Dressing for success in the business world is as much about how you look on paper as it does how you dress personally. If you wear a coat and tie you will impress you customer more than if you wear blue-jeans and a t-shirt. Think of this analogy when you consider how you appear when you dress your corporate image. Remember when we talked about how your current marketing, how if it’s mismatched fonts, colors and images, then you look sloppy and appear unprofessional. Conversely, if you dress your literature to impress then you’d wear the same color pants (business card) with your jacket (stationery).

In order to appear as professional or as successful as your competition depends on how your image is perceived. If you cater to an industry that provides a product or service to lower income consumers then size and professional strength might not mean all that much. For local markets success can be realized by well designed image branding.

As an example, you might have a product that you sell directly to end-use consumers, or, you might have an outside sales agency representing your products or services to a dealer or consumer, or you might sell direct to a vendor or dealer, who then, takes your product and sells it to their customers. The marketing material you create for one does not necessarily communicate you well to the other.

Are you b2b, b2c or both?

Knowing who your customer is, is the key to knowing how to design your marketing material to entice them to buy it. Let’s say you make a product that you think will be great to apply to a car to keep it looking shiny and bright. In a B2C, “business to consumer”, scenario, you are making the decision to design material that will target new and existing automobile owners directly. You might use a website to deliver your message or perhaps a newspaper ad or billboard in your local area.

In a B2B, “business to business”, scenario you are deciding to sell your product to automobile dealers or auto parts suppliers who will in turn sell it to their customers. In this scenario you will be designing marketing material with two target audiences in mind. One, you have to design material that will attract the automobile dealer or parts supplier to represent your product over someone else’s. Secondly, you have to design the material they will use to market your product to their customer. While this approach is obviously more costly it can result in substantial profits if it’s successfully deployed. Your new target audience could wind up extending your business nationally, if not globally.

  Article Written By :Robert Schonhoff
  Date : 10/18/2011