A logo is a very simplified visual element that identifies the business. A designer creates a logo, which then identifies the business or product to consumers. Some of the most iconic images for companies have been simplified to a basic icon.

That logo is then used to form the brand’s identity, which includes items such as business cards, letterhead, marketing collateral, packaging, apparel, signage, etc.  All of these items make up the company’s identity and help support the brand as a whole.

As we mentioned in our last post about brand identity, your company’s brand is the way the public perceives your company. A designer creates the foundation of the brand­– the logo­– and then it is up to the company as a whole to create a good image and brand identity for itself through its actions and involvement.

Below are the top 5 qualities that add a lot of production value to your video and increase your brand’s perception. Remember that just like your printed materials and website your video’s quality says a lot about your brand.

1. Using a Script
No matter how much someone knows about your product or service, a script is always the best. It makes it a lot harder to edit later on if your main person in the video is rambling on for a few minutes. A script helps you organize all your thoughts and talking points so that you can hit all your important subjects in the least amount of time possible.

2. Music
You don’t realize how important music is in a video until its completely silent and your video feels empty. Music helps fill in the spaces and makes your video feel more complete. Be careful when picking out your music though; just because it’s a good song doesn’t mean it’s a good song for your company’s video! Also make sure to check all copyright laws for your music to make sure you avoid any future legal problems.

3. Voice-over
Not only does a voice-over help better explain your video and what you do, but it also makes your video more professional. Background noises can really overpower if you are shooting outside so consider using a microphone or doing a voice-over so that your audience can clearly hear everything in your video.

4. Length
Keep your audience in mind when determining the length of your video. Your goal is for people to watch your whole video and have a better understanding of your business. You don’t want them to leave your site after only watching the first 3 minutes of your 20-minute video. If its an internal or corporate video that you are shooting, it’s ok for it to be a little longer but if it is for sales purposes I would recommend keeping it under 2-3 minutes.

5. Lighting
This is the most obvious quality because you need good lighting so the viewer can see your product or person talking. Bad lighting is never good and will always lower the production value of your video.

For each video you create you should always think beforehand about what you would like to achieve in this video and what action you want your viewers to take. A video doesn’t have to cost $100,000 to make but with good production value qualities it will seem like it cost that much.

Think about your target audience. While your product may not have changed in three years, your audience has gotten older and their desires may have changed. Make sure you are constantly connecting with your audience as they grow and evolve.

We have talked before about choosing the right model for your ad and that is the same for catalogs too. Your models, photography style and voice may be changing so always make sure your target audience is being correctly represented.

The three main sites for advertising are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. We will talk about them more in-depth below so think about your audience when deciding where to advertise.

Twitter

Advertising on Twitter is basically just your sponsored Twitter activity. They have Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets.

• Promoted Accounts promotes your account to users on Twitter who have similar interests. You are charged only when someone follows your account, which can keep the costs lower. Promoted Accounts are a great way to grow your account’s following.
• Promoted Tweets promotes certain tweets to get them in front of the right people. This is a great option if you want to promote a specific product or promotion. You are also charged only if someone interacts with your Promoted Tweet.

Below is a great video from Twitter that explains their advertising options with some fun visuals. If you are interested in advertising on Twitter you can set it up here.

Facebook

Facebook also has two main types of advertising options: Ads and Sponsored Stories.

• Facebook Ads can be created by a business to promote the business and upcoming promotions and deals. This option is great to increase awareness and get more traffic and fans to your page.
• Sponsored Stories are different from ads because it is promoting a post you already created on your page. This option is great if you have great content and want to increase the chances of it getting noticed.

To learn more about Facebook advertising, how to set it up and a promotional video, click here.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most popular social network for professionals from all industries and is a great place to advertise for business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

• Direct Ads is LinkedIn’s form of advertising and it is similar to Facebook’s ads in that you promote your business or special promotion. You can target your ads by industry sector, job title and location to best find your target audience.

I would also like to mention that Pinterest, which burst onto the social media scene in early 2012. Pinterest is great for retail brands since its main audience is women 18-35. They have recently added business profiles to better benefit brands and I am guessing that an advertising addition will come out soon.

Whatever platform is best for your online marketing efforts, make sure you are also involved on that social media channel and that you aren’t just posting ads.

1. Affordable
Compared to other traditional advertising costs and online advertising options such as Pay-Per-Click, email marketing is by far the cheapest! There are a lot of different email providers that offer plans for as low as $25 a month.

2. Fast and automated
Since there is no printed pieces to deal with, once your design and landing pages are ready you can send out your email campaign. Unlike direct marketing, email marketing can be automated, making it easier for your company to schedule emails months or weeks in advance.

3. More targeted
As you sell your products or services you will start to build a list of people who give you permission to email them. This makes your email marketing so much more targeted because these people have specifically asked to see your marketing.

4. Increase sales
If you sell products, you can email subscribers when you have special promotions and discounts going on. If you offer services, you could send subscribers a special coupon to entice them to try out your services.

5. Track data
A lot of email marketing providers offer tracking tools that track exactly how your customer interacts with your email. You can see how many people open your email, how many people click your links and how that translates into conversions.

Email marketing is a highly effective way to engage current customers as well as gain new ones. Think about including this cost-effective strategy into your marketing plan and see how it can help your business grow.

WordPress was designed as a platform for blogging, but you don’t have to use it as a blogging tool. With a few tweaks it can be used to run your website, with or without a “blog.” The fact that WordPress was designed as a blogging platform gives it some compelling advantages.

1. Content
With WordPress it is easy to update the pages of your website as soon as your content changes. The same is also true for blogging and adding in posts easily. The best part is that there is no need to know HTML or any other programming techniques and editing your site is as easy as editing a Word document.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
WordPress is setup to have good SEO structure and gives you the options to update and optimize each page/posts title, URL, content and images. Search engines like Google and Bing also take into account if your site is updated regularly. The more frequently your content is changed and updated the more valuable it perceives your content to be. Since WordPress makes it so easy to update content it is easier to rank higher in results.

3. Add-ons
Since WordPress is a free platform there are a lot of people developing free add-ons that you can install to make your site even more useful. There are all sorts of add-ons like polls, quizzes, slideshows and many more that can easily dress up your site.

So is your current site working for you? Make sure you have control of your content and your best foot forward online. Best of all is that we can design your site to work within WordPress’s platform but not look at all like your typical template Wordpress site.

Gone are the days when you needed to share all information with the consumer on the ad. Advertising is meant to intrigue the viewer enough to find out the additional information they want on the company’s website. One of the hardest parts, though, is to get the viewer to make that additional step. Below are a few good examples of do’s and don’ts when it comes to advertising.

Make an emotional connection
Knowing your customers and target market is always important. Not only will it help you tweak your product/service but it will also help you figure out how best to connect with them. Instead of creating ads based on what you feel your audience should be attracted to, create them using information and statistics based on actual wants and desires. The more you know about your audience the easier it will be to establish an emotional connection with them.

Don't overload with content
Some advertisers still revert back to the ads that were run during the 1980s and put in way too much content into a single ad.

There is no need for this now. You can simply put this information on your website and direct the viewer there. Remember, don't turn your ad into a brochure – no one will read it!

Connect over time
With so much overstimulation from ads, it is estimated by The New York Times that people in a city see up to 5,000 ad messages a day! Although it may seem like your area is overly saturated, you can still make your message stand out. You don't have to blanket an entire area with ads to get noticed. Instead, create targeted advertising campaigns that you space out so your user continually can connect with you over time.

For example, at Locomotion Creative our target audience consists of marketing directors and business owners. So in our blog we write content that is relevant to them and will help inform and inspire them. It wouldn’t make any sense for us to do step-by-step Photoshop tutorials on our blog because we are not trying to attract fellow designers.

Take this strategy into action with your business. Are you writing just about the content that you are interested in or are you writing content that will be interesting to your target market?

Blogs take a lot of time and effort, so make sure you are not wasting your time with the wrong content.

A great example of brand identity is Target and Walmart. Both stores sell similar products but their brands are completely different. Target focuses on the style of their products and teams up with a lot of different designers to ensure that they have the most stylish and unique products. Their displays, advertisements and stores all showcase their stylish brand. Walmart’s brand, on the other hand, focuses on being a low-cost provider.

If you went to both stores you would have completely different experiences. Walmart cuts costs to provide the lowest prices so their customers are coming there specifically based on price. Target’s customers choose them based on their style and are willing to pay more for it.

A good exercise to measure your company’s brand identity is making a list of how you think your company is viewed. Then compare your list with your customers’ feedback and opinions.

Videos also help boost your SEO efforts for your website. Google has now separated their video results onto their own page, which gives your video the opportunity to rank individually and link to your website. You can also upload your video on YouTube to take advantage of their built-in search traffic.

Another great way that videos help you with SEO is by the page duration of your visitors. Google tracks how long visitors stay on your site and view your site, and it becomes more valuable the longer they stay engaged. If you had a 2 to 4 minute video on your home page, not only will it better explain your services/products but it will also keep visitors engaged with your site longer.

In the next few weeks we will be discussing more topics that deal with video production such as quality, location of videos, scripts, etc., so stay tuned!

One of the biggest pros for a printed catalog is that you can easily hand it out at trade shows, showrooms and other events. Your goal should always be to make things as easy for the customer as possible. A printed catalog gives them all the information they need without further steps. Plus in the example of Skeeter Boats (catalog featured above), the customer could also pin up the pictures to visualize their goal easier.

Online catalogs have a big pro in the fact that you save a lot of money in printing costs although you will still have to get the catalog designed even if it is on the web. An online catalog would be helpful if they are searching for your products online but wouldn’t necessarily purchase it online.

It really all depends on your audience and how you think they would prefer to receive your information whether it is online or in their hands.

Social Media
There are so many social media sites now. Instead of trying to be on all of them, decide which sites your audience is most active on and be present there. Check out advertising options on the site but also make sure you are involved with posts and updates on that platform as well.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube all have advertising campaigns that are easy to set up and monitor. Not only will you want to set up your ad correctly but you will also want to continually modify it based on the current interactions and feedback of your audience.

Pay-Per-Click Ads
We have talked before about the benefits of using Google AdWords to find your perfect keywords for your site. Google AdWords is also a great way to set up and manage your Pay-Per-Click advertisements. Google is the largest search engine so it makes sense to advertise where your audience is searching most.

Web Banners
There are a lot of different types of web banners and ways to use them. YouTube and Pandora are two large sites that offer different pricing options for their variety of ad sizes. You could also trade web banners with a specific site to increase both of your awareness. The easiest option I believe to manage all of your web banners and gain the most audience is with Google AdSense and other similar programs.

In the next coming weeks we will go into each of these areas more to give you a more in-depth look at how to set up and track these different types of online marketing. No matter what your budget is for online marketing, create a strategy to involve one or more of these areas and you will be optimized to get the most return on investment.

Locomotion has been producing a quarterly lifestyle magazine, Out Here, for TSC for nine years. The magazine includes feature articles on the farming industry, how-tos on everything from building a fence to proper use of a welding torch, product profiles on new goods available on TSC’s shelves, as well as five seasonal recipes submitted by Out Here readers. From a 100-year-old recipe for enchiladas to a Nantucket cranberry pie perfect for the holiday season, these tasty treats always leave us wanting a second helping.

This year, Locomotion compiled the first ever Out Here cookbook, just in time for the holidays. The book contains 65 of the best recipes that have been published in the magazine, and it is sure to be found stuffing stockings and bellies across the country this holiday season. Sales of the cookbook benefit a good cause, to boot – TSC will donate a portion of the proceeds to National FFA’s “Feeding the World – Starting at Home” program, which educates students about the issues and effects of hunger.

To find out how Locomotion can help make your clients’ mouths water, contact Ronda Helton at rhelton@locomotioncreative.com or 615-341-3639.

The question is, how many students regularly use their course catalog? I admit that when it first came in the mail I would get so excited and would spend a lot of time going through it trying to figure out all the classes I wanted to take. After I was registered for classes though, I almost never looked at the catalog again and it stayed stuffed in my desk.

More and more colleges opt for an online version of their catalog with an option to request a printed one. MIT takes this approach, which, allows them to give more detailed information about the classes and teachers that they may not have had room for in the printed version.

Giving students a choice allows them to receive information in the way that works best for them, which is a good approach to any type of communication.

Research by In-Plant Graphics shows that some companies seem to be investing more in their catalogs, with an amazing 85% of their revenue coming from them.

The main thing to remember is to market strategically. With the rising cost of paper and postage, you want to make sure you are only sending your catalog to people who truly are interested. John Lenser, president of the multichannel consulting firm LENSER advises, “Segment your customers, and understand their buying behavior and how customers will or won’t shop in all channels, irrespective of the other channels.”

In addition to doing good research on who and where potential customers are, there are other ways to ensure that catalogs are distributed only to the most likely prospects. For example Neman Marcus actually makes their customer pay for the catalog, and other stores like IKEA and West Elm make the customer request it every year through an online form.

The bottom line: through proper strategy and planning you can target your audience and get the most return on your investment in a catalog.

Your marketing elements may include catalogs, print ads, packaging, web design, online marketing, social media and more. One common part of all of these pieces is the photography. Your target market should be considered when creating photography for your brand, and not all photography styles will work for every audience.

For Blue Collar Brands that focus on marketing to the American worker, photography needs to include real people, look believable and reflect the customer’s lifestyle.

To see more examples click here.

For Consumer Goods brands, the focus should be not only on the feature and benefits of the products but also customers interacting with them. For a Skeeter Boats catalog we did, it was important to show all the close-ups of the boat that their customer is looking for while still showing the lifestyle shots of people enjoying their boats.

Professional Services like Bass, Berry & Sims try and focus on establishing a personal connection with their audience to make them more trustworthy and friendly. We decided to integrate photography with their brand by showcasing lots of pictures of their attorneys in all of their branding materials.

Just as you do with your other branding elements make sure your photographic style remains consistent and is the right fit for your demographic.

Reaching this important audience requires an honest, straightforward approach and a deep understanding of the blue-collar way of life. We help brands connect to this American worker on our blog Blue Collar Branding. Come join the conversation and learn helpful strategies, observations and trends.

Another key perk of brand minimalism is that it helps all your branding remain more consistent. Remaining consistent makes brands extremely effective because it increases their brand recognition amongst consumers.

There are many great examples of brand minimalism including Nike, KFC and Starbucks. Starbucks is probably one of my favorites, though, because their change to a more minimalist design helped ease the brand’s expansion. Their latest branding doesn’t have the word “Coffee” in it at all, which allows them to introduce their new products that include tea and ice cream.

Minimalism makes sense for a lot of brands, and if done strategically, it can make the brand more memorable and consistent.

We used our “Cover Photo” image to reinforce our brand but the possibilities are endless. The most important thing to remember when choosing the image you want to use is to get it as close to the dimensions of 851px by 315px as possible so there will be no scaling or cropping to your photo.

For a tutorial on how to upload your cover photo you can find one here.

To see more examples of successful and creative cover photos, you can check out what some of the big brands are doing here. My favorite is probably Sprite’s where the cover photo carries on from the profile photo. Which one is your favorite?

Mommy Francis Packaging
Not only is the design very unique and colorful, but they also use a biodegradable material that resembles plastic for the lids.

Coco
The typography is lovely and fits in nicely with such a clean design. In each package’s lower right-hand corner is also displayed the amount that is recyclable.

The Kingdom Animalia Packaging
The packages themselves are made of recycled cardboard. The actual product is a line of wooden animals that are made of sustainably harvested maple wood.

Lee’s Never Wasted Shopping Bag
Great idea of a shopping bag that can be reused for games, bookmarks, and other functional things. We love that it isn’t just about the materials this bag used but also the process of re-inventing its uses.

Samsung Reclaim
Sprint’s eco-friendly phone is made with environmentally responsible components and the packaging is fully recyclable.

Pangea Organics Carton
The design uses every bit of whitespace available so nothing goes wasted. The package itself uses no glue to cut down on another resource used. We mentioned Pangea packaging in a previous post so check it out and see more of their eco-friendly packaging like their use of egg cartons.

Coca Cola has recently come up with a PlantBottle™ packaging which is the first-ever fully recyclable PET plastic beverage made partially from plants. Their latest packaging claims to have up to 30% plant-based materials. So what does this mean for consumers?

PlantBottle™ looks, feels and functions just like traditional PET, but it does so with a lighter footprint on the planet and its scarce resources. PlantBottle™ is fully recyclable in the existing community recycling programs and can be used back into new bottles or the wide variety of other products made from recycled PET today.

Coca Cola’s use of PlantBottle™ packaging in 2010 alone eliminated almost 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide – the equivalent impact of approximately 60,000 barrels of oil from our PET plastic bottles.

As technology increases, so does companies’ ability to switch to more recycling trends for their packaging. Lets hope that every year we can further reduce our waste and design more eco-friendly packaging. To find out more about Coca Cola's new PlantBottle™ packaging you can go to their creative new site.

In a 2011 report from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, companies in the food, beverage and consumer products industries plan to cut packaging waste by 4-billion-pounds between 2005 and 2020. The greenhouse gas emissions avoided by a 4-billion-pound packaging reduction have the equivalent impact of removing 815,000 cars from the road or 363,000 homes from the energy grid for one year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalency Calculator.

So how are designers and manufacturers cutting down on waste? The main way is by looking at the full cycle of the product and packaging and seeing how they can improve on its sustainability. Sustainable package design involves using environmentally friendly materials that are renewable, recyclable and compostable.

In a study conducted by Ipsos Marketing, it states that “global consumers have readjusted their priorities regarding food products.” Consumers prefer products that offer increased health benefits, fresher ingredients and environmentally friendly packaging. One of our favorite examples of a product is a 100% organic soap that also has compostable packaging made from 100% post-consumer content. The bar soapbox is inspired by egg cartons and is from Pangea Organics.

Start thinking about ways your product can be more eco-friendly because I guarantee you this trend is here to stay!

As I showed you in a previous post, the package design should be inspired by the brand’s personality. A great way to give your package design a unique style is to also be inspired by the product itself.  It could be the product’s color, size, shape or materials from which you pull your inspiration. This not only makes it more interesting but also keeps it more consistent with the product inside the packaging.

My favorite example of this is in the Doritos concept box design below. Since the Doritos chips are distinctive triangles unlike all other chips, the designer has decided to repeat this design throughout the package design.

A few purposes of a package design are to showcase your brand, brand’s personality, product, and the product’s features. With an online product, your website will convey your brand and brand’s personality since the customer will not see your package design online. Good photography and copywriting for your product is essential in getting customers captivated as well.

So when do you need a package design? Well, of course, when you ship it out. Then, as with any other product, it is conveying your brand and its value. Online stores should push package design even more since their customers will be opening at home, so why not go ahead and make it like a present? It will make your product more memorable along with increasing their excitement for your product/ brand.

One really important thing to keep in mind when it comes to package design for online orders is to always consider the shipping. Since you will always have to ship it out, make sure it fits in your boxes without causing too much extra cost or having to increase your box size.

Package design adds so much extra value to your product/brand, so why not make it memorable and give your product the competitive edge?

1. Gives necessary information — By showing the features/benefits of your product on the package it begins to answer some of the consumer’s questions. Consumers all want to know the same things: what the product is, how to make it work, and why they should buy it. The more answers you can provide them, the more likely they will be to pick your product over your competitors’.

2. Shows personality of the brand — Even though your brand may be small and not recognizable, you can still make it stand out by showing its personality. One of my favorite examples of this is by The Hill Station. As you can see from the products below, the brand’s personality definitely shines through and makes it more relatable and enjoyable to their target market.

3. Appeals to the right people — The key to any form of advertising, branding or packaging for a company is to make sure you are speaking to your target market. The design of the package can greatly determine if you are reaching your target market or alienating it from your product.

For example, if your product were feminine body soap you wouldn’t want to design the packaging like you would for an automotive part. If you did, your target market probably wouldn’t even notice it because they didn’t think it applied to them.

4. Consumers see your product as more valuable — A good example of this is wine bottle labels. Consumers are more likely when trying a new wine to pick one that has the nicer label because they assume it’s a nicer wine. While this logic may not be true, it appears like the company has invested more time and money into their product because it is more valuable.

5. Protects your product — Of course this is an obvious one but it deserves mentioning. Once you send your product out to stores, your customers’ experience with it is out of your hands. You want people to have a positive experience with your product and brand. So if your product is not fresh or damaged due to lack of support in your packaging, you will probably hear their complaints and lose them as a customer.

You never want either of these to happen so creating a package design that protects your product is always a plus!

The purpose of package design is to provoke and communicate emotions. An excellent package design gets the customer to instantly connect with your brand emotionally through style, color, content, and appeal. Figuring out your target market and creating your package design for them is key. Otherwise, if you miss the mark and it doesn’t seem valuable or relevant to your target market, they may never even pick it up off the shelf!

With an estimated 70% of all purchasing decisions made in stores (research by POPAI Global Association for Marketing at Retail) it has become even more important to make sure your package design has shelf appeal.

"I charged them when we first got started 'I'm going to set a goal that you cannot meet, but I want to achieve an iconic name of the firm that begins to rival the Nike swoosh or the McDonald's arches,'" he said.

They've got plenty of work to do before reaching that level of brand awareness, but Cockrill said red is a color that demands focus, while a chair is a component of architecture with a human scale to it.

Cockrill added that in conversations with employees about the name, he told them "if you like it or don't like it you're going to ask about it because it's so different. And they agreed."

Read the full post here: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jan/04/community-tectonics-cockrill-design-planning

• Design for engagement and user experience
• Use proper spelling and grammar
• Focus on quality content
• Avoid too many ads
• Avoid duplicate content
• Less is more
• Ensure high-quality code

Read the full article and see the description for each tip over at Six Revisions.

The great thing about the pay per click program is that you don’t actually pay until someone clicks on your ad. It’s helpful to not have to pay a monthly fee whether or not you are getting traffic. Instead you determine an amount to pay for certain keywords per click. Pay per click advertising is only worth it though if the sale gets from click to close. For the businesses that make a sale this means that customers are usually directed to their site for about 5 cents each, depending on the price of the keyword.

Pay per click advertising is even better than high search engine rankings because the ads can go up in just a few minutes while changing your web page content to improve your rankings, even with the help of a search engine oriented text company, can take weeks.

Pay per click advertising campaigns can be very effective if your ad is well written and if your target site helps to complete the sale with the customer. Without these elements, pay per click advertising can get very expensive and is simply a waste of your valuable time and money.

The brand pages look similar to an individual’s profile but they also have a box by their name that symbolizes they are a page, along with a 10 word description about the page. Some companies were very quick to get the brand pages and have some great customization with it so far. A few examples of my favorite designs by brands are by The Muppets, Coca Cola, and by Google itself.

I found two great tutorials online that show you how to create a Google+ Brand page as well how to create a profile banner to complement your branding.

So as a business owner already spending time on your social media presence with Facebook and Twitter, why should you also set up a Google+ Brand page? There are some key differences between the social networks that you should evaluate and see if they are beneficial to your target audience.

• Google+ is more content driven— Facebook is full of games, happy birthday messages and photos of friends and family, which make it more of a personal social experience. Google+ on the other hand is more professional and focused on informative content.
• Live audio/video chats— Google+ has hangouts that directly engages fans and can provide exclusive content. The Black Eyed Peas recently hosted a session backstage prior to a concert that allowed the fans to connect with them and tell some insider secrets of the band. The Muppets are another great example of a hangout and you can actually see the highlights from their hangout session below.

• Integration throughout Google— Google recently added +1 buttons into their Image Search so that there is a deeper integration with Google+, Places, Maps, Web and Image Searches.

Ultimately, it is up to your target audience and where they are that determines what social platforms you join. So do your research on your target market and make sure you are constantly marketing toward them.

To set it up simply go to http://www.google.com/alerts and enter the topic that you wish to monitor. Then select how often you want to be updated and where to send the email notification.

Developing a list of keywords is by far one of the most important steps in any search engine optimization process. Your keywords are then used for developing your content for your site so it is well worth the time to ensure your SEO keywords are highly relevant to your audience and their searches.

How to pick the right keywords

If your keyword strategy is only targeting the highly popular and competitive terms, your odds of success are small because you are competing with so many big companies for these words. The best keyword strategy would actually be to target keyword phrases that are more with medium popularity and where there is little competition. Here are a few tips on how to pick the best keywords for your site.

1. Use phrases not words— Let’s say your company sells dog collars. Instead of putting your keywords as dog and collars, group it together as one phrase. Keywords are meant to describe what you sell or offer, so your goal should be to describe them as best as possible.
2. Better description of content— The main thing you want to avoid is having keywords for products or content your site does not include. While people will come to your site they will quickly become frustrated because your site isn’t relevant and leave.
3. Use repetition but don’t overdo it— While you don’t want to repeat the same keywords over and over again—for example dog collars, puppy collars, pet collars— it doesn’t hurt if the phrase as a whole is varied. An example of varied phrases is dog collars and dog collar comparison. Remember though to have only keywords that are relevant to your content.

I have my keywords now what?

After you have researched and decided on your keywords, the next step is to implement them in your content. Here is a list of places you could put them:

• Using the keyword in the title of the page
• Using the keyword in the URL
• Using the keyword, and variations throughout the page copy
• Using the keyword in the meta tags, especially the meta description
• Using the keyword in any image file paths and in the images' alt text
• Using the keyword as the anchor text in links back to the page from elsewhere on the site

The main thing you want to remember with your keyword usage though is to not overdo it. “Keyword stuffing” is when you load your webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate your site’s ranking in Google. Google and other search engines actually penalize you for this overuse of keywords and can remove you from searches. As a general rule focus on creating useful content that your keywords fit appropriately into.

1. What pages do they view?— On the Dashboard, you can see the average amount of pages each visitor views. Also you can see which pages are the most viewed by going to “Content” then “Top Content” on your left-hand menu then viewing the full report. It’s always interesting to see which pages are seen the most and it can also help you structure your website correctly to make sure your key pages are featured the most.
2. What is their average time on your site?— Average time on your site is always important because the longer they stay on your site the more of a reputable source you appear to be as well as they are more likely to buy your products/services. View this statistic on your Dashboard.
3. Did they find the information they were looking for?— This can be a little tricky to figure out but your bounce rate comes into play a lot here. If your keywords don’t properly represent your site and your visitor comes in expecting something else they are likely to leave quickly. This increases your bounce rate so the less relevant your information is to your keywords the more likely you are to have a high bounce rate and low time on site amount. Check out this statistic as well on the Dashboard.

1. Who are the people coming to your site?— You can find out a lot about your customers by seeing what links they come in from, where they are located and what browser they are using. Find out about the first two in my previous post (link to previous post). To see what browser they are using, click on “Visitors” and then “Browser Capabilities” in the left-hand menu. It gives you a great breakdown of how many visits per browser and also has a pie chart to show you the information. Although it’s important to make sure your website works on every browser, it is very important to make sure it works properly on the top browsers your visitors use.
2. Are they buying your services/products?— Obviously your goal is not only to get the consumer to your site but also to carry out a certain action. You can set up a goal for your site by going to “Goals” in the left-hand menu. You can also set up a funnel. A funnel is a path to get them to reach your goal. So for example if your goal is to get them to buy a product, your funnel may be a thank-you page so you can monitor how many people complete the process with their shopping cart.
3. Are they new or returning customers?— With any business it’s great to have a balance of new vs returning customers. Keep up to date on your balance by clicking on “New vs Returning” in the “Visitors” panel.
4. How did they view your site?— Along with seeing what browser your visitors are using (see question 1), you can also see if they viewed your site on a mobile device. Go to “Visitors” then “Mobile” to see the statistics. Your site should be mobile-ready already but if your numbers of mobile users are high you especially should be thinking of catering toward this different platform.

1. How many people visit your site every day?  — This is of course helpful information that you will see throughout your analytics results numerous times. One example is a big graph on your Dashboard that has a line graph so you can easily see your visitor trends each day, rollover to get day specifics, and see the total number of visits in a month’s time below the graph. 
2. What links/sites do they come from?— If you are advertising, this is crucial information that helps you evaluate if your advertising efforts are paying off.  You can find out this information by hitting the tab “Traffic Sources” on the left sidebar. It even breaks down how many people have come from each source so you can really see your return on investment.
3. Where around the world are they located?— Whether you are curious where your customers are coming from or considering going international with your products/shipping, Google Analytics shows you a breakdown per country on your website’s visitors. You can get to this data by clicking “Vistors” then “Map Overlay” in the left side menu. You can either roll over the map or scroll down below to see the amount of visitors by country.
4. Is the traffic consistent?— Although you want a lot of people coming to your website, it helps out your business even more if they are coming consistently rather than in random huge bursts of traffic. You can also see this using the line graph from question 1. For you to have consistent traffic, we are looking for more of a straight line.
5. What keywords led them to your site?— You can figure out what keywords work best for your company and business by researching them and their traffic through Google Keywords. After you implement your keywords throughout your site’s content, then you can monitor what keywords are performing best. You can do this through your Analytics in the “Traffic Sources” Keywords panel.

The consumer is a key component in every business so the more you know about them the better. Analytics help you monitor and gain more information about them through:

1. Traffic — How many people visit your site every day? What links/sites do they come from? Where around the world are they located? Is the traffic consistent? What keywords led them to your site?
2. Demographics— Who are the people coming to your site? Are they buying your services/ products? Are they new or returning customers? How did they view your site?
3. Behavior— What pages do they view? What is there average time on your site? Did they find the information they were looking for?

We will break down all of these individually in the next few posts, along with a guide on how to best use Google Analytics for your business.

1. Change content without knowing code— This is by far the best and most useful benefit because it makes it possible for anyone in the company to edit the content without having to go into the code. It is similar to updating and editing a Word document and although the interface will change depending on what system you use, the functionality will be the same.
2. Helps with SEO— Sites that change and update their content on a regular basis give the appearance of their business being more active. Fresh content also helps with SEO as well because the search engines give higher emphasis to new content. Plus it never hurts to keep all your customers in the loop about new products and news.
3. Immediate changes— Another huge benefit is seeing your changes immediately. So let’s say you see a spelling error or a piece of information changed, you can go into your administrative area and make changes that take effect immediately on your site. This rules out having to get in touch with your developer and waiting a few days, which is always good for both parties involved.

Best of all you can’t even tell if a site has a CMS or not. The website can still be beautifully designed and editable!

Below is a list of five of my top pet peeves in websites from a designer’s point of view. Please keep in mind that these are just my personal opinions and are in no way things you should never use; just make sure you have a reason to use them.

1. All-flash websites — When you use flash it eliminates people viewing your site from a mobile device or browser that blocks certain content. Also depending on load time, people could leave your site being frustrated with the length of time it takes for your site to load. There was a time when flash was a big part of the web design community but it is being faded out more and more with new programming languages and techniques.
2. Enter pages— It can be hard sometimes to even get people to your website in general. Why then would you want them to have to choose to enter your site again from a landing page? Its like you are saying, “Are you really sure you want to see this site?”
3. Resizing the browser window— One of the challenges of web design is to get a website to look correctly on browsers of all sizes. I have obviously put my browser window to the correct size that I want on my screen, so when a website resizes it to work best with their site, I get annoyed and I’m just going to resize it back.
4. Videos and music that auto play— I may have my volume on my computer turned up to hear my email alerts or have headphones on. So when I am unsuspecting of the noise from your site and it happens, I won’t try and pause it but instead just quickly exit out of the page to get it to stop. Why not let people decide if they want to listen to your video/music instead of forcing them to? Unless you are a musician you do not need music on your site.
5. Newsletter pop-ups— Having newsletter pop-ups on your site increases the amount of people who sign up for your newsletter. Having it pop-up on every page though will only annoy people. When researching a pop up to apply to your site, make sure you have the ability to control how often a viewer sees it.

What are some of your pet peeves in web design?

Print Design

In print ads for example, people have only a few seconds to connect with your product/brand and see it as a solution to their problem or a way to satisfy their wants. So not only do you want the ad to be emotional and educational, but you also want to put your brand identity in a place where the consumer can actually see it. 

There have been several studies on consumer eye flow and although it is not an exact science, it does provide helpful information and gives a name to the lower right corner. That area has been dubbed as the “Corner of Death” by facial coding expert Dan Hill and you can see by the graph below that it is the second-to-last place the viewer looks.

Image by Neuroscience Marketing

Based on eye-tracking research, Hill says in his book About Face that “the best place is the lower middle part of the page or layout. At that point, the viewer will have engaged emotionally with the leading part of the ad.”

Web Design

There have also been a lot of studies for consumer eye flows on websites and among them all, a few key results are:

1. Headlines draw eyes before pictures— This was kind of surprising to me at first but considering consumers are hit with an overload of advertising each day, it makes sense that they might view it as more credible information.
2. Consumers scan the first couple of words of a headline— Content is definitely king so this is no surprise and holds true for print design as well. A viewer will read only the first few words/sentences and then decide if they want to keep reading based on their interest level. So each word must be carefully chosen to grab the viewer’s attention, which we have discussed before in a previous post. 
3. Navigation works best at the top— There is a pretty even split from navigation at the top of the page versus the side and users have become very familiar with interacting with both. At the top of the page however, it can be seen immediately which probably has a huge part into why it seems more effective.
4. Short paragraphs are best— Big blocks of text are very daunting to read and will normally get skipped over. Get more information into keeping your copy short, sweet and engaging in our previous blog post.

Just like deciding on your blogging schedule and guidelines you also need to decide from the very beginning on your tone of voice. The only thing as important as your tone of voice online is keeping it consistent. If you changed back and forth between authoritative and playful, for example, you will only confuse your viewers. Take a look at your online marketing and social media efforts and pay attention to your tone of voice. You wouldn’t want to put so much time and effort into social media only to mess it up with your tone of voice!

Two great examples of their use are by many different museums, along with Macy’s department store. In museums, they are enhancing the visitor’s experience by linking to audio tours, videos and supplement information about that specific exhibit. Macy’s has launched an advertising campaign around their Backstage Pass, which includes a QR code that gives advice to shoppers about the latest fashion designs, tips and trends. They also took it to the next level by designing the QR code and incorporate their branding, which you can see from the image below.

So how do you get a QR code? You can easily create your own for free through a generator online like Kaywa. Before you start plastering it everywhere, though, there are some tips to keep in mind.

1. Use for mobile marketing, not online — There is no point to put your QR code online because it requires more effort than a traditional link. Instead, put it in locations where your audience is on the go and has access only to their smartphone.
2. Have a way to analyze your traffic — When creating your code put your landing page url through a url tracking site like Bitly.com so you can actually track the number of times it is used. Otherwise, what’s the point of marketing if you don’t know how effective it is?
3. Don’t link to boring pages — You sparked an interest in the viewer already since they scanned your code so take advantage of that. You can offer them a special discount code, exclusive video or content or some kind of incentive for scanning your code. Have a mobile-ready landing page so the viewer gets the best experience and it doesn’t just link to your website.
4. Test out your code — Just like you proofread and edit copy before publishing, do the same with your code. Test it on different phones, different reader applications and at different sizes so you are guaranteed that it works.

eMarketer projects the US will have 73.3 million smartphone users by the end of 2011. Smartphones become an integral part of the users’ daily lives and they use it as they multi-task and consume other media. A study from Google called “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” reports on how people use their smartphone and some of their findings are in the video below.

With so many customers getting information on their phones it is vital to make sure you have a way for these consumers to find and connect with you online.

Image from Retargeter.com

I actually went shopping online once and put an item in my cart but left the site deciding not to buy it. A few days later on another site a banner appeared showcasing the same product I had placed in my cart! It was great because it got me thinking about the product again and actually led to me going back to the original site and purchasing it.

So what does this mean for your business?

• Increase brand visibility/awareness
• Drive more customers back to your site
• Battle shopping cart abandonment

If banner ads are already in your marketing mix, why not try to increase your visitor conversion rate by adding retargeting banner ads?

• How they are marketing. You can find out current marketing campaigns and contests through their blog, website, Facebook, and Twitter. This of course can be helpful in figuring out your next marketing campaign or promotion.

• Customer’s unmet needs. People voice their frustration when they can’t find a solution. Seeing customer’s responses to your competitor’s product either through reviews or social media sites can give you great ideas on how to refine your own product to meet these needs.

• Your competitor’s keywords and traffic.  A very cool online software program called Compete lets you compare multiple competitors’ site performance. Through their reports you can see their unique visitors, page views, time on site and visitor demographics. You can also understand their search marketing strategy by seeing their top keyword traffic and the ratio of paid vs. natural keyword searches. Compete also lets you see your competitor’s referring sites so you can refine your marketing budget and maybe even find a few affiliates in the process.

Start marketing smarter by knowing your audience and your competition.

Google+  isn’t really set up for businesses yet and they admit it. Christian Olsten, Project Manager on the Google+ project, actually discourages businesses from setting up an account in a recent article. He also states they “are building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses that will be releasing later this year.” Even though it is just for personal use now, it is still a valuable tool that I think is better than Facebook in a few different ways.

• Google+ has Hangouts which lets you video chat with up to ten people at a time from your circles. This is a great tool, and while Facebook recently added video calling to its features via Skype, it only lets you video chat with one person at a time.

• Google+’s Hangouts are also open so you don’t have to be friends with someone to video chat with them like you do on Facebook.

• Sparks by Google+ is similar to Facebook’s news feed. But instead of only showing your friend’s activity, it shows posts from around the web on a topic that you state you are interested in.

• Huddle is a Google+ feature for your mobile device that Facebook can’t compete with. It allows you to group chat with everyone at once instead of texting everyone separately. This will be so handy when trying to organize a meeting or dinner because everyone can be involved in the decision process.

• Another great Google+  feature is the ability to group friends in secret. Unlike Facebook groups, where everyone in the group can see the group name and the name of everyone included in the group, Google+ doesn’t show any of this information. It only confirms that group members are in your circle.

• With Google+ you can easily share content with specific circles, unlike Facebook, where setting up lists and filters can prove to be a time-consuming and more tedious process.

While Facebook’s 750 million users and estimated company value of $100 billion is extremely impressive, I still think Google+ will be a well-matched opponent.

1. Share expertise by answering questions in Questions and Answers— There are many forums on LinkedIn that you can participate in, helping you gain exposure as an expert in your field by answering people’s questions.
2. Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them — Proper research is always key. So instead of just looking at a company’s website before a meeting you can also do some specialized research on the key people you will be meeting with.
3. Request LinkedIn recommendations from happy customers willing to provide testimonials— Satisfied customers are the best way to get new customers by increasing your word of mouth. Recommendations from previous happy customers are not only is published on your page but also on theirs so people can also see who they recommended and get connected with you.
4. Build your industry network through Groups and find local networking events— LinkedIn has a Groups directory that you can search and find relevant groups and online communities in your industry. After joining a group you can not only connect with them online but also find local industry events that are great for networking.
5. Look at your competition and their statistics through company profiles— Over 150,000 companies have a company profile on LinkedIn. These profiles can include stats on company size, employees and their positions, recent hires, recent blog posts, etc. It’s always nice to have a unique insight into your competition.

Benefits of Blogging

1. Build your Name/ Brand Recognition— As I have talked about in previous posts about Facebook and Twitter, the more consumers see your brand the more they will get acquainted with it and the more reliable it will appear. This will only further promote your online presence and drive interest in your site and possibly sales, too.
2. Position Yourself as an Expert— Blogging builds credibility and creates a great readership. It demonstrates true commitment and passion to your industry that you can’t fake long term. Most blogs won’t maintain a consistent frequency over the long term. If yours does, however, it positions you as even more of an expert and an invaluable resource in your field.
3. Boost Your SEO— One of the best things about blogging is that old articles are still valuable and read years later. Search engines will continue to find them, improving your SEO by building on your links, keywords, and relevant content.

Building a Blogging Strategy

Before you start going crazy and writing tons of posts, make sure you have a blog strategy.

1. Know Your Audience— Seems like a no-brainer, right? You would be surprised how many blogs I have visited that were marketing toward one group and writing blog posts for another. Know your demographic and write content that is relevant to them.
2. Develop Correct Content— Your objective is to write content that draws an audience. What you choose to write about and how often you post depends on your company’s goals, but make sure you always target your audience with your content.
3. Choose the Right Voice— This is a very important. It shows that you know your audience. If you market to mothers, then make sure you don’t write your articles in such a casual way that it seems directed toward teenagers. This will only alienate your readers and cause them not to follow you anymore.
4. Decide on a Blogging Policy and Guidelines— Create a policy on how you interact with your company blog and its readers. With so much consumer-generated media it is important to know how to react to comments and customer blog post. Your policy should include things like how to respond to a negative comment on your blog, facebook page, and twitter page. Should you delete the comment and respond to the user directly or do you post a reply so everyone can see it? Knowing what your plan is helps you avoid bad publicity and protects your credibility.

1. Get permission to email them­­— This is probably one of the most important things because you definitely want to be in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act. Otherwise if you start sending emails to people who didn’t opt in to receive them you will be flagged as spam, your IP address will be blacklisted, and your audience will be frustrated with you. Overall, just best to get permission!
2. Match your email to your brand— To keep your marketing and brand materials consistent you should include your company logo and colors into your email campaign. This also gets the viewer more familiar with your brand and makes them feel more comfortable getting your emails.
3. Don’t use only images— For privacy reasons, most email systems disable images unless the user allows it. So if your email was all images most users won’t see anything. It is best practice to use some pictures but don’t let the whole email depend on them. You should also use alt tags for all of your images so if the images don’t appear the viewer can see a brief description and it will hopefully prompt them to allow all your images to appear.
4. Design the email for mobile users as well— A 2011 study found that 82% of smartphone users check and send email with their device. With that huge of a number you are really excluding your mobile viewers if your email is not formatted correctly for mobile devices. Check with your email-marketing provider and they should have mobile options you can use to format.
5. Personalize the email— You know why they signed up to receive your emails in the first place and maybe you even had them choose what topics they were interested in. Use this information to send them emails about their topic rather than including them on every email that goes out from your company.
6. Make the email short and on topic— The truth is that very few people will sit and read a long email and all of the text is actually very intimidating to viewers. A good rule is to write all of what you think you need, then cut it in half. 
7. Solicit an action— Even if your email campaign is more informative, make sure to have a “call to action” and promote the user to visit your site, enter your contest, become a Facebook fan, buy your product, etc. Getting the viewer involved is the whole point of your email marketing campaign!
8. Test your email messages with different email clients— After you are happy with your finished email design, make sure you test it out to see how it looks for different email clients and on a mobile device. There are many great email services to help you do this (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/testing/) or you can test it yourself for free by setting up free accounts with the different providers. Another idea is to test your message with four different headlines by sending it to a sample audience and see which headline gets the best response before you send the campaign to everyone.
9. Make sure your spam content is low— A lot of email campaign providers offer this as a service to check your spam content. Words like “FREE,” “One Time Offer,” “Special Deal,” etc will flag you for being a spammer. Make sure to run a spam test because being labeled a spammer is the biggest nightmare ever.
10. Link to your website and social media sites— This is a no-brainer!
11. Plan out your emails and don’t overwhelm the viewer— When your company decides to use email campaigns in your marketing mix make sure you have a strategy in place. Your strategy should not only be what to send but when to send it. Most companies send weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly emails. Sending more than one a week can be annoying to the viewer and result in an unsubscribe.
12. Send it at the right time of day— Timing is everything. I have found that the best days to send emails on are Tuesday-Thursday. On Monday and Friday, viewers “cleanse” their inboxes a lot more and you don’t want to be there when they start a large amount of deleting. The best time I have figured out is either 10:00 -10:30am or 1:00-1:30pm. While this is not an exact science, it is when I have gotten the best responses. During both of these time periods the user is normally at their desk and can hear their email signal a new message. Their automate response is to check out the new email so most likely your email won’t sit in the inbox too long.

I would like to share with you a situation that happened to me a few months ago on Twitter. I will not mention any company names but I had an unpleasant experience at a store with a warranty on one of my products. I was frustrated by their lack of customer service and tweeted about my bad experience. I didn’t mention them with the “@” or use a hash tag so they would see it. I just wanted to see if anyone else had the same problem and what they did.

Within twenty minutes the corporate office messaged me apologizing and gave me a solution to help me out. I was not expecting this when I tweeted, nor was it my desired result. It shows that someone was monitoring what is said about their brand and actually cared about their customer’s experience.

I went from being so frustrated and angry with this store, to amazed by their customer support and later that month actually shopping at that store again. You should definitely be monitoring what is being said about your brand on online social media sites. Instead of writing it off as another unhappy customer though, think about how you can improve upon their experience and view of your brand.

Having a million Facebook and Twitter fans shouldn’t be your end goal. A lot of businesses have online contests and campaigns to boost up their numbers but fail to keep viewers engaged after the contest is over. To that I say, “What’s the point then?” A million Facebook fans won’t help you to reach your business and marketing goals unless you connect with your followers in a meaningful way. Capturing data and information about your followers for future marketing projects should be your main focus!

Capturing the Information

A very effective way to capture customer data is through contests. The chance to be a winner gives an incentive for the follower to participate and input their information without feeling an invasion of privacy.

When you create your contest signup form don’t limit it to only the name and email address. Also have fields for relevant information to your business like age, location, occupation, what they are interested in, experience with your product so far, etc. I wouldn’t make it a mile long or else no one will want to take the time to enter, but a few questions will work great, and you can always make them optional.

5 Ways to Use the Information Captured from a Contest

You presumably have valuable information about your followers who entered. Now the important part is using it.

1. Add the email addresses that opted into your newsletter via the entry form to your next email newsletter about a new product they may be interested in. Important: make sure you have an option for them to opt out of emails to go in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act.
2. Facebook also makes it possible to offer your fans discounts and special offers. This works beautifully in getting your fans to your website to purchase your product and enter their discount code.
3. Use certain fans in your target market as a focus group before you launch a new product or site.
4. Ask for feedback and reviews on products from followers you know are in your target market. Adding an incentive can also increase your completion rate.
5. You can also offer incentives for them to refer their friends by sending them a certain link and getting 10% off their next order.

1. Participate in industry conversation— Twitter is a great way to network with other industry professionals about upcoming trends, technologies, and common questions. Why not be a part of the conversation?

2. Continued brand awareness— The more the consumer sees your brand the more they will get acquainted with it and the more reliable it will appear. By being on Twitter you are introducing another platform for your consumers to see you on and to establish that positive relationship.

3. Engage with your target audience— While you don’t want to be annoying them all the time with your constant updates, it is still great to start conversations and interact with your users.

4. Monitor your online presence— With Twitter, people can give feedback on your product or service instantly. You can monitor what people are saying about your brand through mentions, hash tags, and Google alerts. This is also good in case you have a dissatisfied customer and you can work quickly to fix the problem.

5. Promote new events, contests, products, or specials— Get more participation in your events and contests by tweeting links and talking up special launches.

6. Communicate company news— Traditional press releases are a thing of the past. Most companies go online to publish their company news now. Why not tweet about it too and increase your brand awareness?

7. SEO boost— Hopefully you have great content on your website and blog. Why not tweet some links to send viewers there to increase your traffic? It’s great because your website/blog gets more traffic, plus it keeps your followers involved and interested in your company.

1. Connect with customers to get quality feedback— What’s more important than customer feedback in understanding your target market? Facebook makes it easy for customers to “Like,” “Share,” and comment on your posts, which further increases the conversation about your brand.

2. Continue your brand cohesiveness— Facebook is great at offering many customized options for your fan page that allow your designs, photos, and logo to carry through your page so your brand is best represented as a whole.

3. Announcements regarding your products and services— Just because you can post all the time, I don’t recommend it. It can get tiring to your followers and it’s better to focus on quality vs. quantity. Whenever you have a new product or service launching, or some unique content to share, this is a great platform because it can keep your brand in the forefront of your consumer’s mind.

4. Hold online contests for increased interaction— With Facebook letting you create custom tabs and applications, it’s great to integrate online contests into your business fan page. We recently finished an online contest for Bulwark Apparel (see image below) that invites the viewer to “Like” the page to reveal the contest entry form. This is great because it not only gets your Facebook page more fans but it also gets them interacting from the beginning.

5. Direct fans to your website and other social media pages— This is always important because the more customers are aware of your brand and continually interact with it, the better your chances of increasing sales.

Here are five useful tips to keep in mind while venturing out to different social media and online marketing sites.

1. Don’t Auto-Follow on Twitter— There are different programs that set up a system to follow people back as soon as they start following you. It may sound good at first but once you look at the numbers it starts getting overwhelming. The main objective of Twitter is to connect with people in your industry and to connect with customers and potential clients. If you follow 10,000 people how are you ever going to find the right people to start conversations with?

2. Don’t auto respond to your followers on either Facebook or Twitter— This is not only one of people’s main pet peeves but it also goes most times unnoticed.You can tell when a message has been mass sent or is an individual’s reply so why not go the extra bit and make that personal connection? You will get more responses this way than with any automated social media campaign.

3. Keep an upbeat and positive tone— Remember that you are representing a brand and there is no room for venting or negative comments. We all have bad days but the more you talk about yours online the more likely people are to un-follow or disregard you.

4. Make sure to have quality content instead of “filler”— Many people post on their blog, Twitter, or Facebook a million times a day to try and increase SEO, but without quality content it doesn’t matter. Don’t just hurry to get something online. Take your time and do your research. It’s about quality, not quantity.

5. Forget about the numbers— It is easy when you first get started in social media to join every networking site and try and get as many followers as possible. But it’s not a popularity contest! If you are sharing quality content and making personal connections it will strengthen your brand much more than 20,000 unresponsive followers.

2. List important dates
“As soon as possible” isn’t exactly a timeframe. Be specific. “We have a tradeshow coming up on September 1st. We’d like the site ready to launch August 7th to allow time for testing and review by management. We can deliver you the assets by June 15 from our end and we’ll need you guys to have concepts to us by that date as well.” By giving us the important dates we can build a production schedule backing out from there.

3. Cover your assets
Check out your photography, illustrations, copy, logos and other assets as much as you can and the agency will be able to give you a more accurate estimate on cost and completion. “We’ve got all our existing photography on a hard drive that will be delivered by next Friday. It’s all high res-300dpi- but you will probably need to do some color correction. We won’t be able to get you the native files from the last brochure, but we have press ready PDFs we can send over, and should be able to get you a vector EPS of all the logo files.” Now you’re empowering your agency to spend time on your marketing objectives rather than paying them to sort through old archives that may not even be relevant to your current project.

4. Define your budget internally
In broad numbers, get a sense of what your company thinks this project is worth. If it’s a Website, is it a $15,000 job or is it a $100,000 job? Your agency will be happy to create a solution that meets your price range and to tell you about various levels of functionality that can be achieved. We always try to offer creative ways to give you the most bang for your buck. I have one client that is great about always defining their expectations related to cost. “We have a sponsorship ad coming up in a charity program. It will only run once and we didn’t budget for it. Can you do something for a few hundred dollars?” Absolutely.

5. Identify and engage the decision makers
One of the best ways to do this is to outline your marketing plan and review it with senior management as early as you can. Let them know in general terms what events and initiatives you’re planning to support throughout the year and what your general sense of timing and cost is. What percentage of your annual budget should be devoted to revamping your website versus creating new printed sales materials and developing an advertising campaign and then buying media to broadcast it? Use big round numbers and let them know what your expectations are for a successful result. Then ask them what THEY think.

• Are in a stationary location (probably indoors).
• View the web on a desktop or laptop computer.
• Have a generous amount of screen real estate.
• Have a dedicated power supply and network connection.

Now contrast these thoughts to some truly startling statistics *:

• In Q4 of 2010, smartphone sales surpassed PC sales.
• Mobile phones are predicted to overtake PCs as the most common way people access the web by 2013—two short years away.
• The average smartphone user visits up to 24 websites a day. We’re not talking about apps, but actual websites accessed via mobile browsers.

Read the complete article The Web As We Know It Is Dead to learn more about why mobile first makes sense and how you can begin to employ a responsive web design  approach that responds to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. View some examples of responsive web design.

*Bruce Lawson from Opera and Luke Wroblewski of A List Apart, Ideation + Design

Design is very much about the organization of information. It’s important that customers can quickly find the information they need and it’s presented in a thoughtful way. It’s like anticipating their questions.

If your catalog is really well organized and customers and dealers love it, it only makes sense to translate that experience to web navigation.

Check out how we turned the table of contents from this catalog directly into the main navigation on the Website.

Read More:
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 1
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 2
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 3
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 4

Use animation, video and other web-centric interactive technologies to make your messages clearer. Zoom in on product details. Illustrate product features. Show satisfied users engaging with your products.

Have experts give video demonstrations. Create a forum to give customers a voice to talk about why they love your products. Try to make their shopping experience better and faster.

Don’t slow your customers down with lengthy intros or cumbersome graphics. I think it’s a lot like making a movie with lots of explosions and no story. People get bored and, worse for you, they tell their friends.

Read More:
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 1
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 2
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 3

We recently were asked to plan a team-building exercise for members of Turner family, founders of Dollar General Stores. Several generations of the family attended this annual event, designed to encourage younger members to continue the Turner’s commitment to philanthropy.

Check out this video to see what we came up with:

This event succeeded because we tapped into a very personal relationship the individuals have with the family “brand” in a way that was both surprising and fun.

That’s a good approach for any kind of branding, whether you are planning a small team-building event or a large marketing campaign.

But what got me more than anything as a package designer was watching the presenters pry open those envelopes. They’d give their speeches, politely watch the nominee’s clips and then as they obligingly said “…the Oscar goes to” they’d fumble with the envelopes (and ruin their manicures) getting at the winner’s name.

Were the envelopes too small? Were the presenters nervous? Could the fumbling have been avoided? Maybe not altogether, but definitely anticipated.

All too often the most important component of a package’s lifecycle- it’s interaction with the end user- is overlooked. In this case, it’s a nervous / jittery / arthritic person who may or may not have stage fright (they are opening this thing in front of 37.6 million people).

Packaging needs to be considered from their point of view. In this case, an extra 1/16” could’ve helped that card slide out a little easier. Or a perforated edge.

I’m not berating the Academy here- toy packaging is notorious for causing four-letter words to slip out around my Christmas tree, usually in the process of liberating a poor Buzz Lightyear from his box with a hacksaw. I get it- the manufacturers want to make sure that the product is delivered in mint condition, but unfortunately, it’s at the expense of the consumer’s patience.

Bottom line is, intelligent design HAS to consider how the person interacting with the package is going to actually get to the product inside. Dotted lines, scissor icons and tear here strips all serve to make the user’s life a little easier, and keep their fingers (and manicures) intact.

Have you interacted with a packaging nightmare? Did you come out with all of your fingers intact?

Packaging Nightmare. Images courtesy of Mommyfriend

Use the same headlines, copy points and copy tone. The copy on your Website, and other interactive media, should echo the voice your customers hear in your brochures. If your company is friendly and approachable, then your Website should be too.

Read More:
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 1
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 2

In this post, we'll look at some additional SEO tips that you'll want to incorporate in your website design and the best practices for each.

1) Image Filenames and ALT Tags

There are two ways you can optimize your images to further your SEO efforts - effectively naming your image files and making use of the ALT attribute tag. Utilizing the ALT tag provides alternate text where images are not supported, turned off or some alternative technology such as a screen reader is being used.  Best practices for images and alt tags:

• Use keywords in the ALT tags.
• Name image files according to their content. If you are showing a picture of an 8 inch saute pan, instead of 28370-09-jpg , use 8-inch-saute-pan.jpg.
• Use keywords in images where they relate to the content.
• Limit number of images.

2) Friendly URL Structure

Creating friendly URLs will help convey content information easily and provide users and search engines with more information about a page. A good Content Management System should make this easy to implement. Best practices for URLs:

• Make URLs friendly and readable.
• Use words in your URL structure utilizing keywords where appropriate.  i.e. myanimalsite.com/dogs/poodles
• Avoid unfriendly URLs with unrecognizable parameters and session IDs.  i.e. myanimalsite.com/pg=?234us&6890
• Use a simple directory structure. Avoid deep nested subdirectories.

3) Meta Keywords

Use a keyword tool to select your top keywords. Best practices for the Meta Keywords:

• Use keywords that are relevant to the content.
• Merge, de-dup, get specific and as focused as possible with keywords.
• Put most important keyword first.
• Keep the length around 150-160 characters. Technically they can be any length but search engines will truncate a snippet longer than 160.

4) Meta Description

While this tag doesn't have the importance it once did in gaining Google page ranking, its content is still important in that it can be used as a "marketing snippet" describing to the user what that page content is about. Best practices for the meta description:

• Should be unique to each page.
• Describe briefly to search engines and users what the page is about.
• Avoid just filling with keywords.

5) Site Submission & Tracking

Submit your site to both Google and Bing Webmaster Tools and set up your Google Analytics account ( or one of the other analytic tools of your choice ) and include the tracking code on you website pages.

Implementing these best practices for on-page optimization, along with the best practices outlined in the previouse post, 5 On-Page SEO Tips to Optimize your Web Design, will make it easier for both search engines and users to find you.

Use the same color palette, headline typefaces, photos and graphics whenever possible. I think it gives your brand a stronger presence, and makes it look more organized and more professional.

Seems like it should be easy to do, doesn’t it? It should. If you have a successful brochure, turn it into a successful Website.

This work we did for Five Points Benefits is a great example. Strong branded color palette, unique illustrations (by our very own illustrator, Tom Milner), and consistent type and graphics throughout. The Website, brochures and even the stationery suite feel connected.

Read More:
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 1
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 3

The program was recently featured in an article in the Wall Street Journal: What's Playing in Nashville? It's Got a New, Healthier Beat.

We collaborated with the health department and the mayor’s office to develop the brand for the program, including the name, logo and advertising.

The page title tag is a very important  tag that tells the search engines and users what the page is about.  Best practices for title tags:

• Make unique title for each page and use keywords that accurately describe the content.
• More is not better. Can dilute relevancy.
• Merge, de-dup, get specific and as focused as possible with keywords.
• Put most important keyword first.
• Keep the length around 70 characters.

The Google search results below for Nashville advertising agency shows our listing with the page title tag  content on the first line. The second and third line are the marketing snippet Google pulls from our meta description tag.

2) Optimized Content

Creating fresh content on your site that is relevant and interesting can help attract external links as you become a trusted source that others want to link to.  Think of your content as link food. Best practices for optimized content:

• Create fresh, unique content.
• Utilize important keywords consistently throughout your content without stuffing.
• Organize your content into logical categories and areas.
• Make content relevant. Acquiring relevancy is more important than acquiring ranking. If your site ranks #1 for a Justin Bieber search, but you're selling auto parts, that's a wasted ranking to the end user.
• Update regularly whether it's products, a blog, news, a portfolio.
•  Don't create duplicate content.

3) Link Text

Link text is the clickable words in an anchor tag that users will click on to either an internal or external link. This is a call to action for the user. The better your anchor text, the easier it is for users and search engines to understand what the link is about. Best practices for anchor link text:

• Use descriptive, accurate text. Include your keywords where appropriate.
• Make text concise. Avoid making lengthy links. A a few words, phrase or brief title is all you need.
• Make anchor text link stand out with CSS styling.
• Avoid generic text such as "click here" or "article".
• Use anchor text for both internal and external links.

4) Header Tags

Header tags let the user and search engines know what's important on the page. There are six tags H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6.  Best practices for Header tags:

• Use header tags to emphasize importance and show structure.
• Use relevant keywords in Header tags.
• H1 is the most important. H6 is the least important. Plan content accordingly.
• Describe the main points and sub points of the page content.
• Note: As HTML5 becomes more widely used on the web, best practices for Header tags will likely adjust to allow utilizing the new Section tag in combination with Header tags, so stay tuned.

5. Navigation

Good navigation on your website should be simple, clear and easy to use so that users always know where they are. Best practices for site navigation:

• Navigation should be simple and efficient so that a user can navigate to an area in as few clicks as possible.
• Use keyword rich navigation links.
• Use text for navigation, but where you want a certain visual effect, your web developer can use CSS sprites to give the navigation a more visual look.
• Provide a breadcrumb navigation.
• Have a helpful 404 page. Provide links back to the home page of your site as well as some of the main categories to help the user get back on track.

Implementing these best practices for on-page optimization will enhance your websites searchability for both search engines and users and increase the potential for higher, relevant rankings in a search result.

It seems to me agencies who only do print work are quickly becoming a thing of the past. So is the idea of using two different shops and having to constantly play catch-up with one or the other to keep them both on the same page.

Your Website, interactive ads, videos, identity, stationery, print ads, brochures, direct mail, packaging, e-mail, point-of sale, TV, radio and more can all be designed by the same group.

Just make sure that the shop you choose is strong in all the areas you need. I can recommend a really good agency if you’re looking. :)

Read More:
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 2
5 Ways to Integrate Your Company’s Website with Your Other Communications: Part 3

You decide right then and there that you want to use that same font for an upcoming marketing project but realize that you have no idea what the font’s name is. Where do you go for information? Who do you ask that might recognize the font?

Thankfully, the folks at webdesignerdepot.com have compiled a list of 7 Free Tools that can help you identify your unknown font.

Happy hunting!

I remembered that ad, and liked it, too. It turned my perception of Detroit on its ear. And the ending made the hair on my neck stand up:

In fact, I thought the Chrysler spot would be at or near the top of the list of favorite Super Bowl commercials for 2011. But I was wrong.

It ranked 43rd of the 61 ads that ran, according to USA Today research How the Super Bowl ads ranked with viewers, just one spot ahead of a movie promo for Fast and Furious 5.

So why the low rating? Here are my very unscientific theory: It wasn’t funny.

By my unofficial count, only 13 of 61 Super Bowl ads could be considered “serious.” The rest reflected the fun atmosphere of the Super Bowl, which has turned into America’s best excuse for a party, even for non-football fans.

In fact, every one of the 28 highest-rated ads at least tried to make us laugh. Funny ads contribute to the Super Bowl frivolity. Serious ads are serious downers.

So while the Eminem ad was well done, perhaps Chrysler should have waited until the Monday after the Super Bowl to tell such as serious story.

I think this goes beyond the idea of consistent messaging and branding. It speaks to the need for an overall sales and marketing strategy aimed at delivering specific results. Time messages so they reach your customers with the right frequency. Don’t overload your customers with daily e-mails. Make your print ads support your online banners.

Results. That's a good goal.

1. RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS
In 2011, expect companies to monitor consumers' public moods and act upon them with random acts of kindness...marketing may never be the same... Read more »

2. URBANOMICS
Are you ready for hundreds of millions of more daring, more experienced consumers? Oh, and that's just one side effect of rapid global urbanization... Read more »

3. PRICING PANDEMONIUM
Flash sales, group buying, GPS-driven deals: this year, pricing will never be the same... Read more »

4. MADE FOR CHINA (IF NOT BRIC)
Expect an increasing number of 'Western' brands to launch new products or even new brands dedicated (if not paying proper respect) to consumers in emerging markets... Read more »

5. ONLINE STATUS SYMBOLS
This year, you can’t go wrong supplying your (online-loving) customers with any kind of symbol, virtual or 'real world', that helps them display to peers their online contributions, creations or popularity... Read more »

6. WELLTHY
As good health is now as important to some consumers as having the biggest, newest or shiniest status symbols, growing numbers of consumers will expect health products and services in the next 12 months (and beyond) to prevent misery (if not improve their quality of life), rather than merely treating illnesses and ailments... Read more »

7. SOCIAL-LITES AND TWINSUMERS
Expect even more consumers to become curators: broadcasting, compiling, commenting, sharing and recommending content, products, purchases, and experiences to both their friends and wider audiences... Read more »

8. EMERGING GENEROSITY
Brands and wealthy individuals from emerging markets (yes, especially China) will increasingly be expected to give, donate, care and sympathize versus just sell and take. And not just in their home countries, but on a global scale... Read more »

9. PLANNED SPONTANEITY
With lifestyles having become fragmented, with dense urban environments offering consumers any number of instantly available options, and with cell/smartphones having created a generation who have little experience of making (or sticking to) rigid plans, this new year will see full-on PLANNED SPONTANEITY... Read more »

10. ECO SUPERIOR
When it comes to 'green consumption', expect a rise in ECO-SUPERIOR products: products that are not only eco-friendly, but superior to polluting incumbents in every possible way... Read more »

11. OWNER-LESS
This could be the year when sharing and renting really tips into mainstream consumer consciousness as big brands and governments put their weight behind this cultural shift... Read more »

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world's leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.

He discovered, for instance, that when you Google the phrase “provider of value-added services,” it comes up more than 600,000 times on corporate Web sites.

His point: you can’t differentiate your product through marketing if you use the same words everyone else does.

So why are so many companies afraid to step out and say something that truly sets themselves apart? They’re afraid of being “too different,” which might scare off potential customers.

But that’s the point of good business writing, says Fried. Language should be used as a filter to quickly exclude those who don’t see the value in your brand, allowing you to focus on prospects that do.

So take the Web jargon test. Pull a few key phrases off your site and Google them. If lots of other companies are saying the same thing, it’s probably time to examine your brand and strengthen your words.

This quiz was published by @issue: The Online Journal of Business and Design. Like designers everywhere, we’ve enjoyed @issue for years here at Locomotion Creative. In it’s original form as a magazine and now online.

Originally created by Kit Hinrichs when he was still at Pentagram, @issue celebrates the marriage of design and business and gives in-depth examples of branding success stories from the redesign of the FedEx® brand to Fossil®, to Mercedes® and more. I learn something every time I read it and I think you will too.

Take the quiz now.

Back to the quiz. I got all but 3 of them. See how you do.

Today, we call that Social Media. Blogs, comments, Facebook, Linkedin, SlideShare, YouTube, Flickr. These tools, and hundreds of others, allow us to share our thoughts and experiences with each other. Just like in the old days.

Carolyn Elefant of MyShingle.com writes; “for lawyers interaction through social media -- answering questions, blogging, doing great work and sharing information -- comes naturally.  More importantly, social media platforms are powerful enough to ensure that lawyers' efforts to educate clients or build relationships with colleagues can compete head to head with the kind of advertising hype that put many good lawyers at a disadvantage.”

Setting up the tools is fairly easy. Taking the time to build the relationships is an ongoing, rewarding endeavor. 

I like the sentiment but they don’t work for me. Not that I don’t appreciate people thinking about me…clients, vendors, friends. Love them all. But something about it leaves me short. This year I’ve gotten one card in the mail to every 7 ones via the Internet.

I suppose that’s just natural though. When was the last time I wrote a business letter on paper? Can’t remember. Greeting cards are next. Thanks for the vine…sent via the Internet. And Merry Christmas.

Giancarlo, the new music director at Nashville Symphony, is not your typical maestro. He’s approachable, funny and refreshingly honest — he admits he first came to enjoy classical music watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. In short, he’s the perfect vehicle to reach a non-traditional, more blue collar audience that might otherwise think classical music is elitist and stuffy.

We had the pleasure of helping the symphony create a marketing campaign to introduce Giancarlo to the community. The challenge was a little tricky — while we wanted to attract new audiences, we also had to retain the symphony’s current base of patrons. And, of course, the most important goal was to sell tickets.

The centerpiece of the campaign was a one-month burst of television advertising designed to get the 2008-2009 ticket-selling season off to a fast start. We shot the spots at area landmarks to demonstrate Giancarlo’s excitement about being part of the Nashville community. And we put him in unexpected situations to create a fun, approachable tone.

Other tactics such as print and online advertising, e-mail blasts and even a rolling billboard complemented the TV.

By all accounts, the campaign was a success. On opening day for ticket sales, single tickets were up 59% and season tickets were up 39% compared to the previous year. Also, first-time buyers were up 16%, indicating that we tapped into the non-traditional audiences we sought.

The point is, when reaching a non-traditional audience — or any audience — your message must engage with them on their terms. A traditional, elitist tone would have further alienated blue collar types from the symphony. But a campaign that shows how classical music can and should be enjoyed by everyone opened the door to grow the symphony’s patron base.

Is it because people just don’t want to open it up to read about new job losses and the tanking economy?

Or is it that they are getting their news elsewhere? Or maybe the newspaper just isn’t news anymore? Sad. I still get my paper and look forward to getting ink on my hands but I’ve got to admit that I’m reading about stuff I already know.

We get our news so many ways — television, radio and all the ways the Internet provides us, on demand, on our schedule. Before I go to bed, my friends on Twitter have already told me what just happened and my home page gives me the details if I want it. My mobile phone gives me the highlights immediately and if it’s personal, someone has already texted me the data.

While I still tend to believe what I read in the newspaper because anyone can disseminate information online without recourse, I can’t help but get caught up in the immediacy of the new media.

Private-label products accounts for 30 percent of unit volumes in food, drug and personal care, reveals research by Dechert-Hampe & Co. marketplace consulting firm. These goods constitute one-fifth of total retail sales — or $50 billion — according to Information Resources, Inc.

A recent survey by Meyers Research says that Americans actually prefer private-label products in many popular categories. The Private Label Manufacturers Association estimates that private-label products are growing at double the rate of manufacturer-branded counterparts.

The key to consistently achieving consumer buy-in seems to require both providing a value-driven product with a meaningful brand experience.

Target has mastered this approach through innovative and appealing product and package design. It has created a number of exclusive product lines that either have proprietary brand names (e.g., At Home, Archer Farms, etc.) or are endorsed by well-known designers (Michael Graves). These offerings all maintain the exclusivity of a house brand while enjoying the appeal of national power-brands.

Building a brand experience goes beyond merely endorsing the retailer. It can help create an exclusive, emotional bond with the consumer that encourages customer loyalty and retention.

To get the most out of your private label program, remember these three ideas:

1. Develop private-label products that deliver an emotional experience for customers.
2. Cultivate customer loyalty and retention for these brands through compelling packaging and emotional advertising.
3. Facilitate control of product and pricing strategy for the retailer by creating “ownable” exclusive house brands.

Not anymore. And, according to Ad Age, not just because of the economy.

Because private label products are usually cheaper, they always represented a more blue collar image. Many times these products are of equal or greater quality than their branded brethren. I have created many package designs for private label products, ranging from clothing to motor oil to bird suet.

The proper design message helps send the message that it’s okay to use these products without fear of being called out by the brandanistas.

And, when you consider that the ONLY advertising many of these products will get is what appears on the shelf, doesn’t it make sense to make them speak loudly, clearly and with the right personality you wish to convey? Don’t miss the opportunity to sell your product through the powerful tool of package design.

Nothing, really.

It’s difficult, time-consuming work to build content that is relevant and useful for customers. There’s a real person on the other end of the computer who actually brings ideas and value to the words in a blog.

So we all know Content Is King.

So much so that this is one job that cannot be replaced by a machine or cleverly written software. It will always take smart people to make the personal connection and deliver meaningful content.

In a two-way conversation, like in any social media space, the reader gets information about a product or service delivered in a simple, approachable manner. The reader seeks what he’s interested in and starts a dialogue. With that door open, the reader can ask a question and start a dialogue with a presenter he sought. Once the presenter responds, a conversation ensues … and a trusted friendship is often formed.

And wouldn’t you almost always trust the advice of a friend rather than a presenter you don’t know? And by virtue of the fact that YOU sought out this presenter, the bond of trust is even stronger.

1. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to find cheaper alternatives. I’m going to pizza joints for lunch and not Italian restaurants. I’m finding interesting things at thrift stores and shying away from boutiques. It’s not good for the overall economy but good for me. Just by doing these things, we’re all finding new sources … and discovering new trends.
2. By the simple fact that we’re getting our information and influences from new places makes us consider new trends. Yesterday, I never turned on the TV or radio. It wasn’t a conscious decision; I just didn’t. I got all my input from being online. And my online connections — Facebook, Twitter, blogs — sent my trends in new directions.

Marketing is like that. Our customers are having to change the way they receive data and act upon it. What drives us to buy a product may have come from a suggestion from an online friend and not a 30-second TV spot. You just developed a new trend.

Just like TV, radio or print media, your message reaches customers and gives them an opportunity to engage with your product.

Unlike traditional media, Twitter is by invitation only (following), customers have already accepted you as part of their network and is inexpensive (some time required).

Here’s what you do:

1. Open a Twitter account using a recognizable URL.
2. Start building a network of followers by following people who fit your customer profile.
3. Start sending Tweets carrying messages of value.

Here are some ideas:

A Restaurant — Tweet daily lunch deals redeemed with a simple code phrase: “Toucan Eat 4 1.”

A Car Dealer — Send data on new, hot deals on the lot right now: “Lime green crew cab, low miles.”

A Gift Shop — Tell customers about new products just in: “New earrings by Jamie, 20% off.”

A Plumber —  “Available all day Friday for new installations. Put me to work on that leaky faucet.”

How are you using social media?

While it might be slow to gain traction, some website are starting to make headway in this space. ThisNext, Kaboodle, Stylehive, Wists, Dealplumber and Crowdstorm, to name a few, encourage the dialogue between shoppers when they share recommendations and common interests.

Some consumers, however, will prefer not to shop with others. But it doesn’t mean that they won’t benefit from information about social relevancy and context in the goods that they are purchasing. An element of social input in online shopping services augments the experience, even if it isn’t central to it. There are numerous opportunities to add a layer of social features to an existing set of commerce functionality or to new services which aren’t primarily social.

And each group of shoppers brings a unique set of expertise and interests to the online marketplace. Marketers can place products on sites that are most relevant to their audiences.

Deal sites for this economy: While not exclusively “social,” deal-tracking sites have been around since the late ’90s, and the newest generation of them adds social input into which are the “best” and “most relevant deals.” Check out Dealplumber, Dealspl.us, and Clipfire.

The brand that a marketer is selling is not merely a logo, a package or a sign on a wall. A brand it not what you want it to be or what your ad says it is. A brand is not even the definition you give to it.

Quite simply, a brand is how your audience feels about you. It’s what they say about you when not encumbered by advertising promotion. Or unencumbered by the paid media around you. So when your “friend” on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin says they just found the best hot dog in town, you believe them. Much more so than a TV spot.

It’s a simple idea and it works.

There was a great article in the February 19 edition of the New York Times comparing French and American television advertising. The article points out that in-your-face, hard-sell tactics, like we employ in America, don’t work in France. It’s just not part of the culture. In fact, it is forbidden there to put down competitors in TV ads and even to encourage viewers to “call now” to buy a product.

Gérard Pirès, a top television director, explained that, “for us what remains most important is still the image of a product, not the product itself.”

Jacques Séguéla, chief creative officer for ad agency Havas, was more specific. He said American commercials go straight from the head to the wallet, while French commercials go from the heart to the head — and only then, hopefully, to the wallet.

"This is a great reminder for all of us in marketing, especially in this unprecedented economy where many advertisers are tempted to forego branding and go straight to the wallet with special offers and low prices."

A few quick sales might keep your doors open for a while, but at what price? When the economy recovers, you’ll have repositioned yourself as a low-priced brand. And as soon as a competitor undercuts your price by a few cents, your advantage is gone.

Strong brands will survive this economy by continuing to win the hearts of customers to keep them loyal even in tough times.

And when things turn around, strongly and consistently branded companies like Publix will be the big winners. 

1. Dig deep!

This works almost every time but is laborious. If you’re trying to come up with a brilliant and RELEVANT way to present your story, learn everything you can about the product/service—who buys it, what it smells like, tastes like, feels like, what motivates people to buy it, why they don’t buy it and more. Dig really deep and when you think you know everything there is to know, dig some more. Because somewhere deep in the data of that product is a brilliant, relevant way to talk about it. The essence of the product and its emotional appeal to customers is hidden deep within the world where it lives.

The Internet is a great way to do the research, of course. It makes it so much easier. Many research companies, such as Forrester Research, Jupiter Research and Trendwatching.com offer free or inexpensive white papers on thousands of subjects. You can also conduct your own informal research through Internet polls using PollDaddy, SurveyMonkey.com or TwtPoll.

2. Word play.

This is easier and more fun. Most good ad concepts have an interesting word play that makes it memorable.

“Where’s the Beef?”
“It take a licking and keeps on ticking"
“Ring around the collar” (hate it but it works)

Find an interesting way to tell your story that hits at the essence of the product. It might be only a headline or tagline but it will be engaging if you find the right words. A good source of these ideas lies in quotations—famous and otherwise. Read lots of quotes and try to imagine your product in the meaning, tenor and cadence of good ones. A jewel of simple communication might emerge from it.

William Akers, author of the best-selling book on screenwriting, Your Screenplay Sucks! 100 Ways to Make it Great, self-publishes a list of quotes each year; famous quotes he has found and others that he just heard in his everyday ruminations. It’s sort of his New Year’s gift to people on his e-mail list. Check out his collected quotes.

These two techniques won’t make you a creative genius but they might help you through a creative block. Good luck.

Negotiating rates and usage can make you want to scream!

These days most photographers and talent ask for usage agreements — usually limiting rights to a period of two years. After that, you’re expected to renegotiate or do a new shoot.

Ask for unlimited usage and save yourself a lot of headaches later.

Most photographers, agencies and clients don’t have a structure in place to monitor usage agreements. Think about it. There is no ASCAP or BMI who tracks all the usage of photography. If it falls on anybody, it’s the art director who has to try and keep up with it. Consider doing a weeklong shoot twice a year. You’ve got 20 models at each shoot. After two years you’ve done 28 days of shooting with 80 different models. Who could possibly keep up with the usage on all those photos?

Photographers are obviously much smarter than art directors. Usually the art director comes up with the concept and spends several weeks bringing a project to life. The photographer works really hard for a few days and then walks away. The client pays for everything. Yet the photographer claims ownership and usage rights. The models claim usage rights. And we let them.

You can see, as an art director, I’m a little skeptical of the whole idea of usage and ownership.

Really, it’s a subtle way of increasing day rates. I prefer to level the playing field and ask for unlimited usage at the front end and negotiate if necessary. That way if a photographer wants to double his day rate and possibly price himself out of a job, that’s his prerogative. Same thing with models.

My feelings on ownership are pretty much the same. If the photographer concepts the shot, hires the talent, shoots the photo on his own time, with his own resources, and comes forward with an image for sale — of course he owns it. He’s taken the financial risk.

If the client pays for everything it seems silly for the photographer to claim ownership. The client took the financial risk; they should own the image. Everyone got paid well for their time and talent. What do you think?

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I’m sure there are photo assistants who can testify to the moment they got their first hernia on location. Photographers need a lot of stuff. Even when they travel light, they usually have a two camera bodies, multiple lenses, a tripod, a portable lighting setup, fill cards, flashes, filters, a laptop, a rubber snake and more.

Art directors learn photography basics in school and usually are decent amateurs themselves. They all have a general knowledge of how a camera, lenses and lighting techniques work, but there is no substitute for asking a professional.

Every photographer I’ve ever met has been open to questions. That’s helped me on the next shoot and the next. Here are a few things I remember.

1. Long lenses compress your image so the subject gets closer to the background. Look through a pair of binoculars to see this effect. You can completely alter your composition by changing lenses and a long lens can eliminate a cluttered background.

2. A polarizer filter can take out blinding highlights on shiny objects. A metal roof in the midday sun can melt your eyeballs. Midday is also about the worst time to shoot outside. It’s great for lunch, though.

3. A graduated neutral density (ND) filter will add depth and definition to the sky which tends to blow out (turn white). You can isolate the sky in Photoshop, or shoot two frames and merge them, but an ND filter lets you get it right in one frame by stopping down the sky.

4. A gyroscopic stabilizer will steady a camera in a moving vehicle to reduce camera shake. It can also yank a camera out of your hand. So if you get handed a camera with a gyro on it, hang on tight. Which reminds me, BE CAREFUL. On a fashion/apparel shoot, I once knocked a photographer’s brand-new $5,000 camera off a table and was so upset I thought I would throw up. The photographer smiled, checked it out and coolly said, “I think it’s okay. What do you want to shoot next?” No yelling. No crying. No throwing up.

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Imagine an early human carving a petroglyph into a cave wall over 10,000 years ago — an image of a single giraffe illuminated in the firelight. Family members are so impressed they start to make carvings of their own. They study that first inspirational image of the giraffe. They touch it and trace its long neck with their fingers. They try to imitate its greatness and recreate its magic.

When concepting for a photo shoot, the value of good references can’t be overstated. That’s why art directors and photographers surround themselves with visual references — catalogs, art annuals, torn-out ads, snapshots, packages, album covers, and on and on. They seek inspirational items of all kinds.

They find the things that seem most strategically relevant to the project at hand. They chew them up and spit them out as something new. No longer a single giraffe, but a herd — and now they’re running. Oftentimes, the client also has references of things they think are appropriate for the brand voice. All the better.

All the talking in the world about “desaturated, drop-focus, lifestyle, wide-angle distortion” can’t compare with having an image in your hand and saying, “Ugh … this.” Everyone points and nods and dances around the fire. It’s time to shoot.

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Here's an example: Silence is the new no.

This is a phenomenon marketing firms are experiencing more and more these days. We’ll send an idea, proposal, budget or even a creative execution to a client or prospect, often at their request, and get no response. We’ll follow up with an e-mail, then a phone call. And still, nothing but crickets.

We call this phenomenon “going dark.” And it always seems to happen when the answer is no.

No, we don’t like the idea or proposal. No, we can’t afford your budget. No, our CEO did not approve your execution. No, we chose another firm.

Maybe people are uncomfortable delivering bad news, or just too busy in this turbulent economy to reply. Whatever the reason, they assume that after days and weeks of silence, we’ll eventually get the message: No.

If the answer is no, why not just tell us?

We’re big people. Because marketing can be such a subjective endeavor, we deal with “no” all the time. In fact, we’re concerned if we get too many yeses — it could mean our ideas aren’t being evaluated carefully enough.

Plus, when you say no to your agency, good things happen:

• We’ll stop bugging you for an answer.
• We might be able to alter our ideas to better meet your goals.
• Or we might even recommend another marketing firm that’s a better fit with your budget and needs.
   

But none of that can happen unless you say the magic word — no.

Not sure how long I can keep up the Weird Al connection with the titles, but let’s go with it for now.

Typically, an art director or designer from an advertising agency, marketing firm, design studio, etc., has just finished the layouts for your new super-cool package, catalog, print ad, Website, or whatever your latest project is. They’ve collected lots of photography references. They’ve beaten the layouts into submission and everyone has signed off. They’ve recommended a photographer and have often tracked down talent and locations. They’ve scheduled and estimated your photo shoot several times to accommodate schedules, the deadline and the budget, and they’ve pulled together your shot list. They’ll also be editing the shots and supervising color and retouch.

Now you may be wondering if you need that art director at the shoot. Is it worth the extra money? With travel and lodging involved, the cost goes up even further. The definitive answer is, “It depends.”

Art directors have the most clear vision of what the shot should be, because they concepted it. They’re the client’s advocate at a shoot, too; they’re used to working with photographers and they can speak their language. An A.D. also understands photo equipment and knows the technical side of photo reproduction inside and out.

They’ll make sure the image fits the layout and the tone is appropriate. They’ll help set up the shots and make sure there are several good options. They’ll help with creative problem solving, too, when unexpected obstacles arise. They’ll also help with product styling, and sometimes, if you’re nice, they’ll even help carry stuff.

You could try and do all that yourself and have amazing success — or not.

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Much of the success of the ad will depend on how well this person connects with the audience. This is not a TV spot, it’s only a still shoot, but do your homework anyway. In television, you have casting calls, readings, callbacks and tapings. You need to know if the head sheet photo you saw had any life, could act and could emote on camera.

Still shoots are much the same. Here are some simple tips on choosing the right model.

1. Give as much description of what you’re looking for as you can.
Not just the basic stats, but also what kind of feeling you want from a model. Is she motherly, genuine, angry, caring, tough-as-nails? Is he corporate, soft-hearted, a player, all male or in touch with his feminine side? Talent agents know the models very well and can suggest people that have these hidden traits.

2. In narrowing your selection, allow yourself plenty of choices.
Don’t get too hung up on one selection because they might not be what you expect from a photo. And your impression of the character you’re looking for might not be consistent with someone else’s.

3. Always get the models to come in for a meeting.
Show them your concept, ask them questions, take some current photos. Ask them to act out the scene in the ad (just like you would for TV). Can they emote? Are they stiff and rigid? You must see them personally because they may be older, bigger, shorter, have different hair or just not look like their head shot. Most professional models are very good, but I’ve had several who were really disappointing in person.

4. Make the models feel comfortable and wanting to work with you.
Get to know them a bit. The more they feel good about you, the more you can negotiate with their agents for fees and usage rights. Most will work with your budgets, especially if they like you and your project.

A good, well-chosen model can make or break your ad. So invest the time to find the right one.

Other people process information by the verbal description, whether it’s spoken or written.

If I look at a timeline and it’s written in text, I’m lost. That same timeline shown as a chart is golden!

Presenting concepts to clients can work the same way. Before actually creating visual work, agencies often attempt to convey concepts with written descriptions. Some people can imagine the final product that way, but many cannot. And that can grind the process to a halt.

I’ve found that even the simplest, rough sketch can break the logjam. If you couple your simple sketch with an example of style, color or technique, clients will find it easier to understand.

If you have a bit of artistic talent, it’s even better if you draw the concept out in front of your client. That way you can talk it through as you sketch and leave out aspects that you’ve verbally filled in. And it makes the process more collaborative and even fun.

And if you can sketch how your idea could apply to the various elements of a marketing campaign — ads, Web site, print collateral, trade show booth, etc. — it can help clients see how it can be used as a branding element.

Like in the board game Pictionary, it’s doesn’t have to be a great drawing, it just has to communicate an idea.

You have a good concept. Want to sell it? Draw it.

Here's a little trick I learned from William Akers' book Your Screenplay Sucks, 100 ways to make it better. Akers suggests if you remove every unnecessary "the" and "that," you'll tighten up your writing AND make it more interesting. Try it, it works!

Here are some of Akers' examples:

Alex just stares down and squeezes the meat out of a crab leg.
Alex just stares down and squeezes meat out of a crab leg.

As the boat approaches the beach, the waves start breaking off the bow on the nearby reefs.
As the boat approaches the beach, waves start breaking off the bow on nearby reefs.

It is their oak tree strength as a couple, the inspirational letters from his children and his brother's devotion that give Claus the strength he needs for the journey ahead. We see that Detective Able is eavesdropping.

Your Screenplay Sucks is about writing good movie scripts, but it's good reading for advertising writers, too.

I prefer to think of photographers as specialists — like surgeons. A food photographer is as different from a location photographer as an orthopedic surgeon is from a thoracic surgeon.

For example, someone who specializes in the food service/restaurant industry will have a studio with a kitchen and be experienced with studio lighting and propping of sets. They’ll have a network of food stylists, an area where clients can work and a big closet full of props. In other words they have specific experience and equipment that makes them specialized. Their portfolio will include mostly examples of food shots.

A location shooter, on the other hand, has a network that includes scouts, production managers, talent agencies, clothing stylists, pilots and drivers, and has lots of unique equipment such as a gyroscopic stabilizer. If a portfolio contains one nice food shot mixed in among lifestyle, location and editorial shots, this may not be the best photographer to use for your new menu insert. While every professional photographer can shoot any kind of image, you want to choose one who brings you something special for exactly what you need at that moment. You want someone who lives to shoot food. She has the reputation and experience and a portfolio that reflects that expertise.

Most professionals we meet in Nashville’s advertising, marketing and branding community segment their work to present their strengths. To create an emotional connection between your customers and your product or service, bring in the specialist. Stat!

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Not if you want to be here when the next economy emerges.

When it all shakes out, what will emerge is a CUSTOMER-DRIVEN economy, not the CORPORATE-DRIVEN economy we’ve come to know.

Customers have unlimited options and so many outlets from which to choose. Gone will be the days when one mega-brand will be able to sell 14 different models of cars or manufacture all the best appliances for a kitchen or a clothing retailer carry the most desirable scarves AND shoes. In the customer-driven economy, you’ll buy your truck from Ford but your city car from Scion, you’ll like the Bosch dishwasher and the GE Monogram refrigerator and you’ll find that perfect scarf at Target and your shoes at Nine West.

You’ll be loyal only to Brand You!

So here’s an easy exercise. And it will cost you nothing. Answer these four questions and remember CUSTOMERS decide what you do best and what trends they are following.

1. How are you different?

Customers expect products that are clearly different from your competitors’. How can you increase your difference? How can you make these differences more meaningful? How can you make them more compelling? What would it take to make your difference really stand out in the market? Remember: if it’s not different, it’s not strategic either.

2. Are you focused?

The more focused you are, the more customers will see your differences. What makes you the “only” in your category? Which of your offerings best support your differences? What can you afford to cut out to make your differences stronger? What new offerings will you add as you pick up momentum? Remember: One red marble will stand out in a field of gray ones, but adding five more gray marbles will not get you noticed.

3. What trends are you riding?

The next economy will create new trends that your customers will follow. What trends will you follow? How do you determine what trends are still forming? Can you see any in your crystal ball that will make your sales year? How can you be poised when the trend index shifts in mid-year? Remember: You don’t get to make the trend, your customers do.

4. Are your messages tailored for the next economy?

A great strategy paired with poor messaging is nothing more than a poor strategy. How are you going to tailor your message to reach customers in the next market? What do they want to hear and what do they not? Is your story clear and respectful of the fact that they are the drivers of the next economy? They will make the decisions and don’t want you talking like you are. Remember: A simple, honest dialogue will win out over hyperbole in the next economy.

How will you answer these questions? Take a little time and think about them. It may help you position yourself as a player in the next economy. Which, by the way, is happening now.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

How about word-of-mouth? Nothing influences you stronger to try a new bank, find a dentist or try some unknown wine more than a recommendation from someone YOU already trust.

That’s where social media comes in. Virtually everyone in your social media network, whether it be on a blog, on Facebook or some obscure chatroom you were on last night are people you trust in some way. Can you believe that you actually have some affinity to RubberDuck297 from last night’s chat? You’ll actually take Rubber Duck’s advice about checking out his latest favorite beer than you will a :30 on The Office.

Just read these quick stats from DEI Worldwide/OTX, “The Impact of Social Media on Purchasing Behavior,” 2008, and you might become a believer: Percentage of people who report the types of online sources they have visited to get information on a company, brand or product:

• Social media websites 70%
• Company websites 68%
• Online news 57%
• Review sites 49%
• Wikis 44%

Social media websites have become an information resource for consumers.

• 60% of responders reported that they are likely to use social media websites to pass on information they receive online.
• Two-thirds of consumers agree that companies not engaging in social media as part of their online marketing strategy are missing an opportunity to reach consumers.
• 45% of people who searched information exclusively via social media websites engaged in word-of-mouth, compared to 36% who told others about information they found on a company or news website.
• Consumers who visit a social media website are more likely to make a purchase decision than those who do not.

Attitudes toward information they receive from an online brand representative:

• Likely to pass the info on to others 67%
• Likely to share their opinions 63%
• Value info more than ads 62%
• Likely to take action 57%

Download the entire DEI Worldwide report: “The Impact of Social Media on Purchasing Behavior”