Seven Considerations for Your Brand During "The New Economy"

1. Enter the vacuum of opportunity. While others are running away from communication opportunities and expense, there is a void created—ready for you to fill and trumpet your brand’s existence and success.

2. Something is better than nothing. Deleting or minimizing communication sends a message that your organization is a casualty of the economy. Sad but true; many customers do not check to see if you are still in business because they are used to hearing from you, not reaching out to you.

3. Get more for your money. Advertising, printing, and other commodities are at lower prices these days. In other words, it is cheaper now to obtain customers than before using these communication channels.

4. Focus on your end result. Old-fashioned, ‘this is why we’re interesting and this is why we are good’ brand awareness, rather than tricky or avante-guard approaches will connect you to customers faster these days. Prepare for lower-cost, newly-formed competitors. Trump those nipping at your heels by communicating a brand with a solid track record of success.

5. Realize that hiring in-house communication assistance doesn’t save money. Studies in business journals attest to this. When you add together salary, taxes, benefits, and the portion of overhead assigned to each employee, this is far more expense than what you would pay an agency for your brand initiative.

6. Recognize the benefits of a small team. For a slightly higher price than a freelancer, you can hire portions of several skill sets from a small team. It is rare that a freelancer has project management, strategic insight, experience, technological acumen, design ability, and efficiency all in one person.

7. Create a current brand strategy. Recently, the world changed significantly. If your strategy was finalized before 2009 began, it is worth reviewing to see if it is still applicable.

This information will be released for the first time in person at a WIT event Basis is sponsoring tomorrow: Anna Post discusses etiquette in the modern work environment.