Happy Halloween

With Diwali celebrations in India last week and Halloween today, it seems like a special time everywhere! Diwali is the festival of lights and if you’re in India at this time, you can expect to see every window in every home or shop lit up with traditional oil lamps or the equally ubiquitous strings of electric lights. If you’re in India, happy Diwali!

To the rest of you, happy Halloween. Have a terror-filled, dark and gory holiday and (if you aren’t busy setting out candy or making last-minute adjustments to your costume) check out these designs created by our team. Pretty creepy, huh?

Designs of the Quarter: Online Ad, Coupon, Vector Art

The results of this year’s third Designs of the Quarter contest are in, and as always, I’m proud to present some of the best work within Affinity Express.

Online Ad

This eye-catching ad was an easy choice for Design of the Quarter because it grabs attention. Regardless of the online newspaper’s headline, you can’t ignore the ad because it surrounds the content. Even better, it earned high praise from our client: “We need to keep maintaining the high quality we’ve become accustomed to through Affinity Express. This is an AWESOME piece of creative built by your team. Keep up this great work.”

The Potential of Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses

Small businesses seem to agree that social media marketing is effective.

• “Creating a profile on a social network” was named the most effective marketing or advertising tactic. (MerchantCircle survey, 2011)
• 34% of respondents who had used social media said it helped them reach new potential customers and 15% said it increased sales. (Deluxe Corp survey, 2011)

via eMarketer

However, they are yet to explore the full potential of social media.

• 1/3 are not yet using Facebook
• Roughly half of SMBs have not used Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn.  
• Roughly 3 in 4 SMBs have not used Groupon, Yelp, LivingSocial, or Foursquare.

This should soon change: 83% small businesses plan to use social media for business. Yet social media is far from being indispensable: only 4% small businesses can’t do without it.

Repurposing Content

As a marketer, I’m constantly inundated with advice on what I should be doing. Apparently, marketers are now publishers, but not the old-fashioned magazine publishers who only needed to worry about one issue for the month. We have blog posts to write (and they’d better be long and well-written and useful and frequent), newsletters to send out regularly to our subscribers, website copy to frequently update (to catch the attention of the elusive search engines), the Facebook page to continually update and monitor, the Twitter account to be briefly witty on, the press releases to send out and reach the media, sales collateral to keep engaging and current, events to plan for, and maybe ads to create and manage. Don’t forget the internal communication: at Affinity Express, for example, we have a quarterly newsletter, as well as memos and posters we often put up to inform our internal audience.

How does a small marketing team with limited resources do all this?

1. Read widely.

Not only is reading about industry news and best practices essential for you to learn, it also helps you think and may provide material for a blog post. I’ve blogged about a book I read (and that was a fiction book and not about marketing or business, so don’t be narrow in your selection), articles that I disagreed with, a blog post and speech that inspired me.  I also routinely cull industry articles and put in a few of the best links into our monthly newsletters.

2. Dig into what’s already available.

Creative Blocks: How to Work Through and Find Your Inspiration

“The creative mind of an artist is an expression of his soul,” but what happens when your creativity dries up? We’ve all experienced it: the ideas aren’t coming, the clock is ticking and the client (or the boss) is waiting.

It is very human to face creative blocks, regardless of the type of work you do. As a senior designer for a dynamic company with a heavy workload and tight deadlines, I don’t have the luxury of letting them get the best of me.

As Professor Robert Winston says, great composers have come through creative blocks to produce outstanding works. That’s great to know, but how do you get over it and FAST?

1.  Manage expectations

When you realize you are stuck, it is important to manage your client or supervisor to make him or her feel that you have everything covered. Suggest concepts, get feedback and provide updates (basically, appear like you don’t have a block). Ask plenty of questions, as you never know if an answer or insight will suddenly solve the problem for you. Either way, the communication will help the person understand the process and feel engaged, which buys you some time.

Marketing for the Holidays

When the weather is warm, the sun is shining and kids are out of school, I think about . . . the winter holidays. It sounds counterintuitive but this is the best time to put together plans, place orders and get ahead of the requirements of the season. I realize the summer has already passed, but hope this post will help you catch up!

The best advice of all is to start as soon as possible. These days, holiday decorations go on sale the day after Halloween with good reason—many people start planning and purchasing early. That’s why, whether you are a B2C or B2B company, it pays to have a roadmap for the holidays before you start hearing carols and seeing inflatable snow men on your neighbors’ lawns.

What Employees Say About Affinity Express

Earlier this year, when we revisited our core values and packaged them in the new avatar of ELITE, we asked employees what they thought of Affinity Express. We wanted to be sure that we all have the same view of the company, regardless of job function.

Here are some of the interesting responses we received.

Working in the outsourcing industry can be tough: there are tight deadlines, clients to please and targets to meet. And Affinity Express provides design services, so on top of everything else is the pressure to be creative. As these employees say:

“Affinity Express is different from other BPOs. Our industry is more creative.”

“Designing is a challenge in itself, but thinking outside the box for another culture and for clients in North America takes it to a new level.”

“The expectations for individuals at Affinity Express are very high, as the company does not compromise on quality. However, it helps all individuals reach levels where they can deliver the best quality for the roles they perform.”

“It is very busy, but everyone plays by the rules.”

“There is never a dull moment.”

Employees kick back at a team party