ttglive.com
selling from home knowledge BRANDING TIPS
■ You don’t need to create a separate company to have a brand – it is just your trading name.
■ It’s easier for people to remember a web address than a telephone number if they glimpse your brand in public and want to know more.
■ Branding could appear on a website, business cards, stationery, T-shirts, car stickers, car doors and on giveaways such as luggage tags, pens, calendars, or even chocolate bars.
■ Your parent brand gives you credibility and gives your customers reassurance. A formula like “[Own brand] part of [parent company name]” is a good way of expressing the two in tandem.
■ Your brand gives the first impression of your business, so it’s worth getting it professionally designed.
and leaflets locally using Hays’ marketing material, which shows a wide variety of product she can book. She’ll then give out her own-brand leaflets to more targeted potential clients, such as couples at wedding fairs who might be interested in safaris. Likewise Owens gives gay clients World Pride and Future Travel-branded business cards – the latter to pass on to straight friends and family.
However, not every company will be happy for its homeworkers to potentially dilute its own brand by using a separate identity. Travel Counsellors, for instance, insists its agents use its brand for marketing. But Owens believes niche branding can be positive for homeworking companies. “They’re still getting their share of the profits, but they’re in markets they wouldn’t normally be in.”
His niche success has even encouraged his parent company to sponsor Manchester Pride in recent years.
people would say ‘what’s this about then?’ “You’ve got to go to the business. You’ve got to say to people ‘this is what I do’.” Owens gives out World Pride-branded pens and key rings at events, puts up posters in gay pubs and advertises on other peoples’ websites, on iPhones and on the radio, but branded beer mats have been one of his biggest successes.
“We asked a local bar and they put them out on tables. In the space of eight weeks we did 12 bookings, which was probably in the region of £8,000 worth of business.”
Geroe says it is vital to make your brand- ing look professional. She uses her brand across her leaflets and website, Africaand-
more.co.uk, which features smart safari- themed graphics.
“I spent a bit of money on it as I think it’s important to portray the right image,” she says. “I wanted to reassure customers.”
OWN BRAND VS PARENT BRAND. Geroe doesn’t use her own brand exclusively, but markets as Africa & More and Hays Travel in parallel. She advertises
It could, of course, be counter-productive for a homeworker to play down their big name backing. Geroe gets round this by referring to both her brands in her correspondence sign-off.
“It’s good to specialise, but it is also important customers know they’re dealing with someone who has a good knowledge of the travel industry, which is where the trusted brand Hays comes in,” she says. Similarly, Hoyle says his dual branding serves a dual purpose. “The Co-op brand is phenomenal. If new clients ask, ‘why should I deal with you?’ I say ‘we are part of the Co-op’ and they say, ‘that’s OK then.’ “The Travel Magician is the hook, but it’s Co-op that lands the catch.”
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