Consultants Website Provides Free Branding Insights and Information

Helpful checklists and aids for brand audits, name development, logo evaluations and graphic standards.

(PRWEB) July 2, 2003 -- Need a unique name for your new business? At www.signaturestrategies.biz, are some 450 business last names" a marketer can combine with a product-specific first name". For instance, a mortgage broker might want to couple Mortgage" with a last name like Machine" or Matters" or Supply" from the comprehensive list. It just takes minutes to create a unique and memorable name.

This website was created by Martin Jelsema, the founder of Signature Strategies and a 45-year veteran of the branding wars. Signature Strategies has been helping small businesses profit from the power of branding" for the past nine years. The website describes the services of Signature Strategies, but it was also designed as a resource for those struggling to differentiate their businesses through branding and positioning.

Besides the last names" section, theres a checklist of naming criteria; an evaluation matrix to help choose the one name that best fits a companys specific criteria; many tips and techniques for developing a large list of potential name candidates, and a checklist of items and events required to successfully change a business name.

But names are not the only elements of branding addressed on this site. There are guidelines for evaluating logo designs; guidelines for developing graphic standards for a brand; lists of books, websites and software helpful in branding, and some 20 type fonts and dingbats designed by Signature Strategies you can download free of charge.

Perhaps most useful to companies with established brands is an outline and description of the elements to be reviewed in a brand audit. The seven major subjects discussed are competitive presence, internal organization, market segmentation, positioning, differentiators, brand personality and metrics.

There is also a description of the methodology and an example of positioning research. The idea of this research is to determine the strength and weakness of a brand in relation to its competitors as perceived in the collective mind of target market segments, or to discover attractive positions not adequately occupied in which a company might introduce a new product or reposition a me-too" product.

At present, the Signature Strategies website contains some 60 pages of branding information. It does change over time, mostly with additional materials thought to be of interest to marketing and executive management people concerned with developing and maintaining viable brands. Again, the address is www.signaturestrategies.biz.

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