Many business owners go deep in to the research of names for their business. But what’s in a name? That is not what I assert as name can explain a business at a glance. If your business name is too complicated then your customers will have to think deeply to understand what you do. So why not let the name of your business take care of it?  Let the business name define what your business is all about. In doing so of the name happens to be common one then there is no harm in it. The sum of money that you were suppose to send in searching out a unique name for your business, can be easily transferred in to marketing which will help you to make difference in to the lives of your customers.

In many cases the small entrepreneurs make a mistake by introducing a product in the market without a thorough market research. They stay dubious about the acceptance of the product in the market and offer them in the leading stores and shopping malls in the hope that they will run. When asked for the reason of not doing sufficient market research, then they come up with it reply that they done have enough money to spend on such sophisticated research analysis. But they can very well find the areas where their target customers are and can do their branding before launching. Suppose is a company is going to make a new toy for children they can go to the nearest school or day care center and let the kids play with their toy to foster their product and brand.

Be very selective in deciding for the branding tem and companies often makes this branding mistakes by randomly selecting brand team member. The small business houses make this mistake very often. It is better to select the members who have the character and capability to communicate about your business successfully in the market place.

Many small business houses make a branding mistake by preferring customers over employees. If you treat your employees well then for sure the best people will come out to promote your brand and their performance will be the desired one.

Hiring one movie star is gradually getting obsolete as companies are coming up with multiple brand ambassadors. It is time when companies should differentiate themselves in all possible manner while vying for a greater sale. Companies are ready to invest enough on their branding and thus using loads of money for hiring celebrities in a row is a lucrative idea. Noted brands are going for this kind of branding. When Airtel used this strategy at large, Sony followed suit and used different celebrities to promote different products. Jewelry retailers are also using the concept of multiple brand ambassadors for different jewelries.

The companies now believe that as long as they have money to hire more people they should make use of it. However, I find this concept a little practical than hiring a single celebrity and promoting all products through the same person. This is somewhat impractical as different products have different set of functions and features. Thus hiring a different celebrity will evoke different emotions within the viewers. Moreover, there are preferences among consumers as well. Some like Catherine Zeta Jones while others prefer Demi Moore. Using more multiple brand ambassadors will help to draw the attention of all the consumers easily.

It is the call of time to hire more than one celebrity to promote a single brad as competition in getting harder with each passing year.

Many FMCG companies have adopted the strategy of open discussion and feedback from customers on their products. As far as I remember, in 2008 Procter & Gamble welcomed its consumers to offer their opinions and feedbacks about their products. People who have stumbled upon their product by chance will find this as an honor and shall provide the feedback with utmost honesty. Bedsides those who have used it for years will be the best judge to offer where the product is lagging or where the product sets itself aside from competitors. The former view is the negative branding and this render a company to polish its products till that level where it fetches maximum customer satisfaction.

I have often found brands offering free samples either in shops or within magazines to promote their sale. However, intelligent business owners follow the same promotional effort with a little addition to it. Apart from providing a free sample they also urge the customer to provide their feedback vial letter or email. This insists a consumer to use the free sample and offer their esteemed feedback, which is valued highly by the company. Even if it is bad the company gladly accepts it and reshapes their product before launching it afresh.

Whatever be the time frame of marketing strategy be the prime objective of it is to convert a consumer into a potential client. The ROI model will offer a quantification of the responses received through social media marketing in the form of messages published for brand building and direct messages. The social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, when brought under magnifying glasses to calculate the ROI, show how they have helped in product sales and sampling for a company.

The fan following earned from social media marketing needs to be segmented according to their types. This can be conducted by finding the fans gathered within a short time frame. These fans will become the positive influence for a company. Such fandom can be gathered out of news like launching of a new product, broadcasting a positive press release etc. The fans collected through these activities are termed as followers and their activities is the first step in making the segmentation.

Through the interaction in social media sites a company can mark the level of engagement of its fandom. Sooner or later the company can also know how the engagement of the fans evolves over a period of time. This can be done through the observations like how many of the fans post on your wall? Or how many of the fans offer a Like in your status updates?

Finding the reach of the fans is also an inevitable task for the calculating the ROI of social media marketing. The reach of fans can be found easily by observing the number of friends each of your fans possesses. You need to check if these friends have connections in other social media sites.

The sentiments of your fans are important to know but how to quantify them is a question for every company. This can be done by using the techniques used for data mining. You can also use the regression trees that can be used to segregate the short comments received in social media sites. This will offer you t know the conversion rate easily.

After you are done with your work of segmentation you can find an extensive consumer study report that will tell you about the return on investment instantly.

I have tried to jolt some of the misconceptions about small business branding that are common in most of the owners of small business firms.

The foremost misconception about small business branding involves the fundamental of the brand building. The owners think that the entire task of building is a brand is quite minor as it involves a small tagline and a logo.

It is true that a witty tag-line is required and an attractive logo is must fro creating a brand. But one must realize the need of it. It is mot a mere line and a picture, it is made with enough musing about the company policy and need. The logo must be a magnetic signage that will make every beholder pay attention and the tag-line should be a meaningful crisp message.

Mist small business owners have a perception that a discussion on your product quality ends by stating your brand.

Here is a little correction required as brand is not confined within the discussion of your product. Your product is definitely a part of the brand but a brand has a greater expanse. It states about the business goal of the entrepreneurs and also involves the reflection of the entrepreneur’s personality. In fact a small business can grow to mature into a large enterprise through brand building and maintaining relations. So, no matter how many rivals you have in the market, if your brand building is strong clients will return to their preferred brand only.

Most business owners of small firms mistake that brand building is similar to that of advertising. It is partially true as for small business branding; exposure is a crucial as well as inevitable point. But advertising cost may be soaring for a firm which is of a small size. People can go for social media marketing instead of plunging into ads. This is a cost effective way to meet and greet your clients. At the same time your branding can be done more efficiently and candidly as well.

The clients of Viva la Brand are increasing at a rapid rate as the agency provides planned initiatives faster than other firms of the same stripe, the errors of this agency is close to nil and the overall cost of their service is reasonably low for such a high quality service. With so mush benefits, a firm is sure to accelerate by expanding their clientele.

The new companies that have partnered with Viva La Brand for their marketing and branding belong to heterogeneous industries. While some of the companies are manufacturing firms, others are medical laboratories. Among the new set of clients, two companies namely, Post-Up Stand and MFS Supply are included in the list of fastest growing companies in United States.

The companies, which have partnered Viva La Brand of late, have tested the ad agency in all angles before delegating them the task of brand promotion. This is evident from the statement of Alon Weiner, who is vice president of PostUp Stand. Alon Weiner reported that his company has chosen Viva because Viva proved itself as the best ad agency that can promote their brand and intimate the customers about their core service through marketing. Weiner further added that Viva has also performed extensive research on the services offered by his company PostUp Stand to search for the unique feature that differentiates the company from its competitors. The unique feature that Viva searched out was unknown to PostUp Stand although they were offering this feature to their clients.

Here lies the task of the adept personnels of a branding agency like Viva. They have the know-how to study the service matrix of its clients thoroughly and find the unique selling proposition that can entice the customers. Brand promotion and marketing are not a new concept but with agencies like Viva new dimensions are being added in the world of branding.

The older we get, the less we try to experiment, and by the time we hit our stride and become older marketers know exactly what customers are willing to do and not do. And this in turn is used against them. Younger customers, conversely, are older and more open about their choices. They are still formative in a branding sense, and in them brand loyalty must be bred. But brand loyalty and age has not gone a connection that is steely and impenetrable. More than age, it is perhaps experience that makes us brand loyalists. I remember switching from my cell phone service provider of years based on the fact that they were harsh towards me on one occasion. Little things like this dictate our brand loyalty.

With age, we can do one of two things. We can become a creature of habit that does something because he (or she) knows that it is liked through experience or we become more open since our experience teaches us that sticking to something is not the right thing to do. We end up asking questions about brands sometimes, seeking the truth and proof of claim. Experience really can be the double edged sword that makes us more experimental or closed to our choices. The way you proceed is down to your individual personality really. Indeed, even something like category breeds brand loyalty.

I know cigarette smokers that will not switch brands no matter what. I know of some fashionistas that will happily switch brands if the price point is right and a demonstrated difference is shown. There are patterns of brand loyalty in all of the madness and across categories everyone has at least one brand towards which brand loyalty is demonstrated. Ignore the benefits and the stark realities that brand loyalty offers at your own risk.

Define your objectives

What exactly are you focused on monitoring? Don’t do it just because everyone else is doing it and its “hip”. Do it because you know what you want. Do it if you want to know what people are saying about your brand. Do it if you want to know what people are saying about something. Knowing what you want will help you allocate your resources better.

Know where to monitor

Social media is all about conversations and as such there is a lot of chatter in the space. At its core, social media is all about relationships. And you can’t talk to everyone at once, so pick and choose where you want to hang out. Digitally speaking, of course. And be wherever your audience generally is.

Know what to monitor

Social media monitoring is keyword-based, and so pick the right keywords. Try keeping a track of company, brand and product names. Even competitors can be tracked as also key executives. Keep a handle on what to track because it’s key to success.

Pick and choose

There is a lot to social media. It is voluminous. There’s just so much happening that you can’t be in every place at one time. So make your social media monitoring more intelligent. Be savvy in your choices and focus on whatever is important.

Plan

There has to be a contingency plan in place. In addition, you need to have a plan on how to engage your audience even in more routine scenarios rather than just in isolated cases. When a blogger praises you, use that to benefit both parties. Create a customer advocacy program if you can. Deal with irate customers in a fixed manner and listen to feedback about your competitors too. Think about all of this and have plans in place to deal with everything.

Twitter’s logo reflects the spirit of the community using the brand, but it’s more than just that. It communicates the purpose of the business and the values that it seeks to espouse. The best businesses can have the worst business logos and the worst of businesses can have the best of business logos. Business logos in themselves will not ensure success. But it is instantly recognizable and relatable for a wide audience. It has to uniquely represent what the business stands for and convey that clearly. Business logos can even be crowdsourced, to add to what Twitter did; that means you hold an online design content for the logo and pick one of the user created designs to be the first iteration of your business logo. This keeps costs low and lets business owners dictate what they’ll pay for a logo. And it engages your user community. It’s a win-win situation.

Business logos don’t need to stick to typical rules when deciding the logo design. There are no rules other than the ones that you impose on yourself. But if you are hiring a designer, it is always a good idea to give him a guideline or something to work with, such as making sure the logo is capable of being reproduced in various sizes. Think of it will look on a business card and a billboard. Think of aspect ratios, which is the ratio of length to height. This should not be compromised either. Also consider the target market you had in mind; will the logo be impactful? Will it be memorable? Will it have instant appeal? And whatever you do, once you’ve settled upon it, don’t change it other than making some minor changes. Sometimes, change is not good. This is particularly true of business logos.

At the Beijing Olympics, Adidas pumped in millions of dollars by way of advertisements. They were fully expected to do so. They were, after all, official sponsors of the Games. Adidas has the kind of marketing budget few do, and Chinese sporting goods manufacturer Li Ning certainly did not have those kind of dollars to spend. But their solution was ingenuous. Li Ning was also the name of a gymnast, so he was made to wear the company’s clothing at the opening ceremony and it earned Li Ning (the company and the gymnast) the kind of attention marketing dollars often can’t buy, this on a budget. Consequently, Li Ning’s stocks soared and that, in summary, is the power of guerrilla marketing.

Guerrilla marketing is nothing more than a way to gain real traction in a market that already has enough clutter in it. There’s just so much hype and hoopla surrounding every event that you have to differentiate yourself somehow. And stunts such as the one Li Ning pulled off can go very far when it comes to grabbing your customers by the eyeballs. Consider another example, at the Atlanta Olympics. Reebok was the official sponsor, but Nike handed out flags to fans with the Nike swoosh on it. It was a hilariously brilliant tactic that saw Reebok ambushed at what should have been their own games and it got a whole lot of recognition for Nike.

Guerrilla marketing works well for large companies, but it works even better for small companies that don’t have the money or the awareness that big companies have. Using guerrilla marketing right means that it will catapult them into the consciousness of the customer in a way that was previously impossible. The first thing to do is to come up with a plan. For example, you might not be the official drinks sponsors of an event, but handing out free drinks to all those that arrive for the event is a great way to gain exposure. Marketing experts have confirmed something that doesn’t take a genius to figure out; free stuff always ends up winning you friends and you have attention so long as you hand out free stuff.

Hiring a marketing expert to come up with something can do the job for you, but in the end its about capturing hearts and minds and coming up with ingenuous ways to make this happen. Dubbing yourself the best sponsor not to be a sponsor at the Olympics could work, for instance, or saying you’re the best no 2 car rental company there is, which only makes you try harder (sound familiar?). Some countries, such as England and New Zealand, are tired of guerrilla marketing and are passing laws against such as the laws passed for the 2012 London Olympics. But how do you stop an idea, and how do you defend against free speech? As long as there are enough products to market, guerrilla marketing will flourish. And that is a fact that cannot be disputed.