Enhancing Your Image with Ads about Community Service

January 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

We were looking through some of our best print ads for our newspaper clients last year. We were surprised by how many had a focus on community service and immediately thought, “we have a blog post!”

Just as people are more inclined to purchase from companies they get to know better on social media and relate to, they are more likely to view companies positively that demonstrate their volunteer and charity programs in advertising. That is, if they do it effectively.

There are three secrets to highlighting good works and doing it well:

  1. Create a strong headline.
  2. Feature images of people.
  3. Make ads about giving back (rather than touting product features and other sales pitches).

For example, this ad for Service King lures in the viewer with the headline: “Looking Out for You . . . on the Road and in the Community.” It ties in well with the company’s business, which is performing collision repairs. This effectively turns around a common distrust of car repair services. I’d be more inclined to trust a service that invests in causes I care about. Read more of this post

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Build Your Brand on Social Media

January 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Have you started out on social media but aren’t quite sure what to do with it? Do you wonder how you’re ever going to show your business’s competence and expertise in 140 characters? Or how to get people interested in your industry to follow you?

I provide some answers in this post at the Search Engine People blog. A taste:

Answer Questions

Answering questions from people about the way your industry or business functions is a sure-fire way of making yourself look like an expert (provided you actually know the answers). Look through topics related to your business on sites like Quora and LinkedIn and set up a saved search on Twitter and look at hashtags. Join industry forums and participate in discussions. Use web search and Google alerts to find more questions on those topics. Don’t just answer for the sake of getting your name in: you need to actually add something informative to the discussion.

What else can you do? Read the blog post to find out!

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Reviewing Design Work

January 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

-    Winston Churchill

As a client, when reviewing creative work, it is important to give constructive criticism. When reviewing a print ad, logo design, web design etc., what is the best way to provide feedback? Here are some guidelines on how critiques should be made to get the end products you want.

1.  Be objective

Who is your primary audience? Will the design draw their attention? Sometimes we confuse our personal taste with the needs of the target market. By setting aside your own preferences, you can better review a designer’s choices on color, layout, visual imagery and typography.

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10 Recurring Features for Your Newsletter

January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

NewsletterDo you think sending out a newsletter isn’t for you? What could you possibly put in it every week (or month)? Think about it: you might find more content ideas than you now realize. Here are some ideas for recurring features you can have in your newsletter.

Answer customer questions

What customer questions do you or your staff (especially customer support or sales) get frequently? A  recurring column in a newsletter is a great place to answer them.

Feature feedback

Dedicate one corner of your newsletter to glowing testimonials you get from your customers. That’s your little boasting spot! Read more of this post

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Ten Most Popular Marketing Posts of 2011

January 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

For newer readers as well as those of you who missed them the first time around, here are our top marketing posts from 2011.

Designing Our Facebook Page Welcome Tab

Who knew a simple post describing how we created the design for our Facebook page welcome tab would be the most popular of 2011 (even though the post was published in July)?

Redesigning Business Cards to Include Social Media Info

Another post where we merely shared how we updated and improved a piece of marketing material, but judging by searches that led people to this post, quite a few of you are looking for help on designing business cards that include your social media URLs without being overwhelming. Read more of this post

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Happy New Year

December 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Online holidays greeting card from Affinity Express

Please click here to view our online card.

From all of us at Affinity Express, we wish you a very happy 2012.

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New Year Ads

December 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

What comes to mind when you think of New Year’s Eve? Based on the ads we create at this time of the year for our clients, it is fireworks, balloons and decorations, and champagne. Unlike Christmas, there isn’t a wide variety of iconic images from which to choose, which means it can be challenging to stand out in a crowd of New Year’s promotions.

Nevertheless, I think this ad for Jaguar is successful. It gets your attention with bright fireworks that lead the eye to look down at the cars. Wouldn’t it be nice to ring in the new year with a new luxury car? Well, it’s nice to dream . . .

Read more of this post

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Happy Holidays

December 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

It’s a holiday tradition at Affinity Express to recreate a well-known piece of art using embroidery digitizing. This year, the pressure was heightened since last year’s design just won us two awards: the Stitches Golden Needle awards for Design of the Year, Technical, Corporate and Design of the Year, Artistic, Corporate.

The subject we chose this year was a Renoir painting. And regardless of whether we win an award, I think we can be proud of this year’s design as well! What do you think?

Embroidery digitizing design of Renoir painting

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What Are the Most Influential Retailers Doing on Twitter?

December 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Klout has shared this list of the top ten most influential retailers online, and it got me wondering: what are they doing that makes them influential (or really, gives them a better Klout score)? Here’s my completely unscientific evaluation.

Amazon

It’s no surprise Amazon is on the list: it’s the top online retailer and has in some ways defined the space. Their Twitter profile is well-maintained but with no surprises: they post links to new products and to content (including Amazon’s best books of 2011, retweet from other Amazon accounts such as amazonbooks and AmazonKindle (and while I’m surprised at the inconsistent capitalization there’s nothing else noteworthy here), and have the occasional apt-and-funny product recommendation.

Victoria’s Secret

They do an amazing job at talking and not broadcasting. They respond to followers, call out people wearing their products, they even thanked Klout and their own fans for their ranking in the influential list. 

Read more of this post

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Christmas Ads

December 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

We’ve written previously about holiday-themed ads and how to best tie into the season to encourage customers to buy products and services. As we approach the winter holidays, let’s take a look at some fresh winter ads.

This is another example of adding an image to a standard ad to brighten it up and evoke the season. It’s easy and, quite often effective with minimal work required. Basically, it is an ad for businesses to do just that: pop in an image and some copy and run it in the newspaper.

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10 Tips on Designing Brochures

December 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

With Mel Fernandez

Even with the prevalence of digital marketing, brochures are common marketing materials, used in both printed and electronic form. We use them to present our company and its products and services in an interesting way that grabs readers’ attention and makes them want to buy from us or work with us. To be effective, a brochure must have solid branding, strong visuals, clear and concise messaging, and effective page layout and design.

When we recently re-wrote and re-designed an Affinity Express trade show brochure (for print) and some posters to display in our booth, we took the time to document the process. Mel and I have worked together on dozens of brochures and come at it from two perspectives: strategy and content for me and design and branding for Mel.

Together, we came up with the following tips that will help you create effective brochures.

Affinity Express graphic services brochure

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Using Cartoons for Marketing

December 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Cartoon created by Affinity Express

Cartoon created by Affinity Express for a client

I have been reading the book Visual Marketing by David Langton and Anita Campbell, and came across the example of cartoons to market CaseCentral. CaseCentral markets eDiscovery software to law firms and corporations, and these “Case in Point” cartoons are meant to draw attention, entertain as well as demonstrate the company’s knowledge of the field.

That is a smart use of visual marketing, and it reminded me of the Indian consumer goods company, Amul. Amul Butter cartoons appear on billboards and newspapers all over India. Each cartoon references some current event—an election, a new movie, a sleazy scandal—and the tagline is at once a pun on and a comment on the event that it references. They have been doing this for decades and these cartoons are immensely popular: you can browse through some here.

If you haven’t guessed already, I am in awe of the Amul campaign. They combine contemporary relevance, story-telling and art to create a powerful message that evokes the brand and ties in the product, and they have done this consistently for over three decades. If that isn’t brilliant, I don’t know what is.

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6 Reasons Why I Hate Your Website

December 9, 2011 by 6 Comments

Mobile siteThere are many, many reasons why someone might hate your website. If it works for you—gets you a great number of leads every month or your e-commerce sales have gone up since the redesign—you can shut this page now and go back to work. But if you wonder what it is about your website that’s just not bringing in the leads, read on: your website might be committing one of these mistakes.

It Annoys Users

Forcing me to wait through a two-minute Flash “intro” before I can even get to your site will really annoy me. Almost as bad is making me click on an “enter site” button. I AM on your site, so why do I have to ENTER it?

Other things that annoy your users:

  1. Music that plays as soon as I enter your site so I have to frantically mute my computer while coworkers raise their heads and look around
  2. Cluttered design with little white space and too many different elements
  3. Bright clashing colors or light text on dark background to give me a headache
  4. Lots of Flash, so that getting to your “management team” page feels like a complicated and difficult game
  5. Your website takes so long to load I can make myself a fresh cup of tea while I’m waiting

Read more of this post

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Seasonal Ads for Winter

December 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Every season brings on a slew of new products that need to be promoted. Smart marketers and business-owners also find ways of packaging existing products for different times of year to inspire customers to buy. As winter sets in, let’s take a look at some of the ads our team has designed for our clients while the temperatures drop and the snow starts in North America.

The easiest way to work make an ad seasonal is when there is a natural fit with the products, such as these ads for winter boots and slippers that will keep you dry and warm.

Ad for waterproof winter boots

Ad for Ugg winter boots

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How to Work with Designers

December 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Over at the Search Engine People blog, I offer more advice on working with designers.

Working with someone in a remote office is always difficult, but when I started out, I found it harder to get design done efficiently because I didn’t know much about design and I hadn’t realized how I could be a better client.

So here’s some of  what I’ve learned the hard way!

Once in a while you work with a designer who can take your “I want something pretty, but corporate, and use our brand colors but do something different and fluid” and turn it into a fabulous design. (Thanks, Mel!) But lets face it, that’s really rare. So here are some tips for marketers and business-owners on working with web or graphic designers (whether they are employees, freelancers or a business services provider).

Give detailed instructions.

This is the most obvious but also most important tip. Especially when you start out working with a new designer or provider, make sure you write down every little thing you can think of. Here are some common aspects I often forget to specify:

  • The size of the design (in pixels or inches or whatever works for you)
  • The purpose: Is it for print or web? Will it be used in your blog and have to fit into the blog column? Is it a direct mail piece that has to fit into a certain size of envelope?
  • Do you have preferences on how the design should be laid out? How many columns? How much space should the image take up?
  • When do you need it?

And make clear what you can’t do: e.g., change the colors in your logo, use serif fonts, or whatever your guidelines are. Which brings us to…

Click here to read 8 more tips.

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Digital Media and the Newspaper Industry: an Interview with Michael Fogel of Hearst

November 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Michael Fogel, VP at Hearst Media

We recently met Michael Fogel, vice president of technology development at Hearst Newspapers. Hearst is a client of Affinity Express. Using our services to become more efficient and proactive is just one of the ways Hearst is adapting itself to the growing predominance of digital media and the decline in circulation and print ad revenues.

This blog post lays out Mr. Fogel’s views on the newspaper industry and explains how Hearst is riding the wave and leading the industry.

Digital Media Has Disrupted the Newspaper Industry

According to Mr. Fogel, the split in revenues for the newspaper industry used to be 80% advertising and 20% circulation. That was prior to double-digit declines in print revenues.

Not only have print revenues dropped dramatically, but newspapers are struggling to offer online services. Even as news publishers find ways to create and deliver digital products, margins on online services are lower and publishers need higher volumes to compensate.

How Hearst Uses Digital to Its Advantage

Unlike many of its counterparts, Hearst is surviving and even thriving in the digital world. The company was very close to realizing a year-over-year revenue gain in October. To Mr Fogel’s knowledge, no other news publisher can say this. Read more of this post

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Thanksgiving Print Ads

November 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s the most anticipated meal of the year, but what is important for us is that many businesses have special promotions around Thanksgiving and rely on our advertising and marketing production to meet deadlines and increase revenue. For retailers, they are already deep into promoting holiday sales and hoping to make the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Restaurants and other businesses food-related try to get people to their doors or to buy their products (as wells as to advertise in their dining guides).

Here are just a few of the many print ads our team has created this time around.

Newspaper print ad for Thanksgiving Dining Guide created by the Affinity Express team

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Design Projects: Information You Should Provide Your Designer

November 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

“Design is about getting the right idea, and getting the idea right,” according to Marty Neumeier. So how do you get the most from your projects and achieve critical marketing goals? Do you have a clear vision or do you want your designer to develop the ideas for you?

Clear information and direction are vital to a design project’s success. Defining your objectives, target audience and your optimum results will enable a designer to meet your needs and overcome challenges effectively.

It is best to provide a thorough brief that sketches out the task at hand. However, when clients have a vague goal or an incomplete brief, it is the designer’s responsibility to lead and to get the required information. Whether you are the client or the designer, here is what should be covered:

1.  Scope

What is the project? What is the budget? What are the deliverables? Will the images and copy be supplied? What is the timeframe?

Communicating these important information at the start of the process gives the designer a framework and enables him or her to clearly define the visual problem and devise solutions. Read more of this post

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9 Tips on Getting the Most out of a Conference

November 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Attending a business conferenceIf you’re like me and work in a small department, conferences are an incredible opportunity to learn about what’s new in your field and meet people who do similar work. I went to my first two professional conferences this year, the Click Asia Summit in Mumbai and Ad-tech in New York. I was extremely excited to meet speakers I’ve read and heard of, people doing incredible things in marketing, and just meet a group of fellow marketers and chat with them about challenges we all face.

But if you have a tight budget (and who doesn’t?) conferences, including traveling to them and staying at hotels, can be extremely expensive. So how do you make the most of every single industry event you attend?

1.  Find the best events

This is obvious, but also probably the most important. With so many events in the year, which one(s) give you the most bang for your buck? Research online, read blog posts on the last year’s events, and ask people (both on Twitter and your real-life colleagues). What are your objectives? What do you want to learn about? What kind of people do you want to meet? Figure all this out and then check out which event makes the most sense for you. Read more of this post

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Seven Easy Steps to Outsourcing Advertising and Marketing Production

November 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

While most companies outsource at least one or more processes (e.g., payroll, cleaning services, landscaping, security, and benefits are rarely done in-house), there are many companies who have never outsourced advertising and marketing production, a mission-critical function that can include design of display ads, websites, emails, social media, marketing collateral and more. The idea can seem new and daunting.

Although marketing and advertising production is essential to every business, the outsourcing process doesn’t have to be complicated, especially if you are working with an experienced company that can lead you through it efficiently. Here are seven easy steps to outsourcing advertising and marketing production.

Samples of work Affinity Express has created for clients Read more of this post

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