Your business needs to pop. 

Getting noticed among countless competitors can seem like a daunting task. However, figuring out how to stand out should just be part of your business strategy. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling batteries or baking cupcakes. 

Here’s what you need to do. 

Update Your Website 

A slow, ugly website will kill your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re not planning to sell anything online. 

To glean ideas, scope out the competition’s websites. The goal isn’t to copy them but to learn from them. Are they using lots of bold, attention-grabbing colors? Is their site filled with gorgeous pictures?

Visitor management tools can help you determine if your plan is working. After reworking your website, you should see a corresponding spike in traffic. 

Be Funny 

Everyone, businesses and consumers alike, uses social media. There’s a good chance that your company already has a Facebook, Twitter, etc, account. 

But are you putting it to good use? People don’t like rote, run-of-the-mill responses. they want humor. Excitement.

So, if you want to stand out from the crowd, try crafting a witty social media personality. Stay away from offensive humor and don’t deviate from the brand message too much. 

Pick an Influencer

We live in the day of the influencer. Every day, regular people who have amassed a following on a social media platform. Finding the right person to promote your business is like finding a gold mine. 

There’s a misconception that influencer campaigns are expensive. The reality is that you can spend as much or as little as you want. Instead of throwing all of your money at whoever has the most followers, find someone who appeals to your customer base. 

Many people are willing to promote a company in exchange for goods. 

New Advertising 

Advertising is a constant expense. Your strategy should be flexible. Even if something is working, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be doing better. 

Choose a bold advertising plan if standing out is important to you. Humor works for a lot of brands. 

Certain brands can also get success by creating trends. Think tuxedo-wearing dogs running around a casino floor. The idea is to create a positive, alluring image that sticks wih people. 

New Inventory 

If your business relies primarily on selling a product, how’s your inventory? How long has the product been around? To keep people interested you might need to diversify your product line. 

If that’s not an option, think of ways that your product can appeal to new consumers. If you’re selling soccer balls, think of ways to market them to retirement homes. 

You’ll stand out by default if you discover a potential market that your competitors aren’t going after. 

Choose a Logo 

Your logo represents your brand’s spirit. If you choose something bland or unremarkable, it’ll be hard to tell your company apart from the competition. People will forget all about you. 

A dynamic logo can change everything. Contact us for fresh ideas when you’re ready to get started. 

With every PowerPoint presentation, you put your brand on the line.

What? PowerPoint? Really?

It’s true. It’s easy to forget that PowerPoint presentations are also a form of marketing. Not only do you want to educate your audience, you want to increase brand awareness with every slide.

That’s why it’s important to show your logo in the most effective way possible.

But how do you do this without being too pushy?

Read on to find out more.

Is Your Logo the Right Fit for Your Brand?

If your logo doesn’t translate well across your marketing materials, that’s a sign that you may need to go back to the drawing board – literally.

One of the basic principles of successful logo design is adaptability. Ask yourself: How well does your logo adapt to brochures, social media, TV commercials, and informational marketing materials like PowerPoint presentations?

A strong logo should maintain its integrity when it’s shrunk down for business cards or blown up for billboards.

The same applies to your PowerPoint presentations. If your logo still distracts despite being minimized, transparent, or animated, you may want to rethink your logo design altogether.

Focus groups and A/B testing can reveal whether or not your logo successfully adapts across all marketing material.

How to Brand Your PowerPoint Presentations

After fine tuning your logo, your next step is to ‘brand’ your presentations.

But what does ‘branding’ a presentation even mean?

For starters, it doesn’t mean plastering your logo all over your slides. It means working in tandem with other elements to successfully reflect a brand’s message. You can’t successfully integrate a logo without the right accompanying font, color scheme, tagline, slide border design, and media.

You’ll want to find a way to integrate these branding elements without coming across as pushy.

How to Master the Art of Subtlety

Informational marketing, in particular, must put authoritative information front and center. This includes your data, statistics, charts, results, case studies, and company forecasts.

One way to subtly integrate your logo is to tweak its opaqueness to create a more transparent look. This is ideal for introductory slides, conclusions, and slides with testimonials, mission statements, and company history.

Ideally, only your introductory and conclusion slide should prominently feature your logo.

Show Your Logo ‘In Action’

If you’re including professional photos in your slides, make sure your logo is visible on employee uniforms, equipment, company vehicles, packaging, and work environments. This is a great way to show your logo ‘in action.’

Ask yourself how you want people to feel about your brand and put that feeling to work in your presentation.

If you’re an organic garden company promoting your new plant food, you may want to include a picture of a customer using your name-brand plant food.

Likewise, if you run a factory, make sure your company logo is visible on your workers’ attire.

Integrate Digital Media

You’ve heard time and time again that content is king, but don’t forget that video is the king of content. Still, more than 70% of consumers prefer video and almost 60% of executives prefer watching video.

As content preferences continue to evolve, it’s vital to read more on how to improve your PowerPoint presentations. That’s why more companies are integrating digital media into their slides.

But how do you include digital media without pushing your brand too hard? Branded company videos.

Make sure all your company videos begin and end with your logo. Preferably, animate your logo to grab your audience from the start. You may want to consider an original instrumental to accompany your animated logo as well.

Integrate Social Media

Another way to subtly show your logo is to embed social media content into your slides.

Content can include:

• Twitter polls
• Popular Tweets
• YouTube videos
• Facebook posts
• Instagram photos
• Hashtag campaigns
• Snapchat snaps

Embedding your branded social media content is a clever way to integrate your logo without going overboard.

Let this also be a reminder to brand your social media accounts ASAP! Embedding branded social media content allows online audiences to share your slides with colleagues. This is a subtle way to increase brand awareness without being pushy.

De-Clutter your presentation

It’s easy to go a little overboard with your graphics, pictures, media, graphs, and yes, your logo.

After completing your slides, make sure there isn’t too much media plastered on each slide. If your slide already has a branded video, you don’t need to add more photos or graphics.

Avoid overlapping your logo with graphics and using background wallpaper with your repeating logo. You want your presentation to look as clean and professional as possible.

Don’t worry about whether or not your audience remembers your logo. If your mission, content, and brand design are consistent and strong, your audience will have no problem making a positive connection with your logo.

Day of the Presentation

It’s finally presentation day!

Your presentation is complete. Here are a few tricks to help your audience remember your logo.

As mentioned earlier in this article, your introductory slide should prominently feature your logo. Make sure your presentation is fired up and ready to go several minutes before the presentation starts. This will give attendees funneling in an opportunity to see your logo before the presentation starts.

The same applies to your conclusion slide.

After your presentation is over, don’t immediately shut off your presentation. Let the conclusion slide stay up on the screen until you’re finished mingling with attendees.

Remember, your company’s logo is the first and last thing your presentation attendees should see.

Your Next Step

Your next step is to put these new principles into practice.

Remember the following:

• Choose a logo that speaks to your brand
• Choose subtlety over flash
• Show your logo in action
• Use digital and social media
• De-clutter your slides
• Highlight your intro and conclusion slides

Most importantly, never stop improving your presentations. Remember to bookmark this article for future reference and check back often for more tips and tricks on mastering your logo.

It only takes 10 seconds for someone to build their first impression from a logo.

They are incredibly important for building a brand. Color is a huge part of this as they create emotional responses, and this can extend to your logo. With that in mind, what exactly do you need to think about when working on your own color scheme?

Read on for 4 things to remember when choosing your logo color schemes.

1. Color Psychology

Each color has a meaning. This meaning is subject to conditioning and an associative connection the observer has with it.

When using a color for business branding, the color will set a tone and meaning. You want to bear this in mind when choosing colors. Here are a few examples:

• Red – passion, energy or aggression. There have been suggestions that it can stimulate appetite. Many restaurants and fast food places use red in their logos. One recognizable red logo is that of Coca Cola.
• Blue – professionalism, serious-mindedness, stability and integrity. Blue also gives off the message of success and authority. Blue is popular in practical industries, such as the logo of Best Sheds.
• Orange – modern thinking and innovation. It also portrays youthfulness, fun and affordability.

2. Color Theory

Another thing to bear in mind is color theory. When choosing colors and schemes, the color wheel gives an opportunity to create something eye-catching.

You can create brighter, lighter, softer and darker colors by mixing white, black and grey with original colors. This will help keep a color scheme cohesive. On the wheel, there are two types of colors to remember:

• Analogous colors are the three colors that sit either side of each other on a 12 part color wheel. For example yellow-green, yellow, and yellow-orange.
• Contemporary colors are two colors which are directly opposite each other. For example, green-red, yellow-green and red-purple. Opposing colors create high levels of contrast and stability.

3. Multiple Colors

It is often better to stick to a single color when creating a logo design. But, if you use multiple colors the right way, these can carry strong messages about your business and brand. Think Google, or eBay. What these multi-colored logos imply is the wide choice of products and services these companies offer.

Think about your company, your products and services, and the message you want to put out. This will help you decide if one or more colors will achieve your unique message the best.

4. Cultural Differences

If your an international company, it’s important to choose your color with care. There are cultural differences in the way colors are interpreted in some countries. For example:

• Yellow is a cheery, positive color in the west, whereas it is associated with death and mourning in Latin America.
• Black is seen as representing mourning and death in the west. In China, it shows masculinity and is a traditional boys color.

It is important to research a color’s international use. This way you can relate to all your customers around the globe.

The Importance of Logo Color Schemes

As you can see, there are a few things to think about when you choosing logo color schemes. You need to pick a color that evokes the emotions you are after, looks appealing and doesn’t have any unfortunate connotations.

Now you know how to use color, check out these 9 tips to take your logo design to the next level.

Imagine the dismay when business team dynamics break down during pivotal crunch-time. Now add time zone and geographical differences further exacerbating problems with meeting deadlines. This is the headache of remote employees.

More than 3.9 million American workers are working half their time remotely. This has been a long time coming since the proliferation of the Internet. Yet, we seem to have lost camaraderie where we gained flexibility.

Coordinating projects with one or two remote workers isn’t difficult. It’s when you expand to a team of several or more where things start falling apart.

This article shares nine tips to get your remote workers feeling connected–and an actual part of the team.

Bridging the Gap: Creating Team Cohesion with Remote Workers and Freelancers

Project management tools keep tasks aligned and workers communicating. Video conferencing creates bonding moments. Social media groups give a voice to remote employees…

…but these tools need your input to make them welcoming and engaging.

Here’s how it’s done.

1. Make a Group on Social

Bridge the gap with your remote employees by creating a Facebook group. The group serves as a hub for social activity. But, is handy for quick Q&A sessions if these individuals have hang-ups.

The group could find its way on other platforms, too, like:

• Twitter — Using @handles
• Private Forums — Installed on a project site
• LinkedIn — Through its group features

The social platform sets a relaxed tone versus collab tools. This will spur casual discussions, helping others get to know another better. Plus, it’s a fantastic tool for onboarding new hires as participants can chime in and welcome them!

2. Use Collaboration Tools

Add Slack to your growing list of free business tools. This is the go-to platform for collaboration with its desktop and app environments. You can use the platform for dedicated chat groups for remote workers.

Don’t want Slack? Consider Discord instead, as it provides similar features. Or, use old-fashioned IRC chat for easy discussions and file sharing.

Housing discussion in one platform removes the back-and-forth from email. The collab tools use plug-ins, removing the need to log in to several platforms to complete tasks. Try dividing the platforms into separate projects to keep everything aligned on on-track.

3. Have Regular Calls

Projects, like refreshing your brand or launching a project, rely on communication. Team members need a platform to discuss projects and tasks. Voice over IP systems and services is how your team gets it done.

VoIP is available through PBX hardware and mobile apps. Giving employees access to these features removes trouble phoning in with their devices.

A VoIP investment handles regular conference calls without hang-ups. The service finds its way in customer support roles, too. Plus, this gives them an easy platform to call and chat about projects if they wish to beyond normal hours.

4. Give Everyone a “Play” Budget

You hired remote employees for their skills and flexibility. Individuals come from many backgrounds, with lots of unique skills you could tap. Encourage remote employees to discover and pitch new ideas by giving them a budget.

Turn remote workers into project managers (on a small-scale) — budget for:

• Project tools
• Learning materials
• Food and drink

Your business saves a great deal of money by employing remote workers. Use the savings for “play” budgets they can use to improve themselves. This reinvestment could prove beneficial to projects.

The budget spurs teamwork as they overcome novelty and learning curve. They’ll bond as they discover and discuss tool or service’s implementation!

5. Host a Meetup

Save the date and make it a point to do an annual meetup of remote employees.

There are a few ways to do these meetups:

• Fly them in for the weekend, doing an office tour and dinner
• Book them for the business conference and paying for travel
• Livecast meetups for those who cannot attend

Setting a face to fellow remote coworkers builds relationships. Remote workers head home feeling they’re part of a group — now knowing others better. This could start non-work communication, furthering friendships and helpfulness.

6. Align Goals Beyond the Work

We’re at the cusp of the gig economy, where individuals hop project to project on a weekly basis. Retaining long-term remote workers pose a challenge as businesses entertain the opportunity. One way to keep them onboard is through shared goals and prosperity in the workforce.

Prosperity could include:

• Income sharing or stock options
• 1099 to full-time, salaried positions
• Influence on future projects

The goals should incorporate the remote team so they feel part of the greater group — not outcasts. Look for gaps and fill them with remote employees if you want to create a greater sense of cohesion.

7. Create Fun Side Projects

Fun side projects can replace the “play” budget mentioned above. This lets remote employees band together on something they find interesting. The work could create a new revenue stream for the business, too!

These projects let employees try new ideas without repercussions. Think of it as a way to let employees unwind after spending most of their day on heavy tasks.

8. Award Achievement with Incentives

Lead remote workers with awesome incentives like:

• Pay boosts if they reach performance goals
• Extra vacation time and better flex hours
• Their choice on what project they’d like to join

The incentive creates a twinge of playful competition. Many thrive on the competition but use it to form bonds, too. Others may feel more compelled to put in extra effort to get things done.

9. Stick to a Cut-off Time

Remote work compels many individuals to continue projects well-beyond their allotted times. This bleeds into personal time, straining relationships and nurturing burnout. Workers in this situation perform sub-standard.

Respect your remote workers set schedule and time:

• Have on/off days
• Don’t request tasks during off-hours
• Know they may have other clients

Their “always on” connection is wonderful but everyone needs downtime. Don’t expect an instant response when you know they’re away. Some of your remote team may have other business or personal projects they need to do, too!

Feeling Connected in the Workspace of the Future

Industry embrace of remote employees continues year-over-year. Remote connections provide the workplace of the future. Though, even with its comforts, we’ll see growing pains with feeling connected.

Today’s owners and project managers should adopt and support this sweeping change. Use this post’s info as you tap remote work whether it’s logo creation to marketing and promotions. Bridge the gap!