The Brand Surgery - Branding Agency, Graphic Design and Website Design in Worthing, West Sussex

From left: Vicky Vaughan, Elaine Sola and Sally Windsor (Worthing & Arun Mind) at the Value of Lived Experience Conference.

The above photo was taken at the Worthing and Arun Mind Peer to Peer Conference. The event showcased a number of clients who had successfully mastered the art of managing mental health problems. It was amazing how brave the clients had been and how they are helping others now.

Worthing and Arun Mind is one of the The Mayor of Worthing’s charities and she was there to hand out certificates for students who had completed the course. The Brand Surgery provides a number of services for Worthing and Arun Mind including website maintenance, strategic marketing consultations and graphic design services. Worthing and Arun Mind take advantage of our special charity rate, so if you know of a charity that could do with some help, please call Vicky on 0903 824229.

The Brand Surgery works with a number of charities, including Worthing and Arun Mind. Below is the agenda we designed for the Peer to Peer conference which was showcasing the wonderful progress of those with mental illnesses.

Look what Worthing and Arun Mind say about our marketing consultations: “During our time with The Brand Surgery, we have developed a good working relationship with Vicky who has quickly understood our needs. Her friendly and can-do attitude has made me feel completely at ease and that we are in capable hands. These consultations have been invaluable, leaving us feeling empowered and confident to put her advice into action – despite us not having a technical background!”

PEER2PEER - THE VALUE OF LIVED EXPERIENCE

The Brand Surgery Tailored E-marketing Solutions

The way to get a good response from your emarketing campaigns (and all your marcomms) is to segment your target audience so you can write to each segment in a tone that they engage with.

Some questions you should consider:

• Who do you send your e-campaigns to?
  If you send one e-shot to all your customers and potential customers then do not be surprised if you don’t get a healthy response. If you are sending a campaign to existing customers, then write something to appeal to them. Make them feel special and reward their loyalty with a tailored email and not a mass marketing email. If you are approaching a customer base that you haven’t worked with before then find out about them so you can tailor your emails next time around.
  We recently spent two whole weeks dissecting our mailing list. We went through each email address and researched the customer, so we could place them in an accurate segment. The results were amazing! It is well worth investing the time in getting to know your mailing list.
• What is the objective of your e-campaign?
  If you don’t know what you want out of your campaign, how can you expect to get a a good result? If it is a sales promotion, then ensure your message is clear and concise and includes a deadline in the offer. If you are writing a newsletter, ensure the content is relevant to the market. If you don’t know what to write, then call us on 01903 824229 and we can help you.
• What was the response rate of your last email campaign?
  Do you know who read your emails last time? Do you know what links they clicked on? If you don’t know this information, then you can’t continuously improve the success of your campaigns. Our digital marketing system allows you to see who has opened your newsletters so you can tailor them each time.
• Did you get a sale from your last campaign?
  If you didn’t, then you are doing something wrong – your campaign is confusing. It is important to integrate your brand assets with your sales message, and ensure that you are sending the campaign to the correct audience.

The above seems like common sense and it is. These days our in-boxes are filled with endless information. Our filtering systems are becoming tougher because our time is valuable. If you want people to read your email and make it stand out above all the other noise – send relevant messages to the right audience – you need to match demand.

Our email campaigns get results because we have the strategic marketing knowledge as well as great design skills. If you want more success from your campaigns, then call Vicky on 01903 82429 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk, Sussex’s No 1 marketing consultants – CIM qualified marketers.

Springtime Offers from The Brand Surgery

Spring is definitely in the air and has put us in an even more generous mood. Therefore, we have three Springtime offers which are up for grabs if your project is booked in before the end of March.

1. SPRINGTIME OFFER ONE:
Website refresh. From £100 (ex VAT)

This offer has proved so popular that we have decided to repeat it. Quality Services took advantage of our offer and look what the MD said about it:

“We asked The Brand Surgery to undertake their ‘Website Refresher‘ service on our website and the transformation in design of our website is incredible, you can barely recognise it.  It’s like having a brand new website. The Brand Surgery has been helpful and professional throughout the process and we will be using them for any further web related work we need completing in the future. Our website was ranking high in Google searches, but performing low when it came to converting visitors to sales. The Brand Surgery gave us practical advice and suggestions about the importance of emphasising the security and legitimacy of the website, and also ensuring that the website functioned as customers expected.”

See the before and after for yourself by clicking here. This offer is for new customers only.

Phone 01903 824229 to book your website refresh.

2. SPRINGTIME OFFER TWO:
Free strategic marketing consultation, when you book five consultations.

“What’s in it for me?” I can hear you cry … Here is a little exercise for you to complete. Do you have a corporate plan? Do you have a marketing plan? Do you have SMART corporate objectives? Do you know your corporate brand values? OK. So if you have replied “no” to these four questions, then you would hugely benefit from strategic advice.

OK. Now for the smarty-pants among you. For those who answered YES to the above questions. List ALL your promotional marketing communications (including social media)  down one side of an A4 page. Now add three columns:

• In the first column header write “Are our brand messages consistent with our differentiation?”
• In the second column header write: “Are our messages delivered to the desired targeted segments? Does our choice of media align with customer reception?
• In the third column header write: “Do our messages & media work together meeting our corporate objectives?”

Now complete the table using crosses and ticks. Be honest! Many people are surprised by the answers. If your business is failing to meet it’s objectives, the chances are that your current marketing mix is not adding value to your business or it’s products and services offered, and therefore not giving your business the competitive edge it needs to succeed.

Your customers may only be one click away from you, however, they are also one click away from your competitors.

Our consultations are lead by Vicky Vaughan (qualified to Level 6 of Chartered Institute of Marketing) and take place in the comfort of your own offices, and can include up to five people. Hourly rates are £85 (ex VAT) per hour for one person, £95 (ex VAT) up to three people, and £105 (ex VAT) up to five people. You choose how long you want the consultation to be. Most businesses like two hours per session. Our spring offer means if you book five two-hour sessions, the sixth session will be free. If you book ten two-hour sessions, the eleventh and twelfth session will be free.

“During our time with The Brand Surgery, we have developed a good working relationship with Vicky who has quickly understood our needs. Her friendly and can-do attitude has made me feel completely at ease and that we are in capable hands. These consultations have been invaluable, leaving us feeling empowered and confident to put her advice into action – despite us not having a technical background!” Worthing and Arun Mind.

This offer is open to new and existing customers.

Call 01903 824229 TODAY to book your strategic marketing consultation.

3. SPRINGTIME OFFER THREE:
25% off Graphic design prices for March

Graphic design is used for all elements of your marcomms including – website design, logo design, newsletter design, poster design, leaflet and flyer design, exhibition design. The list goes on. If you book your design project in before the end of March, you will benefit from a 25% discount. Our normal hourly fee is £75 (ex VAT) per hour. £56.25 (ex VAT) per hour. This offer is for new and existing customers.

Please call Vicky on 01903 824229 TODAY  to take advantage of this amazing offer.

The Brand Surgery is looking forward to its imminent Chartered Marketer status. We will be continuing our study and hope to begin it’s Masters in Digital Marketing in September. We want to continue to improve our skills and expertise in order to offer the highest quality strategic marketing consultations.

Making sense of Brand Management and Brand Equity

As some of you may well be aware, Vicky Vaughan, the Managing Director of The Brand Surgery is studying to become a Chartered Marketer. So far she has passed the first two units: Managing Marketing (introducing a performance measurement standard into a company for increased competitive advantage) and Marketing Planning Process (creating marketing plan for an SME).

Now she is working on Project Management in Marketing and the subject is Brand Management. Naturally Brand Equity is the subject in Vicky’s mind and as such she wanted to get back to the origins of the term ‘Brand Equity’.

In the dictionary ….

brand:

• kind, grade, or make, as indicated by a stamp, trademark, or the like: the best brand of coffee.
• a mark made by burning or otherwise, to indicate kind, grade, make, ownership, etc.
• a mark formerly put upon criminals with a hot iron.
• any mark of disgrace; stigma.
• branding iron.

equity:

• the quality of being impartial; fairness 2. an impartial or fair act, decision etc. 3. Law, a system of justice and fair conduct. It supplements common law, as by providing a remedy where none exists at law. 4. Law, and equitable right or claim 5. the interest or ordinary shareholders in a company. 6. the value of debtor’s property in excess of debts to which it liable. 7. Brit. The Actors trade union. 8. Another name for ordinary shares

Put the words together, and what do you get? Brand Equity – and what does that mean?

• “A brand can be said to have brand equity (also called consumer or market equity) when consumers respond favourably to it. This depends upon a combination of recognition, associations and judgements made by the consumer. Brand equity can be regarded as an indicator of the success of a brand.” (Untangling Brand Equity, Value, Assets and Health by Chris Grannell)
• Keller (2008) defines brand equity thus: “A brand has positive customer-based brand equity when consumers react more favourably to a product and the way it is marketed when the brand is identified than when it is not”.

It seems the branding bar is always being raised higher.

Even the marketing professors of this world have raised branding expectations over the years.

• Aaker (1991) said that: “A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol intended to identify the goods or services of one seller from thos of competitors”.
• Keller (1998) says: “that a brand is a set of mental associations that add value to those already created by the product itself”.
• And in my book, Do a Madonna, published in 2010, my definition is: “Branding is your potential customers’ experience or memory of your service or product – and your business”.

The definition of brand and brand equity has evolved even further. They emphasise on consumer loyalty and repeat purchase. Kapferer (2012)  says: “A brand consuming no loyalty is not a strong brand  …. Thanks to Web 2.0. A brand cannot be reduced to a benefit; it has to create a community. No fans, no brand! Today’s dominant role of social media is visible here. To exist on the net, a brand must have friends, followers, adepts and proselytes.”

The ladder of customer loyalty

There are all kinds of customer loyalty – from forced to loyalty through inertia to engaged (Kapferer 2012), however, the main aim, is to encourage your customers to make repeat sales and move your potential customers up the ladder of loyalty. This will be discussed in the next blog article.

It’s official – SMEs’ (in general) perception towards importance of marketing = zero

Studying towards CIM Chartered Marketer status has been enlightening especially in one area. We thought we were just unlucky with attracting SMEs who don’t value the power of marketing. However, research has proved that due to lack of resources, the importance of marketing and branding is often overlooked by SME’s.

Here is an extract from “SME brand building and management: an exploratory study” by the European Journal of Marketing available from Emerald Research: “Owing to their resource limitations and the owner/ manager’s powerful influence on decision making, small firms’ behaviors follow different patterns than their larger counterparts when dealing with marketing issues (McCartan-Quinn and Carson, 2003; Carson, 1990). Moreover, in the present global competitive environment, especially in regards to consumer goods marketing, brands provide a differentiating statement and a competitive advantage if used appropriately. It is through the development of a specific brand identity that a company makes a brand unique and conveys its distinctiveness (Srivastava and Shocker, 1991), leading to a positive brand image in consumers’ minds, and ultimately to high brand equity. It has, however, been demonstrated that SMEs have so far put little emphasis on branding (Inskip, 2004; Gabrielsson, 2005; Ojasalo et al., 2008).

If you are an SME, or you know of an SME that doesn’t want to get left behind because of lack of understanding in the subject of branding and marketing, Vicky is offering a two-hour 1-2-1 marketing strategy consultation for £170 (ex VAT), or 2-2-2- (£245 ex VAT) in the comfort of your own offices. She will relate the importance of branding to your own business and give you a prescription to follow to get you on the right track.

Call Vicky on 01903 824229 or email to register your interest.