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

Read more of this post

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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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Social Media Marketing at Ad-Tech

November 10, 2011 by 4 Comments

Some quick notes from yesterday at ad-tech. We stayed in the social media track, because there were interesting topics up, and I was excited to see Chris Brogan, whose blog I read religiously, in person!

David Fischer, the Vice President of Advertising and Global Operations at Facebook, revealed that if you reach out to your fans and their friends, you get 81 times the distribution. Nielsen statistics also indicate that 68% are more likely to remember an ad with social context, twice as likely to remember the message and four times as likely to buy.

So how do you build your brand on Facebook?

  1. Connect
  2. Engage
  3. Inspire

Well, that sounds easy! Also remember, your social media strategy is really your people strategy. Create personalized experiences and let people share them. Read more of this post

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Designing Our Website Icon/Favicon

November 3, 2011 by Leave a comment

How do you make your brand stronger down to the smallest detail? How can you enhance your website and stand out from competitors and other companies? Try using a favicon, which is also known as a favorites icon, to display in the address bar when your site is open in the web browser. You can see them today on most popular websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Facebook Icon Twitter Icon LinkedIn Icon
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Without an icon, your site can look flat or worse, like you don’t care enough to create one.

Affinity Express didn’t have a favicon, so I suggested creating one and took on the task of designing a 16×16-pixel icon that could also be used in various media such as Facebook. I wanted our favicon to convey creativity because we offer advertising and marketing production solutions and have a team of more than 900 designers. With this in mind, I developed several design studies that were true to our corporate branding.

Read more of this post

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