The mission was to create ads that represented a service based on quality and that was targeted at rather afluent individuals. The use of high resolution, crisp, clear imagery was necessary in order to put a real focus on the kind of services offered on Bloomspot.

Here is a small sample of some of the ads that were created:

If you analyse the ads a little, you notice the following:

• Imagery – A good proportion of the ad is used in showing attractive, high resolution imagery.
• Typography – The type style is approriate and spaced well. The type is not too demanding and is spaced well to allow the imagery to be the focus of the ad.
• Highlighting – A red button with the words “Save upto 70%” highlight the value propsition of signing up for the viewer of the ad. It also provides a means for action, as a button usually created in order to be clicked on.
• Logo Wrap – Inclusion of the logo at the bottom of the ads allows for brand-building regardless of whether the ad is clicked or not.
• Coloring – Great use of fine, deep colors which suit the persona of the site and logo perfectly.

Overall, I feel the ads have turned out rather well. I guess only time will tell, but I hope I stumble across one of these ads when surfing the net in the near future.

We put our blood, sweat, and tears (along with insurmountable levels of coffee and Red Bull) into our businesses. We stay up during the wee hours of the morning, tapping away at our machines, just trying to build something of great value. We put our hearts and souls into our work. We don’t have the capability to just shut it off at 5pm and come home to our families. We work, and work, and work so much so that it is more than second nature, it’s our first nature.

And let me tell you, in the end, there’s no promise of success. That’s the back-breaker. You could spend years on a project, all to no avail. It’s not easy being an entrepreneur, it never has been and never will be.

If you want success in this life, you’ll have to work for it, plain and simple. Being born with a golden spoon in your mouth, and having the luxuries of life from the start isn’t success. Inheriting your entire wealth from your lineage isn’t success. Money isn’t success. Success is doing something everyday that will work towards making the world a better place, and loving every step of the way. That is the Entrepreneur’s Stuggle.

Banner ads need to shift, and fast. They need to become less about brute clicks and more of a branding tool essentially. The simple fact is, that banner ads that are designed well, and show strong branding do get noticed and clicked on. You don’t need to fool people into clicking. Yes, you may have slightly lower CTRs in comparison, but you’re sending people to your site that actually want to see what you have to offer, or are interested in finding out more about your product or service.

We also need to take a more creative route when it comes to our ads. With dwindling CTRs, in order to really catch attention, you have to be authentically different. That doesn’t just mean that your product/service offering is unique and interesting, but the ad creative itself needs to have some quirk to it as well.

As an example, I created this ad which was placed on DesignBump (a popular Digg style site but for designers) for a PSD to XHTML coding service. Here’s a preview of how it looked on the website:

As you can tell, the ad ties in well with the site and its content, and is very targeted to the audience and the site itself. There are a lot of designers who focus on UI only, or don’t want to do the HTML/CSS coding for a website, and hence DesignBump was a perfect spot to advertise such as service in a very creative way. The ad worked very well.

So, we need to encourage the industry to move into a more creative and targeted form of banner ad marketing – and that will drastically help the right businesses grow tremendously.

Please do check out the presentation mentioned earlier in the post, and do help us out by retweeting it!

A couple of announcements for February:

• Pricing changes
• Crazy January ends soon

So, let’s go through it then.

Pricing Changes

Over the course of January, we decided to have a special where all our prices were cut by 50%. This allowed us to serve a lot more clients and had quite the impact of order numbers. The special was also an experiment to see if we could tweak our prices somewhat to come to a more balanced equilibrium and bring better prices to our clients. So, what are we going to do? Well, our original pricing before our special was a base of $28 per banner ad, along with extra depending on the level of animation. Now, we’ve decided to lower our overall pricing by ~28%. That means a base of $20 per banner ad, hence bringing much better value to our clients.

The price change will be effective February 1st 2011.

Crazy January Ends

Our 50% off special during January is coming to an end. Tomorrow (Monday) will be the last day you can make an order and get the huge discount, so do get your orders in now.

That’s all we have to announce for now, sayonara everyone

Why, you ask? We’ve just knocked off 50% OFF OUR SERVICES – zOMG!

We’re really looking for more people to give us a go at creating their banner ads, so now you’ve got no excuse to at least try out our service to see how it goes

The discount extends to all add-ons too, such as animations.

To take advantage of the offer, just head over to our homepage, and make your order using the order form at the bottom of the page – simple.

Keep in mind the offer only lasts until the end of January.

If you have any questions or comments, do get in touch: hello@elegantbanners.com

(click to maximize)

I decided to re-design Dr Jean-Paul Rodrigue’s popular “Main Stages in a Bubble” graph for this new web 2.0 Internet bubble we’re approaching/in.

Credit to This Week In Startups for the quotes. Awesome show, I recommend everyone go and check it out.

Yes, ideas are important. You’re better off pushing an amazing product, rather than a good or sub-par one, so having a great solid foundational idea does accelerate the whole process somewhat. However, there needs to be much more emphasis on execution of said ideas. Executing on an idea is the hard part, not thinking of a great idea. Ideas are a dime-a-dozen, and what sets apart your startup from the rest isn’t just a great idea, it’s a brilliantly executed, great idea.

For example, let’s take a look at one of the hottest startups around at the moment, MailChimp. MailChimp is an application that helps you setup, manage and publish to mailing lists (essentially). So if you’re setting up a mailing list for your hobby website, or business, you would sign-up to a service like theirs and be able to build a quality mailing list with high delivery rates and a bunch of extra nifty features and tools to help you grow it. Now, there are plenty of other mailing list services out there – many of them launched way, way before MailChimp. But what was one of the main points of MailChimp’s success? Their execution was astounding. They turned the idea of a mailing list SaaS (Software as a Service) into something much more with the implementation of a beautiful product with a great UI. On top of this, they built APIs to allow an ecosystem to grow around the service and have really done well as a result.

If MailChimp had not executed so well, they would simply be just another mailing list SaaS in the sea. Nothing special. And that’s my entire point.

So yes, think of great ideas, it’s essential you do so – but do remember that in the end, the success of the startup lies in your execution of that great idea. There’s a reason why angel investors look for great people to invest in more than a good idea. Ideas are malleable, and startups iterate and pivot all the time. The real value lies in the founders, in the entrepreneurs, in the creators. Quite simply, if you and your team suck, your startup will too. It’s that simple.

Banner ads are still used as one of the most common forms of advertising on the Internet. Google recently ran the “Watch This Space” campaign to bring attention to display ads, and to urge people to give them a go over traditional text ads. There’s a misconception that banner advertising is always ineffective, and is a waste of money. On the contrary, when done properly, the results can be quite astonishing.

So, how do I go about optimizing my banner ad campaign to get the most out of it? Here are some critical points that I’m going to explore in a logical manner:

• Evaluating your product/service
• Banner ad design
• Ad placement and audience
• Tracking stats

1. Evaluating Your Product/Service

The first and foremost thing you need to be thinking about is the product or service you’re trying to market. Here are some questions you need to be thinking about:

• Can you describe your product/service in a single short sentence?
• Is your product/service offering clear?
• Is your website designed in a way to easily portray generally what you’re offering within a few seconds?
• What are the best USPs (Unique Selling Points) of your product/service?

Once you have a more clear understanding of the kind of messages you want to put across to your targeted customer, you can then start deciding on short tag-lines and sales copy for your banner ads, along with how you’d craft the style and information presented on the banner ads. If you’re unsure about deciding on the content of your banner ads, you can leave that to banner ad creation services like us (all we really require is your website URL, and the dimensions of the banner ads you want created, and we can take it from there).

2. Banner Ad Design

The design of your banner ad is an important, and most overlooked part of any banner ad campaign. It’s crucial because it’s one of the main factors in setting the perception of your product/service. Let’s take one of the most prominent examples of this, Apple. Apple’s products are well-designed, but not only that, all their marketing materials follow the same design style and quality, and hence this builds up a perception in peoples’ minds that Apple products are better, and are of higher quality, when it may not necessarily be the case.

Design is important in your product, website, and any other platforms that you could be reaching out to potential customers with (blog/twitter account etc.), so this definitely includes any banner ads you’ll be using to promote your product/service.

3. Ad Placement and Audience

Now we move onto the part that most people get wrong. Ad placement. Get this right, and you’re off to the races. Now, personally, I’m not a fan of using typical ad networks like Google Adwords. I feel that it’s quite expensive in general, and if you’re not a PPC (pay-per-click) expert, you’ll have trouble setting up effective ads. I prefer picking my ad spots individually.

Why? Well, by picking individual spots on websites of my choice, I can scrutinize every last factor and really decide if it’s worth going for. Here is some of my personal criteria when it comes to buying out ad spots for ElegantBanners (for example):

• Blog
• High level of user interaction (can be decided through number of comments)
• Advertiser support (shout-outs/recommendations/giveaways/competitions)
• Blog I personally read frequently/occasionally (most of the time)
• Prominent position on the page
• Targeted audience (entrepreneurs/small business/web start-ups/other designers)

Picking out ad spots is a skill that can only be developed through a bunch of trial and error. It can sometimes be quite difficult to find the real gems, but when you do, it becomes well worth it.

4. Tracking Stats

What’s the point in buying out ad spots to drive traffic to your website if you don’t know which ads are working and which aren’t? First you need to establish your goal. Are you interested in raw clicks, or conversions? Do you have a “freemium” model? If so, what counts as a conversion? A sign-up to your free plan, or an upgrade to a premium one? Once you understand what you’re really after, you can start filtering out the good from the bad. Just because an ad gets a lot of clicks, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best ad. It could have attained no conversions (in which case the site you’re advertising on could have low quality traffic) – so it’s very important to track the right stat.

So, be sure to really drill down into your ad campaign, find the weak points and really make it work for you. Don’t just throw money down the sink.