In Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug gives a spot-on guide to website usability— all that stuff that helps visitors to your site find what they’re looking for. What Krug’s book doesn’t touch on is the relationship between usability and search engine optimization (SEO) —how visitors actually find your site in the first place.

I really don’t fault Krug for this (too much) since it’s not his area of primary expertise, and there’s plenty written elsewhere on SEO. Still, a nod to SEO might have been nice since some principles of usability that Krug advocates can appear to be in conflict with best practices in SEO.

If you’ve read Krug’s book along with a few guides to SEO, you probably know what I mean.

The current maxim for SEO is “content is king” with textual content sitting high atop the searchability throne. If you want search engines to find your site, you need good copy. A picture may say a thousand words to most of us, but to bat-blind Web crawlers, a picture only whispers whatever you can squeeze into its alt tag.

In contrast, to make sites more user-friendly, Krug suggests you “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.” (Cue hearty shouts of approval from graphic designers everywhere.) Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to ask you to humor me for a moment. If I say the word “writer,” what picture pops into your head? My bet is that your imagination immediately conjured up an image of a bespectacled man or woman sitting in the lone corner of a coffee shop with a Moleskine and a pen. Of course, your imagined writer is not conversing with the other customers or being engaged with the world because the best writing comes from the inner-depths of a writer’s mind and soul … right? Well, yes and no.

Poetry and fiction may be more personal works, thus requiring seclusion from the distraction of others. But agency copywriting is a different ball game altogether.

Marketing writing is a form of communication that is constantly evolving, and to be successful copywriters need to be actively involved with others. I have learned a few things from my experience in writing copy for Hile: Read the rest of this entry »

I am approaching 30 years of running my own business and although I’ve made plenty of mistakes I’ve learned a few things too. I know this because my wife keeps telling me how much I’ve changed as a businessman (I assume she meant this as a compliment). Also, in almost 3 decades I’ve only ever had one employee quit because they didn’t like working for me (after only 3 days on the job).

To make a point, I’ve turned my subject matter on its head. So instead of entitling this post “10 Tips Toward Business Success” (I know I wouldn’t read an article with that tired cliché of a title), I’ve written one with a more engaging name (and hopefully more meaty content as well).

So here are my tips in no particular order:

1. Be passionless. Look at your business as just a way to make a living and nothing more. That will assure you take the easiest path to any challenge, and will expedite your company’s demise.
2. Nurture your ego. Make sure you view yourself as the supreme expert in every situation. And while you’re at it, make sure everybody else knows it too. If you look to surround yourself with people more talented than you in their areas of expertise, and give them the freedom to exercise their gifts, you run the risk of losing power even if you end up ultimately being more successful. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I’ve noticed a lot of what I consider braggadocio in the marketing world. Of course this is nothing new, but according to the rules of today’s branding etiquette, it seems out of place. I’m not talking about companies throwing out empty advertising claims like, “We’re the Best” or “Our Quality Is Unsurpassed” (all statements that can’t be quantified). No, what I’m addressing lies within the marketing community itself.

As I peruse LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ as well as other professional social sites I see marketing people describing themselves as Visionaries, Gurus, Luminaries and Pioneers. There are enough people out there labeling themselves as such that I can’t help but think, “C’mon, all these people can’t be Visionaries!” Besides, “Visionary” and “Guru” are such subjective titles—especially when ascribed to oneself. And for whatever reason, most of the people describing themselves with these monikers seem to be involved in the social media arena, which seems ironic.

As far as I know Albert Einstein never described himself as a genius. He left that to others. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I’ve been immersed in Zag, the inspiring book by branding guru, Marty Neumeier (which I suggest you buy immediately if you have anything to do with marketing). His ideas present the new reality for corporate and retail brands in today’s media-cluttered marketing landscape. Here are some of the insights I have gleaned from his observations, along with some of my own thoughts.

Advertising, then and now

Things have changed radically in a relatively short amount of time. In the past, traditional advertising relied on limited research with a heaping helping of mass market messaging, based primarily on an agency’s intuition. But today, agencies and marketers have new, more sophisticated analytical tools where we can slice, dice and regress our customers’ likes and dislikes into all manner of demographic groups and sub-groups. So, agency clients are looking for defined, measurable results for the money they’re spending on securing their brand in the marketplace.

Today’s challenge

But even with these new tools there are challenges in getting a successful brand built due to the fractured media landscape (I’m old enough to remember when there were three major TV stations!) with the nearly unlimited message distribution outlets, including hundreds of cable stations, online and viral marketing, email, social media, radio and so on. Read the rest of this entry »

Your company’s website is the most fully-realized representation of your corporate brand. So the three questions you’ll need to answer on your website are: 1) Who are you? 2) What do you do? 3) And why does it matter? All our websites communicate our brand, whether that communication is undefined and accidental or focused and purposeful. Obviously we all want the latter. So, when it comes time to build or redesign your website consider the following:

• Branding is all about differentiation–standing out in the customer’s mind by offering something different than your competition. So, don’t get caught up in the “me too” mentality of listing the same services, and copying the look and feel of a competitor’s website. Actually, aim at the opposite. Different is good.

• Meet your customers where they live. Your customers are savvy and impatient, so do everything in your power to communicate with them and meet their needs on their own terms—not yours. Imagine they are sitting across the table from you. That means cutting out industry jargon and empty advertising “happy talk” from your website’s copy. Are they using social media? Then integrate it into your site. Are they accessing your website from a smart phone? Then make sure your site works flawlessly on hand-held devices.

• Capturing your culture is as important as marketing your goods and services. Your website is no longer just about pricing and offerings, because with so much competition out there, your customers can always find whatever they are looking for cheaper and faster. Today, people are looking for brands to identify with—so your corporate integrity and core values should ring out loud and clear. Blogs, which are generally more informal than the copy on the marketing section of your site, can go a long way to help round out your brand by providing your readers with a broader, more inclusive insight into who you are and what you stand for.

So as you busy yourself with figuring out your site map, search terms, navigation, categories, and all the other myriad considerations that go into building or updating your website, don’t overlook the forest for the trees. Make sure the true “you” (your brand) resonates loud and clear. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the decisions about whom we work and align ourselves with are determined by both our left and right brains—analytical and emotional.

I went to a seminar last week on how to market to your customers. Besides tips on messaging, the speaker stated definitively how to connect with your prospects: exclusively through email and social media. The presenter pronounced that these are the only two media that are effective for reaching today’s busy CEO (or whomever you are targeting in your marketing efforts).

The problem is that when marketing gurus become dogmatic, they are setting themselves up to be proven wrong, and based on our clients’ experience, as well as that of my own company, the presenter’s opinion is untrue.

Over the past few years I’ve questioned if my openness to using traditional print for marketing today is generational. Is it because I started in advertising nearly 30 years ago, before the Internet was used by anyone except a few universities and government agencies?

To clarify, I am not a tech-curmudgeon. I fully embrace all the digital and analytical tools available to connect people with brands. Currently my company has over 600 followers on Facebook, and we are active in over a dozen social media sites, some of which you’d recognize and others that are unique to the advertising industry.

My point is this: as advertising professionals, let’s keep our minds and options open to as broad a toolbox as possible because people access information in different ways. Here are a few facts that help present the case that direct mail is still alive (from a 2009 survey by the US Postal Service):

• Over 14 billion dollars were invested in direct mail in 2009, followed by an increase in 2010.

• 79% of direct mail recipients either read or scan their mail, which is higher than for electronic mail.

• Only 19% of retail catalogs are discarded without being read.

• 2.3: the number of weekly advertising mail pieces that affluent households (those earning $150,000-plus) intend to respond to.

Other factoids are also compelling; for instance, the belief that going interactive is the greener solution. In order for our digital world to exist, we consume huge amounts of electricity driven by power plants and massive data centers running 24/7, requiring the burning of enormous amounts of fossil fuels. And electronic consumption is increasing by roughly 24% per year. In contrast, paper producers are among the greenest industry in the world. Trees are renewable. Paper and forest industries plant about 1.5 million seedlings a day (much more than they harvest) and nearly all municipalities in the US have effective recycling programs.

Another myth is that young people aged 18 to 34 (an important demographic for advertisers) want all their information and transactions to occur online. Not so, says a recent Epsilon report. They found that 43% of the young people surveyed preferred receiving insurance information in the mail compared to 21% desiring digital delivery.

Still need convincing?

• A United States Postal Service press release points out that a market study by comScore shows that among visitors to retail websites, twice as many catalog recipients made a purchase as those who did not receive a print catalog—more than doubling the online conversion rate. A revenue increase of 163% resulted from a comparison of purchases and money spent by catalog recipients versus those who did not receive a catalog in the comScore study, and catalog recipients ordered 28% more items.

• Magazine ads? Who needs them? Well, that depends. One of our clients is in a specialized market with only several hundred prospective customers in the entire country. But all of the CEOs and managers of the companies they need to reach subscribe to a single trade publication. So the print ads we create appear prominently and regularly in the magazine—often with multiple ads in a single publication. This has been one of their major and most successful marketing media and we are happy to report that our client has not only weathered the recession during a time of rapid change within their industry, but has grown their market in the US as well as developed overseas sales (for which we have also created print ads).

• My own company walks the walk and talks the talk we advocate to our clients. Even though we are on the first page of Google for the keyword terms we have targeted, we continue a robust direct mail campaign. And our proof of success lies in the fact that our most predominant keywords remain our company’s name (with plenty of variations—hile, hile design, hile design ann arbor, dave hile, and even hill design), which indicates that people are responding to our direct mail appeal to visit our website. I know because I track the campaigns through Google Analytics and measure the increased traffic after each of our mailings.

Of course, websites, social media, digital marketing and search engine optimization are essential to growing your business and defining your brand, but let’s keep all our options open—which includes print promotions. Print creates an emotional connection with customers that digital doesn’t. Consumers hold it, view it and engage with it in a manner different from their online experiences.

Finally, since I receive over 100 emails a day, going to our mailbox to collect the mail has become a treat. As a matter of fact, I daily have to attempt to outsmart Lindsey, our Production Designer, since she also enjoys collecting the mail. And with the overall decrease in direct mail over the last several years, the print mail I receive actually gets my attention. Perhaps snail-mail is the NEW, “old” advertising medium!

Putting the customer’s needs first. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it—even trite? But I was recently reminded of how important the concept is when I heard it directly from our customer. It happened when we were pitching a major rebranding campaign. We were delighted to win the account, but as an added benefit our new client asked if we’d be interested in hearing why our firm was selected. This information is like gold to us, and it is rare that we are privy to the decisions behind the client review process. Here are the main points they mentioned:

• They liked that we listened before we spoke. By doing so before presenting our capabilities via PowerPoint, we learned that one of their top criteria was finding an agency with people they liked and felt they could work with, since they had never hired an outside agency before. Good to know! Later, after receiving their RFP (Request for Proposal) we put a lot of emphasis on our personalized service and long-term client relationships.
• They liked our team approach. We presented our company as a team. We allowed each of the four staffers present to discuss their areas of expertise and what they would bring to address the client’s needs. It was clear after reading the client’s website that they placed a great deal of emphasis on humility among their leadership as well as an open, participatory corporate culture.
• They liked that our design portfolio showed a broad range of styles, tailored to different industries. Having an agency look and feel is neither right nor wrong. There are many extremely talented creative firms who have honed their design approach to perfection. (Check out Charles S. Anderson Design at http://www.csadesign.com. Personally, I’m a HUGE fan of their retro-inspired design work!) But that approach requires customers to conform to the agency’s aesthetic. We intentionally highlighted divergent styles across several different industries to demonstrate that we target each brand to the appropriate industry and end user.

So, hearing from our new client was a reminder that our pitches shouldn’t be solely about our company capabilities, but also about serving our customer. And the payoff for such basic customer-centric etiquette? By focusing on our customer, we took care of our own business (in this case in a big way, as our new client is a national leader in their field).