Splash Omnimedia Blog:

Promotional brochures in a digital age… are they still useful?

Books, newspapers, and now brochures – many would say they’re headed toward extinction in the age of tablets, mobiles, laptops, and every other shiny new gadget coming down the pike. But just as there are readers who still prefer to turn actual pages made of real paper, printed promotional brochures can still serve to grow your business in ways technologically fancier tactics can’t.

Here are five ways to use your business’ promotional brochures:

1. Mail them out. In a day when physical mailboxes are filled with nothing but air, your promotional brochure has more likelihood than ever of getting opened and read. Be sure to tailor your brochure to your mailing list to ensure a good message to market match.
2. Leave them out. Place your brochures strategically to grab the attention of buyers who are already in shopping mode. Think about cross-selling products and services that go together naturally, then use brochures to make the suggestion.
3. Include the details. People prefer to hear about or see the basic features and benefits of a product or service – but when the information gets more detailed, it’s better to provide those details in print.
4. Answer their questions. As you market your products and services, you likely encounter the same questions over and over. One great way to answer them efficiently, as well as the questions your prospect hasn’t even thought of yet, is to create a brochure answering these frequently asked questions.
5. Get them calling you. Create special use brochures to distribute at conventions, trade shows, and networking events. Include a form your prospect can use to get more information easily either by completing and mailing or submitting online.

No matter how you use your promotional brochures, be sure to include a call to action so your prospective customers take whatever next step you want them to.

If you’ve got a big business event on your calendar, now’s the time to get a promotional brochure designed and created. Splash can help you today, just click now.

Is it worth it to hire a graphic design company?

Clip art’s got its place – but probably not anywhere near your business. Stock photos? Very useful for certain tasks. Free graphics programs? That’s another story entirely. There are solid, logical reasons successful businesses turn to a professional graphic design company like Splash rather than trying to create graphics on their own:

• Time. Unless you are a professional graphic designer, you will need to spend a significant amount of time learning how to use a graphics creation program. The simpler the program is to learn, the lower the quality of the end results. The better the results, the harder it will be to learn. There’s no short-cut for this learning curve.
• Usability. Even if you learn how to use some graphics creator software to make something, getting that design to be usable in print or online is another matter. You could easily waste a lot of time and effort creating something that can’t ultimately be used.
• Leverage. It’s just good business to guard your time and other resources. The goal is to make the highest, best use of every resource you have. With all you’d need to pour into a graphic design project, consider the opportunities you’re missing by tying yourself to a project someone else could do for an overall lower cost.

Every business needs graphics. If you see the wisdom in leaving this task in the hands of a graphic design company rather than trying your own hand at it, ask Splash to help.

Who needs a custom website, when there are so many free templates out there?

 

You do! If you’re serious about marketing your business online, anyway.

There are several “website tonight” types of templates available if you don’t have the budget for a custom website – and some of them look pretty decent. However, there are significant drawbacks to using a ready-made site builder, and you want to know about them before you decide whether these freebies are a good option for your business.

If you’ve been to a networking event, you’ve encountered an issue with using a template instead of investing in a custom website. You can always tell when someone there opted for free business cards rather than paying for them. They look and feel cheap. They probably have an ad for the printing company on the back of the card. They may even be identical to another business’ card if two business owners managed to choose the same graphics.

The same thing can happen online – but not if you get a custom website! With a custom website, you get a completely unique site that’s the perfect online representation of your business. It has a premium look and feel to it that a template could never create.

You might be surprised to learn how easy and affordable it is to get a custom website for your business. Click to request a proposal before you decide.

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.

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.

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.

Launching a successful branding campaign is more important today than ever before. Getting – and keeping – consumer’s attention can be difficult with the combination of increasing competition and distracting technologies galore.  You need to give potential customers a reason to remember you with a consistent brand identity that relates to your target market.  Here are five powerful benefits of a successful branding campaign.

 

1)    Increased brand awareness

The most immediate benefit that branding can provide a business is the recognition of the brand by potential customers.  People must be introduced to brand names, logos, and products several times before the brand becomes familiar.  With a consistent branding design and message, your corporate identity will be easily identifiable by existing and potential customers.  This applies to everything from your print advertising to your commercials and web video.

 

2)    Build customer loyalty and retention

An old marketing adage states that it “costs ten times more to acquire a new customer then it does to keep an old one.”  Successful branding tackles this philosophy by building customer loyalty and retention with things like email marketing and social media .  Customer loyalty means business sustainability, which is why branding is essential as part of your long-term marketing strategy.

 

3)    Attract qualified prospects

Getting an audience of 100,000 people won’t do your business any good if none of them are interested in your product or service.  With a good branding strategy, your target market is built into the business model from the beginning allowing you to increase conversion rates on marketing efforts by speaking to those who are eager to listen.  A huge part of branding is discovering the identity of your business and creating designs and messages that convey that identity effectively to the right consumers.

 

4)    Build credibility

There is a reason that brand name products are sold at a higher cost than store brand versions.  While sometimes there is a difference in quality, people are often willing to pay top-shelf prices just for a brand name.  Effective branding positions your business for success as a thought leader, an expert, and the go-to source for your niche.

 

5)    Launch new products to existing customers

As you begin to build a successful brand, there are many benefits that your business will experience.  Launching new products as a start-up can be difficult because you have to go out and earn the market’s trust.  As a well-known and trusted brand, you tear down many of the walls that serve as obstacles to start-ups by having an established customer base.

Launching a branding strategy can be time consuming and requires planning and execution.  Contact the marketing consultants at Splash Omnimedia today for a free consultation on your branding and marketing needs.

What, exactly, makes a good logo? With hundreds of thousands of logos out there, designers and non-designers alike have this same question. I have taken three examples of strong, memorable logos here and hope to briefly explain at least why they are successful.

 

First, let's take the FedEx logo. Designed by Lindon Leader of Landor Associates, it is instantly recognizable from great distance. Its claim to fame though, is the "hidden arrow" between the "E" and the "x" (once you notice it, it'll be all you see). It is a great example of effective, subliminal imagery.

 

The Coca-Cola logo is arguably the best example of cursive lettering (in a sea of tacky, poorly designed cursive fonts). Note how the logo isn't just "typed out". The baseline of "Cola" is lower than "Coca". Iconic, American -- it's everything Coke markets itself to be.

 

Finally, the logo created by superstar designer Saul Bass, AT&T. Sure, its undergone minor updates through the years, but the core design has not changed. That's the hallmark of a strong design. Few brands have been able to undergo updates and maintain their mark (think BP's shield to starburst, or the recent Comedy Central rebrand).

So there are some examples of logos done right. Do you have a favorite logo? Share in the comments.

 

If you are looking for the perfect logo design for your business, contact Splash Omnimedia today for a free proposal.

We've all seen lorem ipsum (known to many as "Greek text") used as a placeholder on all kinds of "works in progress" -- websites, print ads, brochures, etc. And while it's merely an excerpt from a passage of Latin literature, the designers working on new packaging for Chipotle recently found a way to have some fun with it.

 

On one side of their new bags is simply some text pumping the Chipotle bag, but on the opposite side there's lorem ipsum. This little surprise garnered Chipotle buzz on the internet as many speculated whether or not this was an intentional, playful design decision, or rather a giant oversight before printing.

 

We'll never know for sure if it was a goof or a clever design stunt. Either way, it goes to show how a seemingly small element of an overall brand can generate a lot of talk. Sometimes making "unsafe" design decisions can prove beneficial and serve as the catalyst you need to drive more traffic to your business. With the prevalence of social media today, everything can be shared with the click of a button, and you can bet those lorem ipsum bags got captured with many a smart phone before even leaving the store. 

 

Contact us today for a free marketing proposal on how we can help improve your bottom line. 

 

What is a Favicon?

 

A favicon is the little icon in the left most corner of your tabs in your browser. What is the purpose of a favicon you ask? That’s a really good question, there are a couple of reasons to have a favicon for your site.

• Branding – A customer will remember the branding of the favicon for your website.
• It helps with when a customer bookmarks your site on there browser. With out a favicon your site becomes another random link in a see of bookmarks and tabs.  With a favicon your site is easily distinguishable, which means more customers return to your site.

 

Contact us today for a free marketing proposal on how we can help improve your bottom line.