5 Killer Old-School Marketing Tricks

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When it comes to marketing, the old tried-and-true methods combined with new technologies can pack a killer punch.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

In this brave new world of communication, it can be easy to put all your marketing muscle into the newest "shinies" like Google+, Vine or Twitter. These are all powerful, cost-effective tools; however, you shouldn't focus solely on what's new. Some of the old-school methods are just as compelling, and effective, as they always have been.

For an even stronger punch, try combining the two—modern technologies and old-school marketing tricks—to arm yourself with seriously killer marketing tools.

1. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth remains the most trusted form of marketing available. People trust their friends and family in ways they'll never trust even the most brilliant advertising campaign. Reward your loyal customers for bringing new people into the "family" and encourage your staff to spread the news among their contacts.

Killer Marketing Opportunity: Exponentially increase your referral reach by incorporating a referral program into your email marketing lists and social media efforts.

2. Personal Connections

This can't be the first time you've heard that people find the modern world impersonal. Whether they're being given a case number by a customer service rep who can't be bothered to learn their name, or placing an order with no human contact, customers miss feeling like a person. Creating even a small personal connection will make you memorable in the best possible way.

Killer Marketing Opportunity: Use contact tracking software to remember birthdays of your clients and reach out with a personalized note via social media.

3. Postcards

We're not talking about direct, unsolicited mass mailing postcards here. Those are expensive for you, annoying for the recipient and bad for trees. Instead, we're talking about a personalized postcard you send to a customer to thank him for a recent order, tell him about an upcoming event he might be interested in, or some other similar message that indicates a real connection.

Killer Marketing Opportunity: Use online printing services to produce a limited run of a truly beautiful postcard. Prestamp them and keep on hand to send out as a standard step in your order process.

4. Face Time

Local networking is still the number-one way to get solid customers who stick with you year after year. Social media is great for maintaining a tenuous connection, but it pales in comparison to the power of sitting next to each other at a local meetup, chamber of commerce meeting, industry conference or fan convention. Sure, it's a bigger time footprint than updating your Facebook page, but it's worth the extra effort.

Killer Marketing Opportunity: Find fun meetups and conferences in your area that aren't for your industry, but are for industries that need your services. If you sell accounting software, the local Accounting Software Association meeting will be light on good leads ... but you may be the only one of your kind at the local Small Business Association get-together.

5. Radio

TV is effective, but out of the price range of many small businesses. Print works, but is often too diluted. Radio has historically been, and remains, among the top values for a small-to-medium business's advertising dollars. Don't limit yourself to ad spots, either. Most local radio shows—the ones that will reach people in your immediate area—are hungry for guests.

Killer Marketing Opportunity: Combine the power of radio with the power of modern communication by getting on podcasts about your industry, or making your own podcast with advice about your expertise. 

Jason has contributed over 2,000 blog and magazine articles to publications local, regional and national. He speaks regularly at writing and business conferences. You can find out more about Jason at his website.

Happy to announce our new client projects this week!

• Boardroom Communications -- Ver Ploeg & Lumpkin, P.A. ad
• The Wasie Foundation -- web site updating
• The Las Olas Company -- web site updating
• Women in Distress -- Starfish gala save the date email
• The Fresh Squeeze -- logo identity
• Gold Coast Jazz Society -- annual gala logo and invite
• Regent Bank -- October newsletter

6 Ways To Boost Your Business Relationship IQ

It's not just business savvy that makes for a great business owner. It's the way you relate to your customers that really drives success.

Small-business success often has little to do with acumen or product quality, but everything to do with the ability to successfully navigate relationships.

Like many small-business owners, Ashish Rangnekar, CEO and cofounder of BenchPrep, started his company on a shoestring.

“I didn't have a sales force or a million-dollar budget in the beginning,” says Rangnekar, whose company provides personalized, interactive educational courses on portable devices. “What I possessed was the ability to tell my story to potential customers and build those relationships.”

Rangnekar’s efforts paid off. Since starting in 2010, he has 30-plus clients, and his courses have been used by more than a half million students.

A small-business owner’s relational IQ—the ability to get along well with others, manage conflict and problem-solve—can be more important than his or her actual IQ, according to Van Moody, author of the The People Factorand professional speaker. Q

“Lasting success in the workplace depends on your ability to relate effectively with people,” Moody says. “Research shows that 60 to 80 percent of all difficulties in organizations stem from strained relationships between employees, not from deficits in skill or motivation. Small-business success often has little to do with acumen or product quality, but everything to do with the ability to successfully navigate relationships.”

Raise your relational IQ and increase business by keeping the following six tips in mind.

Make Working With You Easy

“Your customers and partners should never feel like maintaining a relationship with you is painful for them,” says Michael Weissman, founder and CEO of SYNQY, a company that specializes in growing new small-businesses and turning around brands with Internet marketing techniques.

“People immediately turn away from friction,” Weissman says. “Do everything you can to lower the emotional, logistical and financial costs of working with you. If you don't, your relationship might not be strong enough to withstand challenges from competitors. The truth is if a customer has two companies that both provide excellent service but one company is easier to work with, that company will get the job every single time.”

“ Increase Your Capacity for Empathy

The ability to understand where others are coming from goes a long way toward creating good business relationships.When I put out verbal or written communication, I consider what I have to say from a recipient's point of view and ask myself if I’m speaking to his or her needs,” says Phrantceena Halres, chairman and CEO of Total Protection Services, a certified security services company that protects infrastructure assets for businesses.

“I’ll inquire about the person's situation, including what he or she has already tried that hasn't been effective and why I'm being contacted,” Halres says. “Taking an interest in the person sends a positive message and gives me important information as to what to do and what to avoid.”

Have A Trustworthy Online Presence

Now that an increasing number of relationships are established digitally before you meet in person, it’s critical that you establish trust online instantaneously, Weissman says. “Ask yourself if your online presence is building relationships or is it just transactional?” he says. “It’s important for businesses to also be relational digitally.”

Make It Reciprocal

Don’t be a “taker,” says Moody. “It’s important to recognize when a relationship could use more of a giving spirit. When we think about what we can do for others instead of what we can do for ourselves, we get to the very heart of healthy, successful interactions. In a strong relationship, both people willingly give far more than they take."

The strongest relationships are mutual and synergistic, Rangnekar agrees. “People are much more interested in what you have to say when they realize that you truly understand what they need and want, and that you care.”

Have Patience

It took Rangnekar six months of relationship building before he secured his first educational publisher.

“Don’t expect to be best friends overnight,” he says. “Relationships take time. We worked for several months before securing that first publisher. Because we so patiently cultivated that relationship, not only did we land that company’s business, they referred us to more publishers.”

Maintain The Relationship

When it comes to business relationships, a lot of emphasis is put on starting relationships, but not a lot focuses on building those relationships for the long term, Rangnekar says. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of maintaining your business relationships so they stay healthy and profitable for everyone.”

Keep these relationship-building tips in mind, and you’ll soon find yourself with increased business and happy customers.

Read more articles on customer service.

A freelancer since 1985, Julie Bawden-Davis has written for many publications, including Entrepreneur, Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle.

Photo: iStockphoto

S.MARK Graphics Launches New Web Site for Ginsberg Shulman Law...

S.MARK Graphics launched Tuesday a new web site for the law firm of Ginsberg Shulman. It can be seen at the link below.

http://www.ginsbergshulman.com

How to Make a Book Cover Design that Flies Off the Shelf!

According to The Wall Street Journal, “The average bookstore browser who picks up a book spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds reading the back.” You can’t tell — but you can sell — a book by its cover.” Here are a few powerful book cover design techniques that professional book designers use:

The essential elements for your front cover

The front cover presents your book title, subtitle, and your name. Golden opportunities often overlooked are including endorsements and short testimonials from VIPs.

Think of your cover like a billboard. The best designs communicate the book’s message at a glance, with simple, uncluttered design. Unique, distinctive, bold, colorful graphics work well. But keep the graphic style consistent with the content and personality of the book. Make sure there is a central focal point to your design.

I recommend using bold, contrasting lettering on the front cover. When choosing colors, consider how these colors will look when converted to black and white so your cover will reproduce well in black and white ads, catalogs, and flyers. Also make sure the font you use for the title is legible from a distance and appropriate for the book’s subject.

Covers that scream “amateur” and have a “made-at-home look” make it difficult to sell your book at all. If you lack talent in this area, seek the services of an experienced book cover designer. A professional designer has the creativity, skills, software, access to stock photography, and printing knowledge that will make your cover stand out above others in the marketplace.

What should you put on your spine

Your name, book title, and publishing company logo show up on the spine. Make sure the information on the spine is clean, uncluttered, and legible. I recommend using bold, contrasting lettering on the spine as well.

Critical items you should include on your back cover

Place the category name in the upper left-hand corner to help bookstores shelve your book properly. Write a headline that clearly addresses who should buy the book. It should be followed by sales copy explaining what the book is about. Then provide a short bulleted list of benefits to readers.

I recommend including no more than three testimonials and endorsements, as well as your bio and photograph. Close to the bottom, put “sales-closer” copy in bold print. Position the price in the lower left corner of the back cover. Also include the 13-digit ISBN number for cataloging and the bar code in the lower right corner (below ISBN number), which stores use for scanning information and price.

Don’t forget to include credits for your book cover’s illustrator, photographer, and/or designer.

What goes on the inside flaps (If Applicable)

• Sales copy
  
• Short “teaser” description of the book
  
• Your bio and photo
  

You now have a good idea of what makes a strong book cover design. Remember, book cover design is a form of packaging—and good packaging attracts buyers to products. That’s why successful organizations spend millions researching and developing the best product packaging possible.

Discover what key information you must include on your book cover to dramatically boost your book’s selling power. What if YOU could know the secrets of a 1st class graphic designer that would help you create amazing marketing materials in a few hours, would you want to know how?

About the Author

Karen Saunders is the author of Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools! Hundreds of business owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their products and services!

How to Make a Flyer! – Hot Design Tips on Designing a Flyer That Sells

As your company’s in-house graphics person—perhaps more by default than by intention—you’re pressed to be a jack/jill-of-all-trades. You want to learn how to make a flyer that sells, but you have little time to master advanced design and marketing skills. Your ongoing challenge is learning to do a little more to get a lot better results--quickly and painlessly. How can you improve them?

What Techniques Can You Apply NOW?

Take these 3 flyer design tips to heart. Using them consistently will save you time in the long run and attract more customers.

1. Use digital photography and illustrations to grab attention and tell your story

Establish a visual focus of your flyer design with an attention-grabbing photo or illustration. Choose from stock photo libraries on the Internet or hire an illustrator to do a custom illustration. A few quick tips:
Place your strongest image in the top half of the page where it will get the best visibility.
Using one large picture makes a stronger impression than several smaller ones.
Group several small pictures so they collectively form a single element.
Juxtapose a small picture with a larger one for contrast.
The results? Photos and illustrations help you add the "eye" appeal that translates into "buy" appeal.

2. "Hook" customers with persuasive writing and a "call to action"

Make a habit of doing these two things: Use persuasive words that "hook" their interest, and include a well-defined call to action in every flyer. What can you do to make your flyers more effective? Apply these basics:
Create a catchy or provocative headline
Know who you are writing for and keep their preferences in mind as you write each word.
Put your message in terms of "you" rather than "I" or "we." People don't care about what "we" offer; they care about how your product or service can make their lives better.
Make it clear what your readers should do, think, or believe as a result of reading the information you present.
State your intention as a command—known as a "call to action." It can be as simple as "Call Today" or "Order It Now."
The results? The whole point of designing your flyer is to encourage your prospects to take action! Whether it’s to send an email or pick up the phone and call you, using precision wordsmithing persuades your prospects to take action . . . now!

3. Limit yourself to 2 fonts with their families

To give your flyer a unified and professional look, I recommend that you limit the number of fonts you use. It is best to use one font (preferably a bold one) for your headlines and another font family for the body copy. (A family is all the related styles that come with the font, and usually include bold, italic, and bold italic.) You can use italics or bold variations within the family for pull quotes or call-outs, captions, and sidebars.

The results? Your flyer design will look unified and professional, giving your company integrity in the marketplace.

Discover how to automatically overcome your buyers objections with 7 key items to include in your flyer. What if YOU could know the secrets of a 1st class graphic designer that would help you create amazing marketing materials in a few hours, would you want to know how? Find out now at www.BuyAppealMarketing.com

About the author

Karen Saunders is the author of Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools! Hundreds of business owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their products and services!

5 Easy Brochure Design Tips That Work

All of us would like to think our product is so good, our services so unique, they’ll simply sell themselves. Not so! Strong branding, powerful images, compelling web pages and outstanding marketing pieces make or break that upward sales curve you crave so urgently. In today’s market, your customers and clients are influenced more than ever by the visual presentation of your marketing pieces.

For example, a powerful brochure design will more likely to be read, remembered and respected. Here are five simple, but essential tricks of the designer's trade that you can use immediately, at little cost, to improve your brochure design.

1. Take advantage of quality clip art and stock photos

Chances are you’re not an illustrator or photographer, but that shouldn’t stop you from using professional illustrations or photos in your marketing piece. You can use clip art—sometimes at a very low price—to enhance your layout. Check out the Internet for sites that feature clip art or stock photo libraries that provide a wide variety of quality and prices to choose from. Use the same style of graphics throughout your brochure design to create a consistent look.

2. Jazz up your layout so your most important points stand out

Break up monotonous lines of text with attractive “pull quotes” or “call-outs,” which make critical information stand out on the page. To create a pull quote, just copy a provocative or challenging statement from your text and paste it into a different position on the page using large, contrasting type. Add decorative quotation marks, border it with lines, or place it inside a box to jazz it up.

3. Repeat certain elements

Good design calls for repeating certain elements throughout your piece to make the whole piece come together visually. For example, use the same color, shape, and size for all your bullets. Also make all your headers the same size, color, and font. Repeat specific graphic elements such as boxes, banners, and rule lines throughout the piece. A word of caution: When you review your work, make sure you’ve used all of these design elements consistently.

4. Pay attention to proximity

Proximity refers to the exact spatial relationships between elements. For example, you create visual relationships between photos and their captions by keeping the captions close to the photos. For subheads, a pro positions them closer to the text below than the text above. Apply this principle of exact spatial relationship to all other graphic and text elements where appropriate. When you review your work, make sure you’ve applied this spacing consistently throughout.

5. Know when to use serif and sans serif fonts

In general, when you have a large amount of text, it is best to use a serif font because it is easier to read than a sans serif font. Serifs are the tiny horizontal strokes attached to the letters which help the reader’s eyes flow from letter to letter. Bold sans serif (without serifs) are good for headlines and subheads because they slow the reader down thus bringing more attention to each word or concept. Some examples of serif fonts that are good for body copy are: Times, New Century Schoolbook, Garamond and Goudy. Some examples of sans serif fonts that are good for headlines are: Arial Bold, Helvetica Black, Univers Bold and Trade Gothic.

About the Author

Karen Saunders is the author of Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools! Hundreds of business owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their products and services! Pick up FREE articles, audio classes, eCourse and ezines at http://www.macgraphics.net

9 Keys to an Effective Logo

The right logo, with the right characteristics, will boost your visibility, credibility and memorablity – which means more business for you!

These characteristics include:

Consistency in use of your logo, tagline, materials. Repetition of similar elements, used in the same or similar ways, helps people to remember who you are and what you do. The Catapult Advisors logo icon is used as a watermark across all of their materials, including their website.
Memorability, so that your logo stays at the forefront of your potential clients' minds. That way, they'll think of you next time they have a need. A bold logo for The Paradigm Shifts begins to visually tell the story of what these transition coaches do.
Meaningfulness, so that your logo can spread the message about the distinguishing characteristics of your business. Totally Tots designs and hand-creates baby blankets and hats, and also sells children's toys online, all of which are shown in their logo.
Uniqueness, which helps you stand out from the crowd. For example, if everyone in your industry uses a particular symbol (i.e., travel agencies often use globes in their logos), try to use something else – that way, your logo doesn't just look like everyone else's. Reilly travel agency specializes in Group Travel, and their logo symbolizes bringing together many different people into a single itinerary.
Professionalism, in the quality of the graphics, the printing and the paper on which your materials are printed. Stylus Group printed their materials on a thick (100#) paper, and the printing was done by a traditional press process instead of by using a less expensive digital printing option.
Timelessness in your logo will ensure that you don't have to redesign your logo in just a few years and that your investment and equity in your design will be lasting. Expansion Consulting's logo design does not speak to a particular time period, and provides them with a look that will work throughout the years.
Contrast between the colors in your logo – and not just in terms of hue, but in terms of value as well, so that it translates well either to black and white or greyscale and colorblind people are able to see it. The green accent color used in Jaeger Associates' logo is a vivid contrast to the coffee hues whether the logo is printed in color or black and white.
Unity among the different elements in the logo. The logo must fit together as a single unit, and not just appear as a jumble of elements pasted together. The symbol and text in the Crescenda logo are sized to fit together within a bounding square, and all of the elements are appropriately sized to one another.
Scalability, so that your logo looks equally good on both a business card and on a sign for your business (or a billboard!), and at every size in between. Your business's name should be legible at different logo sizes – be sure that your designer chooses a font that is easily readable. The Dropwise Essentials logo is used in many sizes in the applications in their custom marketing package—from .75 inches wide on their lip balm labels to several feet wide on their trade show booth banner.

Having a professionally designed logo can really give your business a jumpstart and helps your business get the attention – and clients – you need to succeed.

About the Author

Erin Ferree is a brand strategist and designer. She works with small businesses to create brands with substance and style that fit their businesses perfectly. She's designed brands for hundreds of small business all over the world. Her brands help her clients attract their ideal clients, outshine their competition and make them unforgettable. She also works with small business owners to develop complete clarity about their brand positioning and to develop their BrandStyle Statement™. Her award-winning design work and her writing on design have been published in many books and periodicals. Erin lives, cooks and plays tug-of-war with her dog in San Luis Obispo, California.

What You Need to Know Before You Design Your Own Logo

What Do You Need to Know Before You Design Your Own Logo?

Everyone’s got ’em. You likely see the “Nike swoosh” logo everywhere you go. And you know the Texaco station at the corner by its distinctive “star.” So, you’re thinking, “My company needs a logo, too.” Maybe you want to design your own logo too.

Why create a logo for your company?

Because a logo:

• visually represents your company in a graphic form (a picture is worth a thousand words, remember?)
  
• instantly communicates your company’s essence: what it does and what it stands for
  
• complements your company’s ongoing identity package so your customers can recognize it year after year.

But not just any logo will do. A good logo is simple yet sophisticated. Don’t be fooled that a logo design that looks simple (like the Texaco “star”) has been easy to create. Less is better, but getting to “less” requires a process of combining symbols, colors, typography, negative and positive space into a compact unit. Once these elements have been combined, they have to be refined and the best one selected. That’s why designers present several preliminary designs (called comps) for decision-makers to analyze, modify, and then accept.

What should you know about creating the right logo?

Your job as designer or decision-maker is to make sure the logo is a strong, balanced image that communicates clearly and has no clutter. The logo should be bold and easily seen at a glance. For example, on a well-designed logo, strong lines and letters show up better than thin, delicate lines and fonts.

The logo’s graphic imagery must be appropriate for the business. The graphic itself should work as a unit with the company name. It should achieve a look that’s distinctive, yet not trendy. It’s best to avoid trendy type styles and extremely tall or wide shapes. You want your logo to look good for a long time.

Choose an appropriate spot color (or two) and make note of its ink formula. The formula is a blend of various inks that’s given a PMS number so the color combination is easily communicated to the printer. You’ll refer to that PMS number when you print jobs in the future so you can be sure the color on your logo will consistently be the same.

What elements make a successful logo? Here are 10 logo design tips that professionals use:

1. Simple, yet sophisticated
2. Distinctive, bold, and graphic (no thin lines)
3. Not extremely tall or wide
4. Not trendy or old-fashioned
5. Looks in balance
6. Works well in all sizes
7. Works well in color or black and white
8. Graphic element and name work together as a unit
9. Communicates your business clearly
10. Uses graphics and fonts appropriate for your business

Did you know that a tag line is as essential as a logo? Do you have a tag line or slogan? Learn the 7-point criteria for testing its power. What if YOU could know the secrets of a 1st class graphic designer that would help you create amazing marketing materials in a few hours, would you want to know how? Find out now www.BuyAppealMarketing.com

About the Author

Karen Saunders is the author of Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools! Hundreds of business owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their products and services! Pick up FREE articles, audio classes, eCourse and ezines at http://www.macgraphics.net

S.MARK Graphics provides...

S.MARK Graphics is a full service Fort Lauderdale advertising agency (Broward County). The boutique firm provides South Florida graphic and web design including logo identities, brochures, fliers, magazines, letterhead, invitations and announcements as well as other print materials. We also provide electronic materials including web sites, landing pages and electronic invitations.