Splash Omnimedia Blog:

If you’re ready to make the leap, it’s best to start with a social media marketing plan.

Social media marketing is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. It seems easy enough – make a page or profile for your business, slap up some images, bug some of your friends into “liking” or “following” your page, and the money will come rolling in, right?

Well, it’s more complicated than that. If you’ve tried a do-it-yourself social media marketing plan, you already know it looks easier than it is. If you haven’t jumped into social media for your business, your hesitation is probably built on a well-founded suspicion that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

You’ve probably got a host of questions:

• What would you write for status updates?
• How do you keep it professional?
• How will you find the time to do this regularly?
• How often will you need to post?
• How can you get your friends and followers to engage with you on social media?
• How can all of this turn into more business for your business?

Today being Leap Day, maybe it’s time to reconsider your resistance to social media marketing. If you’d like an expert to help you create a social media marketing plan that really works, contact Splash right now.

Mesh your email marketing strategy with a commitment to providing value, and your customers will love hearing from you.

 

By now all that’s left in your heart-shaped box of chocolates from Valentine’s Day is the apricot crème. No matter, February is still the month we dedicate to love, and nothing says love like a solid email marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, sometimes nothing says email marketing strategy like a can of spam, or, only slightly less horrible, a trash bin. Despite declining open rates, email marketing is still an important tactic for any business to include in its marketing strategy. The trick is getting your recipients to look forward to getting your emails.

That’s easy to do – if you aim to provide value in every email you send. Include helpful information, practical tips, and useful advice your readers need, rather than purely promotional verbiage. By giving your email recipients what they want and need, they’re more likely to open, read, and act on your messages.

An effective email marketing strategy covers all the bases – from the nature of the content you create and send, to the software you use to send your messages, and even the day and time your messages are sent.

Request a proposal for creating and implementing a powerful email marketing strategy for your business now.

Ask any five year-old, and you’ll get a quick lesson in brand identity design

There’s a video circulating online that’s just adorable. It was an experiment done by a marketer who wanted to gauge the effectiveness of brand identity design on children. He flashed a series of logos on his computer screen and had his little girl try to identify the company each logo represented.

She did pretty well. Shockingly well, when you consider that at age five, it’s likely her television viewing habits are at least somewhat limited by her parents. She had already made associations between many of the logos and the products the logos promote.

Where had she likely seen all of these logos?

• TV commercials
• Signage
• Employee uniforms
• Delivery trucks
• Product packaging

Your logo is a crucial element of brand identity design, even if your business is small and local rather than global. Your prospective customers are paying attention, even if they aren’t consciously thinking about your logo. It’s making inroads on their attention every time they see it – so it’s important to be sure your logo communicates all you want it to, and nothing you don’t.

Brand identity design isn’t a one-time task you can check off and forget. In fact, most of the most-recognized logos in business have undergone multiple changes throughout the years.

If it’s been a while since your logo was tweaked, or if you’ve never had one done professionally, now’s the time. Contact the brand identity design pros at Splash for a brand identity design consultation.

If you own a business website, there’s just one thing you need to know about SEO web design.

If you haven't noticed, Google’s taking over the world. Google is the boss when it comes to your business website. There’s no way to trick Google, no way to take a short-cut and end up where you want to be. The only way your business will get the results you want online is to do things the way Google wants it done.

That’s where SEO web design comes in. SEO web design is all about creating a website that answer’s Google’s request for quality and relevance with nothing but, “Yes Sir!” The end results of building a site this way:

• Google will love your site and send traffic your way.
• That traffic will love what they see when they reach your site because it’ll look and feel and read in a way that makes them confident you can help with what they need.
• Those website visitors will become your customers.

They say people buy from people they know, like, and trust. Solid SEO web design extends your reach and makes you visible, credible, and likable to your new customers – the perfect online representation of your business.

No doubt your business gets daily solicitations from firms all over the world promising to get your business into the top spot on Google. Contact the SEO web design experts at Splash now, and win favor with Google by doing the right things the right way.

How does your web design stack up?

As more businesses invest in building an effective online presence, the competition is heating up. Here’s a short checklist of five web design “musts” that will help ensure your site stands out from the crowd.

Does your web design feature easy navigation?

Can your first time visitors immediately figure out how to navigate through your site? What if they enter your site through something other than the home page?

Can your visitors read your content without straining?  

Don't let the pursuit of an elegant design get in the way of how easy it is to read the words on the screen.

Will your visitors want to read that content?

The phrase 'content is king' gets over-used but the message can’t be ignored. No matter how great a site looks, visitors will not stick around if the content is poor or full of hype.
It should be easy for a visitor to contact the owner of a site, or to find out more about them through a well-placed 'Contact Us' link.

 

How easily can your visitors contact you?

It should be easy for a visitor to contact the owner of a site, or to find out more about them through a well-placed 'Contact Us' link.

Does your site mesh with your visitors’ expectations?

After several years now of using the Internet, your website visitors have certain expectations about how your website should behave. While some elements of surprise will show off your innovative and creative side, you don’t want your visitors to find your site confusing to use. For example, most visitors will expect to be returned to your Home page if they click your logo or site name. Make sure your visitors’ experience on your site is seamless.

It’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees when you’re building your online presence. Want an expert assessment of how your site’s doing with these 5 web design musts? Just ask Splash!

Graphic Design Service for a Winning Website

Developing a new site requires plenty of hard work. Everything from the content to the design needs to shine if your site’s going to work well for you. What can a graphic design service do to make sure your visitors like what they see when they reach your site?

There are three basic design elements that can make your site triumph… or tank:

• Color
• Fonts
• Graphics

All three of these elements contribute to how easy your site is to navigate and how well it engages your visitors. Your website visitors don't want to struggle to figure out whether they’re in the right place, whether you’re a legitimate business, and how to find the information they need – or to be able to read it once they find it.

Neglect any of these elements, and you risk having all your hard-earned website traffic bouncing off of your site as soon as they get there. If your site’s graphics aren’t effective, your visitors won’t take action even if they stay on the page a while.

Powerful graphic design helps get results; it’s the perfect combination of form and function. While there’s variation in best practices for different types of sites and different industries, a talented graphic design service team can advise you on what will work for your business.

Want to make sure your website’s graphics aren’t just for looks? Just ask the graphic design service team at Splash for a free quote.

Google stats you need to know about mobile web design

Tap, tap, tap. Got a website? Great! Is your site mobile? If not, you’re missing out on a lot of traffic. Recent statistics from Google show enormous growth in the number of searches conducted from mobile devices.

 

 

In 2011 a study called "The Mobile Movement" found that:

1. More than 77% of search engine searches are done on mobile devices. This means your customers are trying to find you while they’re on the go and ready to buy.
2. 9 out of 10 searches conducted from a smartphone result in action from the consumer.
3. Over 95% of smartphone users use their phone to find information about local dining and shopping in their local area, and 88% of these users take action in less than one day.

 

Having a mobile-friendly website means mobile users will be able to see your marketing message and ultimately take action. Don’t just assume your website works well in mobile format. Getting your site to work on mobiles means more than just having it show up.

Our experts in mobile web design at Splash can help you make sure your site is a hit with your customers on the go, click to connect with us now. Click: Contact Us.

If you’ve ever considered producing television commercials for your business, web videos may be a better solution… or maybe not.

What's the difference between television commercials and web video? Which would work better for your business?

Marketing with Television Commercials

 

Television commercials can be constructed and filmed to display a brief marketing message to your audience. If you have a popular ad that is converting well or if you have a slogan you want to brand, then a commercial may be the way to go. Viewers are expecting to see ads on TV, and we can help you create one they actually enjoy watching.

Marketing with Web Video

With Google buying YouTube for a total of $1.65 billion in 2006, web video has increased in popularity. With smart phones, iPads, and the iPhone, consumers are watching an average of 46 years of video each day across the world. Web video approaches marketing from another angle, creating a personal bond with your audience. In this medium advertising is much less aggressive and the main focus is to build rapport with your target market, positioning your business as the best solution for their needs.

 

Television Commercials, or Web Video: What’s a better fit for your business?

It all depends on your goals and budget. To get started with a series of creative and effective television commercials for your business, request a proposal now. Click: Request Proposal.

Build it and they will come. Wouldn’t it be nice if that was how it worked in business? You can offer the best service in the world at the best prices, but if people don’t know your brand then you won’t make a single sale. To solve this issue, marketers focus many efforts towards increasing brand awareness and driving traffic both online and to brick-and-mortar stores.

Sometimes businesses have the opposite problem; they are doing everything right to bring customers in but just can’t seem to convert that website traffic into sales. Creating an effective SEO or social media strategy will bring potential customers to your site, but converting those visitors to loyal customers takes much more than impressive traffic numbers.  For maximum benefit from online marketing, you need to maximize both traffic and conversion rates (see picture below).

Why SEO and branding need each other

Branding is the whole experience. For search engine optimization to result in conversions (sales), you need to consider how all aspects of marketing work together to create synergy for a more successful whole. An SEO strategy is much more effective and has greater chance for success when incorporated into the overall branding strategy.

SEO and branding work together to create a feedback loop that will take your business to the top.

How branding improves SEO

• Increase website conversion rates. As you differentiate your brand and position your company directly in front of your target market online, your search engine referral traffic will be more likely to convert as searchers find exactly what they are looking for on your website.
• Increase click-through-rate. Having a strong and well-known brand will increase the power of your SEO efforts by influencing a higher click through rate as searchers recognize brand authority.

How SEO improves branding

• Increase brand reach and awareness. As rankings increase for a diverse set of industry related keywords, your brand name will be in front of more potential customers that are already looking for a business just like yours.
• Increase brand loyalty and credibility. Repetition is key. Showing up in as many places on the web as possible creates a sense of authority in your niche that will improve both the loyalty and credibility of your brand to potential customers.

Does your marketing mix work together to help your company grow larger than the sum of its parts? Or does your business throw strategies at the wall hoping for something to stick? Contact us for a free marketing consultation to learn how we can help you blend your marketing ‘ingredients’ into a perfect medley.

AIGA, the Professional Association for Design, describes graphic design or visual communication as the use of any visual medium at all. Designers work across many mediums -- be it hand-drawn illustrations, typography, paint, design software, or (often) a combination of several of these.  It is the designer's job to know how to organize the elements of the message to communicate.

 

Augmenting a design with photography, drawings, and other images is great. But many designers have created successful design solutions using type only. The use of typography in design goes beyond font selection. Instead of selecting a font and letting it do all of the work, designers take in the meaning of a word and convey that by manipulating the letterforms. Paula Scher, a superstar in the design world, is perhaps most well-known by her Public Theater posters. Their strong use of typography is a great example of how a mood can be conveyed with just letters.

Image-based design is another way designers choose creative ways to convey a message. When selecting an image for a particular design, many things must be considered: mood, emotion, composition, colors, and personality all come into play. Unexpected manipulations of an image can create powerful results, as with Stephan Sagmeister's "Made You Look" book cover. This clever monograph of a german shepherd dog is memorable and impactful -- both because of its surprising change when the red is pulled away and its playful design.

 

Using type and image together gives designers the opportunity to develop strong, concept-driven pieces. Certain photos might lend themselves well to a specific type treatment, and vice versa. Designers carefully select what font or image to use in order to create the best pairing. Take this spread, art directed by Fred Woodward, for Rolling Stone. The photo used projects a strong and masculine image on its own. It has a centered composition, the subject is sitting confidently with his arms out, and the photo is perfectly exposed. The designer paired the photo with a bold, condensed, sans-serif font. The type emphasizes the "O" in the photo, which also mimics a bullet hole (a play on the word "shot"). It's a perfect example of image and type working together.

 

No matter the design choice or style, graphic design has an important purpose -- to visually convey a message to a target audience. If you have a message to convey (and don't we all?) then get in touch with us to find out the best visual tactics to use as part of your overall marketing strategy.