Managing Your Message

In Every Way You Can From Day 1

Branding.

There's kind of a natural flow to go from talking about a company's name/website domain name to meaningful branding.

Killian Branding is one of the best in the business if you want to learn more.

A couple of big name brands that come to mind immediately as examples of this include Apple, GoPro, and Red Bull. In each of these cases, the company name, the product, and the branding are all tied up in a perfect pink bow and pretty much understood by most everyone. Bamm. Enough said.

The point is, it's important to think about branding when working on your website, selecting a domain name and creating your message.

Maybe your product name is the perfect domain name choice, maybe you are just forming your company name and brand now, or maybe you need to re-position your company/product in the marketplace with your new website.

Whatever the case, now is a great time to develop a workable strategy, and optimize it in your website planning and design.

Don't forget elements like color and styling, fonts, logo design, and other messaging components you will want to adopt as part of creating your brand image, consistently.

Color psychology and other color concepts present a whole other study but, at least, be mindful because your color palette is part of your company's identity and may be hard to change after it becomes highly known. Give some thought, early on, to your overall "look and feel."

Here's an in-depth look at color psychology from CoSchedule, to help you out.

These will be part of UX (user experience) on visiting your site.

Pinpoint your positioning by creating, evaluating and adapting your UVP, or unique value proposition, to find your “sweet spot," and effectively differentiate yourself from competitors.

Competitive Advantage.

Make sure your message clearly communicates what it is that makes you better, different or unique for your ideal customer to want to work with you. Then carry it out strategically and consistently in your content.

Marketing is Easy, Straight Up by: Sue-Ann Bubacz writemixforbusiness.com from Sue-Ann Bubacz.

(SlideShare Link for Marketing is Easy, Straight Up)

Content Creation.

Content on your website will be comprised of a mix of any number of various media, depending on what you prefer.

Audio and video components are becoming more and more prevalent on websites, but it's okay to start with whatever you are most comfortable with.

The SlideShare above, for example, is the culmination of information and quotes from 3 separate blog posts, published on 3 separate blogs, reflecting some marketing ideas I've learned as a business owner.

It accomplishes a few things for me in content creation.

First, it's a form of re-purposing content to help amplify some of my ideas. Second, it is a visual way to present these ideas, making them more appealing and easy to digest.

Finally, creating a Slideshare offered the opportunity to test the SlideShare platform as well as to reach a new audience with my content. (SlideShare and LinkedIn users.)

Design and plan your site, therefore, to include visual enhancements because people's brains process visuals better and faster, so it makes sense that you present your content in a visually pleasing way.

Plan some of what you add to your content mix to be both visual and to add interesting variations for your audience. A few ideas include the following:

  1. Charts, Graphs, and other illustrations
  2. PowerPoint presentations, Haiku Decks, and the ever more popular, SlideShare
  3. Infographics (try Piktochart) that combine data with graphics in original ways
  4. U-tube clips, webinars, podcasts, etc.
  5. E-books, Checklists, How-to Guides, Case Studies and White Papers
  6. Learning Modules
  7. Membership areas, libraries and other collections for sharing information
  8. Photo Galleries or Collages and Slide Shows of Photos (of your work, if applicable)
  9. Epic Content and Informational blogs, articles, and stories related to your industry/company
  10. Sales Material, Descriptions, Spec Sheets, Brochures, and Technical Explanations
  11. Drawings, Sketches, Mind Maps and Cartoons, if appropriate
  12. White space…do not forget that…simple and uncluttered are a usability must
  13. And on and on…

Think about these things before selecting a platform so you can be sure you can do everything you want without major headaches, additional costs, or massive loss of time to figure it all out later.

Having a written content strategy is the best way to go. Statistically speaking.

This 13 Simple Questions to Help You Draft a Winning Content worksheet by Demian Farnsworth, of copyblogger, will help get you on track to move forward with your content plan.

When writing to your ideal customer, I love this piece by Pamela Wilson that takes you along The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content.

To learn more about highlighting your content via a blog on your website, I just happen to have an eBook resource for you:)

Feel free to "pig out" (lol) on:

Why My Blog is a Hog & Tips for YOU!