Increasing sales as quickly as possible is pretty much the holy grail of all high-growth companies, of all Business Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs, for all those individuals in a hurry to make it happen.

More sales staff, new campaigns, marketing materials, etc.

All potential answers.

Sometimes the main answer’s closer to home.

Serving (and eventually) selling to existing customers can be massively easier and faster than building trust with new people – stats say up to 6 times faster. A number that gets bigger with high-value services.

Direct mail, letters, targeted social media, even organised high-quality telesales campaigns are all great ideas.

However, we just love the value-add of newsletter systems.

Carefully crafted emails sent to help existing clients.

Several years ago we collaborated with a Glasgow-based software company to help increase license renewals (and sales) of their financial software tools. We had found that their users were only using a fraction of their software programmes. We worked closely with them and their team to send a simple newsletter each week. Every time, introducing one new feature of their software to existing users.

No hard-sales, just good service and tremendously well received too. What’s more, the exercise itself helped improve customer-service.

A marketing success story repeated several times over during our many years working with the company and as a result, massively increasing license renewals and sales.

By giving first, we gain permission to try to sell.

(Not exclusively but) Existing Clients First, Part-1 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Have a great weekend folks!!

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

We’re all such lazy people at times. Always were, the internet has just made it worst. Which companies do the best online? Those that make life easiest for their customers, for their audience. Silicone valley calls it ‘Frictionless Experience,’ spiritual people talk about ‘The Law of Non-Resistance,’ (which we quite like…)

However, we like to think of it as..

‘Making Life Easier For People’

A novel idea and Part-9 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

We’ve lost count of the number of website updates, creative campaigns and general design projects that have been transformed with the simplest of small changes.

Websites in particular…

Radically more qualified leads generated with easy-to-find contact details on the home page, a few less fields on enquiry forms, with the copy written in plain (non-technical language) and service breakdowns in the footer, etc, etc.

Of course, the more savvy amongst you already do this and more – chat functions on websites, direct contact info for staff members, easy-to-understand service/product names, infographics for key messages. The true pros add another dimension – turning their board-rooms, their offices, even their factories into places that people just enjoy being in.

Several years ago, we were thrilled to collaborate with the master of ‘Frictionless Customer Experiences’ Alan Meldrum, a man who takes all of what’s said above to the nth level…

‘Making Life Easier For People.’

A Brand-Marketing game-changer.

If you’d like to find out more, drop me a line.

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

Short Sharp Messages!!

In world of clutter and noise, it is harder than ever before to cut through. Social media channels are brimming with content – videos, pictures, stories, information. Many people’s inboxes have 100+ unread messages and even our phones and mailboxes are bombarded with stuff.

In such a chaotic environment, cutting through has probably never been more difficult, it’s enough to give Brand/Marketing folks a nightmare. And it shows no signs of slowing down – more social channels are coming, Web 3.0, even the old classics are making a comeback – Radio, TV, etc. Our world is only going to get noisier.

The answer, we believe IS to do battle on as many fronts as possible for your brand. However, where we can set ourselves apart is by making sure every single communication’s message is crystal clear, to the point and exceptionally well-presented. One message per communication, two to three max and if you’re trying to say lots of things – they better be highly prioritised.

Short Sharp Messages across multiple channels give you the best possible chance to win hearts and minds. Bonus points for a bit of extra creativity too.

Our infographic work over recent years has been designed to (as clearly as possible) present lots of strong messages to our client’s audience over as long a period of possible. The Inspiring Scotland example below is a fantastic example. One main infographic with a simple but brilliant message about a successful programme turned into lots and lots of small impactful messages over the period of a couple of weeks.

Short Sharp Messages!!

Part-8 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing

#MarketingStrategy #BrandMarketing #Entrepreneurship #Infographics

If you’d like to find out more, drop me a line.

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

Branding, the Ultimate Team Sport!!

Who knew??

We’re always talking (probably a tiny-bit too much) about all of those lovely business benefits to branding, to marketing to what we do every day. More sales, better loyalty, higher margins, stronger positioning, business outcome X, business outcome Y and on and on it goes.

But one thing we’ve stumbled on over many, many years is that branding is a wonderful activity for building good will within your own team or teams, regardless if we are talking about finance, sales, product, etc.

One of the best things a company can do to bring together its people, give everybody a chance to contribute, share some ideas, have some laughs and genuinely involve everybody in making the company a better place, is to involve them in a creative project, preferably some kind of branding one. Branding really can be The Ultimate Team Sport.

Throughout the years, we’ve been a part of re-brands, value exercises, website re-designs, brand identity presentations, we’ve pitched to management teams, sales teams, production teams, investors, sometimes all at once. We’ve taken presentations out the board room and fielded what sometimes seem like the most random (but ultimately the most sensible) questions and despite the momentary discomfort – it’s always led us to better solutions.

When the guy in the production line’s words are used as part of the company’s values or the developers words are used as part of a marketing campaign or the CFO themselves has an idea for a logo image, everybody’s a winner.

Great brands always have lots of ideas behind them and lots of enthusiastic people contributing to those ideas – not just the seemingly creative folks…

How to make this happen? Simple – just make sure a couple of extra team conversations are factored into any proposal and maybe give your creative team a warning in advance that they’ll be presenting to everybody in the company and to be prepared.

If you’d like to know a bit more, drop me a line…

Branding, the Ultimate Team Sport!!

Part-7 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing.

If you’d like to know more, drop me a line.

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

Win | Win

Having fun is just brilliant for your brand…

Clearly stating the obvious here but companies with vibrant cultures and happy people are a brilliant advert for your brand. It gives an impression of confidence and success and the good vibes are just magnetic in attracting people to your cause. Pictures of people enjoying themselves at work will always make a company website or social media post light up. Whether it’s sharing images of team-building events, fun days out or just people carrying out their tasks with a little joy.

At the loft, several years ago, we created a ‘Honey I shrunk the Design Team’ visual where we miniaturised our creative team and placed them into a stereotypical studio scene, a fun take on the 90’s movie.

A brilliantly successful visual too, it was used widely – as an intro to the home-page of our website, as covers on our social media channels, we used it in sales proposals and creatives pitches, etc. The image was both tremendously effective in attracting new people to our brand (clients and staff) but also incredibly good fun to do as well.

Part-6 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach To Brand-Marketing.

‘Having fun is brilliant for your brand…’

If you’d like to find out more, drop me a line.

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

We’ve just put up a new blog-post on our sister-site about all of the wonderful benefits of hero-content.

Click here to see more >>>

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

Serve The Business First!!

‘Part-4 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.’

Increasing sales, improved margins, greater customer loyalty, better staff relations, improved investor communications, a focus on a new sector or even a customer/location/product, etc…

There are many different reasons for doing a creative project, many different masters to serve…

However, at the loft, we believe the first and most important client for any creative project is the business itself.

A clear, unashamedly commercial focus is the best thing that can happen to a creative project. Whether it’s building a new website, setting up an email system or just putting an ad on a bus. A focus on the commercial means everybody is clear on the objective, resources can be concentrated and contrary to what many expect – better for the creative too. A tighter spec allows for better ideas which can be brought to life faster – less process, less drift.

Taking that little bit more time in working out what the client wants, what they really want is definitely worthwhile. With greater understanding comes greater clarity and better creativity.

The website we built with the Percepta team several years ago demonstrates this to best effect. There were several clear priorities in the brief produced but key amongst these was the desire to showcase the more valuable composite services they provide to automotive clients to new and existing clients.

This clarity enabled special landing pages with beautifully-designed iconography, what’s more a beautifully presented case-study library showcasing many examples of their exceptional previous work with clients.

A truly outstanding result for everybody involved and a great platform for the creative team to work their magic. By serving the business first, we were much more able to build a website of true and lasting value to our client.

Part-4 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

If you’d like to get in touch, drop me a line.

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

‘So simple and easy to understand that even your granny would get it!’

A little bit of Scottish chat and also Part-3 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Persuading MDs, CEOs and Founders is one thing – a lot of the time with brand-marketing projects – we have to win over lots of other people – finance professionals, procurement people, technical staff, customers that have never heard about you and some who may not even know the first thing about your product or service.

Each and every one presenting a fresh challenge to the tech start-ups, the engineering companies and just about every other company out there with a technical product or offering.

At the loft, we believe in pictures – visuals that wins hearts and minds, that speak a thousand words and persuade new customers to understand or existing customers to fall in-love with our clients work that little bit quicker. Pictures or simple visual ideas that ‘are so simple even your granny would get it.’

Our creative work with Edinburgh-based Petroleum Experts who produce software for the Oil & Gas sector was one such brilliant example – an exceptional technical, globally-recognised product and offering that required buy-in from all those lovely people we’ve just mentioned – CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, (I think you get where this is going…)

A beautifully simple concept of using the idea of a lens of a telescope to showcase the 5 layers of the software and how they give the viewer a clearer view of their oilfield asset.

One incredibly sophisticated, persuasive and easy-to-understand picture and still used today 8 years on since it was first created.

‘Communications so simple and easy to understand that even your granny would get it!’

Part-3 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing

Benedetto

Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.

His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.

He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>