Make your brand sticky with a custom cartoon character

Have you ever wondered how to make your brand sticky?

Whether you want to market your business or your personal brand, it is important to give your audience easy ways to remember your brand. You might want to use a clever name, a strong slogan or even a singing jingle for radio adverts.

 

 

But I would like to suggest something different: cartoon characters, or mascots as some people call them.

Mascots are brilliant in many ways.For a start they are usually colorful and attractive, so they improve the design of your marketing material, whether you use them on your website, brochure, or business card. Then they add a personal touch that helps people connect with your brand. They also add a touch of humor, and I like to think that it's OK to use humor in your business life, as long as it remains professional and non-degrading. Finally, when designed carefully, mascots also help people understand what your brand is about.

Take the example of the Handy Marketer mascot. To me, this site is about providing practical tips about marketing and design, things that I learned on the field, by myself most times. I originally wanted to call it the DIY Marketer, but the URL was taken, so I stayed with The Handy Marketer instead. When I was thinking about my logo, I instantly thought about this little DIY girl. The character is a curly girl wearing drawing tools on her belt, because I really wanted to emphasize the DIY aspect. I guess I could have used a business shirt or something more professional to relate to Marketing, but I wanted to keep it relatively low key.

So how do you design your own mascot?

Let me share some tips with you:

How to use the iPad to showcase your work portfolio

One of the most powerful sales tool for any business is a good portfolio of work. Regardless of your industry and the nature of the products or services that you offer, case studies and showcases are a very good way to show your prospects what you are capable of doing, and who you already did it for. It makes your business seem more real and it can make you look very professional if done well. For example, most photographers use their portfolio to display the best photos they took for their clients. It's natural and crucial for them to have a portfolio given the visual nature of the job. But many other types of business can benefit from a portfolio: a house renovator could show before/after transformations, a chef could show menus he created, etc..

A portfolio of work can also be used at a more personal level, to showcase your own abilities. For example, I created a portfolio of my professional achievements and used it at numerous occasions when trying to land a new job. Initially I created a pdf portfolio and would send it by email or post it online, but later on I discovered the powerful magic of the iPad. I would take the iPad to a job interview and towards the end of the meeting would ask the recruiter if they would be interested in seeing my portfolio, to illustrate all the things we discussed during the interview. Needless to say, I had great results with this. For a start there is the effect of surprise, employers don't always expect to be presented with a portfolio (at least for a marketing job - it might be different if you apply for a graphic artist position), but mainly it's the iPad that adds the interest. It gives you this geeky edge, you become original and the best part is that your portfolio actually looks amazing on the ipad, way more attractive than printed and placed in a ring binder.

 

So let's look at how you can create your own portfolio, and how to transfer it to the iPad.

Stop reading your emails and become more productive

I know I'm going to touch a popular and well debated subject, but today I want to talk about managing emails and improving productivity. In the last few months I often stumbled on blog posts about productivity, telling me to stop reading my emails if I wanted to get things done. In theory it seems sensible, but in real life, we all have team projects going on, deadlines to deal with, fires to attend to and so it seems unreasonable to shut down Outlook and expect to make progress without creating more backlog. Plus let's admit it, we're addicted to them, emails make us feel connected.



Photo from Nicolas_T

Well, that's what I thought, until I actually tried it for myself. A few months ago, I decided to give it a go and see how it would help me. So now I have removed all outlook notifications -sound and bouncing icon- and I have also set my iphone so that it doesn't bing when I get a new email. I keep outlook open so that I still get meeting reminders but I actually don't look at it until I have finished any task I am working on.

In parallel, I use time blocks to make sure I work on one project at a time, and dedicate enough time to it. I usually plan my blocks at the beginning of the week or first thing in the morning, so that even if I need to attend some meetings, I know I still have some time set aside to work on these important tasks I need to do. Time blocks can vary in length, from 15 minutes to an hour or more, but the beauty of them is that because you know it's only going to be a finite amount of time constrained on one particular task, you are less likely to divert into doing something else. You can also reward yourself with checking your emails or doing other mundane tasks once time is up.

So does it work for me? Absolutely. I read some advice from Zen Habits on how to organise my emails and process them in batch so that my inbox stays empty, and so far it's working well. As a result, I don't feel stressed that I have to process a whole lot of emails, I don't get interrupted and so I stay focused longer and I don't feel like a slave to my emails.

Occasionally, when someone asked me why I hadn't replied to their email, I had to tell them that I was not checking my emails all the time anymore, but I never encountered resistance or criticism. In fact people are generally surprised, supportive and curious to see if it works, even if they say "it's not for me, I have too much going on, I can't afford to miss my emails".

What about you, how often do you check your emails? Have you ever tried to close Outlook for a while? I'd be interested to know.

The importance of creative briefs

How many times did you work on a marketing project with an agency only to be frustrated with the lack of alignment between what you wanted and what they delivered? That's not too uncommon, and the main reason why this happens so often is that we are so eager to start on a new project that we rush the most important step: planning and briefing.

You might have a very clear idea in your head of what you want, but that doesn't mean that the agency is going to understand it, unless you take the time to clearly detail your brief before starting any work. Whether you have worked with this agency in the past or not, don't skip this very important step. Of course you will most probably meet in person and discuss the project, but nothing beats a well detailed brief on paper: just eliminate any second guessing.

A good agency should have their own brief template so feel free to ask them for a copy. They will be more than happy to help you since it will make their job much easier down the road.

So what goes in a design brief?

The details of the brief depend on the type of project you are working on, but the essentials remain the same.

Background introduction:

Your company, your industry and the need for this project.

Provide as much information about your company: what product or service you offer, who your competition is, what your positioning is, etc.