Will Brand For Food

BAM!apps Review

admin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:52:24 +0000

Brand: BAM!apps

OK.

This is going to take some work.

BAM!apps sounds like an innovative do-it-yourself way to monetize social media. It has potential to create revenue streams for users if they learn how to use it.

Target Audience Profile

Your target audience seems to be internet marketers looking for ways to monetize social media. They are a jaded bunch, but eager for new solutions. Though they are strong skeptics when it comes to Clickbank and other promotional or information products, they’re still a bit trigger happy on social media. So there is great potential to offer an easy, do-it-yourself opportunity to make money using social media than can be marketed at zero cost.

Overview

First off, the site is designed like an internet marketing site. Even if the purpose is direct sales of the product, you have to get with the times. In the era of apps and social networks and web 2.0, simple, crisp, login-friendly design is a MUST.

You can’t spend 20 minutes long-copy-selling visitors. Especially not those interested in SOCIAL MEDIA and APPS! You use long copy for people who go “interneting” and still don’t know that “Google” can be used as a verb.

Here’s an example from a top-selling app that I recently got introduced to, fell in love with, and will use forever more: EchoSign. Look at the design, then look again at yours.

This landing page is still a bit cluttered. However, it is attractive, clean, and most of all, effective at SELLING the app and making lots of money for its developers.

Let’s break down the 3 major sections of the landing page — Header, Headline, and Body — and compare to your site layout to the award-winner:

Header

Headline

It sounds like “I love this app!” is in reference to BAMapps. But it’s not. This headline does not communicate anything, other than the implication that people should love whatever you’re selling. You hint that you’re offering something that will “monetize Social Applications.”

The headline must be direct. To the point. Compelling. This is indirect, unclear, and even a bit misleading.

Body

Look at the body copy for EchoSign. It explains what it is, who uses it, how it is used, and the benefit of its features (average time to signed contract = $ closed per month).

The BAM!apps body copy continues below the fold. That’s a no-no for sales, but you’re dealing with internet marketers who are used to scrolling down forty freakin’ pages, so whatever. Let them scroll.

But you still need to explain WHAT you’re selling, WHY someone should buy it, and what it MEANS to have it. Your copy gives benefits, but not features. Quick terms definition:

Features = What a product is, how it is used, its functionality, its price, its description.

Benefits = What a user gets out of the product/service, how it will change what they do or feel, what it means to them.

Echo Sign gives the benefit of each feature:

“Accelerate your sales with instant fax and e-signature.”
“Track your team and their contracts with account sharing.”

Your copy:

The BAM!apps platform allows you to easily create, customize and launch new wave, fully animated social applications on the most popular social networking platforms

BAM!apps enable you to easily make money with social applications.
NO CODING, NO HOSTING, UP AND RUNNING IN LESS THAN 1 DAY!
Later you attempt to describe Features after clicking “learn more”

Now, this can be OK for internet marketers who can get hooked. But then you have to deliver the goods. What is it? Features!?!

BAM!apps features (after clicking “learn more”) :

Our apps combine full action animation, user based content and social interaction to create a powerful and unique experience for Social Network users. BAM!apps come alive and deliver engaging and entertaining content directly to your user’s profile page. Your BAM!app will stand apart from boring, static and stale gift and quiz apps. If you’re looking to start making money with Social Networking applications, BAM!apps are the perfect solution for you. So regardless of your needs, we have a solution that’s sure to meet your needs…

You describe all benefits, but no features!

If somebody is going to get excited, then the hype of benefits is necessary. But it is CRUCIAL that you say what it is. I have been through the entire site and am still pretty hazy about exactly WHAT your apps are. Or how to use them. Or how they generate revenue.

Your tagline from the blog:

“Fully customizable turnkey applications designed from the ground up with monetization in mind.”

WTF?!

This is barely English. Don’t get all tongue-tied with every benefit you can imagine. Just say what the hell it is. If it’s a good idea, people will SWARM it. If it’s not, then they won’t.

Don’t sell with “You’ll love it, buy it, you need it!” without showing what it is.

Use this approach:

“Look at this. Neat, huh?”

Use screen captures, demo versions, free trials, sample websites with apps in use. In other words…

SHOW IT!

Hope that helps. Good luck.

Oh, and you may also want to consider other monetization models for yourself. i.e. give the apps out for free, then share profit with what they make. Membership rather than upfront cost. Much lower price point for entry-level apps, then upsell.

See you on Twitter!

- Joe

Time Geisha Brand Review

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:39:48 +0000

Brand Review of Time Geisha

www.timegeisha.com

Twitter: @AlanaKarran

Based on the current design and copy, we can reconstruct a loose brand platform:

Brand Values

- Order
- Beauty
- Art
- Serenity
- Grace
- Spirituality
- Harmony

Target Audience (TA)

The TA who would most likely respond to the current presentation:

Small business owner or solo-entrepreneur, tending towards female with an appreciation for the aesthetic and beatiful things in life. Her business is a celebration of her worldview, but she may not realize how to better manage her schedule to allow for a balance of business, work, life, and love.

Here we may have an issue. It seems the intended TA profile may actually be:

High-powered CEO or executive of mid to large-sized business operation. Tending towards male, always catching up, becoming frentic and numb, seeking an escape from the wear and tear of the daily pressures that seem to keep mounting. The harder he works, the deeper he is buried. Family is strained, sanity is fraying, but he doesn’t need a shrink. He needs a better time and info management system.

The issue faced is who you’re selling to. Right now, the brand seems to be selling to itself. In other words, the brand appeals most to the owner of Time Geisha (Yep, lookin’ at you Alana!) Now, that would be great at attracting like-minded business owners. ;)

So you have to decide, are you targeting the solopreneur female? Or the high-powered workoholic, unorganized, time-starved male (or female) executive who desperately needs solutions at the top of a larger pyramid?

Everything hinges on that decision.

Strategic Changes

Problem: The current design may alienate “serious-minded” male workoholics who are in need of the service.

Solution: The design and aesthetics can incorporate a more gender-neutral approach that incorporates CEO-friendly messaging. Done right, this will not lose the appeal of the current intended audience.

Aesthetic Critique

The site is a very beautifully done, unified atmosphere. The desaturated colors and minimalist style serve the brand very well. However, the design can still be cleaned up with more white space, and text can be reduced and tightened with the help of a few well-placed graphic elements.

1. Font is a bit too creative. The brand spirit is certainly expressed, but overdone for the target audience (TA). This font says, “Artistic, creative, exotic, interesting, passionate, beautiful.” The TA is probably most compelled by, “Efficient, effective, simple, intelligent, neat, clean.”

Font is a bit too creative.

While it does express the brand identity, it may be trying to work too hard.

2. Drop-Shadow over Background Image is a design no-no. It gets cluttered with too many shades and elements. This is the closest thing you have to a logo – it needs to be sharp. Actually, why not get a logo designed?

3. Double-entendre in Tagline is very clever, but complex. Just making it “heart” or “art” should be enough. I know you want both. But it muddles an already deep concept. Taglines need to be simple, especially for a service that is paid to simplify, order, and create harmony.

4. Long Copy can lose the reader very quickly for the landing page. We can go through the copy line by line, but it’s just too much. It can overwhelm a time-pressed executive. Also, the language is very intellectual and requires parsing. What does “Shifts of awareness and authentic action” mean to a stressed-out manager, however enlightened? The implied benefit is great, but keep it to the point.

5. This beautiful graphic is in the most click-friendly real estate on the landing page. It may be better utilized as a button, such as for the newsletter subscription.

OK. The hard part’s over. Now for the fun stuff.

Brand Platform

There is one place in your site where you say,

“What would it feel like to be the master of your time?”

This is your brand promise.

Beauty, spirituality, actualization, and infusions are great. But this is the promise that every element of design and copy should point to.

Your logo, your tagline, your web copy, even your very site layout should express this concept. Here is your brand value list again, this time including what we’ve learned:

Brand Values
- Order
- Serenity
- Grace
- Harmony
- Progress
- Wisdom
- Minimalism

- (Removed art, beauty, spirituality. These can still be attributes of the brand, but are not necessarily values derived from the brand promise. See how Grace still applies, even though Art doesn’t?)

1. Change the brand name to Geisha Consulting. (Assuming it’s not taken) I know you are trying to express that Geisha = Time Management. But the name of a brand does not need to explicitly express its feautres (”time”). It’s a name, not a descriptor. That’s what a tagline is for.

Let me really drill this home, because it’s critical in branding. Do you have a friend named John? Perhaps he is a lawyer. When you first met him, you may not have known what he did for a living. But you still had a sense of who he was. Once you learned he was a lawyer, that became a part of your concept of “John.” But you don’t feel like his name is “John the Lawyer” (unless you have trouble with memory). No, his name is still John. Brands work just the same!

Once your TA comes across Geisha Consulting, they may not know it’s a time management service until they read the tagline or see the landing page. But once they do, they will never forget that Geisha = Time because of the branding. You don’t need to remind them with your name (John the Lawyer) every time they see you. That’s why it’s called a brand. Like a fiery scar, it’s not just you who is branded with “time”; your TA’s memory is branded just the same!

2. Re-write the tagline to reflect the brand promise. Something zen would be great. Something like, “He who controls the present, controls the future.” (Though I believe that’s trademarked!) I’m sure you get the idea.

3. Redesign your landing page to illustrate the benefits immediately. You have time for long copy in your newsletter and on pages deeper in the site. The landing page should immediately, explicitly show what you offer.

4. Get a logo designed. I noticed this little butterfly as a beautiful divider in the site:

This aesthetic would make great inspiration for a logo. I also imagine some playing with an hourglass or infinite symbol could result in some great designs.

OK… I couldn’t resist. This is a quick concept logo to illustrate my suggestion (NOT a polished design). Something along these lines:

The rest of the site could follow this aesthetic. You can see the brand values infused in the design principles. With this approach, you can appeal to the TA – chaotic executives AND the spiritual solopreneur. It is very inclusive, while expressing your brand values and promise.

Yes, I have more ideas for the site, but that’s all the time I have for now. I wish I had Geisha powers so I could get some more time!

Note to readers: Second opinions of my second opinion are always welcome. Comment below!

Social Marketing Direct

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:31:29 +0000

PROJECT SPECS

Custom Logo

WordPress Site

Ning Site Design (270 members):

Working on Social Marketing Direct was a great experiment.

It began when the founder and I discovered we shared a similar conviction: social media is on the way up. I came from brand strategy, he came from internet marketing. So we joined forced to monetize the niche of internet marketers looking for social media training.

The project was supposed to be a joint venture start-up. It still exists and is doing well enough for the founder. For myself, I realized I’d rather brand the project than maintain site admin for it. And the truth is, there are so many people who need to get themselves jump-started, it’s difficult for me to settle on any one thing.

Anyway. The idea behind it was simply to create a hub for internet marketers who are learning about social media and giving them a space to interact. The site would be populated with content such as videos and articles on learning social media marketing tools, and monetized with information products and advertising. It became a kind of services exchange, which we would be an affiliate partner for.

With almost 300 members registered and contributing after only a few months in operation, this was definitely a success thanks to Twitter, Ning, and Wordpress.