Considering Ad Content

Hi there, it's Lizz again, the voice of the Art Department at Golden Mailer. This week, I'm going to make a few suggestions that you might want to keep in mind when you're deciding what information to include on your ad.
I understand it's hard to choose, and can be overwhelming when you're deciding what you want to put on your ad. When you're working with Golden Mailer, you only have an 8" x 3" space to work in; about a third of a page. You're spending your hard-earned money on that advertising space, and you want to get the most bang for your buck.. the temptation might be to put as much info on there as you can!

I really want to discourage you from cramming your ad full of text and pictures and logos and web addresses and social media logos and license numbers and offers and...

You have about 3 seconds to make an impression on a potential customer when they're flipping through ads. Look at this one for about that long (No cheating! :))

1...2...3...

What can you tell me about this company?

• What do they do?
• What is their field of expertise?
• What's their offer?

You don't want to overwhelm the reader with information... you want to give them just enough to want to call you! Let them ask questions so they have to call to get the answers! Once you've got them on the phone, your excellent customer service skills will close the sale. The objective of the ad is to get them to call. You can't rely on a piece of paper to close the sale! That's up to you.

Some of the things that concern me on this ad:

• There's no real information in the title; that's the first thing someone will read, so you want to tell them what service you provide, or at least give them the information so they'll come to the right conclusion. (Like a restaurant; the title: "Hungry?" is clearly going to be a food establishment.)
• Their expertise:  Interior AND exterior, residentail AND commercial. That covers pretty much everything. You can't specialize in everything. Choose one and specialize in that.
• Those bursts and exclamation points! When! you! emphasize! everything! you! emphasize! nothing! I'm not opposed to bursts and ovals and such, just use them sparingly; if you find yourself wanting to add more burst-text to your ad, take a moment to question why... is it not relevant to the other information that's there? Is it extra-important?
• The photos: I love using photos on an ad. They are, after all, worth a thousand words! I'm a photographer... pictures make me happy. On this ad, however, they're just providing more visual clutter. Two photos is not necessarily better than one. One larger photo will provide better impact and draw your reader in better than several tiny ones.
• The logo: You put all that effort into creating a great logo, but it's just jammed in as an afterthought, and in the process, it makes it all but impossible to even tell the name of the company that wants the business!
• The contact information: Take a moment and consider how people will get in touch with you. On the first ad, we have 2 phone numbers, a fax number, an email address and a website. How urgent is it that someone be able to reach you on your cell at all hours? If you're a plumber who offers emergency service, that's one thing. But I don't know of anyone who needs a room painted quickly enough that they can't leave a message at your office and get a call back! The fax number... why would a prospective customer need to fax you? I'm betting that the people who are sending faxes have spoken to you on the phone; you can give the fax number then, instead of on the ad. The website AND email addresses; I assume that someone will have a way to email them on their website, so it's redundant to provide both. Also, by sending people to your website first, it gives you the opportunity to give them a little more information about you, and to fit in another tidbit of marketing.
• The offer: It's complicated, and doesn't make the benefit to the consumer obvious right away. Three bedroom or four, plus it shows the regular price AND the amount saved. The disclaimer is a LOT of small text, and can turn someone off from reading any further... if they stop reading, they aren't thinking about your company any more, and won't be calling you.

Taking all of this into consideration, I've recreated this ad to be more effective; for me, as a graphic designer, having more space to work with allows me more space to be creative and really make something look great, instead of just trying to crowbar all of the information into a limited space.

See the difference?

If you aren't sure what information you should or shouldn't include, don't hesitate to ask your sales executive; they want you to succeed, for your ad to be a homerun, and for you to be thrilled with your results! I'd also love to hear your comments on what you think does and doesn't work when designing an ad.

Make the Most of Your Work Hours

You know how it is; it’s 5 o’clock and the pile on your desk is still huge. Your unchecked emails are a mile long and that important client project that you were supposed to get to has still not been taken care of. So what do you do?
Pack it up and work on it at home?
Come in a couple of hours early tomorrow?
Or just ignore it?
We’ve all been there, and we all hate the doom and gloom feeling of the never ending To Do pile.
So, what can you do about it? I‘ve made time management a personal cause of mine and one that I tackle every single day. I have had to come up with a lot of tricks to be able to accomplish my business and personal goals. Today I would like to share with you three of my daily must do tricks. They might seem too easy to be helpful, but trust me they are! I use these tricks in my business and personal life as well.

1. Set the mood. I learned this one in college. When I was a freshman my father gave me a couple of CDs that are designed to help with productivity or concentration. I would put the CD on while I studied and found the hours would go by without my thoughts wandering. I took them with me to the office and play them when I am having trouble concentrating. I swear by them. One of my favorites is The Archangelos Chamber Ensemble Music for Concentration 
2. Make a schedule At the end of the day, I take a look at my workload and guess how much work I will have to do and map it out. This helps me stay on track, with the task at hand and if I find myself dragging my feet on a task I remind myself that I have a schedule to stick to and no time to waste. Here’s an example of my schedule (I work 4 ten hour days... hence the long hours but it works great for me!)

7:00-8:00 Check emails, LinkedIn and voicemail
8:00-9:30 Paperwork
9:30-11 Call Back Customers
11:00-11:45 Sales Training
11:45-12:00 Check Emails
12:00-12:30 Lunch
12:30-3:10 Work on Current Mailing Date
3:10-3:30 - Check Email
3:30-5:00 Client Appointment

This would be just example and on most days something always comes up, but I find I stay more focused and on-task knowing that my day is all planned out.

3. Check Email on A Schedule This is my newest trick and I LOVE IT. I hate having emails in my inbox so I am always checking my mail (For example I will be making a phone call and the phone will be ringing so I will check my email while I wait, or someone will put me on hold so I will check my email...you see where I am going with this) I have found that checking my emails on a schedule has helped me stick to my schedule which then makes me more productive.

I hope that these easy tricks help you make more time. Please share with me your time saving tricks! I look forward to hearing from you!

Logo-a-Go-Go Part 2

Last week, I shared some things to keep in mind when you're working on designing your logo. It doesn't need to be something fancy, but you do want to be thoughtful in making decisions when you're coming up with something to represent your company.

This week, I'm going to share a simplified version of the process I go through when I'm making a logo for client; in this case, I've invented a company called "Miller and Sons Painting"

I'm working in Adobe Illustrator, but you can use whatever tools you have; Microsoft Publisher, Photoshop Elements, MS Paint... there are loads of consumer-level programs out there that will allow you to create your logo. The main thing is you want to be able to save your file as an image file format; .EPS, .TIF, .PDF, and .JPG are all good ways to go.One request though! Please don't use Excel! It's great for numbers, not so great for logo design! :)

So when I'm starting out, I'll just type in the company name to see what I'm working with, and if anything jumps out at me right away.
Here's our company name in my default font, Times Roman:

Doesn't look like much, right? Just the words, typed out. No biggie. This could have been cut out from an email or something!

So I'll start playing around with fonts... my style is simple and clean, so I am really drawn to classic fonts... this one's called Futura Medium:

OK, it's a little less generic, and a little more interesting than the plain Times.

Let's play around a little bit; when I look at this name, what they do is more important than their last name (remember what I said about McDonald's and Nike?) So I'll make it all caps so it stands out a little more:

Hmmm... now we're getting somewhere! I like the look of the mixed upper and lower case... what else can I do?

I put PAINTING on a second line and bolded it, giving us this:

All right! I like this! I want to make it a little more logo and a little less words, so I go to the next step...

I make the Miller & Sons all lower case and remove the spaces between the words. I really like the visual difference the ampersand gives between the lowercase letters, and by removing the space between the letters, it's a more visually substantial block.

Here is where I'm going to start adding some final touches to our design; I want to put a little more emphasis on the PAINTING word, so I put it on a reversed out block and tighten up the space between the lines, scootching the Miller & Sons down so it's just above the top of the block. (And yes, scootch is a technical design word!)

Hmmm... it's OK, but not quite finished enough. For my final step, I ditch the plain box and swap it out for a swash that looks like it was made by a paintbrush. and make it red. I also outlined my text in white so that it really pops against the black. And voila!

Stick it on a business card and voila! You're officially on your way to creating your corporate identity and brand!

Check back soon for a few more handy tips and tricks for designing an effective ad... and as always, please feel free to leave questions here in the comments, on our Facebook page
or you can always tweet us! I'd love to hear from you; we're always here to help!

Logo-a-Go-Go: Designing Your Logo, Part 1

Hi there! This is Lizz, the graphic artist for Golden Mailer. I'll be guest posting this month, sharing a little bit about what I do, and some tips and tricks to really maximize your results when it comes to design of both ads and other things, like your logo and corporate identity. If you have specific questions that you'd like to see addressed in future posts, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll get to it just as soon as I can!

Let's start with one of the most basic elements for branding your company; your logo. You've got a great name, and you've filed your fictitious business name paperwork, so now you just need to create the identity to go with it!
Yes, this is the part where I'm going to suggest you hire a trained designer to work with you on creating your logo, but I also realize that may not be a realistic option for a small business owner who is just starting out, so I want to help point you in the right direction so you can create your own identity! When you're a multimillion dollar corporation, you can hire a pro to update your look instead!
Some questions to ask yourself when you're thinking about your logo.

• What kind of image do you want to portray? Elegant and professional, fun and lighthearted, or hard-working and dependable?
• Is there a color that is generally associated with your industry type? Think green for landscaping, red, white and blue for smog and auto service providers.
• What are some of your competitors using as their logos? You don't want yourself to get easily confused with them, if at all possible!
• Does your company name tell people what it is you do? Are you "Jimbo and Sons, inc." or "Jimbo and Sons Painting"? This will have an impact on some of your options.

 Take a minute and think about some logos you know off the top of your head... how about this one? Or this one? They're both pretty universally recognized, right? And they're logos that graphic design students all over the world learn about in class when talking about iconic logos. Here's the thing. Nike and McDonalds have spent billions, yes that's billions with a b, of dollars making their logos iconic. Unless you have billions of dollars available for a branding campaign, you'll need to make your logo a little more obvious and a little less icon.

One of the best ways to do that is to incorporate your company name directly into the logo, and your logo can really be as simple as your company name in a specific font and a specific color. Like this. If you're looking for a really great font that speaks to you, check out DaFont. It's one of my favorite resources for free typefaces, and you can search by specific style, or just browse until something jumps out at you.

If you want more than just the font-based logo, you can introduce a graphic element; it can be as simple as a circle or as complex as an entire character.

Next week, I'll go more in depth into some design ideas and show you some samples of what I'm talking about.