BEM Interactive Blog - Digital Marketing, Design & Analytics Blog

Four Email Marketing Mistakes, Why They are Horrible for Your Subscribers and How to Avoid Them

2012-04-23T08:00:00.000-04:00

As an email marketing program manager (either in whole or, as a part of your job) there are a variety of opportunities that surface when managing your e-mail marketing. The list that follows are common items that email marketers may overlook as well as some suggestions on what to do and why it's important to your email subscribers to fix.

Email Marketing Mistake #1: The Send From Address is a Blackhole

Don't leave your email subscribers out here.

Number one on our list of email marketing mistakes is the send from email address that comes from nowhere. This could be something like info@yourcompany.com or, another equally uninteresting, impersonal and deep black hole. Nothing could sway your subscribers into "unsubbing" faster than receiving a bounced/unknown address email reply informing them that the address they replied to doesn't exist. And not to belabor this point but, it is really frustrating to the subscribers.. as I can personally attest. The fix for this email marketing mistake? It's super easy: Activate the bogus email address you have been using for your email sends and then, do whatever you can to avoid the second email marketing mistake.

Email Marketing Mistake #2: Replies to the Send From Address Aren't Monitored

Don't let this happen. Photo by Justin

Similar to Mistake #1 in this mistake the replies to your from email address actually go to an inbox somewhere... they just aren't acted upon. This is another email marketing mistake that you should do your best to help subscribers avoid.
It stands to reason that if you are emailing subscribers, your subscribers should be able to do the same in return. If someone replies to your email shouldn't you have the ability to act on their: request for more information, sales inquiry or customer service issue? It's entirely possible that a reply email contains your next sales or client retention opportunty. The fix for this email marketing mistake? After each send, wade through the replies to find the hidden treasure.

Email Marketing Mistake #3: Your Subscription/Preference Center Hasn't Been Audited in a Year (or more).

You launched your email marketing with great fanfare and enthusiasim... 18 months ago. Since then, you've discovered the need to refine customer service/CRM data, offer more (or less) subscription options or, changed your company logo/branding. The email program got left out. What's the fix for this email marketing mistake? Update your email subscription center, adjust the form length (is it too long?) and make any other changes that your analytics tells you.

Email Marketing Mistake #4: Your Opt-In/Welcome Triggered Email Series Hasn't Been Reviewed Since it was Implemented.

Similar to the previous email marketing mistake, your email marketing program has been humming along nicely for a while. But, your company recently decided to get involved with Pinterest, Facebook or, otherwise refine your social media strategy. Unfortunately, your email welcome series still refers new subscribers to be a friend on MySpace or doesn't mention that you have a Facebook Business Page. If you've made this email marketing mistake, what do you do? Double check all of your triggered email messages and take out all the outdated links, and creative.

What are some email marketing mistakes you've seen (since we know you haven't made any)? And, what do you think should be done to correct them? Let us know in the comments below.

Pinterest Ideas for Brands

2012-04-16T08:30:00.000-04:00

In our first Pinterest blog post we covered some fundamentals about the fledgling social network which is now the third most popular online social network. The visual pinboard site is already defining it's own niche with several mechanisms borrowed from other social media with a few new ones thrown in for good measure. Combine this with the entry by several national retailers and brands and you have the ingredients for a powerful addition to your marketing mix.

Some Key Stats About Pinterest

More than 60% of Pinterest users are Female.
Almost 1/3 of users have household incomes of $100,000 or more.
Pinterest has more referral traffic than the combined referral traffic from LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube.
1.3 Million average visitors per day visit Pinterest.

Tracking Competitors on Pinterest

And if the above data points were a bit on the dry side here's an interesting tip. We'll assume you have competitors, know who they and their website address. Want to know what has been pinned from their website to Pinterest? Just enter the following into your web browser's address bar.

http://pinterest.com/source/competitordomain.com

You will be sent to a Pinterest page that shows all pins from the website. In the example below we see some of the recent pins from Target's website.

Pinterest Ideas for Brands

If you haven't jumped into the Pinterest visual bookmarking waters yet, never fear, we have some suggestions for brands (both big and small) to consider.

1. Make it Easy to be Pinned.

Even though Pinterest has a Pin It browser button/bookmarklet not everyone is going to use it or, know how to use it. Make it as easy as possible for any of your website visitors to pin. How to do this? On Pinterest under Goodie is the Pin It Button for Websites. Give this code to your favorite website design company to implement and let the sharing begin.

The Pin It Button for Websites from Pinterest

2.Pin Others (and Yourself)

The point here is one shared across social media and that is spend some time and effort pinning/re-pinning the pins of your followers/customers. As consumers we instinctively shy away from or even worse (ignore) self-promotion. What's recommended here is a balance between pinning your latest and greatest gadget and sharing pins from your customers. Better still, pin your customer's results with your latest widget and the things that inspire them that are related to your business.

How would you show social media goodwill to your customers on Pinterest? Here are two examples to get your ideas flowing:

Greenland Gardener calls their fan board "Out & About". On this board Greenland Gardener pins images of customers who have purchased and used their raised bed garden kits and other products.

Greenland Gardener's customer pinboard "Out & About".

Cost Plus World Market refers to their follower board as Inspiration by Members. This board is a combination of customer re-pins involving World Market products and some pins that don't involve World Market products at all. The interesting piece of World Market's strategy is in the fact that they pin things that are topically related to what the retailer sells.By doing this, World Market positions itself with it's followers as a source of inspiration


World Market's customer pinboard "Inspirations by Members".

3. Create pin boards around what your customers find interesting

The boards below are from The Family Handyman magazine. Notice how they've arranged boards around rooms in your house? Use what you know about your core customers to make it easy for them to review and re-pin what you've pinned.

Have you found success with Pinterest? What tactics work for you? Let us know in the comments below.

Note: Stats in this blog post originally appeared on Mashable.

Fostering Creativity In Business

2012-04-16T07:00:00.000-04:00

Creativity is not limited to those that can draw well, paint a beautiful picture or design exceptional architecture. At its core creativity is about problem solving through uncommon solutions. Yet all too often you encounter people that do not consider themselves as "creative". I've known many business people that could hardly draw a stick figure and have no sense of style whatsoever. But when it comes to solving a business problem, they can come up with very unorthodox, yet highly effective solutions. What makes them different from anyone else? They live and function in an environment that fosters and even requires a high level of creativity.

So how do you develop creativity within business, and build a creative environment? Let's outline a few key points.

Drive Change With Creativity
All too often people look at limitations and see them as brick walls, looming and restrictive. Yet walls can be scaled and even plowed through with the right tools. The first step is to STOP doing what has always been done in the past. The process may have worked great for the last 20 years, but business is constantly evolving and change is imminent.

Embrace Exploration With Sharing And Collaboration
Now you have to change how you define and approach solving a problem. First, begin by defining a purpose or goal and outline the absolute elements that need to be included as part of the solution. Keep in mind to only define the absolute minimum requirement.

Next, pull everyone together to brainstorm the problem as a team. Allow people to think in terms of "what if" rather than "what is". Often the best time to be creative is when people are more relaxed. Take everyone outside for an hour and sit in the grass, or out to lunch, if possible. But find a way to help them relax for 10-15 minutes before engaging in a discussion. This helps reset their mind and prepare them for creative thinking.

Now you outline the challenge and start taking any and all suggestions to address the problem. You want people to think beyond the scope of logic and encourage everyone to continue offering suggestions. For a while some of the ideas will be ridiculous, even funny at times. But eventually someone will make an extraordinary suggestion that has potential for real application.

Learning From Failures
I'm sure some of you just cringed at this statement, but it is absolutely true. Creative problem solving comes from learning in a positive environment using constructive criticism. Take Apple or Google for example; they have had many past failures and will have many more. But each time a project fails or does not perform as expected, there is a process of evaluation that allows team members to learn from their mistakes. It's one of the primary reasons both companies have been so successful. Why are Apple products so successful? Simple usability and great interface design (just to name a couple). Google began by learning from the other search engine's failures; simply too much clutter for a page when all the user wants to do is perform a simple search.

As your team begins to learn from past failures, make sure you evaluate and learn from experiences and discuss them in a constructive manner. You'll find that not only will your staff become more creative overall, but morale will improve and eventually your bottom line.

Celebrating Success
Any measure of success whether big or small is a tremendous tool for individual encouragement and building team morale. Without success, staff will become demoralized over time and begin to question their contribution and relevance in a team environment. The celebrations don't have to be elaborate, but it's essential that they be acknowledged to continue fostering creative thinking and driving change and innovation.

Email Subscription Sign Up Forms - Four Considerations

2012-03-26T08:00:00.000-04:00

One of the key elements in your email marketing communication plan is the subscription sign-up form. In this blog post we'll review a few different types, elements that comprise email marketing sign-up forms and four considerations when developing your email newsletter sign-up form.

Types of Email Sign Up Forms

There are lots of different types of email sign up forms. Some are for signing up for an email newsletter, capturing leads, requesting literature or entering a sweepstakes/contest.

Email Newsletter Sign Up Form

The "Grand Dad" of the email sign up form the Email Newsletter Sign Up form has been with us forever (maybe even longer). With the email newsletter sign up form the objective is to capture a new subscriber to your email marketing list. The one featured here is from an online pet retailer. I really like the subscribe button. And this online retailer has made a real effort to classify a subscriber with the interest areas pull downs.

An email newsletter sign-up form

Lead Capture Sign Up Form

In this form from a popular inbound marketing software company we are offered an informational download in exchange for our information. You'll note that the form requires scrolling to complete. When considering a long lead capture form (like this one) it's important to weigh the need for information against the prospect's perceived value of what you are offering for download. If the information requested on the form is more than the prospect feels is worth disclosing the bounce rate will be high. In this case it's worth keeping an eye on your analytics to see the performance of the page. If the bounce rate is extremely high it's worth experimenting with the number of form fields and other variables.. one at a time to see if an improvement in bounce rate can be made.

A lead capture sign up form

Email Subscription Forms 4 Considerations

Does your offer equal the information you are requesting? As mentioned earlier if your perspective subscriber perceives an in balance between what is being requested and what will be received, you may not get all the subscribers you were hoping.
Do you have a prominent call to action button?If your signup button is too similar to the colors of your website it might not get noticed. Also, regularly shaped buttons tend to underperform against irregularly shaped ones.
For recurring emails/downloads:Do you provide samples of what the subscriber/requestor will receive? It's not a bad idea to include a sample. Usually, a graphic of a newsletter is sufficient to satisfy the "What am I signing up for?" question in new subscriber's minds.
Do you have a link to your spam policy? The more transparent you can be in relating to prospective subscriber the more likely they will sign up to received your email newsletter.

Do you have some important email sign up form elements? Share them in the comments below.

Change Management - Securing Network Resources

2012-03-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

All companies, at some point, need to change an employee’s access to the IT environment. A change in location, role or employment status will require adjustments to the access an employee has to company data. Securing company resources during the transition process is critical to the ongoing stability of the IT environment. When the employee is a member of the IT Department knowing what to lock down is especially important.

Having a complete list of all access points will help considerably when changes occur. Many companies have created a Change/Exit checklist to help track secured data or portals. Additionally, the checklist is often part of a formal process for navigating employee changes.

All resource or data access should be added to the checklist and stored in a central location. Network access may come from but are not be limited to the following areas:

Hosting environments
Network Appliances
Purchasing Accounts
Security Devices
Servers
User Accounts
Vendor/Support Accounts
Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
Web Sites
Workstations

When a separation or transition occurs, resources outside the company should take top priority. For example, access to VPNs and web sites should be blocked first. Once done, and the user no longer has external access, internal resources can be secured.

If the user was a member of the IT department, he or she may have come to know other users’ passwords. Asking all users to change their passwords can be a disruptive yet necessary step to securing the environment.

Network transitions will occur in any IT environment and are often unsettling. Collecting and maintaining access lists for all employees will help during changes to the IT environment. Prioritizing the order in which resources are secured can prevent unwanted access. Finally, securing internal user passwords will further protect the network.

Share your security challenges, successes or policies in the comment area below.

Image courtesy of: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=982

Facebook Timeline Brand Pages - 3 Things You Should Know

2012-03-01T11:20:00.001-05:00

Several weeks ago, during a particularly lively game of Temple Run, my iPad took a spill. Normally, this is no big deal, as I'm usually on the couch, in bed, or in a similarly comfy environment; the case does its job, damage is minimal, and I'm soon able to return to adventuring. Unfortunately, few protective tablet cases are equipped with the bacterial resistance to withstand the horrors of a public restroom floor.

After leaving the iPad in the bathroom trashcan, I was forced to do something I almost never do anymore: use a desktop computer. For me, this is akin to using a rotary phone, checking a beeper, or opening my garage to find that my Mazda has been replaced with the car from the Flintstones. Upon logging into Facebook, things got even weirder. My news feed flowing with a river of indignant status updates, Facebook's new Timeline design had steamrolled through user profiles, like a machete of tortured prose cleaving through the beginning of a blog post.

Facebook typically implements sweeping design changes in this way: rolling them out to personal profiles first, giving users time to vent, then become comfortable with the new features. This helps the transition when the change is implemented for brand Pages. In the case of Timeline, a fairly major overhaul, Pages administrators should be aware of several significant changes; you can experiment with these new features right now, but on March 30th, all Pages will move to Timeline whether you're ready or not. So let's dust off that Windows 98 machine and jump in.

The most noticeable of the design changes is the cover photo - a larger graphical area at the top of the page. This is a great opportunity to get really, really creative with your brand. From playful to striking, the right design here is critical. However, you'll want to make sure that you check out Facebook's guidelines for cover photos - aside from providing some formatting and size information, this article describes what you can't feature in your cover photo. There's the usual stuff (no copyrighted material, nothing false/deceptive/offensive), but some other content is also prohibited:

Pricing information
Contact information (URLs, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers)
Promotional offers & discounts
Calls to action ("buy now!")
References to Facebook site features ("Like", "Share", "Recommend", etc.)
Encouraging other users to use your cover photo on their personal profile

So even though you’re a bit restricted here in terms of promotional copy, designing a great cover photo is a very good thing, because with Timeline, one very effective acquisition strategy is going the way of my bathroom floor iPad.

Specifically, there are also some changes in how applications work on your Page. Before Timeline, one very popular way to make your Page stand out and build Fans was using a custom landing page - essentially, an application in which you could build a custom design, featuring your own brand and promotional messaging. Once this was set up, the Page settings could be adjusted so that users coming to your page saw that custom design first. This strategy let Page owners control the experience, and provide users with a reason to Like the Page (“20% off coupon code for new Facebook Fans!” or whatever).

With Timeline, these custom landing pages will still work! Unfortunately, the setting itself is gone. You can no longer specify that users go to a specific area on your Page – every single user coming to your Page sees the same primary Timeline view. So while your custom landing pages will still be there, and will still function, their effectiveness as an acquisition tactic is essentially nil.

But not all is lost! The Timeline update comes with some very cool new ways to manage your page. Let’s take a look at how you can feature specific posts or applications:

The band pictured here has converted to Timeline, and has chosen to feature some key applications, shown above circled in red. As a band, they are most interested in people hearing their music, coming to see them live, and buying their merchandise online. The three applications to the right accomplish just that. Any applications you wish to feature can be added here, in the 3 rightmost slots – the dropdown arrow to the right of those will show additional apps (your less important ones should go here). The Photos application remains fixed in the first position, but anything you want to feature prominently should go in the other 3 top slots.

You can also use Timeline features to highlight particular posts or events. In the picture above, the green arrow is showing a status update that this band has highlighted. By clicking the star on this post about an album review, the post expands to take up the entire width of the timeline. This gives it more visibility, as standard posts appear either to the left or right of the central timeline. Similar to highlighting is the ability to pin to top, which keeps a post at the very top of your Page, regardless at the date. These can be used to call out upcoming events, important announcements, or any other content that you want to feature prominently.

Finally, Facebook has expanded some of the administrative options – clicking the Admin Panel (top right in the picture above) will get you here:

In addition to recent notifications, new Likes acquired, and access to your Page Insights (we’ll talk about these in a different post), there’s also the new Messages area. Previously restricted to personal users, you now have the ability to send and receive Messages directly from your Page. You can tweak these options, and many more, by clicking the “Manage” drop-down and selecting “Edit Page”

Overall, Timeline for Brand Pages contains some fairly significant new ways to acquire and engage with your Facebook Fans. While the loss of the custom landing page is unfortunate, the new features are useful enough to outweigh this. Of course, we’ll be doing something cool on the BEM Facebook page, so come click Like and stay tuned!

Pinterest Explained + 3 Pinning Tips

2012-02-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

Pinterest Explained

Pinterest describes itself as "a visual bookmarking utility." If you haven't heard of Pinterest it's a relatively new site that allows users (aka Pinners) to "pin" or share online images to their digital "boards". If you're interested in subjects of a visual nature these images are ideal for Pinterest. Think of Pinterest as a kind of "virtual corkboard".

A selection of boards from my Pinterest account.

Following on Pinterest is not that unlike other social networking sites. If you see pins from a user that consistently interest you, follow them. When following another pinner you have the option to follow all of the users boards or, a selection of boards. After logging in you will see pins from whoever you follow and whatever boards you follow on the main screen.

Logged in: a selection of pins from Pinners I follow.

Re-pinning is the act of adding a pin from someone else's board to one of your boards. This gives everyone following your pins and boards the chance to see what's new on your boards.
One of the great things about Pinterest is that pins from your website, online portfolio or blog link right back to the source. So, those users that see, like, or repin your pin can click to find out more.

Other features
Mentions - You can mention another user in a comment by preceding the user's name with an @ symbol. For example: "@beminteractive check this picture out from the Social Media Bootcamp
Pricing - Include the price of an item in the description and a price badge will automatically appear in the upper corner and will place the item in Pinterest's gift price search.

Who's Using Pinterest and What's the Business Benefit?

Pinterest Users
Pinterest use is expanding among users and e-commerce retailers alike. "In January, Pinterest drove more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined, per Shareaholic. This month, per comScore, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique visitors in the U.S., most of them women." via Adweek.

In addition to Adweek's numbers on women using Pinterest, here is a sampling of brands sharing on Pinterest as well:

And it's not just all home fashion and food brands...

3 Pinterest Pinning Tips

The Blogging & Social Media crew here at BEM has a few tips to share for those finding their way on to Pinterest.

If you blog consider adding headlines within the image (like the one at the top of this post) or, make compositions of project photos like "before & after". This gives Pinners a reason to share and clickthru your pin to the blogpost, website or, e-commerce product page.
"This sounds maybe obvious, but making your pin extremely unique or cute helps. I find stuff on Pinterest I would normally never have found otherwise. Make your posts personal, short, and informative, too."- Kristen
If you are concerned about copyright infringement Pinterest has released optional code to prevent pinning. See the Help page and the topic "What if I don't want images from my site to be pinned?"- Mike

P.S. If you're a guy (or know a guy) and think Pinterest might not be for them try the recently launched GentleMint

What do you want to know about Pinterest? Ask in the comments below. Or, share your experience.

The (Color) Wheel of the World

2012-02-23T11:26:00.010-05:00

"Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated." (Paul Rand)

Drawing your eyes to attention in a web page requires your gut instinct and inspiration as an artist.

First you should use the tones and hues that best compliment the company's brand and the life they want to bring to the website.

For example, a vacation website would use soothing hues of blue or green to emphasize nature and calmness, whereas a construction company may either go with metallic colors or more intense reds and yellows to draw your eye.

It all really depends on your client and what will appeal to their audience.

There are many different aspects to the color spectrum:

- Monochromatic
- Analogous or Blend
- Complementary
- Split-Complementary
- Triadic
- Double-Complementary or Rectangular-Tetradic
- Square-Tetradic
- Analogous-Complementary
- Neutral
- Accented
- Warm
- Cool

These color terms are mainly important to those in the design field but you may be familiar with some.

One of the best examples of resource sites that help give you inspiration is Design-Seeds.com.

I believe photos can evoke just about any feeling you want or need them to in a design. They can also help you quickly achieve a color scheme to match a brand or emotion you want to get across.

A good rule of thumb is to pull from a picture or element on a design where there is a color that is understated and use that color as a pop or accent. For example, you may own a jacket with just a small stripe of red throughout it. To make your outfit stand out more, try a red scarf to pull out the red color. Remember color applies not only to web design but to design in general.

The main thing to remember is to be original and make sure your colors are pleasing to the eye and appropriate to the design and message you're trying to achieve.

"All art is relationships, all art. Design is relationships. Design is a relationship between form and content… Your glasses are round. Your collar is diagonal. These are relationships. Your mouth is an oval. Your nose is a triangle - that is what design is." (Paul Rand)

Trust your instincts.

Triggered Email Five Ideas

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Triggered email is a great way to continue the dialog with your subscribers

Have you just begun to think about adding triggered email to your email marketing mix? Or, are you a long time marketer looking for some creative ways to revitalize an email communication program?
Whether you fit one of those scenarios or, just heard about triggered email I‘ve got a few ideas to help get your creative juices flowing. If you don’t know what a triggered email is hang on, I’ll cover that next. If you already know about triggered email just skip to the next paragraph.

What’s Triggered Email?

If you’re new to email marketing triggered emails are a great tool to add to your marketing toolbox. Think of triggered email as a sort of auto pilot (that should be reviewed annually). They can serve a variety of purposes and extend the conversation with your subscribers.

Triggered Email Marketing Ideas

The tried and true – new subscriber welcome series. For this triggered email campaign put together 3 -4 messages. The first one is your welcome message. Follow this up a few days later with a new subscriber offer, then an email about where else you can be found (for example: Facebook, Twitter, Google+) and wrap up this series with a message outlining customer service contacts.
The new product or service launch. For this series prepare a few messages that bring the subscriber up to launch of a new product or service.
Special offer with purchase. For a given product trigger an email series when it’s purchased. This could involve many steps where the subscriber’s reactions/inactions to the message could trigger alternate messages.
Last chance/ customer reactivation campaign. This is another “classic” in email marketing. For this campaign you are targeting inactive customers to take a series of actions. This would be a short series of two messages but, would repeat on a given date picking up newer inactives on your list. Likely messages for this campaign are a one-time discount followed up with a “hate to see you go” message where you segment the truly inactive subscribers (almost) for good.
Subscriber “birthday” emails. For this triggered type you would send a special message on the anniversary date of subscribers sign-up date.

I hope these examples have given you some inspiration to create your own triggered email marketing campaigns. Feel free to use them, improve on them or just mix them up.

Now, it’s your turn. What are some of your ideas for triggered email campaigns? Leave them in the comments below.

Google Places Bulk Upload 3 Tips

2012-01-03T10:54:00.001-05:00

So, what is Google Places Bulk Upload?
Glad you asked! For business with more than 10 physical locations (stores, offices, etc) Google gives you the option to upload your locations, hours and other information in a spreadsheet format. This saves you some time in place of manually entering each location via Google's web form.

The manual Google Places upload form.

Having recently completed a fairly large Google Places bulk upload project I wanted to share a few tips that you might find helpful.

Google Places Bulk Upload Tip#1: Time & Patience
From picking the categories to formatting the address, business type, phone number in to the correct spreadsheet format. It all takes a lot of time. For business with more than 20 locations you will need even more patience (and time). Fortunately, once your masterpiece of a spreadsheet has been uploaded (and corrected) you can download it (and I recommened it).

Google Places Bulk Upload

Google Places Bulk Upload Tip #2: If you are closed for lunch or, have varied hours do the (hours) split.
Are you closed the same time everyday for lunch? Does your location open/close on different times of the week? Then, you will want to split your hours in the upload file. To do this you input the day and the first time period you're open/closed and then, the same day and time of opening/closing for the second time period of that day. For example, you are open Monday but, close for lunch from 12:00 - 1:20. So, you would make an entry for Monday in spreadsheet as:

2:8:00:AM:12:00:PM,2:1:20:PM:5:00:PM

Additional information on hours formatting is available on the Google Places support site.

Google Places Bulk Upload Tip #3: Use the Custom Attributes.
Not all the information you might want to display to a potential customer is available in the standard fields. To include additional information we turn to the use of custom attributes.
Custom attributes could be information such as: cuisine type, pet policy, check in time or other important information about your business. Just be aware of what Google states in the help about the appearance of these custom attributes:
"While this data may not appear on the Place Page, this information continues to help our system understand more about your business and ensure your organic listings appears and ranks appropriately on Google and Google Maps when potential customers perform searches related to your business."

Do you have any experiences or frustrations in bulk uploading to Google Places? Let us know in the comments below.

The Color of 2012

2011-12-15T15:00:00.002-05:00

Revitalizing energy and color are upcoming for the 2012 new year. Pantone's color of the year is Pantone 17-1463 Tangerine Tango.

This year it was PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle, but next year will be a more vibrant and electric reddish-orange color.

Look for this color is all aspects of design…when you're out shopping, in fashion, and online.

Learn More About the Color of 2012 Here

Email Marketing: Making It Right

2011-12-02T19:31:00.000-05:00

This time I'll review an email from Mike Holmes a general contractor, all around nice guy and Home Improvement TV personality who appears in HGTV's "The Holmes Inspection", "Holmes on Homes" and is the author of several books. If you aren't familiar with the program, Mike does lots of work making people's homes "right" after less than honest/knowledgeable contractors or previous home owners have performed shoddy or unsafe improvements. In each episode Mike first assess the condition of the home and then, "makes it right". I really like the show and the work Mike does for each client. In a similar vein to Mike's shows I'll review one of Mike's recent email marketing messages and then, make some suggestions to "make it right".

The Email Marketing Message

Email Message Design

An email marketing message from Mike Holmes on the changes in magazine publisher.

here

Email Marketing Fix - "Making It Right"
A closer look at the email message body reveals a single graphic instead of a combination of graphics and text. Using a single graphic is akin to Mike finding a loose wire in an attic where it could start a fire! In this case, "making it right" is simple: turn the graphic into text. The benefits of this fix include: (a) the email message being seen by more subscribers (as most email service providers block graphics by default) and (b) the email message less likely to be marked as spam (as messages with more graphics than text run a risk of being .

Email Landing Page

From the email message we can click a link to the magazine website. It's a good tactic in an email message to drive traffic to your web site (and better still to a specific landing page). What I found a little awkward about Mike's message was the use of a "Contact Us" button at the bottom of the email message to prompt a reader to visit the web site. When we arrive at the landing page (actually the home page for the magazine site) we find the same copy as what we found in the email message.

If you'd like to see the home page of the website click here.

This was disappointing. Compounding the issues we find the same exact copy as what was found in the email message including a link to the web site.

The Email Landing Page: Making It Right
What I'd really like to see are information on any updates or changes about the publishing. Maybe include a video with a statement from Mike. I would also remove the link to the Website since this copy of the information is already on the website. We could also add a call to action to the main message body "Find us on Facebook to get the latest updates".

What do you think of this email campaign? What would you do to make it right? Leave your feedback in the comments below.

Design and the Web - From 2011 into 2012

2011-11-14T15:00:00.005-05:00

One of the most obvious ways to get across your message is through imagery and colors on the web. Just like a billboard, you only have a few seconds to demonstrate your message and make your user either want to stay or at least catch their eye.

In a previous post, we mentioned Kuler color as a great resource for gathering a color palette. Even though it's sometimes hard for us to admit, our attention span is short, and no matter how much good content is on your homepage, the first impression is going to be based on the design.

As we look into the future, large background websites are still making an impact as well as simple color schemes. There are many cool "gadgets" out there that can make your website seem "on the edge." These are okay to use, but sparingly. No one wants to be overwhelmed by things or find the website harder to use because of them.

Clean and sleek design is always on trend.

Here are some top notch creative ideas for impressive web designs:

1. Avoid Flash, use jQuery instead. Flash is still not user-friendly on iOS devices. Plus, jQuery allows SEO to be implemented and can speed up loading time as well.

2. Limit your color palette to 2 or 3 main colors. Think about it…do you wake up and try to wear an outfit with 5 or 6 colors and hope it works? Hopefully not. :) Unless it's a nice pattern or background image, try to limit your main colors to 2 or 3 max. Remember, varying opacities of one color can produce a nice monochrome design as well.

3. One page layouts are still popular, but consider your audience and what they're looking for.

4. Keep the user engaged with relevant content, call-to-actions, and friendly navigation.

We will cover much more next time from the design team, but for now, enjoy the upcoming holidays and don't forget to give your audience some special features or offers to entice them to visit your website more often or purchase from you this holiday season.

Gut Instinct Marketing Is Delivering A Body Blow To Your Bottom Line.

2011-11-07T15:00:00.001-05:00

A recent discussion with a local business owner centered on his difficulties generating more qualified leads. The conversation went something like this:

Neil: So where’s your [business] pain point?

Business Owner: We’re trying different marketing tactics to grow leads, but nothing we do seems to be sticking to the wall.

Neil: Are your tactics based on a marketing plan?

Business Owner: I don’t have time for that and I know the business anyway. We’re marketing from our gut.

More often than I’d like to admit over the last 20+ years, I’ve encountered this viewpoint from business owners. They see marketing as an expense rather than an investment in growing their business.

Worse yet, many owners, even some marketing managers, believe they are properly delivering the best marketing efforts for the company without ever having a plan. They do their company [and brand] a financial injustice by skipping the planning and going straight for the tactics. The rush to tactics is often echoed by phrases such as “let’s buy some billboards” or “we need to be on television” without ever tying these tactics to where their target audience wants to be reached, an overall business objective or any measurement to determine the return-on-investment.

Let me suggest a different approach that may convince business owners to reconsider a more effective deliberate, comprehensive approach to marketing that will deliver more qualified leads to help grow sales.

Elements Of A Comprehensive Marketing Plan

A well-planned strategic marketing plan can be a great first step in generating more qualified leads, elevating your brand image and reputation and ultimately helping you close more sales. On target, smart marketing is an investment that should provide a positive ROI for your business.

A marketing plan should include the following elements:

Conduct An Internal Audit.

Create A Company SWOT.

Research Your Marketplace.

Define Customer Profiles.

Complete Competitive Analysis.

Write Your Mission Statement.

Develop Marketing Objectives.

Identify Clear Strategies.

Select Marketing Tactics.

Set Sales And Marketing Forecasts.

Determine Associated ROI Metrics.

Plan An Action Step Calendar Of Events.

Develop Tactical Budget.

Ultimately, a marketing plan helps you:

- Save Money. Returns a better ROI than gut instinct marketing.

- Financially Plan. Finance isn’t allowed to operate without a budget and balance sheet. Marketing needs a budget and ROI goals, too.

- Target Better. Defines your audience and communicates with them when/where/how they want to be communicated to.

- Achieve More. Planning with coordinated action steps will always outperforms one-off sporadic tactics.

- Align With Sales. Helps identify how marketing will help generate the proper qualified leads so sales can sell.

- Build Brand Consistency. It gives you a roadmap on how to build awareness with a coordinated effort.

Now that we know the benefits of a marketing plan to your business, resist relying on gut instincts to market your business. Are you making plans for your marketing?

Remembering Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T14:20:00.003-04:00

Here are some great, quality articles in remembrance of Steve Jobs from Apple:

Apple

MSN

Be sure to stop by your local bookstores, etc. for magazines in tribute to him.

As a designer, he has definitely made a huge impact in my daily life...from my iPod, to my Mac and more.

One other great tribute site - Wired

Thanks for everything your brilliance brought to the world.

The Tagline Guru

2011-10-05T14:03:00.002-04:00

For a midweek post, here is a great resource for both creating taglines and learning about current ones out there.

Interesting read and site: Tagline Guru

Music > > Lyrics >> Visual Design

2011-07-21T10:08:00.001-04:00

Music > > Lyrics >> Visual Design

Music leads to inspiration...lyrics lead to ideas...and ideas lead to design.

The following site shows how all of these are pulled together into what's called A Lyric A Day

---------------------------------

Also, an informational read that might be helpful in your daily computer use:

Random Shortcuts for Both Designers and All Users

4 Elements of Digital Marketing - #4 Internet Marketing Tools

2011-06-30T08:00:00.001-04:00

Internet Marketing can be grouped into five buckets, or pillars: Search Marketing, Paid Advertising, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Social Media Marketing. Here is a very quick rundown on each of these buckets. Please pardon the generalizations, but sometimes we’re just like that.

Search – This is the realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. SEO is the process of optimizing site content, structure and linking to make your site show up in relevant searches. Consider SEO for your core services or products. PPC accomplishes much the same thing; however it involves selecting key words or phrases and offering small text ads in response to searches. The PPC name comes because you pay for each click. Consider PPC for seasonal or beta services or products.

Paid Advertising – Just like an ad in the newspaper, paid advertising is the process of placing your ad on someone else’s digital real estate. Banner ads on websites and ads in the e-news letter of a vender or client are common uses of paid advertising. Ever seen an ad on your Facebook page? Paid advertising. Consider paid advertising for brand awareness.

Email Marketing – The most widely used form of digital marketing is email. Email marketing is best used to offer relevant and targeted information to those who want to know more about your product or service. Email is a regulated market, so be sure and use an email marketing platform that meets all CAN-SPAM compliant. More recently, consumers of email marketing have become more sophisticated – so be sure and do your homework. Your email marketing platform should allow you to send specific and relevant emails to select groups of people. The days of load up a batch of emails and blast out a message are over. Consumers are very impatient with having their email box flooded by your news and offers. Consider email marketing to existing clients to share additional products or services that might interest them.

Mobile Marketing – The age of the smart phone is here. How does your website display on a mobile device? Can your future clients find quickly and easily the information they need on their iPhone? Can I find a map to your location or your phone number easily? Mobile marketing need sot include a web strategy. The technology is readily available to make your website mobile friendly. Consider mobile pages for your contact information and location(s). Remember to give some thought to text message marketing and mobile apps (Is there an app for that?), as well.

Social Media Marketing – It appears that Social Media is here to stay. Facebook has topped 550 million users. LinkedIn has just had one of the most successful IPOs in Social history. Your digital marketing strategy needs to include consideration of Social platforms. If you are a business to consumer industry, check out the business pages on Facebook. If your target client is another business, get on LinkedIn personally and take advantage of your LinkedIn Company page. Remember that Social Media is a different media – it is invitational and participant driven.

That wraps up our 4 part blog series on the 4 Elements of Digital Marketing. I hope you found something here helpful Let us know – Will you?

(Note: This is #4 in a 4 part weekly series on Internet Marketing)

Tools for Web Designers

2011-06-24T15:31:00.003-04:00

I found this post about some good resources for web designers...they might also be helpful (or at least interesting) to anyone as well:

Useful Resources, Tools and Services for Web Designers

4 Elements of Digital Marketing - #3 Google Analytics

2011-06-23T08:30:00.003-04:00

#3 - Google Analytics: The job of analytics is to track the performance of our website. We need to know not only how many people are visiting, but how are they arriving to the site and what are the patterns of their behavior once they get there? It is traffic and interaction patterns that help us determine what changes and adjustments we need to make in our website to improve our marketing performance.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool for not only tracking the above information, but for reporting that information to you in a measurable fashion, and it is free! Be sure and seek out a certified Google Analytics consultant if you are wanting help. Know your marketing goals and build custom tracking and reporting to measure those goals. An agile analytics caps off our base for digital marketing: Solid Hosting, Great Website, and Google Analytics. We are now ready for the fast and furious world of real time, measurable Internet Marketing - Element #4

(Note: This is #3 in a 4 part weekly series on Internet Marketing)

Creating Focal Points in Design

2011-06-17T15:58:00.002-04:00

Having a focused approach to web design is good...having strong focal points in your designs is even better.

Check out this article (with examples) of multiple uses of

Focal Points in Web Design

4 Elements of Digital Marketing - #2 A Great Website

2011-06-16T08:00:00.003-04:00

#2 – A Great Website: Websites are as varied as the companies and people who they represent. Defining a website as “Great” can be a somewhat subjective evaluation. Different industries and products often require different elements, however, there are three factors that consistently drive a website to Greatness.

1. It loads fast – Internet users are an impatient bunch. Aren’t we? When we click to enter a site we expect it to load. Even a small delay can cause the viewer to question their connection, hardware and even worse – cause them to bounce away without ever seeing your site. Site structure and platforms affect load time, as do graphics, flash and video. Having the right mix of structure and content to allow for quick presentation to the user is essential.

2. It looks good – Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to the look of your site it only matters how good it looks to your future and current clients. Making sure that the look of your site not only carries your brand to the Internet marketplace, but that it does so in a way that appeals to your target client is what makes a great look for you. Take the time to plan and design based on your goals.

3. It has clear content – A great website contains content that is rich with your message, easy to read and well organized for others to find what they are looking for. If I am an e-commerce business, my content needs to be organized into quick bites that lead step-by-step to the shopping cart and a sale. For some businesses, it is a good idea to limit the content to encourage others to reach out and contact you. Either way, content is King and taking the time to make sure it is written professionally and displayed clearly will move you on your way to Digital Marketing success. Make certain your content is well organized and easy to navigate. Visitors will have little patience trying to find specific content via multiple clicks and sub-navigation.

With a solid hosting platform and a Great Website we can move to the 3rd Element of our Digital Marketing success: Optimized Analytics.

(Note: This is #2 in a 4 part weekly series on Internet Marketing)

4 Elements of Digital Marketing #1 Hosting

2011-06-10T14:42:00.001-04:00

#1 – Hosting: Although hosting isn't the sexiest of topics, it is the most primary ingredient in a successful Digital marketing plan. In short, if the hosting platform fails or doesn't respond to your changing need your website could disappear and then nothing else matters. There are some basic questions that you need to ask to evaluate your hosting options. When it comes to hosting the old adage, “You get what you pay for” is more true than not. Paying a high price for hosting doesn't insure that you will get the best service and technology, however budget hosting packages will not deliver in all areas: service, quality and platform.

So begin by knowing these components.

1. What are the storage limits of your hosting agreement? Storage applies to the space on the server that your website files occupy. The needs vary, so it is also important that you know the size of your site. Also, if you are uploading data – how fast will you exceed your current platform?

2. Ask also about bandwidth limitations. Bandwidth has to do with the amount of traffic (visits and file transfers) used by your site. As with storage, what are you using currently? What needs to you project over the next 12-18 months?

3. The most important question to answer is, “What happens when I exceed these limits?” Having a hosting provider that can flex and adjust to your needs without shutting down your site is critical.

Finally, ask the “what if” question. What if something goes wrong? Do I have a guarantee of up-time? How will my hosting provider work with me to insure success?

With the assurance of a solid hosting platform, we can continue to manage our digital marketing by moving on to the 2nd Element - A Great Website!

(Note: This is #1 in a 4 part weekly series on Internet Marketing)

The Zombie Web and Designing for Different Ages

2011-05-06T14:28:00.004-04:00

The Zombie Web

This is an informative, yet amusing article on how the "zombie web," aka old web browsers, design, and coding keep the web from truly moving forward.

Read The Web's Undead

Another great article....Designing for Any Age Group

When designing a website, you have to take in many variables...audience age being one of them.

The following article gives you a breakdown of best practices for any age group:

Designing for Different Age Groups

Enjoy the reads and Happy Friday!

Navigation... The Good and The Bad

2011-04-25T09:35:00.002-04:00

There are many different ways to do navigation in web design - some good, some bad:

This article gives you a good idea of what works and what doesn't.

Creative Navigation Menus