In the previous days, the function of corporate logos was to express products or services functional benefits to the customers. But in these times of branding, you need to connect emotionally with your customers in order to make an impact. Hence, you need to insert a bit of emotions within your corporate logos to make a statement with your clientele.

But when you reach the point of color selection in logo design, you are confused. You don’t really know what feelings are to be evoked that will instantly connect with the customers. You are lost for colors that will stimulate the relevant feelings for your company. So here are some guidelines that will summar0ize the psychology of colors in corporate logos. Make sure you choose your color according to the pertinent emotions.

Below are the 7 most common colors and their emotional functions when used in logo designing:

1. White:

Universally known for a sign of peace, the white color represents minimalism, transparency, peace, and radiance.

2. Blue:

Blue is an authoritarian and secure color. It is often used in companies that need to exhibit, and Fortune 500 companies to represent a sense of success, confidence and serenity.

3. Green:

Green color signifies rejuvenation and environment. The properties of green include evoking calm, environment and life. This is an ideal color to show your concern towards the environment.

4. Yellow:

The color yellow has dual purposes. On one side they exhibit prudence and fear and on the other side it represents happiness and joy. McDonalds uses yellow to evoke hunger in customers.

5. Red:

With relevance to corporate logos, red is the most powerful and intense color of all. Its main purpose is to catch the eyes of the customers. Moreover, its properties include inducing hunger, heart beat and passion.

6. Black:

Black is generally known as the absence of color. It is yet another influential and dominant color in the palette. Some o the emotions associated with black are elegance, belief and minimalism.

7. Pink:

Known to many as “The ladies Color”, pink exhibits all elements of feminine touch. Emotional attribute connected to this color are innocence, playfulness and fragility.

Thanksgiving is round the corner. Although it is just a holiday, but if you think like an astute businessman, it is also an ideal time to promote your business. Like every other auspicious occasion, thanksgiving also brings a host of opportunities for small businesses to capitalize on.

Holidays seasons like thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas are the prime time when customers are emotionally sensitive and responsive to any activity related to the occasion. Thus, there is a great prospect for small business owners to utilize this vastly untapped opportunity of marketing their products and services.

Marketing Techniques to use on thanksgiving:

Following tips will help small business owners understand how they can successfully promote their business this thanksgiving:  

1. Synchronize your Corporate Logo:

One of the latest and catchy marketing gimmicks that companies use nowadays is they spice up their corporate logos in line with the upcoming occasions. The best example is Google, which changes its logo on every important occasion in order to blend with the customer’s feelings. This technique is especially useful for restaurants and fast-food chains.

2. Send Greeting Cards:

Greeting cards have been one of the most common techniques of business promotion. By sending greeting cards to your present and potential customers, you remind them that you care about them and value their sentiments. This in turn, generates trust and integrity of your business. Remember to print your corporate logo on it as well.

3. Deliver Thanksgiving Gifts:

Thanksgiving is all about “Giving” right? So it’s high time to give your customers something in order to create goodwill. You cannot imagine what it means for customers if you send them complimentary gifts. For example you can purchase turkey basters, which are inexpensive, tie a ribbon to it and attach your business card and deliver.

4. Give Thanksgiving recipes:

Use your corporate brochure to connect with your customers on this thanksgiving. What is the best part about Thanksgiving? Food! You can attach some yummy thanksgiving recipes to your brochures. This way, the customers will feel obliged to your services.

5. Spice up your corporate website:

Online marketing and social media is growing incessantly, and small businesses must take advantage of this marketing mode. Using your corporate website, you can make a huge impact on your customers by aligning your website with the thanksgiving occasion. You can wish your customers through your webpage and add interesting facts related to thanksgiving.

Although, blogging has become prominent part of marketing strategies nowadays but at the same time several corporate companies are unaware of its myths and facts. Today, this post of mine will surely help you know all about corporate blogs…let’s get started.

1) Advantages of Corporate Blogging:

Firstly, let’s analyze how corporate blogging can help a company reach its organizational goals. So, here are the reasons for which corporate blogging has become a success tip:

• It helps a company have a strong bond with its customers
• A company can communicate with its own employees
• Blogging can be used as a promotional tool to reach new target markets
• Blog is a platform to have open dialogue between executives, staff, and customers
• Blogs builds a strong company image by branding your product in the market
• It helps a customer know more about company’s products and services.
• It helps you to have an update of your competitors proceedings
• Being a direct communication channel, blogs helps you improve your customer service on global basis.
• Allows the company employees to display their expertise on a particular topic.
• You stay updated about the worldwide conferences/meetings related to your industry.
• Lastly, as compare to other communication strategies, blogging is relatively much cheaper.

2) Disadvantages of Corporate Blogging:

Although I don’t think blogging can harm any company in any way but still it is important that we see consider negative and positive aspect of every topic. However, my list of disadvantages is really short, if you have any to add, please do add.

• Your competitors can easily exploit any aspect of your company, which can lead to bad publicity.
• Many workers have been fired by their bosses for putting such content on the blog which took the company in negative direction.
• Many companies have invested big money in customizing their blogs but unfortunately they did not receive expected results.
• Blogs revealing multiple tones and opinions of a company can also leave a confusing image of the organization.
• A badly worded blog or factually incorrect blogs can spell disaster for the company. 

3) Facts about Corporate Blogging:

Undoubtedly, blogs are considered to be traffic magnets and a powerful communication tool but it does not mean that it works for everyone. Yes my friends, surveys have proved that many corporate blogs have failed and only few succeeded. There are few facts you should know be aware of Corporate Blogging:

• Many companies overly rate the blogs and expect tons of traffic driving in overnight.
• It can take you months to build in long-term and authentic readership.
• Blogging is not only about talking about yourself and your organization. Give enough space to your readers and customers to share their views.
• When writing a blog post always try to come up with useful content and detailed facts for the readers otherwise you won’t be able to win trustworthy visitors.
• Blogs allow users and your competitors to publicly criticize you on your own blog. Be patient and cleverly respond to the negative comments of your readers.
• People do not always want to know about your organization and its goals. They will enjoy if you introduce them to the team members of the venture.

According to latest researches/polls 55% of corporations are blogging but I would say that don’t follow this trend only because they are fast, cheap and easy to use. I would suggest, just don’t jump for the blog world as everyone is doing it. Study your target audience, niche market and company goals, irrespective of your company size. The longer you take to recognize its importance, the longer you delay your success.

However, if you know the right strategy of corporate blogging, you can win the world. Before you begin with your corporate blog, you should know the exact reasons you’d want to blog. There are many but I list few of them. Now you find which says your story:

1. Some people blog want to save the ideas piled up in their minds and want to keep them as a record.
2. Some people are eager to know other people’s opinion over their creative ideas.
3. Most part of the bloggers aim to capture potential clients through their blogs.
4. Corporate companies create blogs to directly deliver their image and enhance their communication with target audiences.
5. Entrepreneurs use it as a communication tool to build brand awareness as corporate blogs can prove to be a powerful resource. 

These are the main reasons to motivate for corporate blogging therefore I list below 6 main tips to achieve a successful corporate identity with a blog.

• A relevant but non promotional topic: If you have a website offering corporate logo designs, create its blog with some interesting topics. You just don’t need to keep on writing about your product; instead you can compile some famous corporate logos or talk about significance of corporate logos.
• Don’t overly promote your product: Try avoiding the common mentality…. as it is your blog so it should only speak about your products. It is important that you refer to other guys of your industry. If we keep on rambling about our stuff or our tools, then the readers will get bored.

Be a one- stop of reliable resources: Being in the corporate world you would be coming across new happenings and events taking place in the industry. Post latest news related to your field on the blog, so people keep coming in for the update. Build blogosphere networking: Being in any market you can’t move without social networking. You need to network effectively with people in same industry. Build one to one relations with other bloggers, so they link your blog, making it noticeable in the blogosphere. Interlinking and Cross Branding: People can only find you if you are linked by some big names of the same market. This is the great opportunity to gain a regular reader of your blog which might convert into a potential customer later. Use your side bar to link famous and informative posts by other bloggers. Keyword Cannibalizing: You need to be very careful at this aspect. People are using their site keywords exactly at their blog and linking back to the site page. Use the other keywords on your blog which are non-commercial and research oriented but provide the right information about your main keyword and then you can link it back to your site. Same keywords linking from blog to the main site becomes your blog’s reason of failure. It can get you into trouble by losing your regular readers or maybe the potential clients. Many people simply ditch some blogs as they are into aggressive interlinking of their sites.

• Try making news: Don’t just write the same things which bunch of other people have already published. Try to think out of the box. Be the source of providing new information and facts by expressing your honest views about the market. This will provide your readers a platform to share their fears and views.