Corporate Identity for  Internet Entrepreneurs

                                           By Marketing & Sales Consultant Karl H. Volmer 

 


Dear Internet Entrepreneur,

Whatever your business, target group and market sector may be, you are certainly not alone. There
is almost always a lot of competition out there, and if you want to win the “beauty contest” you have to be unique, that means different than all the others. You need your very special personality and appearance in order to positively distinguish your business from your competitors.

This is not necessarily about your budget but about your diligence and creativity. Take your time at first to observe your future market, potential customers and already established competition. Then only consider and decide, what could raise your business image and recognition above the crowd. When you don’t get it right from the beginning, then it may indeed become a question of your (big) budget in order to mend fences.

 

What are now the essential components of your very special future Corporate Identity?

          USP = Unique Selling Proposition
          Definition of Target Group
          Brand Name
          Logo
          Slogan
          Colors
          Terms & Conditions

Let us start with the fundamentals “Unique Selling Proposition” and “Definition of Target Group”.  What do you want to sell and to whom? Let’s assume you decided for "selling tools". According to 
the most competent search engine Yahoo you would have to compete with 58,5 million websites.

To narrow down the competition, and at the same time to gain a special position in your chosen tool market, you could now for example consider specializing in tools for left-handed customers only.
The corresponding Yahoo search “selling left-handed tools” would show you that the number of competing websites would suddenly shrink to 995,000. That’s only 0,017% or just 2 out of 10,000!

But since there exist much more than 0,017% left-handed prospective customers (in fact about 12%),
it’s much easier to profile your business, to better target your prospects and to get more orders in relation to your sales promotion activities. That translates to better profit. Additional you’d also have the opportunity to extend your business by and by with supplementary products “anything left”.

Your next step would be to find the right Brand Name for your business, a name that should be in
any way related to your service or line of products and easily to be memorized. This general rule is
of even higher importance when considered for your intended online appearance. With a name like e.g. “Johnson & Lacey Tools”, “J & L Tools” or “Five Star Tools” you’ll never succeed. You need to find a so-called “type in domain", whose key words your potential customers are likely to type into their search box, as for example “left-hand-tools.com”. Read here about High Quality Names.

Logo and Slogan, of course, should mirror as well, what you are selling. In the fore mentioned example you could chose e.g. as image a tool held in the left hand and a slogan like “Left is always right!” (Please note the obvious ambiguity as helpful memory aid).

In this case it wouldn’t be wise to choose as logo a beautiful rose unless your Name happens to be Rose. If additional to your logo you want to use a slogan, it must be short, easily to memorize and keyword-rich as in the fore mentioned example.

As for Color or Color-Combination: ALL of your store or online décor, as well as advertising and
sales promotion items should be of the exact same color or color-combination and never to be changed. It’s an important part of your image penetration into your potential customers mind. You need to find out what is usual and accepted in your chosen industry but still distinctive for your unique brand. I am sure you know for example the label color of Ford automobiles. They never changed it.

Do not make the mind-boggling mistakes even big companies made, as for example the Walgreen stores and the ‘Yellow Transportation Company’. - Walgreen didn’t choose GREEN but RED, and Yellow Transportation Company didn’t choose YELLOW but ORANGE as their house color. - How
is that for memorizing their corporate names?

Last not least: With your distinctive Terms and Conditions you can markedly set your company
apart from most of your competitors. There is only ONE thing you need to take into consideration
that unfortunately the vast majority of American companies disregard. - This obviously almost unknown secret works for you like nothing else: Position yourself into your customers’ shoes
and imagine what they probably want most of all.

Yes, you found it: Even more important than highest quality and lowest price is genuine Customer Service! - Treat your customers with respect, not with small printed legalize, hollow promises and arrogance. Put it in writing and stick to it. Make your commitment to honest customer service the
core content of your terms and conditions, and I promise to you that you will be rewarded above
your imagination, because with real, unconditional Customer Service you are genuinely UNIQUE.

Note: If you are ready to dance    for your customers,  they won’t mind to pay for the music!  


Dear Entrepreneur, this is in a nutshell, what you need to prepare in order to be successful. And isn’t success the actual purpose of your online venture, and also the reason you read this excerpt out of my curriculum “The successful Entrepreneur”? - Good luck to you, I wish you a flourishing future.




Karl H. Volmer

Marketing & Sales Consultant



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