eConnection from Epiphany Marketing

Greetings! It's been a while since we last shared our adventures in marketing with you. In working with clients over the past year, we've taken a lot of notes. This bulletin and those to follow offer some of what we've learned or reinforced from these collective experiences. Please let us know what you think, and contribute your own thoughts on the subject too. Working together, we'll all be better marketers and builders of personal connection.

Happy Thanksgiving, Ron Marcus Principal



Graphic Style Guide
The key to keeping your brand consistent and powerful. A Graphic Style Guide is a manual that tells you exactly how to design in multiple media with your company logo, fonts, colors and templates. This guide is essential to putting your best brand forward. Here’s why. Building a strong brand is all about building trust. And the foundation of trust is consistency. When you act the same way every time, people trust you will continue to act that way. And, when you look the same way every time, this reinforces the feeling of trust in you.

Without trust, there’s no loyalty, and no repeat business. Simple, right?

Imagine if, every few days, your local McDonald's changed the color of its arches (the grass green arches?) and menu names (I'd like a Big Jack please)? What would this do to your perception of the food? Would you stop and wonder if standards are being upheld in the kitchen? I sure would. It's the same with your own brand. You want to avoid anything that will cause your customers to question the consistency of your company and by extension, its products and services. We cannot overstress this point.

Yet, so many companies are forever letting their design staff and vendors routinely change fonts, colors, logo treatments and graphic design of collaterals, ads, direct mail and Web pages. This creative freedom may be great fun for the designer, but it will create confusion for your customers, whose trust will diminish with every change. With a Graphic Style Guide, you have a step-by-step instruction manual which ensures that anyone creating anything that conveys your brand — from a flyer to a brochure to the look of your Web site and even your interior decor — will know exactly how to design to maintain complete brand consistency, at every touch point, in every communication.

This is critical. Any company considering creating a new brand identity (logo, stationery, templates for printed collateral, etc.) should automatically insist on having a Graphic Style Guide to go with it. The extra amount you'll pay your vendor to create this now will save you immeasurably in keeping the trust and loyalty of your customers. What’s more, your designers will thank you for having this document, which will simplify their design tasks.

What's in a Graphic Style Guide?
Logo usage — color variations and applications, and improper alterations. Colors — includes CMYK and Pantone spot colors for printing, and RGB for Web. Fonts — standards for headlines, subheads, body copy, bullet lists and more. Includes font types, styles, colors and placement. Sample design templates for stationery, ads, flyers, etc. San Diego State University has an excellent style guide to use as an example. You can download the pdf here (or just ask me for it: ron@epif.net).

Who should receive a copy of your Graphic Style Guide?
This guide will help anybody who will have anything to do with designing anything for your company — graphic artists, interior designers, the receptionist, office manager, and you too as a creative director.

Want to know more?
Give me a call (858.866.0700 x100) or an email (ron@epif.net). I'll be happy to talk more with you about graphic style guides, and about branding in general. Until next time, Ron & the Epiphany Marketing Team

ABOUT US
Epiphany Marketing is a San Diego–based full–service integrated marketing agency. We help companies with strategic planning and tactical execution of marketing communications programs.

Social Networking, Viral Marketing & the Internet

August 19 Installment: Social Networking, Viral Marketing & the Internet

With the premiere of "Snakes on a Plane" the other day, everybody in marketing, not to mention Hollywood, is talking about the Internet and the future of marketing movies, not to mention, everything else.

Now we have Myspace, YouTube, blogs, podcasts...and everybody's getting into the act, trying to build BUZZ through WOM (that's "Word of Mouth") marketing.

It's simple. You turn a few people on to whatever you're promoting. You give them a reason to get excited about it. They in turn will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, and so on. With the speed and ubiquity of the Internet, soon, everyone will be talking about it.

It's new. It's hip. And (at least for now) it's much less expensive than traditional advertising. And judging by the fever pitch for "Snakes on a Plane" that's been building over the past year solely due to its Internet presence and the passion of people passing the word to all of their friends everywhere, this could be the future of marketing.

What's your take? How has buzz-building fit into your marketing efforts so far, and how will it play in the future?

This is an area we at Epiphany Marketing are focusing on, and we'd love to hear your thoughts.

To personal connection,

Ron Marcus
Founder, Epiphany Marketing

Who are you working for?

Who are you working for? Yourself? A corporation? "The Man?"

Why are you in business? To manufacture a product? Provide a service? Make a profit?

All common answers, and all truthful.

And, all the wrong way to answer these questions. Here are my answers:

Who are you working for? THE CUSTOMER.

Why are you in business? TO SERVE THE CUSTOMER.

Of course, you make a product or provide a service. And of course, without making a profit, you won't last in business. No argument. But here's the real bottom line: without customers, you have no business. Period.

I know, so obvious. Why am I writing a blog post about it?

Because, quite honestly, so many marketers just don't seem to grasp this obvious point.

Don't take it from me. Pull out a few magazines, particularly business-to-business (Business Week and Fortune will do too), and start reading the ads.

Count the number of ads that use their headlines to tell how great the company is.

Now count the number of ads that use their headlines to tell you how they're going to take care of you and your needs and wants.

I feel comfortable betting you you'll find a ton of the first kind of ad, and very few of the latter.

There are a lot of reasons for this which we can discuss in another blog post. The bottom line is this: the customer only cares about one thing: "What's in it for me?" Not, "What's cool about that company?"

Of course, this should not only change how we write our marketing messages. It should be on the top of our minds every business minute of the day. Our jobs are to deliver the absolute most wonderful experience a customer could possibly have. That's what will keep them coming back for more.

Again, so obvious. Again, so not integrated into marketing. So missing the boat.

That's my opinion. I'd love to hear yours.

Here's to building a presonal connection,

Ron Marcus
Founder, Epiphany Marketing

Let's Have an Epiphany Together

Greetings from Ron Marcus, founder of Epiphany Marketing. I'd love to chat with you here!

We founded this blog to give us all an easy way to share marketing experiences, ideas and advice. I encourage your participation and look forward to many exchanges with you!

Stay tuned for further posts from me about various marketing issues, which will help get our conversations started.

Cheers,
Ron