6 Tech Advancements That Can Be Brand Pitfalls

There used to be a huge distinction between do-it-yourself and professionally designed marketing materials. It cost money and took a significant effort to produce a high-quality brochure, website or email campaign.

The last decade, however, has introduced technology that makes it cheaper, easier and quicker for small businesses to produce marketing materials. When used effectively, these tools can help a business look more professional and compete with companies that have more resources. The flip-side is that they also add to an ever-growing sea of mid-quality materials and brands.

Stock Art and Digital Photography
With the introduction of digital cameras, everyone has become a photographer and stock art has become more accessible and abundant than ever. Stock art sources are over-crowded with amateur images that lack the composition, lighting and other elements of good photography. While there are still high-quality images available, they are lost among thousands of average ones. It can be very time consuming to weed through them, and if you are not a trained photographer, it can be difficult to tell the good from the bad.

All that said, stock art can be an inexpensive way to get great images for your marketing materials. Start by setting guidelines to focus your search on images that are right for your brand (i.e. certain lighting conditions or a specific color palette). You might even consider hiring a photographer to help in the search or the final selection.

Software as a Service (SaaS)
Sometimes known as "on-demand software", SaaS is internet-based software that businesses can subscribe to for a low monthly fee. SaaS is available for everything from email marketing to project management to customer relationship management.

SaaS options can be highly customizable. When they are integrated well with other marketing, they can help execute otherwise expensive and technically difficult marketing tasks. However, many companies use SaaS to get initiatives up and running quickly, and they don't go the extra mile to truly apply their brands to templates and integrate them with other materials. As a result, their marketing pieces look like everyone else's and don't reinforce their brands. If you truly want to get the most out of SaaS, invest the time and resources to apply your brand appropriately.

Crowdsourcing
Looking for a low-cost logo, website, tagline or other marketing asset? Internet-enabled crowd-sourcing makes it possible for businesses to outsource creative services to a large community of providers around the world. For example, if a business owner wants a logo designed, he/she can post a project description with a value attached that will go to the winning design. Freelancers compete for the project by submitting designs with the hope of winning and getting paid.

This can be great for business owners who know how to manage the process and give meaningful direction and feedback on the submissions. They get to see lots of options and directions the logo can take at a very low cost. It's not so great if the business owner doesn't have any background in managing the design process because they can end up with mediocre products that don't effectively communicate their differentiators, culture or business values. If you don't have the background, hire someone who does to help manage the process.

On-Demand Printing
With the introduction of order-online, quick-printing options, businesses simply upload a digital file and can get anything from brochures to direct mail pieces to business cards printed and delivered by companies across the country at very low prices. As a result, full-color printing has become a very inexpensive commodity, where it once was precious.

On-demand printing can be a valid option when you need to keep the cost per piece down on materials you hand out like water. However, for pieces that need to make an impression, like your brochure, differentiate your brand by investing in the higher quality paper, specialty techniques and professional design that will really make it special.

Social Media
From facebook to twitter to LinkedIn, social media provides various outlets for businesses to easily publish content, and if done well, to create a 2-way dialogue with contacts. On the other hand, if ever there was a marketing medium that could take on a life of its own, it's social media.

The very nature of social media requires an informal, personal approach with the audience - which may or may not be appropriate for all businesses. Voice is an important distinguishing brand element that should be consistent throughout all marketing materials. If a company's voice is more corporate, it can take real strategy to marry it with the informality of social media. In these cases, it may make sense to use the personal brand of someone within the business for social media. Consider your business's brand voice and how it would fit with a social media strategy. In addition, make sure social media doesn't just become a distraction. Social media requires a significant time investment to do well and actually further your brand, so focus on a holistic approach that integrates social media with the rest of your marketing initiatives.

Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content management systems (CMS), including sitebuilders like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, have made it possible for companies to build and update content on their websites without the need for technical programming knowledge. This can considerably reduce website development costs, ongoing maintenance costs and the time it takes to make updates.

The main caution of self-managed, CMS-built websites is that design and content development often don't get enough attention. Design and imagery selection for a business's website do a lot to establish or reinforce the brand, and the content should reflect a specific voice and writing style appropriate for the business and its audience. If you are going to use a CMS to build your site, don't sacrifice on these things just to get something live. Take the time to develop and enforce strict controls for styling/formatting, voice, imagery and other elements of your brand.


So what is the result of all this ground-breaking technology?
You can take the $12 image, place it into the $30 template and email it for $30 a month or print it online for $0.05 a sheet, and congratulations - you've gotten yourself out there. Or have you?

To cut through all of the mediocrity and stand out, a brand will need more thought and consideration than ever. Once you have found your edge and developed the imagery, messaging and voice to set you apart, a style guide with usage guidelines for everything from your logo and colors to your imagery, voice, messaging and fonts will help you set the brand in stone. If you have a unique brand offering and you enforce the guidelines as the brand manager, these tools will prove to be valuable assets instead of brand pitfalls.