Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

Copy Editor's Business Card

I designed this business card for a copywriter/ editor, whose tag line is "I don't follow paths, I blaze them". The logo was designed to reflect the tag line as well.

"The Top 10 Tricks To Easily Refresh Your Website" Teleclass Recording

Learn how you can easily update your small business's website - not only what to update on the site, but how you can do it yourself as well. http://www.elf-design.com/teleclass-Web-Update.html

Search Engine Optimization Tool

http://website.grader.com/ - type in your URL and they'll generate a report for you on how your website measures up search-engine-wise. Very useful!

Mariposa Leadership: One-sheet design

Mariposa Leadership needed a flexible sales sheet design. This was created to allow them to customize the design with their own text, so that they can make changes to their pitches and marketing materials as needed, while still looking very professional.

How to keep the evil spambots from stealing your email address!

Today's post is a guest article from Kathy Mallary:

A spambot is a program that searches the web for email addresses in places like Web sites, newsgroups, online discussion forums and chat room conversations. The people who write the spambot programs then sell the harvested addresses to spammers.

Email addresses are easy targets because they have a distinctive format: name@yourdomain.com

Because it's easier to prevent spam than it is to stop it once you're already getting it, you should take proactive measures to protect your email address from being harvested. 

One thing you SHOULDN'T do is post your email address on the internet, especially in public discussion forums or chat rooms. Many forums allow you to post with a username instead of your real email address, which is great; just remember NOT to include your email address in your signature line -- instead, direct people to your web site or blog if they want to contact you.

At one time, you could fool the spambots by by spelling out your email address phonetically, as in "name AT yourdomain DOT com". Unfortunately, the humans who write the spambots were pretty quick to catch on and they adjusted their programs to look for obvious decoys. So this approach doesn't really work anymore.

A more effective solution is to create a small image file (i.e., using .gif, .bmp or .jpg format) which includes your email address -- basically, take a picture of your email address and then post the picture. A human visitor can easily read your email address from such an image, but it's virtually impossible to program a spambot to retrieve an email address from an image (yet).

Another method is to require people to use a contact form on your site if they want to reach you. Just give the URL to the contact form page instead of giving people your actual email address. The problem with this is that it creates an extra step for people who want to reach you--instead of just using their own email program which they're more familiar with, they have to use your form. It may seem like a small thing, but it does discourage some folks.

Unfortunately, another disadvantage to the contact form is that you may end up with a bunch of comment spam from yet another type of spambot that searches the web for places to dump links to try and get people to click on a site. The way around this is to include a CAPTCHA test (one of those fields where you have to retype certain characters or answer a logic question correctly, such as "3 plus 7 equals what?") to ensure that it's really a person filling out your contact form, and not a spambot.

If you'd like more high-tech ideas for keeping your email safe from spammers, be sure to read this article from WebSiteHelpers.com.

©SpiritSpring Coaching and Kathleen Mallary. All rights reserved.

Kathy Mallary, the Signature System Coach™, works with professional/business coaches who want to learn how to find clients and make money with their own signature coaching system. Get more free marketing tips and resources for coaches at www.spiritspring.com

UpLevel Strategies: Newsletter design

I redesigned the UpLevel Strategies HTML newsletter template to match their new website and updated look. Then I coded the revised design into Email Brain for email list management and to make it easy for the client to create and send their own weekly newsletters.

 

This template is designed to be flexible for many types of content.

 

How the Right Marketing Collateral Can Help You to Identify Whether or Not Someone is Your Ideal Prospect or Client

My friend and client, Nina Price, wrote up a piece on a business card we created for her massage practice and how it impacted her business. I thought it was really great, so I've copied it here. Here's the permalink to this article on Nina's blog: http://ninaprice.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/how-the-right-marketing-collateral-can-help-you-to-identify-whether-or-not-someone-is-your-ideal-pro.html

I didn’t set out to design the ultimate “ouija board” business card, but it turned out that I succeeded.

While I was in acupuncture school I made my living as a coach and as a massage therapist.  I decided that I wanted to create some marketing collateral that would keep my name in front of my clients so that they would book regular appointments.  I always want to be memorable and I enjoy being creative. One day I saw that you could purchase and print post-it notes in some new non-rectangular shapes.  I found some really cute hand-shaped post-it notes and decided that I would have my logo and contact information printed on the post-its. With the assistance of my friend Erin Ferree, (http://www.elf-design.com/ ) a talented designer, we created a clever variation on my logo which became the background of stars on the hand to tie the logo and contact information together into a balanced design.

We printed what seemed at the time a huge quantity of hand-shaped post-its, and I started giving them out to people I met. Before long they became my business card.  I really liked having a non-traditional business card because it was memorable, and I was memorable.  One time I even went to a massage class taught by a woman who had written a book on marketing for massage therapists. I gave her my card, a pad of  hand-shaped post-its, and she asked whether she could include it in the next edition of her book! Needless to say I said “of course!”

The most profound aspect of my hand-shaped post-it notes is that I noticed a trend in peoples’ reactions to the post-its when I gave them to them. I noticed that the receiver either did one of two things: either they said “How cute, what a clever idea for a card! I love it!” or they peeled the top post-it off the pad and gave me back the rest of the pad.
Once I noticed the two trends I then watched to see whether the people who received the post-it pads booked an appointment with me or booked a return appointment with me. To a person the people who peeled off the top post-it and gave me back the rest of the pad did not book or rebook an appointment with me! The people who loved the concept and said so for the most part booked or rebooked appointments with me, without any follow up or cultivation on my part. In some cases they booked appointments in the short term and in other cases it took a longer time.

What’s amazing about all of this is that I can predict by the way people respond to my post-it note pad business card, who are my ideal prospects and who I need to follow up with and cultivate. These days I do follow up conscientiously with ideal prospects. This is a huge gift.

What if you had a business card or a piece of marketing collateral or a website that offered you predictable insight on who your ideal prospects are? What indicators do you use to determine who your ideal prospects are?  How reliable are they?

Being able to accurately predict who your ideal prospects are can save you time, money and effort. Start to notice the trends in how people gravitate to you, why they buy and continue to buy from you. The trends can help you predict more accurately how to market to other similar ideal prospects.

How To Get An Affordable Headshot

A bit ago, it was suddenly that dreaded time - time to get a new headshot taken for my business. My old headshot was terrifically out of date - since I'd had it taken, I'd lost a bunch of weight, cut all my hair off, and gotten Lasik, so I didn't wear glasses any more. As a result, I was pretty much unrecognizable when using the headshot as a point of reference when telling new clients who to look for when I'd do meetings at a Starbucks.

So, I needed new headshots. But I wanted a low-stress, low-cost way to get that done.

I can't take credit for this idea - my friend Kelly O'Neil of Uplevel Strategies actually suggested it. She suggested heading over to the local mall and going to the photo store - you know, the one in every mall where parents take their kids. I was a bit unsure about this - I didn't want to take a photo with giant blocks, or with a "fall leaves" background. But, I gave it a try.

I called in on a Wednesday, and got an appointment for the next day, right after the lunch hour. I walked in, asked for the white background, and took photos in 3 different shirts I'd brought for the occasion. I headed across the mall hallway for a sandwich, and by the time I was done, my proofs were ready. I looked through them all, and chose one - then ran a couple of errands while they printed it up.

Total time? An hour and 15 minutes. And I got a bunch of other stuff done while I was waiting. 

Total cost? Just over $18 for an 8x10 that I brought home, scanned, and resized for my website.

And, I don't think the result is half-bad!

So, now, no excuses for having poor photos to go on your marketing materials - next time, just try the mall. 

Color and Branding

"A study carried out by the Seoul International Color Expo found that color goes so far as to increase brand recognition by up to 80 percent. When asked to approximate the importance of color when buying products, 84.7 percent of total respondents claimed that color amounted to more than half the criterion they consider when they're choosing a brand."

Martin Lindstrom, Buy-ology, page 155

UpLevel Strategies Website Design

I recently updated the design of the UpLevel Strategies website to present a modern, up-to-date look for this small business coach and marketing strategist. We also created this design to emphasize social networking and to drive more mailing list sign-ups.