If you have come up with a catchy and distinctive brand name for your product or service and/or put in place a logo and design packaging, you may be wondering which specific branding elements you can protect as a trade mark.

Startups Magazine recently spoke to Nicky Pasquier, CEO Virtuoso Assistant, the digital marketing for entrepreneurs and small business. 

The coronavirus crisis and the impact it has had on businesses and financial resources has made the prospect of growing a business seem like a distant reality for some organisations. But for British small and medium-sized B2B organisations, Brexit is an opportunity to look beyond the EU to new geographies.

The words ‘martech’ and ‘Marketing Technology’ constantly get thrown around a lot. According to research conducted by the martech Alliance, they’re used some 678.7k times a year - but it begs the question… how often are they being used correctly? For anyone who is unfamiliar with the word ‘martech’, it is otherwise known as marketing technology, and it is the term for the software and tech tools that marketers leverage to plan, execute and measure marketing campaigns.

A customer service provider has challenged businesses in the UK to change the way they think about customer interaction, amid rising levels of consumer dissatisfaction. Woven is a contact centre, customer management and BPO service provider, operating from offices in Bristol, Swindon and Ipswich and working with brands across a range of industries, including Toyota and Kärcher.

The amount of information we are exposed to exceeds our ability to process it. Out of the about 70,000 thoughts we have per day, our short term memory can hold no more than seven for only about 20 to 30 seconds. How does this relate to branding? Our long-term memory stores our associations with specific brands which is also ultimately the desired effect of marketing campaigns or PR activities - for people to remember your company (or you as a person!) when in need of the products or services you provide.

In today's global and increasingly competitive marketplace, it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of consumers. Trade marks are essentially 'signs' which help consumers to identify and differentiate your products or services from those of competitors and other traders.

So, you’re starting a business - you’re ready to go, you’re excited to start chasing clients, you get some enquiries, you convert those enquiries into leads and now it is time to turn those leads into clients - and ultimately, cash. But there’s a problem… what do you charge? 

With COVID-19 set to spark the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, new research by the World Federation of Advertisers says 89% of large international companies have put their marketing and advertising campaigns on hold. Global marketing and advertising spend is plummeting at the fastest rate since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, leading to uncertainty and trepidation within the sector.

Let’s not beat about the bush: social media has tonnes of benefits. It empowers people to stay connected across huge distances, it has kept people motivated during crises such as the coronavirus pandemic (you thought you could read a blog without that being mentioned?), it empowers quick and simple customer service, and for businesses, it’s a free way to demonstrate your brand values.

As renowned author and alternative medicine practitioner, Deepak Chopra once said: “You have to think of your brand as a kind of myth. A myth is a compelling story that is archetypal, if you know the teachings of Carl Jung. It has to have emotional content and all the themes of a great story: mystery, magic, adventure, intrigue, conflicts, contradiction, paradox."

Early 2020, a Chinese city called Wuhan was spotlighted on the global stage, as the epicentre to a global pandemic forcing large parts of the world to go into lockdown. The stuff of movies became a reality, and humanity was thrown into turmoil. 

Does affiliate marketing have an image problem? Almost certainly. The industry has been dogged with claims of fraudulent practices in the past, and many advertisers have a bad story to tell about ‘data cowboys’ who’ve ripped them off.

It goes without saying that for any business, in any sector, in order for it to survive, grow and prosper, sales are imperative, because sales generate profit and cash flow and these are the lifeblood of any business. It is understandable, therefore, that I often overhear the question ‘how do I promote my business?’

Emerging and fast-growing markets offer the biggest opportunities to build and grow a brand. If you can start at the point of early adoption and gain enough traction, your brand could become a leader as the market becomes established. Identifying the right market is about understanding cultural trends and then positioning your brand as the solution to shifts in consumer behaviour and growing demands such as meat and dairy reduction or a move towards a more natural, skin-first makeup routine. With the right timing, you can hit a perfect intersection like the widespread adoption of craft beer coinciding with the cultural shift towards independent brands. 

The day has arrived...your new freshly baked web designs, hot from the design oven are about to go live. You’ve briefed the designer thoroughly to make sure your new look matches the moodboard. The excitement is palpable and the expectations are high.

Let’s face it. Sales and customers are a startup’s bread and butter. Even if you’d like to go the VC route, you need to show traction. But how do you acquire users and customers without much, or any money? Seems like a chicken and egg problem doesn’t it.

The Halo Effect is a type of cognitive bias, commonly known in marketing as the tendency for positive impressions in one area to influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas. When it comes to branding specifically, I believe that this effect has been demonstrated to reinforce as well as rejuvenate a brand in the eyes of its fans, it can be utilised to spark conversations around it and thus leading to more organic growth. The question that poses itself is how can we successfully achieve this effect, and why is it necessary to keep a brand alive in the fast paced and media devouring environment that we live in today?

The founders, marketers, brand managers, whoevers, who remember to think long term in times of crisis will be the ones who come out above the rest once things settle. We’ve been seeing this theory plastered all over our Linkedin feeds recently.  

Perhaps you know it: the iconic scene from Jerry Maguire where Dorothy (Renee Zellweger) stares longingly at Jerry (Tom Cruise) as he declares his undying love for her, announcing that she completes him, hoping it will win her over but he needn’t have, he had her at 'hello'. She was gripped from the moment he walked in, she wasn’t listening to his fumbled speech, she was mesmerised, and one thing is for sure, she certainly wasn’t thinking about leadership. Nope. That was far from her mind.