Simple Alliance

Online Public Relations (PR)

gideon — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:51:01 +0000

Exposure Issues

The residual thought on any businessperson’s mind is how to gain more exposure for their establishments. If you have the same concern, don’t be alarmed. This is a healthy consideration. You might contemplate posting adverts on various print and electronic media. These conventional media have two key disadvantages. They:

Are Costly
May not elicit the expected response from largely sceptical customers

Within this context, the less expensive, more acceptable Online PR alternative could solve your exposure dilemma.

Definition

Online PR refers to the use of various internet tools to communicate with potential and existing customers as well as with the public.

Tools

The tools you use for your online PR drive include:

Discussion threads
Press releases
Social media
Forums
Blogs
Online media kits
Web 2.0 bookmarking
Wire services (PR Web, Business Wire, PR.com, and PR Newswire)
Search engines

PR Web

For efficient Search Engine Optimisation, you use the PR Web tool. This tool offers you a range of advantages, for example, it has powerful tools that:

Host high-resolution images
Distribute press releases
Host a podcast element for particular press release levels
Host permanent URL redirects
Accommodates a trackback URL on press releases thus prompting blogs to connect to the bulletins

Purpose

You use online PR to achieve a number of important marketing functions, namely:

To monitor and manage your brand’s reputation
To influence your on-line community (audience)

Influencing the thinking of your audience involves changing a number of parameters (PRMarketing.com, LLC., n.d). With proper online PR, you modify your audience’s:

Behaviour
Thinking
Sentiments

Reputation Management

A Compelling Context

Today’s consumer is no longer a passive user of your products. Unlike in the past when a disgruntled consumer would swallow the bile silently, the contemporary consumer usually uses social media channels to complain about their poor experiences (Big Mouth Media, n.d.). Such negative exposure is likely to ruin, even bring down, your business. This is where the brand reputation management element of on-line PR comes in.

The Nitty-Gritties

Via online PR, you issue appropriate, timely responses to any negative sentiments observed among the online community. Through discussion threads, blogs, social networking sites, or forums, you swiftly swing into action (Odden, n.d.). You apologise for the mess and assure consumers that your company will ensure that the problem does not recur (Jennifer, n.d.).

Online PR Basics

While launching your online PR campaign, you need to abide by a set of principles that will streamline issues. Key considerations include:

Integrating offline PR tactics into your online PR strategy for complementarity
Always informing the online media of any new company information
Making use of social bookmark services like del.icio.us and furl.net
Making good use of relevant resources
Using your company’s blog to contact other blogs so as to boost coverage of your company’s news

Important Resources

Your online PR undertaking has to be supported by certain resources. Key ones include:

A skilled PR professional
Software such as Google Alerts and blogpulse.com

Experienced PR Expert

Your PR personnel is your most crucial resource. Without their input, your posts are unguided. Through the pro’s social, technical, persuasive, and creative skills, your posts become ‘alive’. The professional comes in to carry out two key functions, namely:

Conducting research on possible stories
Persuasively pitching bloggers and online commentators

Summary

Though online PR, you use various strategies to change the views, opinions, inclinations, and thoughts of your online audience. If done correctly, the end result is a resounding competitive edge for your company. You also maintain the reputation of your brand. Simple Alliance helps you to gracefully place your company and brand before your consumers. We go further to establish a bond between you and your clientele. As public relations consultants and public relations specialists, we are well-versed with online PR basics. We fully understand which public relations media is best for what situation. Trust Simple Alliance to monitor your brand, manage your brand’s reputation, and to communicate with prospects and your consumers in an unparalleled way.

Social Media Marketing

gideon — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:49:43 +0000

What is Social Media?

By definition, social media refers to cost-effective internet-based tools that merge social interaction, word use, and technology. Key examples include Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.

Marketing Role

As a marketer, you can employ social media to connect with existing and potential clients as well as peers. Through this avenue, you can personalize your brand (Third Door Media, Inc., n.d). You thus convey the intended message in an informal, relaxed manner. Essentially, you describe your organisation, your products, and your offerings. Social media has several major marketing roles, including:

Identity creation
Creating relationships
Personality building
Linking with peers
Facilitating client interaction

Identity Creation

You can use social media to develop your identity by specifying your individuality as well as your services or products. Key avenues include status updates and the social media blog.

Personality building

You use social media to portray your ‘real’ self to clients. You achieve this objective by letting consumers into your corporate or individual persona. Integrating this personality details into your product updates encourages consumers to develop attachments to you and your brand. Social media branding is a key element in this process.

Creating Relationships

You can develop relationships with persons who could otherwise not be conversant with your firm or the services and products you offer. Proper relationship building could facilitate viral marketing.

Facilitating Client Interaction

Through social media, you can provide your clients with communication and interaction avenues. Consumers could reward your initiative by developing and cementing loyalty to your services or products.

Linking with Peers

Social media helps you to connect with peers within your industry. The benefits you can derive from such liaisons are many.

Key Principles

Like other phenomena, social media marketing has guiding principles whose adherence facilitates success. Basic philosophies include:

Ensure consistency
Provide support
Portray a positive attitude

Consistency

Always remember that you are communicating with intelligent beings via social media. Your audience keenly watches your trends. Unexplained changes in tendencies are bound to raise eyebrows and invite suspicion. To prevent potentially destructive outcomes, be consistent in how you portray your services, products, or personality.

Provide Support

You should not expect social media marketing to perform all your marketing roles. Instead, you need to incorporate other marketing tools into your campaign (Lake, n.d.). Social media marketing will indeed create awareness. You however need to prop it up with varied marketing strategies.

Portray a Positive Attitude

Your attitude will play out via your writing voice. You can be totally formal and dry. This image will most likely push potential and existing clients away from you. After all, nobody is eager to spend time reading content that looks like an institution’s code of conduct!

You could also exhibit an approachable and warm outlook. This approach will most likely endear your audience and draw them towards your organisation and its offers.

Developing Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

You need a solid plan. In this plan, you will specify different parameters such as:

Your intended message
Your target audience
The action(s) you expect the audience to take
Your planned scope
How to evaluate the outcome
Your purpose for launching the campaign

Determining your Intended Scope

Scope refers to the reach of your social media campaign. Here, you specify the networking sites you will base your marketing on (Roeder Studios Inc, n.d.). You also state the frequency and level of your social media marketing initiatives.

Defining your Intended Audience

You need to specifically focus on the clientele you wish to influence. You then tailor your marketing strategy so that it directly addresses them.

Creating Your Intended Message

Careful thought should go into the creation of your message. This way, you ensure that the message suits your intended audience.

Specifying what Action Your Audience Should Take

This initiative constitutes the ‘call to action’ element of social media marketing. Your online audience should clearly know what you expect them to do. This action could involve clicking on some link or calling your organisation. You have to clearly express this desire. Otherwise, your audience will only give fleeting attention to your page or post and then move on to other pursuits.

Defining the Purpose of the Initiative

As in any other venture, your social media work needs to have a clear purpose. You could be focussed on increasing the number of your online fans. Alternatively, your objective could be to attract online followers who eventually translate into clients. Whatever your stated purpose, it will enable you to institute assessment procedures and guidelines.

Determine Your Evaluation Principles

Obviously, you would like to assess the impact of your social media campaign. You need to state how you intend to measure success in your plan. You could focus on different parameters, such as:

Quantitative rise in those who read your posts or articles
The number of calls that you receive from your audience
The quantity of sales that derive from your campaign

Summary

As outlined above, there are many advantages of social media marketing. Handled well, this cost-effective strategy could see your company’s popularity and performance rise dramatically. You need to put in place several initiatives that ensure that you realise your intended results. The plan is the first step in the process of social media marketing. In the plan, you state the purpose, range, assessment procedures, audience, and message of your social media campaign. Furthermore, you need to augment your online campaign with other advertising initiatives. You need to exhibit consistency and genuineness so as to earn audience trust and, probably, their loyalty. Your communication needs to be informal. If you do it correct, your business could substantially rise through the popularity and performance rankings.

References

Lake, L. (n.d.). Understanding the role of social media in marketing.

Retrieved from: http://marketing.about.com/od/strategytutorials/a/socialmediamktg.htm

Cloud, M. (2011, Sept. 15). The art of social media marketing.

Retrieved from: http://www.ciplex.com/pixels/2011/09/05/the-art-of-social-media-marketing/

Roeder Studios Inc. (n.d.). Social media marketing: A small business primer.

Retrieved from: http://www.lauraroeder.com/social-media-marketing/

Third Door Media, Inc. (n.d.). What is social media marketing.

Retrieved from: http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-social-media-marketing

Making your Website More Social

gideon — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:01:39 +0000

Making your Website More Social

Why Social?

Humans are social beings. They thus expect the websites they visit to be social. Visitors to a website should be allowed to interact and engage with others. If not, the visitors may abandon the site.

Social Website

A social website nurtures and supports social interactions. This ability derives from the website’s design and software components. Interactions among persons with comparable tastes are facilitated by interpersonal communication. These user-friendly items are the hallmarks of a good website.

Useful Tips

Great websites take time and patience to build. To make your website more social, you need to take certain steps, such as:

Encouraging visitors to post content
Prominently presenting links to social sites on the homepage
Installing social connect plugins
Installing social network share features
Creating and fully linking your blog to your website
Streaming social network updates

Highlighting Social Networking Sites on Homepage

Your visitors need to easily locate the links to various networking sites. This way, they will be motivated to become fans of your site. For enhanced usability, you thus need to make the social network links on your website very obvious.

Install Social Connect Plugins

The plugins will enable users of various social networking sites to log in to your website. Installing plugins like Twitter or Facebook Connect will do this trick. Users’ activities on your site will be automatically broadcast on their respective social networking sites (Cloud, n.d.). Friends of these users will in turn be introduced to your site and encouraged to become fans.

Install Social Network Share Features

Visitors to your website will easily broadcast interesting content on their respective social network profile pages (TechMediaNetwork.com, n.d.). You can facilitate this move by installing Share features such as Tweet This or Facebook Share. Every item displayed on your site should have the Share elements.

Encourage Social Network Users to Post Content

You could request users of the various social network sites to post items on your corporate social network page (Snell, n.d.). You then broadcast the users’ material on your website. This way, you improve your company’s recognition as a brand.

Stream Your Social Network Updates

Installing features such as Facebook stream plugin and the twitter widget on your website will enable your visitors to directly access your social network updates while on your website. Should a certain update interest your visitors, they could be motivated to become your fans. Such an interactive website will surely draw fans from among your visitors.

Create and Completely Link Your Blog to Your Website

After creating your blog, completely integrate it into your website. Any content that you post on your blog will be instantaneously indexed, thereby improving your website rankings. To enhance your website’s search engine rankings and visibility, utilise keyword based categories and tags. More web traffic will in turn be attracted to your site (davgit, n.d.). Using the various social networking plugins, allow users to pot comments on your blog posts.

Summary

A social website enables visitors to interact and communicate with colleagues. Otherwise, the site is dull to visitors. To make your site social, you need to facilitate interpersonal interaction among visitors. Social media is an ideal tool for you. You could install Connect and Share features on various social networking sites, thus allowing your visitors to feature their fan statuses or to comment on your website items items through their respective social network pages. You could also create a fully integrated blog and invite visitors to post comments. Another social website strategy is asking visitors to contribute content on your website.

References

Cloud, M. (n.d.). 8 ways to make your corporate website more social. Retrieved from:

http://www.ciplex.com/pixels/2011/10/16/8-ways-to-make-your-corporate-website-more-social/

davgit . (n.d.). User-friendly web design. Retrieved from:

http://web-design-software-review.toptenreviews.com/user-friendly-web-design.html

Snell, S. (n.d.). 4 Characteristics of user-friendly websites. Retrieved from:

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/user-friendly-website/

TechMediaNetwork.com. (n.d.). 2012 Social networking websites comparisons. Retrieved from:

http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/

Sweepstakes

gideon — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:01:24 +0000

Sweepstakes

For business people who seek to make good use of marketing funds, sweepstakes are an advisable option. You would most likely launch a sweepstakes campaign during the preliminary stages of your business’ life cycle. As you do so, you need to go by the relevant marketing and advertising law.

Definition

Sweepstakes refers to sales promotion drives that seek to entice participants into submitting free entries into games of chance. The lucky dips are usually connected to service or product awareness. Some companies could come in to sponsor the sweepstake. Sponsoring firms issue the presented awards. Offered material prizes could comprise electronics, houses, attire, land, livestock, or cars. Cash prizes range from a few shillings to thousands of shillings.

No Entry or Claim Fee

Different from a lottery, a sweepstake does not require participants to pay any monies or to purchase some items. Winners in a sweepstake campaign are also not required to pay taxes or fees so as to receive their prizes.

Motivation

As a business person, you expect to derive several advantages from the sweepstakes initiatives you launch. Key benefits include:

Creating consumer enthusiasm for your merchandise
Growing your sales figures
Gaining new consumers
Directing increased web traffic to your company’s website
Generating incentive responses amongst your consumers
Gathering insightful information from your consumers

Sweepstakes Fundamentals

As in any other venture, you need to put careful thought into the design and roll out of your sweepstakes initiative. Major points to consider include:

The target goal – leads generation or brand awareness?
Your estimated budget amount
The relationship of the sweepstake with your firm
How to identify a valid entry
What takes precedence – quality of participants or participants’ numbers?
After registering, how do you transform participants into your customers?
How to maintain a lasting bond with netted customers
How to evaluate the short- and long-term success of the campaign
How to publicise the drive – preferred communication media
The implementers of the initiative – you or your Public Relations firm?
How to manage the sweepstake on a day-to-day basis

Legitimate Sweepstakes

The Present Context

The current world is rife with deception, be it from politicians, businesspersons, or even physicians. Logically, any decent person would steer away from issues that are likely to taint their name. This is especially so because sweepstakes are basically interactive promotion initiatives. Your mistakes are likely to be speedily communicated among your consumers.

Guiding Principles

The search for authenticity brings us to the principles that guide genuine sweepstakes promotions. These values not only control participant expectations, they also ensure fairness for all. The principles you need to abide by include:

Always prominently identifying your business and its address to customers
Offering clear instructions on how participants can opt out of the promotion
Clearly delineating terms, conditions, and entry rules
Letting pure chance, not monetary inducements, to determine the winner
Unless, skill-based, your sweepstake should not require participants to pay entry or processing fees
Observing truthfulness when mentioning endorsers to avoid misrepresented endorsement announcements
Clearly disclosing participants’ odds of winning

Written Rules

Apart from the above values, you need to put down the specific rules that will govern the sweepstake marketing promotion. Usually, sponsors create these rules. Your Rules document will clarify various pertinent issues in the sweepstake promotion. Key matters include:

Eligibility criteria
Entry procedure
Prize claim process

Benefits to Your Business

As an astute businessperson, you would wonder what gains you would make from a sweepstake campaign. Actually, if properly handled, sweepstakes promise to benefit your business in more ways than one. Major advantages include:

Creating a buzz around your business
Drawing and retaining visitors on your business’ website
Helping you to create your email marketing list
Facilitating reasonably-priced advertising
Providing useful market research information

Summary

We have learned that properly designed and executed sweepstakes drives constitute an important marketing channel. Through sweepstakes, you garner new customers, increase sales, prompt consumer response, attract visitors to your website, and conduct market research. To achieve these wonderful goals, you need to take into consideration certain key principles. Your sweepstake needs to be fair. It should have clear entry, participation, prize claim, and exit rules. Before launching your drive, you need to consider the anticipated cost, its expected impact, evaluation criteria, the benchmarks, as well as preferred publicity avenues. If properly followed, the above guidelines will enable you to gain much business mileage thanks to your sweepstakes campaign. Simple Alliance, your digital solutions partner, will gladly handle any Sweepstake task on your behalf. We will streamline legal issues concerning your sweepstake. Using our lively web platform, we will publicise your campaign. For these and related matters, trust us to give you only the best in service delivery.

Interactive Promotions

gideon — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:01:02 +0000

Rationale

The business world is undergoing a flurry of significant changes. One major variation has occurred in the way businesses communicate and engage with prospective and existing consumers.

Yester-Year’s Context

Previously, all you had to do as a business person was to create and publicise attractive adverts. The largely passive consumer would be expected to imbibe the content of your advert and proceed to implement your suggestion by buying your merchandise.

The Inherent Disadvantages

This approach had a number of significant downsides, namely:

A large, imprecise audience base
Low Returns on Investment (ROI)
Low message relevance

To the marketer, life was rather easy then. Currently, it isn’t.

A Changing Panorama

Today’s customer is enlightened. Your consumer needs to be an active participant in the development, presentation, and marketing of your brand. This situation brings us to the concept of promotions, specifically, interactive promotions. Via this marketing tool, you consistently and actively bring your consumers into contact with your services and products.

Interactive Promotion Defined

When you employ various offline or online methods with the aim of promoting your brand, services or products, you are engaging in interactive promotion. In the process, you communicate with your customers.

Your interactive promotion could ride on web (internet-based) or mobile platforms.

Concise Definition

The Journal of Interactive Advertising defines interactive communication as unpaid and paid promotion of a business’ ideas, services, or products via mediated methods that involve mutual marketer-consumer actions.

The Merits

Through interactive promotion, you derive significant gains. Key ones include:

High ROIs
Smaller, targeted audience base
Audience attraction and engagement
Greater message relevance

Marketing Outcomes

You use various interactive promotion strategies so as to achieve a number of important marketing purposes, namely:

Creating brand awareness
Stimulating marketing demand
Increasing consumer demand
Improving product availability
Facilitating brand engagement

Useful Interactive Promotion Techniques

You could employ a wide array of techniques in the interactive communication process. Key methods include organising for:

User-generated contests
Rebates
Online contests
Sweepstakes
Instant win campaigns
Social bookmarking initiatives
Tell-a friend drives
Advergames
Videos

Caveats

Interactive promotions can give your business that unique edge within your industry. You should however note that certain key prerequisites usually accompany your success with these initiatives. Key requirements include:

Appropriate planning
Conformity to relevant laws

Correct Planning

Proper planning is an integral component of any successful venture. The interactive nature of interactive promotion calls for astute planning so as to avoid potentially catastrophic outcomes.

Legal Validity

Your interactive promotion drives should abide by all relevant laws. Conformity will protect your from criminal penalties that are associated with breach of the law.

Summary

With interactive promotion, you decisively go past the reach of conventional marketing channels, thus creating a ‘living’ ‘buzz’ around your product. This ‘buzz’ attracts and retains customers to your fold. The major techniques you could use include launching: eprize online competitions; rebate initiatives; sweepstakes activities; instant-win drives; tell-friend campaigns, or social bookmarking initiatives. You could use a video to prompt some of these activities.

Simple Alliance will offer cutting-edge interactive promotion strategies for your business. We ensure that your customer is fully engaged in the development, modification, and marketing of your merchandise. Our range of digital promotions tools will give your firm that much needed allure. We will implement proven techniques such as online contests that will definitively place your products above those of your competitors.

Social Media Marketing Benefits

gideon — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:00:33 +0000

Worthy Returns

The current web world comprises several social media networks such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, or MySpace. These networks offer cost-effective communication and interaction platforms for the online community (Messaoud, 2011). Tapping into these tools can bring your business a number of real benefits. Major uses of social media include:

Brand solidification
Conversation Invocation
Creating partnerships
Improving Search Engine (SE) rankings
Advertising
Creating New Leads
Brand reputation management and damage control
Addressing customer concerns
Market research
Focused marketing
Keeping Watch on Competitors

Brand Solidification

This involves backing your logo with your humanly presence. You do this by transparently communicating with online clients, thus offering appropriate, helpful updates. Customers like it when your brand is thus supported. You cement your status as a reliable expert. Be sure to use a friendly conversational tone when engaging clients.

Conversation Invocation

By posting related comments on your page, you encourage customers to give feedback. With time, your account and website will become meeting points for interested customers. This way, you prove that your business has a human side. You also indicate that you are notable and smart.

Creating Partnerships

As you engage online visitors in dialogue, you are laying the foundation for developing beneficial partnerships. Key stakeholders with whom you could forge ties include potential clients, suppliers, or peers (TopRankedWebsite.com.au , n.d.). Likeminded partners will link up with you in an environment of trust.

Improved Search Engine (SE) Rankings

By properly using keywords that are suitable to your business when having online conversations, you could prompt higher SE rankings (Stamoulis, n.d.). Improved SE rankings could translate into increased online visitors thus more customers.

Market Research

When contemplating new strategies or ventures, you can use the social network platform as a pre-launch facility. Here, you assess your clients’ views about the planned move. Your observations will guide your next course of action.

Brand Reputation Management and Damage Control

Today’s online community is enlightened and interconnected in such a way that a customer’s displeasure with your products can be communicated to colleagues very fast. The United Airlines guitar damage saga fully attests to this (Guardian News and Media Limited, n.d.). You can thus use your web presence to ensure that your clients are contented with your company.

Addressing Customer Concerns

As a reputation management strategy, you could use the social media platform to placate offended customers (Suto, n.d.). In case your business does something nasty to your clients, you can speedily rectify the mess by instituting necessary pacifying measures.

Advertising

The online environment offers unique, flexible and cost-effective advertising avenues. If you properly use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, you could effectively publicise your products and services at a minimal cost (Cloud, n.d.). Importantly, this advertising method is enduring so long as you maintain consistent web presence.

Focused Marketing

You can easily target and monitor your social media marketing drives in real-time. These initiatives are advantageous because they are precise (Social Media Marketing, n.d.).

Creating New Leads

As you manoeuvre in the social media world, you come into contact with visitors who need information, new markets, or products. You can appropriately fit yourself in so as to satisfy these persons’ diverse needs. Perhaps you have products that a certain visitor wants (Wee, n.d.). Don’t waste time! Move with speed to supply them!

Keeping Watch on Competitors

While managing your social media account, you have the advantage of coming into contact with competitors’ vital business data. This information could be in from of strategies, tactics, or designs for effective business. You can assess and learn from competitors’ downsides. You could also examine competitors’ strategies for success and derive insights from them.

Summary

The social media offers you countless opportunities for improving your business’ outlook and performance. By tapping into the various web-based communication platforms you can:

Advertise your products
Carry out damage control
Create new leads
Maintain your brand’s status
Keep tabs on competitors
Create partnerships
Carry out pre-launch analyses
Improve your company search engine rankings
Cement your brand’s elite status
Prompt dialogue

Clearly, you need not neglect the need to have a presence in the social media world. If used properly, this platform can immensely benefit your business.

References

Cloud, M. (n.d.). What can social marketing do for you. Retrieved from: http://www.ciplex.com/pixels/2011/06/11/what-can-social-marketing-do-for-you/

Guardian News and Media Limited. (n.d.). Singer gets his revenge on United Airlines and soars to fame. Retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jul/23/youtube-united-breaks-guitars-video

Messaoud, S. (2011, Dec. 3). The Benefits of Using Social Media to Market Your Business. http://www.famousbloggers.net/social-media-market-business.html

Social Media Marketing And SEO For Business. (n.d.). Social Media Marketing. Retrieved from: http://blackboxsocialmedia.com/social-media-marketing/

Stamoulis, N. (n.d.).4 Marketing Benefits of Social Media. Retrieved from: http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2011/11/04/benefits-social/

Suto, W. (n.d.). Top 14 Benefits of Social Media Marketing. Retrieved from: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/02/13/top-14-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/

TopRankedWebsite.com.au . (n.d.). 5 Benefits of Media Marketing . Retrieved from: http://toprankedwebsite.com.au/5-benefits-of-social-media-marketing

Wee, W. (n.d.). 7 Social Media Marketing Benefits Revealed. Retrieved from: http://www.penn-olson.com/?p=16911

Defining Brand, Corporate Identity and Logo

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:38 +0000

Brand Strategy

Definition of Brand

Many of us generally define a brand as a company’s visible regalia, such as logo, business name, tag line, or distinctive mark. In reality, brands encompass a wider scope. Essentially, a brand refers to the images or perceptions that your business rouses in people’s minds. It represents the unstated promise that your firm will facilitate customer satisfaction.

Customer Sentiments are Significant

It is thus clear that your brand has a significant emotional component. Your business may have a catchy outward experience. Despite the outward allure, customers could have a negative view of the business owing to negative brand perception. This fact should motivate you to take your brand very seriously.

Strategy Definition

Military Basis

‘Strategy’ derives from the military whereby it denotes a course of action that is geared towards attaining a specific goal. It defines the interrelationships of various military engagements. Strategic planning encompasses the strategy development process.

In Business

Organisationally, strategy refers to the long-term scope and direction your organisation takes. While satisfying stakeholder hopes and market requirements, strategy benefits an organisation. Strategy achieves this objective by successfully organizing resources in difficult circumstances. It is a vital, overarching marketing mix element. Strategy has several key components, including:

Direction
Scope
Environment
Markets
Stakeholders
Advantage
Resources

Direction

Direction refers to your business’ long-term anticipated destination.

Markets

While strategizing, you need to define your target market and the activities therein.

Scope

Scope denotes the markets your business ought to participate in.

Advantage

During strategy formulation, you need to determine how your business can outperform your competitors within chosen markets.

Resources

These refer to the means through which you expect to participate among competitors. Major means include:

Assets
Relationships
Skills
Finance
Facilities
Technology

Stakeholders

Your strategy has to determine and accommodate the expectations and values of influential participants within the business environment.

Environment

You ought to identify and manage the environmental aspects that affect the competitive capacity of your business.

Developing Brand Strategy

This involves building genuine relationships with your audience. You can then consistently use tools like advertising, public relations, social media, or marketing to correctly strengthen your character. Your use of these tools is a function of marketing communications. You need to follow several steps as outlined below:

Identify your target audience
Link them on a mutual platform
Clearly explain each person’s potential benefits

Key Principles of Brand Strategy

They include:

Brand
Business model
Consistency
External and internal initiatives
Harnessing emotions
Rewarding brand ambassadors
Relevance and flexibility
Supporting strategy with tactics
Generating your community
Assessing effectiveness
Always offering more value
Thinking outside the box

Brand Definition

After announcing your central mission, values, vision, character, and position, concentrate on your strengths. Show your uniqueness through consistent excellent services and products. The ensuing image is your corporate identity.

Linking Brand to Business Model

Comprehensively exploit your brand’s potential by supporting and utilising your business model. Let your entire business operations reflect your brand.

Instituting Complete, External and External Initiatives

While impressing customers, try to influence your employees to become positive representatives of your brand.

Maintaining Consistency

Let all your actions complement your stated mission, vision, and values. This outlook will maintain your elevated position in your industry.

Harnessing Emotions

Present customers with products that meet their emotional and physical needs. Let customers’ experiences with your products encourage them to develop an urge to be associated with your brand.

Rewarding Brand Ambassadors

Reward your brand’s fans so as to encourage them to market your product. You could institute measures such that ambassadors could participate in product development and improvement.

Maintaining Relevance and Flexibility

Always be eager to modify your brand. This could involve invigorating your image or adjusting your message. This way, you will be creative and perceptive.

Complementing Brand with Tactics

Tactics are specific actions that constitute your brand strategy. If you decide to employ mass media marketing, be sure to select the correct channel. You also need to abide by your campaign goals when passing on your message.

Evaluating Effectiveness

Return on investment is the guiding factor when assessing the efficacy of your strategy. You could examine brand valuation, customers’ responses, or business performance. Sales, which determine profitability, should be the overarching assessment element.

Refining your Community

The community will allow members to freely interact with one another within the framework of the use of your brand. Within this community, you can engage clients and generate brand loyalty. Strive to work together with your customers in every value creation stage. Through crowdsourcing, you can refine key production stages such as designing, pricing, distribution, and marketing.

Always Delivering Superior Value

Take note that better, faster, more cost-effective competitors can always enter your industry. This realisation should inspire you to always focus on superior value. You will thus have to periodically review and improve your brand strategy.

Always Thinking Outside the Box

Never be content with existing tactics or strategy. Always try to derive better ways of doing things. You need to involve all relevant stakeholders in this continuous improvement drive. In this process, always seek originality. Brand strategy accords meaning and clarity to your brand. Developing it involves spotting your customers, connecting them around a shared platform, and clearly presenting your brand proposition. While developing your strategy, you need to factor in key principles. You need to first clarify your brand and your business model. You then make your business model complementary to your brand. Always ensure that you are consistent as this will define and maintain your position within the industry. Never stop to seek new tactics as this will enable you to manage existing and potential competitors. You will also remain relevant. Consistency will also enable you to conduct proper housekeeping by ensuring that your employees are excellent ambassadors. Be sure to touch and influence customer emotions, thus encouraging their loyalty to your brand. Always strive to reward loyal customers so as to sustain their statuses as representatives of your brand. This way, you will have a positive corporate identity.

Kiamaa

admin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:40:46 +0000

Recently, Simple Alliance successfully delivered on an online investment clubs project called Kiamaa. The project entailed the design and development of a website – kiamaa.com.

Project Background and Motivation

An African terminology, Kiama – sometimes Kiamaa – denotes an assembly. Currently, the term has assumed a popular connotation. Today’s colloquial ‘chamas’ are investment groupings which hold regular social meetings with the aim of contributing and pooling together financial resources. The additional ‘a’ letter – that renders ‘Kiama’ ‘Kiamaa’ – serves an emphasis role. It ascribes ‘truth’ to the Chama institution. Chama then signifies an investment group that is governed by ‘truth’. This Chama ‘truth’ beautifully ties in with the superb, unsurpassed digital records and management services rendered by Simple Alliance.

Kiamaa Website Overview

Cube Elements

Simple Alliance used rounded cubes of different sizes to represent the incremental growth of Chamas. This expansion sees Chamas develop from minions into large investment entities. The growth is facilitated by a bonding revolution as is seen in the grey-to-violet colour change.

Colour

The Kiamaa website features stylish colour, depth, and tone that give it a sophisticated look. Excellent colour and white space principles are evident in the outstanding branding appearing at the heading of this page. Further, the grey borders separating key page areas beautifully utilise grey, blue, and purple colours to highlight aesthetics as well as functionality.

Social Media Links

Being acutely cognisant of the important role played by social media in the contemporary world, we have incorporated the Facebook connect feature onto the Kiamaa website. Users desiring to link the Kiamaa website to their respective Facebook accounts can easily do so by using the relevant feature at the top right side. Through masterful utilisation of greyscale wireless icon as well as the featuring of iconic logos at the bottom right, the page allows users to conveniently link with various social networking sites.

Page Layout

On the web, space is as important as parking lots are in today’s metropolises. Consequently, we have efficiently and professionally used space on the Kiamaa website such that all essential information is featured. The website comprises well-ordered boxes that delineate key areas with grey margins that divide the Kiamaa page into three sections. Functionality that encompasses elegance is always appealing. To this end, the flash imagery, that constitutes play, pause, and scroll capabilities, is a particularly striking feature of the Kiamaa website. Users will find this feature especially useful. A simple mouse pointer action prompts the horizontally tabulated slides to fade in or out, according to user’s desires, thereby displaying more details under the specific table item. To the right side is the third section of the Kiamaa page. Within a translucent tab are drop-down cubon fonts which have a melange of cubes in the background. This organisation highlights the central status of social investment groups in the entire Kiamaa concept. Below these are vertically organised tabs bearing ‘Help’, ‘Information’, ‘Newsletter’, and ‘Follow’ details. Live news updates on local and international market trends are an essential for every business person. The Kiamaa page satisfies this important need by incorporating the ‘Market Information’ tab which allows business persons to receive real-time stocks, markets, and mutual funds news. This information facilitates informed investing decisions. At the bottom of the Kiamaa page are displayed the corporate identities of Simple Alliance and Kiamaa Limited. Indeed, rarely will users enjoy the services of an easy-to-use page as the Kiamaa page. The services offered on the page are clearly unsurpassed. The Kiamaa website really offers a revolutionary way of managing and monitoring investment clubs on the web. To cap it all, the Kiamaa website deliberately encapsulates functional simplicity.

Features

Officials’ Elections
Contributions’ Tracking
Investment Portfolio
Member Management
Daily Stock Price Updates
Loan Calculator
Chat and Online Meetings
Online Voting

Kiamaa.com electronically avails essential information to investment clubs. It takes members through tried and tested how to invest basics. The innovative website facilitates member management, fiscal monitoring, and interactive communication. Its ground-breaking features – for example, a distinctive virtual voting system and daily stock updates – will certainly put your Chama at par with the best.

Scented Creations Identity

admin — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:59:00 +0000

Identity

Project and Client Overview

Simple Alliance is pleased to announce the fruitful completion of a logo/identity design project on behalf of Scented Creations. Centred in Nairobi, Scented Creations deals in the development of aromatherapy products. The firm exclusively uses pure essential oils. In certain instances, Scented Creations uses organic essential oils.

Project Prerequisites

Simple Alliance and Scented Creations held joint talks whereby the client’s preferred brand and image were agreed upon. After developing the design synopsis, we cooperatively settled on a friendly, less corporate, and fun identity for Scented Creations. Our client mainly has female clients. This fact led us to select a logo that epitomizes feminine characters. All in all, we resolved that the Scented Creations corporate identity ought to be striking, neat, and professional looking without exhibiting a corporate outlook.

Project Outcome

Adhering to the objectives stipulated in the project outline, we developed a contemporary, tidy, and proficient corporate identity. We topped the goody bag by designing immaculate stationery for Scented Creations. This stationery includes a decent envelope and a business card. Our contented client wholeheartedly accepted our work.

Key Project Elements

Colours

We functionally used three cool feminine colours – beige, pink, and purple. These colours appear in the Scented Creations trade name, the logo, as well as in the text appearing on the stylish business card.

Font

To reflect the non-formal perspective highlighted above, we used a striking handwritten font to spell out our client’s trade name.

Logo

Simple Alliance created a lovely, neat logo comprising the outline of a female body and a lily flower. The food, aesthetic, and commercial uses of various lily varieties make the flower especially suited to our client’s corporate logo. Just like the lily serves various purposes, so does Scented Creations. Our client’s largely female clientele base is reflected in the feminine silhouette.

Letterhead

We developed a simple and immaculate letterhead that is accentuated by lively trade name calligraphy at its bottom. This fun-looking scheme complements Scented Creations’ preferred informal corporate identity.

Envelope

Shana Alexander once said that ‘Letters are expectations packaged in an envelope’. We borrow from this maxim in our creative design of the Scented Creations’ corporate identity envelope. Expectations are foreshadowed by the pink and purple colour scheme of the envelope which embodies femininity. Our client’s relaxed, informal outlook is exemplified by the peaceful letterhead and logo appearing on the top left side of the envelope.

Business Card

We developed a fitting 2-sided business card for Scented Creations. The simple card features properly ordered contact information on the front side. On the reverse side are our client’s identity elements featuring the Scented Creations logo. The purple background colour on the card’s reverse side complements our client’s letterhead. The beige front background matches the Scented Creations envelope.

Midhill Health

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:10:31 +0000

The fresh Midhill Health website is another of Simple Alliance’s recent breakthrough web design projects.

Website Feature Summary

Colours

We used cool blue and green colours that suit a medical health facility. These colours are employed in the font used for the text as well as in the interactive pause, play, and scroll imagery appearing at the middle of the home page.

Well-Ordered Page Layout

The Midhill Health website offers a pleasant easy-to-follow arrangement of information. This plan includes features such as: a striking corporate identity cum trade name; search bar; language swap tool; dynamic pause, play, and scroll imagery; user-friendly information dropdown panel; service synopsis list; and a cursor-sensitive social network link bar.

Corporate Identity cum Trade Name

At the very top of the homepage, to the left side, is our client’s majestic corporate identity and trade name – Midhill Health Maternity and Nursing Home. These features highlight our client’s core business – providing health care services. To the extreme right is the phone address of our client. The constant reachability of Midhill Health is thus emphasised.

Search Bar

Located just below our client’s phone contact details, the search bar facilitates ready perusal of the services on offer. After keying in the relevant information, users quickly get to whatever they intend to.

Language Swap Tool

To embrace diversity, we have incorporated a handy language change feature into the Midhill Health website. Accommodating over fifty local and international languages, this feature makes the website and our client really global.

Information Dropdown Panel

Strategically placed opposite the language feature, the dynamic information panel allows users to browse and study specific details about our client. This panel comprises tabs such as Home, About Us, Careers, Services and Specialities, as well as Contact Us. Being cognisant of the requirements for accurate geographical mapping of facilities, we have integrated the Google map facility into the Contact Us tab.

Pause, Play, and Scroll Imagery

This catchy visual display spells out our client’s mandate and mission at a glance. The dynamic nature of this feature further adds to the website appeal. Users can – through manipulating the Pause, Play, and Next buttons – prompt the site to do their bidding. The imagery elements can halt or modify their slide show movement at the click of a mouse button.

Service Synopsis List

Users who may not have ample time to read entire service explanations will benefit from the concise service synopsis list appearing under the interactive imagery feature. The carefully summarised data under each service category offers readers an accurate overview of each class of services offered by Midhill Health.

Social Network Link Bar

Simple Alliance acknowledges and appreciates the central role of social networking in today’s communication sphere. To this end, we have added the must-have connection icons to various social networking sites. Users can thus comfortably shuffle from their respective social networks and right into the Midhill Health website. Motherhood worries can be easily articulated and tackled through the social sites.

Copyright Notification

We have placed the Midhill Maternity & Nursing Home and the Simple Alliance corporate identity names at the foot of the page.