Month: March 2020

As marketers and business owners we are all currently faced with a unique challenge. One that has and will change our industries forever. It will change the way we do business, change how we sell our services and also change how we conduct marketing in times when our businesses face the greatest threat of our generation.

However as responsible marketers, sales managers and business owners, we are also focused on the future. Although hard to fathom right now, this time will pass. Those who use this time wisely, planning and implementing their marketing strategies, will come out stronger on the other side.

Today we’re going to run through some of the projects we recommend you start moving forward with now. The results from each of these will long outlast the current period and will set your business up for the seasons ahead of us.

1. Get Ahead With Your Marketing Plan

The one thing we have right now is the luxury of time. We’ve had countless chats with marketing teams this past week and their big focus is getting their marketing plan started/finished and putting effort into the challenge that will come after this lockdown. Namely everyone will be marketing! Use this time to create an overarching marketing plan and then a monthly/weekly schedule of activities you can start now and then introduce more normal marketing activities in a later period.

We are in new times and as marketers we need to think beyond this lockdown. What is likely to happen immediately. With less travel restrictions within the country likely happening first, we fully expect staycations to become a much bigger focus for people right across the island of Ireland. Those hoteliers who hope to capture more of the niche markets such Ramblers, Adventure Seekers, Solo Travellers as examples will find it easier to cut through the noise of the mass marketing activities we will see. Think about your ideal customer, who they are, what they are interested in and what drives them to stay away for a night, two or more.

• Locale Focussed Blogging

One of the most important and long lasting actions you can take right now is to start, deliver and grow your blogging capability. Right now, this is the one channel we can communicate effectively through without additional noise. 

If you don’t have a blog on your website, we can of course help you with that very quickly and easily, but if you do, start writing content now. 

• Why focus on your own locale?

Many of the hotels we work with rely on 3rd party booking providers to deliver bookings for their businesses. We can help flip this reliance on its head getting our brand and website out in front of users before they start researching accommodation. For example if you are a hotel on the North Coast, you might create a well written piece about the Giants Causeway, Portrush or the filming locations of Game of Throne on Portstewart Strand or Ballintoy Harbour. Not only are you writing good content for your site, but you are localising this to the area your hotel serves. This adds authority in search engines such as Google and will help you rank higher.

2. Refine Your Menus

Although you are not physically at your hotel, there are a number of ways in which you can prepare for when you will be.

Refining your menu being one. Changing a restaurant menu can be a difficult task while you remain open, so now is the perfect time to look at how changes can be made to better your offering. 

In doing so, your menu can bring many benefits, to both your customers, your staff and your bottom line. Do you want to review a menu item, reduce the offering or focus more heavily on the most profitable items. Knowing the expected outcome, we can focus on delivering a more robust menu design.

With regard our customers – Updating your menu will help with keeping your customers interested and excited. The hospitality industry is a busy and competitive industry, with trends changing at every turn. By taking the time to reimagine your menu, you give customers a new reason to come back to your hotel restaurant when you reopen. 

Allowing your kitchen staff to co-create your new hotel restaurant menu will increase your staff’s engagement through what will be a difficult and challenging time. Through enabling staff to co-create the new menu, it will allow them to invest time, thought and creativity into something which they will then nurture when rolled out.

If you are unsure about creating a new restaurant menu, another way in which you can refine your menu, is to fully evaluate what currently works and what doesn’t. You can replace outdated dishes with newer ones and keep popular dishes that serve your restaurant well.

In making the above changes successfully, your hotel restaurant will be able to move towards increasing your bottom line. Through hopefully creating a new interest around your menu, and keeping your customers interested and happy

3. Review Your Customer Journey

While it can be easy to overlook things like your customer journey, in favour of other elements of your restaurant. It is an essential task for all marketers and business owners. 

You can start to maximise your performance if you manage to break down a customer’s journey into smaller sections and then build a plan to address each section of that journey.

One of the best ways to gain invaluable insight into your customer journey, is by getting someone outside of your business, a person you trust to act like a customer, and to critically analyse each and every move they make from the moment they make the booking, until they pay the bill. 

The three main stages you can break this into are the first point of engagement, dining in your restaurant and leaving your restaurant.

With each of these stages, make a note of every emotion your customer would feel at this point of their customer journey, this can be a number of emotions. You should also look at potential thoughts your customer may have at this point of their journey. By looking at both their emotions and thoughts, you can begin to build up an idea of what exactly the customer is going through at that point of their journey. You are able to look at ways in which it can be improved and developed on, to improve their journey

4. Audit Your Website

We are living in a digital age, whereby every single thing we do is now being adapted to suit and work seamlessly with technology. If you already have a website dedicated to your hotel restaurant, you are in a position to update and make changes to this as you see fit. 

Using this time to re evaluate your website could be a great way of moving your business to the next level for when you reopen. 

Here are some of the top way in which you can update your restaurant website;

• Update all your online information

This may seem like an obvious suggestion, but there are a high number of business websites that are not updated from the minute they are put live, and naturally, things can change over time. It may be small changes to your opening hours, or bigger changes to your location, booking system or contact information. 

Making sure that your details are correct and up to date is the first step to updating your hotel restaurant website.

• Updating all imagery 

Images are the one thing that lets customers get an insight to your hotel restaurant before even setting foot inside. So make sure you are making a good first impression. Remove old and dated photos, and replace them with clear and eye catching imagery that would make you want to visit a restaurant. Spend time with your chefs, and plate each dish so that it can be photographed and uploaded to your website.

• Adding a downloadable menu 

Having your menu available online can be a real deal breaker when it comes to customers choosing your hotel restaurant. 

By uploading your menu online, and allowing customers to download it before visiting can prove beneficial in so many ways. 

Not only does it let customers see what you are offering, it lets them get an idea of the type of restaurant you are and how it would suit them. For instance, if you have a customer with a dietary requirement, they will be able to check online if you cater to this, ahead of visiting you. 

• Optimising your website for SEO

Spending time on the SEO of your website will prove invaluable to your business. It looks after your marketing when you are not. 

One of the best ways to optimise the SEO on your website, is through the use of Blogs. They are a great way of promoting your business activities, changes and offerings whilst also helping with your marketing.

A big thing that sites like Google and Bing look for are keywords in the content of the blog. These keywords need to be related to whatever the end user is searching for!

For example, if you own a hotel restaurant in Belfast and your user is searching for ‘best restaurants in Belfast’. You can create blogs to cater for this search, with keywords including ‘Belfast’, ‘Restaurants’ & ‘Dining near me’. These keywords can help show are Google or other search engines that your website is a good source for getting information about restaurants in Belfast. 

5. Look at your Customer Data

Looking at your customer data is an essential part of your marketing plan for your hotel restaurant. 

The information that you can get from customer data can hold the most valuable insight to your hotel restaurant. 

Many restaurant owners do not realise that they are sitting on a goldmine of restaurant customer data, and therefore, don’t use it to their advantage. This data is not just numbers, but really useful information which if identified and tracked, can help improve performance, give you a competitive edge and increase your profits. 

For instance, by collecting customer data including names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses you can start to built your customer CRM database. Using this information will be invaluable to your business.

With this information, you can then start to contact customers through targeted emails and texts. Whether you are promoting a new restaurant night, changing your opening hours, or even hosting an event – You will have direct access to your valuable customers and will be able to notify them straight away. This allows you to quickly and easily kick off your next marketing campaign, as you already have a database of past and current customers.

Another way in which you can utilise your customer data is through identifying customers who come to your hotel restaurant frequently, and then reward them for their custom. Be that through a loyalty scheme, or through a discount code. Your customers will appreciate your reward, and feel like a valued customer of your business. The aim here is to show your customers that you appreciate and remember their custom time and time again. 

6. Engage Directly with You Customer

Now is not the time to be selling, in fact those businesses who are pushing sales are likely to be thought of in a less than suitable light. However those businesses that engage with clients, not to sell, but to build relationships and develop an understanding of their needs and plans, will be better positioned  after the current state of play. If suitable, a call will greatly received. Explain you are looking forward to welcoming the customer back also and when they are there, we’ll try to make the experience as delightful as possible. You can follow this up with a customer service email from the reception with an offer or discount on extras during their stay. Whatever is appropriate in your hotel.

How can we help?

We’re very much in this together and we at Kaizen Brand Evolution are happy to share our experience of what is working and what isn’t working in any industry we work with. We are fortunate to work with businesses all across the UK & Ireland that intend to come out of this situation much stronger.

Both Ryan Stanfield and Connor McAuley are available for video chats on all projects, to arrange this with the Studio, please email studio@kaizenbrandevolution.com

At Kaizen Brand Evolution we’re all about helping brands achieve fantastic results with smart design. Our many years of experience and expertise help us to get the very best for our amazing clients. We work closely with our clients to get behind their brand and really understand what they are all about. Whether helping with formulating a brand from scratch or in evolving and developing existing brands, we know how to take brands to the next level. 

What you can expect when you work with us

Passion and dedication

At Kaizen Brand Evolution we know that expert design is about more than simply qualifications. Great design comes from a combination of hard work, creative spark and a street wise understanding of design in practice. At Kaizen Brand Evolution, our design team helps to create powerful advertising through a combination of these attributes. 

Knowledge and Expertise

Our expert design team has a huge amount of knowledge and expertise. As well as being loaded with qualifications, they also take a hands-on approach to all of our clients design projects. At Kaizen Brand Evolution we understand that true knowledge and expertise stretches beyond creating great design. It’s also about finding an advertising channel and focus that is right for you and your business. 

Working as a team

Advertising design is not a one size fits all process and we treat each client on their individual needs and requirements. Our highly qualified design team works with our clients to understand their campaigns and projects. We also work closely with our clients to understand other important factors including their;

• Customer base
• Broader business objectives
• Brand identity and core values
• Previous campaigns and projects

At Kaizen Brand Evolution our best advertising projects have been the ones where our clients have fully cooperated and participated with us. Think of us as an extension of your team. We’re here to help you get the very best.

How we can help with your advertising design

At Kaizen Brand Evolution we pride ourselves on trying new and innovative ways to help you stand out from the crowd. Our advertising design services can be broadly split into four key areas: branding, digital, design, and video. And we work tirelessly to push the boundaries in all of these areas. 

Branding

Brand evolution is the heart of our business and is fundamental to all of your advertising design. When planning your advertising campaigns it is imperative that they are not only attractive and distinctive, but also that they remain true to your brand. When working with clients on advertising design campaigns we will either work with your existing brand guidelines, or help to create these for you. Either way we can help you to maximise the effect of your brand in the mind’s of your customers. 

Digital

We work with clients to increase engagement, drive action and increase sales through effective digital design. Whether you require web design, social media, email design or any other channel, our design team can help you get more from your digital advertising. Focusing on your audience and their preferences and typical behaviour we will help you to optimise your online presence. 

Design

High quality design is integral to any successful advertising campaign. At Kaizen Brand Evolution our team of world class designers will help you create powerful advertising campaigns. 

Video

Working around your brief we’ll also look to integrate innovative video  campaigns that help you stand out from the crowd. We can help you to craft evocative brand stories that engage and entertain your audience. We’ll also look to introduce the latest technologies wherever possible. 

Kaizen Brand Evolution

To find out more about how we can help you with your next advertising design project get in touch via our contact form or by calling 028 9507 2007. 

No matter how good your product is, first off you need to convince consumers to buy into what you are offering – Thats where packaging design comes in.

While quality is of course vital to a product’s success (or failure) it is a mistake to consider this the be all and end all. Typically consumers will choose products on the basis of a combination of the following factors;

• They have purchased the product before
• They have purchased similar products before
• They have purchased a product by the same brand before
• It has been recommended by a friend
• They have seen it in an advertisement
• It is on offer (as part of a broader sale or otherwise)

A key factor will be packaging design. Good packaging design can mean the difference between your product flying off the shelves and being ignored. So why is good packaging design so important?

Packaging Design tells your customers what your product does

One of the primary functions of your packaging is to tell the world what your product actually does. This might be self-evident in many cases, but this is not always the case. Beyond this you’ll want to ensure that your packaging covers off all of the necessary detail. You may wish to know the ingredients or calories that go into a cake for example, or the finish on a tin of paint. Whatever it is that customers may want to know in more detail you’ll want to consider including in your packaging design. This is an extremely important consideration when designing your packaging. If you fail to answer the questions that customers may have before committing to purchase then you risk losing them.

It does your pitching for you

Great packaging can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to increasing brand awareness and sales. Think of your packaging as your silent marketing partner. Your packaging can sell what you have to offer when you are not in the room. 

It makes your product stand out from the crowd

Perhaps the most important function of packaging is to help your product stand out from the crowd. With so many products out there and so much choice, it can be difficult for consumers to make a choice one way or another. Your packaging can help to sway them in your product’s direction. When designing your packaging you’ll want to consider the following questions;

• How does your packaging compare to similar products?
• What makes your packaging different to these products?
• What is the incentive to buy your product beyond the price?

By answering these questions you can go some way towards fulfilling a brief for your packaging design. 

It contributes to brand awareness

Your packaging design fits into a broader branding project. To ensure that you maximise the impact of your branding it is important that every element adds up. Consistency is key. If shoppers have come into contact with your brand before, you’ll want to ensure that they remember it at the point of purchase. The more your customers come into contact with your brand the more likely they are to remember it. This familiarity is a powerful advocate that you won’t want to miss out on. 

It acts as advertising in the homes of consumers

Packaging does not just exist on shelves in the shops or as images on your smartphone. Your packaging continues to play a role in the homes of your customers. Once your product has made it into your customer’s homes it acts as a daily reminder of why your product is so great. While we do not keep the packaging for every item we buy it is still important to consider how your packaging might be used beyond the initial purchase. 

Kaizen Brand Evolution

At Kaizen Brand Evolution we have a dedicated team of world class designers to help you create the perfect packaging design. To find out more about how you can benefit from our help you can visit our packaging design page or get in touch via our contact form or by calling 02895072007.

As a restauranteur your menu is a critical piece of brand collateral. Your menu is both a necessary requirement and a piece of marketing material. Unlike the majority of your marketing efforts, your menu will be seen by all of your customers and visitors. This is a unique advantage that few other businesses have. For other businesses it is rare that there would ever be an occasion where this kind of marketing opportunity is available. And while all businesses have branding and advertising opportunities at the point of sale, few are quite so pivotal to the customer experience. It is very important therefore that you make a good first impression by presenting your customers with a good menu. So when is it time for an update?

When you have made changes to your menu

To keep things fresh and your customers interested it is always a good idea to revisit your menu and consider updates. By updating the choices that you give you can show that you are a restaurant that is regularly looking to improve and move things forward. 

If you are selling more of one thing than another

As a restauranteur you will know the importance of giving your customers what they want. Any menu update therefore should be careful not to remove any firm favourites. At the same time however, it is also important to take some calculated risks every now and then. While it is impossible to please everyone all of the time, by giving your customers new choices you can help to keep things new and exciting. If you notice any trends in customer choices this can inform the kind of new additions you choose to add to your menu.

If you are prioritising the wrong menu choices 

If you notice that your customers are choosing one menu choice over another regularly, then it may be time to update your menu design. Your menu should reflect what the majority of your customers are interested in. If you notice a firm favourite emerging, then you may want to consider making this option one of the focal points of the menu. This can be achieved by adding a photograph of the meal or by naming it as a favourite of regulars. 

If you aren’t offering variety

While your menu design should fulfil the needs of the majority, it should also offer variety. You don’t want to ostracise customers with allergies or with alternative dietary requirements. These options may not always be your top sellers, but they are essential for providing overall customer satisfaction. 

If your menu design is confusing

Sometimes when designing a menu (especially for the first time) it can be easy to forget one or two important elements. While, as a restauranteur, you know your menu like the palm of your hand, sometimes this can actually be a disadvantage. As with many design projects, the closer you are, the more likely you are to miss out certain elements. If you are designing a menu for the first time we’d recommend asking an unbiased party with no connection to your restaurant to have a look over it. If you already have a menu, then ask your waiting staff to make a note of any element of your menu that regularly causes confusion. By making a note of these points of confusion you can make sure that they are addressed in any new menu design you have planned. 

If your menus look tired and old

The experience of your customers does not begin and end with the food. There are a number of  important factors that will determine whether or not your customers leave satisfied with their experience. If your menus are looking old and frayed, or the design looks outdated, then your customers will pick up on this. They will immediately be framing their experience and expectations by this initial contact with your restaurant. 

There are a number of ways you can spruce up your menus. A great looking menu design will immediately put your customers at ease. They will know straight away that they are in for a good meal. At Kaizen Brand Evolution our amazing team of designers have worked on thousands of menu design projects. To find out how our dedicated team can help you, visit our menu design page, or get in touch via our contact form or by calling 02895072007.

Scarlett Aubrey

I was hired at Kaizen Brand Evolution in January, starting the year off on the right foot. New country, new year, and a new job.

At the end of last September, I decided to move away from my home in Vancouver, Canada and change my life entirely. I have dual citizenship and a bunch of family in Northern Ireland, so I thought the transition would be a little more possible. I concluded that I had to challenge my career and creative environment. To do that, I had to live somewhere other than Vancouver.

Fast forward through the trials and tribulations of moving to the other side of the world and bam, I landed a job with Kaizen Brand Evolution!  I was so happy to get my foot in the door of Belfast’s design industry.

In the last month, I have been thrown right into the thick of it. I had started at one of KBE’s busiest times. It seems ‘New year, new me’ definitely had an effect on the creative industry, and to its benefit!  I hit the ground running tackling a variety of jobs; from print/digital marketing material, branding concepts, brand asset development, some motion graphics and anything in-between. 

One of the highlights is that I had the opportunity to work on motion graphic jobs right away. Motion graphic is my newest skillset, so as you can imagine, I would naturally have the urge to develop it. At Kaizen Brand Evolution everyone’s unique skills are recognised and put to use. You are also given the opportunity to grow your skills or learn new ones through training sessions online once a week; for me, that was a great thing to see a company do. 

What I have enjoyed so far is the detailed process of developing brands from scratch. I have especially enjoyed the first research stages and development. However, these stages can be creatively ‘painful’ because as a creative, you end up taking each project like these personally. It makes the final result ever so sweet when you see it coming alive before your eyes in the concept presentation. 

I haven’t been here long, so the challenges I have faced have been subtle and not what I would have expected. I would say most of them have to do with cultural barriers. The other day I had the receptionist of one company on the phone thinking I had the wrong number and that I was calling from America, I had to confirm that I was calling from Northern Ireland.

On a more serious note, the differences I have been the production processes between Canada and here;  it has been a little bit of a learning curve, but that is what I wanted right?  ‘A’ paper sizes are more strictly referenced here while in Canada I was just given the dimensions in inches for each job (though we do know about ‘A’ paper sizes). I really like the universal use of these ‘A’ paper sizes and that the clients usually understand them too. I wish that would be something that was better adopted in North America; it would make life so much easier.

I hope to grow further with Kaizen Brand Evolution and work more on jobs that challenge my creative thinking. I would love to develop my copy-writing as I am not a copy-writer and could benefit from building that ability. I feel that through challenging branding projects, I will get that opportunity to do so. I am eager to see how my future unfolds here at KBE and to see what kind of designer I will become as a result.

Rightpath Recruitment, based in Armagh approached Kaizen Brand Evolution to create a new name and identity for their brand to develop into an innovative force that makes an impact on the recruitment industry across the construction, IT and finance sectors.

Rightpath Recruitment are made up of a team of passionate, highly skilled and knowledgeable recruiters with over 20 years combined industry specific recruitment experience in the 3 main sectors. To commence the corporate naming project, our team of 12 designers set to brainstorming name generation concepts that could represent the business.

After a filtering process by Design Director, Ryan Stanfield, and close liaison with the client the name was selected.  The outcome of the naming process was ‘Informe’ which highlights the experience and building trust provided as part of the service. The word Informe has been designed to include the number three as this represents the three industries within recruitment; construction, IT and finance. This has been cleverly incorporated as part of the E within the brand mark. 

The informe brand mark is a modern and contemporary, simple type logo. Forming is the key representation of this logo which is taken from the small sections taken out of the F & 3 which represents the forms taken shape in the construction, IT and finance sectors. It has mileage that doesn’t fit any trends and will be timeless for years to come.

The brand mark is shaped from a san serif typeface called Termina. Amongst the landscape of geometrics, Termina breaks the norm with its generously wide letterforms. It is bold and stands out with industrial and technology connotations. We have customised the typeface taking a small section from the F and the 3 which represents three and allows the letterform to represent three. The 3 number format has been custom sculpted for inform brand. 

The tagline ‘We form careers’ has a nod towards the industrial landscape which the candidates are from with forming being a key part of construction. The word form is also taken out from the brand name Inform which is a clever note towards it. Forming a relationship between the ideal job and the candidate. This is developed in the three brand pillars, where the language changes to ‘Forming Construction’, ‘Forming IT’, and ‘Forming Finance’ the candidates and inform are forming the careers, relationships and future for the UK and Ireland. 

We have created a set of three icons for Construction, IT and Finance, the 3 core sectors of the business, these can be used across the brand as the brand pillars. For art direction of photography for Inform we want the viewer to be aware of the type of candidate that Inform would be recruiting, the type of candidate that is clean cut, wears a suit. High end shots including lifestyle imagery of buildings, computers or technology related fields. The balance between lifestyle photography and candidate shots is important to show a variety. 

When researching into the competitors we came to the realisation that red is heavily used in the recruitment industry. We have used a bright yellow to stand out from the crowd, yellow is friendly and approachable, it also gives meaning of energy and loyalty. This is particularly important in recruitment industry so that the client is trusting to them. Yellow is paired with black to give a corporate approach. The colour black which represents strength, seriousness, power, and authority.

The brand is rolled out considering the device, strapline, brand language, art style, and how primary colour palettes will look. This will be in line with market research conducted in your landscape. The new branding will be tested on a range of relevant applications such as website, business stationery, presentation folders, signage and internal collateral.

Creating branding for a recruitment company has been a challenging and rewarding project for the design studio. The roll out is when it really comes to life and starts to increase interest and return revenue for the client.