You have your own business, congratulations and good for you! Now, what are you going to do with it? What is your purpose? your goals? What is your branding position? strategy? What is your corporate story? identty? Why would customers buy from you? How are you going to sell your products or services? What are the tools in your sales and marketing arsenal?
Just a few key questions that you need to take into consideration and all of them relate in, around, through and about your corporate identity. The face of that identity is your first chance to make a good impression. It's how you dress your business for success and it includes your logo, color scheme, graphics you use, layout of variou skey pieces of collateral like your website or corporate brochure. But how many realize that it really needs to also include your message, how you tell your story, how you gwet your message in front of the right audience and how you close the sale?
I'm reading this awesome book right now by David Meerman Scott called "The New Rules of Marketing & PR." You can check out his blog here: http://www.WebInkNow.com. I'm only just starting section II, but wow, how I'm enamored of this book. How it ties together so many things I'd been thinking yet unable to formulate completely into a solid plan of action or to use the right words. How right on the mark he is.
I would go further to suggest though, that the side of corporate identity that traditionally has been the domain of graphic artists, as well as the separate domain of web designers ... have further blurred the lines as David discusses in his book, to encompass all avenues of a business' identity. From the graphical to the website/web technology. From the message to the sales person (how product is sold). It's all so much more blurred than I think have been touched upon in his book.
So, is your graphic artist a web designer? is your web designer a business person? is your marketer a designer? is your designer a sales person? is your sales person a content writer? is your content writer a PR person? is your PR person a marketer ... it's all so circular thanks to the internet and the new rules!
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