PivotPath

inclusive communications

Inclusive Communications to the Masses

By: Justin Roshak and Ashley Przybylski

Every organization needs flexibility, innovation, and meritocracy to keep up in a fast-paced global economy. Inclusion is a core value that supports these goals, and organizations that prioritize inclusion will find themselves open to new opportunities in staff, partnerships, and markets.

Inclusive Communications. It’s a modern buzzword for an old idea. But what does it mean, and how can organizations practice inclusion when communicating with the public?

Inclusion may not come naturally to individuals or organizations. Differences in culture, language, and perspective can be challenging to identify without prior experience. Technology makes it easy to approach the world with a one-fits-all approach, leaving out some audiences. An organization’s makeup is rarely broad as its potential clients or partners.

Focus on Commonalities

Few organizations are built from the ground up to work across every possible line of geography, culture, and language. The staff you have, and the partners you’ve worked with, will inevitably shape expectations—which don’t always fit new opportunities. Worst of all, knowing when cross-cultural communication has succeeded—or fallen flat can be challenging. 

For example, PivotPath has worked on a series of communications projects in the West African nation of Sierra Leone as part of a European Union international development and democratization project. 

Sierra Leone’s residents speak multiple major languages and many minor ones. As in the US, partisanship is a sharp dividing line—the country is still recovering from a vicious civil war in the 1990s. For messaging to succeed in these circumstances, it must be inclusive. 

When developing outreach videos, clothing and skin color are needed to match local expectations. Images avoided signifiers of political parties or regions (still very sensitive subjects) and leaned into shared national identity symbols. Messaging focused on common goals: peace, democracy, and shared prosperity. At all content production and dissemination levels, communication sought to unite and energize. 

Inclusive messaging recognize commonalities and seeks to build on them. It provides a framework for collaboration while remaining sensitive to natural divisions. 

“The common emotions we all face are things I want our communications for our clients to focus on. If we can do communications that bring people together, drawing the strengths on our differences, then we are truly succeeding.” —Elizabeth M’balu Oke

 

Build—and Sustain—a Diverse Communication Team

The American Civil Liberties Union found that “there are higher voting rates in minority communities where radio station owners are of the same ethnicity”. Media diversity stimulates audiences’ engagement through shared backgrounds. But when there is a lack of diversity, the sense of trust is not as strong and can lead to viewers being less engaged, leading to the voting numbers going down. 

And yet, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Hispanics make up 18% of the workforce but only 12% of the media industry. Similarly, research from Pew Research Center shows that only 7% of newsroom employees are Black, but 11% of U.S. workers.

As with media, so too with any twenty-first-century communications team.

One reason the PivotPath team can succeed in the U.S. and international projects is its diverse makeup. PivotPath’s staff is mixed with team members representing different cultural backgrounds, generations, and social lifestyles and brings diverse experiences in sales, marketing, and journalism. As a result, there is a broader pool of perspectives and ideas than if the firm had hired from only one place or field. 

Organizations should strive toward inclusion in all positions relating to mass communication. But this is just a place to start. By building and supporting a diverse media and communications team, your message has a greater reach as it will resonate with a broader audience. 

Companies also need to listen to what their employees have to say. Hire talented, diverse voices, and listen to them. Employees from underrepresented communities can help their organizations communicate more effectively with these communities.

 

Use Person-Focused Language

 

The words we choose can be a powerful tool for getting our message across—or they can unintentionally exclude or alienate individuals or groups. A rigorous understanding of subtext and subtleties can take many years of experience to fully grasp, let alone incorporate into an organization’s messaging DNA. But there are hard-and-fast rules to avoid common pitfalls.

A strategic rule of thumb is to emphasize language that is person-focused and as broadly inclusive as possible. In practice, this can take several forms.

Person-centered language is most obviously useful in the context of persons with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness/unemployment, or people without homes/jobs, which are much more empathetic terms than “blind”, “disabled”, “homeless”, or “unemployed”. The former are conditions, while the latter are unwelcome labels. No one wants to be personally identified with their troubles.

Instead of phrases like “Black and White”, say “all races and ethnicities”. This ensures that groups of other geographic origin are automatically included and neatly elides certain complexities. For example, Latinx persons in North America may constitute an ethnicity or a race, depending on context. This broad approach keeps communications maximally inclusive.

Referring to a title or role promotes meritocracy and inclusive communications. An equally inclusive set of terms is “everyone” or “colleagues”, in place of “ladies and gentlemen”; For terms such as, “chairman” or “policewoman”. Much preferable are “chair”, “chairperson”, or “police officer”. Reference the office, not the gender of the officeholder. Research shows that gendered professional terms have real-world implications when they come up against deeply-ingrained gender stereotypes. 

Politics is another pitfall. Unless engaged in direct political activism for a cause or party, it is usually preferable to refer to “Americans”, “citizens”, or “residents” instead of “Democrats and Republicans”. An inclusive messaging strategy seeks to build commonality; politically-charged labels are often inimical to that goal.

PivotPath’s Inclusive Communications

Do you want to build inclusion into your organization’s DNA but aren’t sure how? Our communication creators at PivotPath have the tools and expertise to help. Contact us for a FREE strategy session.

gdpr guidelines

Five Big Questions Related to GDPR | What You Need To Know

First things first. We’re not lawyers, and what follows does not constitute legal advice. We have a vested interest in the success of our partnership and want to provide information to collectively aid us through this process.

 Download guide here

Here are five big questions related to GDPR:

  1. What is GDPR?
  2. Does it affect our company or organization?
  3. How does this change the way we collect and store data?
  4. Does this change the way we communicate and market?
  5. How do we get started?

WHAT IS GDPR? The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

(Regulation (EU) 2016/679) is a regulation by which the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union. The European Commission intends to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU). The European Union currently has data protection regulation that determines how personal information can be used by companies, the government, and other organizations. GDPR changes the definition of personal information and how data is obtained and used. Within GDPR, there are 99 articles setting out the rights of individuals to have easier access to the information data companies collect about them. There are also determinations of fines related to non-compliance, and responsibilities for obtaining consent and usage of personal information. This law provides greater transparency, enhanced rights for EU citizens, and increased accountability.

gdpr guidelines

DOES IT AFFECT OUR COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION?

GDPR regulations apply to any company that processes EU consumer data. This is applicable no matter where the company resides or where the servers that collect the data are located. These provisions promote accountability and governance. These measures minimize the risk of breaches and uphold the protection of personal data. Compliance for GDPR does not lay at just the feet of marketers, but in all processes of data storage, collection, and usage. Thus, this will become a boardroom topic if it has not already. Additionally, companies that have “regular and systematic monitoring” of individuals at a large scale or process a lot of sensitive personal data may have to designate a data protection officer (DPO).

 

HOW DOES THIS CHANGE THE WAY WE COLLECT AND STORE DATA?

LAWFULNESS Not everyone that handles the personal data of individuals is the same. GDPR regulation falls within two main categories: controller and processor. A controller is an entity that decides the purpose and manner in which personal data can be used. This is your role. A processor is a person (or team) that processes data on behalf of the controller; and includes obtaining, recording, adapting, or holding personal data. GDPR requirements are different for each. In addition, the controller is responsible for and must demonstrate compliance with GDPR principles.

Bottom line: for data processing to be lawful under GDPR, companies need to identify a lawful basis for processing personal data. Companies also need to be able to document this.

gdpr guidelines

HOW DOES THIS CHANGE THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE AND MARKET?

Most marketers will understand that GDPR is actually a blessing. It forces us to be responsible and better marketers. It also provides our subscribers with exactly what they want. And that’s the way we all should be marketing. Think of this as a new (albeit required) goal to only communicate with those who want to hear from us. Also, to have all data in order which can only build trust and loyalty with subscribers.

HOW CAN WE GET STARTED?

Having a full understanding of GDPR is important, as it may impact a number of facets of your business practices. The place to start is in education. While there is a myriad of articles and resources on the net, we find the information from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Interested in learning more about how to ensure your communications are GDPR compliant? We are here to help.

[Video] A Survival Guide for Municipalities During COVID-19

The past year has welcomed several unprecedented challenges. Towns and cities are among some of the most vulnerable victims to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite these challenges, there are things you can do to help your community thrive. Continue reading this survival guide to ensure that your municipality is doing everything it can to survive these times.

Survival Tip #1: Be communicative.

Two-way communication involves active engagement and responsiveness. To communicate effectively, it’s essential that you listen to each of your stakeholders. Stakeholders act as various operators, including, but not limited to, residents, tourists, local government officials, local law enforcement, and public safety officials. 

Your stakeholders, and the relationships you build with them, are the backbone of your community. Mutually beneficial relationships are built on trust. When you fail to communicate effectively, you promote dishonesty and inauthenticity, which can destroy the trust of your stakeholders. Therefore, it’s important for your community to effectively communicate with each of its stakeholders to build and maintain trustworthy relationships.

Survival Tip #2: Avoid homogeneity. 

Homogeneity is the belief that everyone is the same. It’s common for individuals to resort to homogeneity when assessing their audience. Your communication efforts are sure to fail when you misinterpret all areas of your audience as one and the same. This mistake is heightened for those who operate communities, as they tend to believe that a shared location means shared values and beliefs.

Demographic information isn’t isolated to geographic location but also includes race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and political identity. You can understand your audience on a larger, more in-depth level by assessing all components of demographic information. By avoiding homogeneity, you can shape your communication efforts to include and gain support from all members of your audience. Your audience’s support can help your community withstand the test of time.

Conduct a S.W.O.T. analysis.

A S.W.O.T. analysis assesses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of an entity. Many mistakenly believe that this kind of analysis is only applicable to businesses, but a S.W.O.T. analysis is beneficial for anyone looking to develop a plan or strategy, including communities. Conducting a S.W.O.T. analysis can help your community grow in ways that it hasn’t considered before.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal, things that you have some control over and can change. If you follow the two previously mentioned tips, you’re sure to have audience communication as a strength. However, it’s important to understand that the presence of strengths doesn’t make your weaknesses disappear.

Opportunities and threats are external. Typically, there’s little to no control of these factors. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change them. The COVID-19 pandemic is surely a threat for businesses, non-profit organizations, and communities around the world. However, sometimes threats can present us with opportunities. For example, your community can take this time to strengthen its internal operations by addressing other needs that it’s brushed off. 

Reach out for help.

Survival is difficult as is, but when a force as powerful as COVID-19 is acting against you, it can be difficult to even see survival as an option. Don’t let this scare you! By following this survival guide, you can ensure that your municipality is doing everything it can to thrive during these times. PivotPath understands that implementing change isn’t always easy. Contact us for a free consultation today. Our team of innovative creatives can help your community carry out this survival guide.

5 Ways to Promote Your City or Town to Increase Tourism

At a time when travel restrictions are implemented, cities and towns are frantically searching for ways to increase tourism.

The internet is filled with travel guides and firsthand accounts of visitors detailing their experiences. It’s more difficult to come across tips from a local—someone who knows the ins and outs of the area. Unfortunately, we don’t all have the luxury of knowing someone within our destination’s limits. Consider these five tips when communicating your community’s charm to increase tourism:

Highlight the history and culture 

Every destination has its own unique story.

Aside from the well-known attractions, consider sharing some of your community’s lesser-known treasures. This may involve obscure facts about your town’s early settlers or the spooky tale about the mansion on Main Street. A picture of these treasures with a description of their significance is an opportunity for you to highlight your community’s unique history to increase tourism.

Share your tasty tips

There’s no feeling better than a full stomach after a day of exploring.

Food largely defines a community’s culture. When promoting your city or town, be sure to discuss local dishes and the best places to try them. Consider explaining the flavor profile of the dish and the best way to eat it. With ketchup? With a root beer? At midnight? Who knows, maybe visitors will find their new favorite food or restaurant and come back for more!

Offer visitors a breath of fresh air

We all crave a breath of fresh air.

Provide visitors with the best spots to catch their breath and revel in the wonder of your community’s natural beauty. Be sure to detail the best seasons and times of day for visitors to capture the full essence of the landscape. Also, include any materials that they should consider bringing or leaving behind for their visit.

Catch your breath in nature

Suggest local stores and businesses

The word souvenir is French for “to remember.”

Tokens of remembrance can be as simple as a keychain or as complex as a scarf woven by natives. Present visitors with an opportunity to remember their visit to your community with recommendations for local stores and businesses. This is also an opportunity for you to help local businesses during these difficult times.

Local stores and businesses

Include your personal testimony

They say that home is where the heart is.

Share the little things that you love about your city or town. This may include how you love the transition between one season to another, or your favorite road to drive down in the summer. Personal testimonies appeal to an audience’s emotions. Provide insight into the small and special things that define your love for your community.

Tip: Include hashtags (i.e., #NewOrleans, #ExploringTheCity, #GetInMyBelly) and/or create a page for your city or town. This will help potential visitors easily locate your stories and recommendations.

When implementing the tips listed above, be sure to consider all audiences (independent travelers, couples, families, and seniors). By showcasing your community’s local treasures and adding a personal touch, you can offer visitors valuable information on what to experience when visiting your community.

Enlist PivotPath’s team of innovative creators to help you fulfill these tips and increase your city or town’s tourism. Contact us today for a consultation. 

Resourceful Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations

Marketing for a nonprofit organization can be difficult. Usually, there is little to no money set aside for marketing efforts. Because of this, it is crucial to use resources that are naturally present. Here, we outline marketing strategies you can use that are accessible and inventive. A tight budget calls for unique solutions; let’s get creative! 


Reach out to resources in your community

One of the best resources for a nonprofit to use is its community. Creating a marketing approach that involves the community can help nonprofits build a supportive foundation to grow from. 

Local TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers are great resources within the community to help spread awareness of your organization. So, start creating relationships with the news outlets in your community and make your nonprofit’s appearance a fun occasion. 

For example, a not-for-profit animal shelter could reach out to local new stations and suggest a “Pet Of The Week” segment. This way, the nonprofit gains weekly media coverage and the news station gains viewers for the new, fun segment—a win-win for both parties!

Grow your online presence

An important aspect of marketing to strategize is online engagement and social media. Social media is a great tool to use to connect with a large amount of people in a short amount of time. But, to elicit a response and reach the correct audience, it must be used strategically. 

It is important to remember that each social media platform serves its own purpose. For instance, what your organization posts on Facebook may not be effective on Twitter, and vice versa. 

Take the time to decide what kind of content your organization wants to put out on each platform. This will help to increase both engagement among users and overall awareness of your organization. Check out our blog about social media and branding to learn more.

Create influential and meaningful partnerships

Creating and maintaining relationships is important for any organization. For nonprofits, it is essential. Using existing resources and growing on established relationships provides many benefits for nonprofits. 

Look to your current supporters for help with your marketing efforts. Usually, supporters are thrilled to become active in an organization that they are passionate about. Partner with supporters or other people in your network that have a wide reach and can be advocates for your nonprofit. 

For example, advocates can promote your organization by posting content on their own social media accounts, running fundraisers, and using their networks to reach more people. Additionally, partnerships like these would help your organization reach groups of people outside of your current scope. 

Participate in visual marketing

One of the most impactful marketing strategies is the use of visuals. Visuals, such as pictures, infographics, and videos, can express your organization’s mission in a unique and effective way. 

When scrolling through social media or reading the newspaper, people are typically drawn to things that can tell a story with little effort. A picture or video allows for viewer ease and attracts more attention due to enticing colors, stunning images, and thought-out graphics. 

Visuals can involve people within your organization as well as the community that is impacted by your mission. For instance, a video of testimonials or a photo with a quote can story tell in an appealing and effective way for your organization.  

Personalize your outreach communication

People tend to disregard mass-created messages, sending a large amount of communication and information to the trash. Creating more personalized communication will increase response rates and engage supporters. 

Each donor and supporter is different. The way to continue their engagement will vary depending on their age, current level of commitment, socioeconomic status, and interests.

Consider planning out personalized messages for different groups of people when creating your monthly newsletter or weekly updates. This will ensure that the right information gets to the right people and will help to maintain engagement and interest in your nonprofit. 

 

Above all, do not hesitate to ask for help! If you are a nonprofit looking for assistance with marketing strategies, contact us for a consultation. Our marketing focuses on storytelling and community connection, and will be sure to help your organization enhance its presence!

There are signs you can look out for in a good content marketing agency.

[Infographic] What To Look For in a Content Marketing Agency

If you’re looking for a content marketing agency, the vast amount of companies and services that they provide can seem overwhelming, to say the least. Luckily, there are a few tell-tale signs of a good and reputable agency that you can be on the lookout for when considering which company to work with.

1. A Good Website & Social Media Presence

The first thing you may come across when looking for an agency is their website or social media accounts. If you know what to look for, these can tell you a lot about the agency itself. 

Is their website up-to-date? Are they active on social media, and is their brand recognizable and consistent? A good brand presence can tell you what the company’s all about. Their social media can also serve as a general idea of what the content services they would provide you would look like. 

Although this can be a way to assess any type of company, it’s especially important for content marketing. After all, if a content marketing company doesn’t put out quality content itself, would you trust them to make you good content?

A consistent social media presence can indicate a good content marketing agency.

2. Proven Results

Website testimonials or case studies are a great way to judge a company.

A good content marketing agency should have proven results, shown through past clients’ reviews and testimonials. Past clients can also tell you an agency’s core niches and whether they’ve worked with content similar to yours in the past. The presence of long-term clients can tell you that an agency is trustworthy and reliable.

It’s also important to go past website testimonials, though. To truly know if a company is trustworthy, you can scour the internet for any possible negative feedback or cautions. Use a website like Clutch to get totally honest reviews. 

If you’re seriously considering an agency that has a few bad reviews, don’t be too quick to judge.Try reaching out to the company to discuss any concerns you may have. If it’s a good company, they’ll be open to discuss how they’ve improved.

3. Modern and Effective Techniques

Content marketing in this day and age goes far beyond creating good content. Making sure the content reaches the right audiences is the second half of the battle. 

Marketing strategies and research like Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, should be part of an effective content marketing strategy. 

Ask about your potential agency’s SEO practices and make sure they’re doing the right keyword research, content analysis and optimization of meta descriptions.

4. A Diverse Staff

Diversity goes far beyond physical appearance. A diverse staff should include different niches, expertise, experience level and background. Consider things like age and expertise when looking at a company’s staff.

A diverse staff can bring the best of both worlds to your content. Your content will benefit from the knowledge that only comes with a long history in the industry paired with the innovation and creative ideas of someone newer to the field.

Does the content marketing agency have a staff with different backgrounds and expertise?

5. Solid Communication

One of the most important things when working with any kind of agency is a steady line of communication. Look beyond just basic communication, though. A lot of content agencies will be able to talk you up, but fall short on finished products. Make sure what they’re saying is in plain English instead of industry jargon and that what they’re saying aligns with your vision.

A good content marketing agency should reach out enough that you always know where your budget is going. They should keep you in the loop with where they’re at in the timeline for your project. Also, make sure that the agency puts you in direct contact with the employees that are working on your campaign. If not, you’ll risk your message getting lost in translation. 

Communication goes both ways, too. Do your work with an agency that leaves the line of communication open and encourages you to get in touch with a question or comment.

6. A Mission Statement that Aligns With Yours

Any company – from a content marketing agency to a local boutique – should have a clear and visible mission statement and vision for their company. 

If your values and beliefs line up with what the agency stands for, you can ensure it will be a good fit for your content. The beliefs that a company holds comes out in all they do, and that includes content. If your beliefs do not align with the agency’s you’re working with, it may come through in the content they create for you.

You should also make sure they put their efforts where their heart is – if one of their major values is contributing to the community, see what they are doing to turn that value into real results.

A shared and honest understanding of what their big picture is will help you in the long run.

Find a content marketing agency that is connected to their community.

7. Transparency

Transparency relates to almost everything on this list. If they’re not honest about deadlines, avoiding certain questions or are not responsive to constructive criticism, it can be a huge red flag.

You should also always be in the know, from coming up with due dates to getting the final project. If there’s even a small problem or bump in the road, you should be kept in the loop and know what happened and what they’re doing to get back on track.

Transparency within content marketing is especially important. It can help you know what they’re doing to reach your target audience and expand your reach with content creation.

If these traits of an effective content marketing agency resonate with you, consider working with PivotPath. We can help you create Real, Recognizable and Relatable content to connect with clients and expand your businesses. Check out our content services here.

Alison Roller is a recent graduate of West Chester University of Pennsylvania where she earned a B.A. in English with a minor in journalism. When she’s not writing, she can be found wherever her cats are. Check out her LinkedIn profile here to connect.

PivotPath Tips Recession Proof Your Business

3 Ways to Recession Proof Your Small Business

In today’s economic environment, taking necessary steps to ensure your business survives a possible economic downturn is a vital part of forecasting. Doing so puts your start up at an advantage and better positioning for deft and adaptation in case of a recession.

While financial planning can help your business survive the tough times, it’s also good practice to recession proof your business starting now. Here are some ways to start being smart about your business.  

Focus on your Finances  

Recession proof your business

No matter what size your business is, it is wise to revolve your business decisions and strategies around your financial health, or your bottom line. Being financially-centered is a mark of business stability- and it all starts by setting up a financial dashboard. 

This allows you to run numbers and show significant key performance indicators to show current or historical financial health. By having this quick macro view of your financial performance, you are able to make sound and timely business decisions along the way, without so much digging into tons of files or paperwork. 

Another way to recession-proof your finances, is to track your cash flow. Of course, many business owners would say they do – but it’s important to look beyond the normal tracking cycle and put due diligence to work. 

Setting up a cash flow planner is one way of being able to track cash flow to show projected income and expenses for the quarter. This allows you to pinpoint the critical stages. This also allows you to plan your expenses carefully, and create other products and/or services to increase the cash-flow over time. 

If you are seeing a healthy influx of income vs expenses though, don’t get too excited and splurge. As a startup, running a tight ship on expenses should be the practice, and unplanned expenses or investments should be justified. As always, saving for a rainy day will help you weather the storm just in case. 

Maximize Your Marketing  

Marketing Strategy in Business

Let’s imagine you are nearing the end of the second quarter, and you already have reached your client quota for the year. Or you manage to land a big business with a client much earlier than forecasted. Sounds like you have all your financial goals achieved in such a short time so you feel you are all set. 

While that sounds like an ideal scenario, having achieved your targets at an early stage of the cycle means that you get to have more opportunities to uncover. Now is not the time to rest on your laurels; instead, continue to do capture sales and launch marketing campaigns –  as you can never tell what lies ahead with your existing client list.  

A consistent and strategic marketing plan in place will surely fill your sales pipeline with prospects to convert to qualified sales. Optimizing your marketing campaigns will also help capturing projected sales – so always keep it going and growing.  

In addition, continuing to increase your customer base by networking and actively engaging with your audience, offering promotions and deals on slow moving products and services, and expanding to unexplored markets are just other strategies to maximize your marketing budget. Remember, every dollar counts.

Innovate and Inspire 

Innovation in business

Startup businesses flourish when producing a premium product or service with value pricing. Think of edgy ways to market your niche, and help you stand apart from the competition. 

Whether it’s innovating a new product line, re-branding a product or a service to a potential market segment, or perform A/B testing on marketing campaigns, innovative measures can definitely help you uncover missed or potential opportunities.

Be in the know of the latest trends in your industry, attend webinars, keep a close watch on your competitors and always connect with the significant people in your network. Being inspired does not always mean coming up with the best and brightest ideas; it also means knowing where you stand in your industry, so that you can always stay one step ahead. 

Be bold, yet exercise prudence when necessary to prepare for those unforeseen seasons like a recession in entrepreneurship. No matter what the state of the economy is at any point, being financially-centered should always be the goal. 

[Infographic] Branding: The Basics

Your brand is the face of your company. The first image a customer sees: your logo, font, colors, etc. are all a part of your brand. If you’re not sure how or where to start with your brand, we are here to help.

Before you jump right into creating a logo and coming up with a slogan, pause and make a plan. A branding strategy will be the backbone of your branding process. There are a few parts in the planning stages of your brand development.

Determine and Research Your Target Audience

Your brand should not be about you or your products and services, but should revolve around your audience. Because branding is about how your audience views your business, you have to specify your target audience so you do not waste time trying to market your services to everyone.

Remember: the narrower the focus, the higher the conversion.

A few demographics to note when identifying your ideal audience are age, gender, income, education level, and location. You also have to know the interests and pain points of the suspected audience that will have higher interest in your business’ products or services.

For example, if your business appeals primarily to college students who study abroad, then you have to understand their goals, their influencers, their psychology, the types of sites they frequent, and their brand affinities (the types of brands they tend to stick with).

Understanding your target audience will help you focus your marketing efforts and ensure that the right people are viewing your ads and reading your content.

Establish Your Brand Mission

You might be familiar with Nike’s slogan, “Just Do It”, but do you know their mission? It reads, “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world (*If you have a body, you are an athlete).”

This idea relies on the first step: defining your audience. For Nike, the target audience is everyone with a physical body and their goal is to bring inspiration to their audience. You can see the mission in their ads where they feature all kinds of people who use Nike products to be physically healthy and fit. Their slogan also follows the same theme of inspiration as their mission statement. This consistency is important in branding.

With a small business, you want to start small. Focus on your primary audience, state your mission, and then go from there. When your business expands and your brand loyalty increases, you can then increase your market audience and re-brand to fit your expansion.

Research Brands Within Your Industry

Put simply: learn from other’s mistakes. Find other businesses that do what you do, and study their brands. What is their brand loyalty (how many people like and trust the brand)? Why do people like the brand? What are the pros and cons of their brand strategy? In what aspects did their brand fail and in what aspects did it succeed?

As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. It is most likely that someone somewhere has had the same business idea you have and has implemented it. Find those businesses and study them. If you can’t find anyone doing the same thing you’re doing, find someone doing something similar.

Do not research only businesses doing the exact thing as your business. Branding strategies take into consideration the location of the business and the demographics in that location. Research businesses based in your area of business, those that have the same target audience as your business, and those that have the same mission as your business.

Combining all this research will provide a sturdy foundation, not only for your branding process, but also for your business’ growth.

What Do You Have That The Others Don’t?

Consumers want to know why. Why should I listen to you? Why should I use your services? You have to highlight something that is beneficial to your audience and that they can’t get anywhere else.

Take Starbucks for example, they sell coffee (so does almost every restaurant in America). If Starbucks went with the slogan, “We sell coffee. Come try it.”, they’d probably be just another local coffee shop in Seattle.

Starbucks’ mission is “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” One of their values is “Creating a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.” You can see the mission statement and values reflected in their stores. The ambient lighting, comfortable seating ranging from two-seater tables to tables for large groups, and the variety of music that plays from their overhead speakers. Of course, there’s also free WiFi. Nothing brings people together nowadays like free WiFi.

All the extra benefits that Starbucks offers has made Starbucks a place where you can meet up with friends, work on a group project with classmates, or just chill by yourself. It’s truly a second home.

Like Starbucks, highlight what makes your business a step above the others. It may be customer service, a great quality product at a cheaper price, or an easy-to-use service. Let these benefits show in your marketing and in the way you interact with consumers. Consumers can get coffee anywhere. Make sure they want to come to you for the same thing someone else provides.

Have you started your branding journey? What have you learned along the way? Share with us in the comments below.

Lois Olowoyo is a telecommunication-production major at the University of Florida and an avid storyteller. When she’s not writing a story of her own or acting one out, she can be found listening to, watching, or reading someone else’s story. You can learn more about her and view her work at loisolowoyo.wordpress.com. Check out her LinkedIn profile here.

Branding 101: Typography

Have you ever looked at a piece of text and just felt like there was something wrong? The words may have been constructed appropriately but something visually seemed odd? Many times people use typeface on a whim.

pivotpath typography

Without considering how typography affects the message they are trying to pass across, they end up with graphics that may make for a good laugh but do not make for good business. Understanding the significance of text in your brand is important to your brand identity.

It is important to note that there are professionals who can help you work out the technicalities of typography (PivotPath plug!) . All you need to do is share your vision for your brand with them. For busy business owners, delegating the job is a great way to save time but the fees can add up. If you prefer to do work it out yourself, I have some tips that will help. First, let’s define some technical terms.

Type: printed characters or letters.

Typography: the style or appearance of type.

Typeface: a particular design of type (e.g Times New Roman, Arial).

Font: a particular style, weight, and size of typeface.

Font family: a group of fonts with similar design characteristics (For example, the Times Roman font family will include Times Roman Bold, Times Roman Italic, Times Roman Bold Italic, etc. These fonts are all of the same ‘family’ but are slightly different).

Medium: a means by which something is communicated or expressed. (In this case, digital or print such as websites, flyers, etc.)

Weight: the thickness of a type in relation to its height.

Tip 1 – Don’t Go Overboard

When you start your research, it is easy to get a little distracted. You may find a thousand fonts that would make your company name stand out visually, but you’ll have to narrow it down to about 5-10 fonts. Of those, 2-3 will be used to establish your visual hierarchy, or main/most important fonts where you want a readers’ eye to catch most.

However, try not to use more than 3 when combining fonts as readers will become very distracted (see?). These are the fonts that can be used across different platforms like your website, product packaging, flyers, etc. If you keep this in mind, you won’t waste time on what you don’t need.

Tip 2 – Narrowing It Down

Now, you know you will need only a maximum of 10 fonts, but how do you choose only 10 from the 100 you like? There a few questions you can ask yourself:

  • Is it flexible? Step back for a minute and look at the big picture. You may need typefaces for your website, packaging, posters, signs, etc. Rather than picking a typeface for each medium you might use, having one that can run easily on multiple platforms is better. Try the typeface you are considering out on your website, then print it out and see what it looks like on paper. Is it legible when the font is small? Does it look odd when you increase its size?
  • Is it expansive? Your business is bound to grow over time. Can the font you choose grow with it? Does it support multiple characters? Can it support other languages in the situation that you expand abroad? Is it available in various sizes and weights?
  • Is it legible? Are the character’s distinctive? Using a cursive typeface for a large body of text will not end well. Do some of the characters link together in odd ways (like f & i) or are some of the characters spaced together oddly (like e and r)? You do not want to end up with a sign like this one:
Doesn’t sound very relaxing…

Lettering artist Jessica Hische invented the “Il1” test. Type a capital I, a lowercase L, and a number 1 next to each other.

If you cannot tell the difference between the characters you might have trouble with them later on.

Tip 3 – Know Your Medium

On digital media, serifs don’t always do well. That is because the display resolution on a digital device is much less than that of a printed book. In a book, serifs look clear and defined but on a digital device, serifs tend to look blurry and are harder to read, especially in large bodies of text.

The serifs on the characters blur and make the text look like one big blob.

So while serifs might do well in a printed work, on the other hand, the minimal clean-cut sans-serif does well on digital devices but becomes harder to read in large quantities on a print medium.

Note: This can change depending on the type of serif or sans-serif you use. In the end, the choices you make concerning your typography come down to your perception. If you are in doubt, ask someone else what they think. Others may be able to make a clearer decision.

Tip 4 – What’s Your Personality Type?

Your brand has an image and that image is what you are trying to show your audience.  It might be modern, simple, shy, friendly, vintage, tough, etc. Besides actual graphics, typography can also help convey your company’s personality. Serifs are considered vintage, more formal, and classical. So you may see a serif font on the cover of a book about the civil war.

Sans-serifs are simpler and modern so you may find them in the logos of technology companies who want to convey a simple and trendy image like Apple and Microsoft

Display fonts (those with a lot of personality, also called script fonts) should be used sparingly and only for heading or accents. They may be fun but they’re not always very legible. Keep your company’s image in mind as you choose your typefaces.

pivotpath personality image typography tip
Typography Mistake: It says Harley-Davidson but I’m getting a girl scouts vibe.

Tip 5 – Use Your Fonts Wisely

Do not use more than two typefaces in one piece. If you really need to, stick to a maximum of three. Having up to four or five different fonts on one flyer or poster is distracting for the audience and makes your work, whether it’s an ad or a website, seem disconcerting.

The fonts you use together should complement each other. If you are pressed for time and you just need some fonts, you can pair a serif and a sans-serif from your shortlist. The contrasting fonts usually pair well.

A great source to find font pairs is FontPair. On the website, you can edit font pairs and see how well they fit the text you want to use them for. You can also find examples of pieces where the pairs have been used before.

Consistency is another thing you should consider when using your fonts.

The fonts you use on one page of your website shouldn’t differ from the ones you use on another page. Because the font is part of your brand identity, a consistent font choice will tie your brand together across platforms and cement your brand identity in the minds of your consumers.

Tip 6 – Hierarchy

Imagine this article filled with fonts of the same size, weight, and color. It would look like one large, endless blob of text and you wouldn’t really want to read it, right? Hierarchy helps determine what is important for the viewer in text. With proper hierarchy, a reader will be able to skim through a text and pick out the main points easily. 

A header should be the largest thing on the page. It should be in thick large font because its job is to grab the attention of the viewer.

A subtitle should be clearly smaller than the header text. You could italicize it to make it stand out more.

The body text should be the smallest text on the page. It should be easy to read (consider the medium to be used) and it shouldn’t have too many font styles vying for attention i.e. there shouldn’t be words in bold or underlined words all over the body text. It is okay to underline some words within the body text or put some of the words in bold but if you overdo it, your text will end up looking uncoordinated.

Although these tips are a great starting point, there is so much more to know about typography especially if you are a beginner. Choosing the right typography for your brand is a long process.

My advice is that you don’t do it alone.

Share the workload with someone. That way you will be able to exchange ideas and you won’t be alone through the journey.

As time-consuming as the process is, it is certainly very rewarding to see your hard work fall in place as your brand comes to life. Share your typography hits and misses with me in the comments below.

Lois Olowoyo is a telecommunication-production major at the university of Florida and an avid story lover. When she’s not writing a story of her own or acting one out, she can be found listening to, watching, or reading someone else’s story. You can learn more about her and view her work at loisolowoyo.wordpress.com. Check out her LinkedIn profile here.

Resources for Small Businesses

Hacks for your business.

If you have ideas but don’t know where to start, this guide is for you. As a small business owner, or someone interested in starting a small business, you probably know that the right resources are vital to your business. Some resources are easy to find while some require you to dig a little deeper. Here is a basic business startup resource guide.

Legal Know-How

At Incorporate.com, you can incorporate your business (i.e turn your business into a company formally recognized by the State it is incorporated in). They also offer a free guide to LLCs and corporations with an easy application process.

Another resource is Rocket Lawyer. They offer an easy application for incorporation. You can sign documents online, chat with lawyers by phone or email and get a 7-day free trial when you sign up to be a member.

Websites and Magazines

A community is important when starting a business. With online journals and magazines, you can find a community of startup owners like you and also find answers to the questions you have.

Forbes is a popular magazine but there are others like The Wall Street Journal: Small Business and the less popular, Startup Nation. Utilizing various sites and magazines will help you find different perspectives for your business.

Entrepreneur.com is tailored for small business owners and small business starters. It offers business plan guidelines, templates, interactive business planning tools, and online workshops and podcasts.

Government Resources

The Small Business Association’s (SBA) website is a must know when starting a business. It offers a lot of free guides and planning guidelines including a section that guides you on drafting your own business plan.

SCORE is an SBA resource partner. It offers one-on-one counseling, business tools and training programs to small business starters.

Hiring Personnel

According to an Entrepreneur article, community colleges are a great place to find the talent for your business. Besides just community colleges I believe any college would be a great place to find people to hire. Colleges are filled with people eager for experience in the work field. Colleges also offer certificate courses which can help your workers if they need some extra training. Whether it’s interns, part-time, or full-time workers, don’t forget to check out your local college.

Do you know of any resources that help small businesses? Share them in the comments below.

Lois Olowoyo is a telecommunication-production major at the University of Florida and an avid story lover. When she’s not writing a story of her own or acting one out, she can be found listening to, watching, or reading someone else’s story. You can learn more about her and view her work at loisolowoyo.wordpress.com. Check out her LinkedIn profile here.

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