An important part of any marketing approach is working on graphics. For any small business looking to broaden their audience and have a more professional look, it’s important that you find a reputable graphic designer to work with.

Of course, if you have never worked closely with anyone in the world of graphic design before, it can be a little overwhelming at first.

Before looking around for graphic designers, be sure you are at the point in the project where a designer could help right away. Make sure you know what your message is before considering graphics. First and foremost, be sure you know who your audience consists of and what they are looking for. This will help your eventual designer come up with a few different avenues to try out.

But how do you know which designer is right for your company? Well, what you really need to know about a graphic designer can be boiled down to a few basic points. Before deciding on a graphic designer, consider the following points.

• Is there any way to tell if you and the designer will be a good fit? Do they have any past or current clients that required material similar to what you are looking for?
• Are they familiar with your industry?
• Does the graphic designer seem like they will be willing to guide you along the way through their process? This is something you need to ask of any graphic designer. To have an effective relationship, you need to work closely with them through the entire process rather than giving them your details and letting them run wild with them.

Similarly, a graphic designer will want to know some basics from you. Be prepared to be able to give details and insights into the following:

• What is the main point, message, or objective that you’re trying to communicate?
• Will the graphics used for any given project be woven together to create a sense of branding and identity in the future?
• What sort of emotion would you like to stir in your audience?

If all of these points can be agreed upon with enthusiasm and a shared perspective, chances are that you have found a designer that is a great fit for your business. An effective graphic designer can do wonders for the growth of your business in the long run.

When you’re running a business, one of the best tools you can have at your disposal is brand recognition. Of course, this is easier said than done. While we are all intimately familiar with the Nike “swoosh” and the big golden arches of McDonald’s, not every company has the ability to master brand recognition like these examples.

As a small business, creating a logo that not only grabs people’s attention but also sticks with them is a great way to ensure that your name gets out there and sticks. But what makes a good logo? How can you be certain your logo is helping to create brand recognition?

When coming up with your logo, make sure you follow these tips.

• Your logo is your identity. Make sure you have a logo that translates well within your industry but will also be memorable and easy to recognize by the public.
• Your logo should be able to be properly displayed on big media outlets—such as billboards—as well as small items, like business cards. Also, does it look good on a screen? Will it adapt well to your Facebook page? If not, you might need a slight redesign.
• For some reason that no one is really clear on, it seems that logos that are created in a rectangular design seem to work best in terms of brand recognition.
• Make sure your font is simple and easy to read. Also, try not to use more than two colors; using multiple colors and fancy fonts can be very distracting.
• Does your logo translate well into black and white? An effective logo should be able to be recognized even without the colors (for example, the Nike and McDonald’s logos we mentioned earlier).
• Never do a complete redesign. You will confuse your current and potential clients and will spend forever updating all of your media materials, from business cards to e-mail signatures and everything in between.

We’ve already said it, but it’s worth repeating: your logo is your identity. Does your current logo say everything about you that you want it to? Is it easy t recognize among other companies in your industry?

Take a good hard look at your logo today and ask yourself these questions. If the answer to any of them is NO, then you may want to think about a slight tweak.

When it comes to building a brand, there are many traits a small business should try to incorporate into their public image. Professionalism and dependability are certainly characteristics you want to display, but did you know that a sense of fun is just as important to potential customers?

It’s true. And what’s more than that, a sense of fun can also do wonders for the cohesion of your employees.

But how do you incorporate fun and a carefree attitude into a professional work environment without sacrificing quality and professionalism?  It is a tricky question but more and more businesses are learning how to do it.

Companies like Google and Southwest Airlines are known in most circles as having learned to successfully merge the professionalism of a first-class business with the right amount of fun. To get a glimpse of how Southwest Airlines manages to do this, do a quick YouTube search for “rapping flight attendants” and “passenger toilet paper races.”

Southwest actually makes a point to look for a sense of humor in the majority of people they hire.

One thing that companies like Google and Southwest will tell you is that it’s not enough to integrate a sense of fun into the workplace; it needs to also be communicated through your marketing efforts and how you present yourself. Again, this can be tricky to pull off when you are a small business that is trying to establish a professional and respected persona.

Some may even balk at the ides of weaving playfulness into their workplace. But the fact of the matter is that fun and laughter are natural remedies for stress. It also stimulates our right brain…the portion of the brain that fuels creativity and lets us see the bigger picture in things.

That includes work.

So what can your business do to incorporate a sense of fun into your branding? You can start small by introducing fun activities among your employees—perhaps some unique way to celebrate Fridays. Once you are comfortable with this, it can then be translated into your marketing and branding efforts.

As small business owners and participants in the world of advertising, we often need to be reminded of why we are here—why we do what we do. Some find motivation in the success of other similar companies. Some find it elsewhere…like in movies.

Here are five movies that are guaranteed to provide inspiration to the small business owner or the reluctant advertising newbie. A nice mix of laughs and tears, this list covers it all.

What Women Want

The title may be misleading at scream “chick flick” (and its heart, it is), but this is a great, if not slightly dramatized portrayal of cut-throat advertising. An ad campaign is the pivotal point between the lead characters s they develop a quirky relationship. There are even a few subtle references to really trying to determine the desires of your target audience (in this case…women).

Crazy People

What happens when a humble advertising employee begins to incorporate honesty into his pitches? His employers send him to a psychiatric ward where he can “recover.” Ironically, as he is away, the honest messages he worked on are accidentally shipped off to the printers; his ads become popular with the public and get massive results.

You’ve Got Mail

A faceless relationship conducted through e-mails is at the core of this film concerning small business vs. big business. Meg Ryan plays a small bookstore owner that is being faced with the prospect of closing down when a larger competitor, played by Tom Hanks, comes to town.

Hudscuker Proxy

The head of Hudsucker Industries kills himself, leaving his position vacant. Afterwards, the board of directors decides to hire someone totally incompetent to fill the position. The hope here is that the new leader will ruin the company, causing stocks to plummet. The board assumes that they can then buy the company for pennies on the dollar and then run the company themselves. It’s a plan that might just work—until a dedicated reporter suspects their plans.

Jerry Maguire

While the love story behind it can get a bit mooshy and overdrawn for some, this movie about a hot shot sports agent’s fall from grace is memorable, if for nothing else, for this segment of a mission statement he writes: “We are losing our battle with all that is personal and real about our business. Every day…driving home, I think of what was not accomplished, instead of what was accomplished.”

How about you? What are some great advertising or small business-related movie you draw motivation from?

Most people tend to use Reddit as either a news source for everything under the sun or a forum of sorts where they can interact with others on topics that interest them. Reddit is unique in that all of the content on the page is essentially controlled by the users, using a system of up-voting and down-voting.

Due to this set up, it can be very tricky to use Reddit as a platform for marketing your small business, but it can be done. To not use Reddit as a means of advertising would be a severe oversight; any platform with upwards of 45 million users and calls itself The Front Page of the Internet is a vital source of driving traffic to your site and drumming up new clients for your business.

But how do you achieve success on Reddit? It is admittedly tricky. If users get the idea that you are blatantly promoting yourself, you’ll get down-voted fast. So they key is to make sure that when you do post directly to your own site, the content is stellar and worth reading.

Reddit is very much about the credibility of a user. To make sure you remain reputable and an active part of the community, consider the following:

Check out Subreddits: In addition to the primary listed topics on the Reddit home page, there are also subreddits that you can check out. There is, quite literally, a subreddit for just about every topic you could ever think of. By narrowing down the topic like this, you stand a better chance of getting your material read after it is posted. Subreddits may not garner as many readers, but this way you know or certain that your message is getting to the eyes of your target audience.

Don’t Over-post: This should be a general rule of thumb for all social media outlets, but you should always refrain from posting too much. It will make people quickly grow tired of you and skip over your links and posts. On Reddit, this can also result in moderators banning you for periods of time.

Remain Honest: Don’t bombard users with information from multiple accounts just to get your message more traction. Reddit users are incredibly good and catching on to these sorts of things. More than that, if a moderator catches you, you’ll likely be suspended.

Like any social media tool, Reddit takes a while to master. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll find that it can be a great way to get your name in front of its millions of users.

We’ve already written a few posts on this blog about the value of a great copywriter. Not all of us are great writers and even if we are, our business might not allow us enough time to write material for our blogs or other outlets. So many times, a freelance writer is a necessity.

But how can you be sure you’re getting a writer that is worth their salt? There are so many out there competing for your work, how can you be certain you are truly working with a pro?

Here are three things you should always ask any writer that will be working for you. You can use their answers as a good gauge as to the type of work they are capable of.

Ask to see some sample work. This is easily the best way to get a good feel for the writer’s talent. Any good copywriter is going to expect to have to show samples; if you request samples from a writer that seems reluctant to provide any past work, this should be a red flag. By reading their previous work, you’ll get a better idea of what sort of writer you will be working with.

Ask how they can ensure their work is original. This is a question many people surprisingly don’t ask. However, if you’re going to be working with a writer for the long term, you’ll want one that understands the importance of using Copyscape or similar plagiarism-checking sites and programs.

If you need them to upload content to your blogs, make it clear upfront.  Not all copywriters are also adept at uploading content to multiple places on the internet. Always assume that the writer you are hiring is just that: a writer. It’s not safe to automatically assume that they have the know-how to add the content to your website or blog or that they know htlml basics. If you need these services as well, make it clear as soon as possible; many writers are fully capable of handling these details, too. They may request more money, which is normal.

Working closely with a writer is a huge part of getting fresh and unique content up onto your website. It’s important that you are comfortable with your copywriter and that all of the above criteria have been fully fleshed out.

Call it funny, call it creepy, call it confusing…whatever you call the Burger King’s “The King” mascot, one thing is for sure: somehow, it worked.

While the PR agency behind the creations has never come out and said so, there has always been speculation as to the intent of ads featuring The King. There was a stark sort of comedy to them, but a lot of people on the internet kept referring to the character as “creepy.”

What do you expect when a commercial shows a man waking up to find the over-sized head of The King next to him in bed, offering breakfast? With a tagline of “Wake Up with the King,” it’s certainly a memorable ad, but, according to sales figures of that same year when compared to arch rival McDonald’s, not very successful.

While the ads may have been a little odd and nonsensical, anyone involved in marketing knows that any sort of publicity it, at its heart, good publicity. Even when it seemed that there was an almost universal sense of the commercials not being liked by most viewers, the fact of the matter is that all of the discussion kept The King ads in the spotlight.

In response, the ads just got weirder. More than that, there were a few internet-based promotions with The King, further increasing Burger King’s exposure. And in terms of marketing, it’s really all about how many people you are getting your brand and/or product in front of.

Ultimately, The King really became nothing more than a staple in pop culture. While he was certainly memorable, the ads were almost polarizing and didn’t seem to have a huge impact on Burger King’s profitability.

Eventually, in 2011, Burger King did away with The King. The attention of the franchise has now started focusing on moms…something The King was never able to do (he was mostly designed to bring in the younger male market).

And still, while he is no longer around, The King simply has a face you can’t quite get out of your head.

It’s no secret that a good logo will stick in a consumer’s mind for a long time. In many cases, a good logo essentially becomes the company’s brand. The Nike “Swoosh” and the now iconic Apple logo come to mind.

But just how important is a logo? Very important, according to many. As of late, Olive Garden seems to strongly believe this.

New this week indicates that the Italian restaurant chain has plans to revamp their logo as well as the interior design of their establishments. The reasoning behind this re-branding is based on the need to appear more modern and relevant.

With a restaurant as popular as Olive Garden, one has to wonder why their logo would be an important factor. According to Dave George, Olive Garden President, it is mainly because the company as a whole feels that the style of a Tuscan farmhouse—the style the restaurants are currently designed in—isn’t “taking the brand far enough.”

With a more modern look, right down to the logo, any company can achieve a new sort of appreciation from the younger crowd. This can help create a whole new step in brand recognition as many other restaurants also continue to evolve according to cultural shifts and popular opinion.

So how do you, as a small business owner, need to begin thinking about whether or not a similar sort of re-design of your brand needs to be considered? It really all depends on your goals and direction. But generally, as is the case with Olive Garden, it comes with the need to remain fresh-looking as competitors begin to adapt to modern trends and styles.

However, when you are already equipped with an effective logo and brand concept as you start out, this is something you will hopefully never have to think about.

Just ask Nike…