Here at Novak Brand Design, a Lakeland graphic design firm, we preach continuity. Whether it’s a brand or a message, continuity builds recognition among your clients.
Millions of people turn to the Internet daily to locate products or services, and the rise of social media gives you as a business owner multiple platforms on which to promote yourself. The potential to reach clients and gain business that is created by these social media outlets makes it more important than ever for you to build your brand by creating uniformity. A brand is the idea or image of your product or service with which clients connect. This is accomplished by creating easy recognition with your logo, color palette, message, and/or design. When we say we’re going to “brand” your company, we mean we’re not only working to make your product identifiable, but also stand out in the sea of competitors. Social media is useful in this effort, because it provides additional outlets for identifying with your brand. When a visitor clicks on the Facebook icon on your website, it’s important that it takes you to a Facebook page that reflects your brand. Having the same logo and background colors creates brand consistency so the user knows they’re going to the right place. Taking steps to make your printed materials, social media landing pages and your website look similar builds recognition in customers’ minds. Over time, people will begin to learn and recognize your brand. I know what you’re thinking. Branding = money. Companies such as Publix, Coca Cola and Keller Williams have deep pockets, but not you. Here’s where social media comes to the rescue for the small business owner. And don’t forget about search engine optimization when you embark upon a branding campaign. Your brand includes more than images and color palettes; it includes keywords, too. “What keywords do people use when they find your website?” asks Ali Husayni, CEO of the SEO firm Sinai Marketing, which specializes in real estate, dental and legal marketing. “Those are keywords you need to use when filling in the ‘About Us’ and biographical information on these social media sites.” Doing so increases the chances of your social media sites showing up in search results, in addition to just your company website. Call us if you’d like to get your social media “on the same page” so to speak, by branding your pages. | | In addition to designing custom websites and printed promotional materials here at our Lakeland graphic design firm, we create branded Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and YouTube channels. The following are a few examples:
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Graphic designers, ad agencies and any direct marketing company can prevent COSTLY mistakes by watching this important video on FSM regulations and guidelines. These rules have been in effect since December of 2011 however penalties for non-compliance started being enforced January 2013.
A spot color is a specific pre-mixed ink used in printing. They come in a rainbow of colors, including some specialty inks such as metallic and fluorescent.
Spot color uses a method of specifying and printing colors in which each color is printed as its own ink. In contrast, process color printing layers four inks (yellow, magenta, cyan and black) together to produce color. When a brand's color identity is critical companies often produce advertisements using a combination of process and spot colors. This is commonly called 4+1. 4 representing the process inks, and 1 representing the brand's specific spot color.
Spot color printing is effective when the printed matter contains only one to three different colors, but it becomes prohibitively expensive for more colors. You can also use tints of a spot color to achieve the appearance of using more colors without the expense of additional inks.
There are a number of color specification systems for specifying spot colors, but Pantone is the most widely used. These colors are also commonly referred to as PMS Colors (Pantone Matching System).
Timing is Everything
When is the best time to send your email? Great question. In fact the time you decide to launch your campaign can have an impact on the overall results of your email campaign. This detail may not be as important as the audience you select, the subject line, or the list you are using, but it is a factor. But if you are working to get the maximum results and put everything in your favor then these are commonly accepted as the BEST times to launch your campaign.
The best days: Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
What’s wrong with the rest of the days?
For business email, your audience is generally out of the office on Saturday and Sunday.
On Monday, your recipients are recovering from the weekend and will not be in business mode yet. They may have a number of things to do on this day and are not quite interested in offers or solicitations.
On Friday, they are interested in wrapping things up. If someone starts something on a Friday, it may be forgotten over the weekend.
So we are left with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as the best days.
You will want to avoid holidays or any major vacation times.
Does Time of Day Matter?
You want your message to reach your audience at a time when they are going to be most receptive. Deeper research from advertisers and list companies claim that even the time of day can play a role.
It is important for your message to pop up, while the audience is at their computer. That polite “bing” elicits a Pavlovian response in most of us to quickly see what new and interesting mail has arrived. Perhaps it’s an order? Maybe it’s a note from a coworker. We are receptive and immediately ready to see who’s trying to contact us. This timing is ideal.
The majority of marketers try to ensure their email is not just sitting stagnate in the recipient’s inbox first thing in the morning, especially after a holiday. The reason is simple. People tend to have a morning ritual of “cleaning” their inbox from any spam that arrived overnight. You don’t want them to see your message when they are in a deleting frenzy, trying to find anything they can “clean up.” Rather, you want your message to pop up while they are in the middle of a workday. This increases the chances that the recipient will stop and take a moment to read it.
What Are the Best Times to Send Email?
10:00 – 10:30am and 1:00 – 1:30pm
I urge you not to place too much emphasis on this area. It’s often very difficult to ensure the precise time your message goes out. And even if the message is launched at precisely 10am in one time zone, there are other time zones to consider.
Does Time of Year Matter?
According to list brokers and publishers the time of year does matter. You don’t want to catch someone just after a vacation when they have 200 waiting messages and are looking for stuff they can delete quickly. Most people seem to vacation during the summer months, especially July and August. Try to avoid that time.
Putting it in Perspective… Don’t wait for the perfect time or you will never launch your email campaign. As you’ve probably experienced there are times during the week, month or year when you are extremely busy and not as receptive to offers or messages. Do your best to pick a time when your clients will be most likely to act, but don’t obsess about the launch time.
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