Category Archives: Small Business Spotlight

Small Business Startup Checklist: The 9 Things to Do First

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Starting your own small business is an incredibly rewarding experience, but it can also be quite challenging. It’s definitely not an undertaking for the faint of heart. There are a lot of things to do in order to get your business up and running, and it can be difficult to know where to start – especially if you’ve never owned your own business before.
It’s almost impossible to know whether a startup will be successful or not until you get it launched. But even if you have a fantastic idea for a new product in an untapped market, your venture could fail before it’s even got off the ground if you get the basics wrong, such as marketing.
That’s why we’ve put together this small business startup checklist! In this guide, we will discuss the first 9 things you need to do in order to get your business up and running. Let’s get started.

1. Make a Business Plan: Is Your Business Viable?

This is by far the most important step in starting your own business: you need to figure out whether or not your business idea is actually viable.
This means doing a lot of market research and financial forecasting to determine whether there is a demand for your product/service, and whether you can make a profit from it.
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you start your business, but having a solid plan is essential for giving yourself the best chance of success.
If you’re not sure how to go about making a business plan, there are plenty of resources online (including our very own blog). Alternatively, you can always hire a professional business consultant to help you out.

2. Decide on Your Business Structure

Before you can start doing any business activities, you’ll need to determine what legal structure your business will have. This will determine things like how you file your taxes and how much liability you have. Limited company? Partnership? Sole trader? There are a lot of different options, so it’s important to do some research and figure out which one is best for your business. In brief:
• Sole trader is the simplest business structure – it’s just you, the owner, and there is no legal distinction between you and your business.
• A limited company is a legal entity in its own right, separate from its owners. This means that the company can enter into contracts and own property in its own name.
• A partnership is similar to a sole trader business, but with two or more owners.
If you want to run a startup, it’s probably best to start a limited company. That’s because you’ll presumably want it to grow quite big, and because startups are risky; running a limited company limits your liability if the business owes debt or goes under.

3. Choose a Name and Logo for Your Business

This one’s pretty self-explanatory: you’ll need to come up with a name for your business. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or complicated. In fact, simpler and more concise names are often better, as they’re easier to remember (and spell).
The name you choose should represent what your business does. Members of the public should be able to figure out what you’re selling or offering from the name alone. You should also do some trademark research to make sure nobody else is using the same or a similar name (as well as being confusing for consumers, this could get you into legal trouble).
Besides the name, you’ll also need to design an eye-catching, relevant, scalable and memorable business logo. This is important for building up your brand identity. If you’re not a graphic designer, you can always hire someone to do it for you.

4. Invest in Personalised Business Stationery

With your business name and logo sorted, you’ll want to start printing out some personalised business stationery. This includes things like:
• Business cards
• Letterheads
• Compliment slips
• Address labels and/or stamps
• Note pads
• Appointment cards
• Promotional products, such as flyers, fridge magnets and mugs
These products make your business look professional and help people remember who you are and what you do. Part of running a successful startup is making a big first impression, and having professionally-printed stationery goes a long way towards achieving that aim.
You can have these products printed relatively cheaply and easily, thanks to companies like 123Print. We provide high-quality printing that is professional, affordable and totally customisable.

5. Register with Companies House

Now that your business is starting to take shape, you’ll need to register it with Companies House. This is a government agency that deals with company registrations and other business-related matters. It’s quick and easy to register with Companies House, and you can do it online.

6. Open a Business Bank Account

Once you’ve registered your business, the next step is to open a business bank account. This is absolutely essential for keeping your personal and business finances separate, which becomes even more vital as your business grows and you take on employees or co-directors.
You can either choose an old-fashioned bricks-and-mortar bank, or go with one of the many challenger banks/digital banks that have popped up over the last decade. Do a little research and decide which business account is best for you.

7. Register with HMRC

You’ll need to register with HMRC as soon as your business starts trading. This is necessary for declaring your income and paying taxes. If you don’t declare your income properly, you may be hit with fines or even be investigated for fraud – so ensure this step is done properly!
You can do this online too, and it shouldn’t take that long. Depending on how you’re going to run your business, you can register for other things like PAYE online too. Once you’re registered, you’ll be given a unique tax reference number (UTR) which you’ll need to do things like log in and communicate with HRMC.

8. Get Business Insurance

No business is complete without insurance. You’ll need to get insurance for both your premises and your employees. This is designed to help protect your company against day-to-day operational risks, such as mistakes, losses, premises damage and legal costs.
There are a lot of different types of business insurance, all of which may cover different areas and provide varying amounts of compensation. So, it’s important to do some research and find one that’s best suited to your needs. Make sure you shop around and compare prices as business insurance can be quite expensive.

9. Set Up a Website and Socials

In this day and age, every business needs an online presence. You’d be surprised how many potential customers simply won’t bother with a business if they don’t have a website or Facebook account.
Your website is your digital storefront, and it’s how people will find you online. If you’re not particularly tech-savvy, there are plenty of ways to build a website without needing to code it yourself. Online web development services are good if you’re on a budget, although if you’ve got big aspirations, you may want to hire a professional website designer instead.

It’s also vital that you put time and effort into social media content. This is how you’ll connect with potential customers and build up a following. Again, you can either do this yourself or hire a social media manager.

Get Started Today with 123Print

There are lots of other things you need to do when starting a business, but these 9 first steps will help get you off the ground.
When you’re ready to order high-quality, professionally printed business stationery, don’t forget to check out 123Print. We offer thousands of templates for business cards, flyers and more, all of which are fully customisable and affordable for new businesses.
Choose from a huge number of fonts and colour schemes to match your branding, and upload your own logo and artwork with the click of a button. With our speedy printing and dispatch times, your new stationery will be with you before you know it!

What to AVOID When You’re Designing a Business Card

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Whether you’re just starting out in a new career path, have recently changed jobs, or have founded your own business, there are many reasons you might be thinking about designing a new business card. Perhaps you’ve just realised that your old business card needs a bit of a refresh.

Even if the digital age has transformed the way business connections are made these days, physical business cards are still effective tool for marketing and communication. But the problem is that not all business cards are alike. The way you design your business card, the information you put on it, and even which company you use to print it can have a huge effect on the impression it makes on others. And that, in turn, can have a knock-on effect on your success in the business world.

Today, we’re going to go over why it’s crucial to have a well-designed business card, the steps involved, and some of the most significant mistakes you should avoid making when designing one.

Why Is It Important to Have a Good Business Card?

One of the most common questions asked about business cards is: are they even still relevant in the modern age? Why is it important to have a physical business card when most professional communications and marketing can be done digitally? Well, here are some compelling reasons:

1) Business cards are an inexpensive way to promote your brand. Being made of paper, and able to be mass-printed for pennies, they won’t break the bank
2) They’re great for events and conferences. Handing over a business card is a quick and easy way to make that professional connection, without having to rattle off your e-mail address or phone number for the person to copy down
3) Business card are easy to display and to distribute, as they’re small enough to fit into the standard card pocket of a wallet
4) As business cards are a tactile object, they’re a physical reminder of the connection you’ve forged. An e-mail or website link is easy to misplace, but if someone’s got their business card in your pocket, they’ll find it again
5) Business cards help to spread your branding. You can include your logo, tagline, colour scheme and even special offers or product information.

But of course, a business card is only as good as its design. A boring, badly designed, unprofessional business card will be hard to read and may risk people taking you (and your company) less seriously. That’s why it’s vital to design a good business card that will draw the eye and make people want to get in touch.

How Do You Design Your Own Business Cards?

Business cards don’t have to cost the earth. While you can pay a designer to make your business cards for you, this can be quite expensive – and if you’re just starting out with your business, you may not have the funds available.

If you’re looking to save money, an easy way to do so is to use a professional stationery site, such as 123Print. You’ll be able to choose a template that speaks to you, and edit it yourself online – choosing your own wording, font colours and styles, and adding your own images. Your unique design will then be professionally printed to order, using high-quality cardstock.

The steps involved in designing your own business card are as follows:
1) Choose the shape and size. The traditional rectangular business card shape is the most universally loved, as it’s easy to fit into a wallet or business card holder. But business cards can also have vertical orientations, rounded corners, and other interesting design elements.
2) Choose the style and colour scheme. This would include the size, font, and colour of your card. The overall purpose of typography is to prioritise legibility over anything else.
3) Upload your logo and other graphics. The logo is the most important part, as it will instantly draw the eye and create brand awareness. You can also add other graphics and things like QR codes.
4) Add contact information. As well as your name and company name, you’ll need to include a phone number, e-mail address, and website URL. You can also include your physical premises address (if you have one), and other socials such as Facebook and Instagram.
5) Add a call to action or other details that will entice people to contact you – such as special offers, a discount code or even a loyalty card stamp section on the reverse.
This all may sound simple, but there are many traps people fall into – especially when designing a business card for the first time. Here’s what to avoid doing.

What to Avoid When Designing Your Business Card

These are several mistakes that you want to avoid when creating your own business card design. They are:

1. Not Using a Professional Stationer

Many new business owners are tempted to try making their own business cards. Unfortunately, this is never a good idea – unless you happen to have professional printing equipment on-hand.
Home-made business cards are difficult to get right. You might inadvertently cut off vital information in the margins, use poor quality paper or ink, or risk cutting them roughly or wonky. Home-made business cards always have a slightly slap-dash appearance which risks making you and your company look unprofessional.

2. Leaving Out Vital Contact Information

Needless to say, the contact information is the most important part of a business card. Your potential clients and contacts will need a way to reach you.
But don’t think that merely providing an e-mail address will do. Make sure to include a working telephone number, website address, and the physical address of your business (if applicable). And include your social media handles, too.
If you’ve recently changed phone numbers or acquired a new web domain, make sure you’re using up-to-date information rather than old contact details that won’t work.

3. Forgetting to Triple-Check for Mistakes

Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and typos simply translate that you do not care enough about your business as a whole. And what’s worse, if the typo is in the phone number or e-mail address, it can actually prevent people from contacting you.
You can avoid this error by thoroughly double- and triple-checking every detail before sending your design to print. It’s always worth getting a second pair of eyes to take a look, too – as if you’ve been staring at a design for too long, you might miss something obvious.

4. Choosing the Wrong Font Style, Size or Colour

Choosing a font that’s hard-to-read will put people off, and may even prompt them to throw your business card straight in the wastepaper basket. Avoid using looping cursive fonts, too-small text, or a font colour that blends into the background.
Although you might be tempted to use a font colour that will match your business’s colour scheme, it’s vital that it will actually stand out in high contrast to the background colour. If your colour scheme is yellow, for example, this won’t be easy to read against a white card.

5. Using Harsh or Inappropriate Colour Schemes

Following on from the theme of colour, note that poor colour choices can ruin an otherwise decent business card design. Understand how colour schemes work together on paper and affect the design balance.
And while you might want your card to stand out, you must realise that different colours can create wildly different first impressions about your company. Making your business card pillar-box red might catch the eye, but it may cause people to associate your company with urgency, anger, or danger – not ideal if you run a relaxing spa, for example.

6. Not Including a Call to Action or Value Proposition

The value proposition – which is, essentially, a promise of the value your business is going to deliver – gives you a chance to make a connection with your readers. You may consider a brief summary of services you offer, for example.
And a call to action is equally important – something that you want the reader to do. It doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t) be long or rambling. A short phrase such as “call us today” or “check out our website” will still have an impact.

7. Leaving Out Essential Branding

Remember that your business card is a vital took for spreading your branding far and wide. Branding can help create general awareness of your company, and encourage people to choose your business over your competitors, purely due to familiarity.
So, it’s essential that you include your company logo, tagline, and any other essential parts of your branding right on the front of your business card. You’ll also need to coordinate the font and colour scheme on your card with what you’ve used on your website and other marketing materials.

8. Including Too Much Unnecessary Information

It is quite frustrating to look at a business card with lots of overwhelming information squished altogether. You’ve heard of the term “less is more” – and this is definitely the case with a business card. You only have a small area to work with. A business card isn’t the same thing as a flyer, where you’ve got more space to go into detail about what your business can offer.

Focus on the essential information (contact details, a brief indication of what you offer, and a call to action). You can always use the reverse of the business card for any extra details you might like to include.

9. Trying to Print Text or Graphics in the Margins

While designing your business card, remember that there will be a margin of space around the outside of the card where nothing will be printed. You may be tempted to spread your text right to the edges of the card in order to fit more in – but this would be a mistake, as there’s a genuine risk it may get cut off. Not only will the text be unreadable, but it will also make your business card look unprofessional.

When you’re choosing your business card template, pay close attention to where the sample text is aligned and use the dotted line as a guide to where the margin will be. Be sure to check the proof to make sure your text and images look OK before you send your design to print.

10. Not Ordering Enough Business Cards

The last thing to avoid when you’re designing your new business cards is not ordering enough. Particularly if you’re just starting out, you may be tempted to order the smallest amount of business cards possible to save money. But you will be genuinely surprised at how quickly you’ll go through them. It’s always better to order significantly more than you think you’ll need, so that you’ll have spares on hand at all times.

That way, you can keep some on your person, give them to employees to hand out, and of course keep a stock of cards in the shop or office. You can even include business cards in the packaging when you ship orders to encourage customers to shop again.
If you’re ready to start designing your perfect business cards, head over to 123Print. We have thousands of templates to choose from, and you can customise them all in seconds using our handy online editor. We’ll aim to print and dispatch your order within 48 working hours!

Product Packaging Tips for Small Businesses

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When thinking about how to market your product, its packaging shouldn’t be the last thing that you consider. Even if you’re selling an online-only digital product, packing design is still relevant.

For instance, in the days when computer stores sold boxed software on DVD/CD, they needed a well-designed box to sit on the shelf. While that is no longer a reality, people still remember the packaging. Browse through computer software advertisements on the Internet, and you’ll be surprised at how many feature ‘virtual’ product packaging.

The packaging that you use will say a lot about your company – it’s one of the first impressions that customers will create about your business. Your packaging is also a great opportunity to further spread your branding and even turn customers into repeat customers!

Keep reading to discover plenty of handy tips on how to make the most out of your product packaging as a small business.

Invest in Eco-Friendly Packaging

Going back even just five years, how many vegan products would you expect to see in an average supermarket? Certainly not many, and very expensive at that compared to their non-vegan counterparts. But now every food category has a vegan/vegetarian or health-conscious alternative.

Given that this sector is more environmentally conscious than the average and consumers seem willing to pay a little more, it’s fair to assume that general consumer attitude is trending towards the environment. In today’s environmentally conscious world, this is probably one of the most relevant product packaging design tips.

How to Make Your Packaging More Environmentally Friendly

Look carefully at the materials that you’re using. Most urban houses have recycling bins—make sure that most of the product’s packing is recyclable and prominently display a recycling logo on the packaging.

Show your company’s green credentials by using recycled materials in product packaging—it’s true to say that recycled materials tend not to look and feel as pristine as non-recycled. However, being able to print ‘Made from 100% recycled material’ on the packaging is a big plus point.

Don’t forget to use recycled paper for your paper mailings, too – otherwise eco-friendly packaging may come across as a token gesture or gimmick, rather than a sign that your business is serious about the environment. At 123Print, you can purchase both letterheads and envelopes made of 100% recycled paper.

Consider the Unboxing Experience

Over the past several years, the phenomenon of the ‘unboxing video’ has become popular on social media sites such as YouTube and TikTok. Simply put, they feature a customer unboxing a new product (opening it and taking it out of its packaging), and reviewing the experience.

You might wonder why anyone would sit through a video about unboxing a product, but they have become insanely popular. Steve Jobs at Apple revolutionised this experience, designing packaging with the same care and attention to detail lavished on the product itself. This approach sets and enhances the customer’s expectations for the product.

Now consumers, especially of high-end electronic devices and luxury cosmetic products, crave this experience. When choosing between different products, in the same category, many people search for unboxing videos on YouTube. A flattering unboxing review might make the difference when choosing between similar products.

Tips for Successful Unboxings

Here are some general tips to enhance your customers’ general unboxing experience.

1) Consider the cost of packaging. The material cost of packaging, especially high-end, can reach up to 10% of the total manufacturing cost. If your product is in a price-sensitive market, would this extra cost hurt your bottom line?
2) Know your customers. What is your target consumer’s attitude to the environment? To some, the cost of high-end packaging may seem an unnecessary expense and detract from the product.
3) Be creative. YouTube is a visual medium, so your packaging material should look good under lighting, not be too reflective and feature attractive colours with a well-designed logo and font.
4) Use easy-to-open packaging such as a cardboard box. The opening process should be smooth and easy – having to hack plastic packaging open with a pair of kitchen scissors isn’t very appealing.
5) Ensure the product is secure. You don’t want it falling from the packaging upon opening. If your product features multiple parts, use packing foam inside the box and make sure that each part is visible and secure. If your product is a foodstuff, package it in a resealable bag—it looks good, is easy to open and enhances the freshness of your product.

Imagine yourself as a YouTuber, unboxing your product: what comment would you make—if the experience feels good to you, then you’re on the right track.

Theme Your Packaging

The theme is an important element of packaging design. A product’s packaging may comprise multiple items, not just a single bag or a box. It’s good to employ a consistent design with each element.

Maybe you use matching colour schemes or design elements, such as tying packages with twine. Whatever it is, remember that people like the personal touch. If your product is presented in plain packaging, it’s unlikely that your customer would choose to feature it on their Instagram feed or other social media channel.

Your product, perhaps a manual coffee grinder, might come in a well-constructed, attractive box, but also include a matching bag for travel. These small touches of design flair make a difference when trying to stand out against the competition. This might not be so important in an online marketplace, such as Amazon, where advertisers focus on the product image, rather than packaging. However, for an online marketplace, such as Etsy, which focuses on artisan products, cute and thematic product packaging, helps products to stand out from the crowd.

Make Use of Seasons and Holidays

If your product is aimed at (or sold during) a particular holiday, design the packaging with that in mind—the obvious example is Christmas, with bold red, gold and green festive designs.

But it’s not only holidays that you should think about. There are seasonal products that would benefit from appropriate design. For instance, a consumer in a DIY store, looking for, say, a garden product, would subconsciously look for green packaging.

Use Clear and Attractive Language

If you’re lucky enough that a customer has picked up your product from the shelf, make sure that all the information they need to make the choice is included on the packaging.
For instance, if it’s a health food product, make sure that it includes details of its benefits.

Otherwise, the customer might put it back and choose another brand. If you’re selling clothing, you should have a clear label stating what materials it’s made from, and the percentage of the overall product.

Like all marketing, think like a customer. While your product packaging might include a detailed instruction leaflet inside, print enough instructions on the packaging to convince the customer that it’s what they need.

Is It Legal?

While the most important aspect of packaging design is to enhance the product’s desirability, you should always consider the legal aspect. Depending on product type, certain things that appear on the packaging, such as medicinal claims, may be legally restricted.

Also, make sure that any product claims that appear on the packaging are accurate and truthful. Lying to customers for the sake of selling more units isn’t a good look.

Encourage Brand Awareness and Recognition

While your company may have a varied product line, you always want people to know from whom they’re buying. Brand awareness requires a consistent design strategy across product lines.

For instance, consider supermarkets—they offer a range of products. There is never just one brand of soup or sunblock on the shelf and, of course, you want the consumer to pick up your product first, rather than the store’s own brand, or a competitor’s.

A consistent brand identity can help with this—something familiar in the packaging, perhaps a particular font or colour scheme to grab their attention and make them reflexively reach for your product first.

While your small business might not have the research budget of a national supermarket chain, it’s valuable, when planning product packaging, to put yourself in the mind of your customer. Think about what they might look for when searching for your type of product.

And of course, always prominently display your business’s logo and any taglines or slogans you may use on the outer packaging. That way, even if the customer doesn’t end up buying it, they’ll still be more likely to remember and recognise your brand in the future.

Include Extra Promotional Materials

In order to upsell to your customers, add some additional promotional material in the product packaging. For example, you might include a flyer with a special discount code for 10% off future purchases – this will encourage your customers to place another order.

You could also consider including a loyalty card inside the packaging, with one stamp already on it. People love to collect things, and loyalty stamps are no exception. The mere presence of a loyalty card will inspire them to shop with you again, and work towards the reward (whatever it may be).

Always make sure any promotional materials you include in your packaging are professionally designed and printed, to create the most favourable impression possible with your customers. 123Print carry a full range of professional-quality flyers, business cards and other promotional materials.

 

Our thousands of designs are fully customisable with your own wording and font choices, and will be shipped to you within 2 working days of your order. With our 100% satisfaction guarantee, you can have confidence in us to provide for all of your marketing needs.

9 Simple and Effective Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

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As any entrepreneur knows, it can be very difficult getting your feet off the ground and your name out there in the early days of owning a small business. Nobody has ever heard of you before, you don’t have any past customers or testimonials, and you’ve got nobody to spread your services through word of mouth.

That’s where small business marketing strategies come in. In order to be noticed and considered by your target market, you’ll need to advertise or market your business somehow – but what actually works, and where should you start?

In this article, we’ll discuss some small business marketing ideas to jump-start your marketing strategy. Before trying any of these ideas, it’s worth sitting back and considering some marketing goals and budget. Not all the small business marketing ideas in this article are free, some cost money or time investment. Try to focus on what’s best for your business and make the best use of your marketing budget.

Online Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

It is undeniable that online marketing has taken over the world of business. According to recent research, 70–80% of consumers research a company or product online before making a purchase. That’s a huge number of people to ignore if your company doesn’t have an online presence! Here are some ideas to kick off your online marketing.

Website Blog

If your company has a website, it could benefit from the addition of a blog. A blog is a website page used to display articles, news and other useful information. For marketing, blog articles encourage customers to visit and browse your website.

For instance, if you run a home improvement business, include a series of articles with tips about how to improve and upgrade a house. Well-written content with search engine optimised keywords will show up in search engines, such as Google or Bing. If someone searches for ‘home improvement tips’ and your blog has a suitable article, they will see your link in the search engine results.

One thing that you hear a lot about in online marketing is ‘conversions’. This means, what do you want the customer to do after they have landed on your website? If, for instance, a customer looking for information on home improvement ideas lands on your website, you could add links in the article for your company’s home improvement services or perhaps encourage them to subscribe to your blog and receive emails when the next article is posted (this is great for email marketing—see below).

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still one of the most popular forms of online marketing. As noted above, this can be combined with a website blog. Subscribed customers get updates and you can send email promotions to the subscriber list.

With email marketing, it is important not to send emails too often, otherwise you risk getting listed as spam content (or your customers will unsubscribe out of frustration). Do it right and email marketing is very powerful.

Aside from using a blog, there are several other ways to get subscribers. Many websites offer free information downloads in exchange for a subscription, or some other free offer. Most email marketing companies offer free starter accounts for up to 2,000 subscribers.

Google My Business

If your company supplies local services, Google My Business is one of the best small-business marketing ideas. Register your business and if someone in your local area searches for your business type, your listing will appear, with others, on top of the search listing.

It is possible to add useful information, such as opening hours, business information, location and pictures. It also allows customers to leave a review—the best-reviewed businesses appear at the top of the listing, which is great motivation to provide first-class services.

Facebook Adverts

Despite some of the adverse publicity that surrounds Facebook, it is still one of the best ways to advertise products online. It is relatively cheap compared to other platforms, and extremely effective.

The most powerful aspect of Facebook advertising is the huge number of users on the platform and the amount of searchable information about them. It is possible to pinpoint users and groups with specific interests or living in a particular country or city if marketing locally. For instance, as an author, marketing a new book about meditation, you could direct an advert to Facebook groups promoting spiritualism.

Internet Influencers and Social Media Advertising

Internet influencers are product promoters who have large followings on social media platforms, such as YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. For instance, an influencer with a popular YouTube fashion channel might promote your new fashion product to their followers.

The cost of the service will probably depend on how many followers the channel has. Some influencers might promote products in exchange for free samples, while others charge a fee. If you don’t have the budget to pay an influencer, consider starting a YouTube channel for your business as part of your social media marketing.

Create Facebook and Twitter accounts for marketing your business and create promotions to encourage customers to like your posts. If you have a website, include links to your social media accounts. As with establishing a brand, it is a long-term strategy. Remember to use your brand image on social media posts.

Brand Development Marketing Strategies

Establishing a brand is one of the most important aspects of a long-term marketing plan. A brand is something that should permeate every aspect of your business and define its identity.

Customers who associate with a particular brand will happily pay a higher price for their products. For instance, coffee sold in most high street coffee shops is of a similarly high standard, but if drunk from a cup sporting a Starbucks logo, it tastes magically better. This is how a powerful brand can influence customer perception.

Unless your products appeal to a wide market, and you have a marketing budget to match, you’ll likely be aiming at a smaller niche. So, as an important first step, understand who your customers are. A common way of doing this is to create what they called a customer blueprint or persona. That means creating a profile of your ideal customer, the person (or business) who would buy your product.

Build a Brand – Quick Tips:

It takes time, but when done well, branding is the most powerful marketing strategy of them all. Here are some quick tips:

1) Decide on your mission statement and target audience.
2) Brand differentiation – make sure that your brand differs from the competition, make your business stand out.
3) Stay on message – promote your brand image consistently on every platform. You want customers to instantly recognise your products and marketing information.
4) Design your brand’s image – this will include a carefully designed corporate style with a logo, appropriate colours and an attractive typeface. The design and style should apply to every aspect of the business, including the website, promotional materials, and business cards.

For great design ideas, try 123Print – we carry a full range of fully customisable promotional materials.

Brand Ambassadors

Get your employees involved as brand ambassadors. For example, if your business is in retail, give your staff a discount! It’ll surprise you how many of their friends want to make use of the staff discount. It is a good way of both rewarding your employees and spreading the word about your products to their wider social sphere.

Flyer Campaign

There’s nothing wrong with good old-fashioned letterbox marketing. Flyer (leaflet) distribution may sound old-fashioned, but there’s a reason it’s been around for so long: it just plain works.

You’ve likely received flyers in your letterbox yourself. You may have thrown them away eventually, but did you at least look at the flyer first, and take a mental note of what company sent it? Of course you did. And you’d recognise that company name if you saw it again in the future, increasing your familiarity with them.

Try a simple letterbox marketing campaign in your target postcode area. Include your logo and branding all over the flyer, and an enticing offer to get people shopping with you, and you’ll spread awareness of your company at lightning speed. You can design personalised and high-quality flyers at 123Print.

Loyalty Cards

Loyalty cards are very good for marketing your business and encouraging customers to buy again. They can be as simple as a card that is stamped every time a customer purchases a cup of coffee, or other products – after a certain number of stamps, the customer gets a free cup of coffee, for example.

Alternatively, loyalty cards can be a full-blown computer system, where a customer scans a card at the cash register and is awarded redeemable loyalty points. While powerful, the computerised loyalty system is a significant investment best suited to medium and large businesses. Stamp-style loyalty cards are much more affordable, incredibly simple to set up, and still very effective – check out a huge range of customisable loyalty card designs at 123Print.