Asset 18

Category: Business

Hiring The Right Talent for Your Startup.

Posted on by Laxmi Hamal

Finding the right talent, recruiting, Hiring new employees is a crucial part of a startup’s growth. As the new hire plays a crucial part in shaping the organization. Thus it is very important to find the best candidates for the role in your organization. 

Hiring the best candidate is hard for any organization & business, but it’s equally hard for startups. Startups have to continuously and actively look for potential employees for their organization. In spite of the hundreds of options available, it can be difficult for a highly qualified candidate to choose your start-up.            

If you are wondering what could be the best ways to hire employees for the startup then here are a few points to consider.

Manage the applicants.

If you are advertising the job through the right platform with the right job description, you’ll get a larger number of applicants than ever and this will create issues during the hiring process. Many great candidates slipped and mails got lost, delayed in response from both sides, attachments buried and a few papers have been misplaced. And in the meantime, there is a huge chance of losing the potential candidate. It is advised to keep track of all these things in software so even in the future if something misplaces things will have the chance to get found. 

Look beyond resumes.

As a startup, you may be in search of an experienced or highly potential candidate. Well looking only on the resumes and deciding about the candidates in and out is just not right. Applicants in the world of digitization are present on different media platforms and update about their life and work. There are high chances of the applicants not mentioning everything on their resume. Linkedin is one such platform where most of the employees update about their work and work-related stories be it personal projects or professional projects. Emphasizing the candidate’s capabilities about the practical skill testing. Ensure that the candidate is willing to learn and ready to put in the effort. Because the person with the knowledge but without willingness is a waste of sources and time to hire. who doesn’t show enthusiasm about the work?

Remote Staff:

Since the world is moving to Hybrid working opportunities, some companies are still sticking it to the work-from-home opportunities to their employees. Hiring remote staff opens up a vast amount of talent that may not be present in the location you are present. Offering remote working opportunities attracts the best talents with no additional cost. For the candidate, the availability of remote opportunities saves them from the hassle of relocations. If you think remote work doesn’t work then you can switch to the Hybrid plan.

Unique Incentives:

It is good to know the tastes and preferences of your employees in advance so that you can give them the incentives based on their likes. Example Branded clothing, there are always t-shirts, coffee mugs, bags, water bottles given by the organizations and we all love such goodies don’t we?

Premiums/Subscriptions: if your employee is a nerd or loves streaming or loves music then it’s perfect to give the subscriptions and premiums of Netflix, Amazon, kindle unlimited, and Spotify. 

Plants: If any employee is obsessed with gardening and loves to be in nature or loves decorating their spaces then plants would be the perfect gift.

Book a Month: Any book worms? then you can offer the subscriptions to them from https://magicpin.in/blog/book-subscription-box-india/ 

Yoga Classes:  offering yoga classes to employees would be a really great reward since it helps them focus on the hectic schedules.

Music Lessons:  Has any of your teammates wanted to play piano, ukulele, or violin? Sign them up for the local music school and encourage their personal interest.

Encourage Wearing many hats:

Once you hire the right and potential candidate, do you think that your job is done? Encourage the candidate to take several opportunities with different and interesting work. Never discourage and say the words that you are not capable enough to take up that work. A bit of trust is all you need when you are offering new opportunities to candidates. If it’s the other way around then the capable candidate might lose the confidence he has for himself. Empower your team to always be multi-talented and work in all the fields that interest them. Never ever discourage them to take up the project and lead it. If they are capable you should give them the chance and guidance about the project then they will definitely give better results.

Interview and the questions that need to be asked:

It’s always difficult to hire the right talent and it’s too difficult to know what kind of questions to ask the candidates. It is not about the skills they have but, sometimes more or less it’s about the Natural Human tendency to know what kind of a person he/she might be & How well one can manage the things.

Few Interview questions need to be asked when hiring.
1. I have read your CV but tell me about your story.

2. Tell me about the hardest moment and how you overcome it.

3. One achievement of yours that you are proud of.

4. What motivates you.

5. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

6. What’s the biggest mistake you make?

7. What’s one thing that people have misunderstood about you?

8. How do you decide what to do next in your life?

9. What did you like about our organization?

10. Any questions for me?

How branding impacts consumer behaviour?

Posted on by Laxmi Hamal

Consumer behaviour is evolving at a faster pace with new emerging technologies and the rollout of 5G, Digital world is changing the way consumers purchase products and negotiate with their brands. It’s becoming difficult for brands to distinguish between themselves and their competitors as customer expectations are rising continuously. 

Today’s customers are more challenged with everything from defining their own experiences, communicating to seeking out the solutions to their problems they want to do it all by themselves. 

According to the research done by many universities, people interact with brands in a way similar to how they interact with people.

“Successful branding is a story being narrated to your customer across all consumer touchpoints”

-Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

Starbucks Secret to brand success:

Starbucks Secret to brand success: -ADS
Starbucks

The first Starbucks store opened its doors in 1971 in Seattle. The world has created how the world drinks coffee outside Home and office. Since the early 1990s Starbucks has strived to build the brand by offering the customers a relaxing and enjoyable experience. It has consistently and effectively handled all the outlets around the globe. While other companies concentrated on advertising. Starbucks decided not to advertise instead they chose to offer its employees and partners stock options and health insurance. They also started its customer insights which are quite different from the multi-million dollar marketing strategy. 

Their mission statement reads as

“To inspire and Nurture the Human spirit- one person, one cup and neighbourhood at a time”. 

Another pillar for Starbucks’ brand philosophy is to be a responsible and socially ethical company. It sources 99% of its coffee through Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) practices thus halving its carbon footprint. 2019 Reports to shareholders, it has announced its aspiration to store more carbon than emitting and providing clean water. In addition to expanding its plant-based options, the Company also works towards eliminating food wastage in its supply chain. In order to do so, they invest in innovative and regenerative agricultural techniques which improve the quality of their source materials ensuring the taste, visual appearances and texture of foods served in its restaurants.

Amuls’ Secret to success:

Amuls’ Secret to success: -ADS

Amul cooperative was registered on 19th December 1946, due to the unfair trade practices, farmers approached Sardar Vallabhai Patel under the leadership of Tribhuvandas K. Patel. He then advised producing the milk and supply directly to the Bombay Milk Scheme instead of Polson (who did the same but gave them low prices). 

Its tagline reads as

“Amul, The taste of India” 

In 1966, Amul hired Sylverster da Cunha as the managing director of the advertising agency to design an ad campaign for Amul Butter. He Designed a series of hoardings with topical ads relating to day to day issues that how it all started. It was so popular that it earned a Guinness World Record for the longest-running ad campaign in the world. Amul’s revenue is 85% from butter, 90% from chocolate drinks, and 50% from cheese. They have literally changed the perception towards the brands in India. From a study conducted on customers of Amul, 52.5% of people bought their products due to quality and 30.83% of people brought them because of their brand image.

Cadbury’s Secret to brand success:

Cadbury’s Secret to brand success - ADS
Cadbury marketing campaign

In 1824, Cadbury began operating in Birmingham. In 2010, kraft foods bought the company, and it is now (Mondelez International).

Cadbury in India was launched in 1948 and is currently headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. At present, Cadbury India Operates in 5 categories- Chocolate Confectionery, Beverages and biscuits. Products include Dairy milk, Tang, Oreo, Bournvita. The company even collaborated with the Hindustan Unilever limited to produce the products such as quality walls, cornetto, oreo, gems. 

It basically follows the age segments for various of its products. The target audience for the Dairy Milk, Bournvita,5 star, Fuse & tang if for the kids. Products like Silk, celebrations are for the millennials. For adults, it has segmented the products like Bournville, Temptations, celebrations and icecreams.

It goes with digital marketing campaigns such as Dairy Milk’s Advertising campaigns, Oreos campaigns. As they cover all bases with their social media campaign, they improve it all over the place.

Amazing campaign:

Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye- A dairy milk campaign.

India being rich in traditions and customs especially during the auspicious day taking this into consideration It has launched this campaign called “Kuch meetha Ho Jaaye” in which Cadbury India positioned the dairy milk as the sweet that could be consumed during the happy moments of our lives. It also shows how it makes it possible to celebrate the big & small moments with sheer joy, connecting with people, belonging with all age groups. This campaign was also endorsed by Amitabh Bachhan. 

Branding and consumer behaviours are the part and parcel of any of the marketing strategies. It basically has to understand the kind of customer they have. Research has shown that 77% of B2B marketers say that branding plays a vital role. Effectively upgrading the branding strategies for the target audience will be beneficial for the growth.

How to find a Target audience for startups?

Posted on by Laxmi Hamal

It’s the World of digitization and AI. Everyone in today’s world is enthusiastic to build their own business. So if you start a business you have to start from scratch from Idea generation to Capital to Resources. You need it all. Since the startups have very limited or no resources it is important to be specific about defining the target audience.

You might wonder, especially if you’re in the early stages of designing your startup, why audience analysis is essential.  After all, you already know that startup marketing costs can reach up to 20% of your budget. Why allocate 20% of your budget only to Marketing? 

Here the question arises What is the need of the Target market Audience? In simple terms, I can say that a target market is the result of a marketing strategy and involves analysis and discussion within the organization. Research has shown that 42% of startups fail because they didn’t find the right market for their startup.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

 -Maya Angelou, Civil rights activist & Poet.

What is the target market?

An organization’s target market is the group of people that it has identified as potential customers for its products based on some shared characteristics. Identification of the target market informs its decisions regarding product design, packaging, and marketing.

The target market may be categorized based on age group, location, income, and lifestyle. Other factors may be taken into consideration, such as their stage of life, interests, and careers. 

Here are a few factors that one must consider while defining the target market:

Knowing Your Customer:

Knowing your customer base and focusing on crucial customers has the highest probability of Purchasing. You need to analyze your target market and your customers before launching any product. You should talk to them, listen to them, and see what kind of solutions they seek and how you can solve their problems. Before focusing on the target customers, you should know your current customers. Based on their preferences and choices, where the majority of the people are spending their time. Based on these factors you can be able to target the future audience. 

Right Business model:

It’s important to have a good business model as it is the ultimate source of any business success. If any product is unique and has varied features with easily accessible to people, everyone wants to try it. Business models help companies develop, attract investment, recruit talent, and motivate management and staff. They should continuously upgrade their business plan or they’ll fail to anticipate trends and challenges. Apart from marketing to the right people, making them use the product is equally important.

Market research:

Entrepreneurs must always update their marketing strategies and target audience. Continuous research would help to keep up the trend with the different strategies and will also get to know how far they have come along with their competitors in the market. You can take the surveys online and valuable customer feedback.

Niche:

If You know your niche and your target market, It will be easy to spend time perfecting it. Having a specific plan of action for the audience is essential to growing the business. Making a plan and sticking will help in understanding the kind of product and service that is liked by different people.

Research about the competitor:

Research about the competitor will give the overall idea of the competitor. Many organizations sell similar products and can outweigh others by having a strong customer focus and doing the marketing. Engaging in social media platforms helps you know the kind of products and services the competitor is offering its customers and you can plan on your products and services without making things similar to that of your competitors.

The affects of branding on startup

Posted on by Laxmi Hamal

According to a study, 50% of the startups fail in their first five year.

But we are not talking about them. We are talking about 20% of the startups, that fail in the very first year. And you know why they fail? Now, this can be the reason for 50% of the startup too, but surely for the 20%.

They don’t take branding seriously.

Branding is one of the most important essentials in business, large or small. But how branding actually works and affects a small business like yours.

Let’s take a brief,

In simple words, your brand is a promise to your customers.

So, the first question that arises is, how to identify the theme of your brand?

Your brand is defined by four things :

  • What is your company’s mission?
  • What are the benefits and features of your product or service?
  • What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
  • What qualities do you want your customers to associates with your company?

Once you figure out these four things, how will you present them to your customers?

This is where branding comes into work.

Let’s discuss some proven methods of branding and how they affect your business :

Create a visual idenity

A logo for example is something that gives you recognition. Your logo reminds the customer that you gave them the service and quality of work you promised to give them.

For example- when you see an apple logo what comes first in your mind?

It’s a premium quality, best experience, and luxury. And all these are the things that apple promise to provide, communicates through their visuals.

Integrate your brand

You can integrate your brand into every aspect of your business. Like, how you answer your business calls, it shows how professional you are. What your employees are wearing and what message they are giving to the customers, increase the experience of customers and builds trust.

For example- when you go for a coffee in Starbucks there are order takers who give suggestions for your order which is a very good thing to do to connect with the customer. 

Create a voice/tone for your company that reflects your brand

A good voice should be applied to your written communication like website, advertisement, etc. it helps customers to connect with your company which results in making them permanent customers.

Be honest while branding

Don’t say something you can’t do or we can say don’t overhype your brand.

For example, if you are not the best in your field, then don’t say you are the best.

Honesty is the most valuable ingredient of customer experience.

So we can say that branding is the backbone of a business/startup. A good brand gets things like funding, investors, good employees, customers, etc very easily, but a local brand always struggles to get these things.

You must do branding, but do it great.

What Makes Your Business Unique? Is it you or your product\service?

Posted on by Analog

You might think you have a unique product, but the truth is, there is already a productservice like yours, if not then there will be soon. You have a business, you want it to succeed, but other businesses out there just like yours want to succeed. In fact, you will find that most businesses are trying to do the same things. So how to differentiate from others if not with the product? This post will try to add a different perspective so stick with it.

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP, also seen as unique selling point) is a factor that differentiates a product from its competitors (eg. lowest cost, the highest quality or the first-ever product of its kind).

The USP is often used to describe product features and functions. However, it should be centred on the customer and their needs, not on the product itself. That’s where UBT (Unique Buying Tribe) comes. UBT means a loyal customer base. A UBT is the dream of any business. A loyal customer base will buy your product no matter what and how the product behaves in the market. A UBT can help any business grow big. It is a fact that businesses that manage to create a loyal customer base will do better in the market. Any strategy to build a loyal customer base is worth exploring and analyzing.

Let’s talk about what creates a UBT –

It’s starts with you

Creating a tribe means connecting with them on some higher level, inspire them but you can’t expect to be able to motivate others and inspire them if you are not motivated and inspired yourself. And it doesn’t happen overnight. It becomes a habit, it becomes a ritual. You have to put in the time and it takes time for people to see the change. The first thing you need to do is to start recognizing the value you have inside your own head. What is it you want to do? What is it you want to give to this world? Why do you do what you do? Why do you wake up every morning? Why do you get up every morning? What is it you want to do with your life? Where do you want to be in 5 years? Where do you want to be in 10 years? How do you see yourself in 20 years?

Be honest with yourself

I am not sure that there is anything more important to a business than being honest with yourself. In fact, it is probably one of the first things you should do when you open your doors. It is all well and good to have business plans and goals that are going to make your business grow. You will need to look at your market and ask yourself “is this actually what I want to do or doing it for just to fit in”? You will need to see if there is a gap that you can fill or something that you can offer that is different. But it is also important to be truly honest with yourself. You will find people who share the same values and are not there for just money but are part of your tribe, family, and community.

HIgher purpose

What’s your organization’s higher purpose? A higher purpose is essentially the reason why you started your business in the first place. It is the ultimate value that you provide for your customers, employees, and shareholders. A higher purpose is something that helps you stand out among your competitors. It is what brings a sense of meaning and gives your employees a reason to go to work every day without feeling like they are just a number. It is the ultimate value that helps define your vision and keeps your team focused on the future. It is also the ultimate benefit that attracts customers and builds loyalty. For example, Tesla’s higher purpose is to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. What you see in this statement they working for the future, to sustain humanity.

Resonance

Now you have a clear vision and mission, your team has a clear vision of what you want to achieve. You’re excited and ready to go. Naturally, you start by thinking about how to build the thing, now You need to start to think about your tribe with the why. It’s a principle called resonance. It’s a word that is thrown around a lot these days, but the truth is that most people don’t really know what resonance means. It’s a concept that has been used in many different contexts, but the most relevant in the context of this article is that of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s theory, as you might remember from school, says that humans need to achieve a certain level of belonging, safety, and love before they can achieve more meaningful goals, like self-actualization. You see, the problem with innovation is that it doesn’t start with a visionary, a new product, or a new business. It starts with the people who are going to use the product or service.

Who Needs Branding?

Posted on by Analog

A lot of people believe that branding is something that you only need to do if you are a big company or if you want to start a big company. This is wrong and I am here to tell you why.

The landscape of businesses is changing. Big megacorporations seem to be going out of fashion as businesses are becoming more agile, nimble and flexible. Anyone can have their audience now, but what does this mean for the modern-day marketer? What does it mean for modern-day business? This blog will attempt to answer this very question. Who needs branding? Let’s see a simple definition of a brand, A brand is a promise. A promise that a product or service will deliver a certain experience. It’s a promise that you will feel a certain way when you consume the product or service. And when you make a promise to a customer, you had better live up to it. The truth is that every single company no matter if it’s big or small needs to define their brand and so they need branding.

Let’s see if you need branding. Ask yourself these questions and if the answers are several yeses then you need branding.

Do you want to build community?

We believe that every community is built on a foundation of shared values. If you want to build a successful community, you need to make it easy for people to connect. The branding, positioning and marketing help establish a set of common goals and beliefs among your customers, employees, or other key stakeholders.

Do you have a different perspective?

You know that you have a voice, there’s a certain way that you think and philosophies with the world that can be infused into your business. While you may not think that’s important, it can help your business stand out. This is where branding comes. You position yourself for the people who will listen and connect with your thoughts.

Do you want to stand out?

Branding is the tool that helps you define your identity that leads to creating content about your product and company, that makes stand out. Branding/positioning is the process of creating a name, symbol, slogan and/or design for a product or company that are memorable and unique. The goal of branding is to develop a name that customers can identify positively with their products.

Do you have a mission or vision, a purpose greater than money?

Here’s our mission at ADS to create value for our clients, if we couldn’t create the value they were seeking for we won’t take any money. And you can see that we have a greater purpose than money.

Do you have that kind of purpose, mission or vision and if yes. Then branding helps you convey it to your community.

Do your staff need direction

If you are a business owner, it is important you lead your staff in the right direction. A business owner is responsible for providing direction to their team as well as lay down specific guidelines that are relevant and essential to the success of your business. It’s important that you ensure your team understands your vision and is clear about the direction you want the business to take. For you to do this, you need to set up effective communication channels, clarity of thoughts. All these can be done with branding.

We hope this blog has helped you understand the concept of branding. Now that you have a better understanding of the importance of branding, we hope you can use this information to improve your brand and take it to the next level. If you’re interested in seeing what we can do for you, contact us today. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Apple’s branding secret

Posted on by Analog

Apple is one of the most successful companies in terms of branding and marketing. Their products are designed to be great and they are priced to make the customer feel good about buying one. Most of us using Apple products are not technical people, we are just used to get it done by using them and we are the biggest fan of their products. We use their products without getting into the details of their technology. Apple uses a unique branding strategy. In this blog, we will understand the real reason why we are their fan for the rest of our life.

Apple’s product launching

Emotional bonding

The best brands create emotional bonding with the customer. Brands that create emotional bonding with the customer have a range of strategies to achieve this, but they all have one thing in common: they focus on the benefits of the product. The benefit of a product is what the buyer is getting from making the purchase. It’s why they should buy your product instead of a competitor’s. Apple, for example, has created an emotional relationship with their customers by not just focusing on the product but also by creating a community that connects with its products. Apple has done this by creating a cult-like following for their products, with customers willing to wait in line for hours just to get a glimpse of the newest product. Customers get excited over upcoming Apple product launches, and they share their excitement with their friends. Apple has built a community of loyalists, one that shares their love of the brand on social media. Apple has built a community that promotes and supports its products.

Premium feel

Apple is known for its USP as being a great brand. With every release of any of their product, they manage to entice the customers towards the product. Apple knows the power that it has and how effectively it can influence the customers. Apple is a popular brand for a lot of different reasons. One is that it can often be seen as an elite brand, which is so good that it is expensive. Apple is also popular for its offerings that are different from most of the other companies but still has the same premium feel. This goes back to the idea of being an elite brand. Apple is one of the few brands that can charge as much as they do for their products.

Consistent throughout the years

Apple iPhone has been around for more than a decade and still looks the same, while Samsung Galaxy or other smartphones from different manufacturers change their design every year. Why is that? How is it possible? The answer is user experience.

Apple is a company that has created a lot of buzz around what it does. It’s not just about creating great products, it’s about creating a great experience around its products and that is why Apple is so successful. Its products are not always the best but they do have a great user experience. In fact, Apple not changing their design much for a long time until they really need to. This creates consistency in the eyes of customers. The easy way to understand this is that they are trying to convey the message that Apple is a quality driven company where they don’t need to change much because they are already giving you the best product possible. And also this help apple to maintained their visual and user experience consistency throughout devices for long a time.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed our post about Apple’s brand. Apple has established their brand by making it so that its products are sleek and functional, and customers are willing to pay the price for them. To do this, Apple had to work with the best designers in the world. We hope that this blog post helped you learn more about Apple’s brand and how they can set themselves apart from the competition. If you have any questions or concerns about this post, please contact us anytime at _. Thank you for reading, we are always excited when one of our posts can provide useful information on a topic like this!

How to Give your Business a Lasting Impression

Posted on by Analog

There are thousands of businesses out there trying to make a name for themselves. It’s not easy to stand out in the crowd. If you want your business to be remembered, you need to make sure you are giving it a lasting impression. There’s a big difference between businesses who are trying to stand out and those who aren’t. It’s the businesses that try to stand out that get remembered. Each of us likes to support the people we like. It’s natural. The businesses that do this are the ones that are remembered. These businesses are the ones that are most likely to succeed.

Importance of brand building

Well-known brands can be a very powerful asset to your business. Building a brand is the one thing that every business strives to do. Whether you are an established multi-million dollar business or a multi-billion dollar business, your brand is the one thing that binds all of your products and services together. It is the one consistent and lasting impression that you want to leave on your customers. As many as 80% of consumers would be willing to pay more for a brand name, and in fact customers will pay up to 23% more for a product or service from a familiar brand. However, building a brand takes time and money, and not everything turns out how we want it to. It is important to know how to build a brand. This blog breaks down the stages involved in building a brand and lists tips on how to make sure that you achieve your goals.

How to build a brand

If you truly want to build a successful brand, you must go above and beyond the norm. You need to stand out from the competition and get your brand noticed. With the average person seeing around 6,000 brand impressions per day, you need to make a lasting impression. Here’s how to help you give your brand the lasting impression it needs to succeed.

Unique selling point

A Unique Selling Point (USP) is a marketing concept, primarily used in sales and advertising, that differentiates a product from others in the same category. It’s the reason a potential customer chooses your product over another. It’s what makes your business stand out from the crowd. But what a lot of people don’t know is that you can have a unique selling point in anything you do and even if you don’t sell products. For example, you can have a unique selling point for your blog or for your social media. Brand yourself in the way, you differentiate your business. It’s what separates you from the competition and gives customers a reason to choose you over another business. It’s important that your business has a strong and lasting impression on your customers.

Find your tribe

The marketing world is filled with buzzwords, and the latest one is “tribe.” In fact, the word “tribe” has been so overused that it’s lost a lot of meaning. But the word “tribe” is a good one. It has a very specific meaning. It means a group of people that you’re connected to. You have some sort of relationship with them.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is focusing on the wrong target audience… The one thing that all entrepreneurs need to remember is that you can’t please everyone. Rather than aiming to please everyone, aim to please your tribe. If you can find your tribe, the people who believe in what you do, who get you and what you stand for, and who share your vision, then you will dominate. For example create a 100 member fan group, who are going to certainly buy your product no matter what.

Pinpoint your mission

A mission statement is a short, simple statement that describes the purpose of your company. They are important because they will help you define your target market and will help you to stay focused. They are important because they will help you define your target market and will help you to stay focused. In order to create a strong mission statement, you must first know who your target market is. Think about your current customers and try to visualize a broad range of people who would be interested in your product. Then, narrow it down to a single person. This one person will be your target market. Once you have this person in mind, create a mission statement that will narrow your focus and help you to better understand the purpose behind your product.

Choose a design scheme

It’s easy to underestimate the power of design in business. After all, it’s just about making things pretty, right? Wrong. Design is much more than that. It’s about how the customer perceives your business and how they react to your product. It’s about the first impression, and the lasting impression. It’s about how you can show the value of your business to your customers and make them want to continue buying from you. And that’s where design comes in. Design has an important role in business. It can make or break the success of your business. It can increase sales and increase your customer base. If you have a website, it’s an essential factor in converting potential customers. Your website’s design can either bring in or drive away customers. It’s important to choose a design scheme that represents your brand correctly and makes potential customers want to continue learning about your business.

Design plays an important role on visual identity. It’s the first thing your customer are going to see, So you would want to make as consistent as possible so they can recognize you easily. For this go for a branding agency to make visual and brand strategy for long term.

Think like a customer

Smart business owners know that they have to walk in the shoes of their customers and see things from their perspective. But many companies tend to lose focus of that. Customers don’t want to hear about how your company has been around for X years. They don’t care about how many awards you’ve won. All that matters to them is whether your product or service will make their lives better. If you can’t prove that, you’re just wasting their time. So how can you make sure your business truly understands the needs of its customers?

So engage with customer as much as possible and see if there is any possibilities of improvement, upgrade or any pain point that can be solved.

Conclusion

So, how do you create a lasting impression? The best way to leave a lasting impression is to connect with people in a way that is meaningful. If you want to make a lasting impression, you have to make sure that your business is doing something that matters. The best way to do that is to do what you love. If you do what you love, you will create a lasting impression. The key is to make sure that you are doing something that matters, and that you are doing it well.

How design affects your online sales?

Posted on by Analog

You would have heard the term “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” however the fact is most of the time we tend go by book’s cover(packaging). Why because it’s easy for us to decide, think it like this you don’t know the writer, the content inside the book or anything, so what is left for choosing is the title or the book cover for that instance. In conclusion our initial appearance will decide our last impression. An unattractive package will lead the product to remain in the shelf, because Human eyes don’t read but they scan things, we stuck on the things which feel good. We don’t want to waste our time on the product which doesn’t feel good. The average human consideration span time is really short.

As a business owner or you have to communicate your brand’s vision, message across your audience. When your user encounters your brand through your website, social media, product packaging or anything make sure they feel good towards your brand. It should tell your credibility, reliability, values, the product they can expect etc…

Let’s see how design affects your business and sales –

Proven Stats: Design Sells

Awareness of the value of good design is at an all-time high. Good design is recognized as a major differentiator in ensuring product success in a crowded global market.

—Paul Hatch, Design House and Deana McDonagh, University of Illinois

Here is an interesting analysis of how visuals affected the marketing strategies of online marketers last year: –

  • 75% of opinions on website credibility come from web design.
  • 94% of first impressions relate to your website’s design.
  • 89% of people shop with a competitor after a poor user experience.
  • About 80% of the users will not return to a badly designed web page.
  • About 75% of users make judgments about the company, its values and their credibility based on the web page.
  • 38% of people stop engaging with a website if it’s unattractive.
  • 60% marketers agreed to the fact that visuals played a huge role in creating an impact.
  • Most marketers ended up spending about 10%-20% of their annual budget on visuals.
  • 35% marketers said that they would spend about a third of their annual budget on visuals the following year.

Triggers an emotional response

Humans are primed to associate expressions. For example when you see someone smiling that means he is happy. Just like this we associate colors, shapes, patterns with emotions. which lead us whether we like it or not.

This is the power of design, using right images you can generate an emotional response you want.

Let’s take an example of Mc’donalds, for a starter its logo is yellow and using red as a complementary colour. This is because they want to trigger your craving as we humans unknowingly associate warm colour like red, yellow with food.

good design mcdonalds
Mc’donalds

Reciprocate your time and attention

Basic design preparation activates a positive emotional response which triggers reciprocation of anyone’s time and attention.

I know you are passion about your business but how you are going to make them believe, the answer is through preparation. Preparation is what they see first, for instance scientists at the University of Washington studied that VC’s do like to see passion but preparedness is what most positively influenced funding decisions.

This is not just about pitching it to VC’s because if you are in business you are pitching your product every time your customers encounter your product.

Let’s take an example, which one would you want to give attention –

poor design affects sales
Ugly looking website
good website design
good looking website

I know, you may think why comparing apple’s website with some unknown ugly looking site, but that is not the point I wanted to show you, human eyes can identify quality work.

Helps you stand out from competition

Human beings have an attractiveness bias; we perceive beautiful things as being better, regardless of whether they actually are better. All else being equal, we prefer beautiful things and we believe beautiful things function better. As in nature, function can follow form.

Steven Bradley

Differentiating from competitors can be one of the biggest challenges in business. Design is important tool for this, helps you capture attention, connect with your audience, makes you being ahead of your marketplace. In the word of Norio Ohga, former Chairman and CEO of Sony, “At Sony, we assume all products of our competitors will have basically the same technology, price, performance, and features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the marketplace.”

Captures your target audience

It’s like creating for those who are ultimately going to use it. Smart design showcases your products and services in a way that resonates with—and motivates—your target buyers. And also it adds one bonus which is- design creates barrier for those who is not your customer.

You can’t make everyone happy, there is a certain group of people who will fit you with your product or service. First, define your user and then create an environment most suitable for that ideal group of customer. Read more about customer segmentation.

Design helps you showcase your values visually

“Choose the right purpose, people will be attracted, motivated, and unified.”

—Robert Wong, Vice President at Google Creative Lab

Design is that magic element that will communicate your values, mission, vision, who are you and why you do it. Through suitable design you can connect with customers who share same values or would relate with your values.

Let’s assume you are in business with full of competitors, if not than it will not take very long to get crowded with competition, leading you have to differentiate your business from competition. you have to communicate what sets you apart, “why” should they buy from you? What does your brand stand for? What is it about?

Reference links –

How Visual Design Affects Sales and Marketing

Design impacts your business success

Design impacts psychology

How Can Web Design Improve Sales? [+5 Ways to Increase Sales with Web Design]

You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish

Why your brand story matters & simple ways to tell it?

Posted on by Analog

Let’s first understand what a brand story is, most people think of the brand story as a brand’s history, how it started. They are not entirely wrong, these can be essential parts of your brand story. However, your brand story should be much bigger.

The questions ” Who are you?” can be either be very simple or complex, depending on what philosophy you want to convey. A good brand story is enough to tell what are your core values, mission, vision, it is a narrative that passes facts and feelings created by your brand. A story must inspire an emotional reaction.

Brand story telling

Brand story telling is just a fancy term for what is brand is all about, how it will behave in certain circumstances. For example you started your company 10 years before, so it is quite possible the circumstances are changed but your core values are still same. So conveying your core values through story is brand story telling.

It’s different from traditional marketing, where you just be neutral and sell your products. And compete on functional or technical aspects. Being neutral is boring, not inspiring.

Telling stories inspire people towards your brand, people love sharing stories, particularly on social media. Your brand feels like a human not just profit making machine.

Let’s see how some of the best story telling done by brands –

Let’s take a real world examples of brand story telling –

Spotify

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek. A brand having one the best creative marketing and story telling.

So what is in the Spotify DNA –

  • ADAPTABLE
  • DIVERSE
  • QUALITY DRIVEN
  • WARM & FRIENDLY
  • HUMAN CENTERED

We surly can see in there story telling too. For example Spotify has large user data, containing their users behavior. So they use this data very creatively by combining user data with a human touch.

Spotify advertise

For example in the above image they uses their one of the users data of valentine day, how spotify helped him in his lonely times. It makes total sense for brand like Spotify to create content around emotional needs like love, loneliness, enjoyment, humanly things. Because it create a sense of connection with the brand.

How to create a great brand story

Keep it simple

Even though the company’s origin story has taken years but when making your brand story you should focus on key terms. When it comes to telling a story it could have different length for different situations like you should be able to tell it with very few words or it can be a movie too, simply said it should be straightforward.

  • Beginning : Problem – Explain what problem you faced and are going to solve.
  • Middle : Solution – How you solved it’
  • End : Success – What the end result look like.

That’s it, this is how most of the people expect from a story. Make sure end is exciting and inspirational to connect with people. And this end is just new beginning of a new adventure.

What is your values

Look at this as long term thinking. For example with time situation and circumstances can change but your core values remains same. And try to communicate higher purpose.

Ask your self if your brand is human how it will behave in certain situations.

Put a face behind the story

A good brand story features a main character that your audience can relate to. Think about your main character’s goals and desires. Add some conflicts and challenges so it will feel more realistic.

And make sure the main character’s actions align with your brand’s core value.

Conclusion

Though there might be still some confusion around brand story and brand story telling. Summarizing both it could be said that both are about using emotion evoking narrative to connect your brand to customer. Where brand story is about your history, how you started, problems you faced, solutions your brand is providing, your core values. And brand storytelling is how you curate this story for your audience.

Reference –

Story telling

The best brand storytelling