Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Want to Boost Results? Think in Color!

Did you know that from the moment you walk into a retail store, your experience is highly calibrated? Retailers know that the amount you purchase is influenced by the style and speed of music it is playing, the luxury of the scents it is wafting, and even the level of the floor beneath your feet. (If you step down into the display area, retailers know that you are more likely to buy than if the floor is level.)
While you cannot influence the music, the olfactory environment, or the location in which your audience reads your mail, you can affect their mood and inclination to buy based on the colors you use in your layout and design. If you are already segmenting and personalizing your mailers to improve relevance, choosing the right colors can add some extra muscle to your marketing. 
Different colors affect the reader’s mood in various ways. Yellow is bright and cheery; it connotes youth and optimism. Red implies energy, action, and sense of urgency; but it can also suggest rebellion. Blue conveys trust and security. Black connotes power.
Understanding this, you can match the colors you use to the message you want to convey. As consumers, yellow makes us happy. Try using it for starbursts, backgrounds, and borders. Red creates urgency and encourages readers to take action. Use it to announce deadlines, clearance sales, and short-term offers. Blue is associated with trust, so it is often used for banks and finance. Did you know that purple is associated with relaxation? That is why it is used for marketing products related to aging and retirement.
Research has also shown that color influences different types of shoppers differently. KISSMetrics, which offers software for online analytics, has found the following correlations:
    • Red, black, and royal blue are associated with impulse shopping. These colors are often used by fast food restaurants, outlet malls, and for clearance sales.
    • Navy blue and teal appeal to shoppers on a budget. They are frequently used by banks and large department stores to promote value but not discounts.
    • Pink, sky blue, and rose are associated with more traditional shopping patterns. They are often used by clothing stores.


So take your personalization to the next step. Integrate color into your targeting and messaging as much as you incorporate demographics and other personalization fields. Start with conventional wisdom about what works and what doesn’t. Conduct A/B testing to refine your understanding into pinpoint accuracy. Then sit back and reap the results!

Please give us a call at 440-946-0606
Or visit our website here for more information.

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Simple Strategy for Designers to Stay on Task

Even the greatest technology is only as productive as the user. If you want to get more done, it takes more than great design software. It takes great time management.
Take it from designer Jake Knapp, who wrote the book Sprint. In the book, Knapp codifies the concept of a “design sprint,” his five-day process for coming up with ideas, prototypes, and testing to help designers get the most out of their ever-compressed work schedules.
For everyday projects, however, Knapp has a more simplified way to stay on task. As a visual guy, he suggests creating a graphic to visually represent daily priorities.  
Here’s how it works:
1. Fold a piece of paper in half to create two columns. 
2. On the left side, write a list of the most pressing (mission-critical and time-sensitive) projects.
3. On the right side, write a list of the tasks that are important but without the same level of urgency.
4. At the bottom of the right-hand side, write down the rest of the “to do” items (i.e., wish list) that you can fit in as you go along.
Pin the paper where you can see it. Look at it regularly throughout the day. Scratch out completed items and recreate your lists as tasks are completed.

As you work through your lists, consider tacking each new list over top of the old one instead of throwing the old one away. This way, when you feel that you are falling further and further behind, you can look back through your old lists and see just how productive you’ve really been!

Please give us a call at 440-946-0606
Or visit our website here for more information.

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Are You Selling for the Short- or Long-Term?

When you create personalized print communications for your customers, are you thinking about short-term selling or long-term relationships? While getting the quick sale feels great, the biggest profits come from long-term customers who provide recurring revenue over time. Here are five reasons to focus on recurring personalized print programs rather than “quick hit” campaigns:
1. Building relationships. 
Personalization, by definition, is personal and implies a relationship. To establish a relationship with your customers, you need to get to know them. No one-off campaign, no matter how successful, can do that.
2. Learning more over time.
At the beginning of a campaign, you are making educated guesses about how your customers think and act. As they respond, you learn more about them. This allows you to modify your messaging, offers and calls to action to have the most impact over time.
3. Making more money.
As you learn which campaign elements are most effective at motivating your customers, your campaigns will be more profitable. More refined campaigns translate into higher response rates, higher conversion rates, and increased ROI.
4. Maximizing investment.
Setting up your first 1:1 print campaign requires an investment in time and money. By developing programs rather than one-off campaigns, your set-up costs are amortized over the life of the program. As costs become amortized, your ROI per campaign goes up.
5. Not continually having re-prove program value.
Unless you are the president or owner of the company, chances are you had to work with a team of others to make the initial decision to deploy personalized print communications. Each time you run another campaign, you need to go through the entire process again. With programs, you have the freedom to refine and maximize your efforts without having to re-prove their value before each deployment.


So think long-term. Programs allow you to develop and refine your marketing strategy over time and take advantage of the value of relationship-building. One-off campaigns can produce great short-term results, but the deepest profits come from investing in your customers for the long term. 

Please give us a call at 440-946-0606
Or visit our website here for more information.

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