Many people believe they can't draw. That is just untrue. As children many of us communicated through drawing pictures. Even today much of our communication is through images and drawings. Drawing is meant to be fun, relaxing and rewarding. So what does drawing have to do with business? 1. Drawing develops a drive for exploration, risk taking, and passion for learning more about the world around you. With drawing, like business there is more than one correct answer. 2. Drawing helps develop the brain by training the mind to focus and also helps develops hand-eye coordination. Drawing gives your brain a break from your usual thoughts. Today, society is plugged in and always working. Taking a break to free your mind of life's nagging tasks and coming back refreshed can help solve business problems quicker and better. 3. Drawing teaches problem solving and can show that it is OK to make mistake or pull out the eraser and start again. A well know scientist even said that “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” Business can present strange challenges, as does drawing. Sometimes the solution is getting up, taking a step back, and/or looking from a different angle. Drawing and creating art also gives a sense of accomplishment and puts you in a better state of mind. If you feel good, you do good and doing good brings prosperity. Thank you for reading. Find more information at: www.pencilportraits.artisticoptions.com Facebook: ArtisticOptions Twitter: @ArtisticOptions YouTube: ArtisticOptions1
0 Comments
9/22/2015 0 Comments 3 Reasons Our Kids Love ISISIf you watch the news, you may have seen reports of young people looking to join ISIS. As one study reports, there isn’t much of a common profile other than a median age of 24. Even stern warnings about the dangers of joining such a group can’t compete with the group’s call to action. What is so compelling about a message that intelligent young adults are drawn to?
Tapping into a target audience’s emotions is every marketer’s goal in order to sell a product or service. Appealing to emotions is the most effective way to develop perceived needs and get an individual to act. Marketing managers also know that human behavior is driven by needs and everyone has social, esteem, and self-actualization needs beyond the basics of food, water and shelter. It is human nature to desire social acceptance, recognition, and personal growth. Most often people increase their self-esteem and gain recognition through hobbies or sports. However, others are drawn to other means. What does this have to do with ISIS? Their propaganda message directly taps into its target audience’s innate needs. Marketing efforts are directed toward individuals that are driven to increase their self-worth and sense of accomplishment. Recruits are also promised recognition, respect and rewards for their efforts. The call to action isn’t just a call to join, but a call to realize their full potential. This is evident in correspondence with a U.S. couple where in it states "I am skilled in math and chemistry and worked at an analytical lab here on my college campus. My partner is very good with things like computer science/media. We learn very fast and would love to help with giving medical aid." How does this happen? In successful marketing and brand building, it is important to be consistent with imagery and communication in order to build brand awareness and develop a relationship with the target audience. Consistency and relationships lead to trust, which leads to action. In our world of instant gratification and connectivity, acting on emotion becomes quick and easy. The group relentlessly delivers a consistent message and uses channels that are popular with their target audience. Social media channels like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook make it easy to connect and begin building relations, making the call to action more effective. How do we stop it? Just as marketing is used offensively to generate leads, it could also essentially be used defensively. Current news coverage of the group has become sporadic, essentially disabling some of the marketing power for the group. Share your ideas on how marketing can be used defensively in the marketplace below. Thank you for reading. Find more information at: Facebook: ArtisticOptions Twitter: @ArtisticOptions YouTube: ArtisticOptions1 9/8/2015 0 Comments Digital Social Media MarketingWill your marketing efforts will fail without automation?Automation tools are a marketing managers dream come true. Once the hard work of developing content, developing advertising budgets, scheduling promo videos, etc. are complete, the next task is delivery. After a schedule is laid out for your social media posts you can begin automating deliver with easy to use online services. I prefer services like Mail Chimp and Hoot Suite. MailChimp is a professional email marketing service that is perfect for most small businesses. It allows you to set up templates and marketing campaigns. It also has tracking options so you can find out who opened the email and which campaign links were clicked. It also has enhanced tracking that can be linked to Google Analytics and Salesforce. Hoot Suite helps track and manage many social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkeIn, etc. From one place you can monitor respond immediately to what customers are saying about your company product or service. These tools allow you to free up a good chunk of time in our day to focus on other important business tasks. Just enter the information and set the date and time for delivery. This not only helps in time management, it gives you control when to post your content so you can maximize your reach to your target audience. Click here to Learn About Marketing and Marketing Strategy8/25/2015 0 Comments Top 3 Promo Video MistakesPromotional video mistakes small businesses make
Get a free promo video tutorial guide
Social Media Marketing TipVideo posts on social media are more likely to get interaction over photo posts and especially plain text posts. Pairing these video posts to social media with regular updates will help increase the authors exposure and begin bringing in more leads.
Great logos can be simple, tell a story, or project a feeling. They can be cleverly engineered or happen by accident. All great logos have certain qualities. They are all Simple and Versatile. A simple design makes it easily recognizable and memorable. Versatility is important because the logo needs to translate to multiple mediums from the internet to billboards and the printed page. What gives them these qualities?
Well it starts with, style, font choice, and color. These three elements make the logo appropriate for you business. Look for simple yet strong themes regarding color and fonts to avoid your logo becoming dated. Avoid decorative fonts because they can easily cause your logo to look dated. Even using bold and even semi-bold can change the feeling of a logo. Lastly, don't go crazy with color in your logo. Think about sticking one main color with perhaps a minor secondary color, and then one neutral color. Neutrals include black (use 95% not 100% black to stay classy), white, grey, cream, and beige. Now that you know what makes a great logo, how do you get one? In order to get a great logo, you need to find an artist that fits your needs. Review the designers portfolio of work. Next, evaluate consistency and quality as this will determine if you will get a good quality logo design too. Some sites like Sparked even help non-profit businesses get nice logos for free. There are a number of tools a manager can use to tell if a company is wisely spending money on advertising. Effective marketing does not, I repeat, does Not mean expensive advertising. To put it bluntly, it is all about the customer. For starters, your best customer is an existing one. So if your advertisements make a promise, make sure you deliver on that promise. This ensures a positive customer experience which means higher customer retention and less effort toward advertising dollars. So what is an appropriate dollar amount to spend?
Assuming you have identified your target customer and have targeted ideal placement of your advertisements, the following tools will help gauge the effectiveness of your marketing spend. Advertising-to-Sales Ratio will measure the efforts associated with print media and similar ads. While a larger company will have an A/S ratio of 8-10% of projected sales, a small business will do fine at 1-5%. With digital advertisements a different metric is used. Cost per Thousand Impressions or (CPM) compares efficiency across different media. Since it focuses on impressions, this method works well at the planning stage. Use CPM to determine which media outlets offer the best opportunities. A similar metric called CPC or cost per click is useful as well. A CPC campaign allows you to measure ad success by analyzing the number of leads that generated a sale. The simplest metric to use in order to determine advertising effectiveness is the return on the marketing investment (ROI). Dividing the profits from the marketing effort by the cost of marketing will quickly identify whether or not a marketing campaign was successful. But nothing beats a clear marketing plan and solid understanding of your target customer. The best marketing strategy starts with a clearly written marketing plan. This plan identifies and prioritizes goals, allocates money to the most effective media choices, and tracks results with specific metrics. If you don't have a marketing plan get help writing a marketing plan with this free marketing guide. As a small business owner have you ever thought about opening a Google AdWords account in order to generate sales? We all know that in business, paid advertising is inevitable at a certain point. Perhaps you have asked someone their opinion on a marketing strategy and receive a response similar to “you need to have a marketing plan.” Normally with a marketing plan, you have a product or service, advertising budget, and website. From there you can calculate if an advertising campaign is worth the money invested based on the number of conversions or sales you require from that ad to make a profit. However, if you are just starting out, you may have a very low, or non-existent, advertising budget. I personally like to see how far I can go with advertising without spending much of anything. If you want to get the biggest bang for your advertising buck, time consuming research is required to find the best options available. At first glance, Google naturally finds its way to the top of the list with a little thing called AdWords. Google’s AdWords is CPC (cost-per-click) advertising service. This means that your ad will be displayed online at the top or right side of a viewer’s search page. Every time a viewer clicks that ad they are taken to your website. AdWords also allows you to set a monthly or daily budget, target specific demographics and locations, or even languages. So what’s the catch? Every time your ad is clicked on, whether a sale is made or not, you need to pay Google. In my opinion, for a small business start-up, Google’s AdWords isn’t worth the investment right away. Mainly because even though the number of visitors increases, the sales generated most likely won’t result in a profit. Your best bet is to get a strong business model, then develop a website that organically generates sales or even consider getting on Google Maps before moving to AdWords campaigns. Click here to learn more about Artistic Options5/20/2015 0 Comments Marketing on YouTubeYouTube is more than just animal videos or crazy uploads from the kids down the street. Today you can find language lessons, tutorials on how to fix your car or the latest music videos. Did you know that YouTube is a great place to develop your brand? Let's discuss how one might conquer this intimidating realm. Like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube is a social media channel that is used to engage your target market. As in all marketing media, YouTube requires consistency and quality. Your page should be consistent with your website and other social media accounts. Some experts recommend posting a video once a week, however in some cases I believe posts can be once a month, or once every three months for artists. Quality is a major factor. Videos should be of the best quality and viewable on multiple screen sizes such as, computer screens to portable media devices like smart phones and tablets. Audio in your videos abide by the same requirements. Your commentary must be genuine. You should also avoid using scripts or computer generated voice over. It is important that your viewers see that your brand/image is trustworthy and merits interaction. The descriptions and titles of your videos must have consistency.
The title of your videos should match the key words and tags. The first line in your description should also be the same in every video. This description could describe your business or a line offering a free product or service when visiting your website. Encouraging engagement on your YouTube account and website are key in social media success. Engagement occurs when you have a "call to action." Have you ever wondered why YouTube personalities tell you to click "like" if you enjoyed their video or "subscribe?" Here is why. When viewers like a video or subscribe to a channel the YouTube ranking of that video or channel improves. The higher the ranking, the better the exposure and the more popular your brand becomes. |
AuthorStay informed on the latest marketing news and trends. Archives
March 2016
CategoriesAll Automation Marketing Business Google AdWords Logos Marketing Video Marketing YouTube Marketing |
Providing the Best Custom Artwork to the Fox Valley Since 2003
©2003
|