Posted on Wednesday 30 July 2008
I am reading a new book called Groundswell (pronounced ground – swell). The book is how to win in a world that has been transformed by social technologies. Social technologies, as the term implies, does not imply what you would think; at least not what I thought it implied. Being the technical person that I am that loves the new gadget that has just come out, my first thought was how iPhones, computer operating systems like Apple’s new Leopard (which is awesome by the way), GPS turn by turn navigation, etc. But as I started reading the book, I began to realize that they put more emphasis on the social than the technology. Myspace.com, Facebook, Youtube, RSS, blogs and forums, and consumer rating sites like Digg.com are a few of the many ways that our society is changing the world – particularly the corporate world – that we live in. I can hear the parents saying, “Wait - I thought Myspace was for teenagers!” Haha!
Because of the increasing number of people that use these online communities and their applications, the power is back into the hands of the people. One thing that was very interesting to me in the first part of the book was to learn that large corporate power and the legal muscles that they flex will not stand against hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of people banding together and joining with someone that appears to have been taken advantage by one of these corporate entities. I’ll give you an example:
This is one of many stories straight from the book:
Jennifer Laycock, a breastfeeding advocate and operator of the blog theactivist.com, wanted to raise money for a breast-feeding charity. She created a T-shirt with the slogan, “Breast Milk: The Other White Milk” and had sold a total of eight dollars’ worth when a letter arrived from (you guessed it) the National Pork Board, requesting that she stop because her “slogan…tarnishes the good reputation of the National Pork Board’s” trademark, “The Other White Meat.” But Jennifer Laylock is no ordinary mom – she’s also an expert in Internet marketing. She documented the event on her blog; soon more than two hundred other blogs were linking to it. The pork board saw a PR disaster in the making and rapidly negotiated a settlement and took up a collection among its employees to help Jennifer’s charity.
Wow! No courts, no lawyers and in a fraction of the time…the internet community came from cyberspace in a very short period of time and affected a real life situation. The power of the people was exercised and corporate America was power-less.
There are many other great stories in this book that I hope to share in the next few posts. I hope to learn more about how corporate American can get involved in the Groundswell and ride the wave instead of just watching it go by.
Investing Online
Posted on Sunday 2 March 2008
I am at the doctor’s office getting my eyes checked & hopefully will be getting a new pair of glasses because I spend my time making a living in front of a computer which probably isn’t the best thing to maintain good vision. Maybe there is some truth to what our parents told us when we were little: ”don’t sit so close to the TV - it’s bad for your eyes!”
Anyway, these times are the rare occasions when I’ll pck up a magazine & read an article that I wouldn’t normally rean online or in a forwarded e-mail. So, I picked up the most recent edition of Fortune magazine as I was intrigued by the cover that eluded to the magazine being chocked full of articles of still being able to make big money in a rapidly declining economy. Guess what over 50 percent of the articles were focused on? The internet! Microsoft is buying Yahoo, should have bought Facebook, needs to make better computers & stay away from the web, Apple is going to take over the world, phonebook advertising will soon be something we tell our grandchildren about, & my son won’t know what a CD player is. As a web designer, my digital world seems behind the times. When I once felt on the cutting edge with my gadgets, I feel as though the tools & gadgets I have now, even though the help me accomplish great things, will soon need upgrading. Actually, I am writing this blog entry using my already out of date & no longer cool Palm TREO 650 :)
So how do we stay on the up and up with technology and continue to have time for family & business? Answer: we simply cannot. We as business owners must make decisions within the confines of out niche & the market we are trying to reach. One way we can do this is to find ways to spend advertising dollars that provide us with a measurable & goal-oriented method to reach our market. 9 times out of 10 that way is going to be accomplished online. Never before have we been able to obtain accurate metrics so quickly and in real time about how well our marketing campaigns are doing. Money spent to develop a classy website & money spent making sure it is consistently updated with relevant, searchable content is first & foremost a basic way to ensure that you & your organization do not become invisible to the people that you are trying to reach. If you think you are saving money by not updating your website, you are sorely mistaken. Visitors want information from you. Returning visitors want new information from you. You know what happens when neither one of them find what they are looking for. They’ll find someone else that is willing to provide it.
For you old schoolers out there: stop shying away from investing your money to promote yourself online. It will be one of the smartest things that you did. Having a website is rarely enough anymore.
What is Your Money Doing for You?
Posted on Friday 21 September 2007
Clients ask me all the time how their money can best be spent among print, radio, television, internet, direct mail, etc. Since I find myself primarily staying busy doing web design and internet marketing, my answer is usually the same: stay away from print advertising in local newspapers and put the money to work for you on the web.
Why is this good advice? Because on average, for a decent print ad in a major newspaper, you are going to pay at least $400, and you may get to run the ad between 1 – 3 days. You don’t get to select who looks at the ad, how old they are, how much money they make, and the worse part of all, you have absolutely no fail-safe way of knowing if people even SAW your ad! If you take that same money, you can spread it out over several weeks or sometimes months of online advertising with multiple online advertisers, getting more bang for your buck. But, that’s not the best part of it. There are ways to track internet advertising so that you know exactly who sees your ad, who responded, how they found the ad, how long they were on your site, where they live, etc. Demographics are so important, and so is the ability to capture demographics with your hard earned advertising dollars.
I am flabbergasted by the many companies that will spend upwards to $10,000 - $15,000 on phone book ads and when I ask them how their ad is performing for them, they don’t know how to answer because they have setup no way of knowing if they are actually generating leads or not. NEVER assume that your advertising dollars are working for you. Research supports that nearly 100% of the time advertising dollars are wasted dollars unless there is a way to prove that the money spent actually made money through lead generation. Like in any area of life and business, when you assume, well, you know the rest.
Why are people hesitant to invest money online, even when it involves promoting their own website? It’s not a new trend that is simply cool or fun to do; it’s actually hard work that requires some homework. People do it because it produces measurable results! There are multiple ways to track your advertising dollars spent, and you can actually determine what your ROI is on marketing campaigns. People that are smart with their advertising dollars don’t invest online to promote their businesses because it’s trendy and a sign of the dot com era that we are so deep into.
If you haven’t read the book Ogilvy on Advertising, you as a business owner need to do it. (get it on half.com or amazon.com - it shouldn’t be more than $10, and is well worth the investment) It is considered the Advertising Bible by many marketing professionals and advertising gurus. One of the first questions I ask every print designer (a graphic artist that designs print ads and magazine ads) is whether or not they have read this book because one of the premises of the book is how over the many years the author saw marketing campaigns for major companies that many people considered to be stunning visually nearly 100% of the time flopped or performed poorly when the ads were run. To the contrary, the ads that did not get chosen over the visually stunning ones nearly always outperformed the ones that everyone in the organization thought would have the best results. The million dollar question: What drove their choice to select the ads or campaigns that performed the worse? I’ll tell you, and it is the secret to avoiding wasting your money on advertising: personal preference. A business owner’s personal preference and what they like or don’t like to look at can destroy advertising dollars.
It doesn’t happen often, but once in a while, I will work on a web project with a client that provides all of the creative direction, knows exactly what they want, what colors to use, which pictures, etc. So far the best response I have received when I ask them why they have made these decisions were the sounds of crickets in the background. They don’t know why they want things this way! What’s worse is that they aren’t open to suggestions to methods that are proven to work. For these people, I cannot promise any type of results. They know as much about good web design and marketing that I do about installing a furnace or servicing my air conditioner. I call the experts at Bill Russell Plumbing Heat and Air here in Tulsa for that (yes they are a client! hehe) because they are trained experts at what they do, and I trust their judgment.
Always go with the numbers! Do your best to have data that supports why you are making the decision that you are making with your ad budget. If you don’t have any data, then be prepared to create your own data by running different versions of your ad and tracking the results by creating irresistible offers that force your target audience to respond in a way that you can measure the results.
Technology is at your fingertips! Don’t assume that what you are doing is working. If your success can’t be proven on paper with a chart or graph, you are probably deceiving yourself into thinking that your money is being well spent to promote your business. Don’t fall into that trap; contact us or someone else that does this stuff for a living.
Desktop Publishing – Part 2
Posted on Friday 21 September 2007
In the last installment that we posted on desktop publishing back on September 6th, we mentioned some do’s and don’ts for those of you wanting to get some designs done in house (from your own office) without hiring a professional graphic artist or designer. Although we recommend that your marketing efforts be developed professionally, we are posting this advice from the assumption that you have gone to the trouble to at least have your logo and Web site designed by an agency that knew what they were doing. We never recommend designing your own logo or attempting to put your own Web site together. Graphic design and web design standards change too often for the average consumer to know what’s on the up and up, and to actually produce something that will have any kind of shelf life.
To continue with our discussion, let’s look at a few more things you should keep in mind:
1. More color is not necessarily good. I read a book once called, Ogilvy on Advertising written by David Olivy, considered by many to be the Father of Advertising with decades of experience and testing the advertising industry. It has been well over two years since I read this book, but one thing I do remember from it over all others that particularly interested me was something he said that years of researched had proved. He pointed out that on multiple occasions when visually compelling advertising campaigns were produced, and everyone in the firm (including the client) was overjoyed with the visual quality and design, Mr. Ogilvy said that those campaigns 100% of the time NEVER performed to everyone’s expectations. He stated that the designs that were loaded with color and were loaded with excellent graphics and flashy objects never performed well. He goes on to say that the ad campaigns that no one wanted to choose because they seemed bland and underdeveloped nearly 100% of the time outperformed other campaigns, and in most cases, recorded record breaking sales numbers.
I know we don’t like to hear that, because it’s not pretty, but the numbers don’t lie! So, follow this easy to remember design principle: Keep it Simple, Stupid!
2. Try not to use knock-out type. Knock-out type is white letters over a dark background. It is difficult to read, so if you do it, then do it sparingly. Yes, our entire website, www.innovatedmedia.com, is white type over a dark background. We did this intentionally because it was the look that we wanted to portray to our audience. People come to our site looking for quality design, and whether or not we are capable of producing cool, edgy graphics. The purpose of our site is not to generate leads, although many times it does. 98% of our new clients come from existing clients, so we made the decision to make the website a place to showcase our work - not to get more customers. It is different when you are doing a newsletter or an advertisement where the purpose is to generate leads for your organization. Avoid using knock-out type, or if you do use it, keep it for Headline and call to action use only.
3. Tell the story with your headlines. People scan; they don’t read. If I can look at your brochure, and can tell what you do and what your offer is by looking at the graphical elements and just reading the subheads and larger type, you have done a good job on your design. Very few people will take the time to read the entire content on a mailer or advertisement especially if it lands in their mailbox and your design is competing with other mail pieces. Weed out all unnecessary content, and stick with your call to action and how they can get in touch with you.
4. Space between paragraphs. Creating a visibly obvious space between paragraphs increases the readership by 12%. Not sure where that number comes from. Ask David Ogilvy!
Well, that’s it. I hope these points help you. If you are still having trouble, just get in touch with us, and we’ll do everything for you. Experience doesn’t lie, and neither do the numbers.
Desktop Publishing – Part 1
Posted on Thursday 6 September 2007
From time to time, we’ll run across a client or two that wants to be able to produce some designs from their own office without utilizing the services of a professional media or graphics design firm. Many people have Microsoft Publisher, and while it is never recommended to use Publisher to produce professional print pieces that will be printed on a professional press or print shop, it does do a great job in your day to day desktop publishing for in house stuff.
Also, I’ll take this opportunity to say that we will probably never endorse anything made by Microsoft, because we don’t think they make good products. Yes, I just said that. If you are in the market for a new or BETTER computer, consider purchasing one of the new iMacs from Apple. They are superior machines, and can come with all of the software that you’ll need to produce fantastic print designs and videos.
To get back to the topic, a good example of using Publisher for desktop publishing would be a church bulletin for a small congregation, or perhaps a flyer for a staff meeting or an office luncheon.
So, what are the rules to live by when putting together something in house? By following the rules below, you can ensure that your design will look professional, clean, and easy to read.
1. Never use images from the internet for print design. Images you get from your browser while surfing the web are low resolution, and will never print at a quality worth looking at. There’s no magic trick to make them look better. You just can’t use them. Period. Visit www.istockphoto.com to purchase high quality stock photos from $1 - $5, depending on what you are looking for. The images are royalty-free, which means you can use them for whatever you want, and as many times as you want.
2. White space is your friend, and less is more. Don’t clutter your design with tons of graphics and fancy fonts. It makes the layout too busy, and takes the reader’s eyes away from your call to action (what you want the reader to see and do as a result of seeing it). White space (areas where there are no text or graphics) is easy on the eyes, and makes your text and graphics more pleasant to look at. Color is good, but use sparingly.
3. Unless you absolutely know what you are doing, and have taken classes on graphic design, never use more than 2 different fonts throughout your design. Pick a font that you’ll use for a heading and one that you’ll use for the body text. Fonts like Arial, Helvetica, Garamond, and Trebuchet are great for your body text while Times, Times New Roman, and Impact are good for bold titles. Also, please don’t use Comic Sans. Ever. I wish I could meet the person that created that typeface. I’d like to throw something at him (or her). Also, if you are looking for new and FREE fonts, go to www.1001fonts.com; there are tons of great fonts on there developed by people that have too much time on their hands, and just want to share their work.Yes, it’s totally free and legal.
4. Keep away from your margins. There should be a ¼ inch to a ½ inch between any text and your printer margins / the edges of your page. ‘Nuff said.
5. Don’t print double sided unless you go to the office supply store and get the right kind of paper that won’t show through on either side. It’s usually called brochure paper or presentation paper. You’ll get better ink absorption and your graphics will look better on this type of paper anyway.
6. Put your logo on everything! Anything you produce in house or at home should have your logo on it. Take every opportunity to spread your organization’s look and create brand awareness. Even if you are creating an office memo to employees only, they need to see it. A well-designed and thought out logo carries the professionalism and excellence that your company or church represents; put it on everything!
7. Try to stick with one text alignment. The exception of course, is for titles and subtitles, which most of the time will be center aligned. If you use left alignment for your body text, then don’t change it to center or right anywhere else in the design. You may not realize that readers notice, but they do. They may not be able to pinpoint exactly what they don’t like about a design or text layout, but if it’s not easy on the eyes, they will rarely take the time to critique it and find out what they don’t like; they’ll simply get bored and put it down.
Next time you pick up a magazine, a professionally designed publication, or a marketing piece, look it over in light of these 7 steps and see if the design violates any of these principles.
In the next post, we’ll list 7 more do’s and don’ts of desktop publishing.
Guaranteed Search Engine Placement?
Posted on Friday 24 August 2007
There are a countless number of companies that promise top 10 or even top 5 placement in the search engines and larger indexes such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. if you pay them “x” amount of dollars. Let me dispell this myth: no one can promise and deliver those types of results. Don’t get me wrong - it is possible to achieve good search engine placement for new and existing sites - we do it every month for our clients. But to guarantee this type of thing is wrong, and that’s how you can tell the difference between those that just want your money and honest web developers that know how to perform this service, and are willing to sit down and take the time to do it.
Search Engine Placement Must be Done on Purpose
I once took over a site that another local company did, and they did a great job. The programming wasn’t bad, and the design of the site was excellent in my opinion. The site was very organized, and was easy to take over because I instantly saw how everything was setup. One thing was missing, however. When I began looking into each page (this site was over 100 pages; a pretty large site), I noticed that nothing had been done to optimize the site for the search engines that would give the site a half fighting chance at showing up at all for any kind of relevant local search. So, I contacted the company that did the initial development of the site, and asked them about it. Their response was, “Yeah, we just ran out of time. The search engines will pick it up, though. That stuff isn’t all that big of a deal.”
Not that big of a deal? Not taking the time to do the homework necessary to optimize a Web site for the search engines is amateur and lazy. It took me 5 solid days of work, but within 4 months, the site was aggressively competing in the major indexes and search engines with other companies in the same industry 10 times its size that were nationally based, have been in business twice as long, and have had Web sites for years. This Web site that we took over now brings in approximately 20-30% of the company’s leads every year.
What if this work had never been done? Well, first of all, hundreds, even thousands of leads would have been thrown out of the window. Secondly, the money spent on the initial development of the site would have been a waste. The only way that people would have found the site is if they knew the actual URL address of the site itself.
Be leery of internet marketing companies that “guarantee” top 5 placement in the search engines. If you are getting those types of marketing e-mails, just delete them because they are junk. I recommend contacting a local web design firm that can come into your place of business and learn more about what you do and allow them access to some of your promotional materials and knowledge of who you market to so they can do the necessary homework. From there, it’s a piece of cake; it just takes a little elbow grease to get into the site and make some minor changes. If you have a small site, it may not take that long at all.
If you live in the greater Tulsa area, any of the surrounding regions, or North Texas, contact us, and we can come to you to perform this type of service.
Do you already have good search engine placement but are looking for more traffic to your site?
Contact us, and we can help.