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Creating Powerful, Promotional Material On A Budget

Cidnee Stephen

Nothing saddens me more when I'm out at an event or opening my mail than seeing BRUTAL (that's right, BRUTAL) promotional material. Let me describe it. First, like something out of a horror movie, I find myself staring at a home made business card or worse, the tri-fold brochure (start the creepy music). At the top is what can only be described as an abhoration (spell-check doesn't like this word, but I do) that is supposed to be a logo (enter the hallowing scream), that was obviously developed by a 5 year old (correction a 5 year old could probably have done better). Next I see so many fonts and sizes on the page that I find myself getting dizzy and usually there is not a photo in sight....or worse.....I find myself looking face to face with the scariest creature of all - CLIP ART!

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Capture Clients with Words that "Hook" and Graphics that "Kick!"

Karen Saunders

Do the marketing pieces you send out lack pizzazz and personality? Are they capturing the clients you want to work with?

As your company's in-house graphics person--perhaps more by default than by intention--you're pressed to be a jack/jill-of-all-trades. You want to do a great job of producing promotional pieces, but you have little time to learn advanced design and marketing skills. Your ongoing challenge is learning to do a little more to get a lot better results--quickly and painlessly. How can you improve them?

What Techniques Can You Apply NOW?

Take these 5 design/marketing tips to heart. Using them consistently will save you time in the long run and attract more customers.

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Current Clients

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Building Your
Business “Persona.”

Michael Anderson


Take a moment and think of McDonalds, but don’t visualize the golden arches. Okay now think of Nike without picturing the swoop. If you are like most people, this is nearly impossible - we use images to remember.

What is a Corporate I.D.?

Items that communicate the “persona” of your business such as your logo, business cards, signage and stationery. A good corporate identity must differentiate and express a credible vision of the company and be memorable.

Visual Consistency

Developing and promoting your brand requires a sincere dedication to consistency. Visually, your brand must speak the same message across all of your marketing materials - website, stationery, brochures, and ads - to promote a unified theme that creates recognition and trust; including colors, imagery, fonts, and graphic treatments.

Four Simple Steps to Creating a Solid I.D

Ensure your company logo is placed (un-edited) on all your advertising.

Ensure that if your logo appears on other companies' advertising that it remains unedited.

Use set color themes for product lines and stick to them throughout advertising and packaging.

Use slogans and music effectively to aid brand development and consumer awareness. An example of this is the small three-second tune for Intel television and radio advertisements-you know it is advertising Intel's products.

A solid C.I. may take a little time and money initially, but will save time and money long term by providing focused marketing principals and rules for creating each piece of advertising and marketing material for the years to come.

 

Warning to Direct Marketers: Asking These Questions Will Kill Your Conversions

Barry Densa

For those marketers who labor tirelessly, though fruitlessly, oblivious to marketing history and unversed in copy that brings home the bacon... please take note: This article is for you.

One of the most famous questions ever asked in an ad was penned almost a century ago by copywriting legend Maxwell Sackheim. It read: Do you make these mistakes in English?

It was the headline for an ad that sold a pedestrian mail-order language course.

Yet it worked so well—pulling in so much money—that the company that owned it continued to run it for 40 long and successful years!

To be sure, a myriad other headlines were tested, all using the same body copy, before that now-famous winner was discovered.

One competing headline read: Do you make mistakes in English? Certainly close enough, you would think. But it failed miserably, as did all others.

It was only when that seemingly innocuous word "these" was finally inserted that direct marketing history was made—and a lesson for direct marketers was learned.

Well, some endeavored to learn it, most never tried. They merely copied its form without understanding why it worked so well.

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