by Patrick Cassidy of Cape Cod on the Fly
This is a part of a series of posts written by entrepreneurs of the Fall 2019 Business Accelerator cohort for EforAll Cape Cod.
More than ever, branding is an online game, but the basics are the same as ever.
Know your market, be consistent and engage potential customers.
“Ultimately your consumers determine your brand,” graphic designer Alison Caron told our EforAll cohort during a recent Tuesday session about online marketing, social media and branding.
But a business owner can influence those consumers in that process; one way to accomplish that is through a well-designed logo.
“It’s not your brand, it’s just a symbol for your brand,” said Caron, owner of Hyannis-based Alison Caron Design.
But, as with every aspect of a brand, the details are important.
A logo and brand should speak to your company’s personality.
“Everything we do has to relate back to that,” Caron said. “Consistency is the most important thing in branding.”
A good logo and brand will “increase the perceived value of your product or service,” Caron said.
But, she said, “good branding cannot save a bad product.”
Differentiation from competition is paramount to success.
“If we can figure out what makes you different we really want to hone in on that,” she said.
A logo might be a combination of various icons and the work of designers is only one part of how it is developed, Caron said.
Brainstorming a word list and consideration of competitors’ branding are other tactics in developing a logo.
But trained designers bring necessary expertise to areas such as choosing appropriate fonts and color psychology, she said.
A logo usually should not have more than two fonts and they should never be from the same category. A serif with another serif would be like wearing two kinds of plaid, Caron said. (I would never!)
And, don’t even get designers started on Comic Sans.
Orange equals fun. Yellow, happy.
“Green is probably more popular now than ever,” Caron said. “That whole environmental movement has been so hot so green has probably increased in popularity.”
And then there’s blue. A favorite of mine for perhaps obvious reasons and possibly the №1 favorite logo color on the Cape, according to Caron.
Purple? Be careful. It’s risky, she said.
Designers, printers and other people who deal with colors always refer back to the Pantone book for consistency’s sake.
RGB is for websites and video, CMYK is for print.
“Ink is very different than light,” Caron said. “In fact you’ll notice things will get duller when you print them.”
This may be especially true for green.
It’s also important to know what the logo will be used on primarily so it can be designed with that in mind, Caron said.
The best logos are designed in black and white first, and should come in various sizes, especially as more businesses are focused on getting their symbol into a form that fits in an online box or button.
And always go back to your word list.
“Does this feel fun?” Caron said. “Am I trying to be fun?”
Caron highlighted some of the fun design features in logos for major companies, including the hidden arrow of FedEx and the a to z smiley face of Amazon’s ubiquitous symbol.
Whatever logo a business lands on should be designed using special software and how it is done will be dictated by what’s in the budget, she said.
So you have your logo and you’re looking to get the word out about your new widget shop. What’s next?
Take that brand on the virtual road via social media.
That’s where marketing consultant Allison Oberton of Mashpee-based Cape Cod Digital Marketing takes over.
“Don’t start posting sporadically on social media without knowing what your business is,” she said.
A business needs to know its market and focus on where that customer is on social media, Oberton said.
Despite talk about it’s demise, Facebook is still the biggest social media network, she said.
“If you’re talking to anyone over 35 they’re definitely on Facebook,” Oberton said.
How much to pitch your business or product on social media? Luckily there’s the 80:20 rule.
“You want to be promoting yourself and your services maybe 20 percent of the time,” she said.
That means 80 percent of your posts should be less self-serving.
“Become a thought leader,” she said.
The most important aspect to social media, however, is to engage your network.
“Engagement is absolutely 1000 percent key,” Oberton said.
While branding through social media is great, it’s meaningless if it doesn’t translate into sales, according to Oberton.
“If they’re not turning around and buying goods and services, you’ve got to tweak it,” she said.
Even otherwise social media-savvy members of the cohort have had challenges, including changing the name on a business page, video quality and proper cropping of images.
Whatever social media channel(s) you choose for your business, as in branding, consistency is essential, Oberton said.
So why Facebook over Instagram or Twitter or even Snapchat for that matter?
LinkedIn is good for B2B and for information heavy posts.
Instagram is a very visual platform, has a broad reach and is almost entirely mobile.
Some may think Twitter is outdated but people “absolutely still use it,” Oberton said.
“I personally use Twitter mostly on a stalking basis,” she said. “If you want to stay in people’s Twitter feeds you have to be posting multiple times per day”
Snapchat anyone? Snapface? Is your target customer under 28 years old? If so, it might be for you.
Pull up Captain Obvious on YouTube and you’ve got YouTube. It’s video, which is popular through whatever channel you distribute it.
Good news on YouTube is you don’t have to post as frequently. But the videos there are generally of higher production value.
“If you’re going to commit to it, it’s going to take a fair amount of time,” Oberton said.
One alternative is to post a video to YouTube and share it through Facebook or Twitter.
My question: What is the use of stories in Instagram and now Facebook?
“You can have direct sales within it,” Oberton said. “Instagram and Facebook want you to interact with their content. It’s actually your content but it’s their content now.”
With a story you show up on the top bar of other people’s feeds and you can embed cool features, Oberton said.
“It’s a way of engaging without commenting or liking or things like that,” she said.
It’s also another location for “behind-the-scenes” content, which people like, according to Oberton.
“It’s endearing,” she said.
But don’t get caught up in how many likes you’re getting if they don’t become sales. Likes don’t really have much inherent value, Oberton said.
And the ability to see how many times someone else’s Instagram post was liked is disappearing soon.
Oberton touched on other online outlets that may not be social media but are important to consider: review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, and blogging for example.
So, as one up-and-coming restaurateur asked, who has time for all of it?
Oberton suggested taking a step back, not getting overwhelmed and maybe focusing on one type of social media to start. She also explained how she schedules her posts on an annual and weekly basis.
For small businesses just getting started she also stuck to the 80:20 rule in her presentation, advising against hiring a marketing consultant for social media or branding help early on when revenue is limited or non-existent.
“Spend money on a logo and then call me,” she said.
Patrick Cassidy owns and operates Cape Cod on the Fly, a Massachusetts-based fly fishing and light tackle guide service.
