Last summer I went on vacation and wanted to secure the house in my absence. To do this, I got a sticky note and wrote “do not enter” and stuck it on my front door. Satisfied with all of my assets being properly secured, I left for a week out of state. When I returned I couldn’t figure out why my house had been ransacked. They even took my peanut butter!
Does that story sound completely ridiculous? Likely. Are you doing the exact same thing when you pick an insanely easy-to-crack password? You bet.
Who doesn’t have a Gmail account? Google’s popular email service is no longer only for personal email. The folks at Google offer Google Apps, which gives you all the features of Gmail, but with your own domain name.
Huh? So imagine I have a pet sitting service called See Spot Sit, and I use a Gmail account to handle all communications for this pet sitting service business. Perhaps the email is something like SeeSpotSit@gmail.com. My business picks up and I now have a super awesome website, SeeSpotSit.com. I want to look really legit, and I hear that using email from my domain name can help me gain that legitimacy. Adding email through my web site hosting service can be, frankly, ghetto. Email services are typically an afterthought for many web hosting companies. So I sign up for Google Apps for Business. Now I can have email accounts like YoDawg@SeeSpotSit.com or LeashLover@SeeSpotSit.com, and they all run with the same gears and cogs that power Gmail.
Perhaps the most important piece of real estate you can own is your domain name. It is the address at which every potential customer will find you, and it can have huge implications on your marketing strategy.
If you’re going to spend the money to brand your business – and yes, you should spend the money to brand your business – it seems logical that you could then use that branding across different media platforms, right?
Right! However there are some caveats to consider. When done well, cross-platform branding can make your business look and perform well. Done inappropriately, it can cripple your business potential.
Let’s start at the beginning. Your business brand, according to Entrepreneur, is your promise to your customer. It conveys what can be expected and how your business is different than others. It isn’t just a logo or a color scheme. It is your business “voice,” from the tone of written communication to visual images.
Here are five tips to successfully translating your print brand to an online brand.
