Being a rural micro entrepreneur, you rarely have a chance to step back and look at your daily actions from a different perspective. But that’s the thing you need most, if you’re at the stage of product and company development. Estonian rural entrepreneurs, participants of SEIC could have a glimpse on the opportunities of service design and branding at Service Design Seminar.
SEIC project manager Eha Paas is glad to see so many participants, interested in service design.
According to Katrin Kull, service designer at advertising and design company Dreamers, service or product brand is something that can be used for setting a higher price for your service when your production capacity is restricted. The only chance is to charge more per one item. Beside adding rational value to your core product, you should add emotional value to it, so that the customers and stakeholders would perceive it as more valuable.
Katrin Kull presented the topic of branding as advertising professional, but she is also a rural entrepreneur herself, running NPO Kogukonnakeskus near Jäneda.
Anneli Vernik, marketing manager of Estonian company Loodusvägi, illustrated the advantages of branding with the success story of the company. Loodusvägi, known at the export markets as LOOV, has undergone extensive design development for brand itself as well as packages in last three years, is currently present at supermarkets in Estonia and organic products’ stores abroad.
Internet marketing specialist Priit Kallas from Dreamgrow caught the attention of audience with a detailed explanation about how to get better results for marketing your webpage, using Google Adwords, search engine optimization, Facebook advertising and other tools. He underlined the importance of web page: currently, we tend to believe that everything can be done in Facebook only, but that is not true. Your web page should be the center of your communication.
For those who are interested in package design, freelance designer Käärt Aru gave a short insight to the topic. He introduced ”the three whales” of good package design for micro entrepreneur: simplicity, continuity and smartness.
Heads full of ideas, the seminar was concluded at a round table of entrepreneurs and design students of Tartu Art School. Design specialists and design students, led by Tartu Art School design teacher Janika Nõmmela-Semjonov, helped entrepreneurs to figure out their needs for design, be it a package, logo or website. As the next step, design briefs will be refined and taken as the basis for further brand development by design students.
SEIC events are good for getting new information as well getting to know other rural entrepreneurs – maybe even your neighbor?
Stay tuned for the next events at seic.ee!
