The Captain’s Blog : Archive for the 'Branding' Category

Goldsmith Jewelers hired us to increase their brand awareness, to get their name out there and get the customers into the store. We teamed up with the local blogging community and now Goldsmith Jewelers is having record numbers visit their store. Today we captured some visual proof of the numbers of people that are coming into the store, thanks to this new blog marketing campaign. Goldsmith Jewelers couldn’t be happier! They are getting so many people coming in that they joked, “We’re going to need to fire you guys this Monday”. Who would have thought that those words would be music to our ears.

Brandon Jeppson

Every so often we have an opportunity at the Corporate Alliance Jumpstart lunches to make a presentation about our company and what we do. This year as part of our presentation we made masks to hand out to all the attendees. On the back of the mask it says “Looking like someone else is tempting “especially when it’s Lance“ but a unique identity will save you frustration and build a better brand”. After presenting and talking about the mask we a had people fill out a card to enter a drawing as well as request more info from us if they wanted to. We also presented some of the work we’ve done for clients and told about the clients and what they do. The campaign has been a great success! We’ve recieve 40 plus leads of business interested in using our services. Plus it’s given us and everyone else a great opportunities to tease Lance, and you can’t pass that up!

Brandon Jeppson

Are older media like the newspaper doomed? If they are, what other things will be doomed in the future? Is there an innovation that can save the outdated or should it just be left by the way side?

Our consumer culture has conditioned us to discarded something if it has lost it usefulness. However thanks to a declining world economy the public at large is returning to a mantra born by older generations “refurbish and reuse”. We have been blessed with imaginations and creativity. We can find multiple uses for something, multiple ways to do something and multiple solutions for something. When a thing is losing it’s usefulness and dying, we can think of how to resurrect it to give it new life and purpose.

A designer by the name of Jacek Utko used this principle of resurrection or rebirth to give new direction and hope to the dying newspaper industry in Eastern Europe. Check out this brief video of a presentation posted on TED’s website. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/501

What could be rethought and redesigned to give new life to your serice or product?

Brandon Jeppson

Going out in the snow or in any treturous weather can be daunting for anyone. As a result I believe that a lot of people tend to stay home on such days, or at the very least they limit their travel. Limiting travel means less customers walking in your front door. That’s a little depressing I’m sure, but it doesn’t have to be.

Do you remember when you were a kid and a snow day was something to celebrate? Consider having a standing promotion that kicks in whenever it snows. Your special promotion will motivate customers to visit you and brand your business as a fun place to give their patronage to. You can make snow days a celebration again.

I saw a great example of this when lived in south west Idaho. There the temperatures would plumit as low as -30º F. No one wanted to go outside. But, a local Subway Sandwich shop made going out in the low temperatures exciting. For every degree below 0º F the Subway shop would discount that many cents off the purchase of any sandwich. When the temperature reached -30º F people could buy one sandwich at a discounted price and get another one for free.

This concept can be applied to any type of weather or business. Business can do promotions for any reason, but tying promotions to real events that everyone can relate to, like types of weather, makes the promotion feel more ligament in consumers eyes. This goes doubly for online businesses. Doing such a promotion helps to connect a website to the real world. So rain or shine you can take what seems like sour weather and make it into something sweet and profitable.

Yeah! It snowed today!

Brandon Jeppson

Often with the passing of time change may be needed because your target audience gets bored with your logo, website design or your brand in general. Reality check! You’re really the one who is bored. Your audience doesn’t want change! They want your brand to be like an old friend that they can rely on.

Welcome to the often boring realm of brand management where continued success comes when things stay the same. Of course a little make over after a few years is often appropriate. However, you wouldn’t give your sweet mother a punk make over with a mohawk, so don’t do that to your brand. The make over or refresh of a strong and successful brand should be something comfortable and not dramatic. You want your loyal audience to still recognize their old friend that they love and trust.

Brandon Jeppson

They say clothes make the man. What about a business? Well, being clothed is important. Plus many places won’t serve customers that don’t have a shirt or shoes. But I digress, the clothes of a business is the space it operates in.

Your space is more than a roof over your head. It’s part of who you are! When you walk into a business’ space with great lighting, high ceilings, beautiful wood floors, attractive furniture, tasteful art and nicely painted walls; you think, these guys are successful and must really know what they’re doing.

It’s all about “setting the mood through” your surroundings. We all know setting the mood makes the difference between a romantic night and sitting in front of the TV watching reruns. The same holds true for your business. If you want a business that customers are passionate about and love to visit, bite the bullet and hire an interior designer to help you out. At the very least watch HGTV and take a walk through Target or IKEA to get some ideas on how to improve the mood of your space.

Businesses that operate in an attractive interior space invite the confidence of their customers and anyone else that stops in for a visit. And visit they will.

Brandon Jeppson

Recently I took a week long vacation to Seattle Washington. What a beautiful city it is, with large trees everywhere. It is so lush and green. I was also impressed by the many beautiful ocean views I saw. Seattle could probably tout having the largest coastline of any city. To enhance the beauty, temperatures hovered in the 70’s and 80’s accompanied by a nice ocean breeze. At the end of the week when I returned home to my beautiful Utah I was met by sweltering heat and what seemed to be a barren landscape. Suddenly something dawned on me, I live in a desert! I’d always known that, but it now hit me with shocking clarity. Getting away for a time had helped to open my eyes to the truth. I still love the state I live in, but now I see it for what it is.

When you remove yourself from a situation or a project for a time, it helps you to see things more clearly. When you have greater clarity you will better realize your vision for success.

Brandon Jeppson

Many companies face the dilemma of coming up with a good domain name for their website. A web presence is not only crucial, it’s a must have. As a result of a domains availability the name of a new company or product is forced to change in an instant.

We recently had a client employ our help in naming their new online store. The store will sell all kinds of products, much like Target and Walmart do, so the name needed to be versatile. The client also wanted a name that was memorable, short, able to work in an overseas market and of course the domain had to be available for purchase. It maybe commonly thought that all the good domain names are already taken. However as a result of the naming process each of us came up with domain names that were so good it amazed us they were still available. In fact we wanted to buy them if the client didn’t.

I learned a really valuable lesson from this naming process. Even if a market is really crowded and there seems to be no room for opportunity, don’t buy into that thought. Step back open your mind to the creative possibilities and you will find amazing opportunities that will not only let you enter that market, there’s a good chance they’ll offer you a greater advantage than you would have had if the market had been wide open. So, what do you do when all the good domain names are gone? Get creative and invent some new ones. Necessity truly is the mother of invention, and cool domain names.

Brandon Jeppson

We got some great face time in the Summer 2008 issue of BusinessQ. Check out the images of the articles below! BusinessQ has always been good to seek out experts to help us all learn. We’ve been called on a several times to serve in the roll of expert along with some of our respected competitors. It’s worth your time to make friends and build a relationship with quality publications like BusinessQ so that you can be called on as an expert in your field. It’s not only a great way to get your name out there, it also becomes a valuable opportunity to influence and help the community and your industry. Share the love feel the love!

Brandon Jeppson

To appreciate where we are, we must remember where we came from. In the begin there was Adam. He was one of the first developers to grace the halls of Eli Kirk, like all developers he was a problem solver. We didn’t start in a garage like Mr. Microsoft, but our beginnings were humble; a few card tables and some hard folding chairs. One day my boss’s business partner walked in and asked “Do you know that Adam is sitting on a towel?” “Oh, I hadn’t realized!”, my boss responded. Adam, rather than making excuses or giving up he quietly through in the towel in for some extra padding. No matter how humble the beginnings of a business may be, it’s success hinges on finding good simple solutions for the problems encountered along the way.

ps. Don’t worry the problem was quickly fixed and Adam now enjoys a very comfortable office chair.

Brandon Jeppson