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7 Tips on Writing Good Copy    Posted: 06-18-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Are you working on a new brochure or flyer but just don’t know what words to use to entice people to try out your business? Here are 7 tips on writing good copy. 1. Be mindful of accidental repeats. You know that feeling of telling a friend a story and then realizing you've already shared it? It happens in writing, too. When you're not paying close attention, you might repeat a phrase, a story, or a point without realizing it. One good way to catch these accidental repeats is by reading your content aloud; often your ears catch mistakes that your eyes don't. 2. Avoid empty adverbs. When you add "really" to a verb, what are you adding? Is calling something "very" cold better than calling it frosty, frigid, or icy? The truth is, many common adverbs are empty: They add little or nothing to the meaning of a sentence and only clutter your copy. Cut them out. 3. Don't use dangling modifiers. Dangling modifiers are a classic symptom of writing exactly as we speak. Although casual, conversational language may contain dangling modifiers, written language should not; they muddy your message. A modifying phrase should immediately precede the thing it modifies. So, instead of writing, "Setting an editorial calendar, the blog mapped months of topics," write, "Setting an editorial calendar, the writer mapped months of topics on her blog." The blog is not setting the calendar; the writer is setting the calendar. 4. Which vs. that. The words "which" and "that" are not interchangeable. Both begin clauses, but "which" clauses are unnecessary to the meaning of a sentence (and thus set off by commas) and "that" clauses are essential. 5. Steer clear of overly complex words. Using overly complex words in place of simple ones is a perfect way to alienate your readers. Better to be clear and get your message across than to be fancy and lose your audience. When reading over your content, ask yourself whether the meaning is obvious. If not, rewrite. 6. Keep common misspellings in mind. Most writers understand the difference between "your" and "you're," but it's all too easy to accidentally type one when you mean the other, especially if your spell-check program doesn't pick up the error. Be on guard for common misspellings such as these: They're/Their/There Lose/Loose It's/Its Effect/Affect Weather/Whether Then/Than 7. Your personal 'tells.' A writing "tell" is like a poker "tell": It's something you regularly do -- without meaning to -- that gives you away. In poker, it might be the way you tap your fingers when you have a good hand; in writing, it might be the way you always use words like "just" or something else. Once you identify some of your overused words or other crutches, you need to ruthlessly cut them out. Using them once in a while is fine, but using them all the time dulls your writing. -http://www.entrepreneur.com
10 Quick Tips for Better Status Updates    Posted: 05-17-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
1. Post an interesting fact. If you're sharing a blog post or an online article, create a Status Update that features the most interesting fact or statement. This stirs curiosity in the readers and encourages them to click through to your link. 2. Share a tip. If you're sharing a tip in a Status Update, begin the post with the word "TIP!" This makes your Status Update stand out in your fan's News Feeds. The same technique can be used when sharing a stat, a piece of news, an update or a checklist. 3. Endorse content. When sharing someone else's content or Status Update, don't be afraid to add an endorsement. Adding an adjective like "awesome" changes the way users react to a post. 4. Don’t always ask a question. You don't always have to ask your fans what they think. Until you've built a strong and engaged fan base, share content without expecting your fans' feedback in return. 5. Inspire action. For example, if you post a great image, ask your fans to "Pin" it if they're on Pinterest. 6. Tell users what to expect. This is a great tip of you're posting a video or linking to a blog article. Use the Status Update to tell users exactly how long it is. 7. Add a P.S.! In email marketing, adding "P.S" at the end is a proven and effective way to grad the readers' attention. Test using a "P.S" line in a few Status Updates and compare results with posts that didn't include the line. 8. Use short links. Instead of copying and pasting a lengthy URL into your Status Update, use a short link, such as a bitly. The smaller the link, the better. 9. Use images with text. To make your post stand out in the News Feed and on your Timeline, overlay text on an image. A great tool to use is PicMonkey. 10. Ask users to comment. For best results, use a give-to-get approach. For instance, if your fans share their Twitter handles with you, they get a follow back. Bonus: Comments are worth more than likes in EdgeRank so it's more likely your post will be featured in the News Feed. www.thesocialskinny.com
What is Pantone? (PMS)    Posted: 05-03-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
A Color Matching System, or CMS, is a method used to ensure that colors remain as consistent as possible, regardless of the device/medium displaying the color. Keeping color from varying across mediums is very difficult because not only is color subjective to some extent, but also because devices use a wide range of technologies to display color. There are many different color matching systems availlable today, but by far, the most popular in the printing industry is the Pantone Matching System, or PMS. PMS is a "solid-color" matching system, used primarily for specifying second or third colors in printing, meaning colors in addition to black, (although, obviously, one can certainly print a one-color piece using a PMS color and no black all). Many printers keep an array of base Pantone inks in their shops, such as Warm Red, Rubine Red, Green, Yellow, Reflex Blue, and Violet. Most PMS colors have a "recipe" that the printer follows to create the desired color. The base colors, along with black and white, are combined in certain proportions within the printer's shop to achieve other PMS colors. If it is very important to match a certain PMS color in your project, such as when a corporate logo color is used, you may want to suggest to the that printer purchase that particular color pre-mixed from the ink supplier. This will help ensure a close match. Another possible reason to buy pre-mixed PMS colors is if you have a very long print run, since it can be difficult to mix large amounts of ink and keep the color consistent through several batches. Certain PMS colors have to be purchased because they cannot be mixed, such as the Pantone metallics and fluorescent inks. A common problem occurs when one tries to achieve the look of a PMS color while printing 4-color process (4CP). The only truly accurate way to use a PMS color in a 4CP project is to add the PMS as a fifth color to the job, which can become expensive. By definition, 4-color process uses only four inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, (also known as CMYK), and therefore cannot match a PMS color which, by its nature, is composed of PMS base inks. One compromise lies in Pantone's Process Color System, which attempts to simulate the PMS colors with CMYK inks. Once you have chosen your PMS color, you attempt to match it by choosing a similar 4CP color from Pantone's Process System Guide. Another way of ensuring a match is to work backwards from a 4-color process piece. On the 4CP piece, pick a color you like, then pull out your PMS swatchbook and see what PMS color comes closest to the 4CP color you've chosen. Of course, this works only if you aren't locked into using a specific PMS color, like some corporate identity's state. -- www.printernational.org
Is Your Brand Image Up To The Challenges To Come?    Posted: 04-25-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Your brand image is the face of your brand. It is the first thing your target audience sees when first introduced to you. What do you suppose goes through their mind when they see your brand image? Are the colors and imagery resonating by correctly representing your brand values and personality? How about consistency, are you showing one message? At the first introduction everything is riding on your brand image. If a business’s image is amateur, then they are doing immediate damage to sales goals. Their efforts to save money and get an image on the cheap, only shows their lack of understanding as to how the buying public formulates buying decisions. Their perceptions are the reality in the world of a brand. If a business looks like a small player, a person will have a more difficult time building a belief that the business can deliver for them. These perceptions and reactions happen in seconds. Building trust is huge in the sales cycle and so any distraction from that effort is critical. Your brand image should also differentiate your company. Choose colors that not only represent your personality, fit psychologically but also are different than competing companies. Every aspect of your brand must be compelling to a prospect. Your brand image mustn’t be simply window dressing either. You have to walk the walk. There are so many things you have to remember in order to succeed, your image should be the wonderful wrapping to a tremendous gift inside. Take this opportunity to look objectively at your brand image. Ask friends and customers for their opinions in a short survey. Use the results to address any deficiencies and make your job a little bit easier. - www.smallbusinessbranding.com
A Story of Creative 'Lumpy' Mail Success: Pushing the Envelope    Posted: 04-19-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
... With the sun beginning to set, the sweat-soaked CMO knew he had to act quickly, so he lifted to coffin lid, fully prepared to find the demon spawn of Satan lying in his state of slumber. Instead he discovered something far worse: a pair of glow-in-the-dark vampire fangs (yes, plastic fangs incapable of chewing through a piece of gum, let alone his flesh!) and a bag of what appeared to be candy corn - the heroic CMO hated candy corn, especially candy corn of the damned! But what did this all mean/ A huge response rate, no doubt, and plenty of social media buzz to follow. For ROBYN Promotions, it turns out coffins spark conversation. And that's a good thing when you're using direct mail for self-promotional purposes and to showcase your creative abilities. Brian Blake, a creative strategist at ROBYN, knew his team had to make a splash when they were set to host a Halloween-themed networking event for the Oklahoma City chapter of the American Marketing Association. After all, the invitations were set to go out to more that 600 of the most influential marketing and communications specialists in the greater Oklahoma City Area for a night where the Marketer of Oklahoma (a MofO, as it is known) would be honored. For ROBYN, the event served as the ultimate showcase for its creativity and the effectiveness of promotional products - especially those sent thought direct mail. So Blake and his creative team got together and brainstormed carious three dimensional items. Because it was the Halloween season, a coffin mailer seemed to make the most sense. Blake and company then equipped the corrugated coffin-shaped box with a die-cut insert that featured two slits for glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth to attach to it and stuffed it with a plastic bag of candy corn and some black crinkly paper to give it that extra coffin feel. The coffins, which also serves as invitation to the AMA event, were a big hit. Not only was the event well attended, the mailer took on a life of its own in the social media world, as tweets, blog posts and pictures began popping up on Facebook. Soon, new work began to roll in thanks to tis innovative self-promotional piece. ROBYN even signed an agreement with on local company to create 12 monthly direct mail pieces along with four quarterly pieces in 2012 to the tun of $30,000 to $50,000, whereas ROBYN spent about $3,000 mailing all 600 coffins. When done well, says Blake, mail campaigns can create magic - and, like his coffin, even send a chill up your spine. - Deliver Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 5
The Dynamic Duo: Mobile and Social Drive Nonprofit Event ROI    Posted: 04-12-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Behind education and lead generation, securing donations rounds out the top three reasons to sponsor an event. With fundraising a universal goal, it's no surprise that nonprofit organizations hold more events than B2B and B2C companies combined. Finding new donors is also a priority. According to Blackbaud in its 2012 State of the Nonprofit Industry report, special events were rated the most effective method of donor recruitment in the U.S. Non-profits are leading the way in some major event trends, including a greater use of new technologies such as mobile and social media for re-event marketing, recruitment and an overall improved event experience. Blackbaud reports that those who use social media tools set higher fundraising goals, raise more money and reach more donors. Looking to maximize your event ROI? Follow the trends and get tech-savvy for: Better event participation. In the nonprofit world, not every supporter can attend every event. For example, walkathons and runs involve event participants to recruit sponsors. Traditionally, participants reached out to people face-to-face or by phone or email. Why not encourage your participants to utilize their social media network as well? According to NM Incite, the average Facebook user has 130 friends and the average Twitter user has 70 followers. This is in stark contrast to the average number of sponsor solicitation emails sent for an event - just 28. Increased donations. Many non-profits are enhancing online donation capabilities with mobile-friendly forms to simplify the process. Blackbaud reports that non-profits using social media tools for event promotion increase their fundraising by as much as 40%. Social media has a place during an event: try offering an incentive for event attendees who make a donation "right now." Donor recruitment. More than half of the organizations polled in the Blackbaud survey identified event attendees as "recruits," stat that often the "ask" happens concurrently with the vent. Also growing in effectiveness is the use of social media networking to continue communication with potential new donors after an event. Donor retention. Blackbaud reports that keeping donors informed and engaged through regular communication and at events is the winning approach for retaining existing donors. How do you keep them informed and engaged? One way is with real-time information, such as tweets and Facebook status updates, in the time leading up to and during an event. - Marketing Insider, Issue 1, 2013
Trade Shows: 5 Easy Steps to More Foot Traffic    Posted: 03-29-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
There's good post-recession news for event and trade show marketers and exhibitors: The Meeting Professional International's 2012 Business Barometer reports that meeting professionals predict an increase of up to 3.3% in the number of meeting in the U.S. and Canada this year over 2012. While overall meeting growth is modest, event marketers are getting more aggressive, using a multi-channel approach to bolster attendance to their own events and traffic to expos where they're exhibiting. On average, event marketers use five promotional methods, according to a report from Constant Contact and Hubspot. Gaining an audience is one formidable obstacle: Nearly half of businesses report one of the primary challenges is a lack of response to event invitations. Other top challenges also revolve around attendance. To gain pre-event commitment and on-site attention, consider the following five steps: 1. Create and maintain an online presence. Event sponsors should start with a dedicated event website to share news, information and take registrations. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile users. And, create event pages on your LinkedIn and Facebook pages. Before, during and after the show, post updates, breaking news and commentary from your experts. 2. Use direct marketing. Targeted lists, such as past attendee lists, your own customer and prospect lists and industry-specific lists, are a great place to start gaining interest. For example, you might invite your prospects to a special VIP pre-part with a hot industry speaker, and use your direct mail piece for RSVPs to this "invite-only" party. Remember to follow p your direct mail offer with an email to anyone who has opted in, and give them another reason to visit your booth during the show. 3. Use incentives. Holding a contest or offering a great giveaway? Use those special offers as an incentive for people to visit your booth. If you're launching a new product or service or even have an updated catalog, store your marketing materials on USB drives imprinted with your company name and logo for a great giveaway. Off your best prospects a "thank you" gift with perceived value if they schedule a post-show meeting with you. 4. Create a show-stopping display.Attention exhibitors: Try to reserve prime real estate in a high-traffic location so your booth is seen by as many people as possible. Invest in quality materials. You'll appreciate easy set-up and take-down of display graphics that have the durability to las the show season. Use freestanding posters or roll-up banner stand to reinforce key messages and offers. Hold a demonstration, educational session or other "event within an event," and integrate social media. Stream live or recorded video footage to your event website, and post it toy our YouTube channel. Drive virtual foot traffic with Facebook and LinkedIn posts, and tweet about it so those who couldn't make the vent know they can participate remotely. 5. Put the press to work for you. If you're an event manager, seek pre-show publicity in publications focused on your target audience to drive interest. Ask editors in advance if they plan to attend the show, and schedule meetings with them to personally answer questions and deliver your press kit. If the show organizers have a press room, leave copies of your press kit there for any editors you won't be able to see personally. Favorable coverage can translate into more persuasive marketing messages for your next appearance. - Marketing Insider, Issue 1, 2013
Marketing Shorts    Posted: 03-21-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
-55% say they've walked away from an intended purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience. 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer -About 1 in 4 consumers reports spending less time on other social media sites in favor of Pinterest. Compete's Online Shopper Intelligence Survey, 2012 -31% in 2009, 55% in 2012 - Mobile users who said they used thier phone to go online Pew Research, 2012 -Cost per order or lead for acquisition campaigns: Direct Mail - $51.40 Paid Research - $52.58 Email - $55.24 Direct Marketing Association, 2012 -Tablet user's primary content-related activities: Video - 54% Weather Info - 49% National News - 37% Entertainment Content - 36% OPA and Frank Magid Associates, 2012
"How does integrating mail into your marketing mix help build your brand?"    Posted: 03-06-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
CHRISTINE LEHTONEN, President, Asterix Group From postcards to catalogs, direct mail is one of the only media that allows you to create a message toward a specific audience and really control that brand image. Our agency is multichannel, but we never let our clients get away with not considering direct mail as part of the mix because it's such a strong medium. When you do it well, it's very powerful. It can be used in a very lively manner. MICHAEL MENDLOWITZ, CEO, Commerce Payment Group It allows our company to target very specific prospects with very specific brand messages that address their needs front and center. With direct mail, we're not going after the whole ocean; we're hunting for fish in a pond. With the right offer and the right postcard design, it delivers exactly what we're looking for: solid prospects who are seriously interested in our products. Direct mail can build your brand image - and much more than that. SHIBU THOMAS, Executive VP of MArketing and Admissions, Ross Education, LLC We proved healthcare training in 23 communities across five states. We use direct mail to communicate with our prospects and build our brand. We know it's important to use a variety of approaches to stay 'top of mind.' And although we're building awareness, we're also able to reap the rewards of direct response by offering opportunities for prospective students to take the next step. Without direct mail, our marketing mix wouldn't be much of a mix. - Deliver Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 5
10 Tips to better print design    Posted: 02-26-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
1. Remember to bleed The bleed is the part on the side of the document that gives your printer that small amount of space to move around paper and design inconsistencies. No matter what guidelines they have on their site, the printer will use anything you throw at them. A 3mm bleed on all sides is a safe standard for the work. The settings in InDesign are right there in the new file dialog… but hidden! You need to hit the 'more options' button before they become visible. If you already have a document open you can find them in the file > document setup dialog. 2. Overprint is fun Is your budget limiting you to only 2 Pantone(PMS) colors? No problem. Try to experiment with overprint options to get a look with more depth with a limited color palette. You can even work with photographs with only 2 Pantone's, just do them in duotone or monotone. 3. Think outside the paper The human mind fills in gaps and will see the bigger picture if you aim for it. Using the border of your paper can be great fun and another tool to work with. Obviously, this is not the final solution to all your design problems. It should help you to see that your work doesn't end at the edge of the paper. 4. Paper size standards are great, but don't let them hold you back Square booklets, for instance, make for a more interesting reading experience, while smaller sizes (A5 for example) are much easier to take with you. Fly away from that standard A4 and take some risks. 5. People read In conflict with some designers of the last 5 years I still think form follows function. This means in print design: If you're working on something that contains textual content concentrate on the content. You should use typography as a element in your design, however you should always aim for optimal readability. 6. Amount of content: less is more If you have some kind of idea that there's too much on your page; there is indeed to much on your page. Define what's really necessary and remove any visual noise. It may sound cliche but it's true: less is more. If the client makes you cram too much content on one page, tell them. 7. Stick to the grid Working with grids is the key to good design. Using its proportional relations, composition guidelines for the base of your design is a good idea. Don't always go for the standard 3-column setup. A 7 column setup offers a lot of playful combinations… 2 column overlaps, a 3/3/1 setup with a sidebar and so on… 8. Typography is king If the typographical setup is bad, no amount of lines or other elements will fix it. The fonts you use the most in your project set the voice for its overall feel: don't pick the first font you like; think about what voice it should have and the best way to communicate this to your target audience. You can have a lot of fun with the basic well designed fonts: Helvetica, Swiss or Akzidenz Grotesk will save you from the worst typographic horror-scenario's. It takes a while to get to know a font. A good way to get good with a particular font is to pick a list of 5 to 8 fonts you think could work for you and concentrate on those. That's also a good way to find out which fonts mix and which won't. 9. Invert Need to give a bigger impact to a quote or logo? Invert it. White on black (or on any dark color for that matter) will always give your design or typography more strength. Be careful with smaller type sizes (8pt. and lower) as these will be possible problems for your printer as ink always flows around a little when just printed. This effect is called trapping. Of course this all depends on what kind of paper you're printing on, printing speed and other factors. Ask your printer about exceptions. 10. Be demanding about photographic content You should always demand high quality source material to work with. When working with photographic content for example the "trash in, trash out" rule applies. A good photo can take your work to another level, a badly lit low resolution photo will ruin the work. - http://www.printernational.org/10-tips-to-better-print-design.php
Here's What's in a Great Marketing Toolbox...    Posted: 02-19-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Your brand is anchored in what differentiates you. Without that differentiator, you have to fall back on image or (heaven forbid) price. A good number of small businesses think to raise the bar they have to changes their logo, update their image and refresh that website. I’ve sat through enough meetings with graphic designers who still push this antiquated notion. My background is in graphic design so I have a healthy respect for the industry. But, I don’t rest the success of communication and sales initiatives squarely at the feet of design. Design from my perspective is the compliment to great branding. Give me something that absolutely resonates with your customer and then wrap it up with great design so that your overall communication is outstanding and really positions the customer as a leader in their category. That’s a story worth telling. Graphic designers today have a tendency to not understand fundamental marketing. Most (that I know) have never taken a marketing course. Graphic design courses in this region don’t have marketing as part of their curriculum. To these isolated designers, it’s an us or them attitude. How many presentations on social media have you been to where they compare social media to off-line media as if they were rivals. ie: doing this and this social thing will save you the cost of print, radio and TV. Email marketing is much more beneficial than direct-mail marketing. Stupid. It’s all about fit – NOT us or them. The fact of the matter is, they are ALL tools in your brand tool-box. Online marketing is spectacular and combined with traditional media can be incredibly powerful. The Kardasian’s may have millions of Twitter and Facebook followers but without television and print coverage how long do you think they’d last. When the day comes and the public tires of them and they no longer exist in the visual media – THAT will be the true test of their brand power. My promotional efforts include on and offline, and face to face efforts. And every single effort I put out there has to be absolutely consistent and powerful. My brochures aren’t printed on my office printer. My business cards to come in a sheet | have to tear apart. My web efforts weren’t developed for the price of a case of beer. But I didn’t spend a King’s ransom either. Everything involves a fit. What works for your brand. Overall what is it saying to your audience as opposed to what your competitors are saying. Are you leading or following? Peer deep inside that tool box and foster a strategic plan than carries your brand along as authentic and as powerful as your marketing budget affords you. -http://www.smallbusinessbranding.com
Fast Facts    Posted: 01-31-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times a such as their first purchase. - White House Office of Consumer Affairs It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience. - "Understanding Customers" by Ruby Newell-Legner Three in five would try a new brand or company for a better service experience. - American Express Survey 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. - McKinsey More than 50% of Facebook users, and 80% of Twitter users, expect a response to a customer service inquiry in a day or less. - Consumer Views of Live Help Online 2012, A Global Perspective, Oracle 80% of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree. -Bain & Company from Harvard Management Update
The History of Marketing    Posted: 01-18-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Check out this really cool and informative infographic, designed by Hubspot. It's rather long but definitely worth the read.
Small Business Branding Through Exceptional Customer Service    Posted: 01-09-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
"Value Your Customers If You Value Your Business" Have you ever walked into a store excited about your latest purchase only to leave your much coveted purchase on the counter because of the [lack of] customer service? Remember how that made you feel? I’d venture to say that if you were happy & excited to make your purchase when you walked in the store you walked out with a much different feeling about your choice and vowing to find the item somewhere they would actually appreciate you. Let’s translate that to your own business. How many people walk away from an experience with you, your site or your product unhappy because they weren’t treated they way they thought they should be? "Exemplary customer service is all about treating your clients & customers they way they feel they should be treated. Make them feel special and appreciated and they’ll be loyal to you and your brand." If you don’t know how people feel about their experiences with you then you must make it a point to find out. Putting the value of your customers above everything will help you find true success. Without your customers you don’t have a business. Now, that we’ve touched on how important your clients & customers are to your business let’s talk about the people that represent you. "They way you treat the people that help you run your business will directly reflect on how they treat the clients & customers with whom they have contact." If you treat your “helpers” rudely or with indifference then that is how they may treat your customers. The way people are treated by the representative of your company is a direct reflection of you. Make sure that the people that work on behalf of your company are treated with respect and understand their value to you so that they can reflect that feeling to your clients & customers. Exemplary customer service is synonymous with your brand. Let someone have a bad experience with you and before you know it they’re sharing that bad experience via word of mouth and worse through social media. Be respectful to each and every person that finds their way to you. It is important to be courteous and make your customers feel as if they matter – that they are valued. People are less likely to work with or buy from a business because they have seen online or heard by word of mouth that a company provides bad customer service. With quick access to the internet all it takes is one negative word on Twitter or Facebook about your business and you may be doomed to failure. The key to brand loyalty is exceptional customer service. Go out of your way to show customers that you care about them whether they buy or not. Respond quickly to emails, comments, contact forms and most especially to a customer standing at your counter or cash register. They will remember that they were treated well, had their questions answered and made to feel important. - www.smallbusinessbranding.com
Know Your Audience to Choose Your Social Channels    Posted: 01-02-2013 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Whether you are a social media fan or foe, there's no denying it has altered the way in which people communicate. According to Google, 57% of people talk more online than they do in real life. A 2012 Social Habit Study by Edison shows nearly two-thirds of social networkers use social sites daily. Newer platforms like Pinterest and Google+ are gaining traction and attracting users that have more on their minds than socializing. Hubspot says any business that relies on a high volume of website traffic to increase sales should consider joining Pinterest, as research indicates that Pinterest is more effective at driving traffic compared to other social media sites, even Facebook. According to Bizrate Insights, 70% of users say they visit Pinterest to get inspired on what to buy. And, Social Media Examiner's 2012 Social Media Marketers Study indicates Google+ also might be one to watch with 67% of marketers planning to increase their activities on this channel. This would indicate that some shifting may occur among all social channels as marketers work toward gaining more followers and fans. Already, the number of social media users who say they follow a company has doubled in the past two years: 2012 - 33% 2011 - 24% 2010 - 16% *Source: Edison Research As might be expected, the number one reason cited in the Edison survey for following a brand or company is for sales, coupons or discounts. Other reasons close behind were to look for content or ideas, because they like the product, and want to be informed of new ones. Facebook is the runaway favorite in terms of influencing purchase decisions with its power nearly doubling since 2011 (Edison Reasearch). While Twitter's impact has grown, it pales in comparison to Facebook. Of the big three, LinkedIn, it seems, continues to attract business decision makers but makes little direct impact in actual buying. LinkedIn's own data shows four out of five members are business decision makers and two-thirds use the site to keep up with industry news. The reality is, you probably can't do it all and expect to do it well. Like any marketing strategy, determine your goals and key audiences, and choose the channels that help you to reach both of them. No time or expertise to manage your organization's social media? Consider outsourcing it to Allegra! Social Media Examiner's survey showed 30% of marketers are using outside resources, mostly for design and development, analytics and content creation. -Marketing Insider, Issue 4 2012
Sales Booster: Profile your best customers and find new ones just like them    Posted: 12-21-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Today's savvy marketers can't afford to waste time or money reaching out to prospects that have little chance of becoming buyers. Even if you have a pretty good idea of who your best customers are, can you define them in terms that will help you find the next 'like kind' business or consumer? According to eMarketing's Ruth P. Stevens, a leading expert on customer acquisition and retention, a company's house files can offer a gold mine of information for 'cloning' customers and minimizing the wast associated with marketing to the wrong prospects. "Using your house files, you can take the basic information you have about your best business or consumer customers that reflects the existing relationship, and working with your marketing services provider, add demographic information to enhances your customer profile," Stevens says. Both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketers can benefit from customer profile. More robust customer data improves the effectiveness of targeted marketing campaigns, helps you to cross-sell and up-sell, and can guide your efforts to reactivate dormant or lost customers. B-2-B data fields that can flesh out a top customer profile would include annual sales, number of employees, legal status, location type, minority-owned business, nonprofit, owner versus renter or years in business, just to name a few. Examples of B-2-C data fields would be adults in the household and their ages, credit card ownership, home ownership or equity available, household income, length of time in the residence, marital status, and number and ages of children present in the home. "A better understanding of your existing customer or donor base allows you to see how many others are out there with similar characteristics so you can market to them. And, targeting high-probability prospects improves the odds of making a sale," Stevens adds. "It's one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to find new customers and generate more value from your existing customer relationships." - Marketing Insider, issue 3, 2012
What is Pantone (PMS)?    Posted: 12-13-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
A Color Matching System, or CMS, is a method used to ensure that colors remain as consistent as possible, regardless of the device/medium displaying the color. Keeping color from varying across mediums is very difficult because not only is color subjective to some extent, but also because devices use a wide range of technologies to display color. There are many different color matching systems availlable today, but by far, the most popular in the printing industry is the Pantone Matching System, or PMS. PMS is a "solid-color" matching system, used primarily for specifying second or third colors in printing, meaning colors in addition to black, (although, obviously, one can certainly print a one-color piece using a PMS color and no black all). Many printers keep an array of base Pantone inks in their shops, such as Warm Red, Rubine Red, Green, Yellow, Reflex Blue, and Violet. Most PMS colors have a "recipe" that the printer follows to create the desired color. The base colors, along with black and white, are combined in certain proportions within the printer's shop to achieve other PMS colors. If it is very important to match a certain PMS color in your project, such as when a corporate logo color is used, you may want to suggest to the that printer purchase that particular color pre-mixed from the ink supplier. This will help ensure a close match. Another possible reason to buy pre-mixed PMS colors is if you have a very long print run, since it can be difficult to mix large amounts of ink and keep the color consistent through several batches. Certain PMS colors have to be purchased because they cannot be mixed, such as the Pantone metallics and fluorescent inks. A common problem occurs when one tries to achieve the look of a PMS color while printing 4-color process (4CP). The only truly accurate way to use a PMS color in a 4CP project is to add the PMS as a fifth color to the job, which can become expensive. By definition, 4-color process uses only four inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, (also known as CMYK), and therefore cannot match a PMS color which, by its nature, is composed of PMS base inks. One compromise lies in Pantone's Process Color System, which attempts to simulate the PMS colors with CMYK inks. Once you have chosen your PMS color, you attempt to match it by choosing a similar 4CP color from Pantone's Process System Guide. Another way of ensuring a match is to work backwards from a 4-color process piece. On the 4CP piece, pick a color you like, then pull out your PMS swatchbook and see what PMS color comes closest to the 4CP color you've chosen. Of course, this works only if you aren't locked into using a specific PMS color, like some corporate identity's state. - www.printernational.org
QR Code Best Practices    Posted: 11-30-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
QR (Quick Response) codes are a great way to integrate cross-media marketing and drive people to your website. Click the link to learn more about QR codes and some important best practices for effective use. QR Code Best Practices
Graphic File Formats    Posted: 11-23-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
There are many graphic file formats, if we include the proprietary types. The PNG, JPEG, and GIF formats are most often used to display images on the Internet. These graphic formats are listed and described below. TIFF (.tiff & .tif) - Tagged Image File Format The Tagged Image File Format is widely used in business, offices, and commercial printing environments. Initially TIFF was designed to alleviate the problems associated with fixed file formats and to eliminate the need for proprietary image file formats. Web-based images In web-based publishing, three file formats have become the widely accepted standard. Presently Internet browsers can only read JPG or GIF and PNG images, without the user installing a separate viewer or plug-in. On Web pages it is most common to find JPEG files used for photographic quality images. JPEG (.jpg) - Joint Photographic Experts Group JPEG (or JPG) uses a lossy compression structure that allows users to compress the data up to 1/10th of the original size. Such high compression results in a loss of image quality, but on Web pages the images are generally small and they need the compression to produce the smaller image file sizes for downloading. Most graphics programs will also allow the user to select a compression factor as you save a JPEG file, so you can work with the image to achieve a good balance between file size and image quality. As the compression factor gets higher, more artifacts are introduced into the image, which are blurred to make them less noticeable. Using thejpeg format in print design is possible as long as you save the file at 100%. This because artifacts that occur when JPEG compression kicks in get even more noticeable when printed. JPEG 10% - Low filesize, low quality JPEG 90% - High filesize, high quality GIF (.gif) - Graphic Interchange Format The Graphic Interchange Format was developed by CompuServe to show images online when 8-bit video was commonplace. GIF uses a palette of up to 256 colors, which is why it is not suited to photo quality images where 24-bit color is required. GIF is best suited to common Web graphics like buttons, logos, text boxes, borders, and small animated images where the image is designed by the graphic artists and does not need more than 256 colors. A small background image for a Web page may only contain a few colors, in which case saving the image as a GIF file will produce the optimal file size for this type of graphic, especially when the graphic uses separate solid colors rather than shading. Another important feature of a GIF file is that you can choose to save the background of an image as transparent. If you create a simple set of icons or text boxes for a Web page, saving these as transparent GIF files would allow you to implement the graphics on a variety of Web pages, regardless of the background colors you've used on the page. Most graphics programs will allow you to select a color within the GIF file to make transparent, or start with a transparent background and build your graphic up from there. PNG (.png) - Portable Network Graphics Portable Network Graphics is the third graphics standard supported by web browsers (though not supported by all browsers). PNG was developed as a patent-free answer to the GIF format but is also an improvement on the GIF technique. An image in a lossless PNG file can be 5% to 25% more compressed than a GIF file of the same image. PNG builds on the idea of transparency in GIF images and allows the control of the degree of transparency, known as opacity (which ranges from 0 to 100 percent). TARGA (.tga & .tpic) - Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter TARGA is mainly used in graphic design for broadcast. The format can store image data with 1–32 bits of precision per pixel, which means that like PNG TARGA allows the control of the degree of transparency. Color data can be color-mapped, or truecolor format; optionally, a lossless RLE compression can be employed. ICO (.ico) - Icon image file format The ICO file format is an image file format used for icons in Microsoft Windows. It contains one or more small images at multiple resolutions and sizes each of which is made up of two bitmaps. Current icon files hold images of typically 16x16, 32x32, and 48x48 pixels at 4, 8, and 32 bit colour depth and supports transparant areas, inverted backgrounds and some other nifty tricks. -http://www.printernational.org
General Facebook Guidelines    Posted: 11-16-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
-Make sure you have a Facebook like button on your home page and that it is high up on the page where customers will see it easily. -Take opportunities to tell your customers you have a Facebook business page. Put it on business cards, in ads, and tell them in person. -As the administrator of your business page, you can select a unique url / username to help people find your page. To learn more about this, go here - https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=174999945886703 (6.18.12) -It's important to respond to every comment on your Facebook page, even and especially if it's negative. It's a great way to show the public your interaction with your customers. -When you respond to negative comments on your Facebook page, solve the problem publicly on your page, don't move to a private phone call or email if possible. By resolving it publicly, you will show everyone your great customer service. -Be sure to include your website address in your about section on your Facebook page. -It's a good idea to use your logo for your Facebook profile picture. This looks professional and spreads business awareness. -Facebook ads can be a great way to increase your likes and get more business. There are many different types of ads that let you target users interested in your specific industry. There are also many inexpensive options. See if Facebook ads will work for your business. https://www.facebook.com/business/connect -Make sure you have a Facebook like button and a link to your Facebook page on a prominent part on your homepage. - http://www.likesewwebsites.com/tip-of-the-day.htm
Customer Loyalty    Posted: 11-08-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Loyal customers help your business grow. They are your biggest advocates. They recommend you and can introduce you to new clients. And they don't mind at all. Using these references helps them to feel needed and valued which translates well into something crucial for relationships: rapport and true connection. "People buy from people, they don't buy from companies," Dianne Durkin says, founder and president of Loyalty Factor, a consulting and training company that enhances employee, customer and brand loyalty. "To build rapport, treat other people the way you want to be treated and always build trust. It's important to nurture your customer relationships and avoid breakdowns in communication. Durkin says of of the most common ways to lose loyalty is failing to follow through on what you've promised, frequently a delivery date or time. What is the cost? -A dissatisfied consumer will tell between nine and 15 people about their experience. About 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people (What House Office of Consumer Affairs, 2011) -86% of consumers will pay up to 25% more for better customer experience. (Harris Interactive, Customer Experience Impact Report, 2011) -It takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience. ("Understanding Customers" by Ruby Newell-Legner) Remember those VIPs knows as company advocates? Losing a customer means you're also losing all of the additional business an advocate could have sent your way. So, you do you repair the damage that's done? One of the most important things to do after admitting a mistake is to ask a customer how you can make it up to them. This means listening. Questions are your secret weapons. Ask 'What would you recommend I do to help in this situation?' Unhappy customers have many more communications channels and way to reach a larger audience than ever before. Her are some of Durkin's "fix-it" strategies: Negative online review | Some may not be worth paying attention to, but those that have far-reaching effects should be addressed. If possible, send a personal email to the disgruntled party and post a public response that explains your steps to make it right. Negative comments on social networking pages | The right approach is situational, but Durkin recommends always keeping your social network current with your most positive commentary. Delete comments that are inappropriate or offensive. Engage your advocates, and ask if they'll reach out to others on your behalf. When you have advocates willing to help you, it's best to draft what you want to say and then have your advocates deliver your message. Email with an error | Should you send a correction? According to Durkin, it depends. A misspelling of a customer's name may not be worth calling attention to, but if you have an erroneous amount in an offer, that's a different story. Durkin recommends sending a correction email that says" "In the excitement of this offering, we miscommunicated. We want to take the opportunity to clarify and to thank you for your business." Dormant accounts | How do you determine if you've let these former customers down, and how can you win them back? Pull out a list of those with whom you haven't done business in the past year. Mail a letter, package or postcard to them with a "welcome back" offer, if appropriate. Or hire an outside firm to call dormant accounts. They will tell the surveyor things they will never tell you. To get the most useful information, the surveyor should ask specific questions such as,' Tell me why you no longer do business with company X.' and 'If there's something company X needs to stop doing, what is it?' Even after getting responses, more questions should be asked. For example: if a customer says you can win them back with a discount, ask why it's important to them. There may be a buried solution to uncover. And overall, these calls should always sell the value of what you offer that can't be found anywhere else. - Marketing Insider, Issue 03 2012
Surfers or Shoppers? Use Web Analytics to Determine Who's Who    Posted: 11-01-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
The amount of traffic on the Internet should no longer come as a surprise to marketers in companies of all sizes and across all industries. Recent research shows: 97% of Internet users in the US research shopping information on the Web -Google How can you ensure your website is designed and functioning in ways to turn Web surfers into bona fide customers? With the free tracking application Google Analytics, you can monitor and measure visitor interaction with your website, understand how they move around it and gain a host of actionable metrics. Get Google Analytics To get started, you'll need a Google account. If you already use Gmail, you're all set. Then, go to www.google.com/analytics/ to register your website and receive a tracking code to add to your website. Once the code is installed, you can immediately start collecting information about activity on your website. On the Google Analytics site, you'll see a customizable dashboard view of the most commonly-requested website data. Some of the top level information you can glean from your dashboard and in standard reporting includes: - Total number of site visitors in real-time or by day, week, month, or more - Traffic sources (i.e. typed in your address manually, used a search engine, or were referred from another source, like social media or local directories) - Search keywords used to find your business - Number of click-throughs among your website pages - Average time spent on your website and on each page A Deeper Dive Advanced reports give detailed demographic information (Where are people coming from geographically?), technical profiles (What type of devices are visitors using?), the most and least popular content and much more. Some of the most powerful and underutilized features of Google Analytics are multi-channel funnel reports (MCFs). MCFs show the channels with which people interact who convert to sales: search, social or email, for example. You can also look at the path these sales follow when marching toward conversion. With enough visitors and sales, marketers may learn that people interact with their social media channels only after visiting a website from organic search, or that social media is the last step before conversion. Your marketing services provider can help you use Web analytics to take data-based, actionable steps to improve the effectiveness of your marketing - online and off. - Marketing Insider, Issue 3, 2012
Cool Business Card Ideas    Posted: 10-24-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
In the business world, it's always important to stand out. One of the best ways to do this is through the use of flashy, cool and memorable business cards. It doesn't matter how generic or boring your company may be, you can still leave a lasting impression with your business cards, and here are a few ideas how. Rounded Corners There is nothing more plain and generic than a traditional white and rectangle business card. Bring a clean look and smooth feeling to your design with rounded corners. Die Cut Designs Create your business cards with a design and impression that lasts. While die cut business cards will cost more, they are one of the most effective ways to create a unique design. The die cut design can be anything, such as a simple cut out, or in the shape of your company logo. Mini Business Cards One of the latest growing trends is to create mini business cards. Not only will these cards definitely stand out when in a pile of regular size cards, but you can also carry a lot more of them around. Magnets When someone gives you a business card, you usually throw it in a drawer or box. With a magnet, there is a good chance your business card ends up on the refrigerator holding up some papers. This is an excellent way to get free exposure all year round, right in the kitchen! Folded Cards Another very creative way to design your cards, while also giving you a lot of space for information and design work, is through the use of folded business cards. Folded cards can also stand up on their own, which is a great way to display them on your desk, or at your next conference. Plastic and Metal Cards A more expensive way to get attention, but definitely created to stand the test of time. Plastic cards show that you can afford high quality business cards, while also offering a solid feel and design, that is sure to leave a lasting impression. For really heavy hitters, you can always upgrade to metal business cards. They are heavy, can include a die cut design, and will blow all of the other cards in your box away. Metal cards can cost around $2 to $3 each! As you can see, there are plenty of ways to create business cards that leave a lasting impression. Even if you have a simple business name like BusinessInsurance.org, there are plenty of ways to bring your business cards to life. From simple and professional improvements like rounded corners or a diet cut design, to creating full color business cards with a company logo that helps with branding. - http://www.printernational.org
5 Ways to Get More Customers from Your Website    Posted: 10-19-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Every small business wishes they could drive more traffic to their website and get more customers. The big question is how do you drive more profits from your website? There are several ways to convert more web visitors into paying customers. Here are 5 ideas to try. 1. Improve Your Web Design Has your website been updated since 1998? If it hasn’t, stop reading and fix your website before you do anything else. Seriously, your website design should be updated every couple of years. 2. Put a Phone Number PROMINENTLY on Your Website I am routinely stunned by the number of companies that don’t have a phone number prominently displayed on their website. Sometimes they’ll bury the phone number in the ‘Contact Us’ section. Retail chains will sometimes force visitors to click on ‘Locations’ before they see a phone number. Why would you make it difficult for someone to find your phone number? Phone calls are the most valuable contact a customer can make. If someone calls they are more likely to buy from you. Why would you hide a phone number? Instead of hiding it, you should put your phone number in a prominently location ‘above the fold’ of the website. This phone number should be a local or toll free number provided by a call tracking company. This will allow you to track how many people call that phone number and help you figure out if your website is producing profits for you. 3. Make it Clear What you Do Have you ever been to a website and after 2 or 3 minutes you still can’t tell what the company does? It is a common problem. Make sure your website clearly tells visitors what you offer. 4. Track Visitors and Calls to Your Website We have a lot of small business clients. The other day I was talking with one and he said ‘I don’t even know why I have a website, it doesn’t work.’ I asked him why he thought it didn’t work. He said that his customers are usually walk-in customers or they find him in the phonebook. They don’t visit his website. Here’s the problem: he literally has no idea what he’s talking about because he isn’t using a free web analytics tool like Google Analytics. If you have a website, you should be tracking web traffic as well as tracking leads from phone calls generated by that website. If you aren’t tracking those things, you shouldn’t have a website. 5. Add Valuable Content If you want Google to like your website and improve your search ranking, and if you want potential customers to buy from you after visiting your website, you need to create valuable content on your website. This doesn’t mean that you need to turn into an expert blogger. It does mean that you should start to improve your site content. Write interesting content or pay someone else to do it. www.smallbusinessbranding.com
Feeling Productive? Here are 5 ways to be Even Better    Posted: 10-12-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
The demands of our jobs coupled with the barrage of distractions from so many sources (texts, emails, reports, tweets, deadlines, just to name a few) can be overwhelming. The sheer volume of these distractions threatens our ability to think clearly and make good decisions. By simply reacting, we can fail to accomplish the things that matter most to us. But there are methods of productivity that work for everyone. Developed at FranklinCovey, the "5 Choices," when used consistently, can help you boost productivity. Leena Rinee, a productivity consultant with FranklinCovey says," The choices aren't specific to any industry or job because they are based on universal principles. Each person will have different circumstances in which they apply the 5 Choices, and they may have to focus more heavily on one of the choices, but they absolutely work for anyone." The 5 Choices 1. Act on the Important... Don't React to the Urgent Our ability to focus on extraordinary outcomes hinges on discerning what is important from what is just urgent. Being better at filtering vitally important priorities from distractions helps us to make a real contribution. 2. Go for Extraordinary... Don't Settle for Ordinary Everyone wants to make a difference, but competing priorities can interfere. By directing our attention to those roles that matter to us on a deeper level, we can then transform the outcomes we are working toward and redefine how to achieve them. Do we want to be extraordinary as a parent, a spouse or a business owner? A runner, a cook or a carpenter? Whatever the roles are, if we focus on the outcomes we want the achieve, we create a roadmap for their achievement. 3. Schedule the Big Rocks... Don't Sort Gravel Growing workday pressures can make people feel helpless and out of control. We can regain control through a cadence of planning and execution. Make a 30/10 promise, suggests Rinne. Take 30 minutes each week and 10 minutes each day for thoughtful planning that can transform the time we spend everywhere else. 4. Rule Your Technology... Don't Let it Rule You An electronic avalanche of email, texts and social medias alerts threaten productivity like never before. To effectively manage the constant stream of distractions, we need systems to handle what we call the core 4, says Rinee: tasks, appointments, contacts and notes. If we can be clear on how these four things are managed in our workflow, we're better equipped to manage them. 5 Fuel Your Fire... Don't Burn Out Today's high-pressure work environment and the constant demands we face in our personal lives can cause burn out. According to Rinne, we have two primary sources of energy: the first is our sense of purpose. By making choices 1-4, we fuel our fire through this source of energy. The second source source is our physical and mental capacity. There are five energy drivers that can fuel physical and mental capacity: eat, move, sleep, relax and connect. By focusing on these drivers and intentionally making decisions about how they fuel us, we increase our mental and physical well-being which allows us to devote our best energy to our most important outcomes. Short and Long Term Benefits The five choices have immediate and long-term benefits. "Choice one immediately moves the time we spend away from minutiae and distractions to give us a sense of satisfaction in our lives because our time and energy is yielding greater results," says Rinne. "Long term, by focusing on the things that truly matter, we're committing to a process that ensures achieving those things so we see payout in what matters most to us." To align the choices to your goals, Rinne suggests looking at the 30/10 promise. Thirty minutes in thoughtful planning each week can identify what actions we can take in the coming weeks that bring us closer to our goals. And with 10 minutes at the end of each day to review tasks and appointments, we can ensure the following day matches our priorities. - Marketing Insider Magazine, Issue 3 2012
Zero Moment of Truth    Posted: 10-04-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Jim Lecinski of Google recently came out with a great book entitled Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. I wanted to share a few quotes from it, as it explains how our consumer market has changed and why it is so important to have a compelling online presence. "The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) is that moment when you grab your laptop, mobile phone or some other wired device and start learning about about a product or service (or potential boyfriend) you’re thinking about trying or buying. I’m sure you know what I mean — you probably do web searches like this every day. BUT Would it surprise you to know that a full 70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase? Or that 79% of consumers now say they use a smartphone to help with shopping? Or that 83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them? Those incredible numbers shouldn’t surprise us anymore. This is how consumers live and learn and make decisions today: from ratings and review sites, from friends on social media, at home and on the go, and (more than ever) from video. They learn from search results, user reviews, four-star ratings, text ads, image ads, news headlines, videos and even good old-fashioned official brand websites. They learn and decide, in short, at the Zero Moment of Truth. Let me take one step back. On September 21 of 2005, The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story that changed the face of marketing. That story was about the critical importance of the seven seconds after a shopper first encounters a store shelf full of detergents or toothpaste or anything else. Remember the old phrase, “Look for it in your grocer’s freezer case”? That’s the moment we’re talking about — when you’re standing there, looking at all that frozen pizza and deciding which to buy. Procter & Gamble called that moment the First Moment of Truth, or FMOT (“EFF-mot”). This moment was so important to P&G that they created a position titled Director of FMOT, and tapped Dina Howell to fill the job. And The Wall Street Journal found it so influential that they put it on the front page. The same year, in his foreword to Kevin Roberts’ remarkable book Lovemarks, Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley put it this way: "The best brands consistently win two moments of truth. The first moment occurs at the store shelf, when a consumer decides whether to buy one brand or another. The second occurs at home, when she uses the brand — and is delighted, or isn’t." Mr. Lafley was right then and he’s right now. Those first and second moments of truth are just as vital today. AND Now there’s a new critical moment of decision that happens before consumers get to their grocer’s freezer case. Whether you sell yachts or shaving cream, your customers’ first impression — and quite possibly their final decision — will be made in that moment: ZMOT. Marketers devote tremendous amounts of energy and money to the first two moments of truth. But the new question is: Are you winning the Zero Moment of Truth?" The full e-book can be downloaded here: http://www.zeromomentoftruth.com Definitely worth the read for any business owner or marketer!
Why PDF?    Posted: 09-27-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
The PDF file format has become the publishing standard for most companies and businesses worldwide, particularly in the last decade and half – and with good reason. Turning your documents into PDFs makes them immediately smaller, more mobile and generally easier to use. The versatility of the PDF is another aspect that makes it so perfect for business documents. This format enables you to deliver, share and store your business documents in an increasingly versatile and cost-effective manner, and it provides guarantees that the person to whom you are sending the PDF will receive a document that is universal and very easy to view, navigate, store, print and share. If you are still not convinced that PDF is the most reliable and convenient format for all your business needs, here are five points that will provide some food for thought. Stay Compatible The best thing about PDF documents is that they always look the same for everyone. There is never any re-pagination or missing font issues to deal with, as is the case with most word processing documents. This is very important for business documents due to legal reasons, especially when dealing with contracts and agreements that must look exactly the same for all parties involved. This is also important when dealing with application forms, tax returns, tender documents, invoices and things of that nature. PDFs ensure that the files sent to clients can be viewed across different computers and through various operating systems and platforms, without any change in the look and feel of the original document . Become Versatile The things that you can do with a PDF are virtually limitless. For example, you can make PDFs searchable, making them easier to navigate. So if you receive a long business document, you will be able to use the search function and find what you are looking for easily and quickly without having to read the entire document. PDF can also be magnified hundreds of times without losing any of its quality. This is especially important when looking at visual aids like graphs and charts that might have a lot of small details and is essential when giving presentations. You’ll never miss the fine print in a PDF, because you’ll always be able to magnify it and see it. It is also the ideal format for storing and archiving documents. It is a self-contained and highly compressed medium that effectively manages bitmaps, vectors and text, which makes the PDF the perfect format for archiving and record keeping. Protect Yourself Documents are all potentially subject to manipulation and these types of things can be dangerous for any business. Fortunately, when using documents converted into PDF, they are at a significantly lower risk of being tampered with. PDFs offer 40-bit and 128-bit encryption, as well as password-restricted viewing, copying, and even printing. It also allows the application of watermarking to enable users to “digitally emboss” their documents with a unique watermark of their own that further protects all important business documents from being misused or tampered with. Keep it Compact The small file size of a PDF enables it to be easily share and store your business documents. The PDF masters what other file formats have not been able to do with compression and drastically reduces document size while preserving the document quality. Because of this, using PDFs significantly reduces costly bandwidth and storage issues. Converting graphics, spreadsheets and word processor documents to PDF reduces document size significantly, which adds up to real savings in expensive email server storage and bandwidth congestion. It also means significant time is being saved in retrieving emails from the server. Save Money In order to view a PDF, you don’t have to buy any special type of program. You can pick from a variety of available free PDF Readers to download. Sending PDFs is like having an incredibly fast and reliable color fax machine within your computer that allows you to send high quality documents more effectively than ever. Since it is compatible with just about every computer, your days of printing out material are over – not only for distributing documents, but for archiving your documents as well. Thanks to the PDF, document management has never being easier for businesses and advancements in PDF technology continue to work to the advantage of the businesses, big and small, that are constantly looking for versatility, convenience, reliability and security. - smallbusinessbranding.com
Why Customers Stop Being Customers    Posted: 09-20-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Whether you want to admit it or not, your business makes mistakes. Maybe the quality of your work wasn’t up to par (just one time, of course:). Perhaps, your billing was incorrect and your customer was charged too much. Maybe, a job took too long, or there was something wrong with a product you sold your customer. These things happen to customers of every business. Statistics show that customers are pretty resilient. All of these things are pretty much forgivable. Your customer will forget about billing disputes, quality issues and pretty much everything else you throw at them. But, statistics show they will not forgive you for bad customer service. 86% of people say they’ve stopped doing business with a company because of just one bad customer service experience (up from 69% in 2007) – Harris Interactive, Customer Experience Impact Report, 2011). Think about that! Almost 90% of the time customers will not return if they’ve had a bad customer service experience. Wow! So, why will a customer leave you because of bad customer service and not because of other mistakes your business may make? Here is the answer: Customer service is personal. A billing dispute isn’t personal. A missed appointment isn’t personal. A dirty hotel room isn’t personal. Neither is a shoddy job. But, customer service is VERY personal. Customers get upset when they’ve been treated poorly. They take it very personally. What can you do? 1. Track Customer Service Performance – One of the best ways to do this is with call tracking and call recording. For decades call centers have used call recording to track customer service performance, but now the same technology is available to any business for a low price. You don’t need to install anything or get a new phone system. It is honestly very simple, easy and cheap. 2. Score Customer Service Performance – Scoring calls for customer service performance will help you start to see trends. You can track which employees are good at customer service and which ones are losing your business. 3. Customer Service Training – This training does not need to be an expensive endeavor. It can be as simple as you simply training your employees to sound cheerful on the phone or ask for the caller’s name and use it during the call. Little things like that will cause you—statistically—to lose less business. 4. Hold Employees Accountable – You should have a system in place that rewards good customer service and punishes poor customer service. If you listen to a call and you hear an employee providing excellent customer service compliment the employee. If you use a call recording platform and you hear a bunch of great calls, than you should throw a party for your team or provide incentives of some sort. How Do We Know? We record tens of thousands of customer service and sales calls a week through our call tracking platform. These calls produce valuable marketing data (call tracking analytics, lead scoring, etc.), but they also produce vital customer service data. We listen to these calls and then score them for quality and training purposes. Our scores show us (and our clients) one thing: companies treat their customers very poorly in most cases. This is not an opinion. It is fact. It is based on actual data our system pulls from actual calls. We also hear reactions from customers who’ve been treated poorly. They take bad customer service very, very personally. If a customer is treated poorly by you or your employees they will not forget it. They have been personally offended. You have made the customer feel dumb, disrespected or angry. They’ve been frustrated and upset. They won’t forget it. That is why, 86% of the time, they won’t return. - smallbusinessbranding.com
Why Maintaining Font and Style is Important for Branding    Posted: 09-13-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
A successful brand is all in the details. It’s easy to get caught up in designing that perfect logo or snappy tagline for your business, while ignoring the finer points of your brand strategy. Fonts are often overlooked. Many people take them for granted while dashing off e-mails or memos, but underestimate the importance of typography and risk devaluing all the hard work you’ve poured into your brand. It’s important to get things right the first time. Choose a font style and color that best represents your business and then stick with it. Consistency is key. Keep these points in mind when developing a font you’ll be happy with for years to come. Find the Fonts that Work Search for font styles that best fit within your company’s branding strategy. Think of your business as a person; what kind of personality do you want to convey? Is your company an aggressive sales corporation or a high-end clothing store? Serif fonts typically offer more elegant characters while sans serif fonts are more clean and modern. Also consider whether any style variations would be appropriate, such as italics, light, regular or bold. Your font should always function as an extension of your brand. Plan Ahead Make sure your fonts reflect not only what the company is today, but also what it might evolve into 10 or 20 years in the future. Could your business change in any way that would make, for example, an extravagant serif font seem out of place? If you don’t consider this, your business could face a dilemma: abandon the current font and all the brand recognition it has already built up or stick with a design that no longer works for your business. Determine Your Font’s Function Where will people be reading your font? Business cards? Billboards? Online? It’s often better to use a sans serif font for websites whereas serif fonts often work well for longer documents. Try using fonts with contrasting characteristics for headlines and body text, which will build visual texture to your document or web page. You can also use all similar fonts for a more streamlined look. Keep Things Consistent Companies that are inconsistent in how they use fonts will come across as unprofessional. Carefully chosen fonts can help deliver a strategic message, whereas random diversity mutes your brand’s voice and can portray a lack of structure. This is especially true for websites. Never use one font for the Home page and another font for the Contact Us page, for example. This can confuse readers as they navigate the site and can make information difficult to read. Even print brochures or newsletters can be confusing if fonts are not kept consistent. Develop a Global Style Sheet Ensure that everyone who will be updating the website, printing new business cards or tweaking your brochure always consults your company’s style guide. This document is the font bible for your business, outlining which colors and styles can be used for certain materials. It may also contain information on the use of images and positioning of text. Developing a comprehensive style sheet can take some time, but it will pay off by ensuring your brand’s voice doesn’t become muddled by inconsistencies. - smallbusinessbranding.com
10 Referral Marketing Tactics    Posted: 09-06-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Savvy independent business people understand the power of referral marketing. In fact, many independent businesses - such as financial services professionals, interior designers, caterers, or personal trainers - grow their business exclusively through referrals. In a recent study of financial advisors, 80% of advisors' business came through referrals, and 70% of clients gave referrals on a regular basis. Referrals are the best source of new prospects: -They come pre-qualified - you typically have a good idea that they are a good potential customer because they are often just like the current customers who referred them. -They come already pre-sold - their friend's endorsement often means more than all the sales-speak in the world. -They are typically in your region or geography. -They cost almost nothing to produce and typically only require a fraction of the time to close as a cold lead. -Referrals become a quality source for more referrals 10 Referral Marketing Tactics Listed below are tactics that businesses should use to increase referral business. Experiment with different tactics. The best strategy may be to employ several activities and discover the right mix for your individual practice. 1. Ask for them Perhaps the simplest and most common form of referral marketing is simply asking your clients for them. Remind your clients that you grow your business through referrals and that you really appreciate when they refer business to you. Some businesses proudly state on their business cards that they are "100% referral based businesses". This strong message accomplishes two purposes: 1) it reminds clients to give referrals, and 2) it boasts that their client base is made up entirely of very satisfied clients. 2. Business cards Hand out business cards. Give your clients stacks of them in person and through the mail. Encourage them to give them out to potential customers. 3. Rewards and incentives Giving rewards or thank you gifts for new referrals can be a powerful way to have existing clients boost their referral giving. You offer clients a valuable reward for taking the time to give you referrals, and you fulfill the reward when referrals turn into new clients. Rewards aren't for all businesses, though. 4. Referral events ("bring a friend" invitations) Referral events can include seminars, dinners, cocktail parties, picnics, sporting events, tours, and other group activities, where you ask your clients to bring a friend. These events are equally well-suited for generating repeat business as they are for finding referrals. Many events, such as seminars, allow you to have a formal 'pitch' during the event. Other events focus on an enjoyable evening out at a restaurant or an interesting locale. These events allow you to market yourself while shedding a favorable impression on your guests. Costs and efforts: Of all tactics, this may take the most time and resources. Events can cost $500 - 3,000 on average, and go much higher depending on what you do. Don't forget about invitations, RSVP processing, signage, AV equipment and many other factors that may add up. 5. Mail campaigns and letters Sending referral request letters with stacks of business cards is an easy and non-obtrusive way to ask for referrals. A personal note or letter can respectfully ask for referrals while creating a good reason to have a positive contact with an existing customer. The more personal you can make your letters, the less they will seem like promotional direct mail. Handwriting the envelope adds a personal touch and differentiates your letter from junk mail. 6. Phone campaigns and changing your call patterns Calling clients directly and asking for referrals has many benefits: you have their immediate attention and there's a good chance that they will not postpone giving you names (provided they have some). It can also be a positive outreach to clients to see how they are doing and potentially create new sales. The downside to calling is that it is time-intensive and may bother some clients. The best strategy here is to begin including referral requests in your day-to-day contacts and phone regimen. 7. Business partner programs Business partner programs typically involve two or three different, non-competitive businesses cooperating to 'cross-seed' each other's client base. They often culminate in a joint event, like a seminar or evening out, where each business partner invites their clients to the event, and the other partner has a chance to meet or pitch to them. An example would be a financial consultant and a luxury car dealer holding a joint event. The event is a 20-minute seminar on estate planning. It's held at the auto dealer's showroom. After the seminar, guests are invited to peruse this year's new car models. Wine and cheese are served. Both businesses get to meet new affluent clients. Other example partnerings might be a CPA and a lawyer, or a wedding planner and a caterer. 8. Social events Social events, such as church, community service, children's sporting events, or school functions, can be a wonderful place to find referrals. They can be very immediate - since you are there you may meet the referred client(s) right then - and the introduction takes place in a positive, communal atmosphere. 9. Viral marketing and E-publications "Viral marketing" is electronic marketing that relies on people passing along information to others (much like a virus is passed). This is typically done by creating information products, such as articles or e-newsletters that are available to your client base and others. They have a forwarding feature that allows people who enjoyed the article to send it to friends via e-mail. Those recipient friends can then forward the article on to others. Viral marketing can be very powerful when done correctly. Forwarding e-mail or links is very easy for clients, and referrals will get a taste of your business by reading the article or e-newsletter. The difficult part is creating compelling content that is relevant to your business that is differentiated from glut of content already available on the Internet. 10. Online and e-mail programs The Internet provides new opportunities to gain referrals. Businesses should have an easy-to-find webpage that has their contact information. E-mail can be used to make non-obtrusive contacts to clients and make referral requests. The benefit of e-mail is that clients will already be at their computers and their e-mail program - the same place they keep their e-mail address books of everyone they communicate with. The client only needs a few clicks of the mouse to send you e-mail addresses of family and friends. There are online services (like ReferralSoft) that allow you to send professionally formatted e-card referral requests and track referrals online. These services advance the homespun e-mail contact into a formal, trackable referral program.
Channel Mixing - Social Media + Mail    Posted: 08-29-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Social Media mixed with direct mail is a powerful marketing tool. Social media is used by 110 million American's, or 60% of the online populations. It is expected to generate $3.08 billion in ad spending in 2011. 25% of social media is linked to a company, product or service. An example of how these channels have been used effectively is a New Orleans steakhouse who used them to boost lunchtime crowds. Though N'Tini's New Orleans Steak & Martinis is renowned for its contemporary take on two legendary food 'n' drink staples, management at the steak joint wanted to raise the restaurant's profile even higher. Well known throughout the greater New Orleans area for its lively dinnertime ambiance, this Big Easy watering hole needed to sizzle up its lunchtime traffic. "They wanted to make sure that people didn't just associate them with a dinner-time experience," says Renee Hall, VP of business development for marketing technology company Dukky. N'Tini's and Dukky partnered to create an initiative that leveraged direct mail, personalized URLs (PURLs), social media and e-mails. Title "Let's Meat Up for Lunch," the integrated N/Tini's campaign was made irresistible by its offer of a free burger and fries during lunch hours only. About 6700 postcards measuring 6"x9.5" were sent to customers within a three-mile radius of the restaurant. The postcards instructed customers to log on to their PURL, where they were walked through a four-step activation process, given the chance to share the offer with friends through e-mail and on over 300 social media networks, and then encouraged to print the offer for redemption at the restaurant. More than 450 people responded from the mail piece, activating their PURL and sharing the message with friends. That resulted in an additional 2469 customers visiting the site for a total response of 2949. Of those, 333 users shared the offer on Facebook and Twitter and through e-mail. Ultimately, a total of 1311 people visited N'Tini's site through shares. Sixteen percent of N'Tini's redemptions were from postcards. The rest were from social media and the web. - Deliver magazine, Volume 7, Issue 4
Clever Outdoor Ads That Grab Your Attention    Posted: 08-16-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
I found a great post that illustrates the impressive effect of creative and effective advertising. Compelling signage can resonate with the customer, so that you aren't likely to be forgotten very easily. Please take a look! 8 Clever Outdoor Ads That Gets The Message Across
Branding Yourself Online    Posted: 08-09-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Another great article by Small Business Branding that explains the importance of branding yourself online and how to gain and edge over your competitors. "Chances are great that your competition is not taking full advantage of their time by promoting themselves properly. Take comfort in the fact that most people will not do the hard work it takes to succeed. If opportunity resists walking through their door, they blame the world for their failure to make an impact. This time of year is ideal for taking a step back and analyzing how you have done over the past year and what goals you will strive for in the near future. How you achieve those goals will be critical in validating new media you’ve taken the time to implement for your own success. Traditional media are becoming increasingly less important. Technology is fast dominating how we live our lives. How we stay connected from a personal and professional perspective. Some of these new media include: • Social networking including Facebook and Twitter. Make sure that your comments are directed towards your services that you offer. Mix in a healthy dose of comments to do with your personal interests. Together, all of your comments will flush out your personal and professional brand. • Html email. Virtually every one of your target market willingly accept email at their desktop. Where traditional mail fails to breech the gate keeper, email is delivered right into their hands. Developing lists is fundamental in targeting messages that resonate. • Targeted text email. The simplest form of email promotion. Text email allows you to express a quick message without concerning yourself with visual content. • Websites. Where once it was sufficient to have simply a brochure site, today the focus is resources and tools for your customer. Using your website to fulfill a need for information, throws a lifeline to them. • Web video. A fabulous platform for inspirational messages, product launches and any message where visuals can be harnessed to tell a story. • Podcasts are audio files that generally provides great free content that benefits your audience. There are also video podcasts that extend the medium. • Mobile marketing is the new kid on the block. The vast majority have smartphones in their possession. Increasingly it is becoming apparent that harnessing this new media will prove it’s importance to us all. What other new media are you watching? Sharing your insight strengthens us all. Slow moving competition have no idea that many of these new media models exist. Snatch the opportunity before they do catch on. If your competition has embraced these new media, then it is your duty to out-finesse them. As I’ve always stressed, “Lead don’t follow”. Use this holiday season to investigate how you can adopt these new areas to your benefit. Establish time and budget targets to start using them to develop new business leads." - http://www.smallbusinessbranding.com
What to Consider When Printing Your Logo    Posted: 08-01-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
I found a great article from Small Business Branding that I think is worth sharing. As a print shop, we get a lot of file types in, some of which are not best suited for the format that they are being printed in. From a marketing standpoint, you'd only want your business being represented in the best light, right? The way your logo, especially, shows up on printed media can positively or negatively impact your brand image. "Is your logo ready for the printers? Transferring your business logo from the screen to a printed version is a great way to enhance your brand recognition, but it’s more complicated than you think. Since your logo is a direct reflection of the company, it’s very important that your logo be designed and perfected for the print medium. Here are a few important considerations when preparing your logo for print. The Logo Make sure this is the final version of the logo you want to print. Consider the purpose of your logo, where it will be printed, the size, the colors – everything. Having to re-print a batch of business cards or posters because the logo was slightly off not only creates a bunch of paper waste, but also hurts the company wallet. Printer Format If you are working with a professional printer, you should talk to them about what formats they prefer to receive. Generally, PDF files (both vector and raster) are accepted and are of good-enough quality. Vector graphics are comprised of points, lines and curves that are all mathematically generated. They can be scaled from the size of a business card to the size of a billboard without losing any of the image quality or detail. Raster graphics, on the other hand, should only be printer at 300 dpi. A 3” x 3” logo is equivalent to a 900px x 900px image, but if you stretch it to 6” x 6”x, the pixels double to 1800px x 1800px. Now your computer has to guess what to do with the 3,150,000 blank space created from the 6” x 6” image. This is done using a specific algorithm, but the image will still become blurry and lose detail as it’s stretched larger. It’s also good to know what fonts your printer has on their machines. Whenever possible, you should embed fonts or create outlines of the text. Not doing so may lead to delays or ending up with the wrong prints. Resolution Images for web are usually 72 dpi (dots per inch), which is standard for screen resolution. However, your logo resolution should be a minimum of 300 dpi for the actual print. Most commercial printers print at 300 dpi, though if yours can go higher it is a good rule of thumb to use the highest resolution possible. Printing in low resolution will result in blurry images which will impress no one. However, if it is a vector file, you shouldn’t have much of a problem as long as it was saved properly. Use CMYK You need to use CMYK color format to create a logo. CMYK is designed specifically for accurate professional printing, unlike the RGB color format which is better suited for the web and on-screen publishing. Most printers use CMYK ink or toner cartridges to print your images and logos – converting from RGB to CMYK can cause the colors to become muted and washed out. It is better to use true black (100K black) for small text to help keep it clean and crisp, and dark charcoal or grey shades for larger areas of black. After checking everything, you should run some test prints. It may cost a little extra, but test prints allow you to see it as a tangible thing and then change any last minute details before sending a large order to the printers." -http://www.smallbusinessbranding.com/4893/what-to-consider-when-printing-your-logo/
Glossary of Select Printing Terms O-W    Posted: 07-19-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Offset Printing Printing technique that transfers ink from a plate to a blanket to paper instead of directly from plate to paper. Opacity (1) Characteristic of paper or other substrate that prevents printing on one side from showing through the other side. (2) Characteristic of ink that prevents the substrate from showing through. Opaque (1) Not transparent. (2) To cover flaws in negative with tape or opaquing paint. Also called block out and spot. Over Run Additional printed matter beyond order. Overage policy varies in the printing industry. Advance questions avoid blind knowledge. Parent Sheet Any sheet larger than 11' x 17' or A3. Perfect Bind To bind sheets that have been ground at the spine and are held to the cover by glue. Also called adhesive bind, cut-back bind, glue bind, paper bind, patent bind, perfecting bind, soft bind and soft cover. Perforating Taking place on a press or a binder machine, creating a line of small dotted wholes for the purpose of tearing-off a part of a printed matter (usually straight lines, vertical or horizontal). Pixel Short for picture element, a dot made by a computer, scanner or other digital device. Also called pel. Plate Piece of paper, metal, plastic or rubber carrying an image to be reproduced using a printing press. PMS Obsolete reference to Pantone Matching System. The correct trade name of the colors in the Pantone Matching System is Pantone colors, not PMS Colors. Prepress Camera work, color separations, stripping, platemaking and other prepress functions performed by the printer, separator or a service bureau prior to printing. Also called preparation. Press Proof Proof made on press using the plates, ink and paper specified for the job. Also called strike off and trial proof. Process Color (Inks) The colors used for four-color process printing: yellow, magenta, cyan and black. Proof Test sheet made to reveal errors or flaws, predict results on press and record how a printing job is intended to appear when finished. Quick Printing Printing using small sheetfed presses, called duplicators, using cut sizes of bond and offset paper. Quotation, "Quote" Price offered by a printer to produce a specific job. Ream 500 sheets of paper. Register To place printing properly with regard to the edges of paper and other printing on the same sheet. Such printing is said to be in register. Resolution Sharpness of an image on film, paper, computer screen, disc, tape or other medium. RGB Abbreviation for red, green, blue, the additive color primaries. Saddle Stitch To bind by stapling sheets together where they fold at the spine, as compared to side stitch. Also called pamphlet stitch, saddle wire and stitch bind. Screen Printing Method of printing by using a squeegee to force ink through an assembly of mesh fabric and a stencil. Self Mailer A printed item independent of an envelope. A printed item capable of travel in the mailing arena independently. Slip Sheets Separate sheets (stock) independent from the original run positioned between the "printed run" for a variety of reasons. Soy-based Inks Inks using vegetable oils instead of petroleum products as pigment vehicles, thus are easier on the environment. Spread (1) Two pages that face each other and are designed as one visual or production unit. (2) Technique of slightly enlarging the size of an image to accomplish a hairline trap with another image. Also called fatty. Thermography Method of printing using colorless resin powder that takes on the color of underlying ink. Also called raised printing. Total Area Coverage Total of the dot percentages of the process colors in the final film. Abbreviated for TAC. Also called density of tone, maximum density, shadow saturation, total dot density and total ink coverage. Uncoated Paper Paper that has not been coated with clay. Also called offset paper. Value The shade (darkness) or tint (lightness) of a color. Also called brightness, lightness, shade and tone. Wash Up To clean ink and fountain solutions from rollers, fountains, screens, and other press components. Waste Unusable paper or paper damage during normal makeready, printing or binding operations, as compared to spoilage. Web Press Press that prints from rolls of paper, usually cutting it into sheets after printing. Also called reel-fed press. Web presses come in many sizes, the most common being mini, half, three quarter (also called 8-pages) and full (also called 16-pages). With the Grain Parallel to the grain direction of the paper being used, as compared to against the grain. See also Grain Direction.
Glossary of Select Printing Terms A-N    Posted: 07-12-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Aqueous Coating Coating in a water base and applied like ink by a printing press to protect and enhance the printing underneath. Bleed Printing that extends to the edge of a sheet or page after trimming. Bond paper Category of paper commonly used for writing, printing and photocopying. Also called business paper, communication paper, correspondence paper and writing paper. Bristol Paper General term referring to paper 6 points or thicker with basis weight between 90# and 200# (200-500 gsm). Used for products such as index cards, file folders and displays. Camera/Print-ready Copy Mechanicals, photographs and art fully prepared for reproduction according to the technical requirements of the printing process being used. Also called finished art and reproduction copy. CMYK Abbreviation for cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black), the four process colors. Coverage Extent to which ink covers the surface of a substrate. Ink coverage is usually expressed as light, medium or heavy. Crop Marks Lines near the edges of an image indicating portions to be reproduced. Also called cut marks and tic marks. Die Device for cutting, scoring, stamping, embossing and debossing. Digital Proofing Page proofs produced through electronic memory transferred onto paper via laser or ink-jet. Dots-per-inch Measure of resolution of input devices such as scanners, display devices such as monitors, and output devices such as laser printers, imagesetters and monitors. Abbreviated DPI. Also called dot pitch. Dull Finish Flat (not glossy) finish on coated paper; slightly smoother than matte. Also called suede finish, velour finish and velvet finish. Emboss To press an image into paper so it lies above the surface. Also called cameo and tool. EPS Encapsulated Post Script, a known file format usually used to transfer post script information from one program to another. Vector image, made of lines rather than pixels. Estimate Price that states what a job will probably cost. Also called bid, quotation and tender. Finished Size Size of product after production is completed, as compared to flat size. Also called trimmed size. Gate Fold A sheet that folds where both sides fold toward the gutter in overlapping layers. Gloss Consider the light reflecting on various objects in the printing industry (e.g., paper, ink, laminates, UV coating, varnish). Grain Direction Predominant direction in which fibers in paper become aligned during manufacturing. Also called machine direction. Important information for folding and scoring. Gutter In the book arena, the inside margins toward the back or the binding edges. Hickey Spot or imperfection in printing, most visible in areas of heavy ink coverage, caused by dirt on the plate or blanket. Also called bulls eye and fish eye. Imprint To print new copy on a previously printed sheet, such as imprinting an employee's name on business cards. Also called surprint. Job Number A number assigned to a specific printing project in a printing company for use in tracking and historical record keeping. Job Ticket Form used by service bureaus, separators and printers to specify production schedule of a job and the materials it needs. Also called docket, production order and work order. K Abbreviation for black in four-color process printing. Hence the 'K' in CMYK. Letter fold Two folds creating three panels that allow a sheet of letterhead to fit a business envelope. Also called barrel fold and wrap around fold. Margin Imprinted space around the edge of the printed material. Mechanical Separation Color breaks made on the mechanical using a separate overlay for each color to be printed. Nested Signatures assembled inside one another in the proper sequence for binding, as compared to gathered. Also called inset.
Optimize Your Website for a Growing Mobile Audience    Posted: 07-05-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
With the explosion of mobil technology, more and more business is being conducted on the go. According to recent research by Limelight Network, 80% of smartphone or tablet owners who used their device for product research or purchase say they will abandon a mobile site due to a poor experience. Customers expect their mobile shopping experience to match their expectations of what occurs on a desktop computer. In the minds of consumers, there is no mobil Web - there's only the web. Google research in 2011 shows that after conducting a mobile search, 68% of users visited a business online or in person and 53% made a purchase. Yet only 33% of advertisers have a mobile website, says Google. It seems businesses have some catching up to do. And, the growth in mobile commerce isn't coming just from smartphones. Tablets now drive 2@ of all Web traffic in the U.S., says comScore, and half of all tablet owners have made a purchase on their tablet. What steps can you take to ensure a positive experience for visitors to your mobil website? Here are six things to keep in mind: 1. Watch your load time. The time it takes for a site to load ranked as "extremely important" or "important" to 88% of Limelight Network's survey respondents. Keep the number of pages to a minimum. 2. Pay attention to images. Use product videos and up-close product shots that help to show detail on a smaller screen. A 2010 eMarketer survey showed online retailers consistently reported higher conversion rates and lower rates of shopping cart abandonment with the use of product videos... something to consider for a mobile experience too. 3. Keep design and content simple. Mobile site optimization was "extremely important" or "important" to 82% in the Limelight Network survey. That means avoid cramming all of the information you have on your primary website onto a mobile version. Include just the key pieces of information your visitors will want, like your location (address and map), hours of operation, phone number, any current promotions and a simple shopping cart and check-out function for purchase. 4. Maintain your brand identity. Like every other interaction you have with your customers and prospects (direct mail, email, social media and standard website, etc.), a mobile site experience should be consistent in look and feel. 5. Satisfy the need for more. Provide a link to your standard website for visitors who want information that didn't make the cut for your mobile site. 6. Limit text entry. Even the most nimble-fingered can be challenged by filling out multiple, small data fields on their phone. Use drop-down menus and radio buttons for making data selections when possible.' - Marketing Insider, Issue 2, 2012
Where Are You in Local Search?    Posted: 06-27-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
According to Google, about 26% of online searches are local in nature, either including geography right in the search (i.e. oil change Helena, Montana) or using words that otherwise suggest the searcher wants local. Google fields about 3 billion searches per day, meaning about 780 million local searches. Local search is even bigger on mobile. Mobile marketing is growing, and outpacing most other mobile marketing channels is mobile search. Google estimates 0% of searches from mobile devices are local. Plus, mobile local searchers take action. In the U.S., 87% of mobile local searchers are doing something as a result of their search, like visiting a business, making reservations or buying online for in-store pick-up. Here are three ways you can get in on the local action: 1. Claim your local listings. According to Google, just 15% of small businesses have claimed their local listing on Google. Because 70% of online searchers will use local search to find offline businesses, it's the single most valuable thing you can do. The prominence and visibility from many local listing sources is affected by the completeness of your profile and the consistency of the information. In addition, completeness of a profile can affect the conversion of a visitor to that Web page. Make it easy for users to find the information they seek. If you log on to www.getlisted.org you can claim your online listings for the top 10 sites, including Google, Yelp, Yahoo!, Citysearch, and Bing. 2. Build citations using local directories. A citation is any mention of a business name, address and phone number. Most of that happens in local directories (and it;s certainly the easiest way to build them), but it can happen anywhere. If someone writes a blog post about you that has your business name, address and phone number - but doesn't like to your website - it serves as a type of citation (i.e. Chamber of Commerce, local professional groups, local merchant's society, etc.). Much like links, citations have an impact that depends on the reputation and authority of the site the citation appears on. Several citations from minor, low-authority blogs or pages aren't worth as much as a single citation from an authoritative source, like the Better Business Bureau. Balance quantity with quality. 3. Make sure you have regionally appropriate content on-site. Some regional content is straight-forward. Use a local phone number, mention a local office on your website and strategically place geographic references in the body copy of your pages. Blogs are also a great way to localize your content. Consider a local flavor piece or talk about something regional. Give a shout-out to a local event, band or other event that ties you to a region. Link out to local places of interest - as long as it makes sense for your website and your business. - Marketing Insider, Issue 2, 2012
One and Done?    Posted: 06-19-2012 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Too many marketers believe that using only one channel for messaging makes sense. In a recent survey by Pitney Bowes found that nearly 60 percent of marketers incorporate multiple channels in their marketing efforts. What is shocking is that that means that 4 in 10 do not. With the recent explosion in channels for communicating with customers, it's hard to understand why some companies are focusing their efforts on only one. Sure, we understand that little voice in your head that says your channel of choice is working just fine, so why change. (Let's call that what it is: fear). Or maybe you're thinking it makes more sense to put your money into one well-focused effort than to fragment it across several less-sturdy performers. But would you ever take that same approach with your investment portfolio? A handyman with one tool no matter the job? A golfer with only one club? All your eggs in one basket? You'd never recommend that - so it's simply amazing many marketers believe that one tool with handle all of their communication objective. It's not that you can't favor one method of communication - every marketer has one channel that's more powerful than the others - but if you stick to one and only one, you miss out on the chance for the multiplier effect. Pair communication in two channels and you're likely to experience a boost in results. For example, use mail to drive people to your website and you increase traffic and boost sales. Studies have shown it and, better yet, companies have tried it and succeeded. Combine mail with your social media marketing and suddenly you're creating new fans of your brand, driving more interaction and, generally, building a stronger relationship with customers. So, if you're among the 40 percent who are using only one channel, think about boosting the power of that channel by adding another. You might be surprised what adding more power to your marketing can do for you. - Deliver Magazine, August 2011
Support your local non profits    Posted: 06-28-2011 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
visit: http://www.helpinghelena.com/ and learn how helena motors is working to help our local non profits. To vote visit http://www.facebook.com/HelenaMotors?ref=search&sid=507845734.2837540370..1&v=wall Voting closes in 1 week announcing the final top 4 organizations each to recieve $5000! Keep voting and asking for support! The organizations are all close to keep it up! Here are the top 10 as of today: 1. Pads for Paws http://www.padforpaws.org/ 2. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Helena http://bbbs-helena.org/ 3. Helena Area Friends of Pets (HAFoP) http://www.hafop.net 4. Montana Veterans Foundation/Willis Cruse House http://mtvf.org 5. Lewis & Clark Humane Society http://www.mtlchs.org 6. Lewis & Clark Library Foundation http://www.lclibfoundation.org 7. Helena Family YMCA http://www.helenaymca.org 8. Ryan United http://www.ryanunited.org 9. Friendship Center http://thefriendshipcenter.org/ 10. Intermountain www.intermountain.org
Putting the “letter” back in the newsletter    Posted: 10-19-2010 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Allegra recently revamped the Blackfoot Challenge’s newsletter, taking their old, one-color tabloid format to a more intimate, personable, letter-inspired communication. The Blackfoot Challenge is an organization that follows an inclusive, consensus-based approach to coordinate efforts that conserve and enhance the natural resources and rural way of life in the Blackfoot River Valley Watershed. The group is composed of a diverse audience including local landowners, government officials, corporate landowners, and general citizens concerned with land conservation and stewardship. The diverse membership means that members view the watershed differently -- to some it’s a place to protect wildlife, to others it’s a place to raise cattle. However, despite the different opinions, to each member, the Watershed is a personal place with special meaning. It’s that personal experience and sense of place that Allegra tied into the redesign of their newsletter. The mail panel, which is often unrealized space on newsletters, features a beautiful landscape photo of the Watershed and the words “To our friend” above the recipient’s name. Allegra printed blank, full-color shells that allowed for 3 different cover images to be used so each issue of the newsletter will have a fresh image. When it comes time to print the next issue, however, the design accommodates a one-color imprint on the color shells, thus making for a full-color newsletter at the cost of a one color print job. Rather than the newsletter taking the form of a conventional tabloid booklet, the newsletter is a single continuous sheet, more like a personal letter.
Avoiding the biggest mistake in direct mail    Posted: 10-19-2010 | View 0 Comments | Add Comment
Do not confuse direct mail with general advertising. For success with direct mail, it’s essential that you apply the principles of direct response communications – meaning, you target the most likely audience for your message, and you include an offer, a call to action and a response vehicle. If you simply use direct mail to blanket the marketplace with awareness messages, you are wasting the power of the medium – and also wasting money due to mail’s relatively high cost per contact.