DO YOU FEEL RELUCTANT SOMETIMES IN MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS? READ THIS!
There is a silent and internal conflict that we have noticed with some entrepreneurs.
On one hand, they want their business to grow in leaps and bounds and be known across the world.
And on the other hand, they don’t push their business enough like they should because there is the feeling of “should I be bragging about what I am doing?”, “shouldn’t somebody else do the talking of how good my product/service is?”, and so on.
It’s a conflict between market and social ethics.
In social ethics, you don’t blow your trumpet – this is why some people have concerns when donors at orphanages pose in pictures and broadcast it.
In market ethics, you blow the trumpet as loud as you can with support from customers’ testimonials – this is why some who have a default marketing mindset to pose in pictures at orphanages to let the world know their efforts and probably motivate others to also reach out.
We have left out the category of people who pose in pictures at orphanages just for show-off or clout.
In social ethics, it’s offensive if you offer money to a family that graciously showed you good hospitality when you visited. If you must give money, you disguise it as gift for the kids or something else but not as a reward for the hosting.
In market ethics, it’s irresponsible and wicked if you go to a dear friend’s restaurant to eat without the intention of paying for it or mentioning first that you don’t have money to pay at the moment.
Please, don’t stay quiet or modest about your business endeavour. Throw shame out of the window. Kick fear and timidity out of the door. We are not saying overhype it or promise what you cannot deliver. We are saying you should be more courageous, confident, and ready to talk about your business with every opportunity that you get.
Summary: There is nothing wrong with blowing your trumpet in business. Blow it or be blown out of business. It is called brand visibility and marketing, not boasting.
We hope this was insightful.
We are here if you need our support. Just send an email to wecare@mapemond.com
How to get customers to pay the right price.
When we got engaged as brand consultants by a client, 7 out every 10 customers complained about the price at our client’s venture. Presently, only 1 out of every 10 complain.
What changed?
We overhauled the visuals!
1. We designed a new logo.
2. We created a new brand color.
3. We pulled down the old signage and put up a new one with the new logo and colors.
4. We procured a higher quality of chairs that were more comfortable.
5. We redesigned and reprinted the handbooks given to customers.
6. We created a slogan to give customers a sense of purpose for coming there.
We intentionally created a better visual appeal and customers’ perception of price changed. The number of regular customers increased, the average monthly sales went higher. New customers come more often to check the place out because the visuals got their attention.
Take your visual communications more seriously, it influences how customers bargain with you.
If most customers are underpricing you or complaining, it’s most likely based on the perception they get from what they see or sense.
We will be glad to work with your brand to solve this problem, let’s get the conversation started via wecare@mapemond.com
#DoBusinessBetter
Startup South 2019: Brand visibility for market harnessing
At the ongoing Startup South Conference in Uyo, my firm, we hosted a session to discuss brand visibility as a means to access the market with Startups and emerging businesses.
The panelists submitted as follows:
1. Before you strive for visibility, make sure your product is good enough for the market. It may not be perfect, but let it be good enough to worth your effort.
2. Don’t be satisfied with friends and families patronizing you. Your business hasn’t really been tested until you start selling to people who don’t know you.
3. Leverage friends and families to gain referrals. Seek their feedback and urge them to mention to their friends, colleagues, neighbours, and so on. Offer an incentive if you can.
4. Say it. Nobody knows what you have to offer unless you tell them. So every opportunity you get should be used to say what you are doing. Of all your personal contacts and social media friends, how many know what you do? Talk and post more about what you do.
5. Create a brand for yourself, particularly an identity that makes it easy for people to spot you. It could be your name/moniker, hashtag, tagline, and so on.
6. Choose the right social media platforms. Go to where your targets are and publish the right content consistently.
7. Leave no stone unturned as you go along. WhatsApp status, Linkedin, physical meet-ups, target events, and so on.
8. Ask. If you need exposure on any platform, try to network your way to a contact person and be willing to exchange value.
As you seek visibility, keep working on developing soft skills like negotiation, meeting people (networking), emotional intelligence, and others.
Every viable business operation has a threshold before a breakthrough, what happens in three months for business A may take one year to happen for business B, just keep doing your possible best per time.
#DoBusinessBetter
What makes a solid brand? Good Product.
1. People
2. Good Business
3. Values
4. Identity
5. Good Product
To emerge as a solid brand means that you are solving a problem, so well that people keep coming back to you for your solution. As a business brand, there are two ways you solve people’s problems, through your products or services.
If you are going to build a solid brand, then your service or product has to get so good that it cannot be easily replicated by anyone else.
Here are some quick tips to consider in creating super good products or services:
a) Quality: Strive to ensure authenticity, durability, efficiency, dependability, or top-notch expertise and professionalism in the case of services. Give customers value for their money, so they can always speak well of your product.
b) Functionality: Your product or service should be designed to address the pain points of customers. Keep it as simple as possible while it solves the problem optimally.
c) User Experience: Make it very user-friendly. Remember the product is for the customers, not for you. The guide to this is to create products and services that customers can readily use by themselves with little or no support.
d) Innovation: It does not matter how well your product is functioning presently, you have to keep seeking ways to improve it by all means necessary. A lot is changing with how people live, technological advancement, and so on, your product or service should not be stuck.
e) R & D: To improve your product or service, mind your assumptions. Do your research from the customers and the general market, so you can develop the products and services accordingly.
f) Product Branding: In every way possible way, make your product or service look good. Everything about the product should reflect the standard you are trying to attain, it helps to establish your brand as solid.
It is important to mention that all these factors may not fall in line at once, but keep improving and with time your brand will emerge as solid.
Building profitable and reputable BRANDS is what we love doing.
One more lesson coming on what makes a solid brand.
#DoBusinessBetter
What makes a solid brand? Identity
Would you identify a Mercedes Benz car even without the logo on it?
Would you identify the voices of people you know personally even without seeing their faces?
Would you recognize the taste of your favorite food brand even with your eyes closed?
Where are we going with these questions?
It’s simple. Whether done intentionally or not, every business brand takes on an identity for itself. There’s a way customers perceive and interpret your brand the more they interact with it, you need to define your identity and project it the right way to the market.
What should you do?
a) Build your name. Beyond choosing an appealing and appropriate name for your brand, you need to build a healthy reputation for your brand. This is derived from the last point we looked at, sticking to your brand values.
b) Visual identity. Your brand is an unfolding story and one of the ways it tells the story to the market in a distinctive manner is through your logo, colors, icons, packaging concepts, and so on.
c) Your brand mark. Every solid brand has certain things that are unique to it often referred to as “the XYZ way”. You have to deliberately decide how you do things in business from your designs to marketing communications, website outlook, social media strategy, product development, and more.
The central idea of brand identity is what you want to be known for because, if your business does not have any defined perception that it is projecting, it will eventually become a case of anything goes regardless of the size. Solid brands don’t take their identity for granted.
We would love to work with you on your logo identity, marketing communications, social media, and full identity system. Reach us via wecare@mapemond.com
Building profitable and reputable BRANDS is what we love doing.
More lessons coming on what makes a solid brand.
#DoBusinessBetter
LOGO UNRAVEL: INNOSON IDENTITY, TAKE THE SHOT!
There is so much power that lies in our hands, thanks to the evolution of technology. This power is acquired from the moment we purchase a gadget, connect to the internet and log on to a social media platform. With the emergence of social media, the world has not only become smaller but also several barriers have been broken to gain access to the high and mighty in society. Notwithstanding the wide use or far spread of social media, only the bold and creative minds can leverage its power to get what they want. This should be your aim as an entrepreneur or corporate personality.
A few days ago with just a single tweet, a Twitter user who is a brand identity designer, @osuolale_farouq, shared a proposed logo for the first indigenous automobile manufacturing company in Nigeria, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM). This strategic tweet alongside the expertly designed logo started a conversation that got through the digital gates to the table of the target company.
IVM took up the conversation to its platform asking its followers to choose between the company’s current logo and the proposed one by @osuolale_farouq. Eventually, this caught the attention of the CEO of IVM, Innocent Ifediaso Chukwuma, who asked that a meeting be fixed with the creative designer. While the congratulatory messages keep trooping, we all wait with our fingers crossed for the outcome of this meeting, and we greatly commend @osuolale_farouq not just his bravery but also his eye for detail. Let us look at some of the things that make his design unique.
@osuolale_farouq gave more meaning to his design in the breakdown of the different shapes and symbols he used. He explained that the phenomenal Eagle bird inspired the concept of the entire design. Knowing the striking attributes of the eagle, the proposed logo created a fresh identity for the IVM brand. According to him, the two characteristics that connect the IVM brand and the eagle are “…strength and the ability to sail through hard times…”
The logo designer singled out each letter that make up the company’s acronym and backed them up with a deeper meaning. He indicated that the letter ‘I’ represents the beak of an eagle which denotes strength, then the letter ‘V’ symbolizes the wings of the eagle and its ability to fly against storms, and the last letter ‘M’ depicts the eyes of the eagle which can see its target from a distance.
A notable comment concerning the logo meaning was that of HRH Oba Alao Timi Kennedy on Facebook who posted;
“I love how this man coined the PROPOSED new logo for INNOSON VEHICLES from the three letters, IVM and link it to the eagle, with suitable interpretations. This PROPOSED new logo if endorsed or accepted can increase patronage because the brand image is very important in sales and business. The eyes need to love it first before other things. It’s a great logo and I wish and pray INNOSON adopt it.”
This unfolding story could be linked to the popular saying; “when preparation meets opportunity, success is birthed”. From his skillful execution of the logo design, there is no doubt that @osuolale_farouq was prepared for this and with the ‘window’ of the opportunity provided by Twitter, he has successfully sold his idea to the world. Now that is the power of social media!
Once you conceive to take a shot at something, do not contemplate, just clear the hindrances, and take that shot!
Written by Jennifer Chioma Amadi
Do you need a new logo for your brand? We are your guys for something inspiring and meaningful! Send us an email at wecare@mapemond.com
#DoBusinessBetter
What makes a solid brand? Values.
1. People
2. Good Business
3. Values
From the oldest hotel and business in the world, Nishiyama Onsen Keuinkan, to Colgate, Kelloggs, John Deere, Nestle, Unilever, and most other brands that have lasted over a hundred years, which we have studied, they all have one thing in common – brand values.
The founder(s) gave careful thought to the lasting principles that will govern the existence of the business as a brand and each successor had a duty to preserve and transfer these values to their own successor(s).
Here is a quick preview of some of these reputable brands and how values have helped them become solid brands:
a) Nishiyama Onsen Keuikan: The core value of this ancient brand is captured right in its mission statement, “it is the pleasure and mission of Keiunkan to carefully protect the benefits from this rare earth.” Preservation is an enduring principle for this brand and for over 1300 years now, it has ensured that the hot springs are preserved which implies that the hotel which was built to house the springs has to be preserved generation after generation.
b) Colgate: On their official website, we found the statement “The small soap and candle business that William Colgate began in New York City early in the 19th century is now, more than 200 years later, a truly global company serving hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide. Throughout this history, Colgate people and Colgate values have been at the heart of our success.” At the very heart of their success as a brand that is over 20 decades old, lies two things we have mentioned in these series of what makes a solid brand, people and values.
c) Kelloggs: More than 100 years ago, Will Keith Kellogg founded this brand and ever since then, it has gone on to become a solid brand. In their own words, “through our values-based culture, we create a stronger future every day”.
d) Nestle: Founded 152 years ago, innovation has been at the heart of the brand since its beginning. In their words, “ever since Henri Nestlé invented Farine Lactée to alleviate infant mortality, we have been dedicated to enhancing people’s lives.” Their value of quality is based on the commitment to enhance the quality of lives.
e) John Deere: This brand goes straight to the point on their website, “We work every day to uphold our founder’s core values. Integrity, quality, commitment, and innovation are more than ideals we work toward. They are values we live and breathe – values found in every product, service, and opportunity we offer.”
The world has over 5000 business brands that are over 200 years old (over 3000 of them are in Japan), and Japan alone has over 21000 business brands that are over 100 years old. One thing all these brands seem to have in common is the values they have held on to through the decades.
The question for you is, what principles govern your business?
What core values are you weaving through the fabric of your business that could be passed on to successors?
If you desire to build a solid brand that will stand the test of time, articulate and communicate your brand values to all stakeholders.
Building profitable and reputable BRANDS is what we love doing.
More lessons coming on what makes a solid brand.
#DoBusinessBetter
WHAT MAKES A SOLID BRAND? GOOD BUSINESS.
2. Good Business.
The whole idea of branding is to market your business in such a way that it has a fixed place in the minds of customers and the market at large. What this implies is that branding on its own will not make any difference if your business model and strategy are flawed.
You could have all the fanciful designs, inspiring ambiance, well-painted walls, fabulous signage, pleasant service delivery, visually appealing communications, and all other concepts, they will all amount to nothing if the business is not generating enough revenue to be profitable.
So here are a few things to consider in building a good business.
a) Business Idea. Beyond hobby, passion, or copying what others are doing, your business idea should be aimed at solving a problem. An idea that meets a need will beget a good business.
b) Product Viability. Beyond your assumptions and excitements, does your product really work? Will people actually pay for it? Does a sizeable market exist for the product or service? If your product (or service) is not viable, you cannot build a good business around it.
c) Business Model. A good business is one that has clearly defined sources of revenue. You must have a plan of how exactly the business will make money repeatedly.
d) Business Strategy. No experienced person starts a business and leaves it to chance. You need to have plans on breaking into the market, gaining market share, retaining customers, and so on.
e) Growth Possibilities. As the years unfold, a good business should be expanding in revenue, workforce, market size, new products, and so on.
f) Systems & Processes. You need to organize the business as much as possible. Establish guiding rules and operational procedures for finance, HR, procurement, bids and tender, and every other aspect of the business. Develop and maintain a global perspective.
g) Corporate Governance. This pertains to the leadership structure of the business. If you want a business that can function without you or even outlive you, a business that keeps everyone accountable, and for quality decision making, you need a solid corporate governance structure. A good business leaves a legacy and creates a succession plan.
Your business model and strategy is like a socket with electricity, branding is the plug, it must get into the socket and the switch turned on. If you want a solid brand, keep working at building a solid business.
Building profitable and reputable BRANDS is what we love doing.
More lessons coming on what makes a solid brand.
#DoBusinessBetter
THIS COULD SAVE YOUR BRAND.
One of the most valuable things you can do for your organization is to seek honest feedback from your team. There is a treasure of insights lying untapped within your team, but the wall between you and them does not let them share.
You have your ears closed and they have their lips sealed.
It should not be so.
Maybe you think this does not apply to you, but are you sure your team has been honest with their feedback and opinions?
Your brand just may survive longer if employees share their reservations.
You could double profits or increase productivity if you create ways to hear their opinions.
Seek team feedback. It is free and does not change your status as Boss.
If you need an external person to help handle such a process, reach us via wecare@mapemond.com
Building profitable and reputable brands is what we love doing.
BRAND LESSONS FROM THE WORLD’S OLDEST HOTEL & BUSINESS.
Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, a hot springs hotel in Kyoto, Japan, is the world’s oldest hotel and also the world’s oldest continuously-operating business, as verified by Guinness World Records. The hotel is now 1313 years old and has been operated by 52 generations of descendants of the same family.
We picked some very simple but vital lessons from this legendary hotel brand that businesses around the world should pay attention to if transgenerational growth is a concern.
Lesson One: Brand Values. Careful thought was given to the lasting principles that will govern the operation of the business and each successor had a duty to preserve and transfer these values to their own successor.
Lesson Two: Socio-cultural values matter. The prevalent culture of society has an influence on how businesses run and perform. This is why Mapemond organizes Outclass Employability and Entrepreneurship Training, to breed a different generation of young Nigerians with the right work discipline, work ethics, and work culture.
Lesson Three: Think legacy and succession. What is the point in building a business that ends with you? We should think in terms of being able to transfer what we build to the next generation. Whatever you can do to give your business a chance to survive beyond you, please make the attempt.
Lesson Four: Maintenance culture matters. Successive generations have ensured that this legendary hotel is well maintained over the centuries. How well do you pay attention to good maintenance in your business?
Lesson Five: Innovate. While the essential selling points of the hotel – the view, hot springs, and location – have been maintained, the hotel has gone through a lot of adaptation to modern designs and concepts. As old as it is, it competes favorably with other hotels and tourist destinations across the world.
Building profitable and reputable BRANDS is what we love doing.