LOS ANGELES — With competition escalating throughout the adult entertainment industry, companies are increasingly focusing on their foundations, by building better brands.
According to Zuzana Designs Owner Sarah Collins, if you have been putting off building your brand with a new professionally designed business logo and original marketing materials until after you get your launch off the ground, or land your first clients, you are missing out on very important opportunities.
“Just like your personal interactions, your business also gets only one chance to make a great first impression with customers, competitors, vendors, service providers and media entities,” Collins confides. “A professional business logo and matching marketing materials aren’t just pretty pictures. They are carefully crafted to improve the visibility of your new business while adding a level of credibility and giving your brand its own memorable voice.”
Collins explains that while many new business owners try to cut costs by designing their business card or logo at the local office supply store, many do not have adequate design skills or the marketing expertise to produce an effective sales tool, resulting in the do-it-yourself approach often causing more problems than it solves.
Whether a company decides to take the risk of creating their own marketing materials, or choose to hire a professional design firm, Collins told XBIZ that there are three keys to branding success that should always be at the forefront: Brand stability, product quality and mission focus.
First up, brand stability is one of the defining factors in the success of any new brand, with companies challenged to quickly demonstrate a credible level of marketplace stability.
“A do-it-yourself logo, poorly printed business cards, a weak website or substantial changes to your brand in the first few months after launch breed nervousness among potential investors, partners, clients and observers due to a confusing sense of directionless activity,” Collins says. “The time to make up your mind about your business identity is long before your brand becomes public, and having a professional design firm in your corner can definitely be very useful.”
The perception of your product’s quality is also a major factor that is influenced — for better or worse — by your marketing materials.
“If you walked into a business meeting dressed like a homeless person, no matter how great your pitch is, the people looking at you would quickly distance themselves from your company because they would rightfully believe if you can’t even take care of your own personal hygiene, how could you possibly be trusted to take care of an entire company,” Collins explains. “In fact, potential strategic partners view your branding and marketing materials exactly the same way.”
“A misguided banner ad or a prospectus full of typos begs the question: if you can’t create a quality marketing pitch, how in the world could you ever be trusted to create a quality product,” Collins adds. “Like it or not, the way you gift-wrap your ideas matters almost as much as the product ideas you put inside your brand packaging.”
Finally, a dilution of mission focus or distracting elements in your branding or marketing materials can have negative results.
“When you present your ideas, products, services and solutions to the marketplace, you want to be able to do so with a clear and unmistakable focus on moving forward,” Collins concludes. “That momentum requires removing distractions and crafting a clear message as part of a cohesive marketing strategy that puts your products, plans and professional marketing materials in perfect alignment from the outset.”
To help adult companies evaluate their branding options, Zuzana Designs offers an extensive portfolio of professional marketing materials, including logos, banners, email templates and landing pages combined with a wealth of experience in all niches of the adult industry, and cost-effective ROI.
For more information, visit ZuzanaDesigns.com.