Marketing is all about identifying and engaging a demographic. To whom does your business appeal the most? As a designer, it’s essential to know this for your clients’ sakes so that your design for them is tailor-made for their customers. But it’s also necessary for designers searching for prospective clients. The question needs to be asked: “What am I going to do to attract clients that sets me apart from other designers?”
Whatever you do, do not follow a “standard” that everyone uses. Be creative and think of something that no one has witnessed before.
Since this blog is all about identity design, let’s establish a profile for the kind of clients a logo designer would seek out. You’re an independent logo designer: who is in the market for a logo/brand identity design?
Business start-ups. (Already established businesses looking to rebrand would apply as well, but these are the minority.)
It’s commonly accepted that the logo is the first step a business takes (or should take) in establishing its brand’s presence. Since society is so visual-centric, attaching a professional design to a business is the essential move to make early on.
So, business start-ups. That proves to be quite the broad demographic. What appeals to those starting a business? On a social level, anything that appeals to an individual starting a business would likely appeal to anyone else. But not everyone is minded to go into business for themselves. So what is it that sets an entrepreneur apart?
Entrepreneurs are risk-takers: they like the prospect of being their own boss so much that they are willing to assume liability for any potential failures. They know that every gain and every loss falls directly upon their doorstep.
On the flip-side, an employee has little worry beyond keeping his/her job. He or she is not solely responsible for the failure or success of a business.
An entrepreneur knows and willfully accepts that the freedom to work when you want, how you want and with whom you want (within reason, of course) comes at the cost of security. Sometimes business will be good, sometimes business will be bad—no guarantees; but to the entrepreneur, the benefits outweigh the risks.
Some key words that would describe an entrepreneur are:
- free
- bold
- innovative
- determined
- frugal
- trend-setting
- educated
- aware
An entrepreneur is constantly learning more about his or her trade and looking for new ways to start, promote and optimize business. He or she never “punches out” and quits for the day. Business is at very least thought of on evenings, weekends and yes, even holidays.
There we have a basic profile for an entrepreneur.
Now, consider this: there’s some common ground here for the logo designer and his business start-up clientele.
If you’re a self-employed brand identity designer, you already have much the same mentality as a self-employed roofer, or a self-employed tutor, or a self-employed mobile mechanic. You’re your own boss. So perhaps a better—and undoubtedly easier—question to ask is, “What appeals to you?” What is it that you look for in a business?
First, let’s take a look at what isn’t appealing. The following is a list of things I do not like in a business’ marketing campaign:
- Yes, the first one is obvious: poor identity design. In an earlier post I described some logo follies to avoid.
- Bad announcer voice on television and radio. If you can’t afford to hire a professional voice-over artist (and I mean professional: probably not the local DJ), don’t put your business on the air—trust me, they’ll just change the channel anyway.
- Low-budget/-quality advertising. If your yellow page ad, local television commercial, business card—you name it; anything that is intended to draw customers—is poorly designed or trashy, skip it and devote your marketing funds elsewhere. Find something that looks rich, but costs little.
- Tacky “It’s all about you” babble. Cut the BS. If you’re a business owner, it’s not all about your customers. You’re in business to profit. Since people know business is about profit, the “It’s all about you” campaign will actually backfire and breed mistrust in the minds of your customers. Now let me clarify: when I say business’s goal is profit, I don’t mean at any cost. Obviously, a business should have equal aspirations to be honest in doing so: and that means providing a good product or service that is worth the money. We discussed this in a previous post.
- Excessive-force advertising. The kind where you can’t seem to pry that rented-mall-space-shoe-salesman off your back with a crow bar. Employees should be there to help if you need them, and stand back if you don’t. Pushing beyond, “Is there anything I can help you with?” if the customer says, “No thanks, I’m fine” is not a good idea.
Qualities I appreciate seeing represented in a brand’s marketing:
- Humor. I’m talking quality humor, like something Jerry Seinfeld would come up with. Strange humor is memorable, but in most cases doesn’t elicit a good response.
- Determination. This is two-fold: 1) determination in getting one’s name out there in a creative way, and 2) a marketing campaign that portrays a genuine sense of positive determination related to its products or services.
- Clever tactics on the cheap. Often called “Guerrilla Marketing”, entrepreneurs can really appreciate this because chances are they started their business in a similarly modest way. My father-in-law told me about a groundskeeper who found a way to shoot business fliers over the high walls of a gated community, right onto the lawns of his highest-paying clientele. It worked wonderfully.
- Helpfulness. This is hard to market and really must be proven through experience. But stating a commitment to help the customer in any way possible is an invitation for the customer to see if those words hold water. I recently had a bad experience (too involved to discuss here) with a tankless water heater from Rheem that was rectified by a sales representative at CPO Rheem. CPO is a dealer and the problem was with the manufacturer, but this sales rep took it upon himself to help me even though he had nothing to gain by it.
Those are broad principles, but they should hopefully generate some profitable thinking in the direction of creative marketing techniques. The main thing is: make it fun and stand out in a way that gives your business exposure and leaves impressions on people that create lasting business connections.
My dad and I were having a conversation about business the other day. We were discussing how companies of late are often putting more money into marketing sub-par products, than producing genuinely good ones.
Dualogo 