Brand and digital strategy are arguably the two biggest elements to strategy. Brand strategy is important to build your reputation as a company and digital strategy is important as a 21^st century method to get your business name heard. The key is to integrate the two together as a strategy machine!

The majority of companies have little faith in their digital strategy to bring them the long term brand recognition they desire. The trick is to use digital strategy through each element of your branding strategy to bring the two together.

If your brand strategy has been striving to improve marketing as a separate entity to digital strategy or if digital strategy is an element of strategy that you haven’t got round to yet then you should have a look at your ROI and ask yourself if you think it could be higher?

Here at ICE Innovation not only have we been teaching businesses for years how can they integrate digital means into their brand strategy, we’ve been teaching them how to lead with it. Getting ahead of your competition isn’t just possible, it’s probable-Only if you equip your brand strategy with the power and knowledge of digital strategy.

To find out how you can get even greater results by building your brand, get in touch with our branding team on 0113 322 1490 or contact us by Katie@iceinnovation.co.uk.

So how can these new businesses avoid flopping? Well, some businesses suffer from lack of consumer demand or simply a flawed business plan, but a lot of these cases can be boiled down to bad marketing and sales.

So how can you change this?

Look at your target market and ask yourself three questions:

1. Who are the people I want to sell my product to and why should they buy it from me over everybody else?
2. How do I get my message across to sell my products or services?
3. How do I get them to keep coming back to me?

Marketing is at the core of everything you do. Take a few moments to sit down and go over the following questions:

1. What ways am I or could I be attracting consumers?
2. What additional products or services could I be offering?
3. How and how often am I following up with potential clients after they first make contact with me?
4. Am I doing enough to begin a relationship with users who arrive at my website?
5. What marketing (if any) have I got implemented at the moment and could I be doing anything else in addition to this?

New businesses should remember that in term of a target market, smaller can be better. It allows tighter and more focused marketing. Some new business owners assume that the more people they can get their marketing message in front of the better. The problem with this theory is that the wants and needs from different people vary tremendously. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to get your marketing out to a smaller market who may actually be interested in what you have to offer instead of throwing your marketing at anyone who will listen?

Take the time out to decide who you ideal client or consumer is. This will you give some idea of who you want your target market to be. Even if your target market is smaller, your market share could prove higher. You can take the time out to perfect your marketing strategies so you get the message out to a specific group of consumers.

It is a common saying that there is ‘riches in niches’ so if you’re a new or small business take the time out to look at your marketing plans today and get thinking of ways you can communicate with who you want to have

A company’s brand is the entire experience and perception that customers have of your business. It is essentially the most important part of your operation. Whilst the forefront of your brand will be the logo, slogan and brand colours that you opt for, you’re brand image is being built by the way you carry out you’re relationship with your market. Brand strategy has a fundamental importance in moving your business forward to help you build and maintain the branding image that you desire.

So how do you go about deciding on your brand strategy?

To be able to build upon your brand image you first need to decide on the image of the company you want consumers to have. This can be decided through defining who you are as a company and determining who your ideal stakeholders would be. You can then move on to identifying ideal clients and their key internal and external values. Study the SWOT analysis of your competition and look for chances to exploit their weaknesses and foresee potential threats or opportunities. Next research into what it is that your customers would want to see from your brand.

Improving brand strategy can be thought of as increasing the positive emotional association between your brand and your target market. To create this association a brand should -

1. Have a clear and carefully analysed target market
2. Have successful and consistent advertising and market mediums
3. Be flexible to the business climate
4. Support and challenge your business model
5. Come up with a brand promise and deliver!

Whether launching a new product or revitalizing an existing one it is important to remember that no matter the size of the business or the power of the brand, there is always room for competition. This ever lingering threat of similar products in the same market can be taken positively as a reminder for businesses to always be on their toes, constantly thinking of ways to push revitalization into the brand and be at the forefront of consumers’ minds.

Ultimately having a brand strategy will bring clarity and personality to your brand, it will be the emotional association between your consumers and your products.

With just over one week to go, our team want to wish you an absolutely fantastic Christmas. May all your dreams and wishes come true for you and your business in 2012. If we can help you to make your business dreams come true, please do get in touch and we’ll get a coffee booked into the diary!

Here is a little something special we have created especially for you…

Warmest wishes
Your ICE Innovation Team

Click here to listen to this page as a Podcast – Compelling language tips for 2012

If you are using the word ‘we’ more than once on your sales literature or website pages, you have an incontinent website my friend… We, we, we, we, we!!

There are many ways to completely turn off your website visitors and this is certainly one of them!

Two of the most powerful words in the English language are ‘YOU’ and ‘YOUR’. Imagine what a powerful brand you can become when you focus the way you communicate to your prospects around these two small words.

The best thing you can do for your business RIGHT NOW if you haven’t done so in the last 3 months is to clearly define your brand message for next year and start using clear, compelling language as your tool for generating higher quality customers in 2012. After all, having a great website is one thing. But if the content you have on it is turning people off, you are not only losing potential lifetime customers, you are also damaging your brand in the process.

What key words and language are your customers using to find you?

What do people ask for verbally to find the service/product you deliver?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, our Branding expert Sammy Blindell can help you with this in a simple 1 hour brand strategy session either in person or by Skype. For more information call us on 0113 322 1490.

Focusing on your brand strategy and the way you communicate to your customers in 2012 will encourage the right customers to spend more money with you and give you the time freedom you desire to do the things you want outside of the business.

Look good to you?

I’ll just share a quick tip with you to truly engage your customers as my gift to you. Here are just five compelling words you can use to create higher relationship conversion in your language – both verbally and in your marketing materials, website, etc… to attract, engage and convert more prospects in 2012:

• Enhance
• Increase
• Gain
• Reduce
• Save

Also think about your target audience. How many of them are visual? How many of them make decisions based on feelings? How many of them are straight to the point and make decisions based on black and white fact?

You can create even greater results by using visual (I see what you mean), kinesthetic (feelings – it feels right to me) and auditory (hearing – that sounds good to me) language in your communications.

To give you an example of how I used these five words plus visual, kinesthetic and auditory language in a recent workshop that I delivered on brand positioning (watch it here) this is what I said:

‘ICE Innovation are a specialist Brand Management, Website Development and Online Marketing company. We listen to our clients intently and deliver key concepts that enhance their visability, credibility and profitability. Our clients see very quickly that our innovative ideas gain a noticeable increase in sales and they feel our passion for their success every step of the way.

We reduce time and money spent on marketing materials that don’t work and deliver a dedicated outsourced service with a loyal in-house mentality. This means that you will save money, increase productive time and benefit from all the results of a full time design team on a project by project basis without the stress and overheads of full time employment.’

The point here of course is to create a compelling mix of language which engages each target audience who happen to either think visually, in feelings or analyse the words I am using. Very powerful when used correctly!

If you have any queries at all about how to do this, Sammy will be delighted to help and advise you to help 2012 start with a bang! Visit www.iceinnovation.co.uk or call 0113 322 1490.

At ICE Innovation we approach your business growth from three strategic marketing perspectives:

1. What are the most effective marketing activities you can implement to position your business above your competitors?
2. What do you do on a daily basis that genuinely makes a difference to the lives and businesses of others?
3. How much activity and response can you handle as part of your day to day operations?

So let’s start by looking at number one…

In today’s very competitive marketplace it is critical that your strategy is delivered consistently in a way that will outsell your competition.  Just a few simple questions will identify the kind of marketing activity you need to implement:

• Who do you want to target and why?
• What do they tend to respond well to?
• Where do they hang out?
• What do they read?
• What do you want them to do when they find you?

This will not only identify what marketing activities are likely to work the best for you. Asking yourself these questions will also identify the strategy for the lead up to your activity and follow up afterwards to ensure you are making the most of the opportunity you have to build a relationship with them.

Find out how to identify your USP (Unique Selling Point) by reading part two of this blog here >

For more information about our marketing expertise, or to book an appointment with one of our marketing strategy experts, please call 0113 322 1490 or click here to get in touch.

The technology world is in great mourning today as one of the world’s most visionary entrepreneurs has died. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, passed away yesterday on the 5^th of October and leaves behind him a legacy of amazing products and for many, a way of life.

Unsurprisingly thousands of mourners from all over the world have paid their respects to a man who brought a brand back from the dead, a new way of purchasing music to the world, a personal computer to your pocket, beautiful type fonts to the personal computer and most of all, for me, a level of consumer technology evolution never seen before in the past.

Looking back at Steve’s years, and it is hard not to be impressed at what he built. His life story has been written about an awful lot within the media over the last what, 10 years? So to sum up a long story short, Steve Jobs was given up for adoption by his unmarried parents. He grew up in California, and was very much a product of that place and time. He took drugs. He got into phone hacking. Both were precursors to what would always be his ever evolving interest: changing the status quo.

And changing the status quo he did. I think we here at ICE Innovation speak for the world when we express our deep condolences for Steve Jobs, his family and for all those he inspired because without him, the world is a less remarkable place.

I will leave this pay of respect with a quote from his commencement speech at the Stanford University in 2005. This very particular speech I have a written transcript of, and I read this speech every time I need inspiration.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

RIP Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011.

Old school SEO’ers may have used the meta description as a way to further manipulate search engine rankings some years back, but now Google’s algorythm doesn’t count it as a ranking factor. So what is it for? And more importantly, what are the guidelines for a good meta description?

Firstly, all your meta descriptions should be diffeent for all pages because if they aren’t, Google classes these as duplicate meta descriptions and takes the decision that all of your web pages can not really be about the exact same topic, so devalue deep internal pages for more visible ones (your top navigation links, home page etc.). This move is something you do not want to happen to yourself, because in order for us as an online marketing company to do our work effectively, websites need to be as visible as possible before we start a campaign. This enables not only us to do our job effectively though.

If each of your meta descriptions is unqiue to an individual page, then they are more likely to get clicked on when somebody searches on Google, Yahoo or Bing. But why is this?

Well, your meta description is your call to action in the search results and also your sales pitch. Google only returns the results for searchers, and it is up to you as a business owner to get those searchers to click on your link. There is a certain art to a good meta description though, and below are two examples (these are examples with a fictional business).

Grey Wolf Shoes | Mens shoes, womens shoes and childrens shoes in wide range of sizes. Free P&P, order today.

Buy Shoes at Grey Wolf Shoes online shoe shop. We have various Womens Shoes, Mens shoes and chlidrens shoes.

Both of the above meta descriptions are absolutely fine and say exactly what this business sells, which are shoes. Of course, the last meta description is probably the more compelling, and is bound to get more clicks, however the systematic approach of the first one is okay too.

If you have found this blog post useful and would like to find out more about how ICE Online Marketing can help your business grow (and even change your meta descriptions!) then contact us or give us a call on 0113 322 1490.

So you finally made the leap and bought an iPad did you? Well like most business users Apple’s iPad appears to be the number one choice for a portable tablet, despite there being possible better products on the market currently (dependent on needs). This notion comes from hardcore users labelling the iPad as nothing but an app launcher, whilst Android and WebOS offerings provide near desktop like functionality. Don’t let this put you off, though, because the iPad 2 is one very neat device, and with a few key accessories your iPad 2 will walk the talk and look like a serious bit of kit within business meetings.

BMCdigital 2 in 1 Luxury PU Leather Folio Flip Case and Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard

Laptops used to be all the rage however increasingly business users are opting for more portability in the form of tablets. The problem with your iPad though is that the virtual keyboard offers non existent tactile feedback, so a hardware keyboard will be in 99% of business meetings sorely missed.

The BMCdigital 2 in 1 Luxury PU Leather Folio Flip Case and Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for iPad is a case with a wireless keyboard however also acts as a docking station, allowing you to type on your iPad 2 just like a fully functional laptop. As for the cost you’re looking at just £37.95 from Play.com.

Qubits Tablet Pocket Desk Stand

Having your iPad at the right angle can be a problem sometimes and you are ultimately left to use your hands to stand and position your device towards clients or colleagues in a business meeting. The Quibits Tablet Pocket Stand works against the above problems and allows you to stand your iPad (or any other tablet) up safely and just at the right angle for people to see reports or presentations.

All of this can be had for the very affordable price of just £4.00 (less than £5!) at Play.com.

Navitech/Apple iPad 2 In-Car Suction Cup Windscreen Mount Cradle

Okay okay I admit it, the iPad 2′s screen is far too big to be used as a viable sat nav however when you’re lost, and the only thing you have to navigate yourself to a business meeting is an iPad, then things aren’t looking great for you as you won’t be able to hold it safely. What the Navitech accessory does is provide an ample in-car suction mount for your tablet or iPad 2, allowing you to get to your business meeting safely whilst on the move.

Price wise you are looking at £24.99 from Play.com.

So there we go, three iPad 2 accessories for business users to help you guys look the part and get those sales. It is a service we provide these things, you know.

For information on how we at ICE Innovation can help your business grow, please give us a call on 0113 322 1490 or contact us.

But is mobile browsing really that different to desktop browsing?

Browsing the internet online on a smartphone is a completely different experience when compared to browsing on a desktop computer for a couple of reasons, and as a business owner you should yourself know the differences. Some of these are:

• First of all, the download speed on a smartphone is far slower than that of a desktop PC and so your website should be optimized for this.
• Second of all the screen resolution of a smartphone is much smaller than any PC monitor and so your website should compensate by showing only important stuff.
• Thirdly smartphone users navigate via touch screen, not a mouse, meaning that hot spots are completely different for both devices.

Downloads speeds

Browsing on a 3G enabled smartphone can be a real chore and bore the life out of you. 99% of times this is because of network speeds, however a business website using heavy graphics in a mobile stylesheet or theme isn’t helping anybody, especially your customers and sales.

If your website takes longer than 6 seconds to load with a decent 3G signal (four bars or above) then you should contact your web developer to talk about optimizing your website for mobile devices and stripping any unecessary features and weight.

Screen resolution

Your smartphone is a whole lot smaller than your desktop or laptop monitor, so why isn’t your website too? Generally, mobile browsers do a good job at resizing web pages so they are usable, however a lot of the time text is far too small and big images take up far too much space.

If the text of your website is unreadable on a smartphone then you should contact your website developer for help and guidance surrounding ways you can ammend this.

Touch Screen

Smartphone users do not use a mouse to navigate their way around a website they use their fingers, so any links which are too small or any links which are not visibe can not be hovered over for a description and whats more heat maps for clicks are completely different.

The reason heat maps are different on a desktop when compared to a smartphone is because there is less visible information on a smartphone web browser, thus people click through to irrelevent stuff due to a lack of information being displayed.

For more information about the mobile internet and how we can help you online, give us a call on 0113 322 1490 or contact us here.