3 Steps to Creating an Effective Logo Design

Anyone can create a great logo, not everyone can create an effective logo. Hiring a graphic designer to create a logo is like hiring a sculptor to paint a portrait. Worse, buying one of the logo creation programs is equally as dangerous. A logo requires more than creating a Vector file, or an icon.

Logo Design and File Type

Not every logo can be resized, and look equally good on a business card, in an advertisement, or on a website. Many logos lose their impact when switched from print’s CMYK color mode to the web’s RGB profile, or even when converted to black and white.

While working at an ad agency - designers learn to create logos that can be used on thousands of different promotional items. They know the limitations, and expectations of the logo. The ad agency is where professional designers learn to create a logo that works everywhere. There is a reason why all Fortune 500 companies follow the same rules, and industry standards.

Branding

A logo design is the foundation of Branding. A good logo looks just as good as an avatar, as it does on a business card. It should become the company’s ID. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is by making a logo that is several layers, and then pulling it apart.

The vital importance to branding is to be consistent. Once selected, the colors should stay consistent. A set of rules should be developed to ensure the logo is always used correctly.

Internet Marketing

A logo needs to touch an emotional element in the shopper. Many DIY marketers create designs and logos that look good to them without taking into consideration several important facts:

• They are not buying their product
• They are not their consumer/client
• They rarely know who buys their product, or why

Text Treatment

The Treatment of the font is arguably the most important element. The color, font, size, shading, and Kerning all are part of the treatment. Sans Serif fonts offer more of a casual look, while serif fonts are more stoic. The ‘message’ must be carried through the entire logo. The icon connects to the brand promise.

A logo designer can create an effective logo when they understand the client’s business, the consumers, and end-users. The quick way to a powerful logo is hiring someone who already understands these elements.

Don’t Just Be Smart – Look Smart

Any Internet based business can take their website to the next level and give it the same tools as the expensive websites. I compiled a few tools that I’ve found effective to help business owners create a web presence that mimics the professionally made ones.

Even a professional who has solid creative and marketing expertise can waste time if their web platform lacks power. Several third-party tools are designed to help small business owners build a viable internet and print marketing campaign.

Constant Contact

This service helps small business build an email marketing campaign. The program uses online surveys to help small business build affordable marketing lists, based on their clients and consumers, not old email lists.

Quantum Digital

Quantum Digital offers one of the most cost effective method of managing all your marketing needs, from direct mail, to on demand printing, and emarketing. The cost of $9.95 a month is to access their services and manage your marketing campaign with their help.

InfoUSA.com

This company is a great place to create a mailing or telemarketing list. Their transparency is good. They will let you build a list, and see the price before signing up, but only if you add your information to their list. The cost is about $.11 cents per name, based on our test.

Spotrunner

This service will help business start an internet or television marketing campaign. There are webinars, and assistance to help small business’ start a serious local or national marketing campaign.

AdReady

This network is Spotrunner, but for flash/web internet ads.   They offer a full dashboard to track the click through rates, and costs. They have ‘templates’ to let you create your own professional style ad.

Facebook

Facebook advertising has proven for some businesses to be more effective than PPC, or search engine optimization. The cost is less than Pay Per Click, and lets business owners pre-sell their clients.

These methods of advertising will help business owners start advertising online, in print, and on television before they have a large advertising budget.

7 Ways to Improve Ad Design

I recently gave a lecture with a colleague Eric Stucki, on Direct and Interactive, The Creative Process. The topic discussed the impact of Direct Response Marketing. The success often lies in the ad design.

A few aspects of direct marketing that most business owners overlook include the ad design, message, theoffer, and testing the results and consumer impact. There are several parts of an advertisement. Each one can have a dramatic impact to a marketing campaign’s success.

• Copy
• Art
• Ad Design
• Price Point
• Button format
• Link font color
• Long vs short
• Trail term
• Billing term
• Payment options
• Benefit order

One trick is to offer something big, with something very small, i.e. In the lecture we talked about offering 50% discount, with a $10 freebie. Once you have an idea that the following tips for ‘ad design’ are not magic formulas, then they can be used to generate a good marketing campaign.

1. Ugly works best
2. Long copy is better than short
3. One word or color can make a dramatic difference
4. Use paragraphs vs. bulleted copy
5. People click links, not pictures
6. Tell people what to do
7. Stay away from multiple page flows.

When marketing online, a 2% response rate is good. This does not reflect sales, just the response to the advertisement. This may seem low, but it is statistically on par, or much higher, than other marketing medium.

The first step is to determine who you are marketing to. This is not as difficult as you may think. Just look for people who have bought, or buy, your product. Look for how the competition is already selling to them.

Create a few samples. Do not expect your first campaign to work perfectly. It takes time to create and perfect a campaign. A 2% response will require about 10000 page views per test. However, finding that one ad creates a 2% response rate is not enough. It is important to experiment with different ads to see what works best.  One ad may result in 10% response, but the people who respond may not be ready to buy. A group of ads may result in a 2% response rate for each, but the actual ‘conversion to buy’ ratios may vary greatly.

This is a brief look at creating an online marketing campaign. Trial and error, and perseverance, will help most business owners create their own direct marketing campaign.

 

The Power of Search

I recently talked to someone who enjoyed the lecture “Search and Society” from Berkly’s online lecture series by Marti Hearst. It is comforting to know that even the big companies are as terrified of search as DIY webmasters are.

Search is an incredibly valuable tool. It isn’t surprising that a ‘real world’ advertising agency became the biggest online advertising company, Google. The power of search lies in the fact that it is ‘possible’ to track data. This is the basis of Web 3.0’s data mining-toolbars and PC based widgets.

The next generation of search and page rank will give the user the power they tried to usurp under Web 2.0.  In Web 3.0, everything done will be recorded, in theory.

Search Engine Search

One of the first cases of tracking people on the web was born in the Google Empire, 2002, with the introduction of paid search, also called Sponsored search. Google matched paid advertisements with the user’s search. Until then, the search engines were paid when a banner was displayed. Google changed the rules and only charged advertisers when users clicked the link.

This was the first expression of the ‘database of intention.’ This is only the first instance of the evolution of the ‘telling what we want’ as opposed to being told what to view.

The concept of society will have a major impact on how Web 3.0 will work. There was no privacy in the old world. We were farmers who stayed in one place for generations. We’ve built a public world on cyberspace.

The web has changed the economy of information. Information that was once ‘private’ will become worldwide news once the page is indexed. This will become part of the search databases, and in turn, part of the PPC schematics.

This type of search influence in the real world is already seen in the real world. Apply for a job and the PR representative will Google your name. This brings up a whole new aspect. “Who you are in the Index is who you are in the real world.”

This can be quite devastating, as today’s’ search is not sophisticated enough to manage the task.  One professional Googled her name to find out that someone else with the same name, and year of birth, had been charged with animal cruelty, violence, and landed in jail. This individual would not be called back for a second job interview, despite the fact that that Google mixed up the records of four different people in the search.

Consumer Search

Do you think that everyone uses search engines to find a website, product, or service? Think again. A growing number of people are using Social Networks and communities to build their searches.  A growing number of people are using the search bar at Stumbleupon.com, myspace.com, and facebook.com. They are looking for their friend’s recommendations, not the search engine’s recommendations.

This raises the question of whether webmasters should be focusing on link building campaigns, or writing reviews that can get posted to Stumbleupon.com. This is compounded when webmasters look at Facebook advertising as an alternative to Google’s Adwords.  Will the conversion rate vary? It is too soon to say.

Another question put on the floor by SEM professionals is whether businesses should hire 5 – 10 people to manage lenses, forum posting, and blogs, instead of placing banner ads.     It may take a couple years to figure out the best advertising methods for the next generation of search. The only thing that is certain, is search will continue to be the foundation of advertising for the next few years.

Research The Competition: SPYFU

The easy way to find your niche on the net is to pay someone to spy on the competition, analyze the data, and provide a report that helps you optimize your website and shopping cart.

Doing your own research is possible.

Prepare for a long journey. The big e-tailers invest thousands of dollars into eMarketing reports that tell them who their potential customer is, and what they want. The eMarketers research the competition, learns who is selling, who is not. If you’d like to do a little of your own research then visit www.spyfu.com.

Here is the stats for www.entrepreneur.com

There is a lot to learn. The first thing you will notice is that they do not run a continuous ad campaign. You don’t need a subscription. You just need to understand a few of the stats.

Next, go to www.alexa.com and look at the amount of traffic these websites receive. Last, check their Google Page Rank.

Organic

These keyword phrases currently bring people to your website. They are called ‘referrals.’ Most web stats count referrals, a number that is only accurate if the person visiting has cookies enabled.

Advertisements

This is a list of your website’s advertisements – not the competitions. It will show the ads that Google showed on your website. This can be a good reason to put Google on a blog, at least for the short term. But, if you don’t want to do that, then go to the competition and look at their ads.

The ads that show on a website are a good indication of your SEO value. If the ads are relevant, then the web page is optimized. They have good descriptions, good keywords, good content. View their site, harvest their knowledge.

Take a good look at the Top Ad Competitors. These are the companies who got it right. They are making enough money to promote and advertise.

Top Organic Competitors

This is the #1 tool you’ll find on this site. In a perfect world, every one of the competitors will match your SEO efforts. Look past the search engine optimization. You want to look at how these companies sell their product, and more important, whether they are selling well.

Write your own report based on these 10 questions:

• Am I marketing to the top demographic?
• Do the sites have a high Google Page Rank?
• What is the Alexa traffic?
• Do they have money to advertise?
• Can you offer a competitive product and a comparable price?
• Do the keyword phrases used on your site appear on spyfu?

It is common to learn that you are marketing to the wrong audience. Organic, means that these visitors found you in a search. The competition listed is the companies that will appear on the search page alongside your website.

Future Of Media Panel: Asks More Questions Than It Answers

Five years ago, Michael Wolff predicted that large media companies would “feel pressure to deconstruct.” He stated in several interviews that the ‘internet failed as a media,’ a claim he has since recanted. In 2006 Michael Wolff made the statement that he will not become a blogger. Now he is a prolific blog wrtier.

Last week Michael Wolff was part of a panel here in NY, the topic, ‘The Future of Digital Media.’ Mr. Wolff was joined by Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, Kennet Li of Reuters, David Carro of the New York Times, Johnnie L. Roberts of Newsweek, and Keith J. Kelly of he New York Post.

They highlighted the question that is haunting the media and advertising world, “How do the traditional compete now that they’ve lost their edge?” The news flashes are gone. There is no reason to stop the presses. News is released on the net before the morning edition hits the first doorstep. This does not mean that all the blog posts are news worthy.

Read more

Marketing to Generation facebook

A new article posted yesterday by Fortune Small Business has some good points for businesses that are still struggling with the question ‘do I build a website?.’

The stats:

• 158,209,426 active websites according to a netcraft.com survey
• 102,678,031 active domains.
• 809,000 active SLL certificates used in shopping carts data source

Three quarter of all businesses in the USA are sole proprietorships. However, sole proprietor businesses, with no payroll account for only 3.4% of all receipts. The total number of businesses in the USA is approximately 26 million. Suffice to say, most businesses are still not on the Internet, according to small business census numbers.

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Behavioral Targeting: Web 3.0

The conversation has shifted away from the hackneyed Web 2.0 term, to what will most likely be the next overused meeting phrase, Web 3.0. In this next iteration - users will be able to create a platform of widgets on their computer that will control the content they view. It will (in a perfect world) let users stay with their favorites sites and eliminate the clutter. Read more

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