The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing

I admit it. The term “viral marketing” is offensive. Call yourself a Viral Marketer and people will take two steps back. I would. “Do they have a vaccine for that yet?” you wonder. A sinister thing, the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that nether genre somewhere between disaster movies and horror flicks.

 

But you have to admire the virus. He has a way of living in secrecy until he is so numerous that he wins by sheer weight of numbers. He piggybacks on other hosts and uses their resources to increase his tribe. And in the right environment, he grows exponentially. A virus don’t even have to mate — he just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling with each iteration:

1
11
1111
11111111
1111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

In a few short generations, a virus population can explode.

Viral Marketing Defined

What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as “word-of-mouth,” “creating a buzz,” “leveraging the media,” “network marketing.” But on the Internet, for better or worse, it’s called “viral marketing.” While others smarter than I have attempted to rename it, to somehow domesticate and tame it, I won’t try. The term “viral marketing” has stuck.

The Classic Hotmail.com Example

The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:

1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com” and,
3. Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
4. Who see the message,
5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
6. Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.

Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly.

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy

Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But below are the six basic elements you hope to include in your strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing strategy:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

Let’s examine at each of these elements briefly.

1. Gives away valuable products or services

“Free” is the most powerful word in a marketer’s vocabulary. Most viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services to attract attention. Free e-mail services, free information, free “cool” buttons, free software programs that perform powerful functions but not as much as you get in the “pro” version. Wilson’s Second Law of Web Marketing is “The Law of Giving and Selling” (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/basic-principles.htm). “Cheap” or “inexpensive” may generate a wave of interest, but “free” will usually do it much faster. Viral marketers practice delayed gratification. They may not profit today, or tomorrow, but if they can generate a groundswell of interest from something free, they know they will profit “soon and for the rest of their lives” (with apologies to “Casablanca”). Patience, my friends. Free attracts eyeballs. Eyeballs then see other desirable things that you are selling, and, presto! you earn money. Eyeballs bring valuable e-mail addresses, advertising revenue, and e-commerce sales opportunities. Give away something, sell something.

2. Provides for effortless transfer to others

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to transmit. The medium that carries your marketing message must be easy to transfer and replicate: e-mail, website, graphic, software download. Viral marketing works famously on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. The classic is: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com.” The message is compelling, compressed, and copied at the bottom of every free e-mail message.

3. Scales easily from small to very large

To spread like wildfire the transmission method must be rapidly scalable from small to very large. The weakness of the Hotmail model is that a free e-mail service requires its own mailservers to transmit the message. If the strategy is wildly successful, mailservers must be added very quickly or the rapid growth will bog down and die. If the virus multiplies only to kill the host before spreading, nothing is accomplished. So long as you have planned ahead of time how you can add mailservers rapidly you’re okay. You must build in scalability to your viral model.

4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. What proliferated “Netscape Now” buttons in the early days of the Web? The desire to be cool. Greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages. Design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, and you have a winner.

5. Utilizes existing communication networks

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. A person’s broader network may consist of scores, hundreds, or thousands of people, depending upon her position in society. A waitress, for example, may communicate regularly with hundreds of customers in a given week. Network marketers have long understood the power of these human networks, both the strong, close networks as well as the weaker networked relationships. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

The most creative viral marketing plans use others’ resources to get the word out. Affiliate programs, for example, place text or graphic links on others’ websites. Authors who give away free articles, seek to position their articles on others’ webpages. A news release can be picked up by hundreds of periodicals and form the basis of articles seen by hundreds of thousands of readers. Now someone else’s newsprint or webpage is relaying your marketing message. Someone else’s resources are depleted rather than your own.

Principles of Design

Generally, all the principles of design apply to any piece you may create. How you apply those principles determines how effective your design is in conveying the desired message and how attractive it appears. There is seldom only one correct way to apply each principle. 

Balance
Try walking a long distance with a 2 pound bag of rocks in one hand and a 10 pound bag of marbles in the other. After awhile you’ll be wanting to shift your load around, putting a few marbles in the rock bag to balance your load, make it easier to walk. This is how balance works in design. Visual balance comes from arranging elements on the page so that no one section is heavier than the other. Or, a designer may intentionally throw elements out of balance to create tension or a certain mood.

Proximity / Unity
Observe a group of people in a room. You can often learn a lot about who is listening intently to another person, which are strangers, or who is ignoring who by how close together they sit or stand. In design, proximity or closeness creates a bond between people and between elements on a page. How close together or far apart elements are placed suggests a relationship (or lack of) between otherwise disparate parts. Unity is also achieved by using a third element to connect distant parts.

Alignment
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to find your car in a crowded parking lot if everyone ignored the parking lot stripes and parked in every which direction and angle? Imagine trying to get out of there! Alignment brings order to chaos, in a parking lot and on a piece of paper. How you align type and graphics on a page and in relation to each other can make your layout easier or more difficult to read, foster familiarity, or bring excitement to a stale design.

Repetition / Consistency
What if Stop signs came in pink squares, yellow circles, or green triangles, depending on the changing whims of a town and a few of its residents? Imagine the ensuing traffic jams and accidents. Repeating design elements and consistent use of type and graphics styles within a document shows a reader where to go and helps them navigate your designs and layouts safely.

Contrast
On the basketball court, one pro team looks much like another. But send a few of those players for a stroll down most any major city street and something becomes apparent — those players are much taller than your average guy on the street. That’s contrast. In design, big and small elements, black and white text, squares and circles, can all create contrast in design.

White Space
Did you ever participate in that crazy college pasttime of VW Beetle stuffing? Were you ever the guy on the bottom struggling for a breath of fresh air or the last one in trying to find a place to stick your left elbow so the door will close? It wasn’t comfortable, was it? Imagine trying to drive the car under those conditions. Designs that try to cram too much text and graphics onto the page are uncomfortable and may be impossible to read. White space gives your design breathing room.

HTML and CSS Validation: Should You Validate Your Web Page?

 

If you don’t hang around webmaster circles, you may not realise that HTML validation and CSS validation are controversial issues with some people. This article discusses some of the positions taken in these discussions to provide some perspectives on issues that have come increasingly to the fore in web development. Hopefully, the article will also provide a practical method that overworked webmasters can use to improve their website.

Some Background Information: What does Validating HTML or CSS Mean?

For those who are unfamiliar with what validating a web page (ie validating your HTML or CSS code) means, it basically refers to using a program or an online service to check that the web page that you created is free of errors.

In particular, an HTML validator checks to make sure the HTML code on your web page complies with the standards set by the W3 Consortium (the organisation that issues the HTML standards). There are various types of validators – some check only for errors, others also make suggestions about your code, telling you when a certain way of writing things might lead to (say) unexpected results.

The W3 Consortium has its own online validator which you can use for free. It may be found at: http://validator.w3.org/

A CSS validator checks your Cascading Style Sheets in the same manner; basically, most will check them to make sure that they comply with the CSS standards set by the W3 Consortium. There are a few which will also tell you which CSS features are supported by which browsers (since not all browsers are equal in their CSS implementation).

Again, you can get free validation for your style sheets from the W3 Consortium: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

There are numerous other validators around, both free and commercial, focusing on various aspects of ensuring that your code will run trouble-free across browsers and platforms. You can find a list of free ones (including specialised validators like those that check your code for accessibility) from Free HTML Validators, CSS Validators, Accessibility Validators at http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmlvalidators.shtml

Note that validating your web page does not ensure that it will appear as you want in various browsers. It merely ensures that your code is without HTML or CSS syntax errors. Ensuring that your code appears correctly in different browsers require cross browser testing.

Why Validate Your HTML Code?

The proponents of HTML validation (and CSS validation, of course) say that there are a number of reasons why you should validate your code:

1. It Helps Cross-Browser, Cross-Platform and Future Compatibility

   Although you may be able to create a web page that appears to work on your favourite browser (whatever that may be), your page may contain HTML errors (or CSS errors) that do not show up with that browser due to an existing quirk or bug. Another person using a different browser that does not share that particular bug will wind up viewing a page that does not show up correctly. It is also possible that later versions of your browser will fix that bug, and your page will be broken when people use the latest incarnation of the browser.

   Coding your pages so that it is correct without errors will result in pages that are more likely to work across browsers and platforms (ie, different systems). It is also a form of insurance against future versions of browsers, since all browsers aim towards compliance with the existing HTML and CSS standards.

2. Search Engine Visibility

   When there are errors in a web page, browsers typically try to compensate in different ways. Hence some browsers may ignore the broken elements while others make assumptions about what the web designer was trying to achieve. The problem is that when search engines obtain your page and try to parse them for keywords, they will also have to make certain decisions about what to do with the errors. Like browsers, different search engines will probably make different decisions about those errors in the page, resulting in certain parts of your web page (or perhaps even the entire page if your error is early in the page) not being indexed.

   The safest way, it is held, is to make sure that your web page validates error-free. That way, there is no dispute about which part of your page should be scanned for keywords and the like.

3. Professionalism

   Even if you test your web site with all the various browsers in existence on all the platforms in use (Mac, Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc) and find that it works perfectly in all, errors in your site reflect poorly on your skill as a web developer.

   The issue is two-fold: firstly, a poorly coded web page reveals that either the web designer does not know his stuff or is a sloppy worker; secondly, it affects his marketability.

Why Not Validate?

Those who are against a blanket rule about validation often cite the following reasons:

1. Validation is No Guarantee that Page Works

   Even if you validate your code, you still have to test it in the various browsers. Having code with no syntax errors does not mean that the HTML or CSS code does what you want. Hence some of the proponents of this view argue that the main goal when designing a web page is to make sure it is viewable and usable by your visitors, not some esoteric goal of standards compliance.

2. Time Constraint for Conversion

   In an ideal world, you want all your pages to be usable and error free. In the real world however, many web designers with thousands of existing pages will be hard-pressed to find time to convert all those pages so that they validate correctly. Since these pages are already doing well on the web, both with existing browsers and search engines, time is better spent doing work that is actually productive.

3. The Average Visitor Does Not Check Your Source Code

   Against the argument about professionalism is the counter-argument that the average visitor to your site is not likely to go around your site viewing the source code to your pages in an effort to locate HTML or CSS errors. To the visitor, how the page appears in his/her browser is the true test of the web designer’s skill.

One Possible Solution

Like some web designers, I started designing web sites long before I realized that there were tools that could validate my pages for correctness. By the time I started validating and correcting my pages, I already had hundreds of existing pages that I needed to correct, including pages on thesitewizard.com and thefreecountry.com.

My concerns were primarily cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility as well as search engine indexability. I didn’t want an error on my pages that I might miss seeing with my browser but that creeps up in other browsers, systems or the search engines. However, the problem was that converting hundreds of pages is not exactly my idea of a pleasant day’s work.

I decided to take the approach I saw on a website. If I remember correctly, I think it was the W3 Consortium’s own website that mentioned this method. At that time, they had a notice stating that they knew that not all their pages complied with the standards. However, all new pages they created will validate correctly, as will any old pages that they updated.

I realise that this is not the “ideal” that some webmasters argue for; but it is a practical solution for a web designer with many existing pages. If you are in the same boat, with too many existing pages to contemplate revamping everything, you might want to consider taking this route. It may not salve your pride (ie, the craftsman’s pride at producing a perfect work), but at least it will help you cope with the workload.

How Often Should I Validate?

Some people validate every time they make a modification to their pages on the grounds that careless mistakes can occur any time. Others validate only when they make a major design change.

I always validate the template for my pages when I make a major design change. I try to validate my pages each time I make modifications, although I must admit that I sometimes forget to do so (with the occasional disastrous consequence; Murphy’s Law doesn’t spare webmasters).

I find that having an offline validator helps to make sure that I remember to validate: having to go online just to validate my pages tends to make me put off validation till later, with the result that it’ll occasionally get overlooked. For those not familiar with the terminology I use, when I say “offline validator” I simply mean a validator that I can download and install in my own computer so that I can run it on my pages without having to go to the W3 Consortium’s website. You can find offline validators on the free validators page I mentioned earlier, that is, http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmlvalidators.shtml

The HTML Tidy validator (listed on that page) is available for numerous platforms (including Linux, Mac, Windows, etc) and has proven helpful to many webmasters the world over.

Conclusion

Validating your HTML and CSS code for standards compliance has certain benefits: it protects your pages from problems arising from syntax errors in your code due to different ways of interpreting errors by the search engines and other browsers. If, however, you have a large number of existing pages that have not been validated and corrected, but nonetheless work well in search engines and other browsers, you might need to consider some sort of strategy (such as the one I used) to prevent webmaster-overload.

Usability tips for commerical websites

 

Make It Easy for Visitor to Check Your Price List

Some websites try to hide the price list for their products. Some of these sites only display the price of the item after you hit the “Buy” or “Order” button, or worse, only after you have created an account on their site. Others have a price list, but bury the link to the price list somewhere deep in their site in a place not easily accessible from the main page or the products page.

I’m not exactly sure what the reason behind this is. Possibly, they think that if the customer does not see the price until they click the “Buy” or “Order” button, they will be more likely to buy the item. This reasoning is fallacious.

There are many types of visitors arriving at your site. Let’s take the case of the window shopper. If they see something noteworthy on your site, they may make a note of the price so that they can return later if they want the item at some point in the future. If the price of the item cannot be easily found on your site, do you seriously think that they will thoroughly search the site just to find that elusive price tag? Or do you suppose that such a visitor will click the “Buy” button, just so that they can find the price tag at the end of the process somewhere? Or will they go through the bother of creating an account, revealing their personal particulars, just to find the price of an item?

Like the serious shopper, if they cannot find the price, they will simply go to another site. Remember: this is not a brick and mortar store we’re talking about, where you need to take time and put in effort to travel to another store. On the Internet, your competitor is only a click away. And the search engines are more than happy to yield thousands of other sites selling the same type of goods or services as you. I realise that there are some brick and mortar stores (usually small concerns) who think that if they don’t put a price tag, the customer has to find out the price from a sales person, who will then have the opportunity to persuade him/her to buy that item. Whether or not that is a good idea for a brick and mortar store (and I can think offhand of some types of customers that you will lose even there), it is a bad idea for a web store.

No matter how you look at it, every customer and potential customer will need to know the price of a product. Even the corporate customer buying for his/her company works to a budget. Making it difficult for your visitor to find the price list is a quick way to drive a potential customer away. As has been observed by many usability experts – the average Internet user has the attention span of a flea. If they can’t find what they want within the first few seconds of glancing at your page, they will leave. And your competitors will be more than happy to attend to them in your place.

Provide Descriptions and Pictures for Your Products

I realise that the new web designer is beset with contradictory advice about how best to design their site. One set of such conflicting advice is the requirement to be brief and to-the-point so that you can catch that Internet visitor who will only give your web page a few seconds glance before deciding whether to stay or go elsewhere. Contradicting that is the requirement that you describe your products in depth and place pictures of your product, or screenshots if yours is a software product.

The best way to resolve this, I think, is to take a leaf from Amazon.com‘s book. For every item they list on their search results for a query (they have too many products to have a straightforward “Products” page), they usually have a brief description, a thumbnail picture, the price and a link to buy the item. If this brief description interests you, you can click the link and get a longer description and more information about the product.

A product page for each product, with a long description and pictures of the product, is indispensible. This is particularly so if your product is expensive, or has plenty of competition. Your long description and pictures of what you’re selling is what cinches the sale. Potential customers will use the information on that page to decide whether or not to buy the item. They look at the page and compare it with the what is said about your competitor’s product. It is thus in your interest to mention all the salient points about your product or service on that page. Think of it as the web equivalent of a salesman promoting a product to a walk-in customer.

An informative and detailed product page is not all you need. You also need to place your “Buy” or “Order” buttons both at the top and the bottom of the product page. If your product page is especially long, spanning many screenfuls, you may also want to consider placing additional buttons somewhere in the middle of the page. Do not force your customers to scroll to the bottom of the page before they can buy the item. You may have suffered countless hours drafting the description of the page. Do not pass the suffering to your customers by requiring them to read it all before they can order your product. Some customers are easily convinced, or they come to your page having already decided to buy. Make it easy for them to get to where they want to go within your site.

Allow Your Customers to Browse Your Site in Any Way They Choose

Have you ever encountered a “live” salesperson who drones on and on about a product, giving you little chance to jump in and tell him/her that you have already decided to buy the product? “I’ll buy already!” you want to shout, but the guy insists on finishing his tome on the product.

Such a person, in real life, is probably seldom found. However, I have visited many websites that practise this very sales tactic. One characteristic of such websites is that the site has very poor navigational facilities. You cannot easily access other pages on the site except through a sequence of choreographed steps that the author has planned. First you have to read his introduction about the product. Then after a very long exposition on the first page, you are graced with a link at the bottom that takes you to a second page. Again, you have to endure the sermon on the second page before you can find the link to move on. Even if you have already decided to buy the product, you’re forced to go through the whole sequence of steps before you can buy the product.

Such websites are reminiscent of the high-pressure sales tactics employed by some salesmen, and give visitors a bad taste. The usability of such sites is low, and the design of the site discourages impulse purchases.

One of the basic rules in selling something on the web is that you should not force your customers to click through many pages before they reach the “Buy” or “Download” button. It is never productive, leaves a bitter taste in some visitors’ mouth, and drives off others. Sure, you may convince some people to buy the product after they read it all, but you are also convincing others that you’re the sort of person they don’t want to do business with. A website is different from a “live” salesman. People can leave any time during your sales pitch. And they do. Most people visiting a site to buy something are not there to read a long exposition. They are there to get a product. Delaying that purchase can only hurt your business. When I say that you need to give a product page with a detailed description about your product, I don’t mean that you have to force everyone to read that detailed description before they can buy. Always provide a shortcut to the order form for your visitors.

Mandatory Items on the Site Navigation Bar

For a commercial site, certain links should be accessible from every page of your website. The easiest way to do this is to place them on your navigation bar. If you don’t know what a navigation bar is, take a look at thesitewizard.com. On the top left of every page is a series of buttons which give you access to the main pages of the site. Your navigation bar need not be on the left side as mine is. You can put it at the top, the right or the bottom as well. However, the following items should always be present:

• Products: this is a link to a page listing all your products. If you have too many products to fit into one page, you may want to create category pages that are accessible through the main product page.
• Order Form: this should point to your order form.
• Price List: as mentioned earlier, a price list improves the usability of your site, and ultimately your bottom line.
• Support: you should place a link to a page which provides ways that your customer can contact you.
• About Us: since you are selling things, you should have an “About Us” page that tells your customer about you or your company.

Successful Branding with Brochures

You’re on vacation and see an attractive hotel. A literature box on its front door holds a multi-fold document picturing tasty foods, glorious views, and vivid descriptions of life within. On the counter of a local pet store is a document advertising specials, training tips, and store credits for referring new customers. You open your child’s new box of LEGOs and there’s a fold-out instruction booklet starting at a single piece next to the number 1 and ending with a pirate ship/dune buggy/X-Wing Fighter/space ship at step 11 or so.

What ties these disparate experiences together? The brochures. Every one of them tells a story designed to either woo a potential customer or strengthen the relationship between a business and an existing customer.

The intention of a brochure is different than a newspaper or magazine advertisement. An ad captures the attention of the reader, planting a seed of recognition to be built upon later. A brochure should assume that the seed has already been planted, and its mission is to water and fertilize that seed to achieve results. The best brochures promote a direct response, taking the reader from seed to flower, or turning the reader with a box of jumbled LEGOs to a customer ready to use a new toy.

I’ll look at several examples of brochures that work, parsing their elements and going behind the design to reveal the foundations and motives. But first, let’s talk about principles that apply to any brochure.

The Design Three-Step
When sitting down to design your brochure, step 1 is to take into account the client’s needs. Find out what information they most wish to convey and the style in which they wish to convey it. If it’s a pet-supply store doing a monthly newsletter, the content of the piece should be timely and assume a level of prior knowledge. If the subject is a high-end vacation getaway, the picture painted by the brochure should be more detailed, as the reader likely is reading about the place for the first time. You’ll need a list of attributes to highlight, a list generated with the help and blessing of your client.

If the direction you think the project should go differs significantly from your client’s, now’s the time to get on the same page. It’s a lot easier to find a new path before either one of you has invested a lot of time and effort going down a road that might turn out to be a dead end. Take careful notes during this step, as it will help you stay focused and remind your client what they asked for.

Step 2 is to think like the dog owner who wants that new squeaky toy or the frazzled urbanite contemplating the weekend in the country; in other words, the people from whom you want action of some sort. Consider these questions:

• What does your audience need? 
• Who is the client? The reader needs to know name of the business. If the reader remembers the picture of the hotel but not how to make contact, you’ve failed. Feature the business name prominently in the design, or know why you don’t need to and make a conscious decision to downplay it.
• Where is the client? If you expect readers to do something with the information in the brochure, it must include the means, be it phone number, address, or URL (preferably all three).
• Who is the audience? If you designed a brochure for a heavy metal rock band yesterday, you can’t just drop in a few new pictures and contact information to make a brochure for an upscale hotel catering to the jet set. It might be cutting-edge design worthy of lighter-waving and fist-pumping, but it’s not likely to fill the parking lot with BMWs.

Step 3 is to think about the big picture. You’re going to design a piece that will become part of a broader whole. This might be the first marketing piece ever done by this company, or it might be the tenth. The tenets of modern branding state that we as designers should strive to build our clients a cohesive brand identity that carries across various marketing media.

Apple is a great example in this regard. Everything the company does sports what has become a familiar look and feel, which has grown to become as important to Apple’s identity as the familiar silhouetted Apple logo. Apple’s TV commercials look like its Web site, which looks like its marketing brochures, which share elements with its product packaging and manuals.

To maintain consistency, take into account ink choices (two vs. four color, flat vs. varnished), font selection, use of white space, image style (photography, vector art, illustration), size of the piece, paper type, and more.

If a client insists on confining the design process to one brochure, not a brand, you can tell him or her this: Customers have a better chance of making a positive association with various marketing materials when they’re part of a whole, not a scattershot mishmash. When you consider the whole, you’re leveraging the brochure you’re designing today with the newspaper ad you’ll design next week and the newsletter you’ll produce next month.

Designing with branding in mind shows that you’re thinking about your client’s long-term future and that you have an investment in their business. This increases your opportunities for future business.

On to the examples.

Tables of Content
The Sylvia Beach Hotel (SBH) sits on a tranquil piece of the Oregon coast in a small town that’s more than 100 miles from a major metropolitan area. The hotel management doesn’t place radio, television, or newspaper ads, yet scoring a room without calling months in advance involves copious amounts of luck.

Each of the SBH’s twenty rooms is styled after a different classic author, from Dr. Seuss to Lincoln Steffens to Hemingway. There are no in-room televisions or phones, but there is a shared library on the third floor that serves spiced wine every night at 10:00, and tea and coffee anytime.

The Sylvia Beach Hotel’s primary marketing tool is a tri-fold 8.5 x 11″ brochure with pencil sketches and romantic descriptions of each room (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. This brochure is purposefully low-tech. Click on the image for a larger version.

 

The SBH follows the Design Three-Step well. The client is a hotel, seeking to make itself known to potential visitors. The front of the brochure prominently features the hotel’s name, address, and phone number. A Web address was added later. Contact information is also on the back of the brochure, and on the included price sheet.

As the theme of the hotel revolves around writers, the target audience for the brochure is one who would be attracted by a hotel with no television or phones but with a two-story library and a beach immediately out the back door. To that end, it’s text-heavy, naming each room, describing its amenities, and dropping in a sprinkle of its character. The sketches are the kind you might find on pages heading the chapters in a hardback book. The brochure’s typeface would be at home on the pages of Tom Sawyer or on the pages of the New York Times.

The straightforward, one-color design of the brochure is inexpensive to produce and serves to portray the hotel as a choice for “true” literary aficionados, rather than those looking for a novelty.

The brochure fits into the bigger picture nicely. It’s simple, niche-y, and enticing to the right market, just like the hotel. The hotel is small and well-run, so the brochure serves more to augment the word-of-mouth advertising from previous guests than it does as a standalone tool. (In fact, hotel staff place the brochures only at the hotel itself and in the foyer of a hip coffee and dessert house in Portland, 130 miles away).

Inn at Occidental
In sharp contrast to the SBH is the Inn at Occidental, a high-end bed and breakfast in the wine country of California. It caters to a sophisticated clientele accustomed to living on Internet time in a region filled with competition. The brochure must quickly tell the story, planting the seed, watering it, and including pictures of what the flower might look like when it’s grown.

The designers of The Inn’s tri-fold brochure went after the audience with both barrels: The piece is packed with images of an elegant yet fully connected life. The text portrays a convenient destination that’s rich in amenities (with twenty bullet points to prove it), yet far enough away from the mainstream to be relaxed, romantic, and cultured (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Designer and client went for a colorful, image-rich brochure to attract customers. Click on the image for a larger version.

 

The design features an entire panel devoted to contact information: a map, the address, phone and FAX numbers, email address, URL, and names of the proprietors.

The many pictures of The Inn include interior shots of the rooms, an exterior shot, several photos of scrumptious food, and a few of the surrounding countryside. The photography is well done and can easily be used in other marketing pieces, from Web to direct mail to magazine ads.

The Inn’s logo integrates a piece of the owners’ whimsical folk art to give a glimpse at their character. This motif is carried through to The Inn’s Web site, where the “O” in the name features a changing cast of characters as you click through its pages. It’s a dynamic branding element that draws your attention to the name of the business again and again.

Meow Mix
The Pet Loft in Portland, Oregon, wanted an interesting way to remind customers to come by when they needed anything for their animals. The pet-supply industry is fiercely competitive, especially at the high end. With competition coming from big-box giants, natural food markets, and pet-supply chains, the independent Pet Loft needed a way to appeal to its customer base of neighborhood pet owners in ways the bigger stores couldn’t match.

To differentiate his store and keep customers coming back, Pet Loft owner Bill LaPolla decided on a monthly newsletter-type of vehicle, with store specials, customer profiles, and training tips (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Inexpensive materials are well-suited for materials you plan on replacing regularly. Click on the image for a larger version.

 

The target audience is an opt-in mailing list of existing Pet Loft customers. The owner of the store writes a quirky, humorous, and helpful column discussing offbeat but relevant issues about people and their pets. The specials and new product announcements are designed to lure existing customers back in to chat, ask questions, and buy.

The brochure does include the store’s email address and return mailing label, but because it’s sent to existing customers, the page is better utilized with other information.

The branding of the piece is consistent with signage in the store, the business cards, and the font on the sign outside the building. The printing is one-color, and the paper is a 24-pound matte pastel-colored bond, which gives the piece a little more weight and a richer feel. The design is cramped but relieved a bit with photography.

The lack of white space doesn’t seem to limit the brochure’s effectiveness. LaPolla reports, “We have to print more copies of that brochure every month, and our mailing list has ZIP codes from all over the city.” Each brochure contains a customer referral card that rewards both the giver and the recipient. “The referral coupon is great,” says LaPolla. “I can track both new customers and my regulars, and it gives us an indicator as to which customers are doing the best job of marketing for us.”

ZZZZzzzzzz…
Kerry Hills Farm is a business (and a real farm) run by Susan McCourt. She created a wool-based line of pillows, blankets, and mattress padding that combine support and temperature control. The product is both familiar and novel, as are the nine images that grace the pages of Kerry Hills’ brochure. The brochure seeks to inform a broad variety of readers of the benefits of its product, the Snuggle Ewe sleep system, which claims to help with back pain associated with poor mattress support (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Just looking at this brochure makes me feel comfortable. Click on the image for a larger version.

 

The brochure includes four levels of information to accommodate different readers’ time and interest levels. Every image is accompanied by a corresponding text block. “Skimmers” are treated to a tempting image with a three-word, descriptive headline. If a particular image/headline combo grabs a reader, they can peruse 50- to 100-word blocks of text describing the product and its distinguishing characteristics. The largest image on the brochure is of an unmade bed with the Snuggle Ewe product plainly visible. The copy below describes the benefits, seeks to establish Kerry Hills as expert in this field, and offers specific product details about the main product, the Snuggle Ewe Sleep System.

One panel of the brochure contains the Kerry Hills logo and all kinds of contact details, including a conveniently located Web address, as most of Kerry Hills business comes from Internet sales.

The target market is people of discriminating taste, ample bank accounts, and, obviously, back pain. To appeal to this audience, the brochure designer relies on generous white space, soft blocks of color, and a uniform and creative use of fonts as branding element.

As with the Inn at Occidental brochure, the cost of professional photography is a worthwhile investment in collateral that can be used in future materials. The repeated use of key images serves to reinforce the brand and give potential customers touchstones of familiarity should they see any other branded material from Kerry Hills.

Building Your Brand, LEGO-Style
LEGOs have come a long way since they were invented in 1934. Despite the fact that there are roughly 2,400 distinct LEGO parts that have been played with in innumerable ways, the center of the LEGO universe is still the 2″ x 6″ brick.

Another hallmark of LEGO is the instruction manuals that accompany each set. There are no words, only clearly numbered step-by-step illustrations of the path to completing each pirate ship, castle, or dump truck (Figure 5).

Figure 5. This Lego how-to manual keeps it simple.

 

The clarity of the LEGO manuals make it easy for the reader to understand the information and to achieve the desired end. An effective brochure should do the same: Offer a clear message and make it easy to both recognize and act on the desired end, whether it’s buying a product or simply remembering a name.

What Kind of Blocks Do You Need?
Like the seemingly infinite variety of available LEGO kits, the number of possible brochure subjects is similarly vast. But despite the need to customize and craft each brochure, the basic building blocks remain the same.

Whether your audience wants dog food or fine wine, the client’s wishes, the target audience’s needs, and an understanding of the big picture are your basic 2″ x 6″ blocks, the foundation for everything else.

The marketing brochure is an ideal vehicle for transporting a lot of information in an efficient and appropriately sized package. A brochure is more than an advertisement; it conveys some depth, context, and character. It should be user-friendly, inviting to readers, and designed in a manner that’s consistent with the client’s other marketing material.

Begin with these basic building blocks and your understanding of the design process will grow, and with it your knowledge of your client’s needs, audience, and brand strategy. Even the fact that you ask these types of questions will demonstrate a level of creativity and business savvy that should lead to successful brochure design at the very least, and a steadily growing design business at best.

Choosing a Logo Design for Your Company – Some Tips for Effective Logos

Choosing a Logo Design for Your Company

A picture is worth a thousand words. This adage is especially true when it comes to logo design. People have an immediate psychological and emotional response when they view a logo. Before anyone picks up the phone to call you or hits send on an e-mail, they will most likely first see your logo. A good logo can be just the right push to get them to call and a bad one can be enough to scare them away. You want to make sure you are sending the right message about your company with your logo. Here is a step by step look at some important factors to consider when designing a logo.

Designing a Memorable Logo for Your Company

A simple logo is much more memorable than a complex one. Think of some of the world’s most known brands like Coca-Cola, FedEx or McDonalds. The logos are simple and clean. Too many graphics can make a logo look cluttered. A common mistake that businesses make is feeling like they need to have a picture of their product as part of the logo. There is no sign of a fizzy drink, package or hamburger in any of the aforementioned logos. People who know what they are doing know that less is more.

Additionally, logos that are twice as wide as tall are the easiest to read, particularly in passing. If you are designing a logo for a business that will rely heavily on being read from a distance or in passing, this ratio will provide the best result.

Logo and Design and Color Symbology / Meaning

The color of you logo alone will create an impression of your company So choose colors that will send the right message about your business. Here is some basic color symbology:

Blue – Knowledge, Stability, Trust, Conservatism (Possible Danger: May be perceived as stuffy or old-fashioned)

Green – Nature, Wealth, Growth, Go (Possible Danger: Can be perceived as envy)

Red – Passion, Energy, Excitement (Possible Danger: Can be perceived as angry)

Pink – Love, Femininity, Calm (Possible Danger: Can be perceived as little-girlish)

Orange – Fun, Energy, Warmth, Nature (Possible Danger: Not perceived as a serious color)

Yellow – Happiness, Laughter, Energy, Creativity (Possible Danger: Can be overpowering and over-stimulating)

Purple – Royalty, Wealth, Sophistication (Possible Danger: Certain shades can be perceived as adolescent)

Brown – Dependability, Stability, Friendliness, Nature (Possible Danger: Can be perceived as dull)

Black – Sophisticated, Sexy, Elegant, Mysterious (Possible Danger: The overuse of black can be overwhelming and foreboding)

Since most logos are two color, selecting two colors that represent your company’s message is a wise choice. We use blue and yellow to represent our logo. This sends the message that we are knowledgeable, trustworthy, energetic and creative. Additionally, the conservatism of the blue is offset by the happy energy of yellow creating a well-balanced message. When designing a two color logo you want to make sure that you choose colors that will compliment each other visually as well. A good way to do this is to consult a color wheel. Colors opposite each other (complementary colors) always look good together. (TIP and easy way to determine complimentary colors is by typing in one color in MS Word an then highlighting the typing. The type will change to the complimentary color.) If you prefer a singular message, a monochromatic logo using tints of a single color can result in a pleasing effect, particularly when using blue and green.

Choose A Reputable Graphic Designer to Design Your Company Logo

The first question you should ask when choosing a designer is, “Will this logo be designed in vector format?” The answer must be “Yes.” Vector format means it will be designed in a program like Adobe Illustrator using art that is based on mathematical formulas. This means your logo can be sized up and down infinitely with no distortion or image loss. Vector is also the format that sign companies as well as many other service providers will require in order to output your logo in print. If your designer tells you the logo will be designed in Photoshop or Paint Shop in raster format, you probably need to find a new designer.

Logo Formats You Should Keep on Hand for Your Business

Vector eps (encapsulated post script) – You may not be able to view this logo on your computer without the proper software, but this is the most important type. It is used for professional print applications. You should request it in CMYK color for full color printing as well as in spot colors for 1, two or 3 color printing (depending on how many colors your logo uses).

JPEG – This type is for in-house publications like Word documents that will not be professionally printed. It is also the image type used for web applications. Get this type in a reasonably large size since your web designer can always size a JPEG down, but not up. JPEGs for web and in-house applications should be in RGB color.

PNG or GIF – For vector graphics (Created in Adobe Illustrator or other similar programs), you should save your logo in PNG or GIF format. This is for illustration files.

A logo will be part of your company forever (if done properly). Do your homework and choose a designer carefully. After all, it is one of the most important decisions you will make for your business.

Basic SEO Techniques – A Cost Driver In Any SEO Campaign

An underlined theme throughout our SEO TIPs blog is that the cost of an SEO campaign is a direct relation to how much work is involved. Stand clear for the “we will put your site #1 on Google for a hundred bucks a month” and the “we guarantee results.” Good work takes time to perform. This is true with any industry.

The beginning steps to all SEO campaigns start with keyword research and/or competitor analysis. The results of the keyword research and/or competitor analysis will dictate how aggressive targeted keyword markets are. Less aggressive markets can be conquered using Basic SEO Techniques, aggressive markets may need advanced SEO techniques.

Its all in the name, Basic SEO Techniques take less time to document, present, and preform – Thus the cost of a campaign using only basic techniques is less. Advanced techniques take more time to strategize, document, present, and perform – thus leading to a higher cost of a SEO campaign.

People always ask, “why do some SEO campaigns cost $500 a month, and others cost $10,000 a month?” The style of SEO technique answers this question.

Some Basic SEO Techniques

1. Title Tag Optimization
2. Meta Tag Optimization
3. Header Tag Optimization
4. Content Optimization
5. Limited Competitor Research
6. Limited Keyword Research
7. Alt Text Optimization
8. Footer Optimization
9. Basic Navigation Optimization
10. Simple Forms of Link Building – Directory submissions
11. Syndication of Existing (or Provided) Content

Other Sources of Information

Cheat Ad – Good post of 10 Basic SEO Techniques shown with HTML examples

DIY SEO – Good Article about 10 Basic SEO Techniques from a guy that writes better then I do!

By: Gabriel Gervelis

Designing Web Sites For All Screen Resolutions

This tutorial teaches you how to design a website that utilizes the available browser space efficiently and looks good for all screen resolutions.

Why do we need to design for all resolutions?

1. Web site design scalability – As technology advances and the configuration of monitors keep increasing it is impossible to test your site in all screen sizes. Designing stretch layouts that fit any screen resolution ensures that you know all your visitors see a visually appealing and professional site. Check out our website in different screen resolutions, you will find that it will fit the screen width.
2. To fit available browser space for easy reading - Try out a fixed width site in all resolutions (especially higher than 1024×768) and see how empty and unprofessional it looks. Now take a look at this article page in all the resolutions and feel the difference. If it is necessary for you to keep a fixed width then we have given suggestions on how to do it more professionally (read below).
3. To keep your viewers on your site – A site that is easy-to-use always encourages visitors to stay and read your content. For site with long pages of content this is very crucial as the amount of scrolling required is reduced. Suppose your site doesn’t look good for a particular resolution it is very probable that the visitor will close the browser window feeling that the web page is not for their viewing.

Viewer Statistics

• There are more than 40 different screen resolutions.
• 1024×768 is the most popular resolution used (getting the lions share of around 60%) followed by 1280×1024 and above (around 25%) and 800×600 (around 14%). 98% of users have 800×600 and above resolution, thus, 800×600 can be taken as the minimum resolution the site should fit (other lower resolution are seldom used).

Design Basics

• There are two ways to design your website – Table design and Table-less design (using div tags).
• For a beginner using tables is the best as there isn’t much that can go wrong with the use of tables. For advanced users and design professionals designing using CSS styles and div tags is a must for optimal results of load time and to follow W3C standards.
• For stretch layouts we need to give the width of the table(s) or div(s) in percentage.
• To fit the whole screen for any resolution – the outer most table(s) or div(s) are given 100% width. If the design can be made to have just one outer table then it can be given a height of 100% to expand and fill the browser space vertically.
• To make only the content area to expand do the following. After the outer most table or div is given the width in percentage all inside cells or div tags should be given fixed widths in pixels except the content cell or div.
• If you like the fixed width concept or are forced to have a fixed width (especially when using curved graphics like in our Template 7) you can give a contrasting background color and/or a shadow effect/border to the table to make it stand out. These effects can also be used along with the stretch layout concept by giving the table or div width as 90 or 95 percent.
• Some of the templates don’t fit the screen vertically due to design limitations and netscape compatibility issues. Instead of using 100% as the height, here the extra space can be cleverly hidden by using a background color or fill (example: Template 9).

Importance of CRM Drives Job Growth

Customer relationship management is an always-evolving industry, and today’s surge of CRM software options is driving growth in staffing needs, too.

In a tightening economy, customer relations have become ever more important—hence the increase of careers based around building, protecting and cultivating relationships with customers for businesses in nearly every sector.

According to a recent study by GI Insight, most top corporations based in the United Kingdom have appointed a head of CRM. Including positions that also encompass other titles, such as customer services director or marketing director, brings the total up to 48 percent.

“CRM is now a universally accepted concept amongst marketers,” says Andy Wood, managing director of GI Insight. “Since one-off CRM technology costs can be written off and ongoing senior people costs cannot, a company that puts CRM into the title of one of its senior managers is making a real statement of commitment to CRM. CRM initiatives have been taken, hard bottom-line results measured, and ongoing metrics put in place, before CRM management is afforded senior status.”

So what are these positions, and what sort of training or background do they require?

One position falls under the heading “customer experience.” Growing from a “buzzword” only a few years ago to an integral part of most companies, customer experience centers around putting customers’ needs and wants in the foreground. The customer experience manager or similar position is one that some industry experts expect to play an increasingly important role.

“It is a fashionable title at the moment, but as the economy starts to tighten it will become a lot more fashionable,” said Joe Slavin, chief executive of Fish4 who heads up Fish4jobs. “When you’re growing as quick as companies have been over the past five years you don’t have to think too much about the customer because if you lose one then you just go out and get another. But as the economy starts to slow down and bite harder for business it is more important now than ever that the customer relationship is catered to. You have to keep customers happy.”

Customer analytics is another CRM career opportunity. A forecast last year predicted 2008 would bring a shortage of skills in analytics, according to managing vice president Scott Nelson at the Gartner CRM Summit. Analytics skills cover a variety including the assimilation, cleansing and organization of customer information, as well as the “strategic” skills to put that information to good use. It’s unlikely that one person will have skills that encompass all of those areas.

“Just five or six years ago we were doing 360-degree views of the customer and we thought we had our hands full getting all that information from the enterprise and making it useful to someone to service the customer,” says Bruce Culbert, founding principal and managing director of BPT Partners, CEO of iSymmetry and all-round CRM expert. “Now there is 10 times more information outside the enterprise about the customer and the ability to tap this information that you didn’t obtain yourself is bizarre. There is more information out there than there ever was and the challenge is finding value in that information and making it actionable.”

“If I was going to school again, analytics is definitely an area I’d study!” Slavin adds.

Internal branding offers yet more CRM-based opportunities. There’s a growing demand for a position that ensures customers receive a “consistent company experience.” Many corporations employ an internal brand manager, with more expected to follow.

“Internal branding is an issue for every company I work with and CEOs understand how important it is,” says author, speaker and consultant Steve Yastrow. “But at the same time, they don’t know what to do about it and they have nobody to delegate it to except the training department. And that is not enough. One of the great untapped opportunities is to clarify and reinforce the internal brand.”

These titles and positions aren’t truly new, but more roles are emerging as the CRM industry becomes a more and more integral part of business culture.

“New jobs are emerging in this area, and emerging quickly,” says Culbert. “You have demand for social media specialists, who have similar qualities to marketers or editors, but they are the folks who do internal blogs or report on blogs. There are interaction engineers – someone who engineers multiple touchpoint interaction. I was on a panel the other week and I was introduced to a social tag expert. His job is to do experimentation on social tagging, identifying what people are interested in by their social tags and enabling the delivery of more contextually appropriate messaging.”

Does Short Web Copy Outperform Long Copy?

If you have been marketing – either on or offline – for any amount of time, you have probably encountered the long copy versus short copy argument. Many marketers argue that long copy pulls much better than short copy, whether in direct mail or on the internet.

But on the internet, attention spans are extremely fragile. Web surfers are looking for immediate gratification. Do they really want to stick around and read a gazillion word sales letter? Does long copy outperform short copy, even on the internet?

I have a suspicion that no, long copy doesn’t always outpull sorter copy on the web. And so I developed the following experiment for a client:

My client offers an online quiz to their site visitors. Their web page had relatively long copy explaining the quiz and a registration form that asked for the visitor’s name and email address.

After measuring the traffic, we discovered that approximately 20% of visitors landing on that page registered and took the quiz. Admittedly, that’s a commendable conversion rate, but since this landing page was available to only highly targeted traffic, I had a feeling we could generate an even higher conversion.

So I tested a new page with shorter copy and the same registration form. On this new, short copy page, 37% of visitors registered and took the quiz.

I decided to take the test one step further. I removed the registration form from the short copy page and replaced it with a simple “click here to take the quiz” button. Almost 73% of visitors who landed on this page took the quiz. 

So, short copy with no user barrier appeared to be the winner. But take a look at what happened next…

Since the test results seemed to prove that the less copy the better, I removed all but one sentence of the copy and kept the headline and the button. No registration form, no barriers, no bulky copy getting in the way.

But only 55% of the visitors who landed on this page took the quiz. While shorter copy pulled better, there really is the risk of not using enough copy.  Many visitors were confused and weren’t sure what to do next. So they simply abandoned the page.

So how can you apply these test results to your own website? I would definitely suggest that you begin by testing shorter copy. And remove as many user barriers as possible. If the purpose of your web page is lead generation, you may not want to remove the registration form. Or, you may want to come up with a creative work around.

Time to implement: Basically, forever. That’s because you should never be done testing your website. Once you’ve done an A/B test, take the winner and test it against something else. And then test that winner. And so on. With that in mind, you can expect it to take 2-3 hours to set up each individual test (depending on the testing platform you are using).
By Karen Scharf