Marketing BEEP

Brochure Printing Checklist for Small Businesses

Brochures are effective marketing tools for small businesses, especially when the budget is tight. If you are up to it, you can even do the brochure design yourself. This will definitely save you the cost of hiring somebody to create the design for you. The amount that you would have pay the designer can instead be used for other important aspects, like getting a professional company to print the finished layout.

Once you have finally completed your brochure design, there are things that you need to consider before sending it out to the printer. Here is a short checklist of what the brochure printer commonly expects once he gets his hands on the layout:

• Make sure that the layout setup is the same as the paper size that you want.

• Use bleeds to ensure that the whole page is still covered with ink from edge to edge once the brochure pages are cut.

• For the images, a high resolution of 300 dpi is required to avoid getting blurred or pixelated output.

• Choose a good paper stock that is best for brochure printing and creating a lasting impression.

• Make sure that you have checked  every little detail - everything is aligned, the headlines are spelled correctly, the fonts are embedded, etc. 

You may also want to include special instructions for the printer, if needed. Just always remember that the printer you hire is your partner in getting your brochures properly done. Maintaining an open line of communication will surely help in making the task easier for everyone involved. It will not only save you time and money, it will also keep you from committing printing mistakes.

 

Adidas Shelves Quirky 'Shackled Shoes'

Offensive, inappropriate, and ugly. These are just some of the criticisms thrown at one of Adidas' upcoming sneaker designs: the JS Roundhouse Mid. The latest collaboration between Adidas Originals and fashion designer Jeremy Scott, the sneaker design is shown to include bright orange chains and ankle straps. The sneaker line was supposedly scheduled for release in August but the brand eventually shelved it after social media users slammed the design for seemingly invoking slavery and racism. A civil rights activist even referred to it as Adidas' attempt to "commercialize human degradation."

 

 

 

The public was given a first look at the sneakers when Adidas posted a photo on its Facebook page on June 14. The photo was accompanied by the caption “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?” The brand has since taken down the photo due to the backlash.

Adidas also released an apology and a statement defending the design and its designer, saying it is simply a "quirky and unique take on fashion" and that it was never meant to reference slavery.

How to Provide Value to Your Customers

As marketers, we know that customers only want the best value for their money. But what is value really? Is it the price of the product/service being sold to them? Basically, it is more than that. It has something to do with the customers' overall assessment of a merchandise's capacity to satisfy their needs. So in your efforts to set your business apart from the competition, you need to find ways to create value for your target market in order for you to ensure a more competitive edge. 

There are three important steps that you must consider to make sure that you are creating value for customers. First, you have to guarantee that you only have quality products or service to offer. This will give the market a compelling reason to come back to you for more. Second, you must provide excellent service at all times. Customer service is important as price alone does not always ensure loyalty. If your price is the only reason for your customers to stay with you, then all your competitors have to do is offer a much lower price to lure your market away.

The third important step is to build a core community of loyal customers, which can also serve as your 'ambassadors' in spreading the word about your products or services. These days, growing a business means establishing a community. The most common ways to accomplish this in the past years are through activities such as membership offering and loyalty programs. Today, social media provides businesses a way to reach customers, engage their interest and listen to their concerns. Done right, having a core community can help you establish great relationships with your customers and at the same time, provide you with the opportunity to distinguish your business from your competitors.

 

Viral Marketing Basics

Simply put, viral marketing is a strategy of promoting brands, products or services by means of creating a buzz that is intended to spread in every possibly way – like virus. Thanks to social media, starting a viral marketing campaign these days is much easier than it was a couple of years ago.

The concept is quite similar to referral marketing and word of mouth advertising. The difference is that viral campaigns are meant to spread through passion instead of simple conversations. Word of mouth fades quickly because it relies mostly on customers spreading the message verbally. On the other hand, viral ideas have a wider reach – they are spread by people using different channels such as email, social networking sites, blogs, discussion forums, etc.

If you are planning of running a viral campaign, here are the steps that you should keep in mind to improve your chances of success:

• Tell a compelling story – Who doesn't love a good story? Just make it short and easily digestible.

• Tease your audience – The message doesn't have to be too obvious. The best viral marketing campaigns work because they made people curious enough to start online conversations.

• Try not to give everything away all at once. Execute your plan in different stages. This can give your campaign a longer lifespan.

• Take advantage of email, blogs, social media and more – The Internet provides you with tons of ways to spread your message, so create contents that are appropriate for every platform.

When it comes to getting a message out with minimal budget and maximum impact, virtually nothing tops viral campaigns. Just keep in mind that although many campaigns are designed to be viral, some simply catch up on their own. The trick is to have a really good idea right from the start.  

 

What is Google Penguin and How It Affects Your Site

 About a month ago, Google launched a new search algorithm that hopes to improve its efforts of catching search result spammers or those that are doing things to rank better but go against Google’s guidelines. Dubbed as Google Penguin, this update looks at several factors in re-assessing how the search engine ranks web pages. 

Pages that will surely be affected are those that try to get better rankings by employing strategies like keyword stuffing; cloaking (the practice of presenting users and search engines with different content or URLs); “deceptive” redirects or doorway pages; and deliberate use of duplicate content.

You can see whether your website was affected by checking your Google Analytics account or any other web data reporting tool you use and determine if there's a drop in traffic on April 24, the date of the Penguin launch. Traffic drops on this particular day are likely to have occurred because of the update.

If your site is indeed hit by the “Penguin attack” or you want some sort of protection for your site, these are the actions that you may want to consider: 

Focus on the quality of your content instead of doing so much on-site optimization. Keep yourself from optimizing every single page of your website. The important thing to remember is to create content that will naturally improve user experience.

Get rid of spammy practices. Be aware of the things that Google considers to be violations of the Webmaster Guidelines and eliminate them as soon as possible.

Keep track of your backlink profile. Focus on building highly-relevant backlinks to your site. Also, watch out for low quality links that are pointing back at your website (you can use the Open Site Explorer tools) and contact link spammers to have them remove the negative backlinks.