Everyday billions of people use search engines to learn about a specific topic, solve a problem, find service providers, etc. How often have you done a search for a friend or favorite restaurant just because it was easier than opening up your contacts? Well, it turns out that even C-level professionals are doing much of their own search these days.
The sky is blue and air is warm, and there’s just a little bit of true summer left to enjoy. Hopefully you’ve had some downtime, while still keeping up with the important marketing and business tasks at hand. But with the slower summer days coming to an end, how can one best prepare for the busy pace that always comes in early September? Here’s our checklist:
As a sixth grader in home economics, I was assigned to write a letter to a company about one of their products. The idea behind the assignment was simply to help us understand how to write and format a professional letter. I remember the excitement I felt when I got a response in the mail from the company I wrote to–until I opened it. Only thirteen years old, I was traumatized when I read that the company did not appreciate my letter (which suggested the company produce a diet version of a certain cake product – which of course now exists,) and claimed if I wrote again they would be forced to take some sort of action. I laugh now, but I also wonder if I would resend my letter today, or posed my suggestion on their Facebook wall – would I receive the same response?
“‘Engage your audience.” We have all heard it a million times, and it can be quite frustrating! I get it, really I do. In order to capture an audience we have to get them talking. But please just tell me how!”
What is the first thing you see?
We get data from our senses. Our eyes see, and then the brain makes meaning of the information collected. In his book, The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier explains that out eyes quickly find the contrast in what we are viewing, and then the brain takes over. We see the difference between subject and ground, big and small, rough and smooth, motionless and moving – then we determine the importance of those differences.
Take the “no-header test.” Go to your website and scroll down so that the header is out of view of the browser window. Now take a look at what’s left. Is it easy to tell what your company does? Will a first-time visitor to your site know what you do, have any sense about what makes you unique, or care? Now put the header back in. Uh-oh, that might not help either?! Here’s the point: you have about six to eight seconds to make an impression, which means you need to give visitors something to latch on to right away so that they will continue to learn more. If they can’t even discern what it is you do, there’s a problem.
In his book, The Advertising Concept Book, Pete Barry explains that a good ad communicates its message, but a great ad “stops you, hooks you, and hauls you in.” Further, a great ad will make the viewer react in at least one of six ways – SLIP IT. This concept also works for email marketing, web landing pages, direct mail, and more.
Brand Identity: NFRC Logo, Print Materials and Emailer
Our logo design, print design and emailer design for NFRC
Brand Identity: The Harbinson Group Logo
Our logo design for The Harbinson Group
Insight180 would like to welcome Michelle Loeb to our team. Michelle will be interning with us over the summer, and we are happy to have her on board. Michelle is a recent graduate from University of Baltimore’s School of Communications Design and has an interest in marketing and advertising. She is especially looking forward to working on some brand research and content strategy for both insight180 and some of our clients.
Aside from being a great Rolling Stones refrain, that line is a great intro to this blog post. Have you done a “word cloud” lately? There are some wonderful tools out there to help demonstrate in a visual way, what your web content, resume, or blog post is really focused on. When working on web content, or any content for that matter, we are constantly reminding clients about key words. While we don’t want articles or content to be overbearingly key word rich, we do want our content to be energized, if you will by terms for which someone might search. Enter wordle.net, a word cloud generator. You can enter in an article or resume, or web page text, etc. and create a word picture that shows what words are emphasized most. Artistic and smart. . . or at least a good way to check your content.
Brand Identity: Rugs to Riches
Our logo design for Rugs to Riches
