How Dandruff Shampoo Hurts your Marketing
We all know the slogan “You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression,” from the Head and Shoulders ad campaigns of the 1980’s. Playing on our fear was a great way to sell shampoo, but that crap really sticks with people. Unfortunately, companies use “The Head and Shoulders” excuse to put off […]
Design Bang for the Buck
I want clients to get the most for their marketing dollar. At the same time, I want to present them in a high-end, professional manner. How to solve this? Many times, the solution is…CHEAP PRINTING. The trick is to design pieces that fit into existing, standard products like business cards, postcards, 8.5 X 11 fliers, […]
Bad Logos
On April Fool’s Day, I sent a fake HTML newsletter with my “new logo.” When you click on a link, it takes you to my site to let you in on the joke…Or to let you know that I’m in on the joke. It went over pretty well and we gave some clients a chuckle. […]
8 Mistakes to Avoid when Designing a Website.
The web is an ever-changing landscape for marketing and presenting your company’s message. I’ve seen my share of missteps and learned big mistakes to avoid when designing a website. Here are the big Eight: 1. Not making your site search engine optimized. More than ever, clients are searching for your products and services via the […]
Do it yourself directory submissions
A service we offer, and one that is often overlooked, is submitting your website to directories. There’s more to it than just telling Google and Yahoo that you’re there. The good news is that you can do it yourself with a little work…for free. Submitting to search engines The first step is submitting your site […]
What are your potential customers searching for…online?
It’s easy to set up website analytics, track traffic that comes to your site, and find out what keywords are driving visitors to your website. It’s nice to know who is finding your site, but who is not finding your site…and what terms are they searching? Using myself as an example From my point of […]
Who Owns your Website?
I generally try to leave the hosting of websites to the clients. I don’t want them to feel like they’re held hostage and I can shut them off at any time unless they yield to my demands. Definitely, register your domains in your own name. Whoever registers the domain owns it. Sure, many client’s aren’t […]
Why Bill by the Hour and not Per Project?
I’ll quote a job however a client wants, but generally, I bill by the hour. It’s just an honest value that the client can appreciate. If I work less than estimated, I bill less. The other way to go is a flat rate per project. Many firms bill this way and argue that they are […]
The Biggest Tip?
I wanted to post some tips to help clients when working with graphic designers. The biggest tip I can think of to limit the rounds of changes to a design is to not blow the budget. Generally, I estimate the number of rounds of revisions in my estimate, but clients don’t always understand what that […]
Good Design/Bad Design
Here is a lousy ad: I’m sure Brian paid good money to publish this horrible ad. Make my logo big! Use a larger font! Make the background white so it’s readable! My website has to be big! Make everything big…It’s all so it’s important! Maybe it’s an advantage to have that ambulance chaser look, but […]
