Creating visually appealing graphics for your digital marketing is very important to get the results you’re looking for.

Are your digital marketing materials lacking visual appeal because you just don’t have the budget to have everything professionally designed? Whether it’s social media content, enewsletters, email blasts or infographics for your blog, it’s important to make your marketing materials look professional as they represent your brand.

The problem is that not everyone is a designer and creating visually appealing content can be a challenge. And, if you really wanted to design everything yourself, buying design software  can be very costly and you would have to learn how to use the complicated software.

The good news is that there are many free and easy-to-use tools out there to help you get the job done. A great post called 13 Free Design Tools for Visual Marketers on a Budget by HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, breaks down some of their favorite sites to help you create visuals and images that make your marketing stand out.

From free color tools to free font, icon, image creation and editing tools, this resource will help you produce more visually pleasing and professional marketing materials that will get better results for you. Check out the post and let me know what you think or if you have your own free tools that you like to use.

If you think it’s time for your company to include social media in your marketing, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media strategy and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

This infographic from the people at VerticalResponse highlights how small businesses are using social media, how much time and money they are spending, which social networks they are focusing on and much more.

For instance, 43% of small businesses are spending at least 6 hours per week on social media, focusing mainly on Facebook and Twitter. And, it’s interesting to find out that 55% of small businesses have a blog.

Some small businesses even find value in paying for social media tools to help them with publishing and analytics and 57.5% spend $26 or more per month on social medial related expenditures.

Small businesses have a lot to consider as they strive to grow and social media can be a great tool to help expand their brand if it’s done correctly and consistently. The challenge is figuring out when you can do everything yourself or when it’s time to bring in a professional to help you with your efforts.

If you think it’s time for your company to include social media in your marketing, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media strategy and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

With great branding through design, your business will stand out from the crowd and establish itself with a distinct image and message.

Using graphic design and branding is important in all your marketing efforts because it presents your public image to the world and it dictates perception. Quality graphic design is key to establishing a brand or identity that people recognize and will remember. Here are 4 reasons why branding and design are important for your marketing efforts.

1. Image is Everything – The image you present to your potential customers is very important and you want it to be on target. Your image and message is what makes that first impression or creates that instant connection. Visually compelling branding strategies are much more engaging, drive calls to action and are more adept to getting more customers to your product. With tens of potential marketing channels and campaigns available, you want your message and look to be seamless throughout all your endeavors and you want the look to be standardized so people recognize you right away, no matter if they’re looking at a brochure, billboard, Website or magazine ad.
2. Effective Communication – Design is part of your communication and it makes a piece of communication easier to read and aids the reader by drawing attention to important points. Different forms of written communication have vastly different design, that’s why a Web page looks like a Web page and not like a print brochure.
3. Attract Attention – A well designed image works harder at grabbing people’s attention. A display ad in plain text is much less engaging than one that uses graphics and text to deliver a coherent, interesting message. It also shows that you cared enough about the message to present it well and people will be more likely to trust you and your message if it’s presented in a pleasing manner.

You want to differentiate yourself  from the herd to achieve any level of success. By using graphic design as part of an overall marketing strategy, businesses can ensure they maximize the return on their advertising budget. With great branding through design, your business will stand out from the crowd and establish itself with a distinct image and message.

If you think it’s time for your company to include branding and design in your marketing, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current branding efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

If you nurture the relationships with customers you already have with email campaigns, it will benefit you in the end.

Once you’ve closed the deal with a customer, do you just move on to the next customer because you think the sales cycle is over? What about the opportunity for repeat sales, cross-selling and upselling? If you nurture the relationships with customers you already have, it will benefit you in the end. Why is it businesses spend 80% of their marketing dollars going after new customers rather than nurturing, retaining and maintaining the customers they already have?

One tool you have to help you stay in touch with your current customers is your email marketing program. In HubSpot’s free guide on How to Optimize Email Marketing for Conversions, you’ll learn how to increase engagement with your customers and increase ROI from email marketing. If you need a little help to get started, below are three tips to help you use email marketing to re-engage your current customers.

1. Convince Customers to Stay Tuned with Thank You and Confirmation Emails – Once a client makes a purchase from you, you could leverage your Thank You and Confirmation emails to keep them engaged. So, in addition to order details and email opt-in confirmation, include an exclusive offer to one of your promotions or a link to a promotion on your social media profiles or offer a complimentary product or service your customer may like. What ever the offer is, the point is to keep them engaged by adding value, not by giving them a hard sale.
2. Send a Product/Service Feedback Email – Leverage the power of email by following up with your customers to see how their purchase is working for them or to see if the level of service your company provided was excellent. This will make then feel like valued customers and the feedback you get will be valuable for you.
3. Send Current Customers Exclusive Deals – Your current customers should be rewarded for their loyalty and they may be more willing to make other purchases if you send them exclusive deals. One of the reasons people subscribe to email is for exclusivity and the chance to get deals no one else has access to. Send them deals and coupons for additional purchases or send them a first look to a new product or service before anyone else gets a chance to see it. You can ask them for their feedback as well.

You’re goal should be to create lifelong, loyal customers that keep on purchasing from you because they trust you. This relationship will take a little while to blossom, so you have to be persistent with your email campaigns but not bothersome. Give your clients value, not just a sales pitch and you’ll be surprised how many referrals you get from happy customers.

If you think it’s time for your company to launch a memorable email campaign, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current email efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

You can see through this video that the company culture is clearly fun, quirky and creative. This company filled a niche in the market and through advertising like this, it has built a cult-like following which also spills into their Facebook community. Fans post regularly to their Facebook page and they usually get a personal response from DSC admins.

Even Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, was impressed with this video and he wrote a blog about this fun company. He thought the video “epitomized the five classic business tips he outlines in his book Like A Virgin”:

1. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. You must love what you do.

2. Be innovative: Create something different that will stand out.

3. Your employees are your best asset. Happy employees make for happy customers.

4. Lead by listening: Get feedback from your staff and customers on a regular basis.

5. Be visible: Market the company and its offers by putting yourself or a senior person in front of the cameras.

You shouldn’t be afraid to build an edgy brand or have lots of fun with your advertising. That’s actually what is wrong with some brands today; they are too conservative as they don’t want to alienate anyone, so they end up with a washed out message that is not memorable. Be bold with your ideas and that will pay off in the end.

If you think it’s time for your company to launch a memorable campaign, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current advertising efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Text Marketer has come up with a very useful infographic on the Seven Deadly Sins of Mobile Marketing. The infographic shows how 75% of people prefer to receive offers over any other form of call-to-action. And one of the deadly sins is to forget to put a call to action. You must include a reply option, an address or Website to visit or a phone number to call so the customer knows what to do next after they read your offer. Another deadly sin when you send out a SMS message is to forget to test and check it for errors in the haste of sending it out. But never send out any message before you check the text, contact details, Web addresses, spelling, grammar and phone numbers. Check out the rest of the deadly sins on the infographic below and use it as a check list before deploying your next message.

(click infographic to enlarge)

With global mobile advertising revenues expanding by three and a half times its present level by 2016 (Source: Yankee Group), it is imperative that your mobile marketing efforts are on point. As the infographic shows, with mobile, you can segment your customers into categories so you can closely target your message to what people really want. Once you find your target and you deliver relevant information or offers specifically designed for them, your campaigns will be much more successful.

If you think it’s time for your company to optimize its Website for smartphone accessibility, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current mobile phone optimization efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

The following infographic from Monetate shows the data also calling attention to the fight for supremacy between Androids and iPhones, both of which represent the biggest growth in traffic to ecommerce sites. But, even though Androids have the biggest global smartphone market share, iPhone’s garner a larger slice of total online shopping for smartphones.

The graphic also analyzes the various shopping activities of smartphone users besides making a purchase such as sharing product photos and searching for the nearest location of a store as well as the mobile marketing tactics being used currently by marketers with Website mobile optimization topping the list at 46% followed by mobile apps at 45% and mobile email optimization at 35%.

(click infographic to enlarge)

Are you leveraging mobile marketing for your ecommerce business? If not, it’s time you got started on optimizing your Website for mobile devices. You will surely notice an increase in traffic from smartphones once you do.

If you think it’s time for your company to optimize its Website for smartphone accessibility, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current mobile phone optimization efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Social Medial plays a huge part in the future of marketing.

The future of the marketing industry is changing fast and companies are trying to adapt by introducing social media into their various marketing efforts. Marketers are increasingly using social media but they continue to struggle with integrating social media into the company’s overall strategy. More people are looking at ads on their mobile devices and responding to personalized email campaigns on their smart phones and the trend is rising.

There are no crystal balls to tell us the future of social media in marketing, but here are a few stats that can keep us informed of what’s going on and may help you decide which way to go:

– Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. (Source: Aberdeen)

– 80% of mobile internet users would prefer ads relevant to them locally. (Source: JiWire)

– 75% of people prefer to receive offers over any other form of call-to-action. (Source: Text Marketer)

– 84% of B2B marketers use social media in some form. (Source: Aberdeen)

– Global mobile advertising revenue will expand by three and a half times its present level by 2016. (Source: Yankee Group)

– Mobile commerce will account for 24.4% of overall ecommerce revenues by the end of 2017. (Source: ABI Research)

– Email opens on smart phones and tablets have increased 80% over the last six months. (Source: Litmus)

Marketing is undergoing a powerful transformation with the introduction of smart phones and many social media channels. At the end of the day, marketing is not about blasting out messages into a black hole. It’s about finding a way to improve the targeting of your messages to make the user experience better while benefiting your business.

If you think it’s time for your company to optimize its Website for smartphone accessibility, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current mobile phone optimization efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Designers don’t just play with crayons all day long. Good design makes a difference in our world.

If you’ve ever met a graphic designer, you know they are very special people with a few quirks of their own. I mean, who else will eat something just because they like the packaging? Who else critiques menus at every restaurant? And yes, they read the full list of credits at the end of the movie. That’s just how they are…they can’t help it.

So if you want to know what to expect next time you meet a graphic designer, here’s a fun list of characteristics you should know about them:

They Don’t Like to Work for Free

Many times companies ask designers to do spec work to compete for the work and if they like what they see, they’ll hire one of them. For instance, they may ask three designers to do a layout or a logo, etc. and only the winner will be compensated for their work. The problem with this practice is that it doesn’t happen in any other profession. You wouldn’t ask three painters to each paint a room in your house for free just to see which one you will hire. Or, you wouldn’t ask three accountants to do your taxes and the one that gets you the most refund gets your business. See what I’m saying?

Designers are Not Magicians, They Are Designers

If you’re a designer, you’ve heard this: “I’ve been meaning to call you for weeks. The deadline is tomorrow”. Despite the notion that people think designers just play with their Crayons all day long and they push a button in the computer and an awesome design is created, the design process is just that, A PROCESS. Don’t ask a designer to turn something around in a few hours or a day. They have to think through each project, do trial and error to see what works and doesn’t and produce the piece. This takes time.

Designers Don’t Like to Hear the Following

There are countless statements graphic designers have heard from clients over the years. They make a big joke out of it because they’re always the same. Here are just a few things you should never say to a designer:

– Can you make the logo bigger?

– Can you make the font bigger?

– Can you make it pop!

– My ten year old son could have done this

– I can’t explain what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it

– Just throw something together

– Maybe my cousin who has an eye for design can help you with some ideas

– I’m not an artist, but here’s how I would do it

– Go ahead and design it, we’ll give you the content later

– Have you tried putting this there?

– Can you take part of this layout and merge it with this layout since I like both?

– Don’t use burnt orange ‘cause I’m an Aggie

– Can you put this in a collage?

– Can you give me your design in Word so I can tweak it myself?

Good design makes a difference in our world. Designers analyze data about the client, audience, demographic and other things to educate themselves and see what that audience sees to speak to them with their visual vocabulary. Always remember to give a designer as much information as possible up front so they can execute the project correctly. You will be amazed at how far a little information can go.

If you think it’s time for your company to redesign it’s logo, collateral material or Website, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current materials and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

People will read your posts more if they have brief copy, better headlines and attractive visuals.

Did you know that the average shelf life of a Tweet is less than an hour? That doesn’t give you much time to make an impact on your customers. Breaking through all the clutter in all the social media sites and actually reaching your target reader is not an easy task. Whether you’re developing content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, a blog or other social sites, you should strive to create engaging posts that people want to read and give them useful information they can actually use. Here are a few tips for creating posts with a punch:

Get to the Point

People scan pages rather than read them in their entirety, so be smart about your formatting and content. You can make a post more compelling just by numbering your main points since that makes it easier to read. Make your posts clear and don’t use a lot of marketing mambo jumbo. According to a report by Buddy Media, posts with 80 words or less have, on average, a 27% higher engagement rate.

Headlines Are Key

Your headline is the first impression you make on your readers. Make your headlines pop and use numbers whenever possible. Numbers are an effective way to capture your reader’s attention. But always remember, the title is what’s going to bring a reader in by catching their eye. Once you hook them, it’s more likely that they’ll click on the link to read more.

Insert Visuals in Your Posts

People are drawn to stimulating, informational visuals more than text, so by all means, insert them in your posts. Create a great infographic, add a diagram or find a beautiful picture of what you’re saying. Pictures are indeed worth a…well, you know.

Measure Your Results

See when something is working or not working. By using Google Analytics you can see the search terms people are using to get to your posts. By using this data you will get new post ideas and better rankings by using key words.

There are many social media platforms out there and it’s hard to get reader’s attention. If you use the above tips, you’re sure to get better results when posting. And remember, consistency is key, so post frequently so your readers know you’re out there.

If you think it’s time for your company to get more involved with Social Media, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current Social Media efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.