Quality Versus Quantity

Hi,

This week our focus is on quality over quantity.  In order for a business to be successful it is very important to focus on your target market.  What does this mean?  It means to aim your marketing and advertising energies on leads that will actually result in a return.

It might seem counter intuitive if you’re trying to get your name out, but having meaningful connections will result in more of a return than many meaningless connections.  If you have 30,000 followers but only engage 30 of them, is it really worth your while to have the 30,000?  You’ll be expending energy to keep the number of followers you have without actually having 30,000 sales.

Some companies have more than halved their posts to maintain the integrity of their social media content.¹

So what are things to avoid?

1.     Buying likes or follows.  The companies you are sourcing these from do not actually care if they result in sales.  These likes or follows may not be from your country or even from an actual person. ²

2.     Posting to post.  Keeping your name in front of your followers may seem like the important thing, but losing their trust with posts that do not apply or result in negative feelings would be even worse.    

What can you do?

1.     Continue posting useful content that is directed at your demographic.  As tempting as it is to post a cat video and see how many people love it as much as you do, does it really apply.  You want to be taken seriously and not be taken as trite.

2.     Become a feature.  It’s true that backlinking and reference links are important, but being a feature is much more prominent and encourages more traffic.

3.     Engage your followers.  Social media marketers know that engagement is more important than gaining followers.³  Engagement will lead to followers naturally.

Thanks for reading!

1.  McDermott, John. (Aug 4, 2014).  Hooray, Brands Get Choosier About Their Social Content.  DigiDay.  Retrieved from: http://digiday.com/platforms/brands-social-media-content/

2.  Demers, Jason. (Oct 20, 2014).  Quality Over Quantity: The Overblown Importance of Likes and Followers.  Forbes.com.  Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/10/20/quality-over-quantity-the-overblown-importance-of-likes-and-followers/

2.  Dacri, Bryana. (Oct 20, 2014).  Social Media Strategy: It’s About Quality, Not Quantity.  socialmediatoday.com.  Retrieved from: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-media-strategy-its-about-quality-not-quantity

Bizee Body Promotions' Pin it to Win it Contest!

Hello everybody,

In lieu of our normal blog, we are going to use this week's entry to promote our Pinterest contest!  Check out the details below and share with all your friends.  We're looking forward to seeing the entries.

The Importance of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Hello Again,

Two weeks ago, we touched on what was important to consider when looking for a promotional marketing expert.  One of the criteria was referrals.  This basically translates to the topic for today: Word-of-mouth marketing or the new acronym WOMM or WOM marketing.

WOMM is the original social marketing.  When people are uncertain or wary of ads, they’re more likely to reach out to friends to see if they can recommend someone, making recommendations an important tool to utilize for your personal business.  Here are some important facts to know.

1.     Referrals are the easiest way to gain new clients – nothing beats a recommendation from someone who has actually experienced another person’s work.  In fact, a referral for new business is 20x more likely to close versus a standard cold call.  It not only makes selling easier, it also makes it more cost efficient!

2.     81% of consumers are influenced by their friends’ social media posts. ¹

3.     89% of consumers say customer testimonials are the most effective content.¹

Now the question is, how do you gain word-of-mouth marketing?  According to Inc.com, the strategy is to have a brand story.  Their three factors are to make your story relevant, interesting, and authentic.  Is your story relevant to your target demographic, is it interesting and worthy of repeating, and is it authentic?  Think about your brand story and tell us what you think of today’s blog.

Thanks for reading!

1.  Gunelius, Susan. (Feb 12, 2014).  Data Proves Word-of-Mouth Marketing Works – Infographic.  ACI.info.  Retrieved from: http://aci.info/2014/02/12/data-proves-word-of-mouth-marketing-works-infographic/

2.  Economy, Peter. (Feb 20, 2015).  3 Powerful Ways to Improve Your Word-of-Mouth Marketing.  Inc.com.  Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/peter-economy/3-powerfully-simple-ways-to-drive-your-word-of-mouth-marketing.html

How to Stay in Business

Hello again,

It’s Terri!  Happy Monday.  To start this week off on a positive note, here’s our very positive blog.   Our blog is focused mainly on business and there is always more to a business than simply being a business.  For anybody starting their own business, there is something just as important as the bottom line and that is your personal well-being.  You have to nurture yourself as much as your business.  Here’s what I’ve done to keep going the past 20 years.

Perseverance

No doesn’t mean no.  Find the strength in yourself everyday to keep on pushing forward.  There will be many obstacles, but as long as you do not let it bog you down, you can succeed.  Oprah Winfrey was a born into an impoverished family, but through the encouragement of her father and grandmother, she found her way.  Many doors may not be open to you at the moment, but just keep pushing yourself because you just never know what’s around the corner!

Realistic Goals

I didn’t get into this business because I thought it would make me a millionaire.  What it has done is provide me with the flexibility and the empowerment I needed to live a happy life.  I have a positive outlook on life, but I am also very realistic about where this positivity can take me.  Simply staying positive won’t get you where you need to go.  The New York Times had a great article illustrating having only a positive mindset “hindered people from realizing their dreams.” ¹  It’s actually best to maintain a positive outlook and plan realistic goals.

Self Image

Knowing your own capabilities and using each day as a learning experience will help your self image.  No matter what people may say about you, it matters most that you nurture yourself.  A perfect example of this is Hyundai's chairwoman, Jeong-Eun Hyun.  She was thought of simply as a housewife until her husband (then chairman of Hyundai group) commited suicide in 2003.  To quote her, "Never give up and always nurture your self-esteem.  It is your biggest source of power."

1.  Oettingen, Gabrielle. (Oct 24, 2014).  The Problem With Positive Thinking.  New York Times.  Retried from  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/the-problem-with-positive-thinking.html?_r=0

What to Consider When Working With a Promotional Marketing Expert

Welcome back!

This week’s blog is going to be short and to the point.  Whether you have experience working with a supplier for your promotional marketing needs or someone new breaking into the business there are always important things to consider.

The basic criteria you should look for are:

·      Experience

·      Reputation

Experience

To ensure things are done correctly, you want someone who already has the know-how.  It will save you loads of time and frustration when you are not working with someone who is still green in the industry.  If you’re new to the business, the person you’re working with will be able to teach you a lot about what is necessary to work with a third party.

Reputation

We highly recommend working with someone that you know has done a good job in the past or is able to provide references.  One of our best sources of getting clients here at Bizee Body is through word-of-mouth referrals.  If you don’t have anyone that is referred, then you can always ask for references.  After all, you wouldn’t hire a contractor to build your house without references, would you?

Beyond that, there are the additional considerations that you may not have thought of.  Those are:

·      Logistics

·      Problem Solving Capabilities

·      Product Screening

Logistics

Logistics is by far the most important.  More than just asking what the lead time for a customized product is – how is your supplier handling logistics?  Are you having to check in every week or are they being proactive and handling that for you?  Different companies will handle logistics differently and it is important to know you are both on the same page.

The secondary part of logistics is dealing with a delivery issue.  If there is an issue, how is it handled?  Who is responsible?

Problem solving capabilities

This relates to experience but some are naturally gifted at this.  There are many things that could potentially happen when producing a custom product, so who will fix it?  If, for example, there is a problem with the screen printing or scaling of your product, what are the fastest solutions and what are the options?  Your promotional marketing partner should be able to answer all these questions for you and provide their feedback.  The worst thing would be to have a problem arise and take a wild guess as to the best direction.  There should be no question who takes the lead on trouble shooting issues.

Product Screening

This is a topic that seems so intuitive that it may not come up.  Are all the products that you are ordering checked out?  Are they compliant with all guidelines and were there ever any recalls on the item?  The last thing you want is to find out after you’ve given out a product is that there is a recall on it.  Items do slip through the cracks and it should be your promotional marketing partner’s responsibility to make sure anything you purchase is safe and has been checked out.

Thanks for you reading again.  Please leave any comments or questions below and we’ll get back to you.

Why a Style Guide is Important

Hello again,

Thank you so much for staying tuned in to our blog.  This week we’re going to discuss why it is important for any business to have a style guide.  Not only is it important for a business to have one to for themselves to maintain their brand identity, but when working with a third party, such as ourselves, it lets us know the information that we need in order to produce what is asked.

What is a style guide you might ask?

A style guide is your brand’s identity – it consists of the key elements below:

·      Color Schemes

·      Font

·      Logo

·      General Guidelines

To be more specific, here is more information on what you should include in your style guide:

Color Schemes

Color Schemes are the combinations that your business uses.  To ensure that the colors are true to what your vision is, you should choose these colors and provide as much detail as possible. 

First, choose the colors in standard pantone codes and HEX (CMYK) codes.  This way any third party producing marketing or packaging for you will be able to get the closest match.

Next, state in which combination you’re willing to use.  If it’s a black background (common with banners) then what color font?  What about vice versa?  If it’s a colored background, what color text then?  Being as specific as possible here, will prevent back and forth later on.  Try to think of as many instances as possible.

Pantone color books link below:

http://rgb.to/pantone/coated/page/1

Pantone to HEX (CMYK) conversion link below:

http://goffgrafix.com/pantone-rgb-100.php

Font

What font or fonts does your company use?  This can be a standard font or your own personal font.  It’s essential you provide this information and also what context to use them in.  Is everything going to be uppercase or lowercase?  Is the case of your font going to be a signature of the brand and where does it apply?  It’s very important to provide as many instances as possible because this can affect things from your business card to your website.

Logo

Your logo may seem simple, but it may not work for every circumstance.  For example, if your logo is rectangular, it may not work if the work space is a square?  It’s best to anticipate these possibilities and have rules set into place ahead of time to guarantee that your brand is reflected how you want it to be.

General Guidelines

This is where you indicate how things should appear.  Is everything on your website going to be on a template?  If so, what does the template look like?  Is there a specific place you want your logo to be placed at all times?  If you’re selling product, in what order do you want things to appear and in what scale? 

You may not know everything at first, but as your business grows, keep your style guide as a living document and input the circumstances that you experience into them.  Remember that your style guide is the basis for your brand identity and providing one is essential to look your best.

Thank you for reading.

Please feel free to provide any comments or questions.

Digital Tool Box Part 1: Conversion Links for Marketing Text Compatibility

Hello Hello,

It’s Terri again.  Today we’re going to focus on font conversion.  One of the obstacles commonly faced when working in promotional marketing is getting logos and fonts sent to third parties.  Not everybody uses the same programs and not everyone has the same fonts.  For the companies with specialty fonts, this can be especially tricky. 

The answer: Converting to outline and saving onto a file format that is more commonly used.

First, to address the font issue – all texts should be converted to outline.  Please remind your client to save this file as a COPY and not overwrite their master because once a font has been converted to outline, they will not be able to edit it as standard text.  Once the text is an outline, it will make it easier to manipulate for any third party.  Below are links on how to convert font to outline:

ILLUSTRATOR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQk4xhz114

PHOTOSHOP

http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-Text-to-Outline-in-Photoshop

INDESIGN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjGpeySLq5E

PUBLISHER

http://bigredprintingspotlight.blogspot.com/2011/02/converting-text-to-outlines-must-for.html

COREL DRAW

http://www.clubcard.tv/print-tutorial/how-to-convert-fonts-text-to-curves-outlines-in-coreldraw

The easiest file formats to have a client send you a file are going to be:

A.     PDF

B.     EPS

C.     AI

PDF is actually the best format, so we will provide quick links with how to convert files below.  Please remind your clients that they will need to maintain editing capabilities when creating the PDF.  The links below will allow the files to be converted without having to purchase what can be very expensive graphic programs.  This ensures your PDF will be properly formatted.

Illustrator (AI) file to PDF

http://www.pdfconvertonline.com/ai-to-pdf-online.html

Photoshop (PSD) file to PDF

http://www.convertfiles.com/convert/document/PSD-to-PDF.html

Publisher (PUB) file to PDF

http://www.pdfconvertonline.com/pub-to-pdf-online.html

Corel Draw (CDR) file to PDF

http://www.pdfconvertonline.com/coreldraw-to-pdf-online.html

We hope you enjoy these tools because we will certainly be referring back to this blog for our own future use.  Let us know if there any additional programs you would like links for.

Thanks for reading and have a happy week!