Marketing Resolutions for the New Year

As I get ready to take a few days off around the holidays, I was thinking about 2014 and what I want to do differently to continually challenge myself. Plus, I am in the process of welcoming a new team member and saying goodbye to one who has become a terrific asset and friend. So I created a list of marketing resolutions to capitalize on what has changed and developed in 2013.

• Enhance and leverage the brand. We used a strategy agency to help us hone our plans for the next three to five years in terms of new markets and services. Not every company has the resources to do this and it was a first for Affinity Express as well. But that means we have an excellent opportunity to make sure we are completely integrated. We can reorient everything we do around our brand and the promise it carries. As Marketing Thingy suggests, marketers should go beyond advertising to every communication piece, the structure of our offices, the forms we use and programs we develop. The point is to use the brand like a lens to view everything we do. Even if you didn’t revisit your strategy like we did, you can still focus on integrating your brand.
• Produce great content. We have been deep into content marketing for a while now but I’d like to broaden to more formats and increase visual marketing this year. There is a good rationale as nearly 40% of U.S. companies use blogs for marketing purposes and companies that blog have 55% more website visitors. On top of that, 90% of companies market with custom content today. Content marketing is less expensive and more effective than traditional mass marketing and it is more appropriate for the digital era. If you are seen as an expert on relevant topics, you will build a larger following. The components of a content marketing plan are:

Small Business Holiday Greetings

According to a Constant Contact holiday survey, 31% of small businesses say winter is their busiest season, 65% expect 2013 revenues to exceed those of 2012 and 52% say holiday customers become repeat, loyal customers. With this data in mind, why wouldn’t you use holiday greetings to thank customers and prospects while building relationships, increasing sales and acquiring new customers?

The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will for the new year, as noted by the Greeting Card Association. The early Egyptians shared greetings on papyrus scrolls. The first published Christmas cards appeared in London in 1843, when Sir Henry Cole hired the artist John Calcott Horsley to design a card that could be sent to friends.

Every year, Affinity Express selects a famous painting to interpret in embroidery and creates a small number of cards. For the 2012 card, we featured van Gogh’s “The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum” and won a Golden Needle Award from Stitches Magazine!

Holiday cards for businesses should include:

• Logo and slogan or tagline
• Contact information
• Social media profiles
• Website address

Your greeting should be generic to avoid offending anyone’s beliefs but you do want to stand out in the pile of messages your customers and prospects receive. Ruff Haus Design has some advice on crafting holiday sentiments:

1. Save time by ordering pre-printed cards. Standard greetings are okay, but sign cards and, if possible, address them by hand.
2. Tailor your approach. You should spend more time adding a personal note for the best customers.
3. Leverage email. It is acceptable to send email greetings, although it is better to make the salutation specific to the person rather than “Dear Customer”.

Some examples of wording that businesses can use are as follows:

• Thank you for being our valued customer. We wish you a beautiful holiday season and blissful year’s end.
• Sending you warm wishes of gratitude this holiday season for your ongoing business, support and referrals. Happy Holidays!
• Best wishes for a happy holiday season and our sincere thanks for your loyalty and goodwill throughout the year.

Facetivus is the offering from Iris Worldwide, which featured videos of staffers getting eggnog, pies and various other items thrown at their faces in the name of charity. For each video play racked up, the agency donated a dollar to Hurricane Sandy relief.

Holiday cards can be created cost effectively and professionally at these websites:

• 123print.com
• BusinesscardStar.com
• Moo.com
• Overnight Prints
• Deluxe.com
• DeGraeve.com (free)
• VistaPrint

This is one of the many options available from VistaPrint for printing.

Since the major cost in ordering cards is in the set-up, the Small Business Advisor notes that you will probably find that adding another 50 or 100 is a nominal cost, especially compared to placing a second new order later. And you never know when a card will break through and generate a sale.

During the holidays, you shouldn’t limit yourself to reaching customers through greeting cards. You can also write letters to give thanks for whatever your clients did for you in the past year, describe plans or aspirations for the next year, include some news about your company or the year’s activities and provide an invitation or other call to action (e.g., test a product, receive a free gift or sample, get new information, etc.).

It is even better to reach out in multiple ways to stay top-of-mind. Build on printed cards with:

• Ecards. Keep greetings brief (30 to 60 seconds at most) and engaging for best results. You could show images or video of your offices or stores and employees.

DraftFCB deserved some recognition for their innovative holiday greeting in 2011. If you typed your address into a snow globe, a picture of your house appeared. Then it would snow in front of your home!

• Enewsletters. Offer suggestions on how to use your products to solve problems or improve enjoyment of the holidays (e.g., wrapping tips, recipes, shipping deadlines, etc.). For example, if your products make great last-minute gifts, reinforce how stress is reduced by having them on-hand.
• Gifts. It is not critical to spend a lot on items as long as they are perceived as valuable to customers and/or tie in with your business. For example, if you are selling festive apparel for the holidays, an “emergency kit” of safety pins, bandages, stain remover and more that women can stash in their purses could work.
• Coupons/discounts. Along with your thank-you messages, send out encouragement for future purchases. If you distribute offers via email, be sure to share them on social media as well. You can encourage people to share the promotions with their family and friends.
• Social media greetings. Tweet and post on all your profiles. You can show a personal side with photos of employee holiday parties or customers using your products. If you can publish tips for the holidays, your will position yourself as a resource for customers.
• Mobile greetings. Happy holiday messages can be sent with last-minute gift ideas or solutions, as well as images of new product releases and special savings that can be redeemed using smartphones.

Western Carolina University created a long-form greeting that paints a wonderful picture of the culture and campus.

• In-store and invoices. Hand out greeting cards at the checkout with discounts for post-holiday shopping to show your gratitude for purchases. If you print and mail invoices, you can include cards and coupons in the same envelope.
• In-store events. Host a gathering for your customers. To make it even more attractive, offer babysitting and free gift-wrapping. Depending on the time of day, you can serve wine or hot cider and finger foods. A hair salon could offer discounts on products and reward points for booking hair and spa appointments for the future.

How do you thank customers and spread holiday cheer at this time of the year? How has this changed from print to digital or multichannel formats?

Affinity Express emails a digital card every year to express our gratitude while showing what we can do for clients.

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

Video for Small Business Marketing: Costs and Tools

Video is a powerful way to increase the visibility of your company and gain new customers. It is the fastest-growing segment of the internet and more than half of all web traffic is now video because people prefer viewing this kind of content to reading text online. In terms of numbers, there are 13 million Vine users on Twitter, social video platform Vimeo announced 14 million members, YouTube has a viewership in the billions and it is the second most used search engine. In fact, more than four billion hours of video are viewed each month.

But using video to promote your business is difficult, time consuming and expensive, right? Wrong! Video marketing is possible for every budget. You can improve your Google rank, turn your visitors into customers and increase the amount of sales from your marketing spend.

Type of Content

Because videos grab attention, people are more likely to click on them than to read text. Furthermore, they are more likely to share video on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon and other social channels, leading to more views and potentially more revenue. The type of content that works well in video format is:

• A physical product or service so it can be shown or demonstrated. This allows you to illustrate benefits and skills. Video is especially effective if you have an interesting or novel product.
• Instructions on how to use or do something. These videos let customers make an immediate connection and see how your product helps them.
• Creative or funny topics. When you make viewers smile or laugh, it is more likely the association with your brand will be positive.
• More detail on a news story with statistics and information. If you add your own spin or angle, you build authority and credibility.
• Coverage of live events. This is a way to make your company more relevant.

But instead of creating video commercials, you should concentrate on providing value. For example, if you are a restaurant, think about sharing cooking tips or bringing signature recipes to life. This is a great way to educate your prospects and customers. You can also show a different side of your business, such as how products are made, how team members are trained or special features of stores. Testimonials are also more compelling in video format.

Tips

1. Focus on viewer needs. The best way to approach your videos is to consider your target audience, the main features that will interest them or questions they need answered, and the most effective way to convey that information.
2. Keep videos brief. The ideal length for a video is under four minutes. You have about 50 seconds to capture viewers before they are likely to skip a video. If you have an involved, detailed topic, consider a series of videos as an alternative to long and in-depth content.
3. Show your personality. Videos should spotlight your company’s culture and personality in a genuine way.
4. Tell a story. There should be a narrative curve to your videos, including climaxes and resolutions, even if you are selling products.
5. Use hotspots. Embed links to additional content, quizzes, contests or other interactive features for viewers. Just be careful not to overload your videos with these.
6. Choose your cover image wisely. No one will click on videos to watch if the images are boring or blurry.
7. Choose your video style and music carefully. Typically, upbeat music works best.
8. Add a call-to-action button. You message should be simple and direct.
9. Analyze what works and doesn’t work. Google Analytics, Salesforce and Optimizely highlight where in videos people stop watching, which sections are most effective eliciting responses and when people share videos.

Costs

According to the 2013 Advertisers Survey from placemedia (commissioned from uSAMP), when it comes to small businesses, 95 percent of advertising executives felt that video advertisements on cable or broadcast TV are highly effective, with 66 percent of the respondents stating they introduce products to people in the surrounding areas. Nearly half said video advertisements on cable or television make small businesses look as big as national brands, followed by 36 percent who said these advertisements provide a local call to action.

However, 97% of respondents believe the reasons keeping small businesses from buying video ads for broadcast or cable include cost (89 percent) and that videos are too difficult to produce (42 percent).

But it is now possible for small companies to create video that looks and sounds as great as what major brands produced for millions of dollars just a few years ago. High-quality cameras cost just a few hundred dollars and there are many free tools. You can use photos and screen captures of your website along with simple transitions to give your video an animated look. Depending on the effect you want, you can also use low-cost options for editing software, voice overs and hosting (see next section on tools).

If you don’t want to produce videos yourself, there are services available through publishers, local media and specialty providers at a range of costs. For example, your local cable TV station may produce videos for an additional fee if you buy air time. This article provides some good perspective on what you can expect to spend, depending on your requirements.

Tools

• YouTube. Take advantage of free uploading, extended video length options and powerful editing tools. By adding a keyword rich title and description, along with tags associated with the video content, videos can rank high in search results. An added benefit of YouTube videos is that Facebook converts them to they play inline right in the Facebook News Feed, so people are not getting bounced somewhere else to view. Videos can be embedded into websites and shared on other social media with YouTube tools. This is how to embed a YouTube video montage.
• Facebook Video. Facebook allows videos to play in the News Feed, offers free video hosting space and has easy social sharing tools. Videos can be embedded on websites and blogs. Plus, videos can drive high volumes of Likes, comments and shares to extend the reach and visibility of your company.
• Instagram. This mobile app has features for quick and easy video creation and sharing, offering up to 15 seconds of video recording on mobile devices, social media sharing and more. You can create videos anytime and anywhere because you use your mobile phone. The videos can be embedded on websites.
• Vine. This is another mobile app, which enables you to introduce products and demonstrate them. Videos are six seconds and automatically loop. This can be used to show your company culture, event excerpts, testimonials and more. Videos can be embedded on websites and shared on other social media.
• GoAnimate. This tool offers numerous templates, characters, backgrounds and music tracks. You can add special effects and the videos are hosted for you. Not only is it easy to learn to use GoAnimate, there is one-click publishing to YouTube. Pricing starts at $25 per month (billed annually).
• Animoto. Get high-quality background and motion formats. You can also drop in video and still images, select music from the library and produce professional videos. There is a free plan and a pro level for $39 per month.
• Screencast. Many companies use Screencast for tutorials and software demos because this simple format lets you create videos by taking screen shots and adding voice-overs. A free account provides 2 GB of storage and 2 GB monthly bandwidth.
• Camtasia. This screencasting tool lets you capture the action on your computer and will record your voice narration if you want. This can be helpful when you want to demonstrate software, share slides, or use photos or camera video. Rather than provide long manuals, conduct telephone training or host expensive in-person demonstrations, you can cost-effectively employ video. Camtasia enables you to edit the videos for polished final footage. You can also use themes, graphics, clickable links and other elements. It also integrates with YouTube for one-step uploads. The license is $299, but there is a free trial to test it out.
• Bravo. You can conveniently let customers record, review and send their videos to you. Then you approve and place them on your website, blog, YouTube or other channels. The starter plan is $24 per month and a free trial is available.
• VoiceBunny. You can get professional voice overs in a few ways. 1) Search the database of choices and book talent directly. 2) Post a casting call and evaluate the responses. 3) Let the system match you with an appropriate professional. A wide variety of voices and accents in more than 50 languages are available. Rates start from $.04 per minute and pricing is provided upfront.
• Wistia. You can host your video and customize it with social sharing buttons and clickable calls to actions. You can also collect viewers’ emails to add to your database. Flash and HTML5 versions are encoded automatically at multiple resolutions. The videos are Twitter-friendly and can be played within a tweet. The analytics package includes a heat map for every view, showing when individuals watched videos, what parts were skipped or repeated and what they previously viewed. There are a variety of packages including a basic free plan that includes hosting for up to three videos.

Here is some additional data to consider. EMarketer found that 64 percent of survey respondents said they planned to use more video content in marketing. ComScore found that people who view videos online are 64 percent more likely to complete purchases than other visitors. Stacksandstacks.com found that customers who viewed product videos were 144% more likely to add products to their carts than those who didn’t watch. Zappos discovered that products with videos outsell those without videos by 35 percent. As Forrester Research notes, “One minute of video is worth up to 1.8 million words.”

The final words of advice to small businesses: keep your videos short, engaging, searchable and sharable.

Are you inspired to start using video to market your company? What type of video content do you think would best engage customers and drive revenue?

B2B Sales Proposals that Increase Revenue

Sales proposals vary based on your industry, solutions and prospects and can be extremely brief or thousands of pages. Good proposals have to meet several objectives. They answer customers’ questions, address hot buttons and issues and provide clear solutions for each. For prospects, they make it easy to decide, explain to others why your company is the best choice and articulate the benefits they will enjoy from your partnership. And for your company, proposals establish your credibility, understanding and focus on the customer.

Here are some tips for marketers on developing or enhancing a proposal template for your company. Keep in mind that, although it helps to have a template, every document must be customized.

Preparation

The basis for strong proposals is preparation. If you don’t have a solid foundation from meetings with prospects, you won’t know what is important to them. Prospects have to know that they have been heard, whether information was provided in requests for proposals or verbally. Sue Barrett suggests that, whenever possible, salespeople ask clear questions (versus leading ones) to get to the heart of issues, priorities and needs. They should take detailed notes. And if they can quote exact words, it demonstrates that they have really listened to prospects.

Before leaving meetings, sales should verify they understand what prospects want. Setting expectations about what they are going to do in terms of timelines, proposal preparation, follow-up and so on is critical.

Put the prospects’ priorities first in the proposal. You should not begin with a bunch of details about your company. Until you establish you understand the goals and pain points, no one will care about your expertise, capabilities, features, etc.

With the help of sales, collaborate with customers to build proposals that include all the information they require. You should also help them address the questions the rest of the decision-making team will have. Successful proposals must be easy to elevate for the contacts to streamline the approval process.

Organization

There are two options to organizing your documents:

1. The way the prospects requested
2. In order of importance to the prospects

The reality is that if prospects can’t find the information they need, they won’t spend the time to look for it. If the proposals are more complex and have multiple sections, set up response matrices. These are tables that detail how your documents address specific requirements and requests. You indicate where in the proposals answers are provided for each question. This is a helpful tool to those evaluating different options during the review process.

Proposal Contents

• Executive summary. Some decision makers might read this section only, so hone in on their interests and desired results. If customers read nothing else, they should be sold by this section.
• Requirements summary. These can be lifted from a request for information/quotation/proposal or a summary of what sales has heard from the account contacts.
• Solution overview. Provide specific details about your recommended solution and how it will work for the prospects. Be sure to explain what makes your solution unique in the market.
• Materials, equipment and personnel. Address how the solution fit into the prospects’ environments. Talk about the components and the interfaces. Illustrate what is not working today and how it will be fixed. At Affinity Express, our clients are always concerned about business continuity. We are part of their revenue streams and any service interruption impacts their bottom lines. As a result, we explain in our proposals how we have redundant operations and data centers. Fortunately, we don’t know of any competitors with multiple locations in different geographies so this also differentiates us.
• Quality standards. Explain how you measure and assure quality in the products and services you provide.
• Costs. It can be effective to include a range of investments and options. Try to go beyond stating costs to illustrate value. Capture the reasons for making an investment.
• Benefits. Include detail on how they will be measured, assumptions and key project activities to realize the results.
  • Hard benefits. Projected positive financial outcomes, such as cost savings, cash inflow and increased profits. Provide ranges and identify who helped frame and validate those ranges.
  • Soft benefits (non-financial terms). Improved customer satisfaction, reduced risk, improved branding, and improved service delivery are all desirable despite the difficulty of assigning financial values.
  • Stakeholder value. Discuss how the features and advantages will result in benefits for different stakeholders.
  • Business case for investment. Provide the background and numbers around costs, benefits, impact and timing. Cite the prospects’ buying vision for your solution.
• Implementation plan. Jeanne Buchanan recommends that you explain how you will implement, how long it will take and what resources you need. Include staff training, product testing and any other components that show value you bring with the solution. This is another area where Affinity Express spends time to paint a picture for  prospects. We have to show which team members will spend time onsite with clients to train and transition them to our marketing production and media solutions. To do this, we use a calendar chart, a table with milestones and a list of next steps in our proposals.
• Timing. Provide schedules linking the major cost elements and showing significant external influences that could affect the schedules. Indicate how long each option will be fully operational and deliver the planned benefits. Incorporate reasons to buy now so that you build urgency.
• Terms and conditions. If necessary for your industry, include governance guidelines such as milestones or key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess progress.
• Company advantages. Talk about why prospects should choose your company. Detail your credentials and provide references. If you can discuss what sets your company apart in terms of how it also serves prospects, that’s even better.

Additional Tips

• Limit paragraph length.
• Use 10- to 12-point font sizes for readability.
• Use section headings as theme statements. This helps “skimmers” to easily scan the documents, as well as reinforces major themes you are advancing.
• Define all terms and avoid jargon and acronyms.
• Incorporate visuals. Lists, charts, graphics, photographs, diagrams and sketches all make important points in small spaces. Include captions and ensure readers can understand the messages for each within ten seconds.
• Allow white space.
• Cite the customer’s name throughout and much more frequently than your company name.
• Mention your customer before you mention your business in each paragraph.
• Dedicate more space to benefits than your solution’s features.

Spending time onto develop and improve your proposal template will not only enable you to respond quickly and efficiently with a custom document for each new opportunity, it will increase your revenue. The best advice of all is to write a proposal that satisfies your prospects’ needs, not one that sells your services.

What other elements do you recommend B2B companies include in their proposals?

How to Sell Marketing Services to Small Businesses

Small businesses are responsible for 70% of the U.S. economy and employment. It is a potential $40 billion market for companies selling marketing services, yet very fragmented. Companies such as Groupon have attempted to capitalize by hiring thousands of salespeople but that model is not sustainable or scalable without significant investments. And the average spend is marketing spend is $300 to $400 a month, which means companies targeting these owners have to figure out how to deliver enough value to warrant the price.

Groupon hopes to move from an email-based daily deals platform to a searchable deals database ideal for mobile browsing. The company is touting its mobile audience to small business owners, as more than 45% of all North American Groupon transactions were conducted via mobile devices in first quarter 2013, up from 30% a year earlier (http://goo.gl/3z0Jnm).

When it comes to small business marketing, in the past owners could simply buy space in the Yellow pages and take out newspaper ads to reach customers. Now there a numerous channels from search engines to social networks to business listings boards. But most owners don’t understand which are best for them, let alone have the time to become proficient.

In a survey of 400 small business owners, 21 percent cited a lack of responsiveness as their top frustration with marketing partners. Furthermore, 17 percent of owners accused partners of not understanding their business, while 12 percent said poor customer service was their major complaint. This means that 44 percent of brand marketing money from these companies is being wasted in attempts to reach small businesses. The problem is that the brands don’t really understand the owners’ true needs, so the messages are not resonating.

A recent study of nearly 1,200 small businesses, “The American Dream: What Really Motivates Small Business Owners,” revealed four distinct types of small business sales and marketing buyers.

1. Maximizers invest more time on sales and marketing than other types, with 61 percent spending over $1,000 per month. They have the most diverse platform reach, with 49 percent using Facebook, 36 percent using Twitter and 31 percent using YouTube. However, 60 percent said they need help building marketing tools and 61% said they need assistance in evaluating effective marketing content.
2. Strivers look for help overcoming their sales and marketing challenges, moving beyond their existing capabilities and supporting the growth of their businesses. The problem is that they often lack the time and resources to fully use their technology and end up dissatisfied with it.

Improving the Image of Marketing

Back in June, I attended Hubspot’s Executive Playbook to Inbound Marketing & Sales and it was an interesting morning of sessions that was kicked off by Jessica Meher, the company’s head of enterprise. She pointed out that marketers have a huge image problem. She shared research that indicated 75% of CEOs do not think marketing generates revenue or sales opportunities for their businesses. A Gallup poll that asked consumers to evaluate the honesty and ethics of different professions revealed that advertising practitioners rank below lawyers and stockbrokers (and just above members of congress and car salespeople).

Why People Hate Marketing

The way we live has changed, including the hours/where we work, our use of the internet, how we learn about products, the buying process and more. Marketers need to adapt. People have many more demands on their time. On top of that, digital video recorders, caller ID, spam filters and other technology make it difficult to get the attention of buyers. Customers are in control and 70% of the buying process happens before consumers engage with sales (Revenue Disruption by Phil Fernandez). No one wakes up and says I want to see an ad. But marketers wake up and say “Let’s make an ad”.

As a result, we need to change the way we market. The old marketing playbook is broken and cold calling, email blasts, traditional advertising and direct mail aren’t as effective anymore. There are 221 million people on the national do not call registry, 44% of direct mail is never opened, 91% have unsubscribed from opt-in marketing emails and 86% skip television ads. The world has changed so we have to evolve.

We are still marketing to people like it is the 1970s. Kevin Daum writes: “We marketers have to take responsibility. We inundate the public with print and electronic media, screaming at them to Buy! Buy! Buy! We have created a general malaise of marketing fatigue.”

There are three reasons most people hate marketers and opportunities to change our approach.

1. Lack of empathy. Don’t just assume everyone wants or needs what you have to offer and target everyone the same way. Use online tools like HubSpot and FanBridge to help narrow the pitch and reach those targets that can benefit from your products and services.
2. Lack of authenticity. Some marketers have to represent bad products or substandard services. It happens. But you can still push to improve the offerings so you have something worth promoting.
3. Proliferation of boredom and mediocrity. Time is the most valuable commodity for people but we usurp it with useless or dull information. Instead, we can take every opportunity to intrigue and entertain so, even if our targeting is off, we create positive impressions with our brand.

Why CEOs Hate Marketing

There are numerous definitions of marketing from marcomm to analytics to strategic marketing and everybody has a different view of its purpose. The most damaging impact of this state of affairs is that marketing is failing to get a seat at the board room table, meaning that insights and business intelligence inherent to the marketing discipline are not being integrated. This is costing hundreds of millions in lost revenue, equity value and higher spending, as noted by ProMotion. The core problem is that marketing often speaks the language of the process and not the language of business strategy and results.

What marketers need to do is:

• Speak the language of business, not the language of marketing—it’s a subtle but important difference.
• Measure what matters, not what is easy to measure—determine how customers are created and connect programs to influence touch points along the way.
• Admit uncertainty, not all marketing is science and there is guesswork from time to time—have plans to adjust to surprises.
• Understand financials, not just the need to spend money—speak to the financial implications of decisions in order to balance the influence of CFOs and the inclination of companies to become cost- rather than results-focused.

Why Marketers Hate Marketing

There are two big reasons why there is some self-loathing going on today, according to Cassie Nolan:

1)      It feels shady. We can use certain words, deliver a message in a specific way and display content that produces the action we want. That seems wrong on some level and manipulative.

2)      It feels unnatural. Most of us want to be honest and helpful without screaming to get attention for ourselves. Marketing runs counter to this tendency.

The reality is you do have to capture attention and let people know your company and products but it doesn’t have go against your conscience. That is the beauty of inbound marketing. Instead of pushing your message on people, you pull them in with valuable content such as blog posts, how-to guides, checklists and more. Prospects come to you as a resource. Then they begin to trust you and eventually purchase. In other words, if you give people the information and guidance they seek, the selling takes care of itself and everybody wins!

Inbound Marketing

Not convinced yet? Consider this: inbound leads cost two thirds less than those generated from outbound tactics and social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. Here are three tips for making inbound marketing work for you.

• Think about content like a media company

Content attracts people to your business. Building assets is different from traditional marketing, where you are essentially renting something from somebody versus owning it. For example, if you use Google AdWords or other paid media, as soon as you stop paying, the traffic goes away. This is a long-term change in strategy and equity must be built over time with blogs, interactive tools, photos and infographics, videos and podcasts, presentations and eBooks. It’s about creating content people want, not about your business.

The content is the foundation for your communications strategy. You can use it to power social media, emails, website content and so on. But instead of thinking about how to reach people on a channel, you should think about what the consumers want first then adapt the content to the channel.

Ultimately, we should not interrupt what people want to consume. We should strive to become what they want to consume.

• Respect the context

Context is personal to every visitor and shows the status of the relationship you have with them. When you visit Amazon, you get personalized recommendations of what you might like to buy based on your history. Websites need to recognize existing relationships and provide content in context.

All it takes is the slightest bit of personalization to show you know visitors (e.g., age, industry, position in funnel, etc.). Ironically, there are major companies spending millions on TV ads rather than the comparably small price to recognize returning visitors to their website!

• Market at every touch point

Have you mapped out every interaction with your customers and prospects online and offline (e.g., email signatures, printed invoices, recorded phone messages, etc.)? There are probably several places you can enhance the branding, engage and even entertain. Groupon used their unsubscribe page to enable visitors to “Punish Derrick.” He is “the guy who thought you would enjoy receiving the daily Groupon email.” This amusing feature is unlikely to make many people change their minds about unsubscribing but it neutralizes any annoyance, reinforces the brand’s personality and might even produce a few smiles.

Affinity Express does the same thing with our 404 error page.

Today, content is an instrumental part of any marketer’s inbound strategy. It builds brand awareness and establishes you as a thought leader. It also plays a prominent role in SEO rankings to enable you to be found for a variety of key terms related to your industry. Best of all, it is a genuine, transparent way to provide value that drives revenue and customer loyalty. Who knows, before long marketers might improve the perception of our honesty and ethics so we can join nurses, pharmacists and doctors at the top of the scale!

Do you have any favorite campaigns or examples of marketing that make you proud to be in the profession?

Putting Visual Marketing to Work for You

In our fast-paced, multi-tasking world, our attention spans have been dramatically reduced. We are bombarded with so much information that often the easiest way to reach consumers and cut through the clutter is with visual marketing. This is the strategy of using visual aids to communicate, increase authority and be more memorable. Photos, videos, infographics, memes, slide shows and the like often make it easier to express data and complex ideas.

According to David Langton and Anita Campbell, authors of Visual Marketing: 99 Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design (a book the Affinity Express Marketing Team consumed last year!), “Well done infographics allow businesses to communicate powerful brand stories through compelling graphics. The best infographics have an element of entertainment to them and people tend to share infographics, when they might not share the same information presented as text.” This is also true of other forms of visual content.

Here is why businesses large and small are turning to visual marketing:

• Using visuals on your website can increase your monthly unique visitors by 200 to 300 percent.
• By using images on your website, it is possible to improve your conversion rate.
• Blog posts with images can boost traffic more than plain text posts.
• Customers who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy products.

This is an example of what you could create using Memegenerator.net

The best place to begin adding visual marketing elements is your website.

• Make sure that every page of your website and business blog has relevant and interesting images attached to it.
• Create your own images that represent your content and ideas instead of using generic stock photos.
• Create video demonstrations of your products and services rather than text reviews and descriptions.
• Make data and statistics more appealing and “sharable” with infographics.
• Share and link your visuals across your social media networks.

Tips for Using Visual Marketing:

• Choose colors wisely: Be intentional about the colors you choose to represent your business, as this will impact sales.
• Replace words with visuals: Wherever possible use visuals to share your message and tell your story.
• Paint the town: Make sure your logo, colors, and visuals are an integral part of your marketing communication. Your visual assets need to become synonymous with the perception of your organization to improve recognition.

Some examples of how business use visual are MailChimp, which features a mailman monkey and DropBox, which relies on childlike illustrations to differentiate themselves from other storage services.

The best news is that you don’t need a huge budget or team to get started with visual marketing. There are a wide variety of resources for a low or no cost.

Infographics

• Piktochart Infographic Creator. This is a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) infographic creator for free. It has themes and graphics.
• Visual.ly. Develop infographics and connect to social media accounts–free! Access Google Analytics through the site to track the effectiveness of your creations (or even create infographics from your website’s Google Analytics report).

* By the way, Slideshare announced yesterday that users can now easily upload, view, embed and share include optimized infographics.

Happy World Communication Design Day

World Communication Design Day has been celebrated on April 27^th since 1995. The International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) designated the day to recognize the role of communication design and the graphic design profession around the world.

Though graphic design is often thought about in relation to advertising and marketing, the uses are extensive. The fields of administration, education, entertainment and many others use graphic design on various levels to convey information. Graphic design affects our understanding and opinions and shapes our actions and decisions. It determines the impact of information, whether it be through color, form or type; including the smallest street sign, the websites we browse, the products we purchase and the books we read.

Graphic Design

Graphic Design is an interdisciplinary, problem-solving activity which combines visual sensitivity with skill and knowledge in areas of communications, technology and business. Graphic design practitioners specialize in the structuring and organizing of visual information to aid communication and orientation.

—The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario

Graphic Design Process

The graphic design process is a problem-solving process, one that requires substantial creativity, innovation and technical expertise. An understanding of a client’s product or service and goals, their competitors and the target audience is translated into a visual solution created from the manipulation, combination and utilization of shape, color, imagery, typography and space.

—Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA), Profile/Purpose

World Communication Design Day is an important occasion for Affinity Express and our more than 1,500 employees. We salute our team for their hard work for clients and their commitment to delivering high quality work on time, day in and day out!

What does graphic design mean to you? If you submit pictures of online or offline designs that have affected you in some way, we’ll share the best entries in our next blog post.

Tips on Using Stock Photos

Images are a key component of every marketing design. When used properly, images can have an enormous impact, enticing viewers to stop and take in the message.

Finding the right images can be a challenging task because there are many options.

1. You can take your own photos, but most of us are not professional photographers and amateur efforts never look as good. Plus, you might want something that you can’t easily photograph: a photo of an island in the ocean, for example, when you live 1,000 miles from the beach.
2. Another option is commissioned photography, but the cost can be prohibitive for SMBs. It also requires a lot of time and effort: selecting locations, hiring models, etc.
3. The third—and easiest—alternative is stock photography. One of the advantages is that you have millions of photos to choose from and it’s easy to purchase and download from websites.

One big downside of stock photography is that the images you choose might also be used by other subscribers to the service. But if you’re willing to risk not having a one-of-a-kind image, this is a cheap and easy option.

To use stock photos effectively, here are some things to consider.

Designs of the Quarter: Image Editing

The third category for the Designs of the Quarter contest was image editing. Our image editors work on pictures and make them more clear, or more complete, or remove backgrounds, or change colors, or make other modifications that the client wants.

This design won first prize, and you can see why. Something that starts as muddy-looking and shadowy becomes a clear image that conveys speed and power.

Ten Principles of Communication Design

On World Communication Design Day, we bring you the ten principles of communication design we work by.

1

Read and follow instructions carefully. Nothing frustrates a client faster than wasting time providing instructions that are ignored and having to repeat them. Make sure you understand them upfront, complete the work and check the instructions again to confirm that you complied.

8 Tips on How to Stand Out at a Trade Show

Our booth at a recent newspaper conference

There is an art to creating large-scale trade show exhibits, but it can be just as difficult to create displays for small- to medium-sized businesses, when every inch of space counts.

Many conference attendees do not have a lot of time to spend in the exhibit hall and may not be interested in stopping for anyone (unless you’re featuring a great giveaway, candy or beer!). Plus, depending on the venue, there are likely to be dozens or even hundreds of other companies vying for their attention.

Here are some tips to help you maximize your impact when creating a ten-foot exhibit.

1. Choose the Right Hardware

With a smaller booth, chances are that you are not paying to have someone else set up your exhibit (such luxury!). Therefore, the smart option is to select hardware that is fast and easy to put up and is also light for shipping but sturdy. This is not difficult, as there are quite a few options available today. Affinity Express has two exhibits that each take about five minutes to set up, from unpacking and securing the hardware to hanging the visuals. Although I can’t exactly drag an exhibit across McCormick Place myself, the booth is light enough that it saves money on shipping compared to one or more cases weighing hundreds of pounds.

Before you start designing your graphics, be sure you have measurements from the manufacturer and adhere to those specifications.

Writing an Effective Creative Brief for a Design Project

A creative brief is almost like a roadmap for how a project will turn out. It is the best chance to set the tone of your project so it starts off in the right direction. Your design will be only as good as your brief.

I remember a quote from a seminar on writing good briefs conducted by the Philippine Association of National Advertisers (PANA): “It is the miracle and magic of advertising that a structured, formal document can produce communication that touches people emotionally.”

There are all types of creative briefs and methods for developing them. The approach you use is less important than the mission: communicate clearly and thoroughly what you want. In other words, provide detailed instructions.

Affinity Express has order management systems (AESB and IDEA) that guide our clients through all the critical details, from size to folding specifications to fonts that must be used. Essentially, our technical team created an electronic client brief to make it easier for clients to communicate. We give them an area for “Additional Instructions” in which they can write anything that might help inform the designers. They can also attach as many reference documents as possible to show styles they like, old versions of documents, color combinations that work well and more.

Whether you are a client and use Affinity Express or not, here is what you should include in your creative brief for your internal team members and outside providers.

“Visual Marketing”: the Book

As a marketer in the business of advertising and marketing design, I was intrigued when I first heard of the book Visual Marketing, and I was glad to get my hands on it. The premise of the book is both exciting and unoriginal: that visuals have as much to do with marketing as copy or sound is of course, well recognized, and has been used to great effect by advertisers and marketers alike. This book, however, is about visual marketing in the new world of online media: so it is infographics, web design, apps and games that take the center stage along with logos, signs, banners, print mailers and business cards—and thankfully, there isn’t a TV ad in sight.

Yet this isn’t a graphic design book: in fact, some of the examples deal with copy or an interesting business name, making the point that all the elements of marketing go hand in hand and are most effective when they all work together to enforce the message.

Reviewing Design Work

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

–    Winston Churchill

As a client, when reviewing creative work, it is important to give constructive criticism. When reviewing a print ad, logo design, web design etc., what is the best way to provide feedback? Here are some guidelines on how critiques should be made to get the end products you want.

1.  Be objective

Who is your primary audience? Will the design draw their attention? Sometimes we confuse our personal taste with the needs of the target market. By setting aside your own preferences, you can better review a designer’s choices on color, layout, visual imagery and typography.

Ten Most Popular Marketing Posts of 2011

For newer readers as well as those of you who missed them the first time around, here are our top marketing posts from 2011.

Designing Our Facebook Page Welcome Tab

Who knew a simple post describing how we created the design for our Facebook page welcome tab would be the most popular of 2011 (even though the post was published in July)?

Redesigning Business Cards to Include Social Media Info

Another post where we merely shared how we updated and improved a piece of marketing material, but judging by searches that led people to this post, quite a few of you are looking for help on designing business cards that include your social media URLs without being overwhelming.

10 Tips on Designing Brochures

With Mel Fernandez

Even with the prevalence of digital marketing, brochures are common marketing materials, used in both printed and electronic form. We use them to present our company and its products and services in an interesting way that grabs readers’ attention and makes them want to buy from us or work with us. To be effective, a brochure must have solid branding, strong visuals, clear and concise messaging, and effective page layout and design.

When we recently re-wrote and re-designed an Affinity Express trade show brochure (for print) and some posters to display in our booth, we took the time to document the process. Mel and I have worked together on dozens of brochures and come at it from two perspectives: strategy and content for me and design and branding for Mel.

Together, we came up with the following tips that will help you create effective brochures.

Using Cartoons for Marketing

Cartoon created by Affinity Express for a client

I have been reading the book Visual Marketing by David Langton and Anita Campbell, and came across the example of cartoons to market CaseCentral. CaseCentral markets eDiscovery software to law firms and corporations, and these “Case in Point” cartoons are meant to draw attention, entertain as well as demonstrate the company’s knowledge of the field.

That is a smart use of visual marketing, and it reminded me of the Indian consumer goods company, Amul. Amul Butter cartoons appear on billboards and newspapers all over India. Each cartoon references some current event—an election, a new movie, a sleazy scandal—and the tagline is at once a pun on and a comment on the event that it references. They have been doing this for decades and these cartoons are immensely popular: you can browse through some here.

If you haven’t guessed already, I am in awe of the Amul campaign. They combine contemporary relevance, story-telling and art to create a powerful message that evokes the brand and ties in the product, and they have done this consistently for over three decades. If that isn’t brilliant, I don’t know what is.

Design Projects: Information You Should Provide Your Designer

“Design is about getting the right idea, and getting the idea right,” according to Marty Neumeier. So how do you get the most from your projects and achieve critical marketing goals? Do you have a clear vision or do you want your designer to develop the ideas for you?

Clear information and direction are vital to a design project’s success. Defining your objectives, target audience and your optimum results will enable a designer to meet your needs and overcome challenges effectively.

It is best to provide a thorough brief that sketches out the task at hand. However, when clients have a vague goal or an incomplete brief, it is the designer’s responsibility to lead and to get the required information. Whether you are the client or the designer, here is what should be covered:

1.  Scope

What is the project? What is the budget? What are the deliverables? Will the images and copy be supplied? What is the timeframe?

Communicating these important information at the start of the process gives the designer a framework and enables him or her to clearly define the visual problem and devise solutions.