While a fully-fledged NFC may not be right for your business, you definitely need to make sure you at least have a mobile site to provide the opportunity for your customers to view your information online correctly, easily navigate from a mobile device and purchase products through their mobiles. It is crucial to understand that for many people, their Smart Phone, iPad or Tablet replaces their desktop computer, so providing them with increased functionality will definitely make you stand out from your competitors.

Do the BrandManager ‘digital media checklist' and see how your brand performs!

 

Digital Media Checklist

With the ever changing digital marketing environment it is important that your brand ‘moves with the times’. Take the BrandManager Digital Media Checklist and see how you rate (10 points for each positive answer).

 

• Mobile friendly website
- Can my website be easily viewed on mobile devices like an iPad, Tablet, or Smart Phone?
- Do I have a specific mobile optimised version of my website, i.e. mobile.yourdomain.com.au?

• E-commerce
- Does my website accept payments for bookings online?

• Video Content
-Does my website feature a photo or gallery?
-Do I have a YouTube channel?

• Social Media
-Do I have links to Twitter, LinkedIn and/or Facebook clearly visible on my site?

• Blog and Electronic News
-Do I have a Blog on my site?
-Do I communicate with customers regularly via an electronic newsletter?

• Search Engine Optimisation
-Am I engaged in effective SEO to improve my Google search rankings?
-Do I conduct or have I tried Google Adwords as a marketing tool?

• Content Management
-Is my website driven by a user friendly Content Management System so I have control over content?

Add up your score, 10 points for each question you answer ‘Yes’ to and ‘0’ points for a ‘No’. If your score is less than 100 then you might like to consider a digital media briefing session with BrandManager and we’ll prepare for you a budget and strategy to achieve maximum performance online. Contact Daniel at BrandManager on 1300 55 30 33 for more details.

Apple has allowed life to be even simpler in managing your content with the launch of the iCloud. The iCloud stores your music, photos, apps, contacts, calendars, documents and more. Furthermore this free cloud service allows consumers to automatically and wirelessly store content in the iCloud keeping them up to date across all devices without the need for syncing each device (iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®, Mac® or PC).

iCloud’s mains features are as follows:

• Automatically downloads new app and book purchases, any previously purchased iTunes content and your ad-free mail account hosted at me.com to all your devices

• Automatically keeps all documents up to date across all your devices

• Efficiently manages your Photo Stream by synchronising your last 1,000 photos to allow for more storage space. In addition any photos taken on one device will automatically appear on your other devices

• Scans the songs in your music library and matches them to more than 20 million songs available on the iTunes store

• Automatically and securely backs up information to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi whenever your iOS device is connected to a power source

• Assists in setting up a new iOS device or restoring the information on devices already owned

• The find my iPhone app can facilitate in locating any of your devices that are missing

• The find my friends app lets you share your location with friends which appear on a map that can be viewed at any time

Furthermore the iCloud is included with iOS 5. iOS 5 provides new and improved features such as iMessage, an innovative way to easily view and manage your messages across all of your devices.

*Images Courtesy of Apple.

Although Your Australian Business can help business all over the world we will be initially assisting  UK based businesses to expand into Australia whilst gaining free trade access to markets such as Asia through a series of ‘turnkey’ packages. Consequently Your Australian Business is conducting a series of free information seminars throughout the UK, Scotland and Ireland from the 22nd of November through to the 1st of December.  Each session will be free and is strictly limited to 50 participants.

 

 

Our 'Business Road Trip' itinerary is as follows: 

Tuesday 22/11:

London - Business After Five
Novotel London City South
5:30pm to 7:30pm

 

Wednesday 23/11:

Southampton - Business After Five
Novotel Southampton
5:30pm to 7:30pm 

 

Friday 25/11:

Dublin - Business Lunch
Dublin Chamber of Commerce
12:30pm to 2:30pm 

 

Monday 28/11:

Edinburgh - Business After Five
Novotel Edinburgh Centre
5:30pm to 7:30pm 

 

Wednesday 30/11:

Manchester - Business After Five
Novotel Manchester Centre
5:30pm to 7:30pm 

 

Thursday 1/12:

Birmingham - Business After Five
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce
5:30pm to 7:30pm

To find out more about how Your Australian Business may benefit you or someone you may know please visit www.youraustralianbusiness.com and stay tuned for updates about our upcoming UK trip through Twitter – click here to follow us.

We are excited to share with you our latest brand to launch this year.

Congratulations to Ideal Foundations™ on their re-branding!

Ideal Foundations™ has been busy showing off its new look along with its fantastic products and services at Trade Shows across Sydney.

They exhibited over three days at DesignBUILD 2011 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre on the 11th, 12th and 13th of May. DesignBUILD is Australia’s leading trade and professional building expo, showcasing all that’s new, innovative and sustainable in building design, from planning to post construction. Ideal Foundations™ was able to make a great impression on existing and potential customers, following the brand’s recent face-lift. Their presence at the show was met with positive feedback and lots of enquiries over the three days kept their staff busy.

The concept of personal branding has been discussed widely across the net yet many people think that it is confined to the celebrity set like Paris Hilton or Justin Timberlake. By definition, personal branding is ‘the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands’. Today the idea of ‘self-packaging’ is becoming more of a necessity than a desire due to the rise in popularity of social media technology.

Social media tools have levelled the playing ground and thus enabled us to reach incredible heights where the cost to entry is only really our time. Plus, in an amazingly short space of time we can achieve as much presence as most startups and mid-size companies or products.

So what face do you want to show to the world and how will you position yourself for success? To help you decide, here are five steps to ‘the art of personal branding’ …

Discover your niche
The first step in the personal branding process is to discover and select your niche so that you can become the master of your domain. Take an inventory of your skill set and determine what it is that you can be seen as a specialist in – this will become your ‘online domain’. Start by registering your ‘name as a domain’ for example, www.johnsmith.com so that you can own your slice of the world wide web.

Your personal branding ‘tool kit’
Your personal branding ‘tool kit’ consists of the elements that you need to highlight your brand and communicate your niche. In your kit you will need a business card – both printed and online versions. To create and distribute your online business card use a free site like www.businesscard2.com.
Next you will need a professional resume – online resources like www.theresumebuilder.com can assist here. This is important not just for job hunting but also to include when promoting your business to new clients. Last but not least, you will need a visual portfolio that will consist of a professional studio-shot of yourself, a CD or DVD of your work and a short profile video of yourself that can be posted to You Tube.



Create your online profile
An online profile across the social media platforms of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is where people will probably find you first. Here’s a snapshot of the power and reach of this popular phenomenon …

LinkedIn – around 700,000 users across Australia increasing by 23% in just the last eight months. Now with 60 million users worldwide.

Facebook – around five million users across Australia and an amazing 500 million worldwide in 2010

Twitter – around 250,000 users across Australia growing by a staggering 1,067%. Today we are seeing around 50 million tweets being posted per day – that’s an average of 600 tweets per second.

Facebook alone has over 160 million personal profiles, but almost none of them have branded themselves properly using this medium. Make sure that your ‘personal brand’ is reflected consistently across all these mediums and that you manage it well, for example select the privacy options available that disable the ability for people to tag you in external pictures and videos.

Establish a blog
If you are going to carve a niche in the market and become know as an ‘online specialist’ in your field then you will need a blog. A blog allows you to post articles you have written, add links, pictures and work examples as well as being featured on your personal domain website. Moreover, those who blog will create a stronger asset than those who don’t because blogs rank higher in search engines and therefore make it easier for people to search and view your expertise and interest areas over time.



Communicating your personal brand
Your personal style is tangible and is extremely important for standing out from the crowd. Invest in training to improve your presentation skills and select clothing that best represents you and enhances your ‘brand message’. Remember that it will be this look and presentation that will be viewable through your pictures/avatars and video clips online, as well as when you meet people in reality.

Now the work really begins - don’t be fooled by the myth that if you build it, they will come. To create and establish your ‘personal brand’ you will have to actively communicate everything that you have created to others and the world. Have you ever hear the term, "it’s not what you know, it’s who you know?" Well, nowadays it’s not so much of even who you know but more importantly ‘who knows you.

What’s a brand refresh?

As markets change, businesses mature and new business trends develop, it is often necessary to ‘refresh’ a brand.

Your positioning in the marketplace has already been established so a totally new look could impact on your
existing brand awareness. What is needed at this time and indeed every three to five years for most brands is a BrandManager ‘Brand Refresh’.

Why change?

Some of the reasons that trigger the need for a ‘Brand Refresh’ include but are not limited to ...

• New directions and reframing of your business directions as your brand grows and matures
• Market trends and consumer demand changes - just look at fashion for example, how much of your current ‘fashionable’ wardrobe of clothes do you wear today that are more than five years old. Like the fashion industry, the business marketplace changes in design, colour and style every few years.
• New competitors enter your ‘space’ creating a need to better differentiate yourself.
• Business growth has reached a plateau and your business image is looking a little tired.
• The time has come to refocus and tailor to a specific market demographic so there is a requirement to bring the brand inline with this new target market.

What’s included?

The ‘Brand Refresh’ process includes ...

• Review of your current positioning and competitors
• Development and/or refinement of your positioning statement
• Graphic upgrade of your current logo in line with market themes and trends
• Design, production and printing of a new corporate stationery package
• Redesign and mockup of your website
• Brand Style Guide including fonts, colours and management of the new brand
• Six month Brand Marketing Strategy

Normally $3,900 ex GST
Subscriber Special for August only
Save $1000  Now $2,900 ex GST

During April to June 2010, Careers That Matter and Pathways That Matter travelled to 13 cities around the country, delivering 15 workshops to over 400 stakeholders on how to use these new online career e-tools.

These resources are unique to the industry and will help anyone interested in the development of their workforce and career opportunities within the community services and health sectors. The roadshow was an amazing success and here is a brief review of the feedback …

And in regards to the new website resources participants said …

• Appreciated access to resources
• These career resources will be very helpful to use in schools
• Excellent presenters and resources - thank you
• Great level of info + showcasing resources
• Excellent resources
• Take away resources appreciated
• Website presentations and knowledge of resources exceeded my expectations
• Keep up this type of resource development
• Enjoyed the new sites, can use without going through NTIS
• Fantastic development of resources - thanks
• Extremely useful e-tools

Take a look at the new careers website for yourself at  http://www.pathwaysthatmatter.com.au/

The Brief

Brandmanager was approached by a successful fashion business in Europe. They wanted to develop a children’s clothing brand, for boys and girls aged 2 to 8. The clothing was to be designed in Australia and manufactured in China.

 

Our brief was to develop an iconic Australian brand that would be positioned to the mid to upper market. We had six months to develop and launch the new children's wear label.

For the research we went to Fashion Exposed, the premier, bi-annual fashion expo in Melbourne. Here we interviewed and discussed the industry with existing clothing exhibitors to gain an insiders knowledge of the current Australian market.



The Name and Logo

We next brainstormed the brand – with every name we came up with we needed to check its availability in regards to domain name, trademark and business name. To keep with the iconic ‘Australian’ feel we decided on Kangaroo Creek as the main, umbrella brand.

 

The two clothing labels that were to be produced by Kangaroo Creek became Sugar Possum for the girls and Blue Dingo for the boys.

 

Now came the range itself and for this we sourced and hired an experienced Visual Merchandiser. We conducted two Branding Day’s in Sydney to develop the style, theme and unique stories for the summer collection 2010/11. Designs were developed, samples made and swing tags created

The Brand Message 

The message was to be rustic, colonial Australian - a brand identity to compliment the popular surf brands on the market. We booked a stand at Fashion Exposed Sydney for the launch and designed the stand to match the theme.

Next we hired models and chose a venue for our video and photoshoot – a pioneering village in Kalamanda, WA. We then created themed brochures for both labels and made them square and smaller than the standard A4. We also baked some cup cakes, printed bags and added lollipops to add enhance the Expo experience.

 

Finally we developed a web presence for both brands and created an online E-Store with over 100 products. The video was used as a ‘theme enhancer’ on the website to give a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the photoshoot and 'live' at the Expo.

 
The Results

The Expo was a success with all visitors welcoming the fresh, new look.

 

The results achieved included:

• Initial sales of $21K over the 3 day Expo

• Agents in Sydney and Melbourne interested

• Positive feedback from Europe/ for a possible launch in January 2011

 
Tell us what you think of this new children's brand – click on the 'comments' link below.

 

The Internet can be a frightening place – one day your best friend and another your worst enemy. A school achievement to a business compliant, your footy team photo to a survey you took years ago – it can all be found in a single Google search. Therefore building your profile online is a vital part of your online brand strategy.



Here's five steps to help you get your name in lights when people search for you on Google or one of the other many search engines:

Step One – Correctly Index Your Website

Your website is your address on the web, whether online, brochure or a full retail shop – it’s often the first impression that someone will get about your business. Make sure each page of your site is correctly titled, has relevant and targeted information in the first paragraph and metatags or keywords added to the source code. You as the business owner or key stakeholder need to have a profile page too so that it will come up when people 'Google' your name.

Step Two – Start A Blog

Whether you share news about your day to day business or personal experiences you have, creating your own blog is a great tool towards online brand awareness. Keep your blog posts short, relevant and entertaining – always consider the reader and ask yourself ‘why would they care about this story?’.

Step Three – Create Your Online Network

Social and business network portals like FaceBook, Linked-In and Ecademy allow you to establish links with other people across the web. The power of each individual link is that it opens the door to their business and social links and then the links of the people as well – and so it goes on. In no time at all you can build a network of thousands – and all without leaving your computer or handing out a single business card. Once again you need to spend time on creating your profile for each platform and be sure to provide links to your business website and your blog.

 

Step Four – What’s All The Twitter About?

One of the fastest growing networks is Twitter – the online short text forum where you add your ‘Tweets’ about what’s going on in your world. From popstars to politicians, movie actors to business moguls – Twitter offers the opportunity to tap into someone’s personality. You can choose a style, theme or topic for your Twitter account and then attract followers to you as you add tweets from your laptop, email or even mobile phone.

 

Step Five – Spread The Love

As you build up your content you will start to create a library of articles, stories and interesting tips that can easily be shared with others. Try and get them published in someone else’s newsletter, posted on their blog, featured in an online publication or made available as a download – the more you have the more you reap in credibility over the web. One story in a leading online publication can help push you to the front page of Google on a specific search for you, your business, topic or area of expertise.

When Kristen approached us prior to setting up her new business brand, she was involved in a number of areas, including family and employment law, human resources and training workshops. Through an initial briefings it was decided to create a 'global' brand feel with 'Gower Group' and then under this would feature Gower Legal, Gower HR and Gower Training.

Here is a preview of the new branding and how it has been applied. Best of luck Kristen with your new business in 2010!

There is hardly anyone in this day and age who does not use Google or Yahoo or other search engines to find information and suppliers on the web. This means that there are real opportunities if you optimise your website for search engines.

Wikipedia defines Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as the process of improving the volume or quantity of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural (or organic) search results.

What makes a good landing page?

Here’s a smart way to build an on-line business

Translating English into plain English ...

Website design terminology can be quite confusing for many small business operators. But a basic understanding of technical terminology can help you make some good design decisions.