A logo is the first pillar of any brand building campaign. It helps your potential clients and customers to remember your brand. But, only if it has a certain few qualities, otherwise it is just a pretty picture that no one bothers to do anything with.

Uniqueness, attractiveness and effectiveness are the most important qualities of a logo design. It has to be unique as it is your brand / business identity. It should be something good to look at, and it should have some smart idea behind it that would make people curious about it. It should communicate the message which the designer intended to deliver as effectively as possible.

What happens if a logo design doesn’t do all that? Well then it is a bad logo design. If you are a well established financially strong business you can probably undo the damage by spending more on further re-branding and redesigning a perfect logo. However, if you are a startup then there are some serious consequences of a bad logo design that you must watch for.

1. Brand Distortion
A bad logo design distorts the image of your business or brand by misrepresenting it. Viewers unable to understand it would assume whatever they wanted with your logo design. Hence your brand image in their minds is distorted and you can’t help fix it.

2. Negative Impact
There is nothing worse than a logo design that communicates a wrong message, something negative or evil, like racism for example, or promoting hatred or something. Of course you didn’t want to do that on purpose, but it happened and your brand image is not only distorted and disliked, sometimes people can be brutal and they might even start hating you just because you had a bad logo design.

3. Silent Damage
Sometimes businesses and organizations do not even realize that they have a bad logo design which is not helping them at all. They keep using it meanwhile worrying why their promotional efforts are not paying off. This damage continues to grow until the cause is identified, but surprisingly not many businesses pay attention to their own logo and how it might be causing them the cold response.

4. Redesign Costs
As a start-up, a new business, or an established small business you might have limited budget to spend on branding and marketing. Getting your logo redesigned is just an unwanted experience which would increase your promotional budget and since you had a bad experience with a cheap logo designer this time you might consider hiring someone a little more fancy, which will cost you even more.

5. Rebranding Costs
As soon as you got your logo you may have gotten it printed on your business cards, your brochures or banners, posters, mugs or whatever approach you use to promote your brand. Redoing your logo design would not only cost you designer fee, it would also cost you a lot more when you start using new and improved logo on your promotional stuff. The added cost would become too high if you had already spent too much on marketing with your previous but horrible logo.

As a start-up you can avoid all this trouble by making smart choices right from the beginning. Spend some time on researching topics like design, business logo, and branding. An intelligent logo can boost your start-up’s brand image, get one in the beginning and then build your business empire on it.

Author: Ben Johnson is the Alliance Manager at Logoinn, a custom logo design company. He writes about the effect of design on marketing and brand identity and helps small businesses find design solutions for effective marketing.

At Hummingbird Creative Group, we use the acronym SOAR to represent helping our clients to “Strategically Orient their companies to Achieve marketing Results.” In an economy like this, each of us should step back and brainstorm about new products and services we might offer based on insight gathering from clients and prospects to position our companies for success. Insight gathering is simply doing market research including competitive analysis, brand analysis and interviews to establish core facts, values, character and the market’s perception of your offerings, opportunities, targets and referring audiences. Interviewing customers and prospects through the use of case studies and surveys can help you understand what you are doing right, or wrong and how you could change what you are doing to better meet needs in the marketplace. Other things you might want to do to help you Strategically Orient your company to Achieve marketing Results include:

1. Take time away from your everyday business activities and analyze what you can do differently, such as pricing services differently to meet client needs or developing a new product or service that can help your customers get through this tough economy.

2. Write down your strategy before its implementation. By having a road map of what to do and how to achieve it, you are more likely to make it happen.

3. Explore and learn new media, such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media outlets. These are inexpensive ways to spread the word about your company, and they can compliment traditional media efforts such as TV, radio and print media.

4. Make sure that your website is positioned correctly to reflect your competitive advantages and other branding messages. You might want to add a client area to your website, increase search engine optimization, or even redesign your site to reflect what you now offer.

5. Join organizations where you can be seen and heard by other businesses and develop positive one-on-one relationships to grow and nurture what you’re building through other mass media activities.

6. Consider outsourcing your branding efforts by hiring a marketing firm with capabilities to do strategic planning, writing, design, interactive and new media planning. Outsourcing is usually about the same cost of a full-time employee who might have only core competencies in one or two of these areas.

Most importantly, do not stop marketing and advertising your company during this time! Strong, consistent brand messages and graphic elements will wake up your brand and help prospects and customers keep your company top-of-mind. Continue to build your brand awareness so you will stay top-of-mind no matter what the economy holds!

Creating a presence on the web isn’t something to be taken lightly- especially if your profession revolves around the Internet!  That being said, whether your a business person, and Internet marketer or just someone with a little free “surfing” time, here are some helpful tips that we could all benefit from to make our presence more noticeable:

10 Social Media Tips

1. Write a Review:  This is a great option that often gets overlooked.  If you’re a member of Amazon.com, why not write a quick review of whatever it was you ordered?  Not only will your review be helpful to others who are considering the product, but it’s a great way to put your name out there!
2. Market on Facebook: In recent years, Facebook has grown in popularity to the point where people are beginning to catch on to its marketability.  If you’re thinking of marketing yourself on Facebook, check out the Facebook Marketing Bible, which you can download here.
3. Give to Charity: SocialVibe is a great way to generate contributions to charity in order to drive business.  Check it out.
4. Jump on LinkedIn: This is a professional site more dedicated to mature individuals who want to connect with other professionals.
5. AdGabber: AdGabber is another great social network where you can connect with other people in the marketing industry.
6. E-mail Marketing: Ah, never underestimate the power of e-mail marketing.  Think of how often you check your email account(s) each day.  Sometimes creating a presence is as simple as sending out a few emails!
7. Twitter it Up: Check out David’s post about Twitter in which he gives 15 quick tips on how to use it more effectively.  Twitter is definitely a must if you plan to create a presence on the web.
8. YouTube: Viral marketing is a great way to grab people’s attention.  However, it’s very similar to using PowerPoint: only use it if you really have something to say.  Remember that video shouldn’t be used to say something that could be written down just the same.  Don’t just sit there and talk to the camera.  Video is often used to demonstrate something or to act something out, so be charismatic and creative!
9. Forums: Forums are a great way to jump into conversations.  However, I wouldn’t get involved in too many.  It’s good to pick and choose a couple here because most forums require you to register, etc.
10. Quality Content: The golden rule of creating a presence on the web (in my opinion) is: CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.  And not just any ol’ content either.  If you truly have something to say and you say it well, people will follow you.  If they find out that you haven’t anything to say, then they won’t even give you the time of day

Go to GetStartedwithTwitter.com and sign up NOW…It’s FREE!