Basic Graphic Design Tips Everyone Should Know

Producing your own marketing materials is often a big undertaking if you don’t know the proper basics to produce these materials.

It is always best to have a marketing professional and graphic designer work with you in producing your marketing materials. It is a worthwhile investment. However, if your budget calls for doing this work yourself, here are some tips to avoid many of the common mistakes.

Your headline is most important. It must capture the readers attention. If it does not, up to 80% of the people will not read the remainder of the message. Be creative with your headline, but make sure it will tell the reader what the rest of the message is about.
Don’t clutter your headline with too much text and graphics. Use white or negative space in your headline.
Don’t use all CAPS in your headline. This can make it hard to read. If you look at newspaper headlines, very rarely will they use all CAPS.
Don’t overuse underlining.
If you use italicized type style, use it in moderation. It is read 20% slower. Never use it in your body copy (the main message of your marketing piece usually written in paragraph format).
When using artwork. Make sure it is good quality. Many times you will see an ad or other marketing piece and the artwork is bit-mapped (a piece of art that looks like it has jagged edges and may appear blurry and not crisp). Never use a bit-mapped piece of art, this includes your logo. If you can’t fix it, get someone who can.
Always put your website address in your ads, letterhead, business cards, etc.
Use reverse type sparingly (white letters on a dark background). It has a low comprehension level. Use a sans serif font (a font without tails on the end of the letters - like Gill Sans or Arial). Avoid using reverse type for body copy.
If using a coupon in your ad, make sure your business name, address and phone number are on the coupon. If a person cuts the coupon out of the ad, they need to know where the coupon came from.
Make sure your advertisement’s “signature” has your business logo, address, phone, email and/or website. Other items to consider having in the “signature” of the ad are credit card logos and hours of operation.
Keep a consistent look with all your marketing materials to build a brand image.
Avoid industry jargon that your readers may not know.
Be careful when using clipart. The art you use in the your marketing materials should be consistent with your brand image. For example, if you are trying to portray a professional image, you don’t want to use cartoon-looking art. A good place to search for clipart and stock photography at a low cost is www.dreamstime.com.
Don’t use more than 2-3 fonts in a marketing piece.

Grow Your Business with an Email Newsletter

By: Mike Belasco, Mike the Internet Guy

Why should your business publish an email newsletter?
While email and email newsletters have been around for a while, very few small and medium size businesses effectively use email as a marketing tool. In fact only about 18% of small businesses are using any type of email marketing according to a national survey. Starting a regularly published email newsletter can help you stay in touch with old clients, build trust with prospective clients, build respect for your company in your industry, and keep your business in front of your contacts on a regular basis. Publishing an email newsletter is very easy to do, costs very little, and the return on your investment has no limit.

What is the difference between an email newsletter and just sending out a regular email?
An email newsletter when done correctly is something your subscribers will look forward to receiving on a regular basis. You’ll customize a template to use for your newsletter (very easy to do … keep reading), and you will be able to track vital statistics about the performance of your newsletter. For instance you can track open rates (percentage of reader who opened your email), click through rates (percentage of readers who clicked on a link you placed in your email, bounce backs (emails that didn’t get through), and forwards.

How much time does it take to publish an email newsletter?
The amount of time it takes to write and publish an email newsletter varies on how often you are publishing. I would recommend starting with one edition per month. Once you get the hang of composing and sending an email newsletter, it should take no more than an hour or two to put something together worthy of sending out.

How much will sending an email newsletter cost?
The service I recommend for setting up, managing, and publishing your email newsletters is called Constant Contact. They offer a free 60 day trial and their pricing is based on the number of subscribers on your list. The customer support at Constant Contact is excellent. Constant Contact really gives everyone the personal attention they deserve. After your trial your subscription is still free for 50 subscribers or less. 50 -500 subscribers is only $15 per month. In addition another great service with no monthly fee is Vertical Response. Vertical Response also provides free templates and great service and they charge by the number of emails sent.

Is there an easy way for me to get started?
Constant Contact has a great learning center with video tutorials on how to set up, publish and track your newsletter. I would highly recommend going through their tutorial programs to get started. If you get stuck or have a question their support staff will be more than happy to answer it.

How do I get people signed up for my newsletter?
So now you’ve got your great newsletter set up and ready to publish, but you don’t have any subscribers. Here are a few tips for getting subscribers:

Offer a free gift such as a Starbucks gift card or an industry white paper as a thank you for subscribing.
Place a “Join Now” graphic on your website
Collect business cards at networking events. Ask your acquaintance if it would be all right for you to add them to your email newsletter list. If not, write “NO EMAIL” on the back of the card
Hold a contest only for people who subscribe to your newsletter.
If you have a speaking engagement, hold a free drawing which attendees can enter by submitting their business card. Ask them to write “NO EMAIL” on the back if they don’t want to subscribe to your email newsletter
Offer incentives for your current subscribers to forward and recruit new subscribers

What should I write about in my email newsletter?
If you are experiencing a little writer’s block in deciding what to publish in your email newsletter, try finding topics in industry blogs, forums, and industry news websites. Even if you aren’t breaking news in your industry you can still bank off of your experience and write about a topic from your point of view. Internet forums and blogs are great places to grab topics from because there is new material appearing daily on these websites. You can also ask other experts to contribute articles that you think will benefit your readers.

What do I do after my email newsletter becomes a success?
After you become a successful email newsletter publisher you may want to consider becoming a blogger. If you haven’t heard of or seen a blog I encourage you to learn more about this. I’ll be sure and compose an article about blogging in the near future. As for your newsletters, you can always republish the content of your newsletter on your website. It gives your website visitors more ‘inside’ information to either make them want to subscribe to your newsletter, or buy your products and services.

Good luck with your email newsletter!

About this Author
Mike Belasco is a consultant specializing in internet marketing and search engine optimization. You can visit his website at Mike the Internet Guy.

If you need help with your email campaign or help generating more business from your website, please email Mike at mike@miketheinternetguy.com or call 303-905-1504.

Good Word of Mouth Advertising/Customer Service Column

Email Etiquette
In the last issue of Marketing for Success, earning good word of mouth advertising was discussed. As an ongoing column, each month we will look at one area customer service can be improved to help earn good word of mouth advertising.

This month email etiquette is the topic of interest. In the computer age we live in, more and more people prefer email communication. If you ask your customers what their preferred type of communication is, some will say email. Here are some basic tips on providing good customer service using email communications.

Have a clear subject line.
Address the person(s) you are sending the email to; use a greeting.
Use the “Reply” feature to messages you receive. Do not compose a new one.
Have a clear request to your email.
Read the email thoroughly and answer all questions posed in the email. Try to foresee other questions and answer them. Don’t respond without answering all questions.
Return email messages the same business day if possible, but no later than 24 hours from the time of receiving the email.
When writing emails be brief, but do not leave out necessary background information. Re-read what you have written and edit yourself.
Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Be careful in using the following: High priority, cc, abbreviations and emoticons. These icons are not professional.
Do not use CAPITAL letters in emails. This conveys shouting or yelling. Do not use an unfriendly tone.
Have a closing for your email and use a signature with your first and last name and phone number. You can have an internal signature and an external signature.
Some issues are not meant for emails (personnel, financials, etc.)

Reader’s Corner - Questions from readers

Q: I receive many informative e-newsletters and was considering doing one of my own. I am concerned it won’t be read if the people I send it to are also receiving an abundance of e-newsletters. How can I have a better chance of having my e-newsletter read?

A: Dear Reader:

Here are several suggestions:

Make sure the people you are sending your e-newsletter have requested it.
Personalize the greeting of your newsletter if possible.
Use the subject line to highlight a top story.
In the greeting box you can highlight all the stories of the issue.
Have a contest from time to time in your e-newsletter

Q: I want to do some telemarketing for my business. I have heard so much about telemarketing laws. If I conduct a survey and then promote my business at the end, do I have to worry about the telemarketing laws?

A: Dear Reader:

Telemarketing laws are very strict. If taking surveys over the phone, that must be the sole purpose of the call. You cannot promote your business at the end of the call. There cannot be a sales purpose to a survey call. It is best to research Federal and State laws first before starting a telemarketing campaign.

Q: I am a new start up business, how do I know how much money I should budget for marketing?

A: Dear Reader:

According to the United States Small Business Association (SBA), the popular way of figuring this is if you are an existing business use 2% of your most recent yearly sales volume. However if you are a new start up, up to 10% of expected sales could be used on marketing in the first year. Other sources say 4-6% of your revenue should go to marketing every year. This figure can vary by industry. Another way to look at this is to try to figure out how much your competition in spending on advertising.

Q: What are the risks of not having a marketing plan?

A: Dear Reader:

There are numerous risks associated with not having a marketing plan. Without a marketing plan, you have no road map to grow your business. Marketing plans analyze what your competition is doing, what their strengths and weaknesses are and helps you determine your competitive advantages. Also, a marketing plan helps you budget your marketing dollars. If you don’t have a plan on what the most effective marketing is, you could spend money on marketing that doesn’t bring you a return on investment. Most business owners have a good idea of what they need to do to market their business, but without a written plan a business owner can lose sight of the best way to bring in new business and keep existing customers.

There are many benefits to creating a marketing plan. It is best to consult with a marketing professional to develop a marketing plan.

Q: How do I know what advertising will work for my business?

A: Dear Reader:

There is an overabundance of advertising avenues: trade publications, newspaper, radio, TV, billboard, internet, direct mail, networking,, sponsorships, program book ads, menus, buses, shopping cart ads and many more. Wading through the seemingly endless advertising options can be daunting, but you can manage this by creating an effective marketing plan, which goes through the process of analyzing your target market and the best way to reach them, where your competitors advertise and how much your budget will allow. Having a tracking method to determine what advertising is working is also critical.

Always remember salespeople will do their best to sell you on why you should advertise with them. Being very objective will help. You only have a limited amount of marketing dollars. If you have salespeople that nickel and dime your marketing budget, you won’t have the money for the effective marketing you need to do.

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Table of contents:

Basic Graphic Design Tips Everyone Should Know

Grow Your Business with an Email Newsletter

Good Word of Mouth Advertising/Customer Service Column

Reader’s Corner - Questions from readers