Let’s face it, marketing can be hard! In each marketing blog post, we hope you’ll find the information you need for your business marketing success.

Branding with Pens

Let’s talk for a minute about branded pens. You know the pens I’m talking about…your favorite pen from a local business. The one that writes just right. The one that everyone you know either covets or has one of. Probably, it even makes an appearance at every single charitable event that you’ve ever attended. And, is the…

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Brand Camp!

We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks conducting Brand Camps with a client that is getting ready to roll out a new brand. A Brand Camp is a diagonal cross-section of the staff with about 10-15 people in attendance. The Camps last about 1.5 hours, and in it, the company introduces…

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4 Branding Trends for 2015

Building a brand in 2015 is more complicated than ever before. With the rise of technology, more businesses have been able to increase their sales even if they are just starting out. This is partially due to increased use of social sharing, but the truth is that the Internet levels the playing field. Businesses need…

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Facebook Pay To Play: What To Do – Small Business Oregon

For business owners Facebook is becoming more and more a “pay-to-play” model. You’ve put time and money into building your business pages ‘likes’, creating relationships, content creation and curation, So what do you do? On the one hand, businesses have never before had a free media platform through which to build our brand and communicate…

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Tips for Personal Branding in the Digital Era

It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect job and have no plans of leaving — consistent networking and personal branding efforts ensure you’ll stay on the top of your network’s members’ minds and be viewed as an authority in your field. Womenonbusiness.com suggests focusing on building a brand instead of a career. That starts…

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Marketing Techniques for Brand Creation

In today’s world, a brand is created through the careful execution of marketing techniques. Those marketing techniques incorporate both online and offline tactics designed to increase word of mouth, reputation, and buzz. Right now, we are about to enter the season where many of the national brands execute marketing techniques they have been planning and strategizing for…

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Why You Need a Brand Narrative

For thousands of years, humans have utilized stories provide context, meaning, and raison d’être in our lives. Our world is constructed of personal, community, institutional, and political narratives. Think for a moment, about the power narrative has played in your life today. Chances are pretty high that upon arriving at work this morning, you met…

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How Small Businesses Can Use ‘National Days’ for Their Next Promotion

It seems like every time I check my social media accounts, one of my favorite companies is promoting a “National Day” that falls directly into their industry. 7-11 had their annual “SlurpFree Day” on May 23rd, and Dunkin’ Donuts will be celebrating “National Donut Day” on June 1st by giving away a free donut with…

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How to Avoid Being the Next Kmart – A Real Life Marketing Lesson

News recently came out that Kmart isn’t doing so hot right now. However, don’t outsiders always have the best perspective on issues like this, especially when it comes to seeing the true marketing lesson? We don’t have a dog in the fight or any care or reason not to give our unqualified honest opinion about…

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Writing the Brand Manifesto and Brand Tagline for the Brand Book

Now that you’ve had the opportunity spend some time getting acquainted with your Brand for your Brand Book, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and write (or include) your Brand Manifesto and Tagline. (If you’ve been following Finding Brand for awhile now, you might recall me addressing manifestos before in The Secret Sauce.) The…

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Brand History: Start at the Beginning of the Brand Book

As I mentioned in the last post, we’re going to be building our sample Brand Book on the Rubber Duckie Brand. The reasons for choosing this brand over any other are varied but include being a “duck,” not having vigilant brand guardians searching the web for every unauthorized mention, and being both iconic and well-known.…

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The Heavens Parted and Delivered the Brand Book

In December, I wrote a quick blog post called “Does Your Brand have a Brand Book?” in response to The Santa Brand Book from Quietroom. Since then, that post has been the most frequently visited post on the Finding Brand Blog, and it’s obvious that there is a significant need for a brand guidelines template. The…

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Do You Enjoy Working on Your Website?

Websites. Lately I’ve been talking with lots of business owners about their websites, and the stories out there about them are truly terrifying! I’m astonished! When did it get to commonplace for service providers to hold their clients’ hostage to their services? To ignore, to intimidate, and to charge an arm and three legs for…

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What’s Your Email Address Saying About Your Brand?

Take a quick moment and look at the email address you hand out to your customers and clients. Does it end in any of the following? @yahoo.com @live.com @msn.com @gmail.com @hotmail.com @aol.com @mac.com If the answer is yes, then it’s time to think about the subtle message you’re sending every time you give out your…

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Your Competition Makes You Better

Think about it — you know what your competitors really offer. You know, often better than the customers do (at the outset) what kind of service and product a new customer will receive from a business. “If we’ve identified our competitors wisely, we should know how our product meets their needs better than the competition,” Critical…

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The American Dream Can be Your Brand

A bit of a rant today — I’ve seen several situations recently where an individual has overcome some pretty impressive life challenges, pulled themselves up against the odds, conceived of, and opened a business that is operating that business in the black in this economy. Any of those alone would be a significant accomplishment, but…

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What’s Your Competitive Landscape?

Finding your unique niche in the market is both critical and necessary for your brand’s success in the marketplace. One very good method for identifying holes needing to be filled in your marketplace is a perceptual map. This can be particularly useful if your brand is not yet established, yet you know roughly what you…

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Strategies for Handling Bad Press

Despite your best efforts, your brand will occasionally be maligned by well-intentioned (or otherwise) individuals and brands. Sometimes it will occur because you failed to execute something as well as you could, sometimes it will be because you’re the brand with the most top-of-mind awareness in your marketplace. Sometimes, it’s because the other brand is…

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Cause Marketing for Brands

How many times has a news story broken that reveals a profound injustice? Too often I’d argue. If you’re not an Auburn fan (or you don’t know one) you may not have heard about the poisoning of the trees at Toomer’s Corner by someone claiming to be an Alabama Fan. These trees were more than a…

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