Brand Building Resources
Marketing Expertise
The Entrepreneur's Promotional Recipe for Success: A Step By Step Guide and Action Plan to Create Expert Status and Increase Profits.
by Kelly O'Neil, UpLevel Strategies
In this workbook, you will be introduced to a wide variety of promotional activities and a recommended plan for achieving them, based upon your budget. As with all UpLevel materials, the recommendations in this book are designed for you to continually take your business to the next level.
The InfoGuru Marketing Manual by Robert Middleton
Copyright Your Logo
You should at least minimally protect your logo by filing for a copyright. This is an easy and inexpensive way to get a bit of legal protection for your logo.
Read about the process at the United States Copyright Office website.
Get the Visual Art Works copyright registration forms here.
Trademark Your Logo For Even More Protection
If you're serious about legally protecting your logo, consider filing for a trademark.
Read about the process at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website. We recommend that you speak to a trademark lawyer about trademarking your design.
Great Fonts
Chank Co. is the place to go to online for truly original fonts that have just the right personality for your business's logo or marketing materials. They're modern, fun, and, unlike most fonts out there, they're not so overused that your materials will look like everyone else's.
What the Font: Do you have a font laying about that you just can't figure out what it is or how to match it? To get that all-important consistency that you need to have in your marketing materials, use What The Font? to identify your font. Then, purchase that font from their huge library of fonts, and you'll be consistent again in no time.
Website Setup
Domain Name Registration: GoDaddy is the most reasonably priced, and reliable, domain name registration firm we've found.
Website Hosting: Dreamhost is an excellent web hosting service. You can host all of your domains in one place, with all the email boxes you need, for one low price. And, they have good uptime, and they don't make the process overly technical.
Full Shopping Cart: One Shopping Cart is a great advanced shopping cart tool — perfect for creating your online shop, setting up autoresponders, and even digital delivery of eBooks and running your own affiliate program.
Temporary Shopping Cart: PayPal is a great solution if you have just a few online products, and you don't want to set up your own merchant account to accept credit cards.
Merchant Account: Practice Pay Solutions is a reasonably-priced merchant account that integrates will with One Shopping Cart.
Email Newsletter: Email Brain is an easy-to-use HTML newsletter mailing program.
Website-Editing Software: Macromedia Contribute is a great software package to use if you'd like to be able to change the text on your website (HTML-based sites only).
Blog: TypePad is an easy-to-use blog system.
Amazon Affiliation: If you'd like to recommend books for your clients to read, consider signing up as an Amazon Affiliate. It's an easy way to make a little extra money!
Design Reading
Recommended reading for non-designers looking to learn to lay out solidly designed materials on their own. If you've got a logo, Visual Vocabulary and website template, you can work on expanding your suite of designed materials on your own. These are all available on Amazon:
The Non-Designer's Collection
The Non-Designer's (Print) Design Book
The Non-Designer's Web Book
Marketing Reading
Get Clients Now!: A 28-day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, And Coaches
Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling
Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business
Guerrilla Marketing Weapons: 100 Affordable Marketing Methods
Guerrilla Publicity: Hundreds of Sure-Fire Tactics to Get Maximum Sales for Minimum Dollars
Website Books
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for Windows & Macintosh, Student Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Macromedia Contribute 3 for Windows & Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)
Business Reading
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
Interesting Marketing Blogs & Newsletters
The More Clients blog
Robert Middleton's More Clients newsletters
Business Networking
Women In Consulting is the premier networking and consulting resource for women consultants in the Bay Area. It's a great resource for beginning and seasoned consultants, discussing best practices, getting clients, and growing your practice. Meetings are in Mountain View and Menlo Park, CA.
eWomenNetwork is a great forum for women entrepreneurs to network and grow their businesses. And, they have chapters across the US — probably even one in your area.
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Branding Resources
