Does Your Company Have Brand Awareness?
By Glenn & Shari Silbert of GS COMPUTERS PLUS, LLC

Branding builds name recognition. Using the same feel on all your marketing material, both online and offline, will create a seamless flow and add mutual support to all your efforts. Keep these points in mind when branding your company. Make a plan. Seek professional help. Get an ad specialty that's novel, something that people will talk about or show to others. Go slowly, a good plan takes a year to start working and it gathers momentum between year one and year three. Do everything with a creative flair. Something that makes the time and effort you gave worth remembering. Memorability is a vital link to building market awareness. Stay in front of the people you want to do business with. By combining your outreaches, you can create a steady flow of your images (in the paper, weekly e-zine, on TV, your newsletter, etc.) to your target market. It takes five to ten images to create awareness great enough to prompt a buying
decision. Persistence and consistency are the secrets. Don't do anything once and then sit back and wait. You must keep plugging without expectation. If you're good, have patience. Your phone will ring. The creation of a feeling of community around a brand can make all the difference. It's important to remember a brand is created in the minds of customers. The importance of involving
your customers in everything you do is paramount. Brands that really want to survive need to sell more than nice products. They need to sell attitude! They need to sell opinions and feelings. tat's exactly what's behind long-term customer loyalty to brands: sharing feelings with users by revealing the real people and ideas that compose the brand's community. If you simply begin a missive with "Dear X" (inserting the recipient's name), the response rate will be 42 percent. That's
compared to a response rate of 10 percent for letters commencing with the universal "Dear Reader." These rates might vary from country to country, but they should make you think no matter where you work. For ads promoting brand awareness, the more time the consumer
spends in the ad's space, the stronger the branding effect. For this reason, many rich media ads attempt to create an environment where consumers might be willing to spend a minute or two.
While the consumer's mind is in the ad space, the ad's goal must be constantly reinforced until that message has been transferred from the ad space to the consumer. GS Computers Plus, LLC offers custom promotion packages that include the right blend of offline and online marketing
to brand your company and stimulate untapped growth. We start with a free initial assessment to determine marketing initiatives. Then our marketing consultant will help you discover the audience you need to target while graphic designers create a logo and feel to brand all your promotional information. Let us incorporate your branding offline on stationery, business cards, brochures, and flyers and mirror the feel online in website, e-zine, and screensavers. Need to make changes, need more materials? Don't worry. GS Computers will be with you for the long haul, incorporating changes, updating your information, and producing additional copies of all your branded material.

MAGGIE'S MEMO:
GS COMPUTERS PLUS, LLC is conveniently located on the downtown plaza of Salisbury at 229 West Main Street. They are a full service technology company featuring online and offline marketing. They are also a traditional computer and technology company suporting such needs as custom and refurbished computers, computer repairs & upgrades, networking, and individualized training. They specialize in micro and small business concerns. Their slogan reads: "We blend a proven off-line and on-line custom marketing solution to promote your small business growth." Call (410)543-9960 for your free initial assessment today!
Shari and Glenn Silbert