And the winner is.... Barack Obama.  Congratulations Senator Barack Obama for becoming the first African American President of the United States of America.   I am in awe of your achievement.

Inbound Marketing has been all the rave in many marketing circles lately and the question is... is it really that big a deal as marketers are making it out to be?  The short answer is yes.

Inbound marketing is summed up by Brian Halligan of Hubspot, a leading internet marketing company: "I advocate doing "inbound marketing" where you help yourself "get found" by people already learning about and shopping in your industry.  In order to do this, you need to set your website up like a "hub" for your industry that attracts visitors naturally through the search engines, through the blogosphere, and through the social media sites.  I believe most marketers today spend 90% of their efforts on outbound marketing and 10% on inbound marketing and I advocate that those ratios flip."

Setting  your website up as a "hub" is key. The Barack Obama campaign has done just that, by implementing a variety of inbound marketing efforts including the blogosphere, the enormous involvement on popular social media networks as well as creating their own social media site and a well developed and optimized website complete with relevant tools to get the right information to the people. For example, a tax calculator that enables visitors to check what their tax reductions would be under a President Obama Administration.  Utilizing these tools together has effectively produced an influx of web traffic to the Barack Obama website.

Just  for fun I did a quick comparison of the Barack Obama website http://www.barackobama.com/ and the John McCain website http://www.johnmccain.com/ on Hubspot's Website Grader tool - A great tool to help you find ways of improving your website effectiveness.  What I found was very telling:

See Full Report >> 

Site: The 2 sites being compared: http://www.barackobama.com/, http://www.johnmccain.com/

Website Grade:  The grade Hubspot gives a website is based on the website's marketing effectiveness, considering a variety of factors including page rank, traffic rank, meta data, heading, etc...  Both sites rate fairly high in the Grade area, a 98% for John McCain and 95% for Barack Obama.

Google Page Rank: Both websites scored a pretty high page rank of 8

Traffic Rank:  This ranking is taken from the Alexa visitor traffic data. The traffic rank for Obama is 753 and McCain- 2580. The smaller the number- the better, just for a point of reference Google has a traffic rank of 1

Blog Rank:  Not Conclusive; Hubspot software did not detect the blog on the Barack Obama website  so I can't compare the two blogs using Website Grader.

But here is where it becomes even more interesting:

Delicious  Bookmarks: John McCain (Johnmccain.com) - 451 bookmarks, Barackobama.com - 2797 bookmarks; approximately 5 times more bookmarks.

Inbound Links:  Johnmccain.com - 1,280,323 links, Barackobama.com - 3,161,675, that's roughly 2 million more inbound links. Inbound links to a website is one of the key sources of traffic.

So how does all of this translate into web traffic:  according to compete.com John McCain website in September had roughly 3.1 million visitors where as barackobama.com pulled in roughly 5.5 million visitors.

Inbound marketing should be a major part of any design company looking to be competitive online.  Finding ways to increase your inbound links is not an option going forward. One of the first things you can do going forward is to take a close look at your design business and brainstorm ideas that you believe would add value to your industry.  Your first thought should exclude any benefits to your company; only think of your industry and the demographic needs.  Once you have figured out the tools that would be truly beneficial to your industry demographics - then you package that tool to represent your design business. Our next Topic in the Branding Campaign series is Website esthetics, ease of use and how the Barack Obama website manages the customer's buying cycle and website conversion.

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Part 3 of the Series -Arguably The Most Effective Branding Campaign Ever

As you're probably aware or have deduced by now that I'm a huge fan of presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama.  That being said, I'll be the first to admit that I had no idea who Barack Obama was 2 years ago.  Today he is one of the most influential elected official America has seen in recent history.  From his Speech against the Iraq War to his speech on Race Relations to his unprecedented presidential campaign which some in the media now calls the democratic juggernaut. Senator Barack Obama has injected the American electorate with ‘Obama Juice' and now we can't seem to get enough of it. 

To explain this phenomenon in a one page blog post is obviously impossible.  Many factors play a role in this exceptional American story.   What I will do is give you a list of things I believe contributed to his branding success.

To develop a compelling brand, the company or organization must maintain 5 crucial elements: A quality product or service, the building of a unique model, the vision to empower people, exceptional communication techniques, and a way to measure progress.  

Quality Product or Service,  First you must have a product or service that has true value and benefits for your consumers or clients. It could be exceptional customer service, a user friendly software or website or a unique approach to design. In some cases a combination of the two can multiply the value of your product or service, Apple Inc. illustrates this synergy very well.  In the case of this election that would be Senator Barack Obama.  His extraordinary education credentials, colorful background, worldview and his ability to reach millions of people through his commanding words gives him that quality stamp needed in the American political arena.  

Build A Unique Model -  Businesses need to distinguish themselves from their competition.  Marty Neumeier of Neutron LLC calls this creating a charismatic brand -  "Any product, service, or organization for which people believe there's no substitute."  Senator Barack Obama Unique Model is "Change You Can Believe In" Senator Obama is running as the candidate that's against the norm of politics in America.  - His focus is building the country from the ground up instead of the top down, ironically separating himself from the majority approach to politics in a democratic society.

 Empower People - Once you have a great product or service and you have created a strong case for your product, you then have to get your customers involved in the process. When customers are involved in your product whether it been providing feedback options at the beta level or requesting feedback of an existing product gives people the sense that you care, which enhances communication and increases customer loyalty.  Senator Barack Obama campaign core is a grass roots movement, everyday people doing extraordinary things.  His record fundraising numbers are based on small donors - working middle class people contributing small sums of money, $5, $10, $25 dollar donations., Giving everyday people a sense of responsibility and power to change their country and ultimately their destiny.

Exploit Communication Technology -  Continuously communicating with your demographics is an effective way to keep your product and service front and center of your clients mind.  With the enormous reach of the internet and mobile communication, a company has a free pass to communicate with their demographics on and offline easily and in lots of cases by the consent of their clients or customers. Senator Barack Obama has utilized this technique in such a way that one would consider his efforts abusive of the technology, with perfect understanding of the medium, the Barack Obama campaign was able  to employ the internet to maximize volunteering and donation efforts leading to record breaking resources in people and campaign contributions.  From  his perfectly executed website to his email outreach to his social networking involvement, to his mobile phone texting campaign, to his mobile phone applications for phone banking.... The Barack Obama campaign was able to effectively use technology as an advantage while their opponents were still trying to figure it out.

Measure Your Progress - Measure your success. Are your messages resonating with your clients? Are your customers subscribing or buying your products due to your new communication strategies?  Utilizing feedback and comments boxes, tracking website visitors, keyword trends and analyzing visitor responses is key to building a successful branding campaign.  The Barack Obama campaign has been diligent in finding out what works and what doesn't work though state and national polling, network and cable news are great resource for feedback; almost instant in some cases. Social media sites like twitter gives the campaign an idea of what the electorate are thinking and saying, sites like Digg  and YouTube emphasizes what the public think is important.  All these measures are keys in gauging and growing the Barack Obama campaign efforts and should be the same key techniques used to grow your small business. Part 4 of this series will be on  how SEO and inbound marketing efforts help create an influx of web traffic to the Barack Obama website.

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The Smashing Blog - All Things New and Smashing From the Front Lines of The indie Fashion Revolution. This blog spotlights indie designers and also have some great interviews of up and coming designers. The smashing darling website is also a great place to sell your new collections; great for young designers.

Independent Fashion Bloggers -  A Fashion community made up of fashion design bloggers and pros  sharing ideas and growing their businesses. A growing resource of information for young  fashion designers or anyone in the fashion industry.

Fashion Incubator - Lessons from the sustainable factory floor.   Definitely a great resource for fashion designers, pattern makers or any fashion professional looking for advice from freelancing to billing clients to pattern making tutorials. 

Jack + Bill - Jack + Bill is a public relations agency dedicated to identifying, branding and publicizing emerging fashion talent.   I need to do a bit more research on them to get more details on how they business, but seem to have a genuine interest in growing young designers.

Final Fashion -  fashion and fiction.  Danielle Meder is a fashion blogger/fashion illustrator who's work I've admired for a while.  Great blog. Very talented illustrator.

Piratesarehot - Adventures in Fashion Design & Illustration.   Meegan Thomas is a fashion blogger/fashion designer who uses the blogosphere to effectively promote her design and illustration projects.

StyleBubble -Fashion blog.  What I like about this blog is how fun it is. The author, Susie is very creative and gives her reader a reason to keep coming back to see what's new whether it be a cool fashion trip she took or simple an outfit that she put together.

Compai - Compai is a crafty, green design studio dedicated to creative projects that employ recycled materials.

Fashion Design Blog - A Collection of Fashion Designers and Design Boutiques blogging and showcases their collections.

Jennyvi Dizon Couture - A custom bridal and eveningwear fashion design label effectively utilizing their blog to promote their business.

Part 2 of the Series - Arguably The Most Effective Branding Campaign Ever

Social networking has become the frontier of internet marketing, a tool used by internet users to connect with friends and family, to budding  entrepreneurs just starting  their design businesses and to large established companies looking to secure their turf.  But what's not so common was the use of social networking when it came to campaigning for the presidency of a country.  This type of campaign is unprecedented lending its efforts to raising an astonishing amount of donations ever received by political campaign - The Barack Obama Campaign for the Presidency of the United States   was able to raise close to half a billion dollars in campaign contributions largely due to their social media presence.   We all know the basics of social media marketing by now, That being said, I'd like to go right into the numbers, comparing John McCain's  campaigning efforts to that of Barack Obama's campaign.

So what do these numbers mean?  Quite frankly, it means that the Obama Campaign can potentially solicit campaign volunteers and donations from roughly  3. 6 million people compared to  less than  ¾  million people for the McCain Campaign, ultimately expanding their resources through their social media efforts.  Many factors obviously play a role in the difference in numbers including but not limited to:  The Barack Obama Campaign truly reaching out to their targeted demographics, most of which are young voters - young people are all over the social media.  The language the campaign uses are phrases like ‘join the movement', ‘change you can believe in' and  ‘it's not about me, it's about you'.  All phases that  motivate and mobilize people.  These techniques are not rocket science.  What seems to be rocket science is the confusion of critics to the level in which it worked.  One thing worth noting, and again there are many, but simply having a list of social media networks you're involved with prominently displayed on your website will prompt your visitors to join [your company's movement].

Here's a thought:  Just maybe your site visitors would rather communicate with you on their turf.  It's okay to do so.  You should go where your demographics are ‘hanging out' and talk their language, that's how you connect, don't force them to visit your website when they  would rather meet you on Facebook or LinkedIn.   Part 3 of this series will be on  Branding and Logo Design - The techniques and strategies used to effectively brand Senator Barack Obama as the "CHANGE" Candidate.

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Since this is the final month of elections for the Presidency of the United States - Election Day November 4, 2008.  I've decided to dedicate the next four weeks on the elections and show how social networking and branding can be effectively utilized.  That being said, I wanted to share with you what I believe is the most effective branding strategy in recent American history.

After watching the vice presidential debates last week It struck me that I'm in the middle of a very historical event.  I've never been so engaged in American politics before.  Seriously, this has been such  an experience to be right in the middle of what will go done in history as one of the most notable periods in America - the probable election of the first African American President in American history.

What's even more interesting is how clearly branding played a major role.  Two years ago Senator Barack Obama was a name that no one knew or cared about.  Two years later Senator Barack Obama is positioned to becoming the first African American president of the United States.   Knowing the colorful history of Blacks in America you could easily see why this event is simply extraordinary.   With that said.  I'd like to give credit  to Senator Barack Obama and his campaign for an exceptional campaign thus far by effectively creating a brand in 2 years what simply would  take other companies or organizations decades to accomplish.  

The Obama campaign proved that by effectively utilizing the tools of social media one can take down arguably "the most powerful Democratic family in a generation - one that understood the power of money in politics and commanded a network of wealthy donors that has financed the Democratic Party for years" - the Clintons.   Of course it goes without say that many factors played a role in the success of  this campaign thus far, some of which can be seen simply by a visit to the Barack Obama's website - http://www.barackobama.com/.  This website is a blueprint for anyone looking for a reference of an absolutely flawless machine of effective internet marketing which by the way has helped propelled this campaign to raising nearly half  a billion dollars in donations - A political campaign record.  So how did they do it?  Well,  I will attempt to dissect certain marketing elements that I believe assisted in the extreme success of this campaign and hope  that I can shed some light on areas where you can improve your  marketing efforts in your design businesses.

 For the next few weeks I will be talking about:

• The role social networking played in the success of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign
• Branding and Logo Design - The techniques and strategies used to effectively brand Senator Barack Obama as the "CHANGE" candidate.
• SEO and inbound marketing efforts that help create an influx of web traffic to the Barack Obama website.
• Website esthetics, ease of use and how the Barack Obama website manages the customer's buying cycle and website conversion
• The advertising and marketing tools that contributed to effectively reaching even more supporters to help build the campaign base.
• Final results of the 2008 American Election 2008.

To make it more interesting I've decide to do a comparison of the two candidates running for president:  Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain and see if we can deduce who is utilizing their  marketing  efforts most effectively.   So stay tuned - the next post will be on The Role Social Networking Played in the Success of the Barack Obama's  Presidential Campaign.

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My last blog post was about Google releasing its 2001 search engine for show for their 10^th  year Anniversary  and how their logo has changed since then -  pointing to current company growth and design trends as two possible reasons for the change.  I was since energized to find other top company logos that has changed over the years.  What I found was that in most cases the logos were noticeably similar to their predecessors as expect  but still showcased a modern spin that appeal to the current design trends in their respective industries.  What I found kind of funny was the Starbucks coffee logo changed from a practically x-rated half naked mermaid to a more censored version as their demographics grew.   I wasn't sure whether they wanted me to get a cup of coffee or  get a room  ☺ Anyway, check out the list, let me know what you think.

I was reading theTechcrunch blog this morning and they had an article on Google " Google Takes A Leap Back to 2001".  Google has released its 2001 search engine for show for their 10^th  year Anniversary.  Most of you know that I'm a huge fan of Google for many reasons,  including but not limited to the way they've taken the internet by storm.  But what's cool is the transformation of Google's logo from 2001 to 2008.  

Speaking in ‘car' terms It's as though Google's 2001 logo was equivalent to  a Volkswagen Beetle,  bubbled and cute - the kind of car you get when just getting out of college and on your way to face the ‘real world'.  If you work really hard and make lots of money you can trade in that old Beetle for a brand new 2008, fully loaded Mercedes Benz. 

The logo is sleeker, more modern and 'tricked out' with the famous  "I'm feeling lucky"  button. Of course there are many reasons a company will change their logo; sometimes for simple esthetics and other times for brand survival, I've outlined a few cases below: 

• Company has simply changed - The product or service or demographics has changed
• Company mission has changed - maybe they've decided to "Go Green"
• Logo is dated, old and doesn't reflect new  or modern trends in design

 A company's logo in most cases will change to reflect it's current growth position as well as the current design trends relative to the industry the company competes, i.e. Google.  But, It is still very important to make sure to not change your logo so much as to alienate your customers who have gotten use to your brand image.  To be honest, Google's logo changes has been so subtle over the years that the average person  looking at it probably wouldn't think that it changed at all.  The beauty of a great brand identity and logo design is the fact that even though the logo has obviously changed, it's still the same in the customer's eyes.  A great logo is a ‘living' image/identity that grows with your company's brand. 

I'm curiously to know  your thoughts from a graphic or logo design, branding perspective why Google has changed its logo over the years and what message is Google sending now that it didn't send back in 2001?

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When I decided to start this blog,  I was looking for a name that would represent my focus on exploring creative marketing techniques to promote and grow the careers and businesses of designers and design companies.  Most of what I've written thus far has been about  getting clients, maximizing website visitors, implementing social networking and utilizing SEO marketing techniques. The name Branded Designers was chosen to represent my commitment to finding the most effective marketing techniques that will contribute to defining and growing designers and young design companies brands.

 A brand as defined by Wikipedia is "a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer. A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols and sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. The key objective is to create a relationship of trust."  In layman terms  "A brand is a person's gut feeling about your product or your service or your small business." Noted Brain B of Little Engine's Blog.

Now why is this important to a designer's livelihood and success going forward?  One reason is competition.  As we enter into this global economy where more and more designers are leaving the corporate environment and are starting their own businesses. It's becoming increasingly important to identify yourself as an expert that can deliver exceptional service that will command professional respect and client loyalty. That being said, a branded designer is a creative professional or design company who has successfully created a ‘feeling' or reputation in the eyes of the general public, clients and colleagues that is viewed favorably and has a strong positive impact on the social and financial bottom lines of their businesses.

In summary, the goal of the Branded Designers blog is to assist in the growth of the designer or design companies seeking to become branded; to research and discuss tools and internet marketing techniques, like inbound marketing through social networking and the blogosphere, like methods to improve website conversion rates, like evaluating methods and rules of  engagement of customers and clients.  My hope is to develop a resource that will truly help with t