Coaches seem to have stepped up the gears in the past years. I’m seeing more of them take a stronger approach to brand, design and marketing. They’re not just setting up shop, their pushing the boat out to make sure that their seen as a unique operator amongst the crowd.

I started creating logos and then went onto complete corporate idenities from web to print but today we’re performing more and more work for coaches with fully interactive websites accompanied with sub-brands, e-shops and more printed material. The new innovative approach is definitely a step in the right direction but is the motive behind the progression the right resolution. Life coaches know they need a brand presence to step out from the crowd but which route should you take?

Problems of a life coach business.

Coaches always make the statement that each of their clients have very different problems. I’ve learnt that so is every life coach. They each have methods for solving problems and its particular compared to the next coach. The average Joe see life coaching as quite generic but each coach has their own twist, style, methods and resources.

This in fact is a unique selling point and possibly the making of your brand. Every life coach sells the same service but its you that makes your company individual. You’re selling yourself as apart of the service and you have to make sure that you portray some of that character in your brand.

When branding a lifecoach business add a little bit of you inside as well.

Your Target Audience:
Most life coaches I come across deal with this problem in a huge way and it takes some time to figure out the answer. The problem is that they’re trying to attract two audiences under one roof, the corporate clientelle and the public.

The first thing to do is split up the groups into three or four because there’s a hidden couple of groups which emerge from the other two. Its not a corporate customer and its not a member of the public, its the self employed or small business owner. They want to focus their career or personal life but their circumstances don’t quite fit into either of the two. This group sits in between making the whole situation a blur. How should you target these groups?

- Should you have 2-3 brands to target each audience?
- One business with 2-3 sub-brands?
- Or a general appeal to all?

Having 2-3 brands is the best idea allowing you to create separate offerings without confusing the groups and not boring the other two audiences. The public don’t want to know about training courses and communication for profit they want to know how it will affect them personally. The corporate clients don’t want to hear about being happy but profitable.

But what about the middle group of professional individuals? They want to know how to do it all but not on a corporate scale, a personal one.
Having separate brands to target each audience provides a specialist and driven strategy allowing you to market the business effectively, drawing a line between the two with no confusion. This is however the costly option requiring most work from you (managing 2-3 brands, 2-3 firms, and 2-3 services).

The second option of having one brand with two sub-brands is the most approachable strategy for you rather then the client. It’s like the above solution except cheaper and manageable allowing your business to develop in your own time, however it must be done strictly keeping a clear indication of what services are offered to the different audiences. It’s 2-3 brands under a motherbrand, an allround solution which is effective but not as clear as the first one.

The third option is the cheapest but not the best as it confuses the audience. It can work but it must be clear and concise. Once you’ve done that it falls under option 2.

Whatever strategy you take, create a clear message to each audience and keep each service individual. Consider your mother-brand and services then break them down into sub-brands.

Design:
Targeting businesses with services is easier then marketing to the public. Businesses want something in-particular, a sense of professionalism, with clear benefits, results and a relation to their business. The public however are attracted by personal attachment and visual results which is hard to do when you don’t know the person or have a product.

The strategy to solve these problems is sub-grouping for your target audience because as large a variety the public are, they still fall into groups and effective design can target that particular group.

Effectively your packaging each solution and directing it at a particular audience, marketing the benefits and results of your sub-brand even though its still available to a wider audience.

Marketing:
With the above design strategy, marketing becomes simpler. Before you had the problem of attracting 2-3 audiences with one piece of communication, neither swinging here or there but with 2-3 brands focusing on 2-3 audiences you can create 2-3 documents, 1 focusing on each for a stronger and specified message to the recipient.

This leads to 2-3 forms of delivery. The previous distribution was sent to both audiences via the same strategy but can now be separated and delivered specifically to reach each target.

The fact is life coaching is not a tradesman, public body or product which offers visual solutions to a problem but it targets the same general public as a service provider.

The strategy of brand, design and marketing for life coaches is an important one which can solve problems and create its own personal niche in the b2b and b2c sector.

Ever seen a vanilla sky or a red Ferrari?

A white apple mac or a rainbow?

An iPod or a those lovely black shoes in the shop?

Then you may have been captivated by colour. We all take it for granted but colour gives us our very way of life. Without at least 2 different shades in this world we would all cease to exist but there are in fact billions which we see everyday.

So how does colour work?

Colour is basically a hue mixed with white light (saturation) to provide a tone. To get more technical, a colour is measured in wavelengths according to the sensitivity of the human eye.

Generically humans have three colour cones in their eyes being Red, Green & Blue, (RGB). Each cone mixes itself with the other to create a final colour depending on the hue of an object, the amount of white light shining on it and the way the brain processes the image. (like mixing paint).

As humans we’re all individual, with different colour, shape, length, hair, eyes, faces, bodies etc.
In the same way one persons colour cone capability is different to another and its been said that no 2 people in the world will see one colour in the same way.

Likewise some tribes in Africa cannot see the colour blue, whilst Alaskan tribes have over 15 variations for the colour white.

In some cases a persons colour cone capability maybe slightly lower then normal creating colour blindness.

Colour technology

Although we can as humans can visualize billions of colours, computers at one stage could only generate a small fraction of that percentage. Most screens operating on a 32bit system generate 16.8million colours which is more then enough but with todays technology a computer (64 bit) can now keep up to speed and surpass our colour capability.

Colour is a powerful and valuable tool which generically carries emotions for all of us. They can create a new emotion or rekindle a past memory, either way they can be used to make a communicative and personal link to us subliminally.
Did you buy that Apple Mac or the Ipod?

Lusted for that red Ferrari even though you may not have driven one?

Opened a store card and bought those black shoes?

The point is : COLOUR SELLS!

As of late the term copyright has popped up a few times during projects.

I found some clients were infringing other peoples copyrights whilst some wanted to know more with regards to protecting their own future projects but overall there seems to be a lack of understanding with regards to what you can and can’t do, so….. Let me break it down.

Whether it’s a design, dance, patent, trademark or song, it’s classed under the title of intellectual property.

Definitions:
Intellectual = from the mind
Property = Ownership, the thing owned

It’s quite simple. Any original idea conceived from your thought process. It starts in your head and because of that you want the right to own it, that’s why it covers any idea.

Here’s where it gets a little trickier.

It’s an odd law, because there’s no official form of registering a copyright, it’s like a natural law and it magically comes into effect when you produce an original idea.

E.g. I’ve designed a new lawnmower. The moment my pen hits the paper, I automatically own the copyright as the author of the work.

There may be 10’s, 100’s or 1000’s of people designing lawnmowers but Copyright provides me with some basic initial protection to say that I designed this particular lawnmower at this stage.

Copyright is again quite simple in definition, “the right to copy work”. Naturally you have no right to copy someone else’s work without consent. The symbol itself works as a deterrent to warn possible thieves off but to be honest it’s not required. Whether there is a copyright symbol present or not, you do not have any rights to copy any work without consent.

Just because it may be publicly viewable it doesn’t mean you can just take it.

Usually a copyright establishes the author/owner of any work and their terms of usage. Consent may be given by the owner for free, by licensing or in a hundred and one different ways, it comes down to T’s & C’s but permission must be given.

Maybe you’ve designed something which looks quite truly unique. You could say that it’s the visual dynamics of something and you want to protect that design.

E.g. I’ve designed a lawn mower shaped like a flying saucer for the purpose of style.

It’s not a trademark or patent but it can be a registered design to make sure that no one else’s lawnmower looks the same.

A more familiar, stronger and detailed form of protection. A Patent is a way of registering a design/idea but one that is much more technical. It protects the process of a design or the way a design is built via its components.

Used by inventors it can establish the ownership and authorship of an original idea and again give that person the copyrights as to who can produce/sell it.

E.g. The flying saucer shaped lawnmower runs not on petrol, electricity or solar power but the actual grass it cuts.
The lawn mower’s visual design can be a registered design (explained above) but more importantly it’s the internal mechanism which turns grass into energy which should be patented. What’s more it may be a smaller mechanism inside of that mechanism that holds another patent.

It can get tricky but an easy way to think of it is – Protecting a technical idea.

A trademark is what most people think a copyright is.

Trade: Commerce
Mark: A distinguished sign

It’s an individual mark of ownership to distinguish itself from other companies and products. It is again a stronger and registered form of copyright which applies to logos and branding. It’s a way of protecting your company’s identity but at the same time showing a sign of quality/originality.

E.g. Grassergy Lawnmower Company TM

The Grassergy Lawnmower TM

– If it’s all so simple then why do disputes occur?

Disputes occur because it’s not so simple. I’ve explained the basics of the topic but disputes push the issue much further creating a twinned and tangled web of scenarios. It’s very specific to the individual case or industry its related to which may also bring in other forms of protection such as publishing, licensing and usage.

The best way to distinguish that an idea is yours, is to keep evidence.

Every good idea whether it’s a brainwave or not has to be researched and developed. These stages are imperative evidence as to how you created and finalized any idea, it’s the stepping stones of your work and could be worth more then the final idea itself.

Always keep all research and rough workings to show how you came up with and finalised that idea.

Who owns a photo: The photographer, The model or The company

Typically……
Models are paid for their services and a release form is used giving permission.
The photographer owns the photo as the author
The company hiring the photographer will have T’s & C’s to decide who does actually own the photos, them or the photographer.

With a twist……..
The model is an international celebrity and wants royalties on where the photo is used.
Who owns it now? Kind of like a joint ownership but T’s & C’s will establish that.

Generally…….
What if it’s a public model? Are you allowed to photograph people on the street? Is it not an invasion of privacy? If so who owns the photo now, the photographer or the innocent bystander?
The photographer owns the photo and has the right to take general photos of the public and public places as apart of the scene.

This is a generic scenario which changes according to each specific case. T’s & C’s usually explain all.

Starbucks VS Ethiopia

Beatles Vs Apple

Sony Vs Austria

Davinchi code law suit

I went into PCWorld on the weekend, probably the first time in a year and I was met by quite a few surprises.

1.) They’ve re-branded (good strategy, poor execution)
2.) They have a new range of PC’s available

They had the usual selection of computers ranging from laptops and desktops to MACS and consoles but I was surprised to see another isle of top branded PC’s that looked a little different. I’m a little outdated with my computer tech knowledge so this may actually be no surprise to some people.

SONY, PHILLIPS and HP have created they very own I-MAC look-a-like PC’s. Each one looked great and each one wasn’t as expensive as I thought they’d be. They had good specs and I was surprised by the combination of style, price and userabilty each one had.

SONY VIAO -It looked like a combination of a MAC G5 (metal casing) and the older I-MACs. (see what I mean).

Phillips – Like the current I-Mac but in black.

HP – Like the older I-Macs again but in black but with a touch screen! (WOW)lol.

Like the I-MAC they were all, all-in-one units which was a great selling point for me (and the touch screensmile) I hate PC’s because there so messy, ugly and problem prone but there much more affordable and probably better value for money then a MAC. I’m also use to the PC, switching systems would probably be a pain so having a mixture of the two is perfect.

Apple have always had a big presence with designers and the US. They certainly infiltrated the UK with the Ipod and now it seems that Apple have had an effect on the way computers are made on a whole.

The sheer simplicity of the IMAC (all in one) makes it a great product for everyone. Most people want a nice looking computer as its now a household object. They also want one which not messy and preferably easy to use. Although these new styled computers are still PCS’s running on Windows, it is a step in an old but maybe not fully explored direction which Apple have built there empire on.

Will this be the new way for PC’s?

This question was raised the other day in the Free Index Business centre and I thought it was a great question.

How to make cheap marketing not look cheap.

Unless you have some great contacts with designers, printers, photographers, SEO’specialists, broadcasters, publishers and the Royal Mail who’ll give you 90% discount on everything then I don’t think you can make cheap marketing not look cheap, it is what it is but should the success of a marketing campaign revolve around a budget?

Any form of marketing success comes down to the idea and its execution. A poor attempt on either one can let down a whole campaign, whether it was cheap or expensive. Overall, having a big budget and using it right allows you to narrow down on any mistakes and produce a better finish with a better return on your investment. The bigger the budget the better chance you have of success.

In saying this, there are the anomalies which defy the rule. These anomalies don’t really focus on the budget at heart but more so the idea. The execution is simply a ways to a means. Here they are:

1.) Guerilla marketing – A cheap and effective way of marketing which doesn’t necessarily look cheap because the focus is drawn to the message and style of delivery in relation to the service/product.

For example (doable but illegal and unadvisable) – Buy a tin of paint and a paintbrush from the pound shop and paint your company name on the surface of every road in your area.

It’s cheap and effective, a little unprofessional and illegal but if you’re a painter & decorator you’ll probably hit gold (or end up in court).


2.) Value for money – The strength of a good deal can sometimes overpower the hint of a cheap marketing document because the deal was just so great. Where you can go over the top with guerilla marketing above you are essentially doing the opposite with this idea.

Forget the shock tactics, design and paper it was printed on, the deal is just straight forward. The success of this tactic is based around the TA. Its not just enough to know who exactly will be interested in your deal but who will really want your deal right now. If it lands in the right hands they’ll look past the cheap delivery and just buy.

As you can see, both ideas have there drawbacks but with a little more thought on the execution, (a classier guerilla campaign or intensive research into your TA) they can be executed cheaply and they can work.

The key point in the success of both tactics is YOU. The best possible way of making cheap marketing not look cheap is to play to YOUR strengths, whatever business your in. Maximise on what skillset you do have to gain the best possible result.