Relationship marketing is the process of attracting, maintaining, and enhancing relationships with key people. It is the establishment and coordination of lines of communication between two or more parties.
Recently, I had another opportunity to take charge and solidify relationships. Read more
You know, ever so often I visit a very useful web site, Copyscape, to check if anyone has copied language from my web site. Most times, I’m lucky and find no perpetrators. Recently, however, I’ve identified three sites that have blatantly copied verbiage from my homepage and two other sections of the site.
Now of course, there are but so many ways to describe virtual assisting, but an individual should at least place her personal “brand” on the web site; and thereby, of course, not encountering the rage of the originating author who is determined to protect her work product.
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one’s own creation. (University of Colorado Library)
Copyscape recommends the individual act quickly to have the language removed. (See suggestions below):
1. Look for contact details on the offending site and send a polite message asking for the material to be removed. If there are no contact details available, try emailing webmaster@ the domain.
2. Use a Whois service to find out the website owner’s name and telephone number and contact them directly. Enter the domain name in the search box and the contact information should appear towards the bottom of the page.
3. Contact the web hosting company used by the site and inform them of their customer’s abuse. This information is also available through a Whois search.
4. Send a formal ‘Cease and Desist’ letter notifying the offending party that they must remove the stolen content from their site. Some sample letters are available on the web.
5. File a notice of Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) infringement with search engines such as Google and others to have the offending site removed from their search results.
6. If you need proof of infringement, you can use the Internet Archive to show that the content appeared on your site at an earlier date than it appeared on the offending site.
I have completed Step 1 and given the perpetrators five (5) days to act. I will revisit the offending sites to ascertain their response. I’ve also asked each to respond to my email. If action isn’t taken within the allocated time, I shall proceed through the process to have the content removed.
Prime Directive: Branding is not about getting your targets to choose you over your competition. Branding is about getting your prospects to see you as the only solution to their problem.
First Law of Big Time Branding: Brands are not about you. Brands are about them.
Second Law: If the branding is wrong, so as everything else.
Third Law: Advertising grabs their minds. Branding gets their hearts.
Fourth Law: Build from your strengths.
Fifth Law: If you can’t articulate it, neither can anyone else.
Sixth Law: The success of a brand varies directly with the ability to accept the mantle of leadership.
Seventh Law: The stronger your brand, the less susceptible you are to pricing issues in competition.
Eighth Law: The brand begins in the business plan.
Ninth Law: Advertising is not branding. Branding is branding. Advertising raises the awareness of the brand you create.
Tenth Law: There is no such thing as co-branding.
First Law of Web Branding: The more you niche, the better you do.
Second Law: If you don’t get them on the first page, you don’t get them at all.
Your brand promise is only what customers see but also what they FEEL. The eyes and brain create a kaleidoscope of impressions: past and present; real and perceived; rational and emotional. It is what is physically in front of customer’s eyes and senses, and then what the brain does with that information.
No one will ever know or remember your brand unless it is the same every time they are exposed to it.
It is the most important thing that the company promises to deliver – EVERY time.
Your Brand Promise is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.
Once you define these elements, your promise is to deliver every time, again and again and again! Without consistency, brand awareness becomes impossible to achieve.
Repetition is the key to the success of the branding promise. You must self-enforce and live it!
The next element is one most associated with brand identity – the specific physical items that make up the brand. By consistently using brand associations you successfully build brand awareness and can leverage your brand to help increase sales and obtain clients. These artifacts are designed to work together, be used consistently, and be given enough time to have an impact. They should be used religiously.
Identify your brand artifacts. These include things such as your company name, logo, tagline, colors, typefaces and fonts, and visual imagery. Does your company name reflect your brand? You have a logo? Do you have a tag line and does it compliment or reflect your brand promise? Are your colors consistent in all your materials? Are your typefaces and fonts consistent on all your documents and on the Web site? Does your visual imagery reflect the image you want to project?
All of the aforementioned topics discuss how you are perceived by your clients and prospects and why they buy or work with you. Test perception versus reality with them, making sure what you say and believe you are, really is true and that it is relevant to your target market.
Ask yourself, why do my customers buy from me? You may be excellent at customer service, but what your customers most value you for is the quality of your work or availability. Your customer might even agree that you are excellent at customer service, but it is not the KEY reason why they work with you. If it’s not, then you’ve branded in an area your core customers don’t really care about. The brand promise you project should be the brand promise your customers most want.
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