What if you could create your business identity on your own, without hiring an army of consultants? You’re the best person to decide what your business is, and what image to present to customers. It’s easier than ever now, thanks to the wide range of easy to access, easy to use online tools for building your business brand from the ground up.
Start with a great logo
If you're looking for a logo, you have two options – either do it yourself, or get someone to do it for you. Doing it yourself requires two things – an eye for design, and the right resources. Access to a large image database, a broad selection of fonts and an array of design elements can make all the difference, but it's not easy to find them all in the same place. Quite often the better resources are copyright protected too. There are sites dedicated to the task though, such as HP Logomaker, which lets you choose from thousands of graphical resources, and is fast and easy to use. Design your logo, then buy it for a fraction of the price of a designer.
If you’re not blessed with an eye for design though, you might want to consider hiring a team of designers to help with your logo. Designers can be commissioned and briefed over the internet, saving you time and money. HP Logoworks is one option to help you create your logo. For a small fee, a team of professional designers will provide you with concept ideas to choose from, and you can review and comment on those ideas at your convenience. HP Logoworks also provides affordable corporate ID packages that include everything from business cards and stationery to a branded website.
Build your business identity
A large part of developing your business identity is to keep your messaging consistent across all of your communications. By doing so, your customers will immediately identify with your materials and your brand. The best way to do this is to create or seek out a consistent, unified set of templates, such as those offered free on HP.com for brochures, business cards and letterheads, postcards, shipping labels and more. You can also explore HP’s collection of free stock photos.
HP has also partnered with StockLayouts.com and iStockPhotos.com for inexpensive do-it-yourself brand identity solutions. At StockLayouts.com you can choose from an impressive array of pre-formatted templates for all your marketing materials, and at iStockPhotos you can get royalty-free photos and video clips to use in your business documents. As an HP customer, you can even get 30 images free from iStockPhotos, or download free sample templates from Stock Layouts.
In-house production can slash printing costs
Printing customer or marketing materials in-house using a high quality inkjet or laser printer can yield breathtaking results, often at a lower cost than outsourcing. You can also eliminate waste by only printing what you need, rather than ordering a large print run and ending up with more collateral than you’ll need. And if you have to make changes to any of it, then you won’t have to scrap your expensive printouts and start again. In-house production gives you greater control over the entire process.
How to? Answered.
Not everyone knows right off the bat how to create good marketing collateral, or how to run an effective direct mail campaign. There is no shortage of helpful material and resources though, whether you want to learn how to make a marketing brochure, how to run a direct marketing campaign, or more. Or you could take a free, online, instructor-led class on Photoshop, Microsoft Word, or one of many other useful topics.
Follow these links for more advice and tips on how to develop your business identity:
HP Color Printing Center
Free business templates, images and logos
Step-by-step how-to guides
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