Many people are simply tired of words at this point. And that’s fine, but your tagline is important enough to warrant your full attention. So take a break, and come back to it when your mind is refreshed.

Think about your unique selling points. What do you stand for? What makes you special? What simple little group of key words sums you up in a nutshell? If you’re planning on a web presence (you are, right?) it’s also helpful to think about what words people might search for when looking for what you provide. This is just another exercise to help you target the right word choices.

Remember, your tagline needs to be a relevant and memorable phrase that will both encapsulate the tone and premise of your brand or product, and reinforce your audience’s memory of the same.

A lot of our clients follow the short, three word list model. While these nice little lists are great (we have one on our homepage), they shouldn’t be treated as your primary slogan. Why? They don’t stand for you on their own. Place your competitor’s name over that sweet little list instead of yours, and what do you see out of place? Probably nothing. The three word lists are too generic when used as slogans. They may describe you, but they don’t describe you uniquely.

My own tagline might not follow all the rules in a strict sense: ‘Driven by Design’. But although the specific choice of the word ‘driven’ may not link back to my company name in a literal way, as a slogan it works. It’s unique, relevant and very much representative of how we operate.

One could argue that phrase-based slogans have the same pitfalls as the list model, but the same could be said for any option. A thoughtful phrase is just the better choice. Coke’s old slogan “It’s the real thing” on its own could easily apply to any product based company. But they’ve taken strong ownership over time through effective marketing and visible reinforcement. Remember, it’s not enough to craft the perfect slogan… you have to own it. Use it or lose it, as they say.

While new business owners invest substantial amounts of time and resources into product and concept development, package design, advertising, PR and distribution, the act of choosing a name for their brand is often treated as an afterthought. As a result, we end up with generic and damaging brand names like ‘x place’ or ‘y barn’… or names that are already shared with dozens of other companies.

Choosing the right name is your first act of public branding, and it bears a heavy burden in that it must represent your values, your aspirations and your business using a small selection of letters. That’s a lot of weight for a few tiny words to carry.

So lesson number one, then, is to treat the naming process with equal importance as you would the development of your product itself.

Important Considerations

• Uniqueness
  Confirm trademark and URL availability for your shortlisted names
• Longevity
  Research the fit and stretch of your name against long term objectives
• Expandability
  Your name needs to grow the brand, set aspirational targets and remain flexible
• Objectivity and Relevance
  Target your audience, not yourself
• Diversity
  Ensure your name translates favorably into other languages
• Connectivity
  Launch stronger with support, excitement and backing from employees and key stakeholders
• Cooperation
  Your name is your label. Your slogan is your essence. Use both appropriately.
• Coverage
  Not every new product needs a new name. Your primary name should be strong enough to serve as an umbrella.
• Memorability
  This follows from all of the above. Your name needs to endure when all else is forgotten.

Remember, it’s easy to come up with a name. What people fail to recognize, however, is that it can be an incredibly difficult and complicated process to come up with a GOOD name.

Many business owners seek out naming consultants after having tried unsuccessfully to name their product or company in-house, often after having already invested considerable time and expense. Getting a brand specialist involved from the outset will push you solidly down the right path to creating a powerful brand name.

More often than not, consumers associate brand-speak with trickery, exaggeration, misdirection and outright deception. The sad thing is, I don’t blame them. A lot of brands are disingenuous. What those brand managers don’t realize is that tricking someone into buying once is far less profitable than earning customer loyalty and trust over the long term.

Investing in your Brand for the Long Haul

Branding is so much more than just looking good. You need to pick up where we leave off.

Good branding requires ongoing maintenance. But unfortunately, too many companies slow their branding efforts to a near-halt after unveiling the new logo and website.

In a number of ways, rolling out your new visual identity is really just the beginning of one of your most important branding endeavours… that is, a long-term and focused investment in building trust.

“Investing in brand development is increasingly important to build credibility and differentiate,” says Cynthia Round, executive vice president of brand strategy and marketing at United Way of America, which recently rolled out a completely revamped brand campaign. “People are making purchasing decisions based on how closely aligned their values are with an organization and how much they trust what that organization is providing.”

Your brand platform should accurately and honestly represent your organization’s core values, but it is equally important that your actions and business practices follow in line. Trust and personal connection are at the foundation of employee and consumer loyalty, both of which have a significant and direct impact on your bottom line.

Brand Trust: as Simple as Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Building and marketing a good base image is only step one. If I’ve heard of you, I’m more likely to trust you at the outset. But trust is built over time, accrued from a consistent collection of experiences and perceptions. To get to level two, you need to do what you say you are going to do. It seems easy, but it’s a step that so many fail to reach. Finally, customer trust and loyalty are confirmed and reinforced when you simply repeat step two at every opportunity.

Deliver on your promise in a consistent way, and you’ll never lose business due to a lack of credibility.

Free Advertising: it Goes Both Ways

If your brand promises gold and delivers bronze, you’re finished. Bad news travels fast and far. So in failing to live up to the image you’ve created for yourself, you’ve not only alienated one customer, but have also lost out on potential business from all of the people your single unsatisfied customer has complained to. You may be able to hold your head above water for a while with this strategy, but it won’t last.

On the other hand, if you’ve planned your brand strategy on a basis of sustainable and honest values (i.e., you can and do deliver what you say you will) then what you’re reinforcing is a lasting impression of quality, value, and credibility. Good news may not travel as far or as fast, but the ROI (considering your investment is nothing more than doing what you do anyway) can be immense.

Approximately 80% of our new clients come to us via direct recommendations from former or existing clients. That’s a significant amount of advertising that’s being done on our behalf, at no expense to us.

Honesty and Authenticity = Tangible ROI

The bottom line is, every company wants measurable, tangible returns on their investments. This is especially true when it comes to branding strategies. Trust is a tricky thing to measure, but when the United Way undertook a campaign to determine investor and donation motives in 2003, they found that a strong brand was 67% of the reason people chose to invest in the organization.

Often, it’s the smaller daily interactions that illustrate how your brand is working for you. And that’s precisely what you want. Small actions (both positive and negative) build upon one another, impacting the experience your brand provides, and acting directly on its strength.

Once you’ve built the visual aspects of your brand, success is as simple as delivering consistently on what you’ve promised. People will pay more for, and choose more readily, the experience and peace of mind that a healthy brand provides.

It has also become an uber-brand that represents intangible, un-buy-able values (peace, love, joy, family, selflessness) simultaneously with supreme commercialism.

I love Christmas: hot cocoa, a roaring fire, home cooking, decorated trees, lit up streets, friends around, and the overall heightened consideration of other people (which really should be more present year-round). And of course, the unavoidable and remorseless spending of money we don’t necessarily have.

I like shopping as much as the next red-blooded woman, and I love choosing gifts for people I care about, BUT I loathe the chaos that is the holiday shopping experience. Firstly, running a fully booked design firm means I am impossibly busy, and it’s hard to find time to brave the traffic, find parking, and wait in obscene lines at the counter. So I shop for a lot of gifts online, which doesn’t seem particularly festive to me. Something is lost.

Smart online retailers are starting to catch on. In the same ways that a brick and mortar store would decorate their shop for the holidays, internet based companies are learning to create a more festive atmosphere for their customers. We all know that emotion sells. And the experience you’re providing for your customers online can be just as lucrative as one you might create in your physical store.

Now, my customers aren’t looking for the same thing as holiday shoppers. You’re business folk, and it’s not likely you’re going to hire a corporate designer as a gift for a loved one. But, I still felt like I should give a subtle little nod to the holidays… so I created a festive little holiday variant on our logo in the upper left corner. Even for those of us who aren’t selling a product, small efforts like this one show a human side that customers often appreciate.

If your business does happen to be one that caters to holiday shoppers, there are a few things you can do to improve your customers’ experience, and boost your online sales this December.

Intelligent Use of Colour
Humans are deeply and predictably influenced by visual stimulus, particularly the experience and use of colour. If you’re going to ‘decorate’ your website for the holidays, do it tastefully. Blinking flashy strings of rainbow christmas lights as text separators are not going to help your cause. A rich feature area with two or three cohesive colours in a consistent palette will create a pleasing experience, which will make your visitors want to stay and browse around.

Good Bone Structure
If your website design sucks, then no amount of tinsel is going to save it. Before you even think about holiday branding strategies, you need to make sure your base materials are solid. You need an impressive and credible visual image, a strong homepage with obvious calls to action, a simple and clean interface, an intuitive navigational structure, and a minimalist shopping process. Your visitors should not even have to think about how to use your site – you want their focus on your products, not your overcomplicated shopping cart software.

Holiday Sales!
This is a no-brainer. It’s the holidays. People expect special price offers. And if you’re not offering any, it’s nearly guaranteed that your competition is. On a recent trip to Home Depot, my husband noticed there were a lot of two-for-one sales on power tools. He wondered why one might need two of the same tool, but it was actually a pretty obvious holiday sales tactic… buy something you might have wanted for yourself anyway, and get another one free so you can tick a name off your holiday shopping list. It’s a double incentive on high value purchases that might otherwise be put off. His reaction? “That’s brilliant.”

Know Your Market
If you’re catering to a niche market, then your promotional decor should be appropriate to their tastes. A sporting goods retailer would take a vastly different approach to a high-end jeweler. Acknowledge the reasons people come to your website, think about what they want to get out of their visit with you, and adjust your design accordingly. Remember, this is about THEM, not you.

Time For Change
In Q4, users give advertisers 30% more of their time when compared with any other time of year. If you’re going to roll out a new product, new campaign, new feature or benefit announcement, now is the time to do it. On December 31st, advertisers get an additional minute overall to engage their audience. You have their attention. Don’t waste it.

Decorate Tastefully
Cut the clutter. If you have something important to say, don’t drown yourself out with background noise. In trying to say too much, too many end up saying nothing. Focus on a few big drivers, and organize yourself thoughtfully. Your customers come to your website because they want something specific from you, so make it easy for them to find.

Flash is Overrated
A little bit can be nice, but usability is much more important from a shopper’s point of view. The trick is to combine ease-of-use with a visual atmosphere that gives your visitors a good feeling about shopping with you.

The number of times a client has uttered those words to us (or a close variation on the theme) is somewhat staggering.

Sure, we all want it. And for certain parameters, we can get it for you. But while Search Engine Optimization is a very important component of both web development and your overall marketing platform, it cannot stand alone.

Like anything worthwhile, coming up in the fiercely and tirelessly competed-for number one spot for any search word or phrase requires work. It requires quality setup work upfront, and it requires consistent maintenance work down the line. What many people don’t realize, is that it also requires support.

Imagine a scenario in which you’ve invested countless hours and considerable expense into getting your site into the number one spot on Google, to the exclusion of other online marketing endeavors. That’s fine, but now Google has decided (as they often do) to change a simple filter in their algorithm. Poof. Your site has fallen to page number two thousand or so. You’ve put all your eggs into one basket, and the basket’s fallen.

How will people find your company’s website now?

It’s always best to take a multi-faceted approach to marketing your services or business… an idiom as true in the virtual world as it is in the real one. You wouldn’t take out a single ad on one street corner and trust it to bring in all of your business… would you?

It’s more important to build a strong brand presence that people will recognize and trust than it is to simply be visible on page one. We all know there’s just as much garbage on that page as there are quality sites. In addition to building a strong search engine presence, you should spend an equal amount of time pursuing partnerships with other non-competitive sectors of the internet.

Supplementary Internet Marketing Options

• Press Releases
  While these are reserved for newsworthy purposes (new product/service announcements, acquisitions, events and trade shows etc.), they are a great way to introduce visitors to your website who are looking for information directly related to your product or service. Press releases also an excellent way to build your brand name, and to establish yourself and your company as an authority in your field.
• Directory listings
  This is one of the easiest ways to get your site indexed by search engines. There are many free directories that you can get your site listed in, and there are many fee-based directories that are worth the price of adding your site. The added value is that since your site is listed categorically, it helps to re-enforce what your site offers, since it will be found with similar sites.
• Articles
  Share your expertise. While writing quality articles can be time-consuming and challenging, it is an extremely valuable asset to your site. In so doing, you are creating unique content that isn’t found anywhere else – a very specific criterion that search engines will reward you for. It also gives you an alternative method for explaining your product or services, without putting on the hard-sell. Finally, writing relevant and unique articles on a regular basis will naturally grow the size of your site, and will establish it as a hub of relevant information within your industry.
• Newsletters
  This is an often-neglected approach that requires a bit of work, but pays off consistently. Your site should have an option or area in which visitors can sign up to receive a newsletter from your company. The people who do sign up feel that your site is worth their time, and that you are offering something interesting and valuable. Your newsletter is an outlet to promote new products and services to interested users without the risk of being intrusive, so if combined with the right amount of valuable content, it is one of the best places to make a sales pitch.
• Blogs & RSS Feeds
  While sharing the same benefits outlined in writing your own articles, having an up-to-date blog with RSS on your site gives people a reason to check you out, and enhances your visibility since RSS keeps your prospects in sight without requiring them to find you first. RSS lets you initiate contact. There are many areas to get your blog listed, and in addition to the SEO benefits a blog offers, it also provides an insider’s point-of-view into your company or personality, offering yet another way for users to identify with you or your site.

It’s safe to say that search engines will always be around, and will likely remain the primary source of direction for people on the hunt for information, but for your company to focus on them exclusively could be a costly business mistake. Just remember there are a variety of marketing resources at your disposal that will not only better establish your brand online and bring you quality leads on their own, but will also contribute in a significant way to achieving and keeping that number one spot we’re all fighting for.

As a design company director, I see this tendency way too often and frankly, I have a hard time understanding how entrepreneurs can so easily discount the importance of how their product LOOKS on the shelves, when they’ve put so much of themselves into building their company, and their product. They have a hard time paying a few thousand to develop their packaging design, when the numbers at stake can reach millions (or even billions if your company is all that). Every businessperson wants their product to succeed, but they don’t seem to understand that consumers are extremely scritinizing and visually oriented creatures. Your bagels could be the best thing since, well, sliced bread… but if the packaging looks like crap then nobody’s going to buy them.

Your packaging (whether you’re selling bagels, books, goggles or windex) speaks directly to the customer when you can’t – right at the point of sale. Thus, your packaging design should be a carefully tailored conversation, not an afterthought.

SO, here are a few tips to consider when developing your packaging (and obviously I would recommend hiring a design firm to facilitate the process)…

• Use the same development criteria for both the product and the packaging. This not only helps the package to work harmoniously with the product, but provides the connection between your product and your consumer.
• Your target audience should be a key element in formulating the design. Develop the package as if it were the product itself.
• The packaging should be an honest reflection of the enclosed product. If the packaging is too cheap or extravagant to support the products positioning, the consumer may be skeptical of the products quality or price.
• Depending on the product, the use of elements that allow the buyer to see the actual product can instill a level of trust. Being able to see the product’s color and construction is reassuring and will often sway the purchasing decision in your favor.
• Consider your colour palette carefully. Although bright saturated colors can be eye catching, making your packaging too colorful can confuse your message (and the result can often be like a bee sting to the eyes). By using color with purpose, your package design becomes thematic, making for a stronger message.
• Don’t cheap out. Your customers will know when you’ve cut corners, and that message will trickle down to direct judgment and assumptions about your company and your product.

Remember, package design is a critically important aspect of sales (and ultimately company) success. Treat the process with respect, and your product’s success will show the benefit.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.

•economies of scale (production and distribution)
•lower marketing costs
•laying the groundwork for future extensions worldwide
•maintaining consistent brand imagery
•quicker identification and integration of innovations (discovered worldwide)
•preempting international competitors from entering domestic markets or locking you out of other geographic markets
•increasing international media reach (especially with the explosion of the Internet) is an enabler
•increases in international business and tourism are also enablers

When to Leverage a Single Brand Globally

A company is more likely to leverage a single brand globally if:

•it is already operating worldwide (one brand is more efficient)
•the brand is an extension of the owner and his or her personality
•the brand’s relationship to its country of origin creates positive associations (like a watch brand from Switzerland or a gourmet food brand from France)

Global Brand Constants

At a minimum, when going global, the following elements should remain constant throughout the world:

•corporate brand
•brand identity system (especially your logo)
•brand essence

Global Brand Variables

The following elements may differ from country to country:
•corporate slogan
•products and services
•product names
•product features
•positionings
•marketing mixes (including pricing, distribution, media and advertising execution)

These differences will depend upon:
•language differences
•different styles of communication
•other cultural differences
•differences in category and brand development
•different consumption patterns
•different competitive sets and marketplace conditions
•different legal and regulatory environments
•different national approaches to marketing (media, pricing, distribution, etc.)

Language Translation

A key question in global branding is this: Do you translate the brand name into the local language or keep it in the original language? You should probably keep it in the original language if (a) there is no intrinsic meaning and it is easy to pronounce or (b) global awareness of the brand name is already high. You should consider translating the name into the local language if it is suggestive of a key benefit (that would be lost if the original name were used).

Other key global branding questions:

•Have you identified the relative attractiveness of each market for your brand (and have you identified consistent criteria for doing so)?
•Have you conducted an attitude and usage study in each country whose market you are considering entering?
•Do you know the category and brand development indices in each country in which you operate?
•Do you have a global branding scorecard that can be applied country by country?
•Do you have agreement on which decisions are made centrally and which ones are made locally?

Taking a Brand Global: Other Considerations

•Because of the extended global baby boom, youth marketing is a huge opportunity. Brand names, designer labels, and other forms of status will play well to the global youth market, in general.
•Global advertising needs to consider the fact that, for much of the world, the economy is booming and the context is unprecedented optimism. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 notwithstanding, the economies of many nations continue this growth.
•The world’s consumers are not naïve. Much of the world has access to English language television.
•Start marketing in countries before their spending power is fully realized. Due to media exposure, people are forming their brand opinions now.
•Representing male/female relationships appropriately will vary from society to society. Be sure that you fully understand the local cultures before attempt to do so.
•Using distributors is frequently a good way to break into foreign markets. It is critically important to carefully choose the right distributor when trying to enter a new market.

Ultimately, there is much to be gained by extending your brand globally. The saying “think globally, act locally” makes much sense in this context. The key is determining what elements you will tailor for local markets. That depends upon a thorough understanding of the similarities and differences between the local markets you intend to serve.

Previously published as chapter 16 Global Branding in Brand Aid (AMACOM, 2003) and The Brand Management Checklist (Kogan Page, 2002), © Brad VanAuken. Both books can be purchased through The Blake Project.

In building your brand, you are creating a new definition with the aim of making it a household name. When people think of tissue, they instantly think of Kleenex. That’s the sort of association you want. Instant identification in the mind of the customer is not enough though… you also need that identification to represent competence, quality, authenticity and credibility. At the same time, your brand needs to remain dynamic, relevant, and at the top of mind while retaining its established heritage and identity.

In the end, the message your brand puts forward must ring true to your business, in its current state, its history, and in what you hope for the future. When your brand image doesn’t represent the message you want to convey, it’s time to consider making a change.

Many CMOs feel that brands follow a distinct and irrevocable stage pattern:
- inception
- maturation
- plateau
- decline
- death

Brands in decline are thus generally (and literally) allowed to starve to death. Dollars are reallocated to growth brands instead, leaving the declining brand without any market support, and leading to its imminent demise. By the same token, new brands and products require a very heavy investment. More companies are seeing the benefit in the revitalization of diminishing brands… reinventing the wheel is a cripplingly arduous (and redundant) option, when all you may need to do is refill the tires.

Get to know your business from the outside in:

• How do your customers view you, your heritage, your values, and your ability to meet their needs?
• What do they see as the points of differentiation, or unique selling proposition of the brand?
• How many pleasant associations and experiences have consumers had with the brand?
• What are the negatives, if any, associated with the brand?
• What is the perceived value of the brand?
• Is the perceived value of the brand active or dormant? How does it stack up against other brands?
• How relevant is the brand?
• What do customers believe the brand can do for them, to add value or more desirable attributes?
• How much loyalty is there to the brand?

There are more options in revitalizing your brand than simply changing your business name and mission statement. In general, you have three main areas to consider:

1. Rebranding the company from the inside out
2. Updating the brand’s products and product attributes with better, demanded features
3. Redesigning materials for a more contemporary brand image to appeal to new generations of consumers

Redesigning brand image materials the most logical place to start; while it has the potential to produce sweeping improvements and revitalization across your brand, it also requires the least amount of investment and represents the smallest risk of consumer alienation. It is important that your business remain current, while retaining the reputation and recognition you have worked hard to achieve (and ultimately, to improve them as well).

Product packaging becomes outdated at an increasingly high rate… it is important to keep ahead of the curve, or get lost in the dust thrown up by your competitors. Your website must be current (you absolutely need to have a website), and it must infer the highest levels of credibility and authenticity on your business. Your materials should blow the audience away – the method of course depending on your key demographic and business model.

In all brand revitalization endeavours, it is important to keep your brand image relevant and attractive to existing core customers, while also attracting new ones. You need to ensure that your brand retains continuity, has relevance to today’s market, and has sustainability for the future. The best balance can be summarized in three segments:

1. Acknowledge your heritage (10%)
2. Address the needs of today (80%)
3. Look forward to the future (10%)

The bottom line is that periodic and well considered brand revitalization is an essential component of brand management. Revitalization, as inferred by the name, gives new relevance to what could have been perceived as an outdated, tired or just plain amateur business image.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.

Rebranding, whether a product or an entire brand, is a serious endeavour. The overall need for rebranding is based on the basic premise that just as people change their style of clothes, hairstyles and home decorating, so brands need to keep up with the times and changing market and consumer dynamics. At the same time, rebranding can be undertaken to fix errors made earlier in a product’s development, to create new consistency across products, or conversely, to take advantage of the benefits of product differentiation and market segmentation.

Rebranding and brand revitalization are not tasks to be taken lightly, and should be backed by legitimate reasoning – and no, simply becoming bored with your logo is not a good reason.

Some of the better reasons to rebrand include:

- modernization, if a brand has become old-fashioned and is in danger of stagnation
- differentiation, due to fierce competition or a fast-changing environment
- blocking or outmaneuvering competitors
- handling increased price competitiveness
- addressing the needs of brand globalisation
- addressing a brand merger or acquisition
- improving competitiveness by creating a more unified identity
- testing new markets or products
- countering declining profitability or consumer confidence
- signaling a change in direction, focus, attitude or strategy
- capitalizing on new opportunities or mediums

Whatever the catalyst, just as your customers should come to you for the specialist product or service you provide, so should you engage the services of an experienced brand design firm when undergoing or even considering a brand redesign or revitalization campaign.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.

In recent years, the concept of personal branding has been getting more and more attention. The basic premise of this is that over the course of your career, you would benefit from creating “Brand You” as a way to differentiate yourself from other job seekers, business developers, vendors, and people in general.

Thomas Harrison sums it up nicely: “Your personal brand – your reputation – is a capital asset, and should be treated that way. If you invest in equipment, you have to take care of it, maintain it. Your brand is like your personal equipment, your hardware. You need to upgrade it every so often based not only on what you need it to do now but also on what you’re going to need it to do in the next three to five years. Your personal brand is a salesman on your behalf – often when you don’t even realize it.” [from Instinct: Tapping your entrepreneurial DNA to achive your business goals]

The modern workforce is rapidly becoming less a stiff hierarchical structure, and more a complex and ever-changing network of free agents. On average, people currently between 18-40 will change careers at least three times in their lives, and change jobs approximately every six years. And that doesn’t take into account the chances for advancement within one’s current position or working team. Companies utilize the benefits of branding to further their reputations and success as a matter of rule; it’s the law of the corporate jungle. Brand or be forgotten. What many people don’t consider is that the same rules can be applied to their individual endeavors, with comparable results.

Defining a brand for yourself is not much different than the process companies go through in branding their products and businesses. Follow a few key steps and you’ve got it:

What makes you different?

Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors, or your colleagues. What have you done lately to make yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say is your greatest and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note) personal trait? Forget your job title and description; instead focus on what you do that adds remarkable, measurable, distinguished, distinctive value. Focus on what you’re most proud of.

Market yourself

Don’t sell the drink, sell the refreshment. It’s a principle that all successful brands are familiar with… no matter how fantastic your brand is, you still need to market the heck out of it in order to get ahead. Now, you’re not going to take out a bus ad with your smiling mug on the side (though you could – who am I to stop you). How can you market YOU? The same way the companies do, but different. Embark on a visibility campaign that takes advantage of your personal strengths.
- Sign up for extra projects in order to network with new people
- Take on freelance projects to expand your portfolio and word-of-mouth marketing potential
- Teach a class at a community college, adult education program or your own company to establish yourself as an expert
- Contribute a column or opinion piece to a local newspaper to improve your exposure
- Make a presentation at a workshop or get yourself on a panel discussion at a conference

The most important thing to remember about your personal visibility campaign is that it all makes a difference.

Looking ahead

Careers no longer follow predictable linear pathways, you could go in any direction at any time. And personally, I think that’s fantastic. You’re only limited by your capabilities and your motivation, not some stodgy old attitude of A must proceed B. So you should always be thinking about where you want to be, and how you can get there.

A final tip: when marketing yourself, make sure you’re marketing YOU and not necessarily the company you happen to work for (unless you ARE your company, in which case you need to market BOTH equally). When you’re giving a presentation, freelancing or teaching a class, make sure the business cards you hand out are for “brand you”. Have some designed especially for your personal branding efforts, with YOU as the primary brand. The last thing you want to do is hand out one of your standard issue employee cards, where the focus is on your employer, and your name appears in template spot X – and is all too easily forgotten.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.