It’s been a busy start to the New Year here at Fraktul. Our first newsletter of 2014 has just been sent out. To read our latest newsletter see here. To subscribe to our future newsletters, to keep up-to-date on the latest goings-on at Fraktul see here.
If you’ve made your resolutions for growth and development this year and would like some marketing support to deliver results, call us on 01738 237850, we’d love to work with you.
Last week was banner week at Fraktul, with pop-up banners and event banners designed and delivered for two clients.
It was really nice to see the new pop-up banners for Tay Valley Vets which they’re going to be using to support some careers events.
Tay valley Vets – Pop up banners
It was also great to see the Perthshire and Kinross Business and Enterprise Month logo, which was designed by the Fraktul team, appearing on new pop-up banners and event banners.
Perth and Kinross Business and Enterprise Month – Pop up banners
Perth and Kinross Business and Enterprise Month – Event banners
We can give you a really good idea of what your design is going to look like as well, with realistic mock ups.
Perth and Kinross Business and Enterprise Month – Pop up banner mock ups
We’d love to help you promote your organisation, it’s what we do.
Why not give one of our team a call on 01738 237850.
We’ll help your promotion, with some cost-effective proven marketing that’s focused on adding value to your business.
We’re delighted to confirm that the team at Fraktul has been selected by Perth and Kinross Council Business Growth Team to provide a wide range of professional marketing services. This will enable SMEs in Perth and Kinross to benefit from the PKC Business Consultancy Grant.
Fraktul provides marketing support across three core areas, Strategy, Brand development and Promotion.
To find out more about this proactive initiative to help local enterprises expand and grow their businesses, contact one of the Perth and Kinross Council Business Growth team members.
More information 01738 477954
Fraktul has supported local Perth based business Perthshire Flooring, to re-brand. The rebranding exercise included new logo and visual image, which has been developed for signage, advertising, promotional material, stationery, staff clothing and vehicles. The process also included a new website and development of social media, to engage better with our customers.
Fraktul logos
OK, so lets start at the beginning…
What is a logo?
Wikipedia summarises it quite well – ‘A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organisations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition. Logos are either purely graphic (symbols/icons) or are composed of the name of the organization (a logotype or wordmark).’
Do you need a logo?
We often hear people asking, ‘Do I really need a logo, will it really help my business’ – the quick answer is ‘Yes’.
When a business does not have a strong logo, which easily identifies them, it can make it more difficult to connect with their target audience and grow. A logo is a form of advertising and it can carry a message as well as communicating a brand to the public.
A logo is very specific to an individual company; it can be serious or playful, traditional or modern, depending on how you wish the public and potential customers to view your company. As a logo supports a company’s overall marketing, it is important to get it right. It is often said that viewing a website or brand is much like a house viewing. Remember, first impressions count and your potential customers will make a decision within a few seconds on whether you’re the right business, or not. Therefore, those organisations which spend time and energy over their logo, branding and marketing strategy, will communicate better and have a much higher chance of success then those that don’t.
It is important not to think of a logo simply as a pretty graphic, which you can put on your letterhead. When used correctly it can be a powerful tool to enable you to convey your company in the best possible way.
Some pointers on creating a great logo:
- Relevance: Make sure it represents the company, its services and values
- Versatility: Make it versatile so that it works on a multitude of mediums e.g. on a dark background, light background and mono, as well as very small
- Avatar: if you are wanting to utilise the array of social media tools available, such as Facebook and Twitter, think about how the logo will work as an avatar
- Timeless: try and make the logo timeless, so that it is still effective and powerful in ten, twenty or thirty years time.
- Message: Make sure it is communicating the correct message to your target audience.
A logo doesn’t need to be highly complex with a bundle of effects. Sometimes a simple logo can be more successful, as brands like Facebook, Coca Cola, Google and Twitter have shown.
Does it stop with a logo?
Once the logo has been created it’s important to ensure this filters through to all stationery and marketing material, building a consistent brand image. Consistency throughout all materials, ensures that they are easily associated with the company at a glance. It also sends a message to your customers, as a consistent professional presentation implies that your customers can expect the same service from your business, and who wouldn’t want that?
Fraktul has been involved in designing many logos for an array of businesses so if you need any help or advice we’d love to speak to you.
- Strategic Marketing – Marketing Plan and research
- Website – Design, upgrading and content development
- Bid Support – Bid management and support
- Social media – Management, support and training for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
- Events – Planning and sales support for exhibitions and shows
- Branding – Logo design and development & stationery design
- Promotional material – Brochures, leaflets and flyers, design and printing
We’ve also helped clients win both local and national awards and, most importantly, to win more business. If you’d like to win more work, get in touch with Stephen for an initial chat.
New Years Resolution down the pan? Maybe we can help…
OK, so most of us start the New Year with great intentions. This year, however, it’s probably more important than ever to have a clear marketing plan, with defined business goals and achievable tactics, which you can actually deliver. Here are a few thoughts about getting your marketing strategy in place and delivered.
Obviously making any objectives SMART, will mean that you’re more likely to deliver on them. Just as a reminder, making them SMART means:
- Specific – Make your goals defined and clear, not just woolly ambition. How many visits, or calls do you need to make, to find the customers you need, to make the turnover you’re planning?
- Measurable – Try and get some metrics set, so that you can see clearly how you are progressing and when you’ve achieved them.
- Attainable – Goals should be stretching, but they do need to be achievable; otherwise you’ll just end up frustrated
- Relevant – If they’re marketing and business focused, then you’re on the right track.
- Time bound – When are these going to be delivered? Don’t try to list hundreds, you’ll only end up feeling disappointed that you’re making no progress. It’s far better to set half-a-dozen key activities and deliver these in a sensible time frame.
My favourite focus for marketing activity is customer led. Andy Bounds approach, thinking about the “Afters”; what a customer is left with after you’ve provided your service is a key focus for our business. The Jelly Effect: How to Make Your Communication Stick – Great book, by-the-way, readable and practical. Now, we provide great branding, websites and promotional material, but we’re just helping our clients achieve their goals, whether those are more customers, or perhaps more sales. Construction customers aren’t just building a new house, or an office block, they’re looking to sell a home, or the right commercial space in the right location.
So why plan? Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher, got it right over two and a half thousand years ago, when he considered that
A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.
Now, we’re not suggesting taking weeks over this but, for sure, spending enough time and involving the right people will help you to prepare. Using the ASP structure, shown below, will help you to frame your planning:
- Analysis – Consideration of your position, competitors and wider environmental issues
- Strategy – Development of a clear strategy, focussed on the strengths of your business
- Practice – Clear, practical and achievable actions and targets
Critically, you need to cover whether, from your customer’s perspective, they can answer positively:
- Can I TRUST you?
- Can I BELIEVE what you tell me?
- Will you HELP me when I need you?
- Do you really CARE about me?
- Have you got the essential BASICS right?
- Does it FEEL good to use your business?
SWOT and PEEST analysis are fundamentals for considering your organisation in the wider context and Mindmeister is a great tool for brainstorming your thoughts about these aspects.
Focusing on your business, the Marketing 7P’s cover the critical aspects of your service:
- Price – How is your pricing compared to other alternatives, direct competitors and other solutions that your customer might choose?
- Promotion – How are you promoting your service, on and off line, and how successful is this?
- Place / distribution – What are your premises like, or how effectively is your service delivered?
- Process – Do your customers feel special, or processed like sheep?
- Physical evidence, or ambience – The product quality and packaging or, for a service, how it is delivered.
- People – Who is delivering the service? How do they behave and relate to your customers?
- Product – Easily defined for producers, but much more difficult when you sell a service.
Considering your business, against alternative options for your customers, from each of the seven perspectives, provides real insight. It shows where you’re positioned and more importantly, what you can do about it.
Finally then, back to the SMART objectives. What have you decided? Is it do-able? What are you going to do, and how will this be measured? Most importantly, who’s going to do it and by when?
Now, if you’re still struggling to see how you’re going to get from A to B, that’s OK. We can help with your strategic planning, or support you by rolling our sleeves up and getting stuck into some of the things you either don’t have time to, or just don’t want to. Call us on 01738 237850.
Happy New Year!
We’d like to wish all our Clients, Suppliers and Partners – Best Wishes for 2013. We’d especially like to thank all our Clients for their support and their business, which we appreciate.
2012 was a colossal 12 months here at Fraktul, our first full year in our new office. A few highlights, which we’re very proud of, include:
- our client, The Bathroom Company, winning UK Bathroom Retailer, for the second year running (and double Finalist again for 2013)
- helping to launch LiveGlutenFree, a major new online resource
- our client, Ian Bonthrone of BSS, winning Perthshire Chamber of Commerce Young Business Person of the Year
- participating in the Perth UHI Inspiring Enterprise videos
- speaking at the NewBiz12 Conference
- Diversity Award Silver Winner in Tayside Business Diversity Awards
- supporting a range of organisations to develop their business
Now – we’ve got bundles of ideas for how we can help your business stand out from the crowd in 2013, for all the right reasons.
If you’re serious about developing your businesses and you’d like the proven marketing skills and experience to help make that happen, make that resolution a reality and get in touch.
Some business owners still question the power that Facebook can have to work as an effective marketing tool, despite Facebook now having over one billion active users. Many companies are now being converted and tapping into this vast audience, successfully gaining leads and generating clients from simply creating and correctly using this largely free resource. We’d suggest, that you don’t mock it until you’ve tried it!
The first thing to be aware of is that if you are already a personal user of Facebook, that your business page shouldn’t be used in the same way. It is also essential that you set out with a clear strategy to ensure you keep your audience engaged. We are well aware that when you are running a business there are a million things clamouring for your attention and that Facebook can seem sometimes seem like just another chore.
To help you streamline the process, here are a few tips to make the management of your Facebook page quicker and easier:
- Planning – many of your status updates can be planned in advance. At the beginning of the week sit down and plan the status updates, scheduling them using a tool such as Hootsuite (see below).
- Interaction – make sure that you pop back to your page regularly, to encourage discussion and answer any questions
- Linking – make sure you tell people about your Facebook page, to ensure people know it is there. Use any other online / offline tools to achieve this, such as your website, twitter and brochures.
- Be relevant – make sure the status updates you post are relevant to your audience. Unsurprisingly, this increases the chances of them engaging with you and continuing to ‘Like’ your page.
- Number of updates – do not spam your Facebook pages with updates. It is not a twitter account and users tend to be put off if you fill their timeline with lots of posts.
- Think – it is quite possible to forget that you are posting a comment to a large group of people on behalf of your company. Always take the time to consider, ‘Does this post represent my business’.
This is just an overview of some key points in managing your Facebook page. If you’d like to discuss any of the elements further, we’d love to hear from you.
Case Study – LiveGlutenFree
We help manage the Facebook page for a large gluten free resource called LiveGlutenFree. This is a perfect example of how well considered Facebook usage can be very effective in raising a brands exposure, as well as driving traffic to your website.
The LiveGlutenFree Facebook page was launched in March 2012. Only 10 months later it has gained almost 3,500 Likes (December 2012), with a large percentage of the website’s traffic coming directly from their Facebook page. We helped LiveGlutenFree to achieve this by ensuring there were regular and relevant posts to keep their audience engaged. We also promoted frequent giveaways and promotions on their page.
The page is kept topical, so that it doesn’t stagnate. We achieve this by using status updates, interesting images and also by changing the cover image(see below), whilst still maintaining the clear brand identity, as shown below.
Useful Tools
A useful tool that we highly recommend to help manage Facebook, as well as other social media streams, is Hootsuite.
Hootsuite enables you to monitor interactions on your social media as well as posting to them. A very useful tool on this platform is the facility to enable you to schedule posts, so that if you have a busy day you can still have a good social media presence.
Fraktul website – Strathearn Engineering
Fraktul are pleased to reveal our latest website, for Strathearn Engineering. Strathearn Engineering are independent Land Rover specialists based in Perthshire, Scotland offering Servicing, Parts, Sales and Repairs.
This website has a host of features including rotating banners, Google map integration, an online contact form with CAPTCHA image verification, social media links and a Classified Ads section.
We’re really pleased to be working with the team at Strathearn Engineering as we believe, like Fraktul, they offer a a personal service and great value for money.
Fraktul website – The TownHouse Perth
Here’s our latest website, for The TownHouse Perth. Based in Perth, and situated overlooking the South Inch Park, this Georgian style property is only minutes away from the city centre, bus and train stations making it an ideal place to stay, whether it be for a brief overnight visit or a prolonged stay to visit the surrounding countryside and highlands. The decoration and accommodation is luxurious and provides a great place to stay in Perth.
The website features rotating banners, online booking functionality, Google map integration along with an online contact form.
fraktul.wordpress.com 