When you think of the word ‘brand’ what comes to mind? Do you imagine big brands’ such as McDonalds, Coca Cola or large supermarkets such as Tesco and Asda?

They’re all great examples of successful businesses that have managed to build recognisable and highly successful brands.

But every business, large and small, needs to focus on building their brand. It’s no small task, brands don’t become successful overnight and it takes hard work, determination and patience to build a strong and successful brand for your business.

What Makes a Brand Successful?
Aside from the above, there are steps every business must take to build a successful brand:

Market Research
Your brand will only succeed if you find out who your target audience is - you need to build trust and a lasting relationship with your customers so it’s imperative you learn who they are and what they want.

What is your Mission?
What are you trying to achieve? Why did you start your business? In order to create a successful brand you need to pin down what you're trying to achieve- all your branding including logo design will then reflect this ethos to reinforce your message to your audience.

What is your USP?
You need to stand out from your competitors so make sure you shout about what makes you different. What are your company values? Ethics? Do you offer locally sourced goods for example? Champion what makes your business unique.

Great Visual Assets
​Once you’ve established the above you can get creative and build your brand assets - your logo, colour palette, fonts etc.

Why Hire a Designer?
A professional designer has a swathe of skills and knowledge to help you build your brand. They know how to help you craft your story and can help you find your audience. Not only that, they can take your story and USP and together create the perfect logo and other visual assets to determine your unique brand style.

You might think you know exactly how you want your logo to look but a designer can help you push the boundaries and create something truly spectacular. Their knowledge of colour and how it will work on the web and in print will be invaluable- get ready for hexadecimal triplets and Pantone chats over a cup of coffee!

Even after you’ve established your brand image, you need to reinforce that image at every customer touch point. Website, social media, email marketing, in print and your physical premises - all need to give out the same message using the same brand imagery. Your designer will ensure your logo is the correct format for every requirement - print ready and web optimised.

Ultimately, a great designer will save you time and money in the long run. They can be on hand at every step in building your brand and can help ensure you stay true to your brand values, message and story.

Are you struggling to establish your brand? We can help bring your brand to life, contact us for more information: Contact Creative Remedy

If you want your business to thrive and grow you need to invest time and money into great marketing and an integral part of your marketing is content creation.
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Generating ideas and producing quality content can be time consuming and it can be difficult to know what and when to post. Social media presence is vital for your business to thrive but your posts need to be engaging and relevant if you want to see results.

What is Content Creation?
When we talk about content creation we are specifically discussing written or visual content (images or video) based on topics that would appeal to your target audience. This content could be in the form of a blog, email marketing, social media posts, websites and landing pages.

All content needs to be relevant and interesting - your aim is to build engagement and provide information to your followers/audience.

Social Media
Creating content for social media requires a bit of thought - each platform has its own rules, e.g. Twitter has a character limit if you have the free account and to get the most out of Instagram you need to make sure your images are at the correct size/aspect ratio.
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Websites & Landing Pages
Landing pages are a great tool to have in your digital marketing strategy - the main purpose of a landing page is to convert visitors into leads or leads into customers.

Unlike a standard website page, a landing page is a stand alone page without all the distractions of links and navigation, its sole aim is to collect contact information from your visitor in exchange for something such as an offer, ebook etc.

Content for landing pages needs to be compact, concise and have the all important call to action!

Email Marketing
Newsletters and email marketing are a great way to engage with your customers, let them know about what’s happening in your business and share personalised offers.

Why you Need a Content Creator?
If you struggle to come up with amazing content for your social media channels, blogs or email newsletters then take heart- you are not alone. Running a business is hard enough without trying to keep up with digital marketing and the need to keep feeding the beast known as the algorithm.

• Content creators are able to think objectively about your business- something it’s difficult to do if you’ve nurtured your business from scratch. They will be able to see the weak points in your marketing plan and come up with creative solutions.
• They will do the research for you - finding out what your audience is interested in to ensure the content you post is relevant to your followers.
• A dedicated social media manager can free up your precious time by handling your social media for you- from writing great content to scheduling it for the perfect time to gain maximum engagement.
• They can come up with creative ideas for amazing content.
• They can handle the technical side of adding content to your website, across different social media platforms and producing email newsletters.
• They will be able to ensure a consistent tone and voice is used in all your content- strengthening your brand and building trust with your customers.

Do you struggle to come up with exciting, interesting and relevant content?
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Contact us to find out how we can help.

The Local View was established by Cheryl Jakes and her team; Emma, Sarah and Beth in the rise of lockdown. Acknowledging that businesses needed to adapt quickly, The Local View provided a springboard for local businesses to reach their target audience quickly.

The Creative Remedy team; Sara, Louise, Jenny, James, Milli and Ben will be bringing their combined skills and knowledge in design, marketing and social media management to The Local View to help evolve the digital marketing services and online presence for local businesses.

​About The Local View
If you are new to The Local View and Peterborough Business Directory we are an online directory for Cambridgeshire featuring your business profile and local content inspired by you.

• Online Business Profile
• Spotlight Articles
• Advertising Banners
• Business Networking Group (Coming in the New Year)

Why Join Peterborough Business Directory?
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1. Make your business easier to find - All business profiles are Search Engine Optimised and contain rich media content like videos.
2. Good return on investment - More affordable than running your own Google Ads campaigns.
3. Helps build your brand, assisting with credibility and trust - Grow your sales.

Search for local businesses and suppliers, lifestyle and local interest articles. Promote your business through banner advertising, engaging videos and spotlight articles. We share your content on all our social media platforms too. Bringing the Peterborough, Cambridge and Cambridgeshire business community together, supporting the shop-local ethos. Be seen, grow your sales and build your brand.

Leaflet Design and Distribution 
The Local View offers a print, design and leaflet distribution service- we can design and print leaflets, booklets, banners, logos, business cards, compliment slips, menus or something that is a little bit different. Eye catching designs to help your business thrive!

Banner Ads
Header and footer banner advertising are ideal for promoting your new product, service, course or event.

Spotlight Articles
Reach your customers with interesting and relevant news articles that give your readers all the information they need but without the hard sell. A spotlight article includes Search Engine Optimisations, chosen key phrases, an advert and video to promote your product, service, course or event.

What Next?
Creative Remedy is going strong. The Local View is intended to be complimentary, offering digital online services, advertising along with design, print and distribution. All the stuff we are really good at!

Sara says… “We’re all really excited to be involved in this tech start-up, we are focussed on growing our relationships with community lead enterprises in Peterborough and Cambridge. We are investing in our thriving local community to bring you new opportunities and improve your online presence. We can’t wait to see your businesses grow!”

With financial worries plaguing us all it’s likely you’re looking at ways to help your business survive. One area you should be focussing on is your marketing strategy, so this month we are taking a look at digital marketing and how building the right strategy now will help your business through the next year.

Prioritise your Customer
It’s understandable that cutting spending is the first thing we look to do when faced with financial uncertainty but marketing is vital for your business in order to stay visible to your customers. Instead of thinking of marketing as a cost to your business you should view it as an investment that will boost engagement and help you build a strong relationship with your customers.

• Focus your marketing on what your core customer will prioritise. Everyone is going to be limiting spending on unnecessary items so businesses need to make a concerted effort to promote services and products that are important to their customer base. 
• Look at your numbers, analyse them and get a thorough understanding of what your customer needs from your business. Once you have the data you can target your marketing.

Stay True to Your Brand
Customers will only spend on the brands they can trust or where they feel they get the most value from. Now is the time to be open and honest about your business and what you have to offer.

• Make sure your products or services are necessary to your customer - do your research now and adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Ethics are important to most customers so make sure your brand reflects this.
• Make sure your brand is conveying your key message.
• Shout about what you are proud of - sustainability within your business, ethical products/manufacturing, locally made products etc
• Update your customers of any changes, ie opening times, stock, prices etc.

Review Your Digital Marketing Strategy
As customers change the way they shop your business needs to adjust. Look for ways to engage with your customers - now more than ever you need to focus your marketing on staying connected to your customer base.
 
Don’t make the mistake of cutting back on your marketing - now more than ever your customer is looking for certainty in uncertain times. Stay active on social media to make sure you're strengthening your relationships with your customers - post regularly with relevant and helpful content to engage with your audience. Blogs, newsletters and email marketing are other great ways to communicate what is happening within your business while building strong and long lasting relationships.
 
Are you struggling with your digital marketing? We can help you stay focused, hone your key marketing messages, take the pressure off by doing it for you or simply get better through  training and support.

Everyone has heard of Google and you’re probably not surprised to learn that it’s the world’s most visited website! It currently holds more than 92% of the search engine share- it’s seemingly unstoppable!

So if you’re making sure your SEO is getting your business seen in searches it makes sense to go one step further and take advantage of Google Business Profile.
 
What is Google Business Profile?
Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) is a free business listing provided by Google. The listing lets you include all your important business contact details and photos and is a brilliant way to boost your business discoverability. It’s only available to businesses that have customer contact, so you’ll have to stick to other tools and analytics if your business is online-only.
 
It’s really beneficial to your business to create a Google Business Profile as once you’re up and running your listing can appear in any of the Google Services from Google Search, Google Maps and Google Shopping.
 
How Can Google Reviews Impact Your Website?
Customer reviews are great for your business- they give you valuable insights into your customer and their journey, build trust and credibility and give you great content to use in your social media marketing to boot! Obviously the difference with Google reviews as opposed to say reviews on your business Facebook page is that they’re there for everyone to see- this might seem scary especially as you can’t pick and choose which reviews to share but the combination of star rating and written detail really help your potential customers make an informed choice.
 
Negative Review? Don’t panic!
Criticism or negative reviews can be hard to handle but don’t let that put you off creating your Google Business Profile. It’s important to respond to your reviews, positive or negative, as this has been found to affect how your business comes across to customers. A survey carried out by Google and Ipsos Connect found that businesses that respond to reviews are viewed as being more trustworthy than those that don’t so it’s well worth taking the time to reply.
 
Be sure to respond in a timely manner and remain true to your brand voice and image. If a review is negative you should respond honestly and always offer an apology where it is necessary. Criticism is a great learning tool so use it to help improve the weak points in your business.
 
If you get a review that is inappropriate then you can get it removed by reporting it to Google.
 
Top tips for optimising your Google Business Profile

• Keep your business details up to date i.e contact details, business hours etc
• Verify your business
• Complete all elements of your profile and add real photos of your business location etc
• If you sell products be sure to add them to your listing
  
• Make use of the free Google marketing tools
  
• Include relevant keywords in your profile
• Ask your customers to share their questions and reviews
  

 
 
Need help with your Google My Business listing? Want help improving your existing profile?  Book a Health Check for first aid assistance.