are agreed upon by the entire group.
• Go back to key consumers and customers with the purpose of checking back with them to validate the new brand positioning.

4—Refining The Brand Positioning and Management Presentation
• Review and refine the new brand positioning and communicate to all function departments in order to align efforts.
• Incorporate all feedback from consumers, customers, vendors and agencies, to ensure achievable positioning vs. aspirational positioning.
• Present new brand positioning to senior management.
• Endorse the new brand positioning.
• Create brand identity manual which provides a clear direction on the new brand positioning to anyone in the company.
• Bring the new brand positioning to life and apply to marketing, and communications.
• Ensure consistent communication of the brand equity across any medium and by any partner.

5 —Design and Deployment:
• Use four to five key benefits and brand position manual to develop concepts for logo creation.
• Engage senior management in concept development.
• Refine logo concepts to 3 choices and apply to sample marketing vehicles.
• Attain feedback from consumers.
• Present 3 logos and feedback to senior management.
• Refine logo concepts to 2 choices.
• Attain feedback from consumers.
• Present 2 logos and feedback to senior management.
• Refine one logo.
• Apply logo to sample marketing vehicles to present to senior management.
• Endorsement from senior management.
• Incorporate logo into brand identity manual.
• Create database of copywriting, photography, etc.
• Create templates for marketing vehicles.
• Layout, production and deployment of brand.

Links to FREE stuff online

Some stuff we endorse and we say so by adding a happy face. Others we don't know enough about. Users always beware when you see the word ‘free.’

☺ Google offers lots of free online software that rivals popular alternatives including word processing, spreadsheets, image management, calendar, drawing, and translation. If you have staff working in more than one location, they can access and edit documents online without having to email or transfer via ftp.

Freeware software top 100: Need we say more?

☺ Thelaw.com: Free legal advice and forms

☺ VerticalResponse.com: If you’re a non-for-profit entity, go to VerticalResponse.com. Give them proof of your non-for-profit status and they’ll let you send up to 10,000 e-mails a month for free.

☺ JustGive: is committed to helping nonprofits by offering them online donation tools to increase awareness and donations to their organizations. Their tools can directly help you increase your fund raising.

Planware.org: free software business plans, marketing plans, strategic plans, online planning tools, excel templates for financial forms

☺ Free-press-release.com: Free Press Releases

Thefreesite-whitepapers.tradepub.com: White papers and trade publications

Free-internet.name: Free Internet access

☺ Dafont.com: Free fonts

Thefreemusicdirectory.com: Free music

☺ Freeonlinegames.com: Just in case you need a little distraction during your day.

Freerice.com: For each answer you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.

☺ Marketingprofs.com: Free trial offer for a wealth of marketing information and case studies.

☺ Skype.com: Free phone calls.

☺ Yousendit.com: Free ftp service to send your large files or photos via the web.

☺ About.com: Free Graphic Design Basics tutorial

☺ Paul-Rand.com: Free thoughts on design by Paul Rand, one of the best graphic designers ever.

☺ Freestufftimes: A blog with links to more free stuff.