Website, Get It Right!

This may be one of the most critical forms of communication media that a business can offer right now. Not only should your website be simple, engaging and aesthetically pleasing. Is it easy to navigate or easy to get lost? Is the important information presented in a way that the visitor can understand and retain it with ease, or does it frustrate them and cause them to leave the site altogether? These are the crucial elements of a good website and if you are not careful, your site could be doing more harm than good.

Brands Managed, or Else?

Branding is the management of how you communicate to the customer and how the customer experiences your product. It's your personality -- your character. When done well, branding creates a unique identity for your company that confirms value and credibility to your target audiences and sets you apart from everyone else that is trying to communicate to that same market.

I've got a brand, you've got a brand-we've all got brands. That's because a brand is everything about how a person, an organization, product or service is seen by its or their audience. It is the heart of an organization, and the promise on which it is built. Get your brand plan in place first thing and follow it, "or else" your clients and staff could be without the direction you need to be successful as you could be.

When properly established, your brand, as perceived by your audience, will match your intentions for the brand. The important question is: Did your brand develop by default or did you get branded on purpose?

At SpectraMedia, all communications projects are treated as brand communication opportunities. In other words, no project is an island. Each project is purposefully connected to your organization's brand values. The result? Every communications piece becomes a reflection, and extension, of your brand, thereby increasing its perceived value in the marketplace.

To us, a successful brand must always have two specific traits. ONE, it is completely unique and it differentiates your business from everyone else. TWO, it is consistent, across the board, in communicating the core values of your brand to your customers and to your employees. We can help you get there.

Are you unsure of how your brand stands up? We also offer consultation and analysis of how your brand is performing in your own market.

Advertising vs Marketing

You will often find that many people confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa. While both components are important they are very different. Knowing the difference and doing your market research can put your company on the path to substantial growth.

Let's start off by reviewing the formal definitions of each and then I'll go into the explanation of how marketing and advertising differ from one another:

Advertising: The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers.

Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.

After reading both of the definitions it is easy to understand how the difference can be confusing to the point that people think of them as one-in-the same, so lets break it down a bit.

Advertising is a single component of the marketing process. It's the part that involves getting the word out concerning your business, product, or the services you are offering. It involves the process of developing strategies such as ad placement, frequency, etc. Advertising includes the placement of an ad in such mediums as newspapers, direct mail, billboards, television, radio, and of course the Internet. Advertising is the largest expense of most marketing plans, with public relations following in a close second and market research not falling far behind.

The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie, inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy. All of these elements must not only work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goal. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for a marketing plan to be effective. Think of marketing as everything that an organization does to facilitate an exchange between company and consumer.