Every day, another app or service is unleashed on the world that claims to increase your productivity, corral your to-dos, or assassinate your procrastination.

Keeping track of these products can be a full-time effort on its own, never mind figuring out what they do and if they’re right for you.

But rest easy, because we’ve collected 12 of the latest and greatest productivity products here for you to check out.

Station

Why it’s worthy: If the frequency of new services launching as web apps are any indication, the days of desktop-only productivity may be on the wane.

From long-established stalwarts like Google’s G Suite and Zoho’s expansive selection of apps to more recent entrants like Quip,  more and more work is getting done in the browser.

Using these apps in a web browser, however, can be a pain.

Web browsers weren’t really designed to handle apps that stay open all day long. Browser makers have added some half-hearted attempts to accommodate these persistent apps through the concept of browser tab “pinning” (here’s how for Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla’s Firefox), but overall, it’s a bit of a mess.

Apps like Station attempt to address this issue by acting as a dedicated web app. It takes the apps you’d usually open in your browser and keeps them in their own dedicated window, so your web browser can get back to doing what it does best; browsing.

Why use an app like Station?

• It keeps your web apps separate from your browser and restores them on launch, so you don’t have to do that yourself
• It lets you create starred links to favorite or frequently-used documents or files (eg. a specific Google Sheets spreadsheet) that are easy to find and reopen
• It’s dedicated just for web apps, so there are fewer distractions than using a web browser
• It automatically “sleeps” apps you’re not using, so it helps reduce computer memory and CPU use
• It collects notifications from all of your web apps in one centralized location
• It supports a huge list of web apps, with more added frequently

There are a number of “app organizers” similar to Station out there (Franz, Rambox, and Manageyum are just a few) but Station is one of the best.

Available for:
Mac, Windows, Linux

Cost:
Free

Taskade

Why it’s worthy: Taskade is a task and to-do list app with a focus on flexibility, simplicity, and ease-of-use. Its simple design hides a lot of features, including some robust collaboration tools like chat (video, audio, and text), as well as sharing and collaborating on lists.

Its flexibility allows you to create lists, outlines, and notes and share them in separate workspaces with different collaborators. Taskade’s strength is it doesn’t try to do too much, but what it does, it does with clarity and style.

Available for:
web, iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows

Cost:
Free, with premium accounts and features planned.

Be Focused

Why it’s worthy: Our next choice isn’t a service on its own, but an app that helps you focus and split up your work. Be Focused is an app that allows you to use the Pomodoro technique in your workday.

What is the Pomodoro technique? It’s a time and work management system created by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s that breaks your work into smaller, more focus intervals of time called, you guessed it, pomodoros.

Named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used in university, a pomorodo is typically 25 to 30 minutes of focused work time, followed by a short 3-5 minute break. After you’ve done four pomodoros, you take a longer break lasting 15-30 minutes.

The idea behind the technique is rather than forcing yourself to try and work for a long stretch of time, it’s easier to stay focused when you use “timeboxing” to chop work into smaller intervals. Timeboxing is when you set aside a short amount of time to work on a specific task.

By working for shorter lengths of time, you can reduce the chance you’ll get interrupted and increase the possibility of getting into flow, that mythical state of mind where the work fades away and you’re fully energized and focused.

There are many different Pomodoro apps available for almost any operating system or platform, but we’ve found Be Focused to be one of the more popular ones.

Its combination of a simple interface, powerful tools, and availability across Mac and iOS devices makes it a compelling choice.

Available for:
Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Cost:
Free, although there is a pro version that adds some extra features (and removes ads) for $4.99

Notion / Coda

Why they’re worthy: Notion and Coda are excellent examples of a new breed of apps that blur the lines between document types. They take elements of word processing, note-taking, lists and outlines, and spreadsheets and mashes them together into something new.

The concept behind both apps is the documents we create aren’t just one type of thing.

The key here is flexibility: any document you create could have elements of lists, embedded media (including video, audio, and webpages), spreadsheets, wiki-style content, and other data all together in one place.

Both apps are highly collaborative and have a bunch of features that make working on the same document across multiple people straightforward.

The apps may be similar, but they take different approaches to how they organize your content.

Notion is closely tied to the idea of documents, where the flexibility is found in the content you can include and how you can organize and link between that content.

It feels like a supercharged word processor crossed with a wiki, where you can collect many different types of content in one place and then create links and relationships between them.

Coda is similar but feels more like the evolution of spreadsheets. Many of the familiar ideas from spreadsheets are here: tables, cells, data, formulas, and organization.

The difference is Coda treats your data as the launching point for a multitude of different applications.

Its templates page showcases a variety of ways people have used Coda to create personalized apps: from simple to-do lists and tabular data to kanban boards, trip planning, and even baby-naming tools.

If there’s one thing that separates the two apps, it’s in availability: Notion is widely available across many different operating systems and platforms, whereas Coda currently only works on Google Chrome and requires a beta invitation.

Both apps are incredibly powerful, and we’ve only given a brief overview of their possibilities. Your best bet is to take a look at the way some people have used them and see which one (or both!) fits your needs.

Available for:
Notion: Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows
Coda: Web (Chrome browser only)

Cost:
Notion: Free for your first 1000 “storage blocks” with monthly subscriptions available
Coda: Free

Brain.fm has a large list of sounds and AI-generated music to help you sleep better, relax, and be more productive.

Brain.fm / Noisli / Coffitivity

Why they’re worthy: The next three apps are different than the ones we’ve already looked at. They’re not organizers or document editors or to-do lists. They’re not classic productivity tools at all.

What they do is help you become more productive by blocking out the chaos of a noisy world. They create predictable sound environments that help you focus and get into flow.

There’s scientific proof that ambient background noise can have a positive effect on productivity and creativity.

A study by Ravi Mehta at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that the ideal work environment had a little bit of background noise.

The type and level of the noise were important, as noted in the study:

Each of the groups was subjected to a different level of background noise (50 decibels, 70 decibels, 85 decibels, and total silence). When they scored each person’s test, the researchers found that those in the 70-decibel group, exposed to a moderate level of ambient noise, significantly out-performed those in the other three groups. The background noise boosted their creative thinking.

Mehta elaborated on this in an article from the New York Times, where he said that extreme quiet could sharpen your focus, which prevents you from thinking in the abstract:

This is why if you’re too focused on a problem and you’re not able to solve it…you leave it for some time and then come back to it, and you get the solution. But moderate levels can distract people just enough so that they think more broadly. It helps you think outside the box.

What do you do if you can’t find a place with the right level and quality of background noise? That’s where these apps come in.

Each one creates soundscapes designed to help you concentrate and be more creative.

Brain.fm is the most comprehensive of the three, with background sounds designed for three different goals: focus, relaxation, and sleep. It has a huge variety of sound loops and effects to listen to, including nature sounds, ambient music, and more.

Noisli has a more focused list of sounds available, designed for productivity or relaxing. It has a built-in text editor so you can write in the app while you listen to ambient sounds and also has a timer for applying the Pomodoro technique or some other time-based system.

Coffitivity is the most straightforward app of the three, and as you might have guessed from the name, it specializes in the ambient sounds of cafés and coffee shops.

The site was created by a couple of entrepreneurs after they read Mehta’s report on background noise and creativity.

“We had been in and out of coffee shops, and we were getting really good work done,” co-founder Ace Callwood told the New York Times.

One of the other co-founders noticed that when he came back to his quiet workspace, his productivity plummeted.

After his request to work from a coffee shop was turned down, he and Callwood decided to bring the coffee shop to them, and Coffitivity was born.

The site offers a selection of different cafe sounds, from “Morning Murmur” to “Brazil Bistro,” which captures “the musical chatter of a Brazillian coffeehouse.”

There is also a Mac app available for offline access.

No matter which solution you choose, based on the science and the long list of pleased customers of all three sites you should see some benefits from hacking your background noise.

Available for:
Brain.fm: web, iOS, Android
Noisli: web, iOS
Coffitivity: web, iOS, Mac

Cost:
Brain.fm: The first five sessions are free, and there are monthly, yearly, and lifetime subscriptions available
Noisli: Web is free, iOS is $1.99
Coffitivity: Free, with a $9 annual fee that gives you unlimited access

IFTTT / Zapier

Why they’re worthy: These two services are unique in that they require access to other apps to work.

Confused?

The meaning of IFTTT‘s name makes the apps’ purpose clear:

“If This, Then (do) That”.

Both apps take information from one service and use it to trigger or cause something to happen with another service.

Command-line experts refer to this process of data in and out as “piping,” and in fact, IFTTT’s name itself is a reference to a software development concept.

Both act as the glue that joins two or more separate services together. You can use them to do things like automatically update your Twitter avatar every time you change your Facebook profile photo, or turn on the lights in your smart home when you send a text message to a special number.

The possibilities of the apps are only limited to the services each one supports, and your imagination.

Of the two, IFTTT’s learning curve is much gentler, which fits its emphasis on consumer products and services.  It has a huge selection of “recipes” created by other users to choose from, and the recipe creator is clear and easy to use.

Zapier’s caters more to small businesses and business needs, and its integrations and “zaps” (what it calls its version of IFTTT’s recipes) tend to cover more work applications.

Zapier’s business and workday focus make the zaps you can create more powerful and sophisticated, but that also means getting started is a little more involved than IFTTT.

The power of both apps can’t be understated, however: by combining multiple services, the potential for time savings and productivity gains is huge.

Available for:

IFTTT: web, iOS, Android
Zapier: web

Cost:

IFTTT: Free
Zapier: Free plan available, monthly plans start from $20

HabitHub is an Android app that uses Jerry Seinfeld’s famous “don’t break the chain” habit-forming technique

Nirow / HabitHub

Why they’re worthy: When we think about habits, we often think about the bad ones: chewing the ends of pencils (or our fingernails), spending too much time on the phone, continually being late; the list goes on and on.

Picking up a bad habit is often far too easy. (I’m looking at you, coffee!)

Developing good habits, on the other hand, can be challenging.

It’s hard to change our behavior for the better, and even with our greatest effort we often fail. As sociologist Christine Whelan told the Washington Post:

The unsexy and unappealing truth is, behavior change is hard because we’re creatures of habit. To make a change in our behavior, means we’re adding something, or subtracting something, and we have to figure out what that is.

It can be even harder as a businessperson trying to juggle work/life balance, families, business deals, and the countless other things busy entrepreneurs need to keep track of.

And as many articles will tell you, the best business people work hard to develop good habits. Lots of them.

One of the best techniques for establishing a good habit came from an unexpected place: comedian Jerry Seinfeld. His process works like this:

• Choose the thing you want to do.
• Get a big calendar.
• Every day you do that thing, mark a big X on the calendar.
• Your goal is to keep filling days. As Seinfeld said, “don’t break the chain.”

We may not have the luxury of putting up big calendars all over the place, but thankfully there are apps available that make tracking habits easy.

Nirow and HabitHub are mobile apps that help you track habits that you want to establish. These can be anything from “drink more water” to “take more breaks” or “write in my gratitude journal.”

Each one uses a different tactic to help here.

HabitHub uses Seinfeld’s method to track daily habits, whereas Nirow combines a calendar approach with automatic tracking of things like location and health.

Both are beautifully designed, and make keeping track of habits easy.

Available for:

Nirow: IOS
HabitHub: Android (with iOS “coming soon”)

Cost:

Nirow: Free, with in-app purchases
HabitHub: Free, with in-app purchases

Wrapping up

The number of productivity apps out there is staggering, and the numbers keep growing. As long as there is work, there will be apps that claim to help you get more done faster with less effort.

We hope this list will help you find more time, productivity, and flow in your day-to-day work. If you’re looking for more tips on how to make more time and be more productive, check out some of our other guides:

• 5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Reclaim Your Personal Life and Improve Your Work Productivity
• 30 Apps That Turn Your Phone Into A High-Powered Mobile Office For Your Business
• 10 Best Apps For Small Business Owners

Are you ready to launch your startup or take your existing one to the next level? Our team of over 210,000 creatives is ready and waiting to handle your business’s custom logo design, web design, naming your business and more – everything you need to build a great brand. And, our outstanding customer service team is available to guide you through the whole process. Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation with one of our design experts today. Check out these case studies to read about how crowdspring’s talented creatives have helped other startups get noticed.

The post These 12 Apps Will Help Boost Your Productivity appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

“…a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare

A strong business name identifies your business, tells your customers and prospects something meaningful about your brand, and helps to differentiate your business from your competition.

But what should you do if you decide that the name you’ve been using for your business isn’t effective at accomplishing those goals?

While we strongly advise against changing your business name just because you’re in the mood for something new, there are times when it’s in your business’s best interest to take the plunge.

Here are 4 reasons to consider renaming your business… and 7 tips to help you pull it off successfully.

Why Change Your Business Name?

Changing your business name is rarely the first choice.

But, there are times when a new business name truly is the best choice.

Here are some of the most common reasons to consider a new business name…

#1 Trademark Issues

Occasionally more than one company has the same name. Or, the names are so similar that they may as well be the same.

When this occurs, there’s a good chance that one of those companies will get a cease-and-desist letter requesting that they stop using that name.

And, it’s no wonder why – your business stands to lose a lot of money if someone else operates under the same name as yours.

This is exactly what happened to entrepreneur Jacob Childrey and his established food spice company. He received a cease-and-desist letter from a much larger competitor.

Jacob leveraged crowdspring’s global community of 210,000+ creatives to create a fresh, powerful new name for his company.

You are at a big disadvantage too if another business with your name is caught up in a scandal. The resulting reputation blow will affect your business as well!

It’s important to protect your business name so that you can control the message about your brand and ensure that you’re not sharing your profits with a competitor.

To learn more about how to properly register and protect your business name, check out What Small Businesses Need to Know about Trademarks.

And, if you happen to find that you don’t have the first and only claim to your business name, it’s time to consider a new one.

#2 Your Name No Longer Reflects Your Business

Businesses grow and change over time.

Some business names are adaptable enough to survive this growth. Others are not.

If your business has outgrown its name, it may be time to think about renaming.

Nellie Akalp, entrepreneur, author, and small business expert, explains:

It’s only natural for a business to grow, evolve or change direction over the course of its lifetime. The name you hatched in the early days may no longer fit your business’ market, activities or brand personality now.

Not all changes warrant a new business name. But, some do.

• Have you recently switched to a new product or service?
• Did your business merge with another?
• Has your business philosophy or mission changed significantly?

If you answered “yes” to any of these, then it may be time to consider a new name that better reflects your brand’s current identity.

#3 Your Name is Not Unique

Your business name needs to stand out.

It needs to be unique and support your business’s overall brand identity.

Generic names like “Publishing Services” or “Professional Tax Accountants” don’t help to differentiate you from the competition. And they certainly aren’t memorable.

So, even if you deliver fantastic service, well-meaning customers may get your name wrong when asked for referrals. Or they may not remember it at all.

Your word-of-mouth marketing will suffer. And so will your web marketing.

If you are one of ten variations of the same generic business name, you will be nearly impossible for customers to find on the web. They don’t want to sift through a full page of search results to find just the right “ABC Plumbing.”

Not to mention that no one really wants to do business with a generic, lackluster company.

Your business, your brand, and your customers will all benefit if you switch to a more unique name that really embodies your brand.

#4 Your Name is Confusing/ Hard to Spell

If your business name is confusing or hard to spell, customers may not be able to find you. It’s that simple.

A business name that doesn’t make sense and confuses consumers won’t be remembered.

According to Mariano Sigman, founder of the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory of UBA, “a memory is a network of connected elements.” The human brain stores and accesses memories based on forming associations between two or more pieces of information.

So, if your business name is confusing or completely unrelated to your business, there’s a good chance that consumer’s brains won’t form the necessary connections between your business name and your business to remember the two as linked.

And if it ‘s hard to spell, they may end up finding another business and getting frustrated.

How to Rename Your Business

If it’s time to rename your business, you’ll want to be extra careful to get it just right this time around.

Changing your name requires a lot of thought and work. Not just on your part, but for your customers, too. They’ve gotten to know your old brand and now they’re being asked to unlearn all of that and start over.

So, this time around, follow these tips to name or rename your business to help ensure that your new name serves your business well for the long run. For a longer, more detailed version, also be sure to read 10 Tips for Naming Your Startup or Small Business.

#1 Start with your Brand

Your business name should be an extension and representation of your brand essence. It should embody the public identity you want your business to present.

So, start by thinking about your brand.

1. What does your business do?
2. What does your business stand for?
3. How is your business different from your competition?
4. What is your brand’s personality? (Quirky, Solemn, Formal, Playful, Aggressive, Warm)
5. What is your unique value proposition?

Take your time and give some serious thought to what your brand is now. You knew your old brand, so you may be tempted to blow through this process. Don’t.

If you’re changing your business name, enough has changed that you need to take the time to rediscover what your brand is today.

Once you’ve defined your new brand, brainstorm names that support the most important elements. If a name doesn’t relate to your brand in a meaningful way, cut it from the list.

#2 Make it Easy to Pronounce and Spell

Hopefully, this is self-explanatory.

In the age of Google and the Internet of Things, it’s vital that your business be easy to find online.

A business name that is easy to pronounce and spell will serve you well in this regard.

Margaret Wolfson, founder and chief creative officer of branding/naming agency  River + Wolf, points out:

Today, a visible digital presence is absolutely critical to the success of any business. You want people to be able to search for and find you with little effort.

Don’t make it harder to find you with an unpronounceable name or a name even Rhodes Scholars can’t spell. As in all aspects of your business, make your name easy for your customers.

#3 Avoid Too Narrow and Too Wide – Aim for The Goldilocks Zone

Choose a name that is unique, but flexible enough to allow your business room to grow.

If you followed our first tip and started with your brand, your new name candidates should be directly related to the brand identity you’re trying to project.

Review your prospective names to ensure you avoid the following traps:

• names that are linked to specific technologies likely to become outdated (remember Radio Shack?)
• names with a focus so narrow that they preclude future evolution (ie. “Just Cabinets”)
• geographical references that may make your business seem irrelevant in a broader market
• broad or generic names without personality that don’t tell consumers anything about your brand

Ideally, your new name should be specific and memorable while also being adaptable to all future business growth.

Margaret Wolfson offers this example:

…your name should be able to embrace eventual product extensions. A notable example is the company name change Steve Jobs made from Apple Computer to Apple. This gave the company room to grow into yet unimagined products like watches, iPads, iPhones and other products.

So, think your name options through with an eye to longevity. Your new name should leave room to grow.

#4 Don’t Forget to Differentiate

Do you know who your competitors are?

You should. Because they’re the companies selling to your customers.

It’s vital that your new business name help your brand stand out from those competitors. So, get to know who they are. And then choose a name that can’t be confused with theirs.

Otherwise, you’ll be back at this renaming rodeo again before you know it.

#5 Get Your Logistical Ducks In a Row

Renaming your business isn’t just a creative branding endeavor – it’s also a practical one.

Here’s a quick list of logistical chores you’ll need to complete in order to ensure that you can legally operate under your new business name and protect that business name from competitors.

• Ensure the name is available to trademark (Check the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) on the USPTO website).
• Check to see if an appropriate domain name is available. We recommend searching here.
• Register the new name with your state and/or the Federal Trademark Commission. You can read up on the basics of trademarking here and research the requirements for your state here.
• Update or amend any legal documents to reflect your new name.
• Notify the IRS of your new name.

For a more in-depth look at all of the practical steps to fully updating your business name, check out this article.

#6 Remember to Tell Your Story

Renaming your business isn’t ever just renaming – it’s also re-branding.

And, part of a successful re-branding process is figuring out the authentic brand story you want your audience to associate with your business.

Since your business name is a central element of your brand, it’s essential that you figure out how your new name relates to that brand story.

Alina Wheeler’s recently updated book “Designing Brand Identity” addresses this very issue:

Names are powerful tools, but they do not tell the whole story. A name change alone – without rethinking of all brand communications – could risk being seen as superficial.

It’s not enough to rethink all of your branding internally. You have to share it with your audience as well.

After you’ve selected your new name, decide how you’ll publicly share the brand story that supports your new name.

Whether you opt for a social media campaign, an email series to existing customers, a television or radio ad, or something else entirely, make sure your customers can see and understand the new you.

#7 Update All of Your Branding Elements

Sharing your brand story is an important piece of the renaming/rebranding process. And, in order to make it stick, you’ll need to update all of your visual branding elements. After all, a strong brand is important for your business.

This includes updating your business logo, business cards and stationery, your website, and any other visual collateral like data sheets, or marketing collateral.

Wheeler recommends in her book “Designing Brand Identity,”

Consider how new taglines, design, communications and other context-building tools should work with the new name to build a rich new story that you can own.

In other words, think holistically. Whenever you rename a business, you must make sure that name is part of a complete, authentic brand.

Every aspect of your brand will be impacted from start to finish. So, make sure to complete the transformation your name change will start throughout your brand.

Parting Thoughts

Changing your business name is a hassle. And, it can be tough on your business to rebuild relationships after a change of that magnitude.

If you can avoid it, don’t do it. But, if you find yourself facing a cease-and-desist or running a business that just doesn’t match up with the name it’s operating under, you may have to.

When you realize that a name change is in your future, gird your loins and make sure to get it right this time around.

Does your business need a new name? Our creatives at crowdspring can help. Let our team of over 210,000 creatives help you choose your business’s next name. We can also help update your logo, business cards, stationery, website and more. Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation with one of our design experts today.

The post Why and How to Rename Your Business appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

The digital marketplace changes more often than Kylie Jenner switches her hair color.

It not easy for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and marketing strategists to keep their marketing campaigns relevant and competitive.

Influencer marketing, if done right, can help your startup or small business grow your audience, improve sales, and expand brand awareness through social media.

Influencer marketing targets a smaller, more precise market for each business, thereby reducing the overconsumption and chaos of an otherwise confusing, overwhelming digital marketplace.

But for influencer marketing to succeed, there has to be a good fit between your brand and the influencer(s) that represent you.

Business owners and marketers regularly ask:

• What is influencer marketing?
• Why use influencer marketing?
• Who are the influencers in social media?
• What’s the best platform to find influencers?
• What are micro influencers?
• How do I find a good fit between my brand and an influencer?
• What’s the best software to manage influencer marketing?

We’re here to answer those questions and help you succeed with influencer marketing.

What is influencer marketing and why should you care?

Influencer marketing is the cool, indie stepsister of traditional celebrity endorsements, and serves as a hybrid of conventional marketing strategies fused with a modern-day content-driven approach.

These fresh new marketing campaigns exist as more natural collaborations between brands and those who endorse them.

Virtually anyone can be an influencer if they have the right qualities and an audience that follows them.

Your neighbor, the girl you see on the subway, your Uncle Kevin – the best influencers for your business often aren’t celebrities; they’re relatable figures who are in touch with a large audience online.

These people might be influential because they are well respected in their field, or because they have a popular fashion blog – whatever the reason, what’s important is that they have the eyes and ears of a super-targeted niche audience primed to be interested in your business’ service or product.

That’s why it’s important to find an influencer or micro-influencer who fits your brand.

How can influencer marketing benefit your business?

Here are the three clearest benefits of influencer marketing:

• You can tap into an influencer’s knowledge of a platform. Use their proven understanding of what works and what doesn’t when curating or creating content for that specific platform.
• Linking your brand to an influencer provides you valuable access to their audience, creating a direct line of contact to a valuable, targeted niche base.
• Influencers can make the best customers. Embrace them as such and gain their feedback, perspective, and review of your product.

Are the most popular influencers best?

When it comes to influencers, bigger isn’t always better.

Larger scale influencers can help brands increase their exposure and spread brand awareness.

However, if the influencer is a poor match for the brand and doesn’t fit in with their existing brand identity, people are likely to dismiss their “influence” as a blatant money grab.

If you are a small business and don’t have the budget of a larger company, consider working with a micro-influencer (people who have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers). With high engagement rates and lower fees, micro influencers are an excellent choice for businesses just starting to expand their brand’s reach.

Micro-influencers give smaller businesses another great advantage by allowing those businesses to target smaller, more unique audiences.

How do you find influencers?

When you ask brands and marketers for the best platform for influencer marketing, the vast majority of them will answer Instagram. Many surveys support this view – here’s one citing Instagram as the No. 1 platform for 92% influencers.

You would be unwise to limit yourself to Instagram alone, however. Plenty of influencers are also keeping up with their base on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

• Pinterest – Pinfluencers have been known to attract as many as 1.8 million followers,
• YouTube – Google discovered that influencers on YouTube had 3x as many views and 2x as many actions on sponsored content posts as compared to celebrity posts,
• Blogs geared toward your market – Bloggers, as a group, tend to be trusted authorities in their niche groups who can attract customers while building community, and
• Other platforms where you’re likely to find your target audience – Think Twitter, Snapchat, and common interest communities across the web. On Twitter alone, almost 40% of the users bought something because an influencer tweeted about it – that’s a very impressive figure.

What should you pay influencers?

Influencers construct their prices based on three major factors:

• The size of their following,
• Their engagement rate, and
• How in demand they are.

If they’re a popular, well-known influencer on a platform like Instagram, they are likely to receive plenty of offers to promote brands on their Instagram posts. Consequently, the price that they charge for Instagram posts is going to be much higher.

Here’s where you can score a bargain: the same influencer who might have a massive demand for their Instagram marketing posts might be less in demand on Pinterest or Facebook. That means they may charge less for working on those platforms, giving you a way to reach at least part of their market for a fraction of the price.

It’s true that you may not reach as many people on Snapchat as you could on Instagram. However, if you are paying less and getting great conversions, you’re still generating a better ROI.

To get a better sense of pricing for influencers marketing, take a look at this post from Digiday.

Courtesy of socalitybarbie

Reality check: fake followers

There has been a lot of media coverage about influencers using unethical means to bolster their follower count to look more influential than they actually are.

The New York Times had a critically acclaimed article on fake followers that focused attention on a well-known “dirty secret” of influencer marketing.

“Social media is a virtual world that is filled with half bots, half real people,” said Rami Essaid, the founder of Distil Networks, a cybersecurity company that specializes in eradicating bot networks. “You can’t take any tweet at face value. And not everything is what it seems.”

The idea that “things are not what they seem” seems even more applicable when it comes to follower counts and reach. Social sites like Twitter have made efforts to curb this by purging millions of fake and bot-driven accounts from their network, but this is (and continues to be) a thorny problem.

Make sure that the person you’re looking at has the reach they claim to have. You want to find a valued partner to work with, not throw money at a mirage.

Influencer marketing uses engagement as a metric to measure the level of interaction influencers receive with their content.

The percentage of an influencer’s audience who actively responds to their content can come in several forms:

• Post Likes/Reactions,
• Shares,
• Views, and
• Comments.

Engagement rate matters because it provides you with information about how well an influencer’s content performs on the platforms in which they are participating.

If an influencer has a high number of likes, generates valuable shares to broaden the reach of their brand, and has a steady influx of conversation in the comments section, you know you’re dealing with someone who can in turn substantially extend the reach of your brand.

When you understand the rate at which an influencer’s audience is engaging with the influencer, you can find out whether or not, and how much, that influencer can help deliver an adequate ROI (return on investment) if you work toward establishing a partnership with them.

What should you look for when searching for an influencer?

Brand

For all of its potential advantages, influencer marketing is a wasted investment if you pair yourself with an influencer who doesn’t fit your brand.

As we previously explained:

A brand is the sum total of the experience your prospects and customers have with your company. A strong brand communicates what your company does, how it does it, and at the same time, establishes trust and credibility with your prospects and customers. Your company’s brand is, in many ways, its personality. Your brand lives in everyday interactions your company has with its prospects and customers, including the images you share, the messages you post on your website, the content of your marketing materials, your presentations and booths at conferences, and your posts on social networks.

When deciding on an influencer, you need to keep in mind two critical questions: Is this influencer a good representation of your brand, and do they have a good engagement rate?

Consider how any potential influencer can best reflect a quality or aspect of your business that is a natural fit for you both.

After all, you don’t want your business name or logo associated with someone who has a questionable or negative reputation online.

An important way to evaluate fit is to consider about the influencer’s “voice” and whether that voice matches your own. Neil Waller, co-founder of Shore Projects and co-founder and CEO of Whalar offered a great analogy for how to choose a good fit for you:

At their best, influencers are like magazine publishers. If you picked up a magazine, you’d have a sense of voice and tone, what the magazine stands for, and what the magazine writes about. And with magazine publishing, that’s how you would choose whether to associate your brand with that magazine. Apply the same process to influencers.

Background

It’s essential that when you evaluate an influencer that you take into consideration the entirety of their online presence, and that includes things they’ve said or done in the past.

Doing your due diligence with a new potential influencer means spending some time looking at things they’ve posted, and getting a feel for where they came from and what kind of person they were (or persona they adopted) in the past.

What you don’t need is finding out too late (after you’ve committed to someone and tied your brand to theirs) that they made offensive or inappropriate comments years ago, or they used to be someone whose attitudes or personality clashed with your brand.

How can you validate an influencer that you’re thinking about working with?

• Ask for a media kit. They should be able to provide you with some documentation that explains their audience and the kind of engagement they see. They should be able to give you an idea of how well their posts perform and what you can expect working with them.
• Spend some time following them yourself before and after you initiate contact. You should be able to validate what they tell you with your own eyes by observing their social feeds. Look for someone who is passionate about complementary things to your brand and your services.
• Talk to them. Spend a bit of time getting to know them, ask questions, and make sure they’re someone you can see yourself working with.
• Read their comments. You can often get a good idea of someone’s posting history and their values through their comments. This isn’t always true (as comments can be a total dumpster fire), but it can be helpful. For example, reading the comments of a hugely influential Instagram account like Humans of New York shows that, for the most part, the account has encouraged and cultivated a positive environment.

Take the time to ensure the people you’re considering are who they say they are, and you’ll potentially save yourself some serious pain later.

You found an influencer. Now what?

How to get started with an influencer 

Once you have identified an influencer who would be a great fit to speak about your brand, reach out and connect with them.

There’s no shortage of ways to do this. You can:

• Reach out over social media – try tweeting at them!
• Take advantage of direct messaging available on social media.
• Email them.
• Call them.

The next part is simple. Start a conversation! Be friendly, be straightforward, be real.

Don’t beat around the bush about why you’re trying to connect – explain your goals, why you think they’re an excellent fit for your brand, and what you believe a mutually beneficial relationship might look like.

How to maintain the relationship

Just like with social media management, influencer marketing requires its own set of tools to keep things running smoothly and effectively.

It’s important to look into a variety of influencer marketing tools so that you can create workflows and processes for any marketing campaigns.

Taking care to properly manage these things will both save you time and help you measure the performance of any marketing efforts you put forward.

With so many growing platforms and influencer marketing tools available, it won’t be hard to find an influencer and manage the relationship and its workflow. Take advantage of tools like Tapinfluence and Upfluence to help you find influencers and manage subsequent workflow.

Tools like Traackr focus on what they call Influencer Relationship Management. Traackr’s major goal is to give brands it works with “lasting influence.”

The platform lends a broad ear to influencers, allowing interested brands to engage with them and their audiences. The meaningful communication encourages familiarity between the brands, influencers, and readers – which in turn grows trust, which is priceless.

NeoReach is influencer marketing software that offers an option for “Managed Campaigns.” NeoReach will design and run full campaigns for their clients, who are welcome to check on their campaign at any time by viewing their project’s dashboard. Convenient!

Make influencer marketing work for you

Influencer marketing works well if done right. But for influencer marketing to benefit your business, you have to find influencers who fit your brand.

You never know – a new influencer just might be amongst your newly curated followers!

If you need a more authentic brand that’s worth following, get yourself a fresh design that wows your customers and prospective customers. Crowdspring’s community of over 210,000 graphic, web, and product designers can help you create a brand worth engaging with – without breaking the bank. You can get started on a logo design, web design, print design, packaging design or any other design project here, or request a free design consultation with one of our design experts here.

The post Influencer Marketing: Proven Strategies To Find Influencers Who Fit Your Brand appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Have you ever looked back on something you’ve written and cringed?

You’re not alone.

Take a hard look at your work and edit with a firm hand. Here’s a terrific article by Ryan Holiday about the importance of reflection.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

With all the #apps out there desgined to boost #productivity, it can get overwhelming sometimes. @crowdspring shares their top picks. #BigDatahttps://t.co/XWH1q4Um70 pic.twitter.com/zMClbYXoNO

— Client Hub (@ClientHubApp) July 12, 2018

22 Surprising Statistics About Starting a Small Business You Need to Know https://t.co/0nXXImKNBD

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 3, 2018

3 Ways To Make Promotional Products Work in the Digital Age https://t.co/jdbIwzupIv

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 8, 2018

Our guest post in Advertising Week 360 “How to Market Effectively to Generation Z” | @advertisingweek – https://t.co/4Ys9Iv1lOZ pic.twitter.com/21Ero8XTqO

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 10, 2018

“Marketing today requires not just an understanding, but experimentation." Ross Kimbarovsky, of @crowdspring, and I discuss why most #smallbusinesses will fail in the 21st century without a comprehensive and contemporary #marketing plan. #tuesdaythoughts https://t.co/NMARpih6RT pic.twitter.com/c0mO1sQAWc

— Jim Blasingame (@JimBlasingame) July 10, 2018

Why and How to Rename Your Business | by @crowdspring https://t.co/ybJPouFPNO

— Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) July 11, 2018

Why and How to Rename Your Business | by @crowdspring https://t.co/ybJPouFPNO

— Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) July 11, 2018

Wow. Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized https://t.co/vn7LkQJTIH

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 11, 2018

The top lies of agencies:
1. We're innovators, not vendors
2. We make content, not ads
3. We're best in breed
3. Our top people will work on the account
4. We make products
5. We don't compete on price
6. We prioritize diversity
7. We're 100% transparent
9. Rebates? Never.

— Brian Morrissey (@bmorrissey) June 29, 2018

A Deeper Dive into the Dynamics of the Seed Market | by @ttunguz – https://t.co/J4krrrYFeW pic.twitter.com/r7jo84q2OE

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) June 30, 2018

How to Revive a Toxic Work Culture in 5 Steps https://t.co/jTZdstW5Fz

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 2, 2018

Your VC Needs A Billion Dollar Exit. You Do Not. – https://t.co/tBQClltDAV

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 11, 2018

5 Lessons from PillPack's Sale to Amazon | Hacker Noon – https://t.co/lvPc754ST2 pic.twitter.com/5HPbf3D7Jh

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 1, 2018

These 12 Apps Will Help Boost Your Productivity | @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/u6ifdW7OzC #productive #SmallBusiness #startups #entrepreneurs #efficiency pic.twitter.com/EckXiSDYOt

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 2, 2018

Our guest post in Young Upstarts with tips to improve your happiness and productivity … 5 Scientifically Proven Ways To Reclaim Your Personal Life And Improve Your Work Productivity | @youngupstarts – https://t.co/h9LcplqgS5 pic.twitter.com/EYexExWldf

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 5, 2018

Do startup myths terrify you and hold you back? Don't be. Understand more about entrepreneurial life based on essential facts and statistics. https://t.co/KHjrTsDrw9 https://t.co/KHjrTsDrw9

— David Perdew (@mynamsystem) July 6, 2018

Influencer Marketing: Proven Strategies To Find Influencers Who Fit Your Brand | @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/cqDrWtOlvV #InfluencerMarketing #Influencer #MarketingStrategy #marketingtips #MarketingDigital pic.twitter.com/hCNxwQqNjE

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 11, 2018

Dancing the Political Brand Equity Tango on Social Media https://t.co/7GyXf5FO11

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 5, 2018

5 Important Trends In Email Marketing You Must Understand https://t.co/rZplgk8kEo

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 1, 2018

5 Ways Your Business Can Improve Its Brand on Instagram https://t.co/vRBWXCIqBr

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 4, 2018

3 Ways To Make Promotional Products Work in the Digital Age https://t.co/jdbIwzupIv

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 8, 2018

Overcome Gen Z's shorter attention span with strong branding on your company #website https://t.co/z3MksvERhT pic.twitter.com/Z3ybVS1PdK

— Daum Weigle (@dwpr) July 9, 2018

Five Reasons Entrepreneurs Should Invest in Design Early https://t.co/kz8YRuNeZ2

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 6, 2018

Exploring the Social Impact of Graphic Design https://t.co/PYsoNs3TOu

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 11, 2018

This is useful – ratings for bicycle helmets. Not all are built alike. Look for helmets with the MIPS system — they appear to be safest. https://t.co/l2zub6BaBB

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 1, 2018

Interesting stats. Not a good trend for Gen Z. https://t.co/4FazTuYsan

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 4, 2018

Are you ready to embrace your inner entrepreneur? Learn to lead and manage your business like a pro. Download our free ebook by crowdspring CEO Ross Kimbarovsky, Stand Out: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting, Growing and Managing a Successful Business.

The post Twitter Link Roundup #340 – Terrific Reads for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, and Designers! appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Your company’s logo is the visual figurehead of your brand. It’s important to get it right.

Whether every detail of a logo is intentional or not, every detail will influence people who see that logo.

Nothing should be arbitrary.

It’s in your best interest to make sure that every logo design choice is intentional and communicates the message you want to convey.

Thoughtless design choices lead to misleading or confusing logos. Or, even worse, logos that don’t say anything at all.

Let’s take a deeper look at the psychology of logo design and how fonts, shapes, lines, colors, and composition can affect how a logo can influence purchasing decisions.

The Psychology of Fonts in Logo Design

Fonts have a psychological impact on people. The emotion generated from font choice is directly tied into the shape of the letters and our psychological response to those shapes.

When using fonts for your business, choose a font with the right “personality.” As we wrote,

Typography is an effective way to convey more than just the words involved in written communication. It showcases personality by visually representing the tenor and tone of what it is you’re talking about. You may find that your purpose is best met by using a font with a vibrant personality throughout your website or using an amalgamation of sans and serif typefaces.

Some people are familiar with Serif and Sans Serif fonts (you’ve seen them even if you don’t know how to tell them apart). They were designed to make it easier for people to read words and that makes most Serif and Sans Serif fonts a good fit for many different kinds of businesses.

How do you know which font style will work best for your business?

Are you better off with something conventional, like Arial or Helvetica? Maybe you’ll find a stronger fit with an offbeat choice like Kirsten or Papyrus (Papyrus!)

It’s clear that whatever your font choice, it should align with your customers’ expectations when they encounter your brand.

The Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University ran a study that examined the traits people associate with varying fonts.

Traditional fonts including Arial or Times New Roman were categorized as “stable” and “mature”, but were also considered “unimaginative” and “conformist.”

In contrast, “youthful” and “casual” fonts like Comic Sans were also considered “happy” and “casual.”

Fonts for a business logo, for example, should work to be traditional and clean. You need to be sure anything with your font on it – letters, emails, business cards – reinforces the message that you’re a trustworthy, credible business.

A more casual coffee shop, on the other hand, should avoid overly rigid, hyper-clean fonts. A cafe’s atmosphere is typically relaxed and comfortable, and your font choice should reflect that.

Most important, be sure that the company’s name is legible and readable. You’d be surprised how many logos we’ve seen that are unreadable.

How can you remember a business if you don’t know the name of that business?

The Psychology of Shapes in Logo Design

All logos – whether they include an icon and text, only an icon, or even just text – have a shape.

And, it’s important to consider what that shape communicates about your brand.

Shapes fall into 3 major categories – geometric, abstract/symbolic and organic. And, they all come prepackaged with their own psychological associations.

Geometric Shapes

Geometric shapes of all kinds look man-made. Mathematically precise squares, perfect circles, and isosceles triangles don’t tend to appear in nature. So, using these shapes communicates a sense of order and power.

Squares and rectangles convey stability, reliability, strength, order, and predictability. Think of the bricks that are used to build sturdy, stable buildings. If you want your logo to communicate strength and reliability, considering incorporating squares or rectangles.

This is precisely what IBM did in creating its iconic logo. Their full company name, The International Business Machines Corporation, was shortened to IBM to create a more powerful, minimalist visual brand.

Circles are never-ending. So, they may be the right choice for your logo if you want to make your consumers think of harmony, unity, eternity, or timelessness. Curves are considered to be feminine; and, as such, circles communicate softness, gentility, and femininity.

Triangles are a directional shape. As a result, they change meaning depending on how they are positioned. When right side up, triangles convey power, stability, and upward momentum. Inverted triangles suggest instability or downward momentum. And, triangles pointing to the side convey movement and direction based on where the triangle’s point is facing.

Abstract or Symbolic Shapes

Symbols are simplified shapes that represent something specific in a culture. And, because symbols have clear, common meanings, they are relied upon heavily as a visual language.

People have seen these images again and again, so it’s really important to be clever and original in how you use them. It’s easy for logos featuring symbols to appear trite and unoriginal.

Here are a few common examples of symbols:

Stars can convey patriotism, religion, or even show business and Hollywood depending on how they are used.

Hearts can be used to communicate love, relationships, and marriage; while broken hearts represent break-ups, divorce, and sadness.

Arrows suggest a direction, movement, and travel. These are commonly used in businesses that ship and deliver goods (FedEx and Amazon, anyone?)

Be very careful when using these, and other, common symbols in your logo. They may be an easy-to-understand visual shorthand, but they are also so commonly used that you run the risk of looking indistinct from your competition.

If your logo is too “on-the-nose” and unoriginal you may come across as unprofessional; which will undermine your potential customers’ faith and trust in your business.

FedEx and Amazon are examples of logos that use symbols well.

The arrow in the FedEx logo is subtle and created from negative space – it’s an unexpected surprise.

Amazon’s logo features an arrow that serves triple duty signifying a package being delivered, their range of products (from “A” to “Z”) and the recipient’s resulting smile.

Organic Shapes

Irregular, organic shapes are wide open to your creativity.

Organic shapes include the shapes of actual organic items occurring in nature (rocks, leaves, tree bark, amoeba, water ripples, etc.). This category also encompasses any irregular non-symbolic shape, even if it’s not inspired by nature.

Professor Sunday Moulton, PhD explains:

Organic shapes are defined by not being regulated by patterns or exact dimensions in their angles, curves, or lengths of lines. In fact, they are just like shapes we find in nature with all the randomness and freedom you might see in a rock formation, a tree branch, or a leaf chewed by an insect.

When utilizing organic shapes, keep these guidelines in mind:

1. Natural shapes like leaves, grasses, representations of water, and trees tend to have a soothing effect on the viewer. This is why they tend to appear in logos for spas and holistic medical businesses.
2. Shapes with jagged angles may create feelings of anxiety for your viewers, while shapes with soft curves will make them feel more relaxed.
3. Shapes that don’t resemble anything recognizable are open to the viewer’s interpretation. This means that you will need to work harder to communicate a specific message through other design elements and branding choices.

When designing a logo, be mindful of what shapes will represent the brand best. Is the brand a reliable, precise square or a wacky organic inkblot?

The Psychology of Lines in Logo Design

Lines appear everywhere.

And we usually don’t give them much thought.

Lines divide space. They create definition and form. They communicate direction. Lines tell us where to stand and where to drive.

But, beyond their practical function, they can also communicate a great deal aesthetically.

ArtyFactory, a free online learning resource for visual artists, shares:

Line is the foundation of all drawing. It is the first and most versatile of the visual elements of art. Line in an artwork can be used in many different ways. It can be used to suggest shape, pattern, form, structure, growth, depth, distance, rhythm, movement and a range of emotions.

Geometric line art logos are currently popular and among the logo design trends this year.

Let’s look at how lines can have a psychological impact in a logo design.

Thin vs Thick Lines

Thin lines are delicate and may appear fragile. They communicate elegance and femininity. They can also imply frailty, weakness or flexibility.

Alternately, thick lines suggest strength and rigidity. They appear more traditionally masculine than thin lines. Thick, bold lines are used to draw focus and create emphasis where they appear.

Straight vs Curved Lines

Straight lines imply order, structure, and predictability. They may also be perceived as rigid or harsh. Straight lines are the best option for underlining text to draw the viewer’s attention, while at the same time allowing the text to be the star.

Curved lines, on the other hand, offer more energy and dynamism. Curved lines are visibly flexible and can communicate agility and reactivity. If you’re looking to convey grace and fluidity, curved lines are a great choice.

The stronger the curve, the higher the energy the line will communicate. Softer curves are more calming to look at.

Horizontal vs Vertical vs Diagonal Lines

The position of your line in space impacts the psychological effect that the line creates.

Horizontal lines run parallel to the horizon. As a result, they contain the least visual energy of all line positions.

Unlike vertical or diagonal lines, they look as though gravity has already acted upon them and there is nowhere for them to fall. This means that horizontal is the most restful and stable line position. They feel comfortable and safe.

Horizontal lines help to emphasize width, can be used to indicate the earth or ground, or to indicate lateral movement.

Vertical lines run perpendicular to the horizon. They appear to rise straight up from the earth, filling them with the potential visual energy to tip or fall.

Vertical lines draw the eye upward. And, as such, are often used in religious iconography to draw focus upward to the heavens.

Thicker vertical lines are perceived to have more stability (and be more calming) than thin vertical lines which look more fragile and unstable.

Verticality also can be used to convey dignity or upstanding trustworthiness.

Diagonal lines can be positioned anywhere between horizontal and vertical. This makes them very expressive and the least stable of all the line positions.

The higher the top of the line, the more distance the line can fall. This translates to more potential visual energy. You will elicit more tension in your viewer the higher the angle you create from the horizon.

Diagonal lines suggest movement and action. They are more casual and playful than vertical or horizontal lines because they resist being pigeonholed in either resting position.

Smooth vs Jagged vs Irregular Lines

Smooth lines are clean, calming and restful. Depending on their context, they can convey confidence, fluidity, or ease.

Jagged and zig-zagging lines are filled with tension. These dynamic lines change direction quickly, communicate erratic movement, and irregularity. They can suggest excitement or anxiety, confusion or danger.

Irregular lines that are neither completely smooth nor jagged look hand-drawn and natural. They appear casual and can create emphasis and focus by placing additional weight in the places where you want to draw focus.

Irregular lines can convey playfulness, confidence, timidity or hesitation based on how they are drawn.

Lines are incredibly expressive tools with great potential for embodying emotion. You can combine most of the factors described above to create lines with great individuality.

When designing a logo, make sure to choose the style of line that best supports the brand the logo will represent.

The Psychology of Colors in Logo Design

Color contributes the strongest emotional trigger in your logo design repertoire.

Colors are strongly linked to emotions in the human psyche. Whether our interpretation of colors is hardwired into our brains or is due to cultural influence – or a combination of both – there is a generally accepted language of color.

As we explained in a Small Business Branding: What Color Says About Your Business:

While our perception of colors and what they mean is subjective, there are some basic qualities that we can apply generally. Here are some of those qualities:

Red. Often considered exciting, attention-grabbing, warm, and connected to love, anger, life, and comfort.

Yellow. Seen as adventurous, evoking happiness, enthusiasm, youth, and travel.

Green. Of course, this color is connected to money, but it’s also known for its connection to balance, health, sustainability, and knowledge.

Blue. The color of honesty, high quality, competence, trust, reliability, and integrity.

Pink. This color evokes love, compassion, romance, gentleness, and sophistication.

Purple. Creativity, royalty, mystery, respect, and playfulness are often connected to purple (and violet).

Brown. Brown is the color of the outdoors and can be seen as friendly, organic, natural, friendly, and rugged.

Black. This color is all about sophistication, intelligence, seriousness, and expense.

White. The antithesis of black is known for its order, innocence, purity, cleanliness, neutrality, and space.

Grey. When you need to communicate timelessness, neutrality, refinement, of the moment, or practicality, you might want to use grey.

Culture and context can also influence how a color is interpreted. Therefore, do your due diligence and research your audience so you can make the best choices based on their specific backgrounds.

It’s also important to bear in mind that how you mix your colors in a single design also has psychological implications for your viewers. For instance:

• A multitude of bright colors appears youthful, childlike, or full of energy.
• Black and white is a classically elegant combination that implies maturity and sophistication.
• Monochromatic schemes allow you to embrace more vibrant colors while maintaining a softer, more unified feel.
• Combining neutrals with an accent color allows you to take advantage of the emotional influence of a strong, bright color without the childlike implications.

Choose your colors wisely to elicit appropriate brand-appropriate emotions. Your color choices should always embody the personality of the brand.

The Psychology of Composition in Logo Design

Shapes, lines, and colors are the building blocks for a great logo design.

But, don’t forget that how you compose those elements also impacts how the logo is perceived and the message it sends.

Here are some important considerations to think through when composing a logo design:

• Size denotes importance. The larger an object is the more focus it draws and the more important it seems.
• Western audiences read from left to right. So, things appearing on the left side of the logo will be viewed first and perceived as the most important.
• Loosely spaced items surrounded by negative space look more restful than items that are closely spaced. If you choose to emphasize negative space, be careful not to leave too much or the logo may lack coherence.
• Scattered, or irregular placement suggests playfulness, chaos or rebellion; while orderly, symmetrical arrangements communicate formality, stability, and conformity.
• Layering items together creates visual relationships, so be mindful of how you combine shapes and lines.

The combinations of lines, colors, and shapes to create a logo are limited only by your imagination and creativity. For more on this, read The Business Owner’s Guide to Creating a Unique Logo.

Putting it Together

Every detail of your company’s logo will influence people who see that logo.

You can communicate a lot – and do it efficiently and effectively – if you understand your brand and make informed, thoughtful choices regarding fonts, shapes, lines, colors, and composition.

Are you ready for a new logo? The crowdspring community (over 210,000 graphic, web and product designers) has helped many entrepreneurs, small businesses, and agencies design professional, unique and memorable brand-centric logos, for a small fraction of the cost those companies and agencies would otherwise pay.

If you’re ready for the next step, engage with crowdspring’s community of over 210,000 designers who can work with you to move your company’s brand and design to the next level by creating an awesome logo design for as little as $299.

The post The Psychology of Logo Design: How Fonts, Colors, Shapes and Lines Influence Purchasing Decisions appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

We all like to acquire new things.

Every new item arrives fraught with the unspoken possibility that this thing could make your life better.

But, a new phone, snack food, lipstick, or computer is made even better when it arrives in awesome packaging.

If you sell products, invest in good packaging design (the packaging for your product) and package graphics (the graphics/content on the product packaging) to help your company succeed.

Product packaging has the power to inspire us to purchase a product and can make us feel even better about the purchase we’ve just made.

Product packaging accomplishes this by helping tell your brand story in an expanded format. Victoria Greene of BrandPackaging.com explains:

The way a product is packaged can create a dynamic, engaging story about your brand, drawing upon a multitude of features. These include the design itself, the shape and size and technical features, and the copy used on the packaging. It also extends to how it links with wider marketing campaigns… It even encompasses the materials used to create it: Is it recyclable or reusable? Vintage or contemporary? Each aspect of packaging works together to silently speak volumes about the product.

To build a strong brand, you must tell compelling brand stories. As we wrote previously:

Effective product packaging does more than merely set the stage for a product. The experience of unpacking a product is part of a customer’s experience with a brand, much like a company’s name and logo.

The need to tell compelling brand stories will grow in importance in the years to come. Millennials and Generation Z are taking on bigger and bigger roles in the marketplace. As we see in current packaging design trends, these consumers value authenticity and seek out brands striving to make a genuine connection.

Let’s take a closer look at three businesses who do a great job telling their brand story through product packaging.

Divine Chocolate: Featuring Brand Promise

Your brand story – as we’ve already mentioned – covers a lot more ground than just your company’s name, logo and tagline. And, your brand promise is a particularly integral part of your overall brand story.

Your brand promise is the commitment your business makes to its customers.

Lee Fredericksen, Managing Partner at Hinge Marketing explains:

A brand promise is an extension of a company’s positioning. If you think of positioning as the fertile ground that allows a brand to germinate, grow and thrive, the brand promise is a brand’s fruit—it’s the tangible benefit that makes a product or service desirable.

Divine Chocolate promises its customers delicious chocolate. But, that’s not all.

Divine Chocolate

Image courtesy of Divine Chocolate

You may remember Divine Chocolate and its managing director Sophi Tranchell from 11 Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World.

Divine is a UK-based chocolatier. But, they’re so much more than that.

Divine has made it their mission to “make the world a place where chocolate is cherished by everyone, including the family farmers who grow the cocoa.”

How do they do this? By putting their money and their business where their mouth is.

Divine’s chocolate is farmed by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana. The 85,000 farmers in the cooperative are co-owners in the company.

The farmers receive a share of the profits and have a voice in the business. Divine is following through on their promise in a very real way.

Their brand promise – luxurious fairtrade chocolate that you can feel good about enjoying – is an extension of this mission.

And, they’ve done an excellent job of prominently showcasing their brand promise within their larger brand story on their chocolate packaging.

The Packaging

Image courtesy of Divine Chocolate

The packaging for Divine’s chocolate bars prominently features their opulent gold script logo. This reminds customers of the high-quality and decadent chocolate experience awaiting inside.

The logo is printed in raised metallic ink, providing a tactile experience for the consumer as well as a visual one.

And, surrounding that logo is a pattern of adrinka symbols. These symbols derive from Ghanian culture – and are still embraced by the farmers of the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative.

Each symbol represents a virtue that is valued by the brand. You can learn more about them in the graphic above.

These symbols pack quite a bit of visual information in just the small amount of real estate available on the packaging. But, even if you don’t know what each symbol means, they remind consumers of the chocolate’s Ghanian roots.

And, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the color scheme, an important psychological element in product packaging. Bright colors on a rich black or smooth, chocolatey brown background. The vibrant Ghanian-inspired colors layer over the chic luxury of the neutral background to communicate the two most important elements of their brand story.

And, that’s just the outside of the wrapper. The inside of Divine’s wrappers includes copy and graphics explaining their story.

Liz Miller, Divine’s Senior Marketing Manager, explains,

Consumers love discovering that the Fairtrade cocoa in our chocolate is grown by family farmers in Ghana and that they receive 44% of Divine profits… This empowers people to become a part of our story by treating themselves and others to Divine Chocolate.

Divine has masterfully communicated their brand story to their customers in an eye-pleasing and effective package.

What You Can Learn

• Feature your logo prominently to increase brand recognition. And, make sure that your company’s logo is the best possible representation of your brand.
• Make thoughtful choices about the graphics that will best communicate your brand story. Dig deep and be selective – use the images that pack the most meaning possible while also jiving with the overall design concept and brand story.

Charlotte’s Web: Brand Perception

As much as we try to control the narrative around our brand, there is one element that we can influence, but never truly control. And, that’s our brand’s perception.

Brand perception is how your audience perceives your brand. And, it’s as much a part of your brand story as the elements you can control, like your brand promise, brand personality, and your branding style guide.

The Stanley brothers – founders of Charlotte’s Web – know this well.

Charlotte’s Web

The Stanley Brothers (Charlotte’s Web) – Image courtesy of LA Weekly

Charlotte’s Web, a manufacturer and retailer of high-quality CBD hemp oil, must walk a fine line.

Cannabis has quite a reputation in this country. Ever since President Nixon declared a war on drugs in 1971, cannabis has gotten some pretty bad PR.

But the Stanley brothers, founders of Charlotte’s Web, have worked hard to ensure that their product is “The World’s Most Trusted Hemp Extract.”

Their product is perceived as safe, legal, and of high quality. This is quite a feat considering the overwhelming stigma attached to the plant from which their product is made.

So, how do these legal sellers of medicinal hemp oils create such a positive brand perception?

They lean hard on their brand story of a dedicated family-run business and their heart-warming origins helping the real-life Charlotte become healthy enough to live like a normal kid.

And, their packaging design and package graphics help, too.

The Packaging

Image courtesy of Charlotte’s Web Hemp

Charlotte’s Web products are packaged to inspire confidence.

They use bold, but trustworthy neutral colors that create the perception of sophistication – a far cry from the red, green and yellow Rastafarian colors usually associated with cannabis.

There are no mushrooms, hookah-smoking caterpillars or Grateful Dead bears here. The minimalist design is elegant, professional and understated with clean sans serif typography and simple line art.

But look closer – they’ve also modeled their design after traditional medicinal packaging. They mention the number of milligrams of active ingredients contained in the product.  And, language like “balm,” “extract,” and “dietary supplement” create further associations with health and medicine.

In addition to that, the inclusion of the Charlotte’s Web logo and brand name links back to the fuller brand story of how their product was able to help young Charlotte – after whom the company was named.

And, finally, their branding is consistent throughout all of their products. From their hemp oil extracts to their capsules and their balms, all of the packagings shares consistent visual branding. This gives the whole line an air of professionalism and reliability.

What You Can Learn

• If your brand story is counter to popular perception, visually align your packaging design and package graphics to show the story that you do want to tell. Be careful to avoid references that might accidentally conjure the undesirable story with which you don’t want to associate.
• Consistently brand your product packaging so that consumers can get to know and trust your visual brand. Repeat interactions with your visual brand will build familiarity and confidence.

PoopBags.com: Brand Personality

Image courtesy of Packaging of the World

Every brand has a personality that is integral to who they are.

Investopedia defines brand personality as:

 …a set of human characteristics that are attributed to a brand name. A brand personality is something to which the consumer can relate; an effective brand increases its brand equity by having a consistent set of traits that a specific consumer segment enjoys.

These traits usually come from the person in charge. But, they can also be determined by the business culture.

And, if you’re aiming to create an authentic brand with a genuine brand story, it’s important that your brand personality comes from an honest source.

Enter PoopBags.com…

PoopBags.com

Image courtesy of Packaging of the World

The folks at PoopBags.com are trying to solve a problem, help the planet, and have fun doing it.

In 2003 owner Paul Canella began selling biodegradable dog waste bags and he’s never looked back.

Dogs will always poop. And bags for cleaning up dog waste are in constant demand for city-dwelling dog owners. But, no one is really excited about the topic of dog poop bags – except for Paul “Mr. Poop Bags” Canella.

He felt bad using non-biodegradable bags to collect his dog May’s waste, knowing that they were not good for our planet. So, he set out to create an Earth-friendlier biodegradable version to solve this issue.

But, even though Canella is driven by a high-minded and worthwhile purpose, he’s never lost touch with his sense of humor:

Poop Bags! When you typed some keywords into your search engine of choice, you may have laughed when you saw the link for www.poopbags.com come up. Well, when I was walking my dog in the summer of 2003, I laughed too when I first thought about the idea…

PoopBags.com has a distinct personality that shines through in their product packaging.

The Packaging

Image courtesy of Packaging of the World

PoopBags.com’s packaging design keeps things light and playful, showcasing their fun personality.

Their products come in boxes featuring a range of bright, exuberant colors juxtaposed with a neutral background. The raw cardboard color shows through beneath the cheery, saturated pastels to remind consumers of their dedication to using and creating biodegradable materials.

Their logo embraces the light and humorous personality of their brand with a gently rounded font and a cute flower to remind consumers of their eco-mindedness and provide a cheeky nod to poop’s role as a fertilizer.

They complete their brand story with a seal claiming that they have been “Saving the Earth Since 2003”. This seal features their dedication to helping the planet with their product.

PoopBags.com’s packaging unapologetically owns their role as purveyors of potty accessories and has fun with it. But, they also manage to deftly remind their audience of their enthusiasm for protecting our planet, all in one cohesive and attractive design.

What You Can Learn

• Choose colors, imagery, and fonts that reflect your brand’s personality. And don’t forget to use an appropriate voice for your packaging copy. You can communicate so much about your brand by showing instead of telling.
• Share what your brand is all about. Do you have a cause or mission that you’re passionate about? What motivates you? Feature that in your packaging design.

Wrapping Up

Product packaging offers a tangible way to help your company connect with your customers and prospects. They can see, touch, and (if appropriate) smell your packaging.

It’s rare that you’ll have this much of a customer’s attention.

So, take advantage and share through your product packaging as much of your brand story as possible.

This is your chance to help your audience really get to know you – and make a lasting positive impression

Is it time for you to re-evaluate your product packaging? Or, maybe you need packaging design or package graphics for a new product line? Let crowdspring’s team of over 210,000 designers help tell your brand story with amazing packaging design or package graphics. Click here to start your packaging design project or request a free, no obligation design consultation for a new logo, business card, or any other type of design, with one of our design experts today.

The post Telling Your Brand Story Through Packaging Design: These 3 Businesses Are Doing It Right appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

That sound you hear is George Orwell peering incredulously from his grave as he rolls over.

As science races ahead, people continue to search for ways to more deeply integrate technology into humanity. The questions this raises, both in benefits and in long-term consequences, are as fascinating as they are portentous.

Rohit Talwar, futurist and CEO of the think tank Fast Future, sees chipping (adding technology to the human body) becoming widespread very quickly – especially as companies compete with one another to stand ahead as forward-thinking and just-this-side of full-on dystopian.

Medium’s notable piece on human chipping is a terrific read on this topic. Talwar says, tellingly: “We could see a massive acceleration in this as we move into enhancing and augmenting ourselves and stepping into the world of transhumanism.”

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Why And How To Rename Your Business https://t.co/VfbSHTc2oU #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurlife #smallbusiness @crowdspring

— Jeffrey Feldberg (@JeffreyFeldberg) July 17, 2018

Start thinking of customers as long-term investments instead of one-off sales: https://t.co/oMONBoO2xj #SmallBiz #marketingtips @crowdspring

— Total Food Service (@TFS_TotalFood) July 13, 2018

6 Important Questions Every Business Should Ask Their Customers https://t.co/UFaGkyytwc

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 15, 2018

Use These Powerful Psychology Strategies to Choose Fonts For Your Business https://t.co/UN8RY01MzQ

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 16, 2018

Supercharge Your Marketing With Influencer Marketing | @advertisingweek – https://t.co/msoBbTWREC pic.twitter.com/Romb2ulHEg

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 17, 2018

The ‘Oh, Shit!’ Moment When Growth Stops – https://t.co/645yGa4a6I

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 13, 2018

9 Entrepreneurs Who Are Killing It With Their Twitter Profiles https://t.co/S9qAtUiTyW

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 15, 2018

“when people don’t receive useful negative feedback, they can’t grow. ” https://t.co/NQGC2p2Tov

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 13, 2018

Why And How To Rename Your Business https://t.co/VfbSHTc2oU #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurlife #smallbusiness @crowdspring

— Jeffrey Feldberg (@JeffreyFeldberg) July 17, 2018

5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Reclaim Your Personal Life and Improve Your Work Productivity (our guest post in @execunet ) – https://t.co/jnoAQ2fV4p pic.twitter.com/0HqCwTctyk

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 18, 2018

Telling Your Brand Story Through Packaging Design: These 3 Businesses Are Doing It Right – https://t.co/GhbH0uJXPe pic.twitter.com/ntLiAyVgjd

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 20, 2018

How to Market Effectively to Generation Z | @MsCareerGirl – https://t.co/GrjLmmjr6C (our guest post on marketing to a generation that will soon dominate purchasing). pic.twitter.com/BiuVCnTZ7K

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 19, 2018

The Psychology of Logo Design: How Fonts, Colors, Shapes and Lines Influence Purchasing Decisions | @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/exmVgKEmJo #LogoDesign #SmallBusiness #Marketing #branding #marketingtips pic.twitter.com/95FdyYgqtu

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 17, 2018

7 Smart Ways to Increase Brand Awareness for Your Business https://t.co/fUiUAI6257

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 14, 2018

Supercharge Your Marketing With Influencer Marketing | @advertisingweek – https://t.co/msoBbTWREC pic.twitter.com/Romb2ulHEg

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 17, 2018

How To Grow Your Business Through Persona-Based Marketing https://t.co/yMPRUxIx4a

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 14, 2018

Should You Change Your Business Name? | @I95Business – https://t.co/mb4hS4b9j1

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 17, 2018

Psychographics: The Key to Effective UX Design https://t.co/EO9SIrmUUG

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 18, 2018

Telling Your Brand Story Through Packaging Design: These 3 Businesses Are Doing It Right – https://t.co/GhbH0uJXPe pic.twitter.com/ntLiAyVgjd

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 20, 2018

The Psychology of Logo Design: How Fonts, Colors, Shapes and Lines Influence Purchasing Decisions | @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/exmVgKEmJo #LogoDesign #SmallBusiness #Marketing #branding #marketingtips pic.twitter.com/95FdyYgqtu

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 17, 2018

Good insights … Netflix Isn’t Being Reckless, It’s Just Playing a Game No One Else Dares (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 3) – https://t.co/QX6JvVh8Ul pic.twitter.com/bVWiTe7lY0

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 15, 2018

Terrific read and useful insights … How an Offer to Sell Wistia Inspired Us to Take On $17m in Debt – https://t.co/kmbHzroU1p pic.twitter.com/6UifXdCEYw

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 19, 2018

Are you ready to embrace your inner entrepreneur? Learn to lead and manage your business like a pro. Download our free ebook by crowdspring CEO Ross Kimbarovsky, Stand Out: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting, Growing and Managing a Successful Business.

The post Twitter Link Roundup #341 – Terrific Reads for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, and Designers! appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Most small businesses and young startups can’t afford to hire marketers.

That leaves those companies in a tough situation: they need to market to grow their business but they need to grow their business to hire marketers.

Fortunately, there are terrific services and apps that can help non-marketers to market their business until they can hire experienced marketers.

We’ve collected some of the essential marketing tools and services that can help you improve your marketing and grow your company’s revenues, even if you know little about marketing.

Search marketing

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tools available for anyone who prefers to make data-based decisions in their marketing strategies.

Ahrefs is valuable for getting an inside look at what your competitors are doing online. Its resources uncover where competitors’ traffic originates from, how competitors rank in Google Search for specific keywords, and who is linking to their website (including how many backlinks they have).

Great features like “Alerts” allow business owners to set an alert every time a website ranks for a keyword that you’re keyed into.

With “Content Explorer” you can easily explore the most shared content on the web. With filters, a substantial database of keywords and access to keywords in 170 countries, and a thorough SERP analysis, Ahrefs is a heavy hitter in providing any business with valuable data to guide a successful marketing strategy.

Cost:
Pricing ranges from $99/month up to $999/month for Ahrefs’ “agency” package.

Google Adwords

Want to use a real powerhouse tool to reach new customers and monumentally grow your business?

For many small businesses, Google AdWords is one of the most effective ways to reach new customers and grow your business.

People who use Google AdWords have two possible networks they can use to target users: the search network, and the Display network.

The search network involves pay-per-click advertising (or Paid Search). That means that marketers can bid on any keywords that are useful for their business. They also are given the opportunity to display advertising to users searching Google with those keywords.

The Display network, on the other hand, provides marketers with the option to incorporate banner ads on websites included in the Display network.

Not impressed?

The Google Display Network has a massive reach of approximately 90% of global internet users. That should provide any business with a solid shot at connecting with their market.

Although Google AdWords offers a wide range of diverse ad formats, text-based PPC ads form the core of AdWords. Writing ad text is a particularly challenging task, not least because of the space restrictions that advertisers are subjected to.

Need help writing clickable ads that lead to conversions? We have your back. Check out:

• How to Write High Performing AdWords Ads
• 7 Ways to Write Super-Effective AdWords Ads (with Real Examples)
• How to Write High Converting Landing Pages 

Cost:
Free for the tool but ads are paid.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a feature in Google Adwords. You can find it handily located in the “Tools” tab.

The tool allows you to select one or several keywords and provides concrete figures for how many times your word was searched and in which country and language.

You can also see whether the competition for those keywords is high, medium, or low and what a recommended bid for that keyword would be, making the process of choosing the right keyword for your brand straightforward and easy.

Prefer a streamlined process? Google Adwords lets its users launch campaigns directly from your research on keywords, making it a one-stop shop for keyword success.

Cost:
Free

Here are two more useful tools you should consider: SEMrush is an excellent paid tool (cheapest plan is $99.95 per month; we use it at crowdspring) that can provide detailed analytics on the top keywords used in search engine marketing by your competitors, but also which of your competitors receive the most organic search engine traffic. We also love and use tools from Moz and highly recommend them (particularly Moz Pro, which starts at $99 per month).

Email marketing

Mailchimp

Email may seem a little old-hat compared to newer, more innovative marketing options, but it’s still very useful. As marketing firm McKinsey & Company said,

E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.

When it comes to email marketing, no discussion is complete without a mention of Mailchimp. The email service is one of the most popular tools available for marketing via email.

And for a good reason: Mailchimp has features and services that make email marketing easy and accessible to all. Their “forever free” plan is just that, and it’s nothing to sniff at, allowing you to send 12,000 emails per month at absolutely zero cost.

It’s renowned for being easy to use, with a robust set of features and an extensive set of help documentation and support.

If you’re planning to use mass-email in any capacity, there are many options available, but Mailchimp is generally regarded as one of the best. It’s worth checking out.

Cost:
Free, with paid plans ranging from $10/month to $199+ for the full “pro” plan

Drip.com

Drip Marketing

Drip marketing (also known as automated email campaigns, lifecycle emails, or marketing automation) is one of the more recent uses of email to gain traction amongst marketers.

Drip marketing, according to Wikipedia, is “a communication strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. These messages often take the form of email marketing, although other media can also be used.”

If you want to start a drip marketing campaign, Drip is a natural choice. The service focuses on the email analytics and automation portion of drip marketing, making it easy to create a campaign and track how well it performs.

One of email marketing biggest challenges is making the content you send out relevant to the receiver. Vero answers that need with its suite of email marketing tools that can integrate emails with data from your website for more personalized messaging.

SendWithUs

SendWithUs also handles drip marketing but focuses on sending messages directly from your app or website using email designs created by you. It also has a translation service which makes sending email to international users much easier.

Cost:
Drip – Free, with plans from $41 – $83 per month
Vero – plans range from $99 – $1049 / month
SendWithUs – Free, plans start at $100 / month

Social marketing

Facebook Ads

Facebook still stands tall as the most extensive social network in the world, averaging 2.2 billion visits per month, which is a 13 percent increase year over year.

Facebook can help you figure out the right type of ad for your business based on which market you’re looking to target. There are a variety of ad types, including:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Conversion

At this point, Facebook is approaching notoriety for the incredible volume of data it stores on users.

The social network’s real power lies in the vast amount of information available that makes creating highly targeted ads and messaging easy.

Using Custom Audiences and you can import an existing list of user emails and then hone in on a very specific subsection of people using Facebook Audience Insights.

That makes Facebook Audience Insights a powerful tool in creating targeted ads.

If you’re interested in preparing a well thought out, intelligently executed Facebook ad campaign, this tool is an obvious must have to deliver significant ROI on your marketing efforts.

Facebook Audience Insights allows you to view the number of users you can access based on several key factors including:

• Country,
• User interests,
• Devices used,
• User behavior,
• User habits, and
• Life events.

It allows provides valuable demographic data and, in some countries, shows household income.

Want to be sure that you’re curating a complete profile of your target audience? Facebook Audience Insights even shows you other related interests your market may have and the best way to incorporate those into an effective strategy.

With over two billion active users, Facebook represents a tremendous marketing opportunity that cannot be ignored. The social network has many powerful tools that allow businesses to market to specific segments of their audience on the site. Make sure you take advantage of them for your next campaign.

Cost:
Facebook Audience Insights and Custom Audiences are free. The price of placing an ad on Facebook varies.

Hootsuite

Managing your social media presence can be a real chore, especially when you have accounts on multiple networks with simultaneous marketing and outreach campaigns at play.

This is where Hootsuite comes in. This Vancouver-based company provides a web-based interface that collects all of your social media presences into one centralized location.

Once you’ve added your accounts to the service, a plethora of powerful features become available, including post scheduling, content curation, topic tracking and monitoring, and analytics. You can also track all of your social media feeds in one place using its multi-column interface.

HootSuite also has powerful team management features that make it easy for teams to collaborate and post on social media. This makes it straightforward to have a single source of truth for your social media presence while controlling who has access and what can be done.

Cost:
Free, with plans ranging from $19 to $599 per month.

Buffer

If you’re looking for another social media management option, Buffer is worthy of your time. The service has been around about as long as Hootsuite, and although the two are often mentioned in the same breath, Buffer is different enough to stand out.

Buffer is optimized for scheduling and managing posts. It doesn’t pull all of your networks’ feeds into one location as Hootsuite does. It also has team collaboration features and post analytics. We love Buffer and use it at crowdspring.

Cost:

Free, with paid plans available from $15 to $399 per month.

The difference between the two services ultimately comes down to what you need. Because Buffer is focused more on posting and team collaboration features, it’s more streamlined and easier to use. HootSuite takes more of an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach that many will find appealing, especially if you’re looking to consolidate all of your feeds into one location.

Analytics

Google Analytics

You can’t market effectively if you don’t know your audience, and Google Analytics is one of the best (and cheapest) options available for gathering valuable metrics about your website and app’s usage and performance.

Getting started with Google Analytics can be a little daunting at first, as it has a considerable array of metrics and data available. It’s sometimes hard to figure out where to look for the information you need.

Three sections in Google Analytics generally have the most appeal for marketers: Acquisition, Audience, and Behavior.

The Acquisition section shows you how people get to your site: where they came from (known as “referrals”), what search terms they used (if they came from Google search), and much more. You can find out if they came from a social network, or if they clicked on an ad to get to your site.

The Audience section covers what you’d expect: information about the people who used your site. There’s a surprising amount of information available here, including technology (what browser or device they used), geographic info (where they live, often right down to the city), and even personal demographic data like gender, age, and interests.

Behavior looks at just that: how your users behaved while they were on your site. What links did they click on? What was the flow they took through your site? How much time did they spend on a particular page? How did they leave your site?

Using information across these three sections is a powerful way to divine valuable information about who your visitors are, what they’re interested in, and how they use your site.

Google has a number of free courses that teach you how to get the most out of Google Analytics. We recommend you start with Google Analytics for Beginners.

Cost:
Free

Facebook Analytics

It’s fitting that a site with over two billion active users and deep wells of personal data would have its own robust set of analytics tools. Facebook provides marketers with some impressively detailed reports and dashboards that show you at a glance how your brand and Facebook pages are doing on (and even off) the network.

Use Facebook Analytics to see what content resonates best with your users, where users came from to get to your content, and how widely the content was shared.

You can also see how users engaged with your content. Did they like it? Mark it as spam? Hide it from their feed? Use Facebook Analytics to post content at the optimal time for the highest engagement.

Of course, you can also access very detailed personal information about your users: demographic information like age and where they live, what language(s) they speak, and much more.

Cost:
Free

Visual marketing

If you’re a small business owner or marketer, you need to find smart ways to improve your company’s visual marketing without breaking your budget. Visual marketing is considered to be the second most important form of marketing content – second only to blogs. In fact, a Social Media Examiner report revealed that 74% of marketers use visual content in their social media marketing.

Fortunately, there are some terrific, affordable tools and services that can help you to improve your company’s visual marketing and help your company compete more effectively against established companies.

Here are two terrific visual marketing tools that can help you grow your business.

Snappa

If you’re confident with graphic design, Snappa may be the choice for you.

You can build designs from scratch with Snappa or use templates.

But be careful when using generic templates for visual design. The point of visual design is to tell unique stories. Using generic templates is the opposite of unique.

Snappa offers a library of thousands of royalty-free photos, icons, and fonts to choose from. You can also easily upload your own images, resize your own images and upload new fonts (check out Font Squirrel below!).

One of Snappa’s strengths is shareability. Snappa supports team collaboration; making it easy to share brand assets or designs. And, it integrates directly with several social media platforms, allowing you to publish your creations straight from Snappa.

Cost:

Snappa’s impressive Pro service starts at $10 per user/ per month, but you can give Snappa a test drive with their free version.

crowdspring

If you’re looking for affordable, custom, professional visual designs, you won’t go wrong with crowdspring.

Crowdsourced design platform crowdspring is an awesome resource for custom, professional graphic, web and product design at a price that fits every budget.

Over the past 10 years, crowdspring has helped tens of thousands of the world’s best entrepreneurs, small businesses, Brands, agencies, and non-profits with logo design, web design, product design, packaging design, and even naming businesses and products.

Crowdspring is perfect for business owners and people who are not designers but who demand high quality, affordable custom designs to help their businesses grow. You can get a finished design in as little as one day.

Here’s how crowdspring works:

Step 1: Select your package. With a variety of options, crowdspring’s design packages are perfect for businesses of any size, and upfront pricing means you’ll always know the cost. No hidden fees, no surprises.

Step 2: Create a project brief. Answer a few questions about your design needs in crowdspring’s simple project questionnaire. The more you share, the better the results.

Step 3: Crowdspring designers get to work creating dozens of designs.Crowdspring’s 210,000+ designers from Australia to Zimbabwe, and everywhere in between, are standing by to help you. They’ll share dozens of designs for you to review, and will tweak the designs based on your feedback.

Step 4: Pick the winning design and complete the project. When you find something you love, select it as the winner. You’ll review design proofs and make refinements. After you approve the final files, crowdspring will pay the designer and you’ll receive full intellectual property rights to the design through a custom, written legal agreement.

Cost:

Custom design and naming projects on crowdspring start at $299 (including all fees) and there’s a 100% money-back guarantee. You can request a free, no obligation design consultation if you have questions.

Even if you can’t yet afford to hire marketers for your business, you can use these services and tools to get informed, organized, and collaborate effectively and ensure that your marketing efforts pay back with a healthy return on investment.

Are you ready to take your marketing efforts to the next level? Our team of over 210,000 creatives is ready and waiting to handle your business’s design needs.  Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation with one of our design experts today. Check out these case studies to read about how crowdspring’s talented creatives have helped other startups and small businesses get noticed.

The post 16 Powerful Tools and Services to Help Non-Marketers Grow Their Business appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

There are so many ways to market your business today that it can be hard to know where to start.

Content marketing, direct mail marketing, email marketing, influencer marketing, experiential marketing, social media marketing… These are only the tip of the iceberg. The list goes on and on.

It’s not enough to market on different platforms. True success lies in integrating your marketing strategies across platforms.

As Sreerenjini Menon explains:

An integrated marketing strategy not only gives you more reach, it will help you to convey the message in a more effective way through multiple channels.

So how does one actually go about integrating marketing across platforms and channels?

Here are 7 strategies that will help you bridge the gap between your online and offline marketing efforts.

Keep Your Messaging Consistent Across All Platforms

The first (and most important) rule for creating an integrated online and offline marketing strategy is consistency.

It’s vital that your brand represents itself consistently to build consumer recognition and trust.

Consistent messaging allows customers to get to know your business and the message you’re sharing. As we wrote previously:

Customers can’t get to know (and trust) your business if they don’t have the opportunity to experience your brand in a consistent manner. Here are some compelling ways that consistent branding ban strengthen your business:

• Easy brand recognition leads to positive associations.

• Consistency provides an advantage over the competition.

• Increased perceived value leads to higher sales.

Inconsistent messaging never gets the chance to build familiarity. And, it may create confusion about your brand’s identity.

Digital Republik (digital marketing experts) has strong feelings about this topic:

…don’t say one thing on a billboard and another on your Facebook page, it will only annoy a customer. If someone sees that your company is giving him a 15% discount on website purchases on a nearby billboard but a 10% discount on the Facebook page, he is likely going to be a bit turned off. Whether it’s pricing or brand messaging- consistency is key!

Customers want an experience that they can depend on.

This means offering the same promotions across multiple channels.

It also means using consistent branding, including your business name, company’s logo, colors, and language so that they can recognize your business regardless of the platform they happen to find you on.

You’d be surprised how many companies have a business name that differs from their website, or multiple variations of a logo that are inconsistent and unrecognizable across marketing channels.

The easiest way to blend your online and offline marketing is to be consistent across all of your platforms.

Engage in Teaser Advertising

Curiosity is a powerful emotion.

People enjoy the experience of being intrigued in entertaining ways. The movie industry has capitalized on this truth for years.

Is it possible to remain ignorant when a new teaser trailer drops for an anticipated film in the Avengers franchise? Not in my world.

People want to be in the know. And teaser campaigns take advantage of this.

Techywise’s Menon describes a teaser campaign as “…a series of small advertisements that invoke curiosity in the audience.”

The most obvious path for a teaser campaign is offline to online. You drop the teaser offline and then direct your audience to your website… Or better yet, a landing page specific to the campaign.

Menon explains:

When you advertise on any form of offline media, the information that you can convey is limited by time and space. It will help you get consumer attention but you might fail to convey the overall picture of the campaign clearly to the customers.

It’s easier to share larger quantities of information online where a consumer can peruse it on their own time. In cases like that, it’s best to tease offline and direct consumers online.

But, it’s possible to tease an offline campaign online as well.

Are you planning an event? Tease your event online through your social media channels or an exclusive email campaign to motivate customers to attend.

Are you offering a special flash sale? Tease that online so that shoppers are primed to jump into action when the opportunity presents itself.

Be creative and you’ll find all sorts of ways to use curiosity to drive your consumers from one platform to the next.

Reincarnate Your Content Marketing

Are you investing the time and effort to create valuable content for your consumers?

If so, don’t just pop it on your blog and forget about it.

You can amplify and integrate your online and offline efforts by recycling your content on multiple platforms. That’s how you can create content marketing unicorns.

Did you write a popular blog post that racked up clicks? Then help that content live on!

Create an infographic for Facebook. Or, post a short quote on Twitter with a link to the full article.

And, don’t stop with online platforms. Pitch your awesome content to print publications that your audience is likely to read. Or even plan a class that consumers can attend to study that content in more depth.

You’re already investing the time and effort to develop content. So, maximize your return on that investment.

Spread access to your valuable content online and off, and you’ll build trust and recognition as an expert in your field.

Get Personal in Your Customers’ Mailboxes

Everyone likes to feel special, right?

Personalized URLs can help you create trackable, customized interactions with your customers.

They can also help to integrate your online and offline marketing efforts.

If you’re not familiar with PURLs, Marty Thomas, founder of PURLEM, explains:

A personalized URL (PURL) is a unique and personalized Landing Page created especially for each recipient of your direct mail or email marketing campaign.

As you may imagine, a targeted and personalized landing page has a far greater chance of success than throwing one message out and hoping that it appeals to everyone.

So, how to integrate this strategy with your offline efforts? Share the links for those PURLs via direct mail.

I’ve heard the rumors and you probably have, too. Those rumors that claim direct mail marketing is dead.

But, direct mail marketing is still thriving. Steven Pulcinella, Director of Digital Marketing for ProspectsPLUS, writes:

However, it’s [direct mail marketing] not just alive and well, but in fact, direct mail could be considered superior to other marketing channels based on recent statistics and studies.

If you’re looking to integrate your online and offline marketing, reaching out via direct mail printed with PURLs for the recipients is a fantastic blend of old and new marketing techniques.

Just make sure to hire a printer with variable data printing capabilities. Without variable data printing, those PURLS become plain old URLS and the customization is lost.

Bring Offline Events Online

Queen Elizabeth II’s televised coronation circa 1953. Image courtesy of Royal.UK

Accessibility and authenticity are becoming more and more important as Millennials and Generation Z gain power in the marketplace.

These generations are seeking authentic interactions with the brands they patronize.

So, create offline marketing events that consumers will truly want to experience.

Are you holding a launch party for a new product? Maybe it’s time for your semi-annual sale. Perhaps you’re planning a series of seminars. Or, you’re holding a fundraising event for a local charity.

These offline events can reach a greater audience if you bring them online as well.

You can announce and advertise your event online to your local social media followers. You can send email invitations to local customers from your mailing list.

But, don’t stop there. Get creative.

Livestream your event and give people a reason to tune in. Offer rewards or discounts to customers who watch online and comment on social media.

Share real-time photos from the event on Instagram and Facebook. Live-tweet the action on Twitter with witty (and brief) commentary.

If your event features education content, you can charge for offsite viewers to tune in to the webinar. And, then market that webinar as a stand-alone product after the actual event.

There are so many creative ways to bring your offline event online. So, don’t miss out on this opportunity to exponentially grow your event’s impact.

Build a Mobile App

If you’re really dedicated to creating a seamless online-offline experience for your customers, consider building a mobile app. ThriveHive’s Kristen McCormick explains:

…across audiences and industries today, people all share one behavior in common: That of bringing their online devices with them to all of the offline places they go, and sharing all of their offline experiences online.

The advent of the smartphone completely changed the world forever. This includes how your customers interact with your business.

• Customers can bring online coupons to the store on their phones – no need to print!
• Consumers can look your business up while they’re out running errands and Google maps will guide them to your door.
• Your guests can take pictures of their in-store experiences and share them on social media.
• Your customers can read online reviews and leave one of their own without breaking stride.

The smartphone is a powerful tool for marketing. And, if you want to make the most of that tool, you should build an app designed specifically for that medium.

While it’s true that customers can open up your coupon from their email or look up an offer on your website, those aren’t the most elegant solutions.

Consumers today value convenience and ease of use. And, it’s easier and more convenient if they can access everything they might need from your business in one well-designed mobile app.

A mobile app can…

• Provide exclusive offers for app users, as well as compiling all non-exclusive offers in one easy-to-find spot.
• Allow consumers to leave reviews for your product or service right through your app.
• Include a store locator with synced GPS directions so your customers can find you easily when they’re on the move.
• Invite users to engage with your social media platforms directly from your app.
• You can even gamify the app, providing rewards to customers for completing certain offline actions and tracking with hashtags or QR codes.

Use this fantastic mobile tool to bridge your online and offline marketing endeavors as consumers carry it with them wherever they go.

K.I.S.S.

Image courtesy of Retail Next

Looking for low-tech ways to promote your online marketing offline?

Keep it Simple Stupid.

Use your physical marketing collateral and store/office space to direct guests to your online efforts.

If you have a brick and mortar shop or office, use signage to refer your guests to your online platforms of choice (website, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn)

Have an undecided shopper? Give them a flyer to an online discount to take with them when they leave.

Include your website and Twitter handle on your business cards. Print your landing page URL on physical coupons.

Verbally ask satisfied clients or customers to leave a positive review for you on Google.

Integrating your online and offline marketing doesn’t have to be hard. But, it does need to be consistent. Make it easy for your consumers to find you online by sharing your website and social media prominently in-store and on all of your marketing collateral.

Before You Click Away

Integrating your marketing across multiple channels can seem very daunting when there are so many channels to cover.

But, don’t panic.

While there are seemingly a million different marketing platforms and strategies, you don’t have to cover them all.

The key is to strategize and prioritize the marketing channels that are most valuable to your business. And those are the channels where your actual customers are.

Everyone should aim to keep their marketing consistent across all channels. But, beyond that, it’s up to you to decide where your marketing efforts are best spent.

Just remember that an integrated marketing strategy that reinforces your messaging and drives consumers to engage and convert both online and off will serve your business best.

It’s time to integrate your marketing strategy. Let crowdspring help. Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation for a new custom logo, landing page design, infographic design, business card design, package graphics, or any other type of design, with one of our design experts today.

The post 7 Ways to Amplify Your Marketing With an Integrated Online and Offline Strategy appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Have you ever wondered what separates those who just get by from those who are truly successful?

Luck may play a small role, but until someone figures out how to package and sell good fortune, there must be other secrets to success.

Ask any successful person how they did it, and chances are you’ll hear a combination of luck, network connections, and hard work.

But nearly all successful people also rely on specific routines and rituals. These routines and rituals may hold an important clue to why some people succeed while others fail.

Routines build great habits and help people succeed.

A great example is famed investor Warren Buffett, who has shown himself to be a creature of habit and routine.

In addition to his daily morning breakfast (which is always picks up from a McDonald’s on the way to his office and buys with exact change), Buffett has one other routine to which he credits much of his success. Here’s how Buffet explains it:

“Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.

Another example of a highly successful person using routines to their advantage is dance choreographer Twyla Tharp. She talked about the power of routines in her book The Creative Habit:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Are you asking yourself:

• What are the habits of success?
• What should your morning routine be?
• How should you start your day?
• How do you become a successful person?
• Why is it important to have habits?

If you’re wondering about these questions, you’re on the right track and we can help.

Let’s look at tips and strategies to help you integrate daily routines into your life. After all, if you’re chasing success, you want to do everything reasonably possible to achieve it, don’t you?

How to establish routines

Creating a routine and doing it every day turns it into a habit.

Once your routine becomes a habit, it’s more effortless to maintain. An established routine is so ingrained that you end up doing it on autopilot; the effort to remember to do it falls away.

One essential step is to think about what you want to add to your daily routine. Each day can be roughly divided up into three distinct phases: morning, daytime, and night. Certain routines work best at specific phases.

For example, if you want to exercise more, you may want to do this at a specific time of day where it gives you the most effect. You’ll need to carve out time to exercise, and make sure you’re prepared in the time leading up to then: drinking water, for example, or making sure your gym clothes are clean and packed.

Twitter and Medium founder Evan Williams exercises every day, but he does it closer to noon instead of in the morning like most people. Williams elaborated on why he chose this time on coach.me:

I used to go to the gym first thing in the morning. Exercise is, of course, great for energy levels and I believe it makes me more productive no matter what. But energy and focus naturally ebb and flow throughout the day.

My focus is usually great first thing in the morning, so going to the gym first is a trade off of very productive time. Instead, I’ve started going mid-morning or late afternoon (especially on days I work late). It feels weird (at first) to leave the office in the middle of the day, but total time spent is nearly the same with higher energy and focus across the board.

Here are some ideas for how you could split up your day and schedule your routines.

Morning

The morning is the start of a new day, and how you kick off the day can affect the rest of your day.

Many famous entrepreneurs and business owners swear by an early start.

Apple CEO Tim Cook famously starts his day at the ungodly hour of 3:45 am. Many others get going around 4 am.

That many people start their day at 4 am is no coincidence. A report in the Wall Street Journal said that 4 am may be the most productive time of the day.

“When you have peace and quiet and you’re not concerned with people trying to get your attention, you’re dramatically more effective and can get important work done, so they have that part right,” says psychologist Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute. “By waking up at 4 a.m., they’ve essentially wiped a lot of those distractions off their plate. No one is expecting you to email or answer the phone at 4 a.m. No one will be posting on Facebook. You’ve removed the internal temptation and the external temptation.”

As mentioned earlier, many people exercise in morning.

Here are a few other things you should consider adding to your morning routine include:

• Make your bed (Here are six reasons why),
• Meditate (here’s why),
• Drink a glass of water,
• Write in your journal (we’ll discuss why below), and
• Organize your day’s to-dos.

Daytime

The daytime is when most of us get the bulk of our work done.

Staying productive throughout the day (especially close to the dreaded 3pm slump) can be a challenge.

Here’s what you can add to your daytime routine to help maintain your workflow:

• Take regular breaks (consider adopting a time management method like the pomodoro technique) ,
• Start tracking how you use your time. Apps like RescueTime can help you figure out where you spend most of your time,
• Corral distractions: block off time every day where you do nothing but work. Turn off notifications and don’t take meetings during this time,
• Go for a walk to clear your head, and
• Stay hydrated: use apps like Plant Nanny or WaterMinder to make sure you’re drinking enough water.

Make your evenings quiet and relaxing to allow yourself time to decompress.

Evening

The end of the day for some people is just another time to get work done.

While this may work for you, it’s worth considering a change to your evening routine.

Famed composer Beethoven understood the power of a quiet, work-free evening. He rarely wrote music in the evenings, choosing instead to take long walks and reading or visiting with friends.

Psychiatrist Carl Jung sought out the company of his family at dinner time. “I’ve realized that somebody who’s tired and needs a rest, and goes on working all the same, is a fool,” he said.

The evening is also an excellent time to reflect on the day and think about what went right, wrong, or just plain weird. Use the evening to wind down from work and carve out self-care time for you to pursue other interests or company.

Whatever you end up choosing, think about how it will help (or hinder) you the next day. Some people may love exercising at night, but if it ends up keeping you awake afterward, you may need to reevaluate.

Theming and Singletasking

Jack Dorsey is possibly one of the busiest founders today, working as CEO for Twitter and Square, two prominent companies.

How does Dorsey juggle the responsibilities of two companies? He gives each day of the week a theme.

The way I found that works for me is I theme my days. On Monday, at both companies, I focus on management and running the company…Tuesday is focused on product. Wednesday is focused on marketing and communications and growth. Thursday is focused on developers and partnerships. Friday is focused on the company and the culture and recruiting. Saturday I take off, I hike. Sunday is reflection, feedback, strategy, and getting ready for the week.

While most of us aren’t in Dorsey’s position running two large companies, the idea of breaking up your time into themes can still work for us, too.

One way of implementing this is to think about single-tasking.

Many studies, including this famous one from Stanford, have shown that attempting to do more than one task at the same time is not only inefficient, it can adversely affect your ability to make right decisions.

The example to the right shows how one company manages time. Email is only checked three times a day, with each day dedicated to completing a maximum of one to three tasks. “Maximize single-tasking,” it says, and “minimize chat.”

Theming your days, and incorporating single-tasking into your routine can help you turn a disorganized, hectic day into a much more streamlined and effective one.

Journaling

Another powerful tool you can add to your daily routine is journaling.

Many successful entrepreneurs have discovered the power of the journal, and use it to write down their experiences, reflections, and ideas before they get lost in the bustle of a busy week.

Writing about your day is an excellent way to clear your head, reduce stress, track your progress toward goals, and incorporate gratitude as a way of improving your mood.

Journaling can be as simple as keeping a daily log, but there are also many different ways you can structure your journals to get the most out of them.

One very popular method is the five-minute journal.

It has a simple structure: at the beginning of the day you write for roughly five minutes about what you’re grateful for, what would make the day great, and an affirmation to start things off on a positive note.

That evening you write down three awesome things that happened that day, and one thing you could have improved, and how you could have done it.

Another popular system is the Bullet Journal. It’s different than the five-minute journal in that it’s less about capturing what happened in the day and more about organizing what’s to come.

No matter which system you adopt, the act of writing is a compelling thing to add to your daily rituals. Make journaling a part of your routine and chances are you’ll notice benefits that spread throughout the day.

Habit tracking

If there’s one word that goes hand-in-hand with routines, it’s habits. After all, a routine is nothing more than a habit you repeat on a daily basis.

What’s the best way to establish a habit? We wrote about this in our look at productivity apps:

One of the best techniques for establishing a good habit came from an unexpected place: comedian Jerry Seinfeld. His process works like this

• Choose the thing you want to do.
• Get a big calendar.
• Every day you do that thing, mark a big X on the calendar.
• Your goal is to keep filling days. As Seinfeld said, “don’t break the chain.”

There are a number of apps that help you track your habit-building progress and we mention some of those in that article. A couple of others worth looking into include:

Momentum Habit Tracker
Available for iOS
Free, with in-app purchases

Habit-bull
Available for iOS and Android
Free, with in-app purchases

Habitica
Available for iOS and Android
Free, with in-app purchases

Wrapping up

In 1892 William James gave a lecture about the power of personal automation, routines, and habits.

The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

The word “routine” is funny in a way because it tends to bring to mind something dull and repetitive.

Routine may be repetitive. However, it can also be a potent agent of change for people looking to improve their productivity, mental agility, and creativity.

Adding something to your daily routine doesn’t need to be a massive shift in how you approach your day. It can be a small, seemingly insignificant act that, repeatedly done over time, can create substantial positive change.

Are you ready to make success part of your daily routine and take your startup or small business to the next level? Our team of over 210,000 creatives is ready to help you with custom logo design, web design, naming your business and more – everything you need to build a great brand. Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation with one of our design experts today. 

The post How Routines and Habits Can Empower Wildly Successful People appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Not all social media marketing is created equal. Some strategies and tactics are better than others.

And, some strategies might be great – but are entirely the wrong fit for your business.

So, if your social media marketing isn’t living up to expectations what can you do?

There is no one answer for every small business. But, it never hurts to take a step back and examine what you’re doing now.

What’s working and what isn’t? And, more importantly – why?

Once you know, move forward guided by your fresh perspective. And, do it with intention by developing a strategy based on what you know about your business and your unique customers.

Consider these 7 proven ways that will help you rise above the social media noise and better engage your audience on social networks.

1. Get Your Timing Right

Successful social media engagement relies on many factors. You need to set the right tone, communicate the right content on the right platform at the right time.

Imagine if you showed up for your friend’s bridal shower at 3 am instead of 3 pm. You’re probably not going to have a successful social interaction. That artfully constructed cake made out of diapers you brought isn’t bringing anyone joy at 3 am.

The same is true for your social media efforts.

If you’re posting when no one is looking, it doesn’t matter how good your content is. No one will see it.

So, figure out your business’s “Goldilocks” time to post (when the most eyes will see your content).

Many studies purport to tell you the conventional wisdom about the best times to post. But, don’t rely on those studies exclusively. Alfred Lua from Buffer, explains:

They can serve as a great starting point, especially if they suggest plausible explanations for those best times to post. For example, if you are working on an entirely new social media profile and do not have any data of your own to work with, some studies can come in handy. But they are not a copy-and-paste blueprint for success.

Lua recommends doing as much original research with your social media audience as possible. He suggests creating a consistent posting schedule and gathering 3-4 weeks worth of engagement data to see which time slots perform the strongest.

Your Takeaway:

If your social media content is playing to an empty house, test to see what times you should be posting. You may be failing because you’re posting at times when nobody is looking.

2. Post on the Right Platforms

Not all social media platforms are created equal.

And, the best social media platform for your neighbor’s business might not be the best platform for yours.

This might mean giving Facebook a pass. Or skipping Twitter. Who knows?!

Well… truthfully, you should. And, if you don’t know, it’s time to find out.

Start by considering your goals. What do you hope to accomplish with your social media presence and how will you measure success?

Are you looking to build a loyal brand following? Or are you hoping to drive online sales? Or, maybe you’re trying to reach a brand new audience?

Your business goals will help to determine what platforms will be the best fit for you.

Here are some of the most popular social media platforms you might want to consider:

• Facebook- allows you to post longer text-based content as well as infographics, gifs, photos, and video.
• Twitter – short text posts (280 characters or less) and images, gifs and video.
• Instagram – a mobile platform for sharing photos and videos, and Instagram Stories.
• Linkedin – a networking website for professionals, can post written articles, infographics and video.
• Pinterest – a photo-based SM network used to research and organize images that often link to link to longer content.

Which social media platforms will deliver the best return on your investment?

Consider the kind of stories you will want to share and, what content you will use to tell those stories. Then, find out where your audience spends their social media time.

That’s where you need to be.

After all, marketing to the social media generation is quite different than what companies did in the past.

For instance, an interior design firm may find more success on photo-centric platforms like Instagram and Pinterest than on Facebook. New home-owners, or those looking to remodel their current home, frequently troll Pinterest and follow designers on Instagram for design ideas.

And remember to leverage influencers and micro-influencers to extend your reach on social networks.

Your Takeaway:

Finding the right platform relies on knowing where your potential customers spend their time and what you want to share with them.

3. Be Present

It’s not enough to have a social media account.

It’s not even enough to have a social media account that posts regularly (although that is very important).

You need to be present and available to interact.

This means that you need to respond to social media comments. When complaints inevitably appear in your post comments instead of in your customer support channels, answer them.

If you want social media engagement (particularly positive social media engagement) you have to engage back.

Nike has their very own customer support profile on Twitter (@NikeSupport) that they use to solve customer issues separately from their regular @Nike Twitter handle.

Your Takeaway:

Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. If your customers reach out via social media, engage them there.

4. Create Content That Invites Engagement

This may sound obvious – and it should be! But, sometimes the obvious needs to be stated…

If you want people to engage with your content, your content must invite engagement.

Questions invite engagement. Games invite engagement. Unique and novel topics invite engagement. Strong points of view and pictures of adorable bunnies and babies wearing sunglasses invite engagement. Video marketing invites engagement.

You get the idea.

When crafting your content, make sure that you’re offering your audience a true invitation to engage.

Sure, you could say “Check out our great new article about plastic widgets!”, but you’ll get a stronger response if you post, “What do you think of these crazy new plastic widgets we’ve made?” Include a picture of the aforementioned crazy plastic widgets and link that pic to your new article and you’re off to the races.

John Rampton, entrepreneur and marketer, advocates for high-engagement techniques like game posts, giveaways or contests.

What’s great about these tactics is that it boosts engagement on the social media platform of your choice because people usually like receiving a prize of recognition.

The promise of that recognition can be a strong motivator. Everyone likes to feel heard.

Benefit Cosmetics does a great job of asking questions and “quizzing” their audience as you can see above.

And remember to keep your branding consistent and sharp across your social media efforts. That means ensuring that your company’s logo is crisp, readable and visible on the content you share, using complementary colors that reflect your brand, and speaking in a consistent voice across channels.

Your Takeaway:

Regularly post content that directly invites engagement. End your posts with a question, hold a contest, or share an amazing eye-catching visual.

5. Post Visually Attractive Content

People (including your social media followers) tend to like things that look pretty.

Want proof?

Smartphone addicts are encouraged to turn the color off on their phones. Simply making their phone look less appealing makes it less fun to engage with.

And, according to this content preferences report,

...91% of consumers now prefer interactive and visual content over traditional, text-based or static media.

If you want strong engagement, post visually-appealing content that catches the eye.

The internet is a primarily visual platform. If you want your content to compete with all of the other posts and content vying for your audience’s attention, it’s got to look polished, professional, and aesthetically pleasing. And you’re going to need a lot of it.

For tools to help you create your visual content, click here for our previous article: 12 Awesome Visual Marketing Tools That Will Help Grow Your Small Business.

Your Takeaway:

Regularly post eye-candy for your audience and they’ll be more inclined to pay attention, enjoy your content and engage.

6. Develop a Voice Worth Engaging With

When you’re conducting business, you should behave professionally.

Obviously.

But, what isn’t obvious is why some businesses equate professional with boring.

Social media should be social. Formal, stilted, corporate communication will not endear you to anyone. And, it certainly won’t motivate viewers to engage with your business.

So, develop a voice (consistent with your brand) that is worth engaging with!

Internet marketing expert John Rampton reminds us:

Your followers and audience want to see that there’s actually a person or people behind the logo.

And, they want to spend their social media time interacting with people and brands with whom they can connect and have fun.

So, be that brand with whom they can connect and have fun.  Reveal authentic, interesting details about your employees. Write in a conversational tone. Be witty. You know… use your social skills.

Your Takeaway:

Develop an authentic, social voice that is consistent with your brand. Keep that voice the same throughout all of your posts and your audience will begin to know and trust you.

7. Monitor Your Social Media Engagement to Make Informed Decisions

We can make all of the blanket suggestions that we want. But, the truth is that every business is unique. And, the technique that works like gangbusters for one business may be a total flop for another.

So, the most valuable tactic that we can offer you is to monitor the results of your social media marketing efforts.

Track your social media engagement and sift through the data to find what works best for your business.

When is your best time to post? What type of content gets the strongest response? And, what platforms deliver the best ROI?

You can only answer these questions if you track your social media activity and results.

Rampton recommends a number of free social media monitoring tools worth checking out here.

Your Takeaway:

Track and monitor your social media engagement data. Then use that data to target the times, platforms, and types of content that perform best for you.

Your Quick Guide to Social Media Engagement Tactics

Let’s recap. Here are 7 proven ways that will help you rise above the social media noise and better engage your audience on social networks:

1. Test to see what times you should be posting. Then post at those times.
2. Find your best SM platforms by getting to know your audience’s social media preferences and determining what and how you want to share.
3. Be present and engage with your audience on social media when and where they want to engage with you.
4. Post content that directly invites engagement like questions, contests or quizzes.
5. Prioritize posting content that is visually appealing.
6. Develop a fun, authentic, relatable brand voice for your social media posts.
7. Track and monitor your social media data to target your business’s best social media platforms, content strategies, and posting schedule.

If your social media marketing efforts aren’t taking off the way you’d hoped they would, it’s time to take a different approach.

Need help developing an awesome social media presence? Let crowdspring’s community of over 210,000 creatives help you develop content worth engaging with – without breaking the bank. You can get started on a social media assets project, infographic project or any other design project here, or request a free design consultation with one of our design experts.

The post 7 Proven Ways to Increase Customer Engagement on Social Media appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Hiring and onboarding employees are both challenging for a high-growth company.

For example, employee onboarding can make or break the success of a new hire. Without solid guidelines and a structured process, otherwise gifted hires can drown in a chaotic introduction to their new jobs.

But when a company is growing quickly, it’s not easy to create guidelines and change processes. Yet this is the precise time you should be making the necessary changes to be sure that the new people you hire don’t destroy your company’s culture or your business.

Here’s a good read on hiring and recruiting efficiently and effectively.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Good insights. Everything I Know About Business I Learned from Netflix https://t.co/j586D7iGRn pic.twitter.com/gdobXzTM5D

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 21, 2018

16 Powerful Tools and Services to Help Non-Marketers Grow Their Business | @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/UDjEGLpuL5 #SmallBusiness #Marketing #marketingtips pic.twitter.com/z8vSftNSnL

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 24, 2018

If your social media marketing isn’t living up to expectations what can you do? Here are
7 Proven Ways to Increase Customer Engagement on Social Media | @crowdspring Blog https://t.co/SjYoGskx3c #Marketing #marketingtips #SmallBusiness #socialmedia pic.twitter.com/5PpkPTl7kl

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 1, 2018

7 Simple Rules To Help You Get a Great Design For Your Business https://t.co/RNtbJaVe50

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 20, 2018

Telling Your Brand Story Through Packaging Design: These 3 Businesses Are Doing It Right – https://t.co/PfnwbIXt1B pic.twitter.com/EdXRgZz9B3

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 21, 2018

16 Powerful Tools and Services to Help Non-Marketers Grow Their Business | @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/UDjEGLpuL5 #SmallBusiness #Marketing #marketingtips pic.twitter.com/z8vSftNSnL

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 24, 2018

5 Best Canadian Cities For Startups and Entrepreneurs https://t.co/I7UHHZUnVA

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 21, 2018

LOTS of terrific insights … My Lessons from Interviewing 400+ Engineers Over Three Startups https://t.co/kLgrsr8g5n

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 24, 2018

Good and useful insights … 4 essential questions to ask before you prioritize product ideas https://t.co/jRlkgjHukt pic.twitter.com/FlwdpAeyiE

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 26, 2018

Find out how routines and habits empower wildly successful people, and what you can do to replicate that success: https://t.co/jQf1zx2P5o via @crowdspring #habits #routines #mindset pic.twitter.com/qfFPTWSIR4

— Dr. Friedemann Schaub (@drschaubf) August 2, 2018

Colors Resonate With Consumers on a Subconscious Level. Here's How Brands Can Leverage This in Strategies – https://t.co/SSZaaNt6uA (my guest post in @adweek)

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 30, 2018

Struggling to Generate Good Content? Go Full On Club Kid https://t.co/AWOXqtB7FU

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 24, 2018

What Trends in Email Marketing Mean For Your Strategy https://t.co/2dMasaoW1A pic.twitter.com/EH9YaiSh9L

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 25, 2018

7 Ways to Amplify Your Marketing With an Integrated Online and Offline Strategy – @crowdspring Blog – https://t.co/lnZ1u0iY6H #SmallBusiness #marketingtips #marketingstrategy #marketing pic.twitter.com/FTDHRP3FEH

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 26, 2018

If your social media marketing isn’t living up to expectations what can you do? Here are
7 Proven Ways to Increase Customer Engagement on Social Media | @crowdspring Blog https://t.co/SjYoGskx3c #Marketing #marketingtips #SmallBusiness #socialmedia pic.twitter.com/5PpkPTl7kl

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 1, 2018

The 3-Step Startup Marketing Framework We Created to Grow KISSmetrics https://t.co/zUhAVufbFZ

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 29, 2018

Telling Your Brand Story Through Packaging Design: These 3 Businesses Are Doing It Right – https://t.co/PfnwbIXt1B pic.twitter.com/EdXRgZz9B3

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 21, 2018

Smart design. https://t.co/gnv01Ofnd1

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 24, 2018

5 Things To Do Differently About Your Product’s UX | UX Planet – https://t.co/W0OwyX21UB

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 29, 2018

Why A Good Logo Is Essential To Your Business https://t.co/3mfnAWsff7 pic.twitter.com/R6NMJx7euj

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 26, 2018

Famous Logos And What Your Business Can Learn From Them https://t.co/FIVfJLdajp pic.twitter.com/ahCGv5cxTg

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) July 28, 2018

While @elonmusk is in the headlines for many reasons these days, this particular chart probably doesn’t get enough attention. 10 years after founding, SpaceX had ~0% market share. 16 years: >50%. pic.twitter.com/uBMEj2Y9P6

— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) July 20, 2018

Old-school trolling from 1930 pic.twitter.com/1stndyHdLT

— Weird History (@WeirdHistoryPix) July 20, 2018

Terrific post by @jasonfried with lots of details about how Basecamp makes its open office floorplan work for their team. They have a beautiful, smart office … Library Rules: How to make an open office plan work https://t.co/q0BgeAbSpy

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 26, 2018

Here’s how a parasite may help us overcome our fear of failure – https://t.co/J4eLoIRq9O

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) July 27, 2018

This is a terrific essay – well worth the read. The Bullshit Web – https://t.co/YJ5wFKJQvh

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 2, 2018

Fun! https://t.co/ychP8jcVZX

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 2, 2018

The post Twitter Link Roundup #342 – Terrific Reads for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, and Designers! appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Is your small business website helping or hindering your business?

If you’re like most small businesses, your website is outdated, and not helping you to increase revenues and sales.

Even worse, your website might be completely disconnected from the brand you’ve been building.

Here are 7 key reasons why you should consider redesigning your website.

• You aren’t getting the results you want
• You updated your brand or marketing strategy but not your site
• Your website is designed for you, not for your customers
• Your site isn’t responsive or mobile-friendly
• You want more effective content
• You want to incorporate a design trend or best practice
• Your site is slow or suffers from bad usability

Let’s look at each of these in detail to help you assess how you can make your website design work for you, rather than against you.

1. You aren’t getting the results you want

Probably one of the most straightforward reasons to revisit your website’s design is that it’s just not working the way you’d like it to.

Perhaps your site’s e-commerce performance isn’t living up to expectations, or you’re not getting as many conversions you’d like.

A redesign or revamp might be the thing you need to fix these issues.

Often you don’t need to redo the entire site to boost performance or address an issue. Redesigning just a section of your site, or reevaluating how your customers get from point A to point B (also known as a “user flow”) might be all you need.

A famous example of how a small change can have a considerable effect is Jared Spool’s “$300 million button”. Jared explains:

It’s hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, to the tune of $300,000,000 a year.

Here’s the design change that shocked the business:

The designers fixed the problem simply. They took away the Register button. In its place, they put a Continue button with a simple message: “You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”

The results: The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month. For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000,000.

What “fixes” the problems on your site might not such an easy fix, but you won’t know unless you try.

If your site’s issues are more fundamental, you may need to do a complete overhaul or refresh of the design.

Keep in mind that the potential effects of a website redesign on your conversion rate are unknown without testing the changes. It’s not enough to redesign – you should also consider how you’ll test the new elements to ensure that they’re performing better.

Marketers and business owners usually go into a website redesign without a process in place to test the page templates and landing page elements that are being changed. For more about website design testing, we recommend you read How A/B Testing Can Help Your Small Business increase Conversions and Revenues.

2. You updated your brand or marketing strategy

Brand and marketing strategies are fluid, living things.

It’s important that they adapt to changes in the business environment and shifts in your audience’s demographics or desires.

If you’ve changed your company’s logo and branding or overall marketing strategy, it is critical to update your website.

Many small businesses assume that brands start and end with their business name and logo, and overlook all of the other important marketing content that is a part of any substantial branding effort.

As we wrote previously:

A brand is more than logo design. But marketing efforts can fall flat if you lose credibility with your marketing collateral. You must keep an eye on branding (easier for the world’s biggest brands – they can spend billions building their brands) because it’s too easy to make a branding mistake that can cripple your small business. For example, if your branding is inconsistent or consistently poor in email and content marketing campaigns, people will notice.

Your website is a critical component of your brand, and as your marketing strategy evolves, your site should as well.

After all, your website and your brand should work in tandem. A misalignment can damage not only your brand but also your customer’s trust.

BrandExtract, a branding firm with over a century of experience, explains the importance of maintaining consistent branding:

A consistent brand helps increase the overall value of your company by reinforcing your position in the marketplace, attracting better quality customers with higher retention rates and raising the perceived value of your products or services….In contrast, erratic, inconsistent behavior quickly leads to confusion and mistrust.

Make sure consumers see consistent branding in every interaction with your website. It provides them increased familiarity with your brand, which inspires confidence and trust in your brand.

3. Your website is designed for you, not your customers

A common issue for many sites is they were designed with the company’s needs first.

You can see this in sites where the website’s navigation uses vague internal terms like “Back Office Services” or the names of your company’s various divisions.

This visual structure of your company might make sense to you, but it’s often bewildering or confusing to your customers.

Another example of misguided site design is ones that prioritize company information over the products or services you sell.

If you’re looking for a way to display information about your business that is important, but not relevant to your customers, try putting it in a less prominent place.

One of the reasons many companies stick their corporate info at the bottom of the page is so it’s out of the way of the main content but still accessible.

Amazon puts all of their corporate information in the footer of their page. This allows their products to take precedence but keeps the links on the page, so they’re still accessible.

Your customers expect your site to clearly show them how to get to the things important to them. If your company’s forte is information, your site should be structured and designed to get customers in front of that information quickly.

If you sell products or services, your site should be optimized so customers can access these things with as little friction as possible.

Try to look at your site as if you were the customer.

Think about your customer’s goals and the reason they use your site. How many clicks does it take for a customer to achieve their primary goal? Consider whether they are buying an item, signing up for an account, or reading an article.

A redesign of your site can adjust the priority of the layout so what’s most important is easier to find.

A good first step is to talk to your customers – both existing ones as well as potential ones. Find out what’s important to them, and get them in front of your site to offer their opinion.

As we wrote, customer interviews will help you identify your customers’ wants, needs, and motivations.

When you interview customers, you foster a direct line of communication that will give you valuable insight into their feelings about their experience with your product and branding. This information can help you identify any pain points, and will allow you to explore exactly how to update your website.

4. Your site isn’t responsive or mobile-friendly

According to research by comscore, mobile users spend more than double the minutes online than desktop users.

If your website isn’t “responsive” – that is, if it doesn’t adapt its layout for screens of many different sizes (desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.), you may be presenting your users with a subpar experience.

You’ve probably experienced it yourself, where a site you’ve visited required you to zoom in and painstakingly pan around to get to what you were looking for.

If that’s your site, it’s time for an update.

The amount of work required to rejig an existing site to be mobile-friendly often means a complete redesign is more effective.

Need another reason to go responsive?

Consider how people search for something.

According to Google, over 48% of all users started their search for something on a mobile device.

This fact is in itself not a reason to be alarmed until you take into consideration Google penalizes sites that are not mobile-friendly in its search results. As the company stated:

…we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high-quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

With the number of customers using a mobile device as their primary way of accessing the web continuing to go up, having a site that works just as well on a desktop computer as it does on a mobile device is critical.

5. You want more effective content

Content is king.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 70% of the surveyed B2B marketers say they are creating more content this year than in the prior year.

To execute a successful content marketing strategy, you need to be very familiar with your target audience. Developing user personas is a great way to do this. As we wrote,

Personas are helpful. Whether you’re marketing, selling, creating, or providing customer service, these fictional characters help businesses relate to customers as actual people, rather than anonymous numbers.

When you know your target audience, you can connect with them better by offering targeted, relevant content that will lead to significantly better conversion rates.

But most websites were not designed to showcase content. Even if you have a blog, it might be lost in your website navigation and might look like it was designed in 1997.

If you want to take advantage of content marketing, you should be sure that your website design can support the content you plan to create and share.

6. You want to incorporate a new design trend or best practice

No one wants to be seen as out-of-date or behind the times, and leveraging design trends can be an excellent way to refresh the look of your website.

As we said in our look at this year’s web design trends:

A dated or poor looking website design can make even the best businesses appear non-professional and unreliable.

If you want your business to thrive, you have to stand out and one good way to do so is to take advantage of hot website design trends to give your website or landing page a sharp, contemporary feel.

Adding a trend to your site isn’t as clearcut as dropping it into your layout. Whatever trend you choose and how you integrate it into your site should be tied directly to your brand and your marketing strategy.

It’s also vital that you weigh the benefits of a particular trend against the understanding that trends change. What may seem fresh and of-the-moment today could look ridiculous a couple of years from now (we’re looking at you, legwarmers).

Trends may be a great way to keep your site looking current, but adding one means committing to updating your site when the trend moves on. This isn’t a bad thing: you want your site design to stay fresh, after all.

7. Your site is slow

A site that plain doesn’t work or works terribly is one of the most critical reasons to redesign. You don’t want a poorly working site to weigh down your brand or lower your customer’s trust, do you?

According to studies by content distribution network provider Akamai, a two-second delay in webpage loading time increases “bounce rate” (the number of people who immediately leave a site) by a whopping 103%.

Not only that: 53% of mobile site visitors will leave if a page takes longer than three seconds to load.

With attention being the most important currency customers spend online, losing site visitors due to poor performance can put a big dent in your company’s fortunes.

Just ask Amazon.

The company once reported that a 100-millisecond increase in site speed resulted in a 1% increase in revenue.

Google created a tool for web developers to test the speed of their pages. It’s called PageSpeed Insights and it’s very easy to use. You simply enter your site’s URL in the form and press the Analyze button.

The results are quite technical but should give you an idea of how well your site performs.

A redesign is an excellent way to improve site performance. Think of it like moving homes: the change allows you to reevaluate what’s important enough to keep, and what can be removed.

Use a critical eye to go over all of the elements on your site’s pages. Make each one fight for its survival: does it help your customers achieve what they came to your site for? If it doesn’t, removing the element may help speed things up.

At the very least, “cleaning house” is a great way to optimize your site for your customer’s goals, and ultimately that’s what your site exists for in the first place.

How your business website looks and works reflect on your business. It can either help or hurt your revenues and profits.

Your website may not be working as well as you’d like now, but you’re only one redesign away from one that does.

The post 7 Compelling Reasons Why You Should Redesign Your Small Business Website appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

If you’re like most people, you own a smartphone.

And if you’re like most people, you use it. A lot.

Full-time access to a smartphone has obvious benefits but comes at a price: that nagging feeling that maybe we should be spending our time doing more than just staring at a screen.

If you’re seeking a healthier relationship with your favorite inanimate companion, take a look at what your habits are and precisely where you’d like to make some changes. Need some suggestions on where to start? Read more to get some ideas on how you can choose a more balanced approach to your phone use.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, web design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Why you should consider renaming your business https://t.co/FMZg6DixFF

— Rieva Lesonsky (@Rieva) August 6, 2018

7 Smart Ways to Increase Brand Awareness for Your Business https://t.co/fUiUAI6257 pic.twitter.com/kJOc1QwjfT

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 8, 2018

6 Ways Your Small Business Website is Hurting Your Business | @advertisingweek – https://t.co/MYSXcyNB21 pic.twitter.com/Za8eQG5NRL

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 8, 2018

The 2 Paradoxical Skills Every Leader Needs | LinkedIn https://t.co/W8yBZjtxor

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 8, 2018

These 14 Mobile Apps Will Increase Your Productivity https://t.co/EhO164cWay pic.twitter.com/4d0fvmDdKy

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 7, 2018

Good insights … We Analyzed 43 Million Facebook Posts From the Top 20,000 Brands (New Research) – https://t.co/SJGm4voPUW pic.twitter.com/nGYTvImruO

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 9, 2018

Influencer Marketing: Proven Strategies To Find Influencers Who Fit Your Brand https://t.co/Gb33JuvEQE pic.twitter.com/j52H5xUw4o

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 7, 2018

7 Smart Ways to Increase Brand Awareness for Your Business https://t.co/fUiUAI6257 pic.twitter.com/kJOc1QwjfT

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 8, 2018

Terrific, well-written post by @karaswisher. Jack fiddles while Twitter burns. https://t.co/YVjXTcDniz

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 9, 2018

6 Compelling 2018 Book Cover Design Trends Every Author Should Know https://t.co/knbkvcvsTZ pic.twitter.com/E3FbLh4OHz

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 4, 2018

Need help conveying your brand's personality to consumers? Your packaging is the perfect place to do just that. Learn from the pros: https://t.co/7vWqpDPz9r via @crowdspring pic.twitter.com/mGSV6WCRou

— Ernest Packaging (@ErnestPackaging) August 4, 2018

Now is a good time to re-watch LeBron James at the opening of a public school he funded to help under-privileged kids.pic.twitter.com/7AiF1eVKRb

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) August 4, 2018

What a vinyl disc looks like with a 1000x zoom-in! pic.twitter.com/4z5KdZxQmP

— World and Science (@WorldAndScience) August 5, 2018

Decomposition time pic.twitter.com/YNcqDbc7SB

— Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) August 5, 2018

The post Twitter Link Roundup #343 – Terrific Reads for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, and Designers! appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

“…it looks cold in there…”

A prospective customer looks to your business to provide something they need or want.

This is the beginning of a very important story for your business.

And, starting with your very first interaction, this story can develop in one of three ways:

1. You fail to meet their expectations.
2. You meet their expectations.
3. You exceed their expectations.

The first scenario will lead to an unhappy customer and poor word-of-mouth marketing.

Scenarios 2 and 3 will likely lead to a loyal new customer and positive word-of-mouth marketing.

The tricky part is that each customer supplies their own expectations. And, they won’t necessarily tell you in advance about their expectations.

Psychologist and professor John A. Johnson Ph.D. explains:

My research on moral psychology tells me that expectations among people are often based on an implicit social contract. That is, without actually verbalizing expectations about give-and-take in a relationship, people construct stories in their heads about legitimate expectations of each other. So, people in a relationship have a “deal” in which the specifics of the deal are never really talked about.

Having worked in both retail and customer service (among other fields), I can tell you that people apply this logic to their interactions with businesses as well as with people.

So, it’s in every marketer’s and business owner’s best interest to learn how to effectively manage customer expectations.

But, if this were truly as simple as it sounds, there would be a lot more happy customers in the world.

So, let’s examine the science of expectation… and explore 13 ways that you can better manage your customers’ expectations, create loyal brand followers, and grow your business faster than ever.

First Impressions Set Subsequent Expectations

We’ve all heard that first impressions are important.

Why?

When it comes to setting expectations, a first impression is powerful. This is because we tend to make snap judgments, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Your judgment about a situation becomes the expectation the next time you find yourself in a similar or identical situation.

And, those initial judgments tend to stick around because expectations are not just a state of mind. According to Loretta Breuning, Ph.D. (professor, author, and founder of the Inner Mammal Institute) expectations become a part of your physical being:

…expectations are surprisingly resistant to adjustment. Expectations are real physical pathways in the brain. Past experience built these pathways but new experience does not easily modify them.

Once a pathway has been established, it requires repeated exposure to new information to alter that pathway.

Moreover, it’s harder to improve a negative first impression than to tarnish a positive first impression.

A study by Nadav Klein and Ed O’Brien at the University of Chicago investigated how difficult it is to reach what they call a”moral tipping point”. This is the point at which a person goes from being viewed as a good person to a bad person – or vice-versa. They explain:

…this moral tipping point is asymmetric. People require more evidence to perceive improvement than decline; it is apparently easier to become a sinner than a saint, despite exhibiting equivalent evidence for change.

In other words, it’s hard to rebuild a positive reputation when people already have negative expectations. And, it’s easy to gain a negative reputation even in spite of people’s positive expectations.

We expect businesses to be “in it for the money.”  And so people are naturally inclined to be suspicious of businesses’ intentions.

So, if your business makes a poor first impression, most people won’t stick around to give you a chance to fix it.

Not when their hard-earned money is at stake.

Actionable Tips For Your Business

• Focus your marketing efforts on creating a positive first impression. Work with your marketing, sales, and customer support teams to make sure that they fully understand your efforts and can deliver on your marketing promises. The positive expectations generated from this first impression will prime your consumers to see your subsequent interactions in a positive light.
• New businesses without a known brand reputation have to work harder to help their customers identify and recognize them. So, (much like a television pilot episode) provide enough background information to generate a good first impression. Be sure that your branding (including your company name and your company’s logo design) are clear, visually interesting, and memorable. And be sure your branding is consistent.
• Work hard to maintain your positive impression. Always deliver on your brand promises. It’s easy to lose your good reputation and negative expectations are very hard to overcome.

Magical Thinking – And What it Means for You

Magical thinking sounds fun.

And, in some instances, it can be. But, magical thinking’s implications for your business may not be so fun.

Magical thinking is the false belief that something will happen just because you expect it to.

Children subconsciously imbue their thoughts with the power to directly affect the world in a tangible way.

Many adults continue to believe this is possible to do. Dr. Johnson points out that:

…many normal adults continue to engage in various forms of magical thinking. Prayer can be a form of magical thinking. Witness the huge popularity of The Law of Attraction, which says that our thoughts attract events into our lives. For many of us, it is difficult to let go of the idea that expecting something to happen will make it happen.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to suggest that your thoughts have no power to affect change – they do. Your thoughts can directly impact your actions.

However, your thoughts cannot make a bad product or service great or deliver the specific product you’re seeking at your perfect price.

But, that doesn’t stop people from reacting negatively when their expectations go unmet.

In fact, these negative reactions are unavoidable. According to Professor Wolfram Schultz, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, dopamine levels are depressed in the brain if our expectations are not met.

Unmet positive expectations make people feel bad.

Consumers bring their own set of expectations with them, and when those expectations go unmet, disappointment and displeasure follow.

Actionable Tips For Your Business

• It’s best to manage expectations for customers from the beginning of your interactions with them. This will help you to control the dialogue instead of scrambling to react to unrealistic consumer expectations. Be sure you understand the difference between empathy and sympathy.
• Make your marketing offers as clear as possible. Don’t make vague assertions that can be easily misinterpreted and lead to flawed expectations that work against you.
• Don’t make implications in your marketing that you can’t or won’t deliver. If you claim to have a 100% money-back guarantee, deliver that refund every time it’s requested.

Negative Expectations Lead to Negative Perceptions

We’ve discussed how magical thinking can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment.

So, is it better to encourage customers to set their expectations lower so that you’re more likely to meet them?

Yes, but be careful.

While it is good to create realistic expectations that can be reasonably met, it’s important not to lower expectations too much.

If you lower consumers expectations too much, instead of creating an easy-to-hop low hurdle, you may find yourself stuck in a ditch.

It turns out that people who approach a situation with a negative expectation often find their negative bias confirmed. You may have heard of this phenomenon – the self-fulfilling prophecy.

A team of Columbia University students confirmed this in their research study, “Try it, You’ll Like It: The Influence of Expectation, Consumption, and Revelation on Preference for Beer.”

The study revealed that participants who were warned in advance about an unpleasant “secret ingredient” (balsamic vinegar) in a beer showed the lowest preference for that beer as compared to other participants who were not warned in advance.

It turns out that the anticipation of a negative experience delivered a more negative experience. This is because our complete experience of an event is determined not only by our physical senses but by our psychological perception of the experience.

The Columbia research article makes this very clear:

The quality of an experience is jointly determined by bottom-up processes, which reflect characteristics of the stimulus impinging on the perceiver’s sensory organs, and top-down processes, which reflect the perceiver’s beliefs, desires, and expectations.

So, it’s important to consider the entire customer experience – sensory and perceived – to create the best possible results.

Actionable Tips For Your Business

• Use your marketing language and visual design to set positive, realistic expectations whenever possible. For example, positive business taglines perform better than negative taglines.
• Lead with the good news. Highlight tangible product or service benefits early on and feature special discounts or offers prominently.
• Use customer testimonials and reviews to create anticipation for new customers that they’re about to have a great experience.
• Review your website design to remove friction that might make customers cranky before they get to the check-out page.

The Power of “Surprise and Delight”

So far, we’ve focused on the downsides of expectations.

But, don’t get discouraged – expectations aren’t all bad news.

As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, meeting your customer’s expectations is a good thing.

And, if you manage to exceed your customer’s expectations, the positive impact is even greater.

Cambridge’s Professor Schultz found physical evidence of this.

We already know that his research revealed a drop in dopamine levels (that neurotransmitter that controls the pleasure center in our brains) when our expectations are not met. But, he was also able to confirm that dopamine levels increase when we are pleasantly surprised by what Schultz calls a “positive prediction error.”

A positive prediction error is simply a fancy way of saying “surpassed expectation.”

This is why the concept of surprising and delighting your customers is so powerful. By surpassing their expectations, you are creating a physical reaction that makes your customers feel good.

That kind of experience will make customers take notice, remember your brand, and keep them coming back.

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that leads to habit-forming and addictive behavior. People are driven to seek out ways to trigger their brain to release dopamine. Dr. Breuning explains:

Expectations are the core of our brain’s strategy for making sense of the world. Your brain is constantly generating an expectation and then comparing new inputs to it.

When our experiences match up with our expectations, we’re rewarded with a happy dopamine reward. When our expectations are disappointed, we lose our happy dopamine and receive the stress hormone cortisol instead.

Our biology controls our reactions. And, it’s hard to fight biology.

Actionable Tips For Your Business

• Set clear and attainable brand promises – and meet them every single time. Consistent, reliable, good service over time is surprising in and of itself.
• Find creative ways to go above and beyond. Provide a surprise free add-on gift with their purchase. Design a fabulously fun “unboxing” process to make your product’s arrival even more special. Send a handwritten thank you note for their purchase along with a discount coupon for their next purchase.
• Try to anticipate related customer needs and do your best to satisfy them. For example, if a customer purchased several packs of diapers in the largest available size, consider sending an invitation to try out your new pull-ups with a coupon code for a nice discount.

If you want to create the best possible customer experience, your marketing has to play a proactive role to define and then meet or exceed your customers’ expectations.

If interacting with your business regularly produces pleasurable reactions, you’ll see customers coming back again and again.

The post 13 Powerful Ways You Can Manage Customer Expectations Better To Grow Your Business Faster Than Ever appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago that everyone touted Facebook’s newsfeed and Instagram’s feed as the new world for marketers to go forth and conquer.

How quickly times change.

Initially dismissed as the playground of Millennials, “stories” have grown to become a viable media format in their own right.

Not bad for a format that mostly consists of photos, pithy text overlays, and concise videos that sometimes disappear within 24 hours of being posted.

Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox predicted at this year’s F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference:

The increase in the Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.

This is a surprising admission from a company that has put an incredible amount of effort trying to make its newsfeed as sticky as possible.

It’s even more surprising when you consider that Instagram (also owned by Facebook) only added Stories two years ago, in 2016. The addition of Instagram Stories was mostly seen as a “hey us too” catch-up move to SnapChat.

Today, Instagram Stories has more than double the number of daily users than SnapChat, based on numbers announced in June of 2018:

The company, owned by Facebook, announced on Thursday that more than 400 million people use the popular feature each day, up from 250 million one year ago. That makes Stories more than twice as popular as Snapchat, which saw 191 million active users in the last quarter, according to the most recent earnings report from parent company Snap.

Stories matter.

Let’s take a look at how some popular brands are using Stories and then we’ll discuss best practices and tips to help you get started with Stories for your own brand.

Examples of brands using Stories effectively

Brands have flocked to Stories, and there are many examples of companies using the format to great effect.

Converse

Shoe company Converse integrates Stories tightly with its other Instagram posts, as they’ve done here with the recent launch of a new shoe collaboration.

Nordstrom Rack

Nordstrom Rack is another fashion brand that uses Stories effectively to highlight products and promotions.

They don’t merely just post photos of their products. They include behind-the-scenes clips from photo shoots and boomerangs (short looping video clips) of their clothes in action.

The fact that Stories are consumed as tiny, fleeting bursts of content makes it easy for a brand like Nordstrom Rack to get a lot of product in front of its followers quickly.

And the fact that Stories are visible for just 24 hours before disappearing means that brands can keep up a steady stream of new content without creating a massive backlog of posts for customers to wade through.

Nike

Nike is one of the most popular clothing brands on Instagram with almost 80 million followers.  The sporting company leverages this popularity well with savvy, well-designed Story posts that (appropriately) encourages customers to “just do it” and participate.

A recent example: the sports brand recently launched a design competition for its new Air Max shoes. Through well-designed videos and slideshows, the brand inspired followers to involve themselves in the production process for this new product. This gave followers a reason to keep coming back to vote for their favorites and submit ideas.

By making its customers’ ideas a key part of this campaign, and taking advantage of Story’s frequently updated nature, Nike was able to create a contest that made customers feel like the brand valued their ideas and creativity.

National Geographic

Stories aren’t just for clothing brands. The venerable publisher is renowned for its stunning imagery and its deep commitment to environmental and humanitarian causes.

This reputation has led it to become to one of the most popular accounts on Instagram, with nearly 90 million followers.

The publisher uses Stories to educate its followers through the use of beautiful photos and videos.

The stories don’t end on Instagram, though. @NatGeo takes great advantage of the ability to “swipe up” on Stories, which sends users on to more in-depth reporting and articles on its website.

This is one of the most potent differentiators between Stories and regular Instagram posts. As of now, you cannot create a call to action or “next step” from a regular Instagram post. Each Story post can have its own “swipe up” destination, which creates even more opportunities for marketers to engage with customers.

New York Times

The long-running newspaper uses Stories in exciting ways. One particularly smart way is the section they call “Good News”.

The paper puts together brief slideshows with overlaid text that gives followers a quick burst of good news, with a call-to-action at the end of each one to read the full story on the main site.

This is just one of many different Story “sections” @NYTimes has on its profile. It’s a smart way to take advantage of Story’s 24-hour lifespan to transform the format into social media versions of the daily newspaper.

How to leverage Stories to market your business

If you’re considering using Stories as a marketing tool, we wanted to share some best practices and tips.

Our advice is specific for Instagram success stories, but there are more similarities than differences between Instagram’s version of Stories, SnapChat’s, Facebook’s, or WhatsApp’s [which are called “Statuses”]. Most of the best practices and tips we’ve assembled here apply on other social networks as well.

Integrate your Stories and Posts

Even though Story’s short lifespan can be a big plus, it does mean that followers might miss a particular story if they don’t happen to check out your profile while it’s available.

For Stories you don’t want followers to miss, do an announcement as a regular Instagram Post letting people know ahead of time when the Story will go up.

It’s also possible now to save a particularly good Story as an image or a video slideshow and repost it to your regular feed. Use this feature judiciously, as it’s a good idea to keep some separation between your regular posts and Stories to differentiate them.

This flexibility means you aren’t stuck having to invest time and effort in a powerful Story only to have it disappear into the ether 24 hours after you post it.

Cheerios users Instagram Stories to send positive personal messages to its followers

Get your @ On

Just like regular posts, you can @-mention users in your Stories. So use it! Part of the power of social media is making connections and lavishing attention on others, and your followers will love being mentioned in your Stories.

Once again, the temporary nature of Stories is a big plus here as it not only means you have lots of opportunities to @-mention followers, it also means the mentions won’t persist as they do on your regular feed.

This makes @-mentioning safer (because it’s not a permanent connection), and means you can rest assured that your brand will not be permanently tied to a particular follower.

Just as with any other social media feature, however, it’s best not to overuse this one. Make it count, and make it special.

Interested in other ways of increasing your customer engagement on social media? Read 7 proven ways to rise above the social media noise and better engage your audience on social networks.

Effortless creation

You could, if you wanted to, spend a ton of time on your Story posts. Because they live for such a short period, however, no one expects that you do.

This opens up the possibilities. You might want to invest time to get your regular Instagram posts right, but all you need for a Story post is a good idea and some creativity.

The New York Times “Good News” posts we mentioned earlier are a good example. They tend to reuse existing imagery from the newspaper with a short blurb on each one that briefly tells the story.

It probably didn’t take very long to assemble each story, but the payoff (via the call-to-action to read the full story at the end of each one) is big enough that putting a few minutes here and there makes creating them worthwhile.

You can do the same thing. Reuse imagery you already have (such as catalog photos, or clips of existing videos) and take advantage of the built-in editing and text tools to quickly add text to them.

It’s okay to have the occasional Story that doesn’t quite land right, knowing that 24-hours later is another chance to try again.

But remember to connect these stories to your brand. It might be fun to share various photos and videos, but if they are completely disconnected from your brand, how would this help you to market your business?

Be sure that the name of your company and your company’s logo are visible in the stories you share. And consider your brand’s colors to maintain consistency with your website and other social channels.

Consider Stories like a channel

Just because Stories don’t stick around for very long doesn’t mean you can post without giving it too much thought.

One way to use Stories effectively is to treat the feature like it was a TV network. You might want to “schedule” certain Stories or types of Stories to appear on specific days, or try grouping posts into themes or recurring “episodes.”

Think in advance about how your Stories will flow together, and how they relate to other marketing events or campaigns so that there’s a cohesiveness to what you’re posting.

Repost from other channels

As we mentioned, Stories tend to be very similar from social media network to network. Nothing is stopping you from cross-posting a Story you’ve created for SnapChat on Instagram, or vice-versa.

Facebook even has built-in Story sharing from Instagram, which makes cross-posting easy and painless.

Even with Instagram’s 1 billion active users (!), there are still many people who are only on Facebook, so posting Stories on multiple sites isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

It’s also possible to save a SnapChat post as a video that you can then repost on Instagram and Facebook. So if you wanted to share Stories between those sites, it’s also easy.

Another benefit of reposting your content on other channels is that you are certain to maintain consistency in your posts from one network to another.

Consistency is vital if you want to build consumers’ trust.

As we wrote previously:

Customers can’t get to know (and trust) your business if they don’t have the opportunity to experience your brand in a consistent manner. Here are some compelling ways that consistent branding ban strengthen your business:

• Easy brand recognition leads to positive associations.
• Consistency provides an advantage over the competition.
• Increased perceived value leads to higher sales.

Inconsistent messaging inevitably leads to confusion about your brand’s identity.

Making sure each story posted has a similar look and feel will help build your branding voice into one your customers know and trust.

Include a call to action

As we mentioned earlier, the “swipe up” feature in Instagram’s Stories is a powerful way to direct traffic off of Instagram to your site.

When you post a story, consider where you might want to send followers. If you’re posting about one of your products, for example, send users from that Story to the product page on your site.

Another effective way to use swipe up is to stick it at the end of a sequence of Story posts. Then you can use the posts as a way of building up interest or give followers a reason to swipe, so by the time they get to the end they’re more motivated to continue to wherever you want to send them.

An example of how a poll can be integrated into a Story post

Get interactive

There are a lot of different features you can integrate into a story post to make them more exciting and more engaging.

Besides tagging and @-mentioning others, Instagram has new features like polls and questions that you can add to a Story post. Ask followers to vote for their favorite, or get them to send you a short text reply to a question.

You can also tag stories with a location, repost other Instagram posts as a Story (which sends followers to that post if they swipe up), and get followers to send you a direct message in response to a Story.

The latter is a great way to solicit feedback from followers, and also make your Stories more interactive.

MeUndies uses text-only stories to not only make shout-outs to followers, it also uses them to promote hashtag campaigns such as #MePlusWe.

Text-only Stories

Instagram recently added the ability to have text-only Story posts. This is a great way to integrate more text content into a sequence of Story posts to help tie them together or to tell a brief story in words rather than pictures.

Many brands are using text-only Story posts with #hashtags and other links to help propel a narrative forward, explain a new technique or teach followers something, and many other things.

Story highlights

Did we say that Stories are ephemeral? This is true, but if you have a particular Story that you want to stick around for longer, now you can!

Story highlights stay on your profile as long as you want, which gives you a lot of flexibility. Besides “pinning” a Story so it doesn’t disappear after 24 hours, you can use Highlights to create simple story categories similar to what the New York Times has done with their “Good News” Stories.

You’ll probably want to use this feature strategically, and not overwhelm your profile with a lot of highlighted stories. A large content creator like the New York Times can get away with more highlights, but most brands should highlight fewer stories. Make them count.

Use Micro-Influencers

Want to expand the reach of your Story audience?

If you are a small business and don’t have the budget of a larger company, consider working with a micro-influencer (people who have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers).

As we wrote:

With high engagement rates and lower fees, micro influencers are an excellent choice for businesses just starting to expand their brand’s reach.

Micro-influencers give smaller businesses another great advantage by allowing those businesses to target smaller, more unique audiences.

When you ask brands and marketers for the best platform for influencer marketing, the vast majority of them will answer Instagram. Many surveys support this view – they are frequently citing Instagram as the No. 1 platform for 92% influencers.

That makes it a great choice to integrate into any Story-related marketing outreach.

Wrapping up

Stories represent a new and exciting way to present content, run marketing and advertising campaigns, and interact with your social media followers.

Social media is all about connection, intimacy, and storytelling. It’s no surprise that Stories have taken off the way they have.

Whether you’re a small business, a start-up, or an established brand, Stories are quickly becoming the de-facto way to reach your customers with quick, easily-digestible bits of content.

After all, marketing and branding are all about telling the story of your business. Stories are a powerful, accessible way to do just that.

Need help developing an awesome social media presence? Let crowdspring’s community of over 210,000 creatives help you develop content worth engaging with – without breaking the bank. You can get started on a social media assets project, infographic project or any other design project here, or request a free design consultation with one of our design experts.

The post Why Social Media Stories Are a Big Marketing Phenomenon (And How To Use Them to Market Your Business) appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

You probably know plenty of middle children. Maybe you’re a middle child, yourself.

Middle children, the long-suffering sibling stuck with a bad reputation and a number of complexes, are experiencing an increased appreciation in popular opinion.

Regularly regarded as jealous, overlooked, and attention starved, middle children are indeed a misunderstood and underappreciated group. This, however, has begun to change – ironically, and possibly because, the number of middle children is decreasing in number across the country.

Interestingly, there now exists a “revisionist school of middleness” describing middles as natural innovators, free of the weights shouldered by their older and younger siblings; they are natural diplomatics standing as a mediating bridge between warring brothers and sisters.

To read more about how Middle Child Syndrome is becoming less syndrome and more strength, read this fascinating piece from Quartz. Middle children everywhere, you’ve been seen.

Now, we hope you enjoy another great set of links and articles that we shared with you over the past week on our crowdspring Twitter account (and on Ross’s Twitter account). We regularly share our favorite posts on entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, logo design, website design, startups, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Enjoy!

Growth Hacking: How To Grow Your Small Business Faster https://t.co/LykbSm0I0p pic.twitter.com/Y0VfoDpFVA

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 13, 2018

How you use color in your business can amplify or ruin your #brandstrategy. That’s because color strongly influences human emotion and behavior.

–– @rosskimbarovsky via @Adweek
__________________

COLORS RESONATE WITH CONSUMERS ON A SUBCONSCIOUS LEVELhttps://t.co/niyeHCI8Av pic.twitter.com/rO6imGSIB6

— Justine Castellon (@justcastellon) August 13, 2018

Looking for a perfect business name takes time. But if that name isn't efficient at accomplishing those goals, you should consider renaming your business. Discover why and how to rename a business. https://t.co/ugiDPk5RM0 https://t.co/ugiDPk5RM0

— David Perdew (@mynamsystem) August 14, 2018

13 Powerful Ways You Can Manage Customer Expectations Better To Grow Your Business Faster Than Ever – https://t.co/OypXPhHfOp pic.twitter.com/eB0fVDSISX

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 14, 2018

Good lessons and insights … CFO Series: The 3 Mistakes That Crushed Zirtual Overnight https://t.co/ez5FseHeDo pic.twitter.com/1OCzn5lKVE

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 11, 2018

Another reason focus and concentration are important. https://t.co/pAEPBamJQP

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 15, 2018

Lots of great insights … Part #2 — $100M to $1B+: Non-obvious Lessons Learned Selling to Yahoo! https://t.co/4dbyRs0z3t pic.twitter.com/7pldpXPgOm

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 14, 2018

Important Lessons Your Startup Or Small Business Can Learn From The World’s Best Brands https://t.co/Y4R7NVNcEU pic.twitter.com/KiPCXr3YOy

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 15, 2018

Why Great Success Can Bring Out the Worst Parts of Our Personalities | HBR – https://t.co/EXyWFuLzmD

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 13, 2018

4 Major Challenges of Being Your Own Boss (and How to Overcome Them) https://t.co/3nKJr76P4a pic.twitter.com/TeEBGdCOp1

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 15, 2018

Escaping the Design Trap in Agile Marketing https://t.co/H39lyPcLLs pic.twitter.com/q4bMIba7nm

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 11, 2018

5 Ways Your Business Can Improve Its Brand on Instagram https://t.co/vRBWXCIqBr pic.twitter.com/b70Fanil2q

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 13, 2018

The Stories Showdown: Snapchat vs. Instagram https://t.co/FmCQT7Cp7f pic.twitter.com/qz8hnfS7cR

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 13, 2018

13 Powerful Ways You Can Manage Customer Expectations Better To Grow Your Business Faster Than Ever | @crowdspring Blog https://t.co/wSZAmxppTd #Marketing #marketingtips #CustomerExperience #SmallBusiness pic.twitter.com/XSMQC7cZk2

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 13, 2018

Disappointing to see Victors & Spoils close. Smart agencies win by crowdsourcing (we work with many at crowdspring) but do it in a way that eliminates capital expenses. End of an Era as Havas 'Crowdsourcing Agency' Victors & Spoils Closes Shop https://t.co/J9tvJuqqLY pic.twitter.com/35UeOjZRer

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 11, 2018

2018 Web Design Trends: Your Guide To Navigating 9 Hot Trends https://t.co/MbcHlASW9b pic.twitter.com/1dgU7FZMKA

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 16, 2018

The Undeniable Benefits of Simple Website Design https://t.co/hY4IT9aqJd pic.twitter.com/LWRNE1bfSh

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 11, 2018

How to Make Your Craft Brewery Stand Out With Great Design https://t.co/gDwLp98D0p pic.twitter.com/BbQcMXu4EZ

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 11, 2018

5 Ways to Improve Your Crowdfunding Odds With Strong Design https://t.co/pMOwVbNQLK pic.twitter.com/jScQYWvvTH

— crowdspring (@crowdspring) August 14, 2018

Your biggest #LogoDesign mistake could be in the legibility of your font according to Katie Lundin, from @crowdspring – see her other top tips for logo design: https://t.co/jNNFvB53em pic.twitter.com/cDP9SRcNsm

— Kate L. Harrison (@Kate_L_Harrison) August 16, 2018

Why Great Success Can Bring Out the Worst Parts of Our Personalities | HBR – https://t.co/EXyWFuLzmD

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 13, 2018

What a terrific story! The Improbable Success of RXBar’s Peter Rahal – https://t.co/YQAkQxDWZf pic.twitter.com/KJEO09A4rb

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 15, 2018

Lots of interesting insights about health care and how to fix the current system in the U.S. yHealth Care Is Broken. Oscar Health Thinks Tech Can Fix It https://t.co/FFwA0LNPN6 pic.twitter.com/N3jUms4I0m

— Ross Kimbarovsky (@rosskimbarovsky) August 15, 2018

The post Twitter Link Roundup #344 – Terrific Reads for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, and Designers! appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

“Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

You may call it paying it forward, quid pro quo, or just returning the favor, but science has a word that describes this trait: reciprocity.

What is reciprocity?

Our need to return a kindness given or shown to us is deeply ingrained in our psyche. Psychology Today explains the science behind reciprocity:

This tendency has survived and been present throughout human history because it has survival value for the human species. The noted archaeologist Richard Leakey describes the essence of what makes us human is this system of reciprocity. “We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food and their skills in an honored network of obligation.”

One of the best-known books on the subject is Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. In it, Cialdini looks at the Principle of Reciprocity and how even the smallest gestures can often have a powerful effect.

In one example, Cialdini observed that when waiters gave diners a mint at the end of a meal, the average tip amount increased by 3%. If two mints were given, tips increased by 14%.

And if the waiter left one mint with the bill, but then quickly returned to give a second, the tip increased by a whopping 23%.

Examples of reciprocity in action

Reciprocity, when used correctly, can be a powerful tool to inspire action. Marketers have used the principle of reciprocity in many different ways, and to significant effect.

Dunkin’ Donuts turned wins by the Philadelphia Eagles into free coffees and huge mobile downloads.

Dunkin’ Donuts 

Dunkin’ Donuts ran a campaign that leveraged reciprocity and the idea of “giving to getting” effectively.

Called “Eagles Win, You Win,” the campaign offered Philadelphia area customers a free coffee the day after the Philadelphia Eagles won a game. The free coffee was redeemed via the Dunkin’ Donuts mobile app.

The campaign was a big success, with the donut chain reporting over a quarter million customers taking advantage of the free coffee offer every week after an Eagles win. This drove huge downloads of the mobile app, which exposed customers to carefully targeted promotional messaging and incentives.

Sales and general foot traffic increased because of the free offer, which demonstrated the power of reciprocity.

Morton’s Steakhouse

Morton’s Steakhouse also used reciprocity to gain lots of free publicity and advertising.

They used a method commonly known as “surprise and delight.” The basic idea is to surprise customers with something that delights them, in the hopes that the principle of reciprocity will kick in.

Multichannel Merchant explains:

One of the most viral examples of the “surprise and delight” strategy came from a rather traditional, old-fashioned brand: Morton’s Steakhouse. In 2011, a traveler jokingly tweeted Morton’s, requesting for a steak to be waiting for him when his plane landed. So Morton’s went ahead and sent a tuxedoed staff member to the airport to wait for the traveler with a big, juicy Porterhouse – free of charge! A positive, memorable experience is a win-win for everybody: it makes customers happy, drives word-of-mouth, and keeps them coming back to your store.

Zappos

Another company that uses surprise and delight to great effect is Zappos, whose customer service exploits are legendary for encouraging deep customer loyalty and viral word-of-mouth.

One great example is the time a traveler to Las Vegas checked into her hotel, only to discover she had forgotten her favorite shoes at home. She went on the Zappos’ site to buy a replacement, but the site was out of her size. So she called customer service. The company didn’t have her size in stock, but it found a pair at a Las Vegas mall not far from the company’s headquarters.

Someone from Zappos went to the mall, bought the shoes, and then hand-delivered them to the customer at her hotel, all free of charge.

Practical Ecommerce looked at the benefits Zappos got from this “act of customer service heroism”:

It almost certainly cost Zappos money. So why is this one of the secrets to online retail success? To get the answer just imagine how the customer felt. No doubt, she’ll shop Zappos again. She probably told lots of friends, who told their friends. And the goodwill that the company generated most certainly did more for the business than any advertising or marketing program Zappos might have spent those dollars on.

How can you use reciprocity to grow your business?

Here are ways you can use reciprocity in your own marketing initiatives, and some things to keep in mind.

Be authentic

The principle of authenticity goes hand-in-hand with the principle of reciprocity. As we recently wrote,

Authenticity is a significant factor in increasing your customers’ trust in you and your business.

In a global study completed a few years ago, The Age of Authenticity revealed that 63 percent of consumers would choose to buy from a brand they perceived as authentic over less-authentic competitors.

Customers will see right through any attempts at currying return favors or actions if they don’t come from an authentic place.

Studies have found that it’s less about what is being given or when it was given but more how it was given.

By focusing on how actions are exchanged, each type of authenticity determines the symbolic value imputed to the benefit and that value directly influences the party’s decision of whether to repay the benefit and the determination of what an appropriate repayment would be as well as indirectly influencing exchange behaviors toward their partner.

Also be sure that your customers and prospects are aware that when you give them something special, it came from you. This means finding creative ways to incorporate your company’s name and business logo so that the customer knows the source of their happiness.

Saying thank you

Saying “thank you” to a customer can seem like a small, mostly insignificant act, but it can have a noticeable effect on a customer’s behavior.

A study that looked at restaurant tips found that when the server wrote thank you, included a happy face, or added a tip about an upcoming special to the back of a bill, the amount of tip left by customers increased by 17-20%.

Writing a thank you note or email to a customer can leverage the same reciprocity that restaurant servers used on customer’s bills.

Three ways you can say thank you include:

Thank you pages
Create a thank you page for downloads, registrations, purchases, and other customer actions. You can also include on this page details of what the customer did to help tie their action to the thank you.

Thank you emails
Similarly, send customers a short email thanking them for a recent transaction. You can provide them with the information they may need or be looking for regarding the transaction as well.

Handwritten thank you notes
These may take more effort and time, but they can be very effective. Companies like Stitch Fix include handwritten thank notes inside all of their clothing shipments, which not only act as a seed for reciprocity, they also help increase the authenticity and personalized nature of the service.

Make customers feel unique

Stitch Fix’s personalized notes demonstrate something that helps increase the possibility of reciprocity: the customer should feel like whatever is being offered is being individually provided to them.

Besides personalized notes, you can also help increase the sense that a gesture is for that specific customer by using demographic or geographical targeting (give them something specific to who they are or where they live), or by offering a set of things and letting the customer choose.

Offer something of value

Give customers something they find valuable outside of the existing relationship or services you already offer them. Coupons and deals are always an excellent way to encourage repeat business, but inspiring the customer to return the favor often requires something above and beyond.

For example, don’t just give your customers individual discount codes, but also give them codes they can share with their friends or family.

Meal prep services like HelloFresh uses this technique extensively by providing new customers with free meals they can send someone else as a gift.

Free gift inside!

A great strategy is to add in an unexpected gift to customer’s orders. Gameklip does this in a very simple and low-cost way: they include a package of candies (specifically Smarties) with every order.

As the social media posts show, this small surprise is something that people love, and they return the favor by sharing it with their friends and network.

Suggest how customers can reciprocate

Once you’ve provided your customer with a nice gift or surprise, give them some ways they can pay it forward. Make it easy for them to do something of value for you.

If you’re looking to build word of mouth, make it easy for customers to pass along your business to others. Give them simple ways to share content with their social media contacts.

The referral process is a great way to encourage reciprocity because it makes it obvious to the customer that they’re receiving and giving value when they pass along the gift to a friend.

Make your customer feel special, and they’ll return the favor and help your business grow.

The post How To Market Better and Grow Your Small Business Faster Using The Psychology of Reciprocity appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners assume that most people make decisions by conducting research and then weighing the options.

But, that’s not how most people make decisions.

People frequently act illogically, making their behavior difficult to predict. And, they rarely take the time to learn the full facts before taking action.

Instead, people tend to unconsciously latch onto the first fact they hear, basing their decision-making on that fact… whether it’s accurate or not.

This phenomenon is called anchoring.

Why should you care that anchoring affects people’s decision-making?

The anchoring effect can work for you or against you. It’s one of the most important effects in cognitive psychology.

When anchoring works for you, it becomes easier to market your company’s products or services. When anchoring works against you, it’s increasingly difficult to do so.

Before diving into ways that the anchoring effect can help or hurt your business, let’s look at how it works.

In 1974, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published a research article titled “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” This article documented the first clinical evidence of the anchoring effect.

Amos Tversy and Daniel Kahneman – Image courtesy of Time Magazine

In the article, Kahneman and Tversky describe an anchoring bias experiment which challenged two groups of high school students to complete a lengthy multiplication problem.

One group was asked to solve the following problem: 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8. The other group was asked to solve this problem: 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1.

The answers to the two problems are, of course, the same. The problems are identical – the numbers are just reversed. But the experiment was never really about math.

Neither group was given sufficient time to solve the problem and arrive at a confident answer – only 5 seconds! The tight timeline forced them to estimate.

The group of students who solved the first problem (1 x 2…etc.) estimated that the solution to the problem would be significantly lower than the group that solved the second problem (8 x 7…etc.).

Tversky and Kahneman concluded that the final estimates (on average 512 and 2250, respectively) were influenced by the numbers with which the two sequences began.

The anchoring effect led the students whose problem started with lower numbers to estimate lower. While the students who solved the problem in reverse anchored to the higher numbers, resulting in a higher estimate.

Both groups were wildly off in their answers. The solution to both problems is 40,320.

The takeaway here is that each group was unduly affected by the first numbers they saw.

Kahneman, in a video interview with Inc. magazine, claims that the anchoring effect routinely happens “everywhere” and calls it “one of the most robust phenomena in cognitive psychology.”

The implications of the anchoring effect for businesses cannot be denied.

So let’s take a deeper look at how you can take advantage of the anchoring effect to price your company’s products or services, negotiate more effectively, market better, and make better business decisions.

The Anchoring Effect in Branding and Design

First impressions matter.

For example, when it comes to website design, if you don’t help people understand in a few seconds how you can solve their problem, they’ll leave your site.

First impressions are quick. A Google study showed that they can be made in 17 milliseconds!

When a prospective customer first learns about your brand, they hear your company’s name or see your logo.

First impressions matter when it comes to your company’s name and your logo. After all, it’s impossible to anchor and create an advantage if your prospective customer can’t remember or spell the name of your business.

The same holds true for your logo. Far too many struggling businesses created their logo from a generic template or an online template logo maker.

The problem is that thousands or tens of thousands of other businesses have identical or similar logos.

It’s impossible for a brand to use the anchoring effect to its advantage when a consumer can’t recognize the brand!

So, how can you apply the anchoring effect to create a stronger brand and make sure that design works for your business and doesn’t undermine your marketing?

How to use the anchoring effect to improve branding and design

• Make sure you find a unique company name for your business. Don’t use online name generators or generic lists of ideas. If you want a catchy business name that stands out from your competition, get help from experts. For example, here’s how one successful entrepreneur crowdsourced lots of new business names and found a terrific new name for his business.
• Don’t settle for a generic logo based on a template or one created by a computer. It’ll look like tens of thousands of other logos and will help your business get lost in the crowd. Instead, understand how fonts, colors, shapes and lines in a logo design influence purchasing decisions. Work with experts to get a professional logo design that helps your business stand out.
• If you sell products, learn how psychology can help you create an eye-catching packaging design for your products.

The Anchoring Effect in Pricing Products or Services

Anchoring has a deep impact on a person’s perception of value – which makes it an essential tool when considering a pricing strategy for your business.

A price without a value attached to it is a number with no power.

The value you assign to a price gives it meaning and helps consumers decide if they are willing to pay it.

Anchoring provides a context for estimating value.

Think of it this way: you walk into a convenience store on a hot summer day hankering for a fountain soda. The sign says you can get a 20 oz Coke for $1.79 or a 32oz Coke for $1.99. For a measly 20 cents, you can get almost twice as much Coke!

Having anchored that a 20 oz Coke is worth $1.79, that 32 oz for $1.99 suddenly seems like an awesome deal! It doesn’t matter that both are overpriced.

So, how can you apply the anchoring effect to how you price products or services for your business? Here are a few options to consider…

How to use the anchoring effect to price products and services

• When setting your pricing, remember that the first option the client sees is likely to be the price that anchors in their brain. So, if your goal is to move your mid-price option, anchor the top-priced item by placing it first or by placing it in the center in a larger font to draw focus. This will make the mid-price option look like a great deal in comparison.
• Want to sell your most-expensive option? Make sure that you set the lower price in a similar range and show how much more value comes with the slightly bigger price. Remember that fountain Coke? How do you say no to a much higher value for a minimal price increase?
• Show a discounted price based on a higher original price. You see this often when someone posts the suggested “retail” price which is crossed out and you’re instead presented with a lower price. Even if the final price is still high, the initial price was anchored and influenced how consumers perceive the actual price.
• Customers can subconsciously anchor to any number – it doesn’t have to be a price. So, featuring any higher number next to your price increases your chance of a sale. Consider showing the number of items sold, the number of customers who have purchased, or even another unrelated item with a higher price.

The Anchoring Effect in Negotiations

The anchor effect plays a role in every negotiation.

The bottom line is that the person who makes the first offer sets the anchor.

And, whoever sets the anchor helps determine the range of the negotiations.

So if you put your offer on the table first, the odds are in your favor that you’ll end the negotiation in a place that you’re comfortable with.

But, if you’ve already missed your opportunity to go first and set the anchor, there is a way that you can reset the playing field.

Daniel Kahneman revealed in this interview with  Inc. Magazine that the best way to defend against being controlled by an anchor in a negotiation is to utterly refute and discredit the number proposed.

Assertively denying the credibility of the proposed number helps to wipe it from your own mind and the mind of the opposing party. At that point, you can then propose a new anchor to reset the terms of the negotiation in your favor.

Whatever you’re negotiating, you stand to benefit if you remember the anchoring effect.

How to use the anchoring effect to negotiate better

• If you’re hoping for a higher salary, plan ahead by listing a higher salary requirement right in your application. Ask for more than you expect to receive. This will naturally raise the amount of all subsequent salary numbers offered.
• Are you auditioning vendors and looking for the best price? Then start the negotiations off with a low amount. This will lead the prices to trend lower for the remainder of the negotiation.
• If the terms offered are way off for you, then say so. You can reset the anchor by pointing out that a competitor has made a stronger offer, or simply by assertively discrediting their offer. Do this with conviction and you’ll be in a position to reset the anchor in a more favorable place.

The Anchoring Effect in Marketing

Today’s marketing is ruled by data and metrics.

How do you determine if your efforts are a success? Metrics.

But, choosing the right metrics to measure can mean the difference between success and failure.

And, anchoring doesn’t only impact numbers. The anchoring effect can manipulate how you perceive and value concepts as well.

The anchoring bias in marketing can easily mislead you.

So, when planning your marketing strategy, and how to measure it, keep the anchoring effect in mind.

As marketing expert and author Linda J. Popky explains for the Harvard Business Review:

The Internet of Things will collect and transmit unprecedented amounts of data. This poses a big problem for marketers, who can end up down a rabbit hole of fruitless information.

The anchoring effect may lead you to latch onto pseudo-useful metrics because they were the first to appear on your radar. But, don’t get stuck there.

Don’t just aim for low-hanging fruit (data) that’s easy to collect and right in front of you. Instead, be mindful and carefully consider each option to be sure you’re making strong choices.

How to use the anchoring effect to market better

Careful consideration allows you to escape the pull of the anchor. Ask these questions to ensure that your chosen metrics have value…

• Will this metric really tell you what you think it will tell you?
• Is the metric likely to reinforce a cognitive bias you already hold?
• Or, will it tell you nothing at all?
• Can the metric be easily replicated and gathered?
• Does the metric provide actionable information for your business?

The Anchoring Effect in Your Business

People naturally anchor to concepts – so much so that we often don’t question why we do things.

We just do them that way because we’ve always done them that way. And by then they’ve become a habit.

This sets us up for living with decisions that don’t serve us well because we haven’t taken the time to examine why we made them in the first place.

And, when the decisions you make cost your business money, anchoring on the wrong options may drain your financial resources like a silent vampire.

From the paper supplier you use to your internet provider, it’s worth examining your choices on a regular basis. What are your costs for doing business? And, can they be optimized?

Settling for more of the same just because you don’t have to think about it may cost you in the long run.

How to use the anchoring effect to make better business decisions

• Set up a yearly audit of all your vendor or service provider costs. You may be missing out on stronger, more cost-effective options.
• Create a culture of constant improvement. Examine your internal processes for flaws. Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean that you have to. And, reward your employees for suggesting more efficient or rewarding processes.

Anchors Aweigh!

As humans, we’re all prone to cognitive biases that impact our decision-making.

It just comes with the territory.

However,  by being mindful of these cognitive biases, we can begin to avoid their traps and make better choices.

The anchoring effect is everywhere.

It can work either for you or against you.

Are you ready to anchor your success with awesome branding design for your business? Our team of over 210,000 creatives is ready to help you with custom logo design, website design, naming your business and more – everything you need to build a great brand. Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation with one of our design experts today. 

The post How The Anchoring Effect in Marketing Can Help Your Business Grow Faster Or Fail appeared first on crowdspring Blog.

Real estate signs say more about you and your business than they do about the properties they advertise.

Whether you deal in residential or commercial real estate, your signs are ambassadors for your business – speaking for your brand when you’re not there to do it in person.

So, it’s vital that you take charge of the message your signage communicates.

Don’t leave it to chance.

Unique bench signage. Image courtesy of The Jeremy Amyotte Real Estate Team.

Most traditional real estate signage (“For Sale” signs, open house signs, bench ads, and billboards) fall under the auspices of Out-of-Home (or “OOH”) Advertising.

Let’s look at the best practices for creating unique and custom real estate signs that raise awareness about your brand and start a conversation with your potential clients.

Real estate sign design elements you should consider

The first decision you’ll want to make as you plan your signage strategy is what kind of sign you are going to use.

You have options! The most quintessential real estate sign is the traditional “colonial post” style but that’s just the beginning.

Here’s a run-down of real estate sign styles that you might want to consider…

Common Real Estate Sign Styles:

• Colonial Post – A sturdy, wooden, inverted L frame with a sign suspended from it. These are perfect for marking residential homes for sale.
• H-Frame Stake – This is a light-weight H-shaped wire frame good for temporary signage. Think “Open House” signs. The frame legs (stakes) poke into the ground, making it easy to set-up and remove.
• Frame – Frame style signs are made of sturdy, metal frames enclosing a sign. They’re available in Standard (just one sign) and Single or Double Rider (including one or two extra smaller signs or “riders”). These are another good option for lawn “For Sale” signs.
• A-Frame – These portable “sandwich board” style signs are great for drawing attention to an open house or another event. But, be careful – don’t leave these easily mobile signs unattended or they may go missing.
• Vinyl Window Cling– Vinyl window clings are a non-adhesive film that clings to window glass. These are a great option for commercial properties with large plate-glass windows.
• Feather Flag – A feather flag is made up of a tall, flexible frame attached to a narrow fabric flag. The fabric is loose on one side allowing it to flutter in the breeze, making it an eye-catching signage option. You can print your content directly on the fabric flag.

Each of these signage options offers unique dimensions and mediums on which to print. And, the amount of space available (and the shape of that space) will directly influence your sign’s design layout.

This is why you’ve got to decide on the type of sign before you can begin to design the content or graphics.

And now, one last logistical consideration to ponder before we begin taking a look at design specifics… Be sure to brush up on the laws regarding signage in your area.

Many towns and cities (and some residential developments) have ordinances or rules that specify what types of signs (and how many) can be used, as well as where they can be placed. Knowing what types of signage are allowed to be used in your area will naturally help to guide you as you select your next signs.

Signage design essentials

Whether you’re making a classic lawn “For Sale” sign, branding signage to raise awareness for your business, or an “Open House” event sign, the same design guidelines will apply.

So, let’s get started!

Design Consideration #1: Branding

Image courtesy of The Baltimore Sun.

As we’ve already mentioned, real estate signs are a form of out-of-home advertising. And, as such, they are ideal for creating brand awareness.

Use your logo on your real estate signs

If you fail to feature your company’s logo on your sign, then it becomes almost worthless from a branding awareness perspective.

So, start by making sure that your most valuable visual branding tool – your logo – is featured prominently on your sign.

For more on real estate logo design, read 6 Unique Real Estate Logos That Can Help You Close The Sale.

Use your brand colors on your real estate signs

You should also use your brand colors on your signage to help create a consistent visual presence. This will help potential clients get to know (and quickly recognize) your business.

Creating a consistent visual presence across all of your signage will help develop familiarity and trust between your business and your audience. That’s how random passers-by become clients.

For all the people who walk or drive past your signs, most of them are probably not looking to buy a house or lease a commercial space at that time. But, if you’ve used your signage to create a consistent visual presence over the years, you’ve planted a seed.

So, when those same people find that they do want to purchase a home or rent a commercial space, they’ll remember your business.

Design Consideration #2: Readability

Signs are intended to communicate. It’s their raison d’etre.

So, every design choice you make should support the sign’s ability to communicate clearly.

Of course, there are other factors at play… Aesthetics and brand awareness are both important, too.

But aesthetics and brand awareness should never trump readability. After all, if the sign cannot be easily read, it will not help you to communicate.

Your real estate open house sign won’t attract visitors if they can’t understand what it says.

Ease of readability is the number one design consideration for OOH signage.

Choose Fonts That Are Easy to Read

Font choice is one of the most important elements of creating an effective and easy-to-read sign.

Sign pairing easy-to-read font with elaborate script logo. Image courtesy of Candy’s Dirt.

And, the rules for signage are different than in many other forms of graphic design. While you can get away with a fabulous script font (like the Ebby Halliday logo on the sign to the right) or funky serif typography in a logo, that won’t work for regular sign copy.

To be effective, signage must be easily read from a distance and from a moving car. Otherwise, your message won’t reach a large portion of your audience.

This applies to your company name and all other information on the sign – make sure everything is crisp and easily readable.

For any non-logo text, aim for straight-forward serif and sans-serif fonts.

Landmark Sign Group recommends these as their top five best signage fonts:

• Helvetica
• Garamond
• Trajan
• Futura
• Verdana

These fonts (or others like them) can be paired with your logo to create a readable sign that clearly communicates your brand identity. That’s the best of both worlds.

For more on picking the right fonts for your business, Use These Powerful Psychology Strategies To Choose Fonts For Your Business.

Embrace white space

Elegant and readable sign with plenty of white space. Image courtesy of D Magazine.

White space is the area of a design that is left without lines, color, shapes or text. Put simply, it’s the empty space.

However, white space (which isn’t always actually white) is a vital contributor to an overall design in terms of both aesthetics and readability.

Mark Winter of IdentityPR explains:

The empty space surrounding text and graphics is just as important as other design considerations. There is a tendency to want to “fill up” the available area with as much copy as possible. But when text is crowded, it becomes harder to read. Thirty-to-forty percent of the sign’s face area should be left as white space for optimal readability.

Aesthetically, leaving sufficient white space gives a design a feeling of ease and breathability. Packing a design tightly with text or other graphic elements increases visual tension.

Ideally, it’s best if your audience associates ease rather than tension with your business.

Don’t jam too much copy on your signs. Be concise – tell your audience who you are and what you want. That’s it.

Prioritize white space if you want a sign that communicates confidence and peace of mind while also being easy to read.

Make smart color choices

Image courtesy of Kelly Right Real Estate

The color choices you make for your signage have the power to make or break the design.

Poor color choices can make a sign down-right illegible. But, smart color choices can make a sign a joy to read and stand out from the crowd.

It’s all about pairing your brand color (or colors) with contrasting colors that will make your sign pop.

For instance, the Kelly Right sign pictured above features their unique tangerine brand color with white and a lovely cool grey. The three colors create a unique palette that is brand-specific and easy to read. Perfect!

If you’re wondering what color combinations you should use for your sign – always start with your most prominent brand color.

From there, check out the color contrast guide included in this article to see which color combinations are most legible according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Your signs are one of your most valuable advertising tools. They’ll be appearing on properties all over your territory. It’s important that they make a strong impression for your brand.

Is it time to update your real estate signage? You don’t have to go it alone. Crowdspring’s team of over 210,000 designers is ready and waiting to handle your business’s design needs. Get started now with a new signage design project, logo and business card design project or vehicle wrap project today.

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