Why And How To Change Your Company Logo

Changing your company logo is never something you do on a whim. The decision to change your company logo should only be done when it is absolutely necessary, and it should be a well-planned event. Your logo is something you invest a lot of time and money into as part of your branding efforts. When you are going to change that logo, you are going to change everything your customers already know about your company. That is why it has to be done right, or else your company will suffer.

Why Change Your Logo?

The best reason for changing your logo is if your company changes its name. Whether you merged with another company or changed your name for legal reasons, changing your logo to coincide with a name change can actually be a very effective marketing tactic.

Another reason people use to update their logo is to modernize it to fit contemporary styles. If you feel that you need to change your logo to keep up with a certain style or look, then you did not do a very good job of establishing your brand. There are companies with logos that are hundreds of years old that have never changed because there was no need to change. Instead of changing your logo to meet contemporary styles, you may want to have a professional marketing company look over your branding process and fix it for you.

How To Change Your Logo – Step 1: Design A New Logo

Unless you are a graphic design or marketing company, you should not be designing your logo yourself. A professional design company will create a memorable logo that will make your new name announcement more effective. Work closely with a professional marketing company to design a logo that best exemplifies your new company.

How To Change Your Logo – Step 2: Gradual Shift

The biggest mistake companies make when they change their logos is they choose a random date and then just change everything over. Suddenly, customers are getting invoices with new logos on them and the website has been completely changed. This is not going to give your customers time to adjust, which is why you need to use a gradual shift.

A gradual shift consists of transitional stationary that has both logos at the top and says that the old one is becoming the new one. You should develop the front page of your new website and then let customers preview the new page before you actually launch it. Let your customers ease into the new logo and it will be easier to say goodbye to the old one.

How To Change Your Logo – Step 3: Make The Change

In all of your marketing materials that talk about your transition to a new logo, give customers a date when the change will take place. It is easier to make it a significant date like the first day or last day of a month. When that date arrives, make the change by launching the new website and switching over to the new correspondence and invoicing materials.

By creating a gradual transition to a new logo, your customers will be at ease with the change and it will not disrupt your business. If you must change your logo, then hiring a professional marketing company to help you make the change properly is critically important.

3 Myths About Video Marketing Dispelled

Any Internet marketing expert will tell you that there is significant value in adding video to your website, but there are those nagging doubts that pop up to prevent you from utilizing videos. Every marketing process has its myths and misconception, but few myths are more damaging than the myths about video marketing that prevent website owners from investing in it. There are three myths in particular that put the most doubt into website owner’s heads and those myths need to be dispelled immediately.

“Videos Cost Too Much To Make”

When a website owner throws this statement at an Internet marketing expert you can almost see the marketing expert trying to stop themselves from biting their own lip so hard they bleed. Most of the videos that go viral and get millions of views are done by smartphones under horrible conditions. Does that mean that you should make smartphone videos for your website? No, it means that people care much more about the content of a video than the production.

Anyone can make a high definition video and edit it with software as simple as Microsoft’s Movie Maker to make something that can be posted on a website or on YouTube. You could make 30-second product videos that would double your sales and do quick YouTube commercials that will drive more traffic for the cost of one high definition video camera.

“I Need Actors To Make Good Videos”

We all want Morgan Freeman to narrate our corporate videos, but not every company can afford Morgan Freeman’s services. The truth is that you can make a series of successful videos without ever showing a human being. Product videos do not need any human interaction and you can use one of the many free animation sites to make animated videos that are funny and informative.

The other part of this myth that needs to be dispelled is that not every person in a corporate video needs to be a trained actor. Do you have employees that are enthusiastic and like to be the center of attention? If not, do you know people like that in your circle of friends or family members? While it would be nice to hire actors to make corporate videos, it is far from a necessity.

“I Have No Use For Videos”

This is another common myth that makes Internet marketing experts want to bite their lips to avoid saying something they will regret. If you have products to sell, then you have a use for videos. If you have a website that needs to bring in new traffic on a regular basis to remain successful, then videos can help your website to generate more revenue.

The evolution of technology has made it possible for anyone to make good videos and post them to their websites. Creative people can develop entire video marketing campaigns on what look like smartphone videos and get those videos to go viral. Internet users love videos and that means that your business has plenty of use for videos.

If you are not using every possible marketing tool to draw traffic to your website, then your business is getting left behind. Videos are not only a lot simpler to make and use than you think, but they can also be extremely powerful brand enhancement tools when they are utilized by a professional Internet marketing expert.

Four Marketing Elements That Must Be Instantly Recognizable

When you spend years wearing the same type of clothes and having the same haircut, people recognize you even when they do not see your face. If you are smart, then you use that high level of recognition to generate revenue in some way. But when you change your clothes and cut your hair, no one recognizes you anymore and the magic is gone.

Consumers like to be able to recognize the companies they use instantly and there are several things you can do that make your company instantly recognizable. Once you have achieved a high level of recognition, all of your marketing efforts become more productive and your revenue starts to go up.

Your Logo

The very best logos can be recognized almost instantly and immediately associated with their respective companies. Nike, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s all have logos that consumers can recognize immediately and that does wonders for increasing sales.

For example, when you and your family are on a long driving trip and you want to stop for lunch, if you see those Golden Arches, then you know you are stopping. A recognizable logo becomes something everyone can agree upon and something that brings in business all on its own.

Your Corporate Color Scheme

If you work in the computer industry and you see something in the colors of blue and white, then you instantly think of IBM. If you like drinking soft drinks and you see a cup with red and white on it, you automatically think of Coca-Cola. It does not matter if IBM or Coca-Cola have their logos in plain view. What matters is that these companies have worked hard to associate their organizations with those common color schemes in the minds of consumers.

Your Company Name

Kentucky Fried Chicken became so popular that two could be having a conversation and refer to Kentucky Fried Chicken as KFC and they would both know what restaurant each other was talking about. When your company becomes so popular that consumers start abbreviating your company name and making it part of conversational dialog, then you know that your marketing work is effective.

Your Product

You may have never heard of a company called Kimberly-Clark, but you probably use a product called Kleenex every day. The facial tissue known as Kleenex is so popular that most people do not realize that the product is actually called facial tissue. Most people call all facial tissue Kleenex and that makes Kimberly-Clark a very wealthy company.

A company has to make a lot of decisions when it comes to marketing. The right decisions could lead to a product becoming a household name, while a wrong decision could put a company out of business. The worst thing any company can do is cut its marketing budget, even when the economy takes a turn for the worse.

Good marketing creates images that are burned into consumers’ minds and result in ongoing sales. When your marketplace starts referring to generic products by your company’s brand name or when consumers shorten your company name into a nickname because they refer to your company so often, then you know that your marketing is effective. Take the time to develop the four most important parts of your company’s marketing image and you will see returns several times over for years to come.

Five Ways To Dress Up Your Trade Show Booth

Trade shows represent a significant investment for any company that puts on a display, so it is imperative that each company get the maximum return for their dollar. By just doing the basics of setting up a table and displaying product, a company is only doing a fraction of the work necessary to maximize their trade show presence. There are several other elements that must be included if a company wants to bring home sales leads that will result in plenty of trade show revenue.

A Light Show

Yes, you need a light show to bring attention to your booth, but not something that is constantly shining lights to the ceiling of the display hall. A light show choreographed with some exciting music in anticipation of announcing the winner of a contest you were holding or some other significant event will definitely bring people to your booth.

A Negotiation Area

While the majority of trade show revenue is generated after the show is over, you will have people who want to buy products from you or discuss sales agreements during the show. You could wait until after the floor is closed for the day and hope that your prospect actually accepts your invitation to a dinner, or you could have a negotiation area set up in your booth where you can talk to prospects in relative privacy.

Large Banners

If you want to get traffic to visit your booth, then make the booth impossible to miss with large corporate banners. You want these banners to be large enough and displayed high enough that it would be impossible for anyone to not be able to find your booth. You should find out the rules for banners at the trade show before getting yours printed up because some trade shows have guidelines that you will need to follow.

A Popular Giveaway Item

People love getting free stress balls and pens at trade shows, but it is the company that gives away the quality, cloth carrying bag that actually gets all of the attention. Free giveaways that either look expensive or have an immediate practical application will always be popular at trade shows and you need to use those types of giveaways to spread your company name around and drive more traffic to your booth.

Celebrities

While not always financially possible, having a celebrity or two at your booth can help to significantly increase traffic. The most important thing about getting a celebrity to help your trade show booth is to make sure that the celebrity’s audience fits your target audience. An auto parts manufacturer would probably not benefit by having the most popular romance novel author in the world at their booth.

A trade show booth is a considerable investment for any company, but the investment needs to be a little higher if you really want to get a significant return. When people attend a trade show, they are usually not overwhelmed by the features in your latest products because your competition is probably offering very similar features. But if you can attract the foot traffic to your booth, then you have a much better chance of generating trade show revenue and getting the biggest return on your marketing investment.

Why Brainstorming Is Essential To Good Marketing

Whenever we take on a new client, a huge part of our process involves brainstorming ideas. We brainstorm ideas with the client and then we brainstorm among ourselves. There is a significant difference between bouncing ideas off of our clients and sitting down in one of our conference rooms and creating the ideas that will be successful marketing campaigns. While we need client input to create those successful campaigns, we also realize how important it is that our marketing experts come up with the perfect flurry of ideas that will become your marketing program.

What Do We Hope To Accomplish With Brainstorming?

Brainstorming is not the uncontrolled chaos that it has been made out to be. When marketing professionals brainstorm, we look for ideas that are not part of the beaten path. It has become increasingly difficult in this day and age to come up with a unique marketing plan that will gather plenty of attention. When we brainstorm, we are looking for that angle that will help us to develop a logo, press release, pamphlet, or any other type of marketing material that will get your message out to the masses.

What Is Professional Brainstorming?

One of the biggest misconceptions about our idea process is that brainstorming is simply the process of jotting some ideas down on paper and choosing the best one. Good brainstorming, the type that results in good results, is done in a very methodical manner that would actually frustrate anyone who is not intimately familiar with marketing.

When a team of marketing experts is throwing around ideas on a customer topic, it becomes very easy to go off on a tangent that can derail the entire session. The part that our customers find impossible to believe is that brainstorming is not completely about random ideas that bring about spectacular results. Everything in a brainstorming session is carefully choreographed and the results are then analyzed and many are discarded. With professional brainstorming, the trick is to stay on topic while inviting enough creativity to come up with the marketing ideas that will help your company to stand apart.

The Results You See Are From Good Brainstorming

Most marketing companies want you to believe that they have a team of professionals who sit in a conference room and, just like Don Draper in Mad Men, they simply spew out these great ideas. But we want our customers to understand that there is a creative process we go through to help bring about the best possible results and get you a marketing campaign that you deserve.

It takes a lot of hard work and a lot of ideas that get discarded before our experts develop the marketing plan that will work for your company. After the brainstorming is done, then the best ideas are put to the functionality test to see which ones to pursue. Is this idea going to get us the best results, or is it limited by SEO requirements? When you understand the process, then you feel confident knowing that the marketing programs we create are our very best work.

As a marketing company, we need to be creative every single day to get the results our customers need. But it is important to us that our customers know that our creativity is the result of hard work and not something we just come up with off the tops of our heads. We work hard for you because you deserve it!

Marketing Essentials for 2015

It is our job to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to marketing information, which is why we are fully prepared to handle your marketing needs in 2015. The marketing world changes constantly and what worked in 2014 may not work as well in 2015. As the year starts to come to an end, we just wanted to point out for marketing realities for 2015 that we already know.

Keywords Will Be Less Important

Remember those good ol’ days of creating lists of primary and secondary keywords for your website content that would help to drive traffic? Well, those days will be all but over in 2015. As Google continues to change its algorithms, the emphasis will be on quality content and not the use of keywords.

Google’s Panda and Hummingbird updates are working together to try and make searching more intelligent and the Penguin update is being updated to make sure that the links on a website offer value to the user. If it all sounds confusing, don’t worry. We have it under control and we can put content on your site that will drive traffic in 2015.

Social Media Marketing Will Become Huge

Social media marketing is already something that we focus on with strong intensity, but it will become even more intense in 2015. One of the reasons that social media marketing is changing in 2015 is the changes being made by the major social media platforms.

For example, Facebook is no longer the free business marketing platform it once was. If you want to use Facebook to market your business, then you are going to have to pay a lot of very complicated fees. We will help you to understand the new Facebook and use the other social media platforms to your advantage as well.

Organic Links Will Be Critical

Organic link building is when you take the time to work with other website owners to develop relationships that are beneficial to your website users. Anyone who buys links with a lot of traffic going to them is going to be punished severely and that trend will continue to intensify throughout 2015.

Google started cracking down on purchased links with the first Penguin update and there are more Penguin updates being released in 2015. Google now considers it to be spamming when you put purchased links on your website and we have all of the resources necessary to avoid Penguin penalties.

Quality Content Will Become More And More Prevalent

Web content used to be crafted by professionals who knew how to build pages and articles around certain keywords and keyword phrases. As we touched on earlier, keywords are starting to diminish in importance, which means that quality content is going to be king.

We have a team of professional writers who will create your quality content and get your website the attention it deserves. We are prepared for the changes coming in 2015 and we put quality content on your site that will drive plenty of traffic.

In 2015, Google will be looking to change the way that websites create and utilize content. We are prepared for those changes and we are ready to get your website the traffic you need throughout all of 2015 and beyond.

Five Reasons To Hire A Direct Mail Company

Every once in a while we will get a print job from a customer that is set up to be a direct mailing project. We always offer our services as direct mail experts, but occasionally clients will decline to let us handle their direct mail campaigns. To put it bluntly, your direct mail campaign needs a professional marketing company to execute it if it is going to be successful.

You could try your hand at putting together your own direct mail program, but trial and error will cost you a lot of money. We will maximize the return on your investment by using our professional experience to get you results beyond what you had expected. There are five good reasons why you need a professional direct mail program and we are just the company to deliver that program to you.

Your Mailing List Is Dangerous

A bad direct mail mailing list can do a lot more harm than good, which is why we spend a lot of time creating a list that will get you the results you need. Are you sure that every contact on that list you bought is current? Are you absolutely certain that every contact on that list you bought wants to see your mailer?

As a professional marketing company, we spend a lot of time checking our mailing lists and creating accurate mailing categories. All of our contacts have opted-in to receive marketing mailers, which means that we know that our mailing list will read your mailer.

Your Self-Designed Mailer Is Ineffective

You have exactly three seconds after your mailer is opened to convince your recipient to keep on reading. We know a whole volume of tactics we can use to make sure that your mailer gets read by the widest possible audience. Your self-designed mailer may or may not get people’s interest because you are not sure about the marketing side of creating mailers. We make it our business to know marketing and that is why our mailers are effective.

Your Self-Designed Mailer Looks Unprofessional

As a marketing company, we understand the different formats and information that people are looking for from professional marketing information. If your self-designed mailer does not have everything that people are expecting and in a format that looks professional, then your mailer and your company will get disregarded.

Your Campaign Lacks Focus

One of the biggest misconceptions that our clients have about direct mailers is that they can send out a bunch of general product brochures and the orders will start rolling in. Direct mailers, just like any other form of marketing, must have a focused message and purpose or else they will have no effect.

You Have No Idea How To Measure The Progress Of Your Campaign

What metrics will you use to determine if you received good return on your direct mailer investment? Do you have a system in place that allows you to determine when mailers are being used by your customers? What numbers are you generating that will help you to create more effective mailers in the future?

Without a way to measure the success of your direct mail campaign, then your entire campaign is a waste of money. We know how to create direct mailer metrics and we will show you how to determine whether or not each campaign was a success.

There is much more to a good direct mailer campaign than just putting some brochures in the mail and waiting for the phone to ring. If you want to get the maximum return on your direct mailer investment, then you need to hire our marketing professionals to get your program off the ground.

4 Reasons You Should Print Shirts for Your Business

To many business owners, getting printed t-shirts is one of the biggest marketing cliches around. But have you ever wondered why, if the idea of custom t-shirts is so common, there are companies that still print them? The reason is because custom printed t-shirts work and we can give you four good reasons why you should give us a call to have your custom printed t-shirts done today.

T-Shirts Are Effective, Walking Billboards

Think about the way you react when you walk down the street and see a colorful t-shirt. More often than not, your eyes are going to check out the shirt to see what the colorful design has to say. Many people even go the extra step and try to see if there is any more designs on the back of the shirt.

A well-designed t-shirt gets attention and will expand your company’s brand name recognition. Our design experts can create a t-shirt that people will have to notice and we will get you a maximum return on your investment.

People Grow Fond Of Their T-Shirts

While it does help that hundreds of people may see one your custom t-shirts as it is worn by a happy customer, there is even more value to the customer themselves. A colorful and quality t-shirt can easily become a part of a person’s wardrobe and be something that they wear regularly.

That customer, or prospect, starts to develop a warm, emotional bond with your company and all you did was give that customer a t-shirt. Never underestimate the power of comfortable and reliable clothing.

Well-Designed T-Shirts Are In Demand

One of the lingering effects of a well-designed custom t-shirt is that many of the people who see someone wearing your shirt will want one. While that may not mean that those t-shirt coveting prospects will call your company to order a shirt, it does mean that your company name will stick in their heads and they will have a strong positive response when they see your business location, or when they see your business on the Internet.

Our experts can create a t-shirt that people will want to have in their collection, regardless as to whether or not they need your product. One of the primary purposes of a custom t-shirt is to increase brand name recognition and our t-shirts are very effective at getting the job done.

Collect Them All

The business owners who dismiss the marketing power of custom printed t-shirts do not understand the strong appeal t-shirts have to a large portion of the public. For example, if you gave away a promotional t-shirt that got a lot of attention, then many of the people who got the first shirt will wonder what new designs you will be offering. Our experts can help you put out promotional t-shirt designs that people will have to collect, which means more exposure for you.

Giving away custom printed t-shirts is one of the most effective ways to create a positive bond with your client base and to get your company name out there for thousands of people to see every day. Give us a call and we will discuss a custom t-shirt plan that will put your company name and logo in the minds of a whole new array of customers. We will show you how t-shirts will expand your customer base and increase your revenue.

Three Reasons You Need A Pay-Per-Click Campaign

One of the more powerful, yet subtle, online marketing tools available is a form of advertising known as pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC advertising. This is a form of advertising that utilizes search keywords to help put your message in front of a target audience that is interested in what your company has to offer.

At Tom and Company, we are experts in utilizing PPC advertising to get you maximum results for your marketing investment. If you are unsure about using PPC advertising, then here are three good reasons to give us a call and get a PPC campaign started today.

Your Ads Get Seen By A Very Targeted Audience

There is no such thing as an all-encompassing PPC advertising campaign. When we sit down with you to discuss your advertising expectations, we will talk about several segments of your target audience and what keywords we can use to reach those segments. With PPC advertising, you are able to dig deep into your target audience and find something for every consumer.

You can use PPC campaigns to advertise individual products, launch a new product or get exposure for a new promotion. We can develop PPC campaigns that will reach the people in your target audience who are interested in what your company has to say.

Your Ads Get Seen On Some Very Impressive Websites

A PPC campaign operates on a network of websites that can include just about any site you can think of. Your PPC advertising also has a chance to be seen on the front page of Google search results, which allows you to leapfrog the competition and gain valuable real estate on those Google results pages.

A good PPC campaign gets your ads seen on websites that are complimentary to yours. When your customers do a search for your products or services, your ads could show up on a site that offers companion services to yours. You will expand your audience and you will reach more people.

You Only Pay For Results

When you utilize any advertising campaign, you want to get the best value possible. With a PPC campaign, you only pay when someone clicks on the link to your website. We will work with you to develop a realistic budget and help you to get the best return on your marketing dollar. Whenever you can get involved in a marketing program that only charges you when you get positive results, then you have found something worth investing in.

Start Planning A PPC Campaign Now

A good PPC campaign takes time to plan and implement. The longer you wait to contact one of our experts about your PPC campaign, the longer you will have to wait to benefit from the results. We have a step-by-step process that we go through that will determine what we need to do to get your message to the right audience.

A PPC campaign is one part of a comprehensive marketing program. If you want to bring in revenue-generating traffic to your website, then you need to do everything you can to gain maximum exposure for your website. With a PPC campaign from Tom and Company, you will get your marketing message in front of the people who want to see it the most, and that will help to consistently increase your company’s revenues.

What Is Remarketing & Why Do You Need It?

If you spend enough time looking for a good Internet marketing firm, then you are bound to see all of the industry buzz words thrown around and used with reckless abandon. At Tom and Company, we are determined to make sure that our customers not only understand what all of those buzz words mean, but that they also know how those processes can be utilized to increase their revenue.

One of the buzz words you may have heard from other companies is remarketing. This is a process that should be part of your business process and utilized on a regular basis. By examining information from customers who showed strong interest in your site, you can focus in on the keywords and SEO tactics that will generate more revenue.

Remarketing Prevents Customers From Forgetting About Your Company

The concept behind remarketing is actually very simple. Let’s say a customer fills up a shopping cart on your website with $50 worth of products and even goes as far as to give you their email address as well. Then, before the checkout process is completed, that customer suddenly ends the transaction and leaves the cart filled.

With remarketing, we will examine that cart and create a focused marketing campaign designed at grabbing the interest of the client and getting them to complete that shopping cart and buy more product. We will use focused marketing to put links and ads in front of that customer which will make sure that the customer never forgets your company.

We Use Remarketing Information To Expand Your Exposure

Another effective use for remarketing information is to put together advertising programs that reach a more focused audience. For example, that customer with the $50 cart may have put together a collection of products that seem unrelated. But we look at it as a buying trend, and we will create a marketing plan that reaches out to customers just like this one. We will grab people who want that same combination of products and hope up an entirely new client base for your website.

Never Assume That Lost Customers Are Lost For Good

There are many reasons why customers fill up a shopping cart and then leave the transaction incomplete. But regardless of the reason, customers who abandon shopping carts are going to be easier to convert into buying customers than cold leads. When you do not have a remarketing plan in place from Tom and Company, you are leaving money and recurring business on the table.

Remarketing allows you to create focused marketing programs that are designed to inspire customers to buy from your site and become loyal customers. Since the customers we target in a remarketing program have already expressed a strong interest in your business, we can use the products they almost purchased as the foundation for an effective marketing campaign.

Give us a call and we will be more than happy to explain what remarketing is and how it can help you. We will also be more than happy to explain any of those other marketing buzz words you have heard that may be confusing you. At Tom and Company, we want to be your main Internet marketing resource and we want to be the one marketing company you trust to bring you the revenue you need.