Tag Archives: Branding

Woodpecker Tree Surgeons Branding

Woodpecker Tree Surgeons

Woodpecker Tree Surgeons

I were sat in the local gym, chugging away at endurance cycling which is about all I can do while awaiting surgery. I generally dream about being anywhere else but sat on the damn bike. I often feel I should be looking for colorectal proctologist in preparation for the day I’ll need help to remove the horrible seat from my backside.

On this occasion I happened to look out the window and spot a big yellow van stopped at the traffic lights. Initially it were the bright yellow and red flash of the Woodpecker which caught my eye. When I read the name “Woodpecker Tree Surgeons“, I thought that’s cool a wood carving bird aka a woodpecker for a tree surgeon comaony. As I looked closer I noticed the chainsaw beak and which made me smile. I took a quick photo through the window, and caught part of a treadmill too. 

I should point out, I Have NO Connection to this company at all, I mere saw it and thought that’s the kinda branding which sticks and be a good blog post.

I had a quick google of other companies who use “Woodpecker” in their name, and the majority of them use a generic woodpecker image of some description or a silhouette style image. The custom image here perfectly describes what they do and matches their company name, making it so much more memorable. 

Its a shame they didn’t have a website on the side of the van, it would be far easier to remember rather than just a few phone numbers. 

Just FYI, Their website is exactly what they are called… WoodpeckerTreeSurgeons.co.uk.

I’d say this company has NAILED the branding, matching name, funky graphics and very memorable. 

Web Presence and Domain Name Branding

Mail In A BoxWeb Presence and Branding are crucial when it comes to making the most of your Virtual Real Estate. There are a few major pitfalls which I see time and again, so I thought I’d cover a few of them here.

These are presented in no major order, other than how I thought about them. I were actually prompted to write this by a the signage on curtain sided wagon I saw, which were very much like the first van image I have posted below.

Make the most of what you have, with some simple guidelines. 

Failure to Utilise

This is the biggest offender, a business or trader has a domain name, they have an email address and a business name, but none of them match up. I have seen people with www.test.co.uk and their email is [email protected] or once, the other way around [email protected] and the website www.testnorthwest.wix.com.

If you are going to use a domain name, use it for both the presence and the email address, marry them to make a pair and boost you’re memorability. 

Trading Names

Following on from marrying your email and website url, we have Trading Names. If you have a cracking domain name, why not use a trading name to capitalise on the domain powers ? 

A trading name is a name you trade by, which can be anything really, but you must also identify who you are legally. This why you will often see for example “ABC is a trading name of XYZ Limited” or “ABC Doodads trading as ZXY Widgets Limited”. This is useful if you are say DIY Limited, and want to run Roofing Specialists, Flooring Experts and Boiler Repairs as separate companies under a main brand. This is often used if the company name you wished for, were already taken. 

Implementing the above issues in real world style situation. I’m going to make up a business name, and some pretend branding just to illustrate this crucial point, the domain name is owned (at time of writing by myself).

Less than Ideal Branding

 

MJ & BB Electricians
0161 234 5678
www.ManchesterElectricians.co.uk
[email protected]

 

If you see the above on the side of a van (like left) at best you may remember the domain name as its you’re geographic location and a service you may need, so some recognition exists. 

Now lets marry up the email, and website url into a cohesive pair, lets play with the layout a little and we’ll use a trading name to tie it all together. Now you tell me, which one sticks in your mind, the above van of this…

Manchester Electricians Branding

Its nearly impossible to not know what this company does, the company name reinforces the domain name / website url and the email all matches up. We’ve also increased the phone number size so its nice and easy to see. 

This isn’t really the end of your branding and presence, not by a long shot. Most of the this happens behind closed doors, you’re customers will never see how much effort and thought foes into this. Infact you, yourself may never have actually given it a seconds thought. 

E-Mail Infrastructure

If you’re a sole trader, small business or a growing medium business there is no reason not to plan some sort of basic infrastructure for your email and web presence. I’m going assume this post is being read by SMB (Small and Medium Business) and Sole Traders, so the advice is more geared towards them. Bigger business with dozens of employee’s need to use a slightly different method for contacts and potentially geographic locations maybe a factor amongst other things. I will touch on the latter issues here and there but not too much. 

First up, I always recommend a basic set of email addresses, obviously a little tweaking is needed for the exact nature of your business. Sticking with the imaginary Manchester Electricians, I would go with the following basic set up.

Business Emails
info@ManchesterElectricians – General Enquires.
quote/s@ManchesterElectricians – Quotes and Pricing Alias both plural and singular spellings to one account.
emergency@ManchesterElectricians – Emergency Aerial Problems.

Business Card Emails
mary@ManchesterElectricians
bill@ManchesterElectricians

The business card emails, are important as it gives customers a way to contact someone they know directly rather than a faceless company. There is nothing stopping you having all these emails copy into one inbox; multiple outbound addresses, but its about planning for the future. 

If you’re a bigger business, and expect more than half dozen employees, its worth using whole names. There will be a time when you have multiple Chris Jones and Sarah Smith employees. 

mary.johnson@ManchesterElectricians
bill.baker@ManchesterElectricians

Multiple People with Same Name

This isn’t perfect, when you get to 1000s of employees you may end up with multiple Robert Jones employees, so its often best to allow those employees to go with less formal names. Not all Robert’s use Robert, they could be Rob, Bob, Bobby or similar, this allows you to keep your email addresses clean. 

There will come a time when you need to consider using a multiple notation:

robert.jones@ManchesterElectricians
robert.jones1@ManchesterElectricians

Its inevitable, I would personally try to avoid using numbers, and go with:

r.jones@ManchesterElectricians
rob.jones@ManchesterElectricians
robert.j@ManchesterElectricians
robert.jones@ManchesterElectricians

Geo-Specific Emails

If you’ve multiple offices in different areas, then you can use specific geo markers in your emails. 

england@ManchesterElectricians
manchester@ManchesterElectricians
cheshire@ManchesterElectricians

Promotional Email Addresses

Lets say you’re running a competition or special offer which is advertised in a magazine but you want to know the impact. You can use a specific email for this electronicsweekly@ManchesterElectricians and direct to the special offer / competition on ManchesterElectricians.co.uk/electronicsweekly this allows you to see the impact and direct people to more information.

This works for buses bus@ManchesterElectricians or anything else really. 

The Bottom Line

Making maximum use of your domain and email within your branding, 

Using a basic planned infrastructure from the start allows you to effectively route your emails to correct people and show a more professional presence.

Keep it simple and easy to read and you won’t go wrong. 

Van Image courtesy of Michal Zacharzewski, Mail in a Box image Courtesy of Svilen Milev

NOCCO – No Carb Company Drinks

NOCCO Girls with Mathilda on Right

NOCCO Girls with Mathilda on Right

A few years ago I met Mathilda from a company out of Sweden called NOCCO. She were launching a brand of Carbonated (Fizzy) Drinks which contained BCAA (Branched Chain Amino Acids) with and without Caffeine, or KOFFEIN as it were listed back then, with names like RODA BAR and PARON, none of the cans were in English but they tasted great.

Body Power Explosion

The stand NOCCO had at the Body Power Expo were not more than the size of a Box Room, with Mathilda and I believe 2 maybe 3 staff, fast forward to 2016 and the stand were 3 maybe 4x larger, with a mountain of NOCCO which were probably bigger than the original stand. All the cans are now in English with the same nice print quality, with a semi mat finish, which made them easy to grip even with wet hands. I think there were about 7-8 Staff including Mathilda who says she’s loving the expo and plans to get bigger and bigger each year.

Nocco - Old and New

NOCCO- Old and New Designs

What I found interesting from a marketing perspective is, Mathilda tackled the show with what I could only describe as blixtkrig as the Swedish say or blitzkrieg as we’re more familiar as, which “lightening war”. A number of stands told me, she visited them and dropping a case or two off for the stand. This meant NOCCO had “peppered” than expo, it were EVERYWHERE, almost every Athlete on every stand were drinking it.

One athlete told me, they were fuelled purely by NOCCO, although the can says not to mix with Alcohol, another athlete told me its amazing with a certain Russian drink. This does kind of negate the zero carb thing though.

Product Flavours and Nutrition

Now the drinks themselves are 330ml  and come in Pear, Peach, Mixed Berry and Citrous and Elderflower Flavours, all are Carbonated (Fizzy) and all but the latter are Caffeinated with 180mg, and contain ratios of 4:1:1 or 8:1:1 of Leucine, Valine and Isoleucine and some have L-Carnitine, and Citrous and Elderflower is Caffeine Free, no Carnitine, and 4:1:1 blend of BCAA. I’ll add some Label information soon along with some product photo’s too.

Mountain of NOCCO

Mountain of NOCCO

They all contain, between 3-6g-ish of protein, along with Vitamin D, Biotin, Folic Acid, Niacin, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin B12, but what is most shocking for example is Citrous and Elderflower is 20 kcals NONE of which come from Carbs in fact none of the flavours contain any carbs, the 5g of protein in the citrous is the source of the 20kcal (4kcal per gram), the other flavours have various amounts of each vitamin, protein and mineral, but all around 20kcals and zero carbs.

I have to say, this is one of the best products I have sampled, certainly the best fizzy drink, and most impressive stats, I’d say top 3 products from the expo and potentially the best marketing.

At some point I’d like to talk more in depth about branding, company name, and product development, not to mention working out the tastes. Many of these drinks frankly taste horrendous, others taste so chemical and artificial its shocking but this seems to be bang on.