Boost Business with Thank You ECard (Wired.com)

Boost Business with Thank You ECard

From Wired How-To Wiki

Saying "Thank You" is a big secret of dealing with people. Yet, it is often overlooked or forgotten. Though, it's one of the first things we teach our children to say as parents. We were probably taught this as well, I know I was. So why do we, as adults, forget to do it so often in business? "Thank you" works marketing magic because everyone wants to feel important.

Don't on the pretext that you're too busy or believe it isn't necessary. It's very easy to do, and also effective. Just send out personalized Thank You eCards to your customers and express your gratitude for choosing you or your service. You will become renowned for your professional courtesy and acumen.

Thank you eCards can do more than just ensure customer satisfaction and build brand loyalty. A customized thank you eCard can strengthen name recognition, brand message and brand identity. It is really an economical and effective way for your business.

Making customized Thank You cards is a dying art. Unlike writing a thank you note for a gift, a business thank you card must be professional but have a personalized, appreciative tone to it at the same time. Then the problem come down to how to make such professional yet personalized thank you eCard.

Employ some 3rd party company customize thank you eCard for your company is a good stratagem, especially in the short term. If you want to design kinds of eCard for different people, this way will very wasteful in this downturn economy. Take E-Marketing Associates (EMA) for example, you must cost as little as $279 to create a custom Holiday eCard, if you want to create five customized eCard, you should cost $1395. In fact, you have some better solution, through PowerPoint.

As we know, PowerPoint is a power tool to create professional presentation. Music, videos, pictures, and personalized greetings can be very easily inserted to your presentation. Also, the slide transitions and animations in PowerPoint will enhance your presentation. In detail, you could add:

- Company name/logo (strength brand recognition)

- Company's group photos (increase kindness feeling to customers)

- Warmly voice greetings from all your company staff (impress customers with the harmonious and friendly culture)

- Personalized greeting messages (Keep sincerity in mind at first and then writing the greetings from heart, not for the sake of flattery)

- Slide transitions and animations (catch others'eyeballs, and make your company like a pro in anything)

Then convert your presentation to Flash eCard is very easy with some other third party tools, like PPT2Flash. After converting, you could send the thank you eCard to your customers via email or uploading to your company website. Each customer has a different level of satisfaction with your products and services. However, all customers who view the elaborated thank you eCard you design will satisfied that they're important to you. This can determine whether you'll continue a relationship with them and get referrals.

Click to view the demo made by PowerPoint and PPT2Flash

It may be difficult to measure exactly how sending thank you eCard affects your business, but it does make a difference. The results may not be immediate and remember don't expect anything. Just trust that 'what comes around goes around' and what you give out comes back to you in some way.

Who can you thank today? Just make a thank you eCard and deliver to them.

Finding New Business Ideas

• By KELLY SPORS

Q: What opportunities do you see out there for new entrepreneurs? Where can someone turn for new business ideas?

—A.C., Florham Park, N.J.

A: Ideas are everywhere. It's execution of good ideas -- not the ideas themselves -- that makes for successful businesses.

GOT A QUESTION?

Email your questions about starting a business. Please include your name, city and state. If you don't want your name used in our column, please indicate that. Due to volume of mail received, we regret that we cannot answer every question.

For an archive of past Small Talk columns, visit WSJ.com/SmallBusiness.

That said, uncovering real opportunities and fleshing them out requires some foresight and research. Aspiring entrepreneurs should generally stick with industries or subjects they are already well-versed in, since they'll then be in the best position to spot opportunities and take advantage of them, says Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., entrepreneurial research organization.

"If you don't have a unique skill set in a space," he says, "it's going to be very hard for you to just jump in and compete with everyone else who does."

The best ideas, Mr. Fishback adds, are those that solve vexing problems -- and often spring from firsthand experiences. Of course, some trends, such as the aging baby-boomer population or the boom in online social networking, naturally present lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Mr. Fishback recommends identifying the "smartest" people you can find in any industry you're considering starting a business in and speaking with them extensively about the industry and the issues they face. These people will not only feed you ideas, but can also act as a sounding board for any ideas you have. Closely monitoring the news, blogs and industry Web sites also can help sprout ideas.

The Internet offers plenty of resources as well. Social-networking sites for entrepreneurs, such as ClubENetwork.com, Vator.tv, Entrepreneur.Meetup.com and PartnerUp.com, allow people to swap business ideas and provide feedback to each other.

Other sites like ideablob.com, run by credit-card firm Advanta Corp., let users pitch business ideas and have their ideas voted on by other community members -- with the chance to win cash prizes.

Three Ways to Build Innovation Into a Day's Work (WSJ)

Three Ways to Build Innovation Into a Day's Work

By SIMONA COVEL

Game-changing ideas may abound at your workplace – in the minds of your employees. The hard part is figuring out how to tap into those ideas and make creativity part of the daily routine.

But regularly harnessing your staff's brainpower can provide an important edge to small businesses competing against larger competitors with bigger budgets and deeper resources.

Here are three ways small companies have figured out how to make the most of employee contributions.

1. Awards and Recognition

Allison De Meulder wanted to hear new ideas from employees at her online custom-invitation store. Her staff of 24 rarely made suggestions, but she had a feeling they had more to offer than they were letting on. "People don't always feel comfortable coming into my office," she says.

Ms. De Meulder, who is president of Tampa, Fla.-based Invitation Consultants Inc., bought a white mailbox and installed it in a central spot in the office.

Employees are encouraged to drop in new ideas and lift the red mailbox flag. Once a quarter, Ms. De Meulder and her husband, Olivier De Meulder, the company's vice president, select a winner from as many as 30 ideas. They host a catered lunch and read the top three aloud. The winner is awarded $500 cash and a sculpture resembling a glass-encased electric-blue light bulb.

"I really wanted to do something to motivate people," Ms. De Meulder says. "People are motivated by recognition."

A recent winning entry came from a graphic designer, who pointed out that free photo touch-ups on wedding and graduation announcements can consume a lot of time and energy. The new idea: Charge a few dollars for labor-intensive work, such as removing objects from a background. As a result, Ms. De Meulder says, the company made an extra "couple thousand dollars" during the recent graduation season.

Another recent winner: A vendor-relations manager suggested that brides shopping for wedding invitations should be able to save favorites and send a poll to family and friends, who can vote for their choice. That poll could be landing in the inboxes of other future brides who will need their own invitations one day. Attached to each poll is a coupon code to help drive new business.

Not every idea works. One winning suggestion proposed drop-down menus for customers searching for invitations, a tool that proved too unwieldy to implement. Despite spending fruitless time on that project, Ms. De Meulder says, "I don't give guidelines. I want free-flowing creativity."

2. Required Suggestions

When Talia Mashiach co-founded Eved Services Inc. four years ago, she instituted weekly company-wide think-tank meetings. As her event-services company grew – it now has 27 employees, most scattered at several hotels around Chicago -- meeting weekly proved impossible. Last year, it moved to a monthly meeting. There, each of the company's five teams – grouped by hotel client, plus a support-staff team– is required to present three new ideas. Some ideas are embraced on the spot; others are studied by executives in the following weeks.

Among the ideas adopted: Instead of staff working at hotels wearing their own choice of business attire, they all now wear a black suit with a black or white shirt, along with a lapel pin bearing the company logo.

"It's been a game-changer," Ms. Mashiach says. "Hotel clients talk about it. They say it creates a professional image."

Last year, an employee suggested reaching out to third-party meeting planners who work with corporate clients. Eved had been concentrating on hotels, but now works with 10 such event planners. Ms. Mashiach estimates those connections will bring as much as 25% of its anticipated $10 million revenue this year.

With the constant flow of ideas, Ms. Mashiach says she has to be careful not to discourage people when their suggestions aren't implemented – and to encourage them to keep trying. Some employees may approach her to complain that an idea wasn't adopted, "which is something we watch carefully," she says. "If they don't get the sense you're listening, it won't last," she says.

Those who see their ideas implemented are rewarded with stars, which also are awarded for other performance-related accomplishments. Each year, the top three star earners are rewarded with lunch with the executive team.

3. Online Document Sharing

The test-prep and subject tutors at C2 Educational Systems Inc. rely on stacks and stacks of books and manuals. A few years ago, when they discovered a teaching tool, or a mistake in a book, they'd fire off emails to the Duluth, Ga., company's headquarters, where curriculum staff struggled to stay on top of the suggestions.

"When we had five centers, it was doable," says C2 chief executive David Kim. Today, C2 Education has 110 centers and 440 tutors. "As we grew, it was harder to keep track."

Three years ago, Mr. Kim began posting teaching materials in Google Docs – a free online service that allows people to create, share and jointly edit documents. He and other employees encouraged tutors around the country log in to the tool to check for new resources and share their thoughts about books, classroom activities and teaching tips. Tutors can also post new materials they've found useful.

C2 tutors can log on and add teaching suggestions and other comments from anywhere. Google tracks changes and saves previous versions of the document.

While some of the updates are nuts-and-bolts suggestions -- better ways to teach fractions, for example -- others have the potential to invigorate the business. At the prompting of a tutor who said parents wanted their children to learn persuasive-writing skills, the company posted a teaching document to its Google Docs page. Tutors downloaded it over and over again, and continually made updates and suggestions. One suggestion: Start a formal debate class.

In May, the company rolled out the debate classes at 24 C2 centers. Parents pay $45 and up per hour for their children to attend. The classes are now bringing in about 10% of C2's revenues.

"Parents thought it was a huge benefit to their children, to further those debate-and-writing skills," says Mr. Kim.

Mr. Kim would like to move from Google Docs to a more sophisticated proprietary system, but so far he hasn't found the time or the money. Another potential problem: The more-innovative suggestions tapered off recently, and the majority of new posts are errors in test-prep books and other routine comments.

"We'd like to get some of that rah-rah spirit back," he says. He's considering compensating employees for the best new ideas.

What Business Owners Should Know About Patenting (WSJ)

What Business Owners Should Know About Patenting

By STUART WEINBERG

Thomas Edison once said, "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." He might have added a third ingredient: a patent. Without one, inventors can't sell, license or protect their creations. Edison understood that very well: He held 1,093 patents, still a record for an American.

For many small businesses, knowing when and how to obtain patents can be confusing. So, too, can be knowing what to claim in the patent and when to sue over infringement and --when not to.

To help clarify these matters, we spoke to James McDonough, an intellectual-property attorney at Fish & Richardson P.C. who specializes in advising start-ups and small companies on intellectual-property strategy and technology commercialization. Mr. McDonough talks about the current climate for patents and looks at the perils companies face and what steps they should take to protect themselves.

WSJ: Is it more difficult to obtain patents than it was five or 10 years ago?
Mr. McDonough: It is getting harder to a certain degree. The [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] appears to be rejecting claims at a greater rate the first time through. I think that reflects a backlash in response to some of the problems we've seen with the issuance of poor-quality patents and how they are being misused by patent trolls [a derogatory term for a company whose only business is to buy patents to collect license fees or court-awarded-infringement damages].

WSJ: What does it cost and how long does it take to secure a patent?

Mr. McDonough: It's hard to say with certainty how long it will take, but, depending on the technology that's being patented, it can take anywhere from two to five years for a patent to issue. As far as costs, expect to spend anywhere from $10,000 to as high as $30,000 for highly complex technologies. Patentability searches account for up to a thousand of that, application fees can add up to another couple thousand, and the rest is attorney fees for patentability opinions, initial patent drafting, and [Patent and Trademark Office] action responses and appeals.

WSJ: Who doesn't really need to hire an attorney? Who really should and at what point?

Mr. McDonough: The only time I would not advise an inventor to seek counsel from an attorney is if the act of patent drafting is itself a hobby to the inventor and he has no intention of selling the invention. If there is even a remote chance that the inventor will commercialize the technology, he should get an experienced attorney involved as early as possible in the process.

WSJ: Where do most companies go wrong when they're trying to get a patent?
Mr. McDonough: First, a small company may want to start patenting without thinking through its long-term [intellectual-property] management strategy. Before patenting, you should work with a skilled intellectual-property attorney to develop a plan for building your IP portfolio. A common problem we see is a portfolio that is driven purely by research. A good IP portfolio should be designed in a way that accurately covers the business objectives of the company while protecting the technologies around which the company is built and exploiting niches of the technology field that are not yet patented.

WSJ: What's another mistake companies often make?
Mr. McDonough: An inventor may want to apply for a patent at the wrong time. For instance, it may be too early if the invention is not yet developed to a point that it can be sufficiently described in the patent. It is too late if, for example, the inventor publicly used or sold the invention more than a year ago. If it is too early, an attorney might advise the inventor to spend more time researching and developing the invention before patenting, but if it is too late, the invention may no longer be protectable.

WSJ: I've heard some inventors may claim too little or too much in the patent.
Mr. McDonough: Often, an inventor's instinct is to describe his invention by describing its specific parts, which can result in inadvertently limiting the scope of the patent. As a general rule of thumb, the claims should include all possible versions of the invention, which can be accomplished by using broad, functional language in the patent. The inventor and attorney will work together to refine the scope of the patent to ensure it is as broad as possible while still being able to withstand a lawsuit.

WSJ: Is patent infringement more common than it was five or 10 years ago?
Mr. McDonough: I don't know if there's more infringement, I just think that there's more patenting going on. Also, the value of a lot of large companies nowadays is based on their IP.…So now you're seeing companies actively seeking to protect their assets.

WSJ: If a small company believes a large company is infringing on its patents, should it sue?
Mr. McDonough: That's a difficult choice for a small company. It's become a little easier lately because a lot of law firms out there will take on a plaintiff-side patent case on a contingency-fee basis if they think it's a good case. But generally it's pretty difficult to bring an infringement suit against a really large company because of the amount of resources available to large companies as compared to small companies. It is generally accepted in the industry, that a patent-infringement suit can cost $2 million to $4 million in legal fees. So, it's often not ideal for a small company to try to sue a really large company.

WSJ: What are some alternatives to suing for infringement?
Mr. McDonough: You might approach the larger company and offer a license, or attempt to establish a partnership. If a company doesn't have the means to sue now, it might choose to temporarily ignore the infringement and try to get its product to market first to generate sales. Sometimes you have no choice but to bring an infringement suit.

The Unwritten Rules of Social Networking (Entrepreneur.com)

The Unwritten Rules of Social Networking

Is your social networking strategy actually costing you customers? Use these strategies to get it right.

By Francine Kizner | December 03, 2008

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article198998.html

Drumming up a fan base on MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter isn't as simple as sending out friend requests. To find followers, you need to create threads and promote products on social sites. To do so, there are a few unwritten rules of etiquette you should know. Master the etiquette so you can stop sending Super Pokes and start winning over your connected consumers.

Be Patient
It's hard to feel competitive when you're comparing your 50 friends to someone's 5,000, but if you take it slow as you build your social content, you'll fare better in the long run. Don't request friends blindly.

"In most cases, there is no viable mass adding strategy for companies," says Joel Postman, principal of Socialized, a social media consultancy for businesses. "To start off, follow a few people, get referrals and create a network that's useful to you as a businessperson."

Also resist the urge to ask all your contacts to join your network. Tom Lewis, vice president of marketing for imaging toolkits and applications provider Atalasoft, imported his Gmail contacts into Facebook and then asked them all to friend him, sending messages to professional contacts as well as people he didn't know very well. Big mistake. He issued a mea culpa message afterward, calling it a "definite mistake." A better idea is to announce social networks on your site, in your newsletter, or in an e-mail signature, and let contacts come to you.

Be Inclusive
Just because you shouldn't be sending out friend requests to everyone in your address book doesn't mean you should be shy about connecting with networkers that come to you. Don't take a chance on alienating potential customers.

"So long as it's not a spam request from a porn site or get-rich-quick scheme, I will friend anyone who appears to be a real person," Postman says. "For a business, you have to accept every live person because you run the risk of offending a customer."

Be on Message
Once connected, keep your connections' sensibilities in mind. One evening, Brooke Webb, marketing and PR director at Vicinity Manufacturing, started posting to Twitter after a failed client dinner and a few cocktails. She says, "I tweeted several messages that compared my clients and their cities to the adventures of Dante in The Inferno. You know, seventh-circle-of-hell references, and so on."

Even worse, her Twitter account posted to her LinkedIn so all her professional contacts could see what she had written. Webb has since learned to keep her Twittering professional, using it for her company's customer service and encouraging clients to reach out to her directly. She also posts about social media and has some much tamer personal posts.

Your online presence is a very visible part of your brand, so make sure what you say and do online reflects your company's culture. If you're comfortable joking around or sharing details about your personal life, go for it, but as a general rule, Postman says to ask yourself "How would I behave I weren't online?"

Though there's a delete button for a social slip-up, you may never be able to completely fix a misguided communiqué. Last summer, SocialMedian CEO Jason Goldberg Twittered about raising angel investment for his company, possibly running afoul of securities regulations. He tried deleting the Tweet, but in moments, it was captured, published and lambasted on TechCrunch and other blogs.

Be Transparent
When filling out your profile, don't copy and paste your white paper--a few sentences will do. Show some personality by sharing information under your interests, but if you're more comfortable keeping things strictly business, relate everything back to your core message. Also, don't add any Facebook applications your contacts need to add to see--they look unprofessional and can annoy your network. Take charge of your online persona by posting a profile image. If your account is under your name, use a headshot; if your account is your business name, opt for a logo. If you've hired a community manager to handle your accounts, give some information on your site about that person, as well. And always include two-way links, from your social site to your website and vice versa, to help people quickly find and vet you.

Be Tactful
To get some business out of your social networks, it's best not to immediately send new friends offers to download an e-book or to sign up for a newsletter. Be more subtle. Work your promotion into your everyday conversations by telling people about upcoming conferences, responding to questions in your field, or pointing out new and relevant blog posts.

As a general rule, try to match the way your contacts interact with you. Respond to a wall post with a wall post and a message with a message. Most other communication should be done via more passive Twitter or status updates. Postman says, "What works is being genuine, not being a hype machine."

Be Alert
To improve your brand standing, search for complaints or problems about your business, and respond in a helpful way, without necessarily adding the person as a contact. For example, Comcast has a ComcastCares account on Twitter that responds to complaints and provides customer service right in the platform. By empowering a community manager to listen and respond to complaints, you're taking a big step toward winning over customers.

Small Stores Find Ways to Drum Up Traffic (NYT)

Small Stores Find Ways to Drum Up Traffic

By KRISTINA SHEVORY

The owner of a futon store outside San Francisco started running comedy shows. A comic book shop in Florida held art shows. And a lingerie shop in New Mexico is planning a men’s night later this month.

Small businesses are always searching for ways to differentiate themselves. But with fewer people out buying, some of the businesses are doing whatever they think will draw in customers.

“This is a buyer’s strike,” said Eric G. Flamholtz, a professor emeritus of management at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People are holding back and not spending any money. So you have to give them a reason to come.”

Holding special events also can be far less expensive than regular advertising. And in a slowing economy, advertising and marketing budgets typically get trimmed. A recent National Small Business Association survey of its members found that 49 percent planned to start new advertising or marketing this year, down from 54 percent in 2007.

“They’re trying to market with little or no extra money,” said Molly Brogan, the association’s vice president of public affairs. “People are doing more on the Internet, any free thing they can.”

Deborah Reese, who owns a lingerie shop in Albuquerque, said she opted not to increase her advertising budget this year for the first time since she opened the shop, Seventh Goddess, four years ago. Instead, she said, she developed a new Facebook page and is encouraging employee blogs. She is also planning an array of events, like a recent “Sex and the City” pajama party in which customers sat on pillows for manicures and facials. Men’s night is coming up later this month, where employees model the store’s offerings and offer “man food.” And there will be an erotic poetry reading on Valentine’s Day.

“Events are cheap publicity,” Ms. Reese said. “People who ordinarily wouldn’t come, come. You just have to spring for the munchies and drinks.”

The parties are also good for sales. Ms. Reese sold dozens of pajamas at her “Sex and the City” event and hundreds of pairs of underwear and bras at a men’s night last December. She said she always offered discounts at the special events and a portion of her sales went to local charities.

Nor are the special events just for young businesses. Even well-established businesses, like Mary’s Futons in San Rafael, Calif., have been feeling the pinch. Fewer people are buying new futons, and more futons are being brought in for repairs. Mary Hughes, the owner, said she thought a comedy show would be the perfect thing to do because “everyone loves comedy and I wanted to meet women.” A theatrical producer was less than convinced.

“ ‘Lady, are you crazy?’ ” Lisa Geduldig, the producer of Kung Pao Kosher Comedy in San Francisco remembers telling Ms. Hughes. “ ‘I don’t do little futon stores; I do professional venues.’ ”

But after Ms. Hughes cornered her and begged her to do one show, she finally agreed. The first, “An Evening of Lie-Down Comedy,” was held in March and did so well, they added a second. When that one sold out, they added another. That, too, sold out. Proceeds from the tickets go back to the comedians and Ms. Geduldig. If more than 100 people attend, Ms. Hughes gets a small percentage of the ticket sales.

“I get the publicity and that’s worth more than the money,” Ms. Hughes said, though in a later interview she said she was taking over management of the shows.

One recent Sunday night, a hundred people milled around the futon store, nibbling on cake and catching up on gossip. A window display had been turned into a stage, 30 futons were turned to face it and salespeople were doing sound checks. Raffle tickets for a water fountain and beanbag chair were being sold at the door and a line of people snaked away from a sales counter doing service as a concession stand.

Ms. Geduldig threaded through the crowd to the stage, clambered on top and welcomed everyone to the show. “This is a futon shop,” she said. “Feel free to fall asleep.”

Everyone laughed. The show had begun.

But for every successful event, there are others that do not work out. Ms. Hughes thought she could draw 100 people to her store for a holiday sing-a-long last December. Only a few people came. At Seventh Goddess, Ms. Reese assumed a poetry writing workshop on Valentine’s Day would fill her store. Two people showed up.

Mr. Flamholtz, who is also a business consultant, said store owners should be cautious about getting into the events business. “The problem is that business owners want to diversify, but they’ll diversify into something they don’t know anything about,” he said. “They have to add products and services that make sense around their core.”

Outside events can quickly become a second business, and are rarely as simple as they appear, said Martin Lehman, a counselor and marketing director for Counselors to America’s Small Business, or Score, in New York. If a business owner wants artists to perform or exhibit their work, the business has to provide an incentive and make sure the event does not erode its brand, Mr. Lehman said. Ms. Reese noted that there were snacks to buy, bloggers to contact, community calendars to update and fliers to hand out.

Kimberly Smith-Johnson, who owned a comic book store, turned to her customers and local artists for help in putting on monthly art shows. As a former drama teacher, she turned them into her stagehands. They handed out fliers and blogged about her store.

“Events have been the best marketing tool, but they have to be genuine,” said Ms. Smith-Johnson, whose business was Comics & Classics in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. “It has to be about the artist and the event, not about bottom-line sales. People will pick up on the tone if it’s not.”

The events could not save her business, and Ms. Smith-Johnson and her husband, Percy, closed the store a few weeks ago. Even though many of their comic books were inexpensive, the Johnsons could not overcome one basic problem: they opened a new store right before the economic downturn.

“We got loved to death, but people just weren’t purchasing enough to keep us going,” said Ms. Smith-Johnson, who starts a new job as an eighth-grade teacher on Monday. “We ran out of capital. Between the banks, credit cards and people not spending, we got squeezed in the middle.”

Ms. Hughes, on the other hand, seems to have hit the right note with the comedy shows. At the September show, futons were crammed with four people each, many of them laughing. One woman yelled out, “This is the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time.”

Some said they could not believe where they were. “This is a store I’d never come into and here I am,” said Grace Flannery, from Novato, Calif. “I’m looking around at these futons and they’re a lot nicer than I thought.”

Other customers seemed to agree. After some of the shows, audience members have returned to buy the exact futon they sat on.

Brand Makeovers: 3 Lessons in Reinvention (Entrepreneur.com)

Brand Makeovers: 3 Lessons in Reinvention

Target, Apple and Jack in the Box reinvented their brands through damage control, brand differentiation and broadening appeal. Put their strategies to use for your business.

By Emma Johnson | November 24, 2008

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/branding/article198836.html

Brands are like beauty queens: even the most illustrious need makeovers from time to time.

Big names overhaul their brands to boost sales by getting back in touch with their original identity, or forging a new and improved one. Not so long ago, Target competed directly with other discount big-box stores. Today, it has a distinct image, affluent customers and powerful market share. Apple was once pigeonholed as appealing to only artists and designers--now the consumers of iTunes, iPods and iBooks crisscross age, income and professional demographics. Following a fatal E. coli outbreak, fast-food chain Jack in the Box's sales slipped faster than a greasy hamburger wrapper down a garbage chute. Since the brand's makeover more than a decade ago, revenue has soared.

Brand makeovers needn't be only in response to dire circumstances. In fact, successful companies of all sizes should revamp their image periodically, says Allen Adamson, managing director of the New York office of Landor Associates and author of BrandDigital: Simple Ways Top Brands Succeed in the Digital World.

"You need a brand makeover when the marketplace tells you so directly: Sales are slowing and market share is shrinking," Adamson says. "But it's often too late to change things when they are really off. You have to catch it just at the tipping point when things are going great, but the increases are diminishing and momentum is giving out."

Entrepreneurs can learn from the big guys who successfully overcame such challenges.

Apple: Broaden Appeal
Apple may get credit for bringing the personal computer to the masses, but for many years, its high prices and hodgepodge of software and operating systems meant the brand was accessible to few outside the design world. A hip clientele, to be sure, but a limited one. Easy-to-use and affordable PCs, meanwhile, were accessible to the masses.

Apple's brand makeover resulted in broadening its potential market share, Adamson says. "Apple got back to its core DNA, which wasn't about a piece of technology or a piece of software. It was about ease and elegance of use. Ease of use became the lens through which they put everything."

In 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, an all-in-one computer packaged in a slick design unlike one the market had ever seen, garnering loads of press and sales of 800,000 units in five months. Three years later, Apple introduced the iPod, followed by its retail stores and iTunes. The blockbuster product solidified Apple's new easy-to-use mantra.

"iTunes was the hero product," Adamson says. "They took the simplest idea: 'Easily take music where I want,' and made it accessible. Look at the iPod--no one needs to read the instructions. It is totally intuitive."

This ease of use is translated to the packaging (open the box, the iBook is ready to go), shopping experience (no competing brands to confuse the shopper) and customer service ("Apple owns the problem," Adamson says. "The software people are not blaming the hardware people.").

Target: Differentiate
Just a few years ago Target competed directly with other discount big-box stores Wal-Mart and Kmart. All were low-cost--and low-style.

Target has been enormously successful at differentiating itself from its competitors by revamping its brand into one of high-quality, fashion-forward products, while maintaining its low prices, according to Alina Wheeler, marketing consultant and author of Designing Brand Identity.

"Ten years ago people thought design had to cost a lot and lived only in Europe," Wheeler says. "Target used the democratization of style to differentiate its brand. Every touch point in the shopper's experience reflects that difference."

Today, Target features products by celebrity designers like Michael Graves, Liz Lang and Isaac Mizrahi. The brand's high-style doesn't stop at clothes and housewares. The wide aisles, clean displays, cherry-red signature color throughout the stores and marketing materials speak to the brand's design consciousness. The food courts are home to another fashion-forward brand, Starbucks, and the cosmetics department is anchored by a house brand by celebrity makeup artist Sonia Kashuk--solidifying the brand's department store feel.

Jack in the Box: Damage Control
Six months after food poisoning killed four Jack in the Box diners and sickened hundreds, sales were down 40 percent. Two years later, a makeover saved the company, whose revenue has tripled since 1995.

Patrick Adams, managing director at Secret Weapon Marketing, the Santa Monica, Calif., firm that created the advertising campaign credited with much of the makeover's success, says the comeback strategy was three-fold: fess up, fix the problem, come back with a new image.

"They went way beyond the rules in place to prove they were serious about fixing the problem," Adams says.

Immediately after the outbreak, Jack in the Box held press conferences and was responsive to reporters' questions about investigations into the contaminated food. Then, the company implemented a complex food safety program designed by NASA--an effort that helped earn the chain a health safety award from the state of California.

Jack in the Box began to thrive once Secret Weapon Marketing came in 18 months after the catastrophe and suggested advertising efforts be geared toward the largest target consumer group: young men, who make up the bulk of fast food sales. The resulting, irreverent ads featuring a cheeky, "slightly pissed off" clown "broke all conventions of fast food advertising," Adams says. The target demographic loved them.

Emma Johnson writes the MSN Money multimedia series "Launch your Life" which explores personal finance topics for people in their 20s and 30s.