One of the questions I first get when I’m speaking to potential new clients about creating their thumbnails for their YouTube channel is “What is the process of designing YouTube thumbnails for my channel?”

Some of the follow up questions are:

“How are they going to match with the rest of my branding?”

“How will then stand out from similar videos so people know they’re mine?”

These questions can all be answered by sharing the design process behind the thumbnails.

Step 1

So before the design process begins, to get started we ask a few questions. We want to find out a little bit more about the you and the goals of your YouTube channel to begin with and then what the aims of each video is.

Are you creating educational videos, inspirational videos or are they more motivational? Are you looking to sell or promote a specific product? The category of video can have an effect impacts on what the thumbnails look like.

We also want to find out a little bit more about your audience:

• What is your target audience?
• Who are you trying to attract as viewers?
• Is it aimed at kids / parents?
• Is it a how to channel is it for a particular industry to help viewers with certain questions or pain points?

Getting all this information at the start before we design the thumbnails means that we can get a better understanding of the purpose of the videos and who you’re trying to attract as subscribers.

Step 2

Step two follows on from that and is about starting to understand your visual brand a little bit more. Few more questions inbound!

We will want to have access to your visual branding guidelines and assets. We’ll take a look at your logo and see if you have set brand fonts and brand colours. If you have all these things set up, it allows us to bring all those elements together into the YouTube thumbnails.

Brand consistency makes a huge difference to the impact of your messaging and position. Bringing some of or all of your brand elements into your YouTube thumbnails means that your brand is consistent all the way through no matter which touch point your audience views you at.

It also shows that you’ve thought about and have taken time over the way you are presenting your video content too, adding more valuable to your audience. Remember the video will be jam packed full of valuable content too! The thumbnail helps entice them in, so should reflect the quality too!

Step 3

Step three is all about the design.

So at this stage, we know:

• what the purpose of the video is
• the overall feel for your brand
• who you’re trying to target
• your visual brand style

Now it’s time to develop some thumbnail styles that we can then present to you to get your feedback.

Depending on the purpose of the channel and the videos, you may need one style of thumbnail that works for every video. You may have different categories of video which might suit having individual category styles. This works really well if you’re doing a series of videos. Think of it as your own Netflix channel!

So step 3, we develop your thumbnail style and start to create some style templates and image treatments to use going forward.

Step 4

Once we’ve developed the style of thumbnail, and we’ve got a style that we want to use going forward, we can then start to implement these on past and future videos.

For videos going forward we ask that you to send:

• the video description
• the title
• and an image that you might want to use

The image will be manipulated to match your new thumbnail style. It could be a screenshot from the video itself or a photo of the person the video in a particular pose. For some tips on images for YouTube thumbnails head over to ‘5 Tips for Creating YouTube Thumbnails‘.

We can then take that image and the title on the description and create the thumbnail for that particular video. Having a description about what the video is about helps to get context of the video content. It also means that we don’t have to watch the whole video, or that the thumbnail can be created before the final edit is complete to help with workflow.

Just a little description is usually enough!

Step 5

Once we’ve created the final thumbnails we send this back to you ready for uploading to your video. Thumbnails can be sent one at a time, as and when needed however batching a month of content together is a much smoother workflow. We work with our YouTube clients on ongoing retainers so will can provide design support on a monthly basis.

You may publish weekly or fortnightly, but ideally you will want to work in advance and have your content planned out ahead of publishing. If you need support in planning content, we can help with this too! (It makes content creation a lot more fun and less stressful than thinking you need to create a video for tomorrow! – I realise I sound like Monica from Friends there!)

After you’ve received the final thumbnails, you can then upload these to YouTube and start to promote your videos!

We also follow our client channels to see how the videos are performing, how many views the videos are receiving so we can start to measure the impact of thumbnails. We look to see what thumbnails are working best and whether there is any way that we can tweak and amend to grow that number of viewers and the wider subscribers.

YouTube doesn’t penalise you for changing thumbnails, so if you want to update with new ones then you can do so! This is great is you’re looking to give your full channel an overhaul.

So that is a quick roundup of the process that we go through for designing YouTube thumbnails. Once we’ve worked with a client for the first few videos, we jump straight to designing the thumbnails to match the agreed style!

If you have any questions about YouTube graphics or the process of producing them, drop me message in the comments or get in touch!

You Might Also Like:

• What are the best sizes for my YouTube graphics?
• Is Just Being Consistent with Your Branding Enough?
• 5 Tips for Creating YouTube Thumbnails

The post What is the process of designing YouTube thumbnails? appeared first on Claire Jenks.

When I’ve been working with clients and helping small businesses and creating their YouTube channel graphics sizes is one of the things that trips people up seems to be a big hurdle. So hopefully I’m here today to give a bit of an insight into some of the sizes that you should be saving your graphics at to make sure that your YouTube channel is looking at best.

So there’s a few different areas and a few different graphics that you can create for your YouTube channel.

Your YouTube Channel Header

So first up, we’ve got the channel header, and the channel header is that long graphic at the top, which gives an insight into what you channel is about, and who’s channel it is. It’s the perfect opportunity to draw in viewers and subscribers, as is often the first thing they will see when they land on your channel. Remember first impressions! This needs to look just as good as the thumbnails and the videos themselves!

I might show off your company’s logo, it might show some photographs of you, it might show some social proof about where your videos have been shown, it might even say how often your videos come out. There’s a few different ways people use it. It’s a great space to take advantage off and should capture the essence of your channel and your brand.

Now this is one of the more tricky ones, because depending on what device you’re using, this header looks different. It automatically gets cropped when seen on mobile and tablets so it’s worth noting that it’s worth getting this right in order to make it look it’s best.

There’s a specific size for mobile, a different size for tablet, another size for desktop and a larger size specific for TV as well!

The best way to create your header would be to use a template to ensure your graphics  And the best way to do this is to use the template that is provided to create all the graphics to work across all these different devices. You want it to look as best no matter where your viewers are viewing your videos. I’ve provided a template below for you to use, but there are plenty available for you to use. If in doubt, ask a designer to help.

• The full channel artwork: 2560 x 1440 pixels
• Desktop: 2560 x 423 pixels
• Table: 1855 x 423 pixels
• Safe area and for mobiles: 1546 x 423 pixels
• Maximum file size: 6MB (but file sizes can be smaller)

The artwork is best being uploaded as the full size but remember, you don’t need to fill the full space – only the safe area.

NOTE: Ensure any of your important information fits within the mobile safe area so that is it seen across all devices.

Your YouTube Profile Picture

Your profile picture is another chance to show off your brand or the person behind the channel. Decide which would suit your channel better, a headshot or a logo.

This is best uploaded a square size at 800 x 800 pixels.

Much more straight forward compared to the header and your profile image will be viewed no matter what on different devices.

Your YouTube Thumbnails

And last up is your thumbnails. So in previous video I gave you 5 tips for creating YouTube thumbnails, but size really does matter.

You want your thumbnails to look great no matter where the viewer is seeing them, baring in mind that a lot of people will be viewing on a mobile at a much smaller size. Set them up at the recommend size and they’ll scale down perfectly. You don’t want them being scaled up when viewed at larger sizes.

The recommended size is 1280 x 720 pixels (16:9) 

TIP: You could save off a smaller version of your thumbnails that you can embed onto your email newsletters and use on social media as promotion. Add a play button on, so people know it’s a video that you’re linking to.

Hopefully that gives you a bit more of an insight into the sizes that you need for your YouTube channel artwork, the thumbnails and your profile picture.

If you’ve got any questions, please drop a message in the comments or get in touch. I’d love to help you out and make sure that your YouTube channel is looking at its best.

You Might Also Like:

• 5 Tips for Creating YouTube Thumbnails
• How to Build a Toolkit for Perfect On-Brand Graphics
• How to Increase Blog Engagement with Visual Upgrades

The post What are the best sizes for my YouTube graphics? appeared first on Claire Jenks.

They’ve said for the past few years, especially last year, that by 2020, 80% plus of content consumed online will be video. We’ve reached 2020. So it’s about time that we start taking video a little bit more seriously. So I’m planning on doing a lot more and I know a lot of my clients are starting to do a lot more video as well.

That being said, I’m getting more and more design requests for YouTube thumbnails. People are starting to take their YouTube channel a little bit more seriously. So this months theme is all around YouTube, whether that be creating your YouTube thumbnails, your YouTube channel artwork, or any graphics that you can start to incorporate within your videos to make them stand out and to take them to the next level.

With that being said, I’m here today to give you a few quick tips, to help you start to think about your YouTube thumbnail and what they might look like in order to help them stand out and attract new viewers.

So your thumbnail is the little picture that gives an idea of what your video is going to be about. The idea of them is to entice the viewer to watch and consumer your content, ultimately increasing your viewers, your numbers of subscribers and fans. They’re becoming more and more important because it is that little picture that will entice the viewers and make your video stand out from the others. In fact, it said that video creators and content creators are actually spending more time on their YouTube thumbnails and the way their YouTube channel looks than the videos themselves. So that says a lot and says how important these little graphics are.

So here are a few quick tips on things to think about when you’re creating your thumbnail.

Colour

So first up, we’ve got colour. So colour is really important when it comes to the thumbnail. This is what will help it stand out from all the rest. Think about your brand, but think about using bright colours or two contrasting colours. These are things that we that will grab the viewers attention and we want to entice them into watch the video. So make them stand out, make them bright, make them bold.

Images

Incorporating images into your thumbnails makes a lot of sense because you want to give a bit of context to what your video is all about. So this could be a screenshot from the video itself, it could be a cutout of the person who’s in the video to give a bit of personality and a bit of context to the actual content. One thing if you are thinking about using people especially, is some of the best YouTube Thumbnails and some the most successful ones use crops of people’s heads so you get close to the emotion and use people with bigger facial expressions. Having a person in your thumbnail automatically creates that person to person bond, so people can resonate a little bit more with the thumbnail. So big emotions and close ups work really well if you’re using people within your thumbnail.

If you’re going to use a screenshot of the video itself, use something that explains what the video is about. Use something that adds a bit more depth, another layer to your thumbnail. People have used stock pictures in the past but if you can use content from the actual video again, you’re going to entice the viewer more. The whole idea is that you want to attract viewers to your videos, the more you can do that this thumbnail stage, the better.

Text

The next one is text. So adding text to your thumbnails can be really helpful. Again, it adds another layer of enticement and gives viewers an idea of what it’s all about. The one thing I’d say here though, is remember, some of these thumbnails are seen at tiny sizes, especially on mobile, so don’t fill the whole area with lots of text. Use the area sparingly. Use three or four words max. This is a great chance to give an idea of what the video is about and it doesn’t have to be the headline that’s written underneath. Use it as an extra space to add a bit more context to a video. Use three or four words and use them in a larger font so it’s more attractive to the viewer, they understand what it’s about, enticing them quicker. Again, because thumbnails are seen at small sizes, sometimes you want to use a larger and maybe bolder font. Nothing to script and nothing too intricate and decorative. You want viewers to be able to understand straight away what the video is about and this will help you stand out from all the other videos on YouTube that they’re looking at under their search.

Space

And the second to last little tip is space. So YouTube puts a timestamp in the bottom right hand corner, which gives the viewers an idea of how long the video is. This is really important because some people will have 10 minutes spare, some will have half an hour spare. It gives them an idea of the length of video they’re going to watch. So make sure that when you’re creating your thumbnails, and you’re putting together the pictures and text, that you avoid this little space in the bottom right hand corner. It means then the timestamps visible, but also means that any important information such as the context of the video, and what it’s about, doesn’t get lost behind that timestamp. On the playlist page, especially, the right hand side gets covered. So if possible you might want to place all of the most important information on the left hand side.

Consistency

And very lastly, is consistency. Once you’ve come up with your YouTube thumbnail template, there might be two or three depending on the types of videos you share. Be consistent with it. When you look at a full consistent YouTube channel, it can be really effective, and it will mean that when people are scrolling through through videos in the future, they’ll be able to spot yours out from anyone else’s. Using the same style of image, the same text, the same colours, it can really make you stand out from all the other videos on there. It makes you look more professional and looks like a lot more effort has gone into your videos. Again, the ultimate aim of getting more views on those videos and to build up your audience.

Take a look at Andrew and Pete’s channel for a great example!

So there’s a few quick tips on your YouTube thumbnails. I’ll be adding to the series and looking at channel artwork and the sizes for different artwork that you might need. But that’s a quick overview of the sorts of things you should start think about when you’re creating your YouTube thumbnails.

I hope that was helpful. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to drop me a comment below or get in touch and I will see you on the next video.

You Might Also Like:

• Is Just Being Consistent with Your Branding Enough?
• How to Increase Blog Engagement with Visual Upgrades
• How to Build a Toolkit for Perfect On-Brand Graphics

The post 5 Tips for Creating YouTube Thumbnails appeared first on Claire Jenks.

The overall idea is that you want to break up a wall of text and make your post more engaging and informative for your readers. This way your audience will engage more, get more value and potentially share it with their audience! 

Introducing The Visual Blog Post Blueprint

There are many different visual elements you can include in your blogs. My Visual Blog Post Blueprint will help you understand what you can include, where to put them and how to make sure that content of the post is still consumable and the key messages still understood.

This blueprint is designed to give an overview of a visual blog post make up and isn’t the only way of incorporating visual elements. It is a wireframes, so you can experiment with where you’ll put things on your own blog depending on the length and the content, but it should give you some guidance and a starting point. 

Bonus Tip: If your company has a few people writing blogs, add a photo of them and a short bio – as well as being another way to have an image, it gives the post a more personal touch, because readers feel like they know the writer. It also adds credibility if visitors can see which member of the team has shared their knowledge. Of course, this will work for a personal brand too!

Using a Featured Image

If you want to use images, the first one to include every time is the featured image. A lot of people will use a stock photo for this, but a better idea is to make it branded with your logo, fonts and colours. Make something that people will instantly recognise as yours when the post is shared. 

As a starting point, choose a template within a design app like Canva, which is a free tool for creating exactly these kinds of images – good if you don’t have a graphic designer on hand. Add all your branding elements to the template. Re-use this template, updating the text and image when needed, so that going forward each blog has a similar featured image. This is where you can start to build memorability and you’ll soon see the consistency when you look back through your blog. 

Key Tip: Stock photos are ok as a starting point, but you want to be on-brand and recognisable as soon as possible. When using stock imagery, have a theme in mind which can help with consistency and use text and overlays to make them your own. Mine for example are all focussed around a nautical and beach theme. Best still if you can, start building up a library of your own images or hire a photographer to help you build your brand photo library.

The Intro Video

I’ve done this several times myself, and seen other businesses also use intro videos successfully. Create a snippet video to summarise the blog post and include the key points. Allowing your visitors to watch the video means they can decide whether or not the blog is helpful to them. It builds that engagement and is another way for them to consume the content.

If you prefer to create video content over writing, you can always embed the full video into your blog post and create a transcription of the video below.

Video is also a great way to put your personality across, particularly if you’re a personal brand. However, every business can benefit if they have someone to represent them in videos, perhaps the person who wrote the post, and it’s classed as a visual element too.

Break up the Wall of Text with Visual Elements

People often read online text, differently than when reading on paper. Some readers will skim down the page, looking out for the key points they’re interested or looking for the answer to their question. If you want them to read through the post to the end, you need to help them to do so.

We often break up blog posts with key headings to let a reader know what the section is about. These are often natural breaks which are ideal for placing an image or a visual.

Here are some examples of visuals you can use and create to help guide the reader and  breaking up the text whilst also adding value.

Embed social media posts: Blogs inspired by Twitter chats, updates on LinkedIn or even Instagram images can be enhanced by embedding the conversation or a screenshot of a useful comment or statistic.
It provides some context for your reader as well as adding the visual element without much work! 

Tweetables / Click to Tweets: Tweetables are a great way of breaking up text and highlighting key points and text. You can use the standard styling provided or there are options to use your own graphic which can then be easily share on social by your own audience!

Infographics: are great for blog posts which include a lot of statistics, facts and figures, as they are eye-catching and easier to digest than columns of numbers and percentages. They do take a bit of time and work to create, so these are worth getting a graphic designer on board to help you. They can be used and repurposed in many ways so are a worthwhile investment. 

Highlighted Quotes: If you’ve included quotes, these can be pulled out and incorporated in a graphic. Just as with Tweetables, you can highlight key points from within the post and have them set up for your audience easily share them on Social Media. 

Videos: Don’t forget, you can also include videos within the body of the blog if appropriate and it will add to or explain the story. This could be a demo or walkthrough, an animated video, sharing content you’ve seen elsewhere or telling people what you’ve been up to. 

It’s a good idea is to use your own, branded images where you can. Use tools like Canva where you can create your own brand toolkit and use templates consistently.

[tweetshare tweet=”Infographics are great for blog posts which include a lot of statistics, facts and figures, as they are eye-catching and easier to digest than a list of numbers and text. #visualmarketing #contentmarketing” username=”cjenksdesign”]

Bonus Tip: You might use dividers between sections of the post so it’s clear to people where you’re changing topic slightly. Think of your post like a magazine article. Magazines have a way of guiding the reader through, with images, dividers, pull-out boxes and quotes in blog or italics. All of these typographical and design tricks make the post more interesting and encourages the reader to get to the end. 

Using Images to End the Blog

By the end of the post you’ll now have a visually stand out looking blog post with a mixture of text, branded graphics, images, videos, infographics and tweetables. The post should also look and on-brand too to add even more impact and engagement. If not, check out How to Build a Toolkit for Perfect On Brand Graphics.

Lastly, you can include a Call to Action (CTA) at the end of the post. A CTA in graphic form is particularly effective. Downloadables and lead magnets are a great way of giving more value to your audience. Instead of text saying ‘Click Here to Download’, think about using a graphic to show off what they can download to entice them even more!

If you don’t have a download, and you would like them to get in touch for example, make this obvious and use a graphic as a button to the contact page. Make it obvious what the next step is that you would like the reader to take.

What visuals do you incorporate into your blog posts? Let me know in the comments or get in touch

You Might Also Like to Read:

• How to Build a Toolkit for Perfect On Brand Graphics.
• 10 Ways Visuals Make Your IT Content Marketing Better
• Stock Imagery vs Professional Bespoke Imagery

The post How to Increase Blog Engagement with Visual Upgrades appeared first on Claire Jenks.

The toolkit is intended to allow you to create on-brand graphics whenever you need them and at short notice. It includes some easy to use tools, and I’ve got some ideas on what you should include in yours.

Why Should You Have a Brand Toolkit?

The brand toolkit includes everything you need to create on-brand graphics, but most importantly, it should be useable by anybody within your company, as well as external suppliers. 

This makes sure that there’s not just one person who has the knowledge to create graphics – everyone should be able to produce what they need and to the same standard, no matter what their job is.

Whether it’s a team member or a third-party contractor who’s creating the graphics, you should have everything you need in one place, ready to send to them so they can use the tools straight away.

This saves valuable time, as there’s no need to email backwards and forwards, requesting assets and elements, logos, colour codes, sizing and so on. That communication is eliminated, because everything someone needs to create graphics is available whenever they need it, wherever they are.

Having a brand toolkit also means there is more chance of things being correct and consistent in future. If there’s something missing or not quite right, it can be damaging for the business. 

For example, someone creates a colour grade that doesn’t match the brand shade or they choose the wrong logo or image in the graphic. If this continues to happen, it waters down the brand and the toolkit has gone out of the window. 

At that point, it’s hard to work backwards to replace all the images, marketing materials and so on that have already been shared in public. You don’t know what people think when they see the wrong things – if it’s a slightly off-colour shade, they may not notice, but using different images is more obvious.

The brand toolkit ensures that the correct assets are in one place and accessible to everyone, and keeps things consistent, on-brand and of a high quality every single time they’re used.

What Goes into a Brand Toolkit?

1. Logo

This needs to be your final logo, not an early version from the designer or in a colour or font you changed your mind about. This means there’s no confusion over which logo is the right one to use.

Your logo should be in different formats, such as an EPS file – a vector format which means you can make the image as large as you like without it pixilating or losing quality.

Most people won’t actually have the right software to open these file formats, but you should have them accessible just in case. They’re often used in print, so both designers and printers can open them and work with them as necessary.

You also need to have a version of your logo in JPG format, and in a PNG file. This has a transparent background and can be used online. They must be set to 300 dpi and 72 dpi – don’t worry if that sounds technical, as your designer can do it for you.

Have full-colour, mono (black and white) and reverse versions of your logo, so no matter where you’re using it, you’ve got it in the format you need and you don’t have to ask your busy designer to create it for you.

2. Fonts

There are licencing rules around sharing fonts, so they’re not always available to the clients of a designer. However, you do need to know what they are and how they’re used. For instance, you may only have a heading font and a body copy font, to keep things easy.

3. Colours:

The brand toolkit also includes a reference to the colours used within your brand. This might include both a primary and a secondary colour palette, and where possible have the Pantone version (standardised colours). These come in CMYK and RGB formats.

These three things are the most important elements of your brand toolkit. Once you have these in place, you can start creating graphics straight away, and be confident that they’re on-brand. Additionally, you may have illustrations or background textures too.

If you’ve got stock images you’ve licenced, include these in the brand toolkit, but make sure you note down how and where they can be used – e.g. on your website, on social media or offline marketing materials.

You may have had professional headshots or product photography done, so these also need to be available for people to access. Remember, they should be saved in both web and print quality formats and clearly labelled to prevent any problems.

Brand Guidelines

Your toolkit should also have a brand guidelines document. This helps people understand where your brand has come from, why it looks the way it does and how to use all of the assets correctly.

This helps to eliminate any confusion or mistakes further down the line and ensures that your brand is consistent and coherent across all the assets created, both in-house and externally. It’s also a great reference to use for fonts, colours and how the logo should look in different situations (e.g. on top of images, against a background, in black and white). 

Every business should have a guidelines document within their brand toolkit. It may only be a few lines or run to several pages, but it needs to explain clearly which fonts, logo, colours and images should be used, what shouldn’t be done, and how to use them all together.

When you start to use all of these elements within your toolkit, with your external suppliers and across all your marketing communications, you can be sure that everything created for your brand is sharing the right messages. There won’t be any confusion, and everyone will instantly recognise your branding.

You might also like to read:

How can a Logo and Brand Improve Your IT Business Results?

Is Just Being Consistent with Your Branding Enough?

How small businesses can use graphics to stand out in a busy social world

The post How to Build a Toolkit for Perfect On-Brand Graphics appeared first on Claire Jenks.

First of all, it’s worth mentioning your brand is more than a logo. It’s the essence of your business, and, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously said: “It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” 

A logo allows you to distinguish yourself and give your business an ident, a mark, to identify your business when you’re talking about and promoting yourself. It allows your customers to get a sense of what you do and what your company stands for.

Is a Logo Necessary?

People often ask: “Do I need a logo in order to sell to customers?” and “Can I still make money without one?” The answer to the first question is, “No, you don’t” and the second, “Yes, you can.” 

I’ve known people in different industries who have created very successful businesses without a logo, or at least not having one professionally designed. However, the common thread that led to their success was that each of them knew what they stood for and clearly communicated that in all their messaging.

They were able to create a consistent brand across all touchpoints, whether that was in person, via email or blogs, or through images they shared on social media. Their brand values were at the heart of their business and they stood by them.

Each business was also consistent with the touchpoints they used with their audience. A touchpoint refers to any time your audience come into contact with your brand, whether that’s on your website, a social media post or an advert.

By having the same brand messages each time, and providing lots of different touchpoints, they were able to stay top of mind with the customer. It also means that your audience has a consistent experience every time they come into contact with your business, and more importantly, it allows you to control how they perceive you.

For an IT business, this is key, because customers are more focused on the outcomes they need than who you are – you want to make sure they choose you rather than a competitor! By being instantly recognisable and with a memorable brand, you increase your chances of winning the work.

The Benefits of Having a Logo

So should you have a logo and a visual brand created for your IT business? As we’ve said, you don’t NEED one, but it definitely helps! A logo allows you to build on your values, communicate them more effectively to your audience and attract new customers.

They also help you be more memorable, which is vital in a crowded marketplace, and they make it easier for people to share your messages and recommend you to others.

Having a logo design and a visual identity helps you present a fuller picture of your business to potential customers. It makes you look professional and shows people that you’ve spent time thinking about your visual messaging and what you want to convey about your business.

You’ll feel proud to have a good logo to represent you, making you more confident and comfortable speaking to customers and vendors. It also has the added benefit of making you look more trustworthy.

With easy access to the internet, particularly review sites and being able to ask friends for recommendations, today’s customers will review their options repeatedly until they’re ready to buy.

If your company has visual branding that aligns with what you stand for and consistent branding across all other areas, you will be more memorable than your competitors who haven’t got a clear brand message, and customers are more likely to choose you. 

What is Branding?

Branding is about knowing what you stand for and how you communicate these to everyone within and outside of your business. The quickest way to share these, is with your brand values (no more than five).

Your brand values should feed through everything you do, and you can do this easily via your customer touchpoints, as mentioned above. These are what gives you a USP (unique selling point) and what makes your IT business different to all the others. 

This means you’ll stand out from the competition, and it gives customers a better understanding of what you do and why they should work with you. And if you do it right, it will also build brand recognition, which increases your visibility and helps you find more of your ideal clients.

Think about the visuals and the logo as icing on the cake. The cake is the brand, the base and the essence of your business. The icing is the visuals and additional magic that attracts customers to you. The two together work like magic but it is possible to have a brand and a business without the icing – it might just take longer to be picked off the shelf! 

Why Wouldn’t You Have Branding?

Most start-up business owners today know they need branding, for all the reasons we’ve looked at. But maybe you’re not convinced, and you don’t think having a clear brand would make any difference to you. Here are some reasons why people won’t consider branding.

1. Don’t Know Where to Start: This is true of all aspects of marketing, and also most of the tasks required to run a successful business. You’re good at what you do, whether that’s break/fix, managed services or cyber security, which is why your customers come to you.

What you’re not good at, though, is promoting yourself. Branding isn’t something to be frightened of; consider it one part of marketing that, if you get it right, won’t need revisting again (or at least not for several years!)

You’ve probably already come up with a mission statement and some company values, so use these as your starting point. Speak to some of your best clients to ask them what pops into their head when they think of you. Choose trusted employees from all levels of the business (not just the exec board) and do the same exercise with them.

2. An Assumption That There’s a Cost Involved: If you have to start a branding exercise, this is going to take time and probably money, and you can’t afford or don’t want to pay it.

Firstly, you don’t need to pay an agency a large sum of money to create your brand for you, although you certainly can if you want. You can work with a graphic designer or a solo marketer to help you make your messages clearer, and if you do your research beforehand, you can be sure you’ll get what you want rather than a string of buzzwords.

Whether you choose an agency, a freelancer or your in-house marketing team, think of this as an investment in the future of your business. Clear branding makes all of your other communications easier for your audience to understand.

3. Just Don’t Need One: Maybe you’re a well-established IT company, perhaps the only one in your area. You might have loyal customers who’ve been with you for years, or you operate in such a small niche that you’re never short of enquiries.

While all of that makes your business successful now, what about in five or ten years time? What if all of your current clients retire or sell up? What if a bigger company with a better marketing budget moves into your patch and offers your customers the same service at a lower price and improved support? 

Unless you don’t plan to grow your business at all and you’re happy to let it wind down as your customers move on, you’re going to need to find new work at some point, sooner or later. If you’ve spent all your time focusing on your current clients and given no thought to nourishing new leads, you’re going to be behind the competition when business gets quiet.

Another way to look at it is, good branding will make the biggest difference to your customer relationships. You can have a great marketing strategy to attract visitors to your website, generate enquiries and convert people into sales, but there needs to be more to it. Branding is that something else – customers get to know your business and your values. They’ll be loyal and they’ll recommend you to others without you having to do any more marketing.

So, Do you Need a Logo?

It’s fair to say that no, you don’t need a logo to have a successful IT business, but you do need to think about the messages you want to convey to your customers. The quickest and clearest way to do that is through branding, and a logo is a part of this.

When you’re ready to start exploring the options for your company, whether it’s just a logo or a full brand, you might feel overwhelmed or unsure of where to start. If that happens, you need to chat to a branding design expert. 

Ask trusted colleagues for recommendations, and make sure you spend time explaining what it is you want. After all, they need to be able to sum up your business with the right imagery and create something you’re proud to show the world.

The post How can a Logo and Brand Improve Your IT Business Results? appeared first on Claire Jenks.

Branding Consistency isn’t Enough!

There has been a bit of debate around this, so I wanted to step back and have a good think about what the right answer is. I discussed my thoughts with other marketers, and we decided that you need to be on-brand visually and consistently, but you also need to be consistent with your marketing. 

It’s great that you’ve invested time and effort to define your brand and making sure that everything you’re creating is visually on-brand, and you’re consistent with following brand guidelines and sticking to the same fonts and colours. However, you’re not actually putting content out there! 

Or, as a lot of people do, they start something that they think will be helpful for their business, such as a blog, and then after a while they stop creating new content. If you’re consistent with your branding but not with content or marketing, or you’re not sticking to a plan, it can backfire, because nobody will see your branding.

 The Other Mistakes People Make

The other way that business owners get it wrong is when they’re heavily focused on their marketing, they’re being consistent with producing and publishing new content on a regular basis and sending things out at the same time every week or month. Where they go wrong, though, is by overlooking the branding side. 

If you suddenly started creating content regularly and you’re on-brand within that content, you’ve upgraded your content from base level to the best it can be. This means that you’ll have more chance of building brand awareness, customer loyalty and repeat visitors. You’re building a community, because people will instantly recognise your content. 

Everyone consumes content in different ways, so you need to make sure that everything is on-brand and you’re delivering the right message to your target audience.

 If someone reads your newsletter and then goes to check out your YouTube channel, they need to see the same overall look and to read and hear the same tone of voice. If there are differences, your audience will be confused and won’t engage. 

You need to make sure that all your branding – not just the visuals, but your messaging too – are expressing the same values, whether it’s a logo or the approach you take (friendly, professional, humorous). You need to be consistent across all the formats you use and the types of content you create to share with the world.

We’ve said that people often stop things not long after they start, and that’s true with marketing too. It’s a challenge I see a lot – they get excited with it, whether that’s being on-brand or blogging weekly, and whatever it is fails, or it’s not as successful as it could be.

 If you want to really leverage the content you’re putting out, it’s important that you’re putting the same things out at the same time and in the same place. All of the branding should match everything else you put out. 

We’ve looked before at whether or not you need a logo for your business, and while it’s not essential, it does help, especially when you start marketing yourself. If you’ve got a visual style to use throughout your content, it’s easier to get started with the creative process. You’ll feel proud of your branding and confident about putting it out.

Remember:

• Be consistent with your touchpoints, the format of content, tone of voice, the visuals, the quality and quantity
• If you can do that, you’ll get the best out of your marketing efforts and the content you’re creating
• Don’t stop yourself producing content because you don’t think it’s on-brand
• The more you produce, the more focus you should have on being on-brand in order to build that brand awareness, credibility and audience 
• If you’re on-brand but not consistent with your communication, you may stand out for when you do share content, but it won’t help to build an engaged audience
• Whatever kind of content you decide to create, you can’t just do it in isolation – you need lots of on-brand touchpoints

The post Is Just Being Consistent with Your Branding Enough? appeared first on Claire Jenks.

This month I attended the Marketing Meet Up event again held in Newcastle at TusPark hosted by Joe Glover. It was great to see the community starting to build and this month was a really interesting topic – “How will AI impact marketers?”.

We heard from Jo Ramsay, Brand & Marketing Manager at Wordnerds about the false marketing of AI, who’s really using it and how you can use AI to really find out what customers really think and feel.

We also heard from Jess Evans, Head of Partnerships at Phrasee who spoke about the difference between AI and machine learning, the impact of using AI-powered solutions and how AI is transforming the way brands speak to their customers online. Fascinating! I loved trying to guess which of the email subject lines were written by a copywriter and which were written by AI.

I will be attending again next month on the 2nd September so let me know if you’ll be there!

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I also traveled down to Kettering this month to attend the Giacom Partner event along with Richard Tubb which was being held at one of the most beautiful places I think I’ve ever seen and been to for an IT event, . It was great to meet the team and some of their managed service partners and to hear all about the plans Giacom have for their cloud market and community.

One of the biggest things I learnt was to remove yourself as the owner or the technician and grow a business that can work without you. #collaboration #managedservices #emyth pic.twitter.com/Ri7oKw3Xus

— Richard Tubb (@tubblog) August 8, 2019

I’ve been working with The Membership Guys this month on some of their assets for their conference Retain Live which is happening on the 11th-12th September right here in their (and my own) home town of Newcastle upon Tyne. What they’ve put together looks amazing. If you’re attending the event, you’ve got a lot to look forward to and I’ve no doubt, a lot of takeaways to implement into your own membership sites and plans. If you’re going along, let me know!

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Talking of events, and along with my introduction this month one of the plans I have is to be doing a lot more speaking and guesting events such as webinars, podcasts and blogs. I’ve been working a lot within my own business this month and have just published my own speaker page. If you’re looking for a speaker or a guest for your business or event take a look and feel free to get in touch.

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Once again I’ve loved working on more YouTube thumbnails, more podcast graphics, more lead magnets designs and working on course and conference material. This month’s client ‘content spotlight’ is Andrew and Pete who release a new video every Tuesday to their YouTube channel to help you grow and scale your business. Go check out their YouTube channel and their membership site Atomic!

The post Studio Stories: August 2019 appeared first on Claire Jenks.

10 Ways to Improve Your Content

1. ‘Boring’ Doesn’t Mean Image Free: Just because you’re talking technical stuff, you can still use visuals. Apart from the fact that what you do is interesting to someone, you can liven up a details-heavy post with some images to make it more appealing to readers
2. Visuals Improve Social Media: The data into what makes social media posts successful is the use of imagery. Including some in your updates means more engagement and better reach, so everyone should use them, no matter which industry they’re in
3. Start a Conversation: Social media is all about conversations and people – that’s why it’s called ‘social’! Encourage people to have a conversation with you by sharing stories and images. And make sure you comment on posts that do the same
4. Be More Human: The people you are engaging with online won’t necessarily be attracted to the technical side of your business. They don’t want to know how you do what you do, they just want to know how it helps them. The more visual and engaging you are on social, the better 
5. Share Your Brand: Remember, social media isn’t about selling and isn’t just about “customers of the future”, it’s a chance to show off your brand and your business personality. It’s a way to engage with loyal, existing customers and talk to potential clients as well as vendors and partners. Branded visuals are a great way to do this
6. Stand Out: Following on from the point above, if you use visuals in your social media posts, especially if you’re in a ‘boring’ industry where people don’t usually share images, you’ll stand out from everyone else
7. Be Memorable: Research has also shown that people tend to remember interesting things they’ve seen on social media if the post included an image, so try to do this as often as possible
8. Stay Top of Mind: If you’re consistent with posting helpful information on social media and using branded images, people will remember you when they need an IT company
9. Save Time: Creating content can be time-consuming, especially when you’re running a business on your own, but you still need to be active and visible on social media. Having a few branded visuals with top tips to schedule when you’re busy saves you time
10. Repurpose Your Best Content: If you’ve got a piece of content that’s been performing well, you want to share that with as many people as possible and on a variety of platforms. Pull out some juicy facts, create a graphic and add a link back to the original post, then share online

Examples to Try Yourself

If you’re still not sure how you can use visuals in your own IT company, here are some suggestions. Try at least one and see what difference it makes to your social media engagement.

• Testimonials in graphic form: From happy customers and partners
• Images of the team: Running a ‘meet the team’ series on social media helps your audience get to know you and put names to faces
• Behind the scenes: People love to have a peek at what goes on in the background of a business, so share photographs and videos to show a typical day to day of the office, support desk, or when you’re out on the job
• Event/roadshow/conference: Taking pictures at the event and sharing them on social media are a great way to build up relationships with peers, whilst also showing customers that you’re always learning and finding the best solutions for them
• Infographics/business statistics/data visualisation: This is a good way of sharing facts in a clear way, for example: how many customers you’ve helped through your back-up solutions, how many tickets are resolved at first contact or how much money people have saved by using your cyber security solution
• Branded feature images in blogs: Create on-brand and bespoke feature images for your blog posts that show up in the post previous when you share on social – just don’t go with the cables… (link to previous blog)
• Blog post quote graphics: Include images within your blog that you can then share to social with snippets of useful info from the post
• Videos and video thumbnails: video can really engage viewers and there are lots of ways to use them, such as to share case studies, answer questions or interview a team member. You can also create an interesting video thumbnail to share to attract attention to your social media updates
• Informative screenshots: Show off a particular piece of software to explain a solution to a common problem
• Q&A graphics: Present your frequently asked questions as graphics to encourage sharing

The post 10 Ways Visuals Make Your IT Content Marketing Better appeared first on Claire Jenks.

While it’s important to get the messages right in your blogs and website pages, don’t overlook the images you use alongside them. Visitors to your site will make a quick decision about whether or not to stay and look around, and eye-catching visuals are a key part of this.

 So, move away from those stock images of cables and laptops you’ve saved somewhere safe, because not only are they boring, but your competitors will be using them too. Let’s look at why free, open-sourced pictures aren’t always the best choice.

• You Don’t Stand out: Your ideal customer is probably a business owner who knows they need IT support, but they’re not sure exactly what that involves. If you’re using the same images as your competitors and every other IT business, you’re not differentiating yourself. If you don’t stand out, you’re not giving people a reason to do business with you

• You’re not Showing how you Help: People are looking at your website because they need a solution to a problem they’re having, whether that’s in business or at home. Stock photos don’t tell visitors what you do and how you can help them. Yes, they’ll find specifics by reading your content, but if you have a well-chosen picture as well, they’re able to quickly make a decision about whether you’re the right company for them

• It Looks Lazy: You might not expect that as a reason, but unfortunately it is. If you’re using stock images, it shows your audience that you added them as an afterthought. Even if you spent ages finding the best cable picture available, it still looks like you did a quick search on a free image site and downloaded the first thing you found

• It’s Generic: One of the advantages to stock images is also one of the biggest problems – they’re free, so lots of other people are probably using them too. This means that not only are your competitors likely to have the same or similar pictures, other companies will too. They may be in a completely different industry to you, so if site visitors have seen the same pictures elsewhere, they’ll be confused. At best you may look like you’ve stolen the images, at worst, you might end up being associated with a less reputable company than your own

• They Don’t Communicate Your Brand: Using bespoke photos and illustrations (or even putting more thought into the stock images you do use) are a quick, clear and easy way to show off your personality, your business and your brand. They communicate to visitors who you are and how you can help them

• Nobody Cares About Cables: OK, some people care about cables, but if you’re trying to attract small business owners who have a problem they need fixing ASAP, they don’t care about the hardware you use or how you do it, they just need a solution to get things back to normal

• They’re Off-putting: Most people outside of the industry are scared of IT, because they don’t understand how it works. If you use stock images, you may come across unapproachable – people may think you’ll use a lot of jargon and make them feel stupid

• Cables are a bit Obvious: While most of your customers won’t have a clue about systems, servers and software, they will know that cables and other types of hardware are used in IT! You don’t need to reinforce that to them in your images

• They’re Impersonal: It’s often said, but it’s true: people do business with people. If you want to engage with your audience, give them a personalised approach. Show off your team so the customers know who they’ll be talking to and who will help them with their problems. They’ll feel like they already know you before you start working with them

Some Ideas for Images to use Instead

1. Your team
2. Your office
3. Your workspace
4. Your customers
5. Illustrations
6. How-to photos
7. The outcomes/results from working with you
8. Product images
9. Branded graphics
10. Personalised infographics

The post How to Choose the Right Images for Your IT Content appeared first on Claire Jenks.