Posted by JT Long on Fri, Jul 30, 2010
How do you know if your prospective B2B Marketing Partner is a good fit for your organization?
In this special audio blog, we share a tip-off that you may not be working with the right company.
Audio Dealbreaker of the Day
Red: What if you went to see an optometrist you hadn’t met before, and, before testing your vision, he said, “surgery can help you.” Wouldn’t that be weird? The equivalent happens in marketing all the time. Just Google “marketing consultant,” call the first 10 companies listed, and ask them what you need. The good ones will insist on building a foundation before diving into tactics. They’ll link marketing goals with business goals, and ensure that the marketing planning is grounded in real client and prospect perceptions. In short, the initial focus should be on methodically preparing your firm to attract and quickly capitalize on a moment’s attention from a prospect. A focus on a particular tactic right out of the gate can make you wonder: Does this marketing consultant see all the options? How can they confidently recommend this over the others at this point?
Take away
If you wouldn’t trust an optometrist who gives you advice before checking your eyes, don’t trust a marketer who pushes a tactic before checking your marketing.
Your turn
Did we get it right? Leave anything out? Chime in below.
Posted by Sam Chapple on Thu, Jul 08, 2010
Like the crafty Pirates of the Caribbean, B2B sellers lured by tales of gold on the high seas of the Internet need to be aware of the dangers lurking in ecommerce waters.
Just as Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner have different goals and fighting styles, each business has different needs. For example, typically B2B companies have comparatively few products posted online compared to thousands featured on a consumer site. That leads to different considerations when choosing the appropriate vehicle for sailing off into the profitable sunset.
So before you hoist your flag and open for business, let’s take a moment to understand the moving parts in a working ecommerce platform.
Payment Gateway: This virtual port is where an order is actually charged to a customer for a transaction. It is not part of the shopping cart! Payment gateways provide a high security Internet portal for each merchant for manual order transactions and account reporting. The gateway also offers an application programming interface, or ‘API’, for sending and receiving encrypted order transaction information.
This is the source of eCommerce, the passing of dubloons from one account to another electronically. A payment gateway does not need a shopping cart, but a shopping cart needs a payment gateway. The merchant pays a monthly gateway fee and a percentage on each transaction.
Merchant Account: A B2B seller needs a merchant account to accept credit card transactions from the gateway. A merchant account is generally an added option to an existing business account at the business’s local bank. The merchant pays a monthly fee and a percentage on each transaction. Many factors come into play when a bank calculates a merchant's various fees, so it’s important to keep a working relationship with your banker. Missing data like exact address match, as well as off-page factors like your business credit, can influence your rates. Take the time to shop around for rates. The points can add up faster than skeletons in a Disney battle scene.
Alternative Payment Methods: Be sure to examine both sides of every payment method. PayPal accepts credit cards from out-of-network clients; however they have a lifetime limit ($2,500) before clients are required to sign up. PayPal can hold funds from out-of-network (large amounts) or unverified sales. This is part of fraud protection and can take some time to clear. A merchant account, on the other hand, goes right into your bank account. You own it, not PayPal.
Shopping Cart: In its most basic form, a shopping cart is a specialized web application that allows a customer to add products, calculate prices, estimate taxes, and estimate shipping. The application will then bill (not charge) the customer, produce a nice receipt page and send an email confirmation.
Shopping cart websites are essentially the check-out part of a brick and mortar supermarket and a virtual product catalog rolled up into one. The idea is to make it work like a real shopping cart... where you walk around choosing stuff and putting it in your basket. When you're ready to pay, you go to the checkout and it's all added up. You pay by credit card or debit card, and your payment is verified electronically. On the merchant’s side all the payment transactions and approval codes are batched for payment at the end of the day via the gateway. Sales are compared to gateway transactions to reconcile the accounts.
Fraud protection: The online merchant is at a disadvantage with fraud, having both cyber gangs and the credit card companies against them. Specialized services provide card-not-present fraud protection for merchants at an additional cost.
The Whole Enchilada
A gateway combined with a shopping cart application provides the greatest flexibility in selling products by giving payment transaction and merchandising tools to the B2B company. With that flexibility comes additional learning and time requirements.
When evaluating services, don’t forget the cost of your time in managing a store and the daily clerk duties it entails. The simpler the flow, the easier it will be to utilize the resource.
Separate “must haves” and “nice to haves” based on your long-term business priorities. That’s where developing a written business plan around an online service or product line is so important. Mastering the mechanics of digital distribution and payment is far more important than trying to build the best B2B website at first. Small steps get you there quicker.
There is no one size fits all in B2B online sales. That's why it is important to get the right kind of help with B2B eCommerce.
I just want to take payments
Many times in the services industries there is no one set price for a product, or clients pay for time or by subscription. This can be difficult to handle with a standard shopping cart. That is where experienced sailors of the ecommerce seas can help keep you from getting seasick.
This is the first article in a three part series on B2B eCommerce. The next installment examines the pros and cons of different ecommerce solutions and how you can minimize the price of doing business online. Please share your experiences and ask your burning questions about how to protect your booty from the curse of too many fees.
This article is by Sam Chapple, captain of Ecommerce and Internet Marketing at B2B Communications.
Posted by Sam Chapple on Thu, Jun 03, 2010
When it comes to choosing a web content management system to build your B2B website, what you get for free is a lot of work... especially if you try to integrate with a shopping cart or CRM.
When people evaluate a Content Management System for a B2B website, they often miss some very important requirements. They always seem to look for the one that’s ‘best’ and cheapest. Instead, they should base the choice on the intended audience and skill set of the site operators.
Probably the biggest mistake is going for a Content Management System that is perceived as ‘free’. This is a mistake because there is skill in running a website, and many ‘free’ CMS require a multitude of skills and time to develop, test and deploy. This does not end up being a one-time cost either.
Let’s look a little closer at the various options without getting lost in a particular CMS.
Open-Source
There are many ‘community’ based software projects like WordPress, Drupal, Mambo, Joomla!, Post Nuke and a whole lot more that are technically free. That is, the source code is
available to everyone and can be freely modified and distributed, but not sold.
These projects are excellent sources for development applications but are not some kind of out-of-the-box solution. Many times they end up in the hands of inexperienced but well meaning people who get completely lost in the complexity and the assumption of open-Source software that you know what you are doing, and if not, you will find the answer. That is, no technical support.
It’s true there are user forums and it’s true that open source is a great hobby. But if you are not willing to dedicate your precious time learning about the applications and getting under the hood, then ‘free’ is not ‘free’.
Closed-Source
Closed-source software applications are proprietary. That means the code behind the application is not available and is usually a trade secret. This is done for business reasons. It’s very difficult to develop software without money.
Companies license their closed-source applications for use only, not modification. Closed-source software companies like Oracle or Microsoft also offer paid support.
The big drawback to closed-source is its cost: It’s relatively expensive and requires additional resources (as does open-source) such as web servers and operating systems.
Hosted Services (SaaS)
Answering the call of the small business hosted services are application service providers (ASP) and the new breed, SaaS, or Software as a Service. This means you rent the application and not own it. This is an easy way for small businesses to get the tools that the big businesses already have. Probably the most well known is SalesForce, a Customer Relationship Management system that offers cradle-to-grave tracking of business leads and contacts.
A powerful inbound marketing platform called HubSpot incorporates blog, website and content management along with powerful analytics to track leads generated through a process called ‘closed loop marketing’. This is a process of gaining feedback in the form of email addresses, phone numbers and business addresses as lead follow-up, and data to track results.
There are also times when unscrupulous website designers sell an open-source application branded as their own. It’s important to understand and compare your options. It’s fairly easy to check on a brand by using a search engine like Google. You should be able to find a fair amount of feedback on a particular system you are interested in.
What you get for free is a lot of work. I know. I have a ‘free’ sail boat in my back yard. Free comes in many forms.
This article is by Sam Chapple, Ecommerce and Internet Marketing Manager at B2B Communications.
Posted by Robert Celaschi on Wed, Mar 10, 2010
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Can you get reporters at top-tier business publications to take you seriously?
Of course you can.
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Take a hint from the classic Five W’s that a reporter or blogger needs to put in a story
Not every B2B marketer has worked previously as a news reporter. Few news reporters have ever worked in a marketing consulting company.
Is it any wonder that sometimes the two don’t get along very well?
That’s only the half of it. Say you are an account assistant in your mid-20s, pitching ideas to the top-tier business publications with reporters who have been covering your client’s industry since you were in junior high school. Can you get them to take you seriously?
Of course you can.
One key is to pitch with authority rather than bravado. Take a hint from the classic Five W’s that a reporter or blogger needs to put in a story, then gather some information yourself.
Who
Within the publications or blogs, who writes about your industry? Names are important, so get them right. I’ve known several co-workers who would save the most outrageous misspellings of their own names and tape them to their computer monitors. You can bet they remembered who sent the worst howlers.
What
Now you know who covers your industry. But what aspects does each person cover? Some may look only at the stocks of public companies in your industry. Others may look only at new products. In this age of layoffs, one person may have to do it all. Know before you pitch.
When
Even with the Internet available 24/7 to showcase their prose, writers and bloggers have deadlines. Find out what they are. They may have special reports of publications scheduled throughout the year. See if they’ve posted that editorial calendar online. If you are trying to get them to interview the CEO of your client company, first make sure the CEO will be there to pick up the phone or see any incoming email.
Where
Some organizations cover the world, others cover only the United States, still others stick to a region. If you want to get a Boston company noticed, don’t waste the time of a writer who only covers Northern California -- unless the Boston company is opening a San Francisco office, or just landed venture capital from a firm in Silicon Valley.
Why
Readers turn to business publications for a reason. Usually, they are looking for a way to make money. How is your pitch going to help the readers do that? Nail this one and you can get a writer’s attention fast. Remember, a story doesn’t have to be a profile of the client company. If the client CEO can speak as an industry expert about current trends, that’s gold.
Proceed with caution
Those are some Do’s. Here are a few Don’ts:
- Don’t rush things. Research takes time, but it’s a good investment. You may discover that you don’t have anything right now that’s likely to interest your target writers. It’s better to wait until you do, instead of annoying them with an idea that’s off the mark. Likewise, good relationships take time to build. The salty reporter has to learn to trust you. And you have to learn to trust Old Salty. It won’t happen on the first phone call or email.
- Don’t ask, “Will the story be positive?” For one thing, what’s positive to you might be negative to someone else. Suppose office space is getting cheaper to rent. That’s negative if you own a building, but positive if you are looking for space. A good reporter will write an honest story and let readers love or hate the facts as they wish. But even if a reporter knows what kind of reaction to expect, that might change during the reporting as new facts come to light. So don’t expect the writer to know how your client will be perceived.
- Don’t be a control freak. Guide, yes. Control, no. Let’s say the reporter asks you about something the company would rather keep quiet for right now. You might be tempted to say, “If you hold off, we’ll give you an exclusive.” The problem is, you can’t really control that. Think about it: The reporter already heard about it. So the story already is floating out there. How are you supposed to control whether somebody else gets wind of it? Reporters want to report news, not the CEO’s second-day reaction to a story that somebody else ran with while the first reporter was waiting for you to give the green light.
Now get out there and win one
Follow these simple tips ... and you still won’t bat a thousand. Nobody does. Even Old Salty strikes out sometimes when he’s pitching an idea to his editors.
Your thoughts?
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, Nov 12, 2009
My dirty little secret about social media marketing
By
Rebekah DonaldsonAlot of the questions I've fielded lately have had to do with social media marketing. But I have to tell you what I'm secretly thinking, and not saying, when answering those questions on the topic.
What I'm secretly thinking is,
"Why are we still talking about this? Social media is nothing special."
Which makes me sound very grouchy. And not very "I'm excited to help you find the right answers" - ish. Which is why I keep mum about it.
But, really, it's another way of communicating! Soon the fuss will fade, and it will be as normal as using email or a cell phone. No big deal.
Good old silver lining
One upside to it seeming like a big deal, though, is that companies seem to be feeling some heat to talk more with their customers in the ways and places that customers want to talk.
In the end, that's got to be a good thing. Like a diet someone else enforces... but the opposite. You know what I mean.
After the buzz
Wouldn't it be wierd if a business didn't have a phone number? Or a website? (I do know of one company whose founder insists on not having a website. I'd point to them here but...)
Not having any social media presence is not quite that wierd - yet.
But after 2010 it may be. 
Get reliable marketing advice from MarketingSherpa - at a discount
So, good news. I just heard that you can get 50% off this week on MarketingSherpa's 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR: Benchmarks and Best Practices.
Sherpa's guides are the single best source for sober, impartial guidance about what works and what's a waste of your time and dollars.
The guide will help you right now with your social media planning. It's based on in-depth research from 1,886 social-media marketing and PR practitioners. I think it:
- Helps you determine what really works in social-media marketing
- Saves you time and needless effort because you'll find out what doesn't work
- Gives you needed research and data points to prove the value of social media to your executive team
For me, the specific case-studies are what are most valuable. Those really help with understanding real-world possibilities and ideas for practical implementation.
The note I got this morning said, "there are 14 copies left and the offer ends Nov. 30 or when the final copy is sold."
Get your copy >>
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Wed, Nov 11, 2009
Using 2010 best practices to engage prospects
and speed up sales
By Rebekah Donaldson
Hats off to
Meg Arnold,
Laura Good, and other members of the Sarta team for producing yesterday's seminar
2010 Trends in Marketing and PR.
2010 email trends we discussed
- Prospects have control - adapt to succeed
-
Email is competing with social media for attention
- Is email obsolete because of social media? (no)
-
Far and away email is most popular for sharing
- Email marketing budgets are up
Top 4 tips to improve email results
2010 PR trends we discussed
-
Adapt to succeed
- Microphone vs interactive PR
- Is PR obsolete because of social media? (no)
- PR is social
- "
Someone always pays"
- "'Solution’ is not the solution"
Top 4 tips for improving PR results
- Steadily
produce good content
- Know
your top 10 keywords
- Write
optimized press releases
- Point
to helpful landing pages
Get my slide deck.
(I also posted it using LinkedIn's presentation sharing app, here.)
Audience questions
My co-presenters Donna Chabrier and Ryan McCann were great. Authentic, insightful, and quick on their feet.
Being
quick on one's feet was important because the audience was not taking
our advice lying down! There were great questions during the session,
and lots of post-seminar dialogue. I hope we can continue the Q&A
in the comments section.
Special thanks
Laura Good did a great job pulling the event together. She has created a Twitter list of tweeters who came. Thanks Donna and Josh Morgan for recommending me as a speaker. Thanks to my colleague Robert Celaschi - though thousands of miles away yesterday, he was very helpful. And thanks Todd Lebo for access to the MarketingSherpa 2010 Email
Benchmark Report.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Wed, Oct 07, 2009
Visits and conversions by source for www.b2bcommunications.com Sept 7 to Oct 6 2009
By Rebekah E. Donaldson
Here is a screenshot showing the sources of our website traffic that converted to leads over the last month. Looking at the chart, I answer:
- What does this chart tell you about lead sources?
- How much did you invest to get the site working this way?
- We need to generate leads - what's the best way?
Visits and conversions by source (1 month)
This chart shows how different sources have driven visits, leads, and customers to www.b2bcommunications.com. The key on the right shows the sources tracked.
What does this chart tell you about lead sources?
To see our lead sources, we open our Hubspot account (more on this below) and go to the "Reports" tab and pick "Sources". There we have a chart showing visit to lead ratios by source:
Totals for Sep 7-Oct 7, 2009 |
|
|
|
Sources |
Visits |
Visit to Lead |
Leads |
Organic Search |
590 |
0.68% |
4 |
Referrals |
265 |
2.60% |
7 |
Paid Search |
0 |
0% |
0 |
Direct Traffic |
547 |
1.50% |
8 |
Email Marketing |
0 |
0% |
0 |
Social Media |
86 |
8.10% |
7 |
Other Campaigns |
0 |
0% |
0 |
Totals |
1,488 |
1.75% |
26 |
According to the chart, visitors from social media sources convert at the highest rate. A visit-to-lead conversion rate of 8.10% means that in the last month, eight out of ten visitors who came to the site via LinkedIn or other networking sites, responded. Visitors referred to our site from an article, blog, or website are the next most likely to respond.
How much did you invest to get these leads rolling in?
Hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars over several years. The site re-launched in 2007 and it's been an ongoing process to make it so visitors find what they need and take the next step. And there's still so much work to do! Meantime, we've been at blogging, search engine marketing, and social media marketing since 2007 - and public relations since 2001. We've tried to always close the loop (see below), so we know which B2B lead generation activities work and which to avoid.
What is Hubspot?
Hubspot provides advice and software that helps businesses get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads and customers. We use it to build landing pages, attract traffic, nurture contacts, track leads, and connect records about leads and sales with records about marketing efforts.
We need to generate leads - what's the best way?
Here are just two of many ways to get started. Do both or pick the one that work for you:
Get a 60 Minute Internet Marketing Planning Session.
Try Hubspot - Use all the powerful features of Hubspot for B2B lead generation. Free for 30 days.
NOTE: We are pitched weekly by companies looking for affiliates to rep their stuff. So far, we've partnered only with MarketingSherpa and Hubspot. In each case, we bought their stuff and recommended it to others before we were ever a partner. Now that we are a partner, we get a small % of sales we help generate. Just so you know.
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Rebekah E. Donaldson ("Red") has led Business Communications Group since 2001. More >> |
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, Sep 24, 2009
By Rebekah E. Donaldson
Everyone is supposed to be nailing down their plans for 2010 marketing efforts. What will go in your 2010 marketing plan?
As I write this, MarketingSherpa’s 6th Annual B2B Marketing Summit 2009 in San Francisco is winding down. And I don’t want it to be over. Every session, every speaker, and every piece of content was focused on helping attendees conquer the challenges of B2B marketing.
Here are links to get some of the facts you need for smart 2010 marketing planning.
Every marketer needs practical, up-to-the-minute planning and budgeting help when it comes to 2010 planning. And with B2B case studies, examples, and statistics from MarketingSherpa, you can justify spending using real-life results and plan new programs based on actual trends.
Here are some questions you may be thinking about this Fall, and my ideas on finding answers:
—
Q: What are the best-value ways to generate leads in 2010?
a. Let’s start with tactics to be wary of:
- Don’t depend on bought or rented email addresses — even if it’s somehow legal to email lists of strangers, your time is better spent pulling in prospects and building a permission-based house list
- Don’t depend on cold calling — even if you can get past the front desk and call screening and voicemail jail, interrupting an executive is getting off on the wrong foot
- Don’t depend on a Flash video or wesite – usually, search engines can’t ‘read’ them and many busy business decision makers will skip them altogether
- Don’t rely on mailed letters — it’s increasingly expensive (think Fed Ex envelope made lumpy with some sort of item enclosed, etc etc) to get your mail opened… much less past the gatekeeper
b. If you only get one Sherpa resource, make it the 6th Annual ‘B2B Marketing Benchmark Report 2009-10’.
In it you’ll see:
- 2,631 marketing professionals surveyed
- 157 charts & tables
- First Ever: Social Media Marketing section
- 7 Marketing Insight sections, including: ‘Strategies & Tactics for a Rebounding Economy’
- 10 practical how-to best practices from the field
—
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Search Marketing Benchmark Report 2009-10
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Q: How should I balance PPC and SEO in 2010?
Should you bump up Adwords investment or focus on organic search?
a. Check out Cris Rominger’s article Effective Search Engine Optimization
b. Check out my article What’s Wrong with this Google Adwords Ad?
c. Consider diving deeper into what works and what’s a waste of time using Search Marketing Benchmark Report 2009-10. In it you’ll see:
- 679 marketers surveyed
- 176 charts and tables
- Stats on conversion, cost-per-click, and clickthrough rates
- Special Section: Worldwide & regional search
- Special Section: Critical Factors in SEO
- Special Section: Testing & ROI Tracking (B2B & B2C)
—
Q: Is business use of Twitter a flash in the pan?
a. Maybe. But probably you should get involved anyway. Here are 9 articles we’ve offered related to the business use of Twitter.
2009 Social Media Marketing and PR |
b. Next, consider this resource: 2009 Social Media Marketing and PR: Benchmarks and Best Practices. In it you’ll see:
- 157 charts and tables on the emerging state of Social Media marketing
- 13 practical how-to best practices from the field
- Discover how Social Media is changing PR
- Find out the metrics and budgets of Social Media marketing
- Special report: Using Social Networking Sites for Demand Generation
- Special Section: “9 Steps to Social Marketing Success”
And now a question for you. What will you do differently in 2010?
Posted by Robert Celaschi on Mon, Sep 14, 2009
By Robert Celaschi
Something strange happens to people when they send marketing email. They’ll take a powerful, persuasive marketing message, and torpedo the whole thing by slapping a lousy subject line on it.
What makes it really strange is that the email might contain a press release or other message with a really great headline. The sender could have cut and pasted it. But no, instead they type a vague or garbled mess of words that makes me shrug and move on.
I’ll confess I’m sometimes guilty of sloppy subject lines. I’ve struggled and sweated to craft the right message. I’ve set the right tone. I’ve targeted the right people. I’m ready to press the “send” button and then — oh, yeah, gotta put some kind of subject line on this puppy. Zip-zip-zip, done. Instead, I should take even more care with those precious few words that may determine whether the email even gets opened.
Let’s look at a half-dozen real subject lines that real marketing people emailed to me in the past month.
Subj: New Dilemma For Small Business Car Leases After Unemployment
Huh? Let’s see: I gather that there’s a new dilemma of some sort. For whom? Small Business Car Leases After Unemployment. Uhhhhhhh, sorry, does not compute. This one would work better with a simple colon after “Business.” Not great, but better. The story is about businesses transferring the leases on company cars, because they’ve laid off so many of the workers who used to drive them.
Subj: Non-Profit
That’s it, just “Non-Profit.” There are a lot of nonprofits out there. They do a lot of different things. I had to dig way, way down to discover that this nonprofit is a foundation that helps children. They are holding a fund-raiser this month in Miami. If I hadn’t picked this as an example for the blog post, I wouldn’t have bothered to find out any of that.
Subj: Survey: A Quarter of Firms Scaling Back Training
A direct hit. Tells me everything I need to get started. Now I’ll open the email and find out the details. Whoops — turns out that while 26 percent are cutting back their training programs, 28 percent have expanded. But, hey, they got me to read it.
Subj: Boston – Social Media Capital?
I don’t like questions for subject lines. Why are you asking me? Don’t you already know? If not, go do some more research and get back to me.
Subj: Time for Change in Credit Card Game
Maybe it is indeed time for a change in the credit card game, but since I have no idea what this means, it’s hard to say. The easy fix here would have been to condense the first line of the enclosed press release: Consumers now can say “no” to credit card interest rate hikes.
Subj: July home sales increased 12 percent; median home price declined 19.6 percent
This one delivers. I feel like a double winner, because I learn about sales volume and about price. This is about the California housing market, by the way. Bad news if you are a seller with a fat mortgage.
Your turn!
OK, you get the idea. Now take a look at the email you’ve sent in the past month. If someone didn’t already know your message, would they get the right idea from the subject line?
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Robert has been a business journalist for 22 years, both as a reporter and an editor. He joined Business Communications Group in 2005.
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Get help to make marketing materials that encourage prospects to take the next step.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, Aug 27, 2009
By Rebekah E. Donaldson
One of the big laughs in the fake documentary film Spinal Tap came when the band took to the stage to sing of Stonehenge. The set was supposed to feature a replica of a section of Stonehenge standing an imposing 18 feet tall. Due to a miscommunication problem with the set designer, it shows up at a ridiculous 18 inches tall.
Here’s a story about one of my own screw ups, some tips from the trenches of corporate logo design — and 5 corporate logos that help illustrate how a logo can help — or hurt — its owner.
When it comes to your corporate logo, you want something that works no matter what size. Sticking with the music theme for a bit, consider how graphic designers have had to adapt as the 12-inch LP jacket gave way to the 5-inch CD cover, and finally to the tiny icon that shows up on an iPod. A recent issue of Wired magazine gives examples. Your logo has to work as tiny square icon in a browser address bar and as a 50-foot long banner hanging from the ceiling of the Cow Palace… and also on business cards and in email marketing…
Creating corporate logos: when pros make mistakes
In 2007, I was trying to update our logo within two weeks. I considered lots of things before signing off on a final pick, but I didn’t test it in all contexts. Then when we applied the logo to our website, we had to use the logo in reverse — as white text on a blue background. The logo text looked a bit wispy and puny in this context — so we doubled back and doubled the letters’ width. I wasted some time and money fixing things because I skipped the step of testing the mark in a range of contexts.
Tips from the trenches of corporate logo design: factors to check
- Is the name and tag line descriptive? Is the tag line credible?
- Is the logo memorable? Attractive? Legible when tiny? Still strong when reversed?
- Do customers instantly grasp the symbol, graphic or mark next to the logo’s words?
- Can the logo fit inside a square? On one line if need be? In a column?
Compare the following corporate logos of companies trying to position themselves as on the leading edge of their fields. Symbols at right tell my opinion — I think three of them need updates to make them work. What do you think?
Bulldog Solutions’ logo meets all the criteria above. The tag line, “Lead Generation Unleashed”, is small when logo is 150 pixels wide, but short and powerful like a bulldog. The dog can be shrunk to icon size and still convey just the right tone: tenacious, fierce, and loyal… with a wink of humor. The company actually uses a blue paw print for their browser icon. The name is clever but not too clever — together with the tag line it’s descriptive and compelling. Truly a brand identity helps its owner.
Bluewolf’s brand identity could work harder for its owner. The logo is clutter free, which is great. But what is a blue wolf? Why expend energy to figure it out? Their tag line doesn’t help me figure it out. It reads, “Success. Gauranteed.” Success at flipping burgers? The 100 meter dash? Fixing space stations? Also the logo is roughly 4 times as long as it is tall here. A 2×1 ratio is more versatile. Too, I’d add a unique mark their team could use when confined to teeny tiny spaces. (Indeed, I don’t see an browser bar icon when I visit their site. Warning: you’re forced to watch Flash if you visit. Heavy. Sigh.)
Rubicon Marketing Group’s red logo stands out — in a good way. In the browser bar they use a red capital “R” for their mark. The tag line “Marketing IS sales” is interesting – when I read it I think, “no B.S. here — tell me more!” Roughly 2×1 proportions make the logo versatile. There’s a bit of incongruity between the conservative traditional font and the hip modern out-with-the-0ld, we-are-pushing-the-envelope positioning statements. But otherwise a good example of a logo that helps its owner.
Verticurl’s logo has been updated since I started this post several months ago. Happily, now it has roughly 2×1 dimensions, has different type treatments to convey the distinction between the first and second parts of the word, and the tag line was moved below the logo and is pretty clear. Still worthwhile to consider a distinguishing mark. And for sure, someone needs to put a few minutes into the site banner, where the logo shows up blurry/pixelated. Good example of a logo that could work harder for its owner.
Pedowitz Group’s logo is most troubling. The graphic to the left of the words says to me “blue pizza!” and ”homemade logo! ” while the tag line text says: “The Leader in Web 2.0 Marketing” and their latest press release touts the company as “the world’s largest and most experienced provider of marketing automation services…” Oh no! The blue pizza is in the browser bar when I visit their site! (Flash in the site banner! Boo Hiss.) I recommend an upgrade for the logo, positioning statement, website, and marketing materials. The logo is hurting its owner’s brand.
Corporate Logo Checkup
There are certain kinds of corporate logos that won't help you - and others that will hurt your brand. Get our help checking your corporate logo design to make sure it's helping you in our Web 2.0 world.