What is logo recognition? And the 5 best logo recognition tools.

Artificial Intelligence can be a beautiful thing, especially when it comes to your logo. As machine learning and AI have become more and more prominent and intelligent, software-like logo recognition has grown too. With a solid logo recognition software, you can see where your logo is popping up on social media, television or elsewhere, how consumers are responding to or interacting with it and if there are any nefarious or counterfeit uses of your logo in play.

What is logo recognition? Logo recognition tools allow you to detect where on the internet your logo appears. Logo recognition is a must-have for any brands with a unique logo. Keep reading to see how it can benefit your company.

Find out how logo recognition tools can help your brand. Illustration by OrangeCrush.

What is logo recognition used for?
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There are many ways to use logo recognition software, so for simplicity’s sake, we’ve distilled them into three main categories.

Brand recognition

Logo recognition is a great way to figure out how often your brand is appearing online. With today’s sophisticated algorithms, logo recognition software can see how often your brand is being mentioned across social media platforms.

This sort of software can also see when your brand’s being used out in the real world. For example, if you have a banner promoting your company at a baseball stadium, logo recognition software can tell how often the logo is appearing on television when a game’s being broadcasted. That way, you’ll know if your advertisement is in a prime spot so the viewers at home can see what you’re all about.

Counterfeit detection/brand protection

The second way that logo recognition is used is for more nefarious situations. Sometimes, with both big brands and up-and-coming companies, people use logos in counterfeit or illegitimate ways. They could be making bootleg products and ripping off your company’s logo. A well-known fashion company like Supreme often sees its logo used on bootleg products. Logo recognition software lets a company find these kind of products and handle the situation appropriately.

Sometimes people produce harmful content about a brand online. They could be spreading false information about your company or using your logo with a social media post that has inappropriate content or just doesn’t align with your message. Logo recognition is a great way to root out these situations and take care of them.

Understanding the user experience

How exactly are people reacting to your brand? Online and real-world reviews are one thing, but logo recognition software lets a company see what consumers really think about their product or service, checking social media posts, blog articles and other mentions of a brand.

This is great for measuring ROI, as a company can assess whether their marketing efforts are bearing any fruit. If a company is promoting its product as one thing, and people are seeing it as another, it could be wise to reevaluate the marketing plan.

The best logo recognition tools
—

Here are some of the best logo recognition tools and image recognition software—and what they’re all about.

1. Google Image Recognition

Google has a free service that lets you search the internet for appearances of your logo. It’s incredibly easy to use and free, but it doesn’t have any of the additional feature—insight and analytics—that would support the needs of a robust company.

That’s where Google’s Vision AI comes into play. A paid service, Vision AI uses machine learning to help companies understand how their brand is being perceived by users. It can process large batches of images for your logo and detect unwanted content—all backed by the intelligent machine learning of Google.

2. Amazon Rekognition

Amazon Rekognition can easily recognize celebrity faces. Via aws.amazon.com

Amazon Rekognition is an incredibly comprehensive logo recognition program that can deeply analyze both images and video. The level of insight that this software can return is impressive, letting you run real-time analysis on images and videos or, for larger jobs, upload thousands of images in a batch to be analyzed. The service can recognize faces, detect certain aspects of a photo (rock, bicycle, landscape) and recognize unsafe content.

3. LogoGrab

via LogoGrab

LogoGrab prides itself on prioritizing social media presence. It’s a service developed by ex-Google employees that has been used by companies like eBay, Bloomberg and Brandwatch to see how their logos are used on social media platforms and elsewhere. With its patented Adaptive Learning Engine, LogoGrab helps brands get the most ROI on their marketing efforts.

4. Clarifai

via TechCrunch

With Clarifai, companies can automatically generate descriptive tags of their products and images, find behavior patterns with their logo, and let their customers take a photo of their product with their mobile device and search for a similar product online. It’s been used by organizations such as Staples, Photobucket and Vevo, and is another great option that offers a free API of its own.

5. IBM Image Detection

An example of what you’ll find in Watson Studio. Via IBM.

IBM has some of the best image recognition tools on the market and is a true powerhouse in the game, thanks to the strength of their well-known AI, Watson. Companies can train their own custom model that, with just a few images, can learn a specific brand of a car, for example, and identify that model and estimate repair costs. Watson Studio is a free workspace that IBM offers that lets brands manage their own models. No matter what you’re looking for, it’s hard to go wrong with a legacy brand like IBM.

Logo recognition is a useful tool in your toolbox
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There are a lot of different logo recognition software options—more than the ones we listed above. As many of them offer the same services, it’s up to you to find the product that offers exactly what you’re looking for. If you’re serious about your brand’s legitimacy, logo recognition software is a great way to make sure you’re getting the ROI you want. Why wait?

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The post What is logo recognition? And the 5 best logo recognition tools. appeared first on 99designs.

The 10 best dental website designers for hire in 2019

Having a professional website is crucial. This is true in any industry, but especially when it comes to dental websites where your success depends on your ability to show patients you’re their best choice for top-notch care.

A modern dental website design by Iconic Graphics

If your dental website isn’t as polished as it could be, if it’s got bland stock photography or a generic template you got for free when you registered its domain or if it does nothing to communicate your unique brand, your website is costing you money. It’s costing you money in consultations not scheduled, appointments not booked and prospective patients having no idea you exist.

Dental practices aren’t the only ones in the dental field who need great websites. If you’re a dental supply company, an orthodontist or any other professional in the oral health world, take a look at our top picks for dental website designers.

We know it can be tough to find a designer to hire who’s not just great, but great at dental web design, so we made it easy by listing the best dental website designers we know all in one spot.

The 10 best dental website designers to hire in 2019
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1. 1

   

   Studio Ubique

   Top Level

   5.0

   ( 74 )

   • Web page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Logo design
   • Landing page design
   • Other design
   • App design
   • Banner ad
   • Other web or app design
   • Illustration or graphics
   • Social media page
   • Other business or advertising
   • Facebook cover
   • Logo & hosted website
   • Logo & business card
   • Icon or button

   

   

   

   Request quote
2. 2

   

   Karen Vardazaryan

   Top Level

   4.9

   ( 7 )

   • Web page design
   • App design
   • Other web or app design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Icon or button
   • App

   

   

   

   Request quote
3. 3

   

   Ink'd

   Top Level

   5.0

   ( 28 )

   • Web page design
   • Landing page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Logo design
   • Illustration or graphics
   • Card or invitation
   • Social media page
   • Other web or app design
   • Facebook cover
   • Custom Wordpress Themes
   • Book cover
   • Banner ad

   

   

   

   Request quote
4. 4

   

   Mithum

   Top Level

   5.0

   ( 133 )

   • Web page design
   • Landing page design
   • Other design
   • WordPress theme design
   • PowerPoint template
   • Other web or app design
   • Logo design
   • Banner ad
   • Other Graphic Design
   • App design
   • Infographic
   • Illustration or graphics
   • Other art or illustration
   • Logo & hosted website
   • Brochure
   • Squarespace website
   • Signage
   • Poster
   • Postcard, flyer or print
   • Email
   • Clothing or apparel
   • Button or icon

   

   

   

   Request quote
5. 5

   

   Jasmin_VA

   Top Level

   5.0

   ( 215 )

   • Web page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Landing page design
   • Other web or app design
   • Other design
   • Postcard, flyer or print
   • Logo design
   • Brochure
   • Banner ad
   • Email
   • Other business or advertising
   • App design
   • Social media page
   • Product label
   • Brand guide
   • Stationery
   • Squarespace website
   • Product packaging
   • PowerPoint template
   • Logo & business card
   • Illustration or graphics
   • Icon or button
   • Flash banner
   • Facebook cover
   • Business card
   • Logo & brand identity pack
   • Book cover
   • 3D

   

   

   

   Request quote
6. 6

   

   AxilSolutions

   Top Level

   5.0

   ( 64 )

   • Web page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Other web or app design
   • Icon or button
   • Landing page design
   • Banner ad
   • Social media page
   • Signage
   • Postcard, flyer or print
   • App design
   • Menu
   • Email
   • Poster
   • Other design
   • Other art or illustration
   • Illustration or graphics
   • Facebook cover
   • Business card
   • Brochure

   

   

   

   Request quote
7. 7

   

   Creative shell

   Top Level

   4.9

   ( 40 )

   • Web page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Landing page design
   • Other design
   • Other web or app design
   • Logo design
   • Icon or button
   • Logo & business card
   • Infographic
   • Banner ad

   

   

   

   Request quote
8. 8

   

   Melwyn3

   Top Level

   4.8

   ( 22 )

   • Web page design
   • Logo design
   • Landing page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Icon or button
   • Stationery
   • Other design
   • Custom Wordpress Themes
   • Clothing or apparel
   • Social media page
   • Logo & social media pack
   • PowerPoint template
   • Other web or app design
   • Brochure
   • Logo & brand identity pack
   • Postcard, flyer or print
   • Banner ad

   

   

   

   Request quote
9. 9

   

   Pinku

   Top Level

   4.9

   ( 72 )

   • Web page design
   • WordPress theme design
   • Landing page design
   • Banner ad
   • Other web or app design
   • Other design
   • Custom Wordpress Themes
   • Logo design
   • Illustration or graphics
   • Flash banner
   • Social media page
   • Postcard, flyer or print
   • Other business or advertising
   • Other book or magazine
   • Infographic
   • Email

   

   

   

   Request quote
10. 10

    

    Slaviana

    Top Level

    5.0

    ( 49 )

    • Web page design
    • WordPress theme design
    • Other design
    • Landing page design
    • Product label
    • Postcard, flyer or print
    • Other web or app design
    • Business card
    • Facebook cover
    • Email
    • Signage
    • Product packaging
    • Print or packaging design
    • PowerPoint template
    • Other Graphic Design
    • App design
    • Logo design
    • Banner ad

    

    

    

    Request quote

More dental website designers

How did we choose these as the top dental website designers?
—

So how did we pull these 10 designers from the thousands on 99designs? By looking closely at each designer’s…

Quality

Every designer on 99designs is assigned a skill level. When a new designer joins the platform, our team of in-house design experts carefully looks through their portfolio to see the originality of their ideas, their understanding of design principles and how they technically execute designs.

After taking a close look at a new designer’s portfolio, our team assigns them one of three levels:

• Top level
• Mid level
• Entry level

When you look at a designer’s portfolio page, you’ll see their skill level displayed right under their name. By doing this, we make it super easy for you to see whether a designer’s got years of experience or if they’re up-and-coming. If you work with one of our top 10 dental website designers, you’re working with a top level designer—somebody who’s shown us that they’re a website design pro.

Experience with dental website design

Being a website design pro isn’t enough to be one of our top picks for dental website designers. To make the cut, a top level website designer also has to have sufficient experience creating dental websites. Take a look at our top picks’ portfolios and you’ll see tons of different examples of what a successful dental website can look like, from your traditional clean, white aesthetic to websites as unique as the patients their practices serve.

Professionalism

The last thing we looked at to make our top picks was designers’ records of delivering service with a smile. We chose designers who take professionalism just as seriously as they take design because we understand how important it is that a designer be friendly, communicative and overall, easy to work with.

What to think about when hiring a dental website designer
—

When you look at different designers’ portfolios to find the one who’s best for your project, think about what you want your website to look like and what you need it to do. To get a better understanding of what makes an effective website, brush up on the fundamentals of branding and effective web design. With these in mind, you can gauge prospective designers’ ability to deliver a website that matches your vision accurately. Two critical things to think about when you’re hiring a dental website designer are:

• How a designer’s style meshes with your brand
• Your budget and timeline for the project

Web design by ubrx

Ask yourself, what’s your brand? This needs to be at the forefront of your mind when you’re hiring a dental website designer because it will determine whether a designer is a good fit for your project (or not). For example, if your brand is calm, gentle dentistry aimed at patients who have anxiety about going to the dentist, look for a designer who’s created websites for similarly soothing brands.

Your website needs to show prospective patients you’ll deliver the results they’re after, which might be a flawless smile for a cosmetic patient or a kid-friendly, fun approach that makes going to the dentist a great experience for the whole family.

Always keep your budget and timeline in mind when you’re vetting potential designers for your project. If you already have a website and it just needs a refresh, work with a web designer who can do exactly that.

Are you ready to hire a smile-winning dental website designer?
—

As a dental professional who offers specific value patients won’t find elsewhere, your website should communicate exactly why you’re the best choice for the patient population you serve. Work with a designer who knows how to make your practice shine and build a website that drives the conversions you’re after. If our picks don’t have you grinning from ear to ear, search our platform for a designer who will!

Want more dental website designer choices?

Search for a freelance designer who’ll make your website sparkle.

Find a designer

The post The 10 best dental website designers for hire in 2019 appeared first on 99designs.

The 9 essential components of brand messaging

Believe it or not, brands can get stage fright, too. Sometimes they know what they want to say, but when they’ve got their customer’s attention, the words just aren’t there. Brand messaging is a lot harder than “just do it.” But it’s critical to your success.

Your brand messaging is about more than just your deals and services. It’s actually one of the most effective ways to build a customer base:

• About 64% of consumers say the primary reason they connect with a brand is shared values.
• Brand consistency leads to an average increase in revenue of 23%.
• When evaluating brands, people rely more on emotions and experiences, rather than logic and facts.

Brand messaging encapsulates the core elements of your brand to appeal to your customers’ hearts over their minds—and that can be a challenge. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about brand messaging to earn not just a sale, but a loyal, lifelong customer.

What is brand messaging?
—

Brand messaging is the art of using the right words to communicate the essence of your brand to potential customers.

Illustration by Fe Melo

In a perfect world, you could sit with all potential customers over coffee and explain why they should do business with you. But in reality your customers only have a split-second with your ad or website to make a gut decision about whether you’re worth their money. Your products and services might speak for themselves, but clear, strong messaging is a surefire way to get them into the hands (and minds) of your customers.

Your brand strategy will determine exactly what you want to communicate—whether it’s your low prices or your fashionable brand identity—but here are two essential places to start.

The two sides of brand messaging
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Brand messaging is all about how people perceive you—not just your customers, but also your own team. Branding starts from within. Company culture, values and mission statements set the foundation for how your potential customers experience your brand and your place in the market.

Internal brand messaging

Brand messaging starts with how you and your team define your brand. Your mission, vision and values affect your employees as much as the general public. Company culture develops directly from circulation of internal brand messages (like Google’s “fun” work environment for example), so it’s vital to define these early in your company’s development.

When you begin developing your brand messaging, spend time identifying your core mission, vision and values. These will be vital to the rest of your messaging and to your business itself.

External brand messaging

Messaging for the general public, aimed at drumming up business, is what most people think about when they think of brand messaging. These outward-facing messages tend to be more informational and actionable than inward-facing ones, which typically revolve around ideas.

External messaging includes your positioning statement, differentiators, value propositions, and slogan. Successful marketing always develops out of these core statements to keep your messaging consistent.

The 7 components of brand messaging
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1. Mission

Your mission statement is a short sentence or two that answers the “why” of your business. In other words, why do you do what you do?

Craft your mission statement by filling in this blank: We exist to ______. Brainstorm several iterations of this statement so you can find one that perfectly captures the heart of your business and why you believe in the work you do. Make sure to stick with the why. We’ll get the who, what and how later.

To give you a concrete example, take a look at our official mission statement: We champion creativity to bring opportunities to people around the world.

We carefully selected every word to evoke specific elements of our brand. For example, “creativity” points to our priorities of art, design and imagination. “Opportunities” directly reflects our goal of connecting freelance designers and clients. “Around the world” highlights our international community and our love of diversity.

Let’s take a look another example:

Mission statements don’t need to be long and technical, especially if they’re meant for potential customers. Via Kickstarter

Kickstarter’s mission statement is to “help bring creative projects to life.” This is why their business exists. With their mission statement, they express that they come to work everyday with a helpful attitude that’s focused on creativity and success. The how (their crowdfunding model) comes later.

One more thing about mission statements: unlike other pieces of your messaging, your mission statement is often both internal and external. You’ll use it to “rally the troops” of your company, but also to let the world know why you’re here. Keep that in mind and use clear, simple words when you start crafting your statement.

2. Vision statement

Your vision statement is a forward-looking, imaginative statement that sets a future goal of what you want to see happen in the world because of the work your company does. In other words, where is your company going?

Create your vision statement by filling in this blank: Our company will be _______. Again, brainstorm lots of ideas before you choose one that has all of the right pieces.

Let’s take a look at our official vision statement: To be the most trusted global creative platform for professional designers to find and do work online.

Our vision directs where our company is headed and helps us focus all of our brand messaging on a clear goal for the future.

3. Values

Your values are the guideposts that determine how you you do business. If your vision is the ultimate destination, then your values are the map that guide your company’s journey into the future.

Identify your values by filling in this blank: We believe ______. Write as many down as you can and then edit this down to a shorter list that only relates your core business and mission.

Here are our values at 99designs:

• We believe in putting people first.
• We believe design has no borders.
• We believe in people helping people create their own success.
• We believe the journey should be fun.

Simplified further, our values of people, diversity, helping, and fun guide the work we do everyday and form the basis of our messaging.

4. Positioning statement

If your mission hits the why, your positioning statement hits the what, who and how of your business.  This statement is incredibly vital to the health and success of your brand, primarily because a large number of people will see it.

Positioning statements name your audience, your industry, your promise, and your evidence. Here’s a quick template to get you started:

For [your audience], [your brand] is the [your market] that best delivers on [your brand promise].

Take a look at our 99designs positioning statement: We’re the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together to create designs they love.

• Industry: We’re a global creative platform.
• Audience: We’re for designers and clients.
• Promise: We make it easy to work together to create designs you love.

Great external marketing should always circle back to your positioning statement.

5. Differentiators

Your differentiators are the things that set your brand apart from your competitors. Your brand strategy and business model will help determine these, but your brand messaging needs to convey them to your customers.

Start defining your differentiators by listing what makes you different and better in your industry. Think about things like your audience, your price point, your quality, your ingredients, your materials, your values, your service. Anything you do differently can be a differentiator.

Elevate 3 or 4 of them that are most meaningful to your audience as your main differentiators that you’ll communicate throughout your marketing materials.

Whatever time your potential customers give your brand—a glance at your logo, skimming your website, scrolling through your social media posts—you need to make the most of it. You differentiators help express your uniqueness, fast.

6. Value propositions

Value propositions are short statements that define what you can do for your customers—or what the value of your business or product is. You’ll likely have more than one, and if you have several customer segments, you can have different value propositions for each.

Take a look at this example from Evernote:

Via Evernote.

Their homepage clearly tells potential customers what they’ll get from using their product and service. These are their three primary value propositions:

• Evernote lets you take notes everywhere.
• Evernote helps you find information faster.
• Evernote makes it easy to share ideas with anyone.

These statements can show up in various forms in all sorts of marketing materials, but your home page is a great place to share them all. This primary destination introduces all visitors to the basic overview of who you are and what people can expect from you.

7. Voice

Effective brand messaging is more than just what you say, but how you say it. Your brand voice brings the personality of your business to life.

Decide whether you’re passionate, casual, funny, professional, or whatever fits your brand. Craft a voice with that in mind and consistently use it in your marketing materials so your customers will begin to emotionally connect with your brand.

8. Slogan

Your company’s slogan or tagline is one of the most important elements of your external brand messaging. In just a few words, you can compose a message that echoes in the reader’s brain for weeks, months, an entire lifetime.

Brands can use slogans however they want. You might describe your business, elicit emotions or just make people laugh. It all depends on your brand personality. Whichever route you choose, make sure your slogan is simple, short and memorable. You can also have a lot of fun with rhyming and wordplay to make your slogan even easier to remember.

9. Elevator pitch

The elevator pitch is an old-school business concept. Imagine you find yourself in an elevator with a rich investor or potential customer, and you only had a few seconds to turn them on to your brand. What would you say? That’s your elevator pitch.

The goal of an elevator pitch is to describe as much as you can in as few words as possible. Start building this with your positioning statement at the center, and then add your differentiators and value propositions around it. Soon, you’ll have a short 30-second snippet that expresses all of the important pieces of your brand.

Messaging matters.
—

A lesson on brand messaging from Shakespeare: Hamlet is a complex character with more emotional depth and internal dialogue than most real people. But we can easily boil down his essence to his iconic line: “to be or not to be.” That’s because Hamlet’s brand messaging is on point.

Your brand messaging is the essence of your brand with words. While we can’t offer you Shakespeare, we can give you the next best thing: advice on brand messaging and the crucial part it plays for the success of your brand. Be sure not to underestimate its power.

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