Using Effective Graphics in Design to Engage Users

Karri — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:59:06 +0000

Design is one of the most important considerations when you’re contemplating upgrades or an overhaul to your website or print materials. While there is no substitute for appropriate messaging, the design of your printed piece or your website is the first thing a user responds to. Design often determines whether a user engages in your message or abandons your website, deletes your email newsletter or tosses the brochure you spent a lot of money on. You have only a few seconds to grab someone’s attention, and you have to get it right.

“Graphics” generally refer to:

The overall layout.
Is the piece designed in such a way that it’s easy to navigate or read? Does it lead the viewer through a logical progression of the message at hand?
Color.
Color sends a powerful psychological message, and it’s important to understand how it will affect your users. What colors are most appropriate for what types of businesses? How does color influence perceptions of your business and actions by your prospects?
Illustrations, clip art, charts, icons, line art, etc.
The types of images that are created with a graphic design program or illustrated. Icons are a really effective way to communicate a message without taking up a lot of room on a page. To be most effective,icons need to be familiar and clearly indicate what they are meant to communicate! Think of a shopping cart icon on the top of an e-commerce website. You instinctively know that if you click on the shopping cart, you can complete your purchase. It’s familiar and it takes up a lot less room than a link that says “Complete your purchase here.”
Photography.
The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” could not be more true. Consider the following:

This is a photo I took while designing a website for a local bakery. If memory serves, they are cake balls dipped in chocolate. While there should definitely be a description to make these delights as tempting as possible, the first thing any viewer is going to see is the photo. The photo is going to determine whether someone reads the description, and no amount of text can possibly communicate the yummy-deliciousness like this photo can!

If you really want to engage your audience, use photos of people.
Photos of people draw us in and can create an emotional connection. While not appropriate for every design application, they can be used very effectively to help communicate who you are, and they can immediately form a bond with your audience if the subject is someone they can relate to in important way.
This is an advertising piece I did for a staffing agency that sponsors a local golf outing every year.
It’s a fun outing, and they are fun people. The photo I chose for the advertisement not only grabs attention because of the unique perspective, but anyone who has played golf can instantly relate to a time when they wish they could have given that little white ball a little help!

Used properly, graphic design can engage, influence and convert your audience into action.

Would you like to find out more about how effective graphic design can improve your brand image and your marketing materials? Call me at 614-507-0705, or send me an email. I’m always happy to answer questions and find ways to help improve your marketing program in many different ways.

7 Free Ways to Jumpstart Your Marketing in 2012

Karri — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:37:02 +0000

Whether you’re operating on a shoestring marketing budget or not, stretching your marketing dollars and getting the most ROI for your business is always important. Here are 7 easy ways you can improve your marketing in 2012 without spending anything more than time.

1. Update or Start a Blog

If you already have a content-managed website, schedule an appointment with yourself to update it regularly by adding to your blog or news section. Be realistic. If you haven’t added anything in 6 months, you’re probably not going to become a daily or weekly blogger overnight. Shoot for once or twice a month. Dry on ideas? Bullet point a few ideas in a document you keep on your desktop, and add to it as you come across ideas; this will help prevent “blank page blues.”

If you don’t have a blog, there are many free blogging platforms that you can use and link to from your website. Take the time to tweak a layout enough so that users find it somewhat consistent with your website.

2. Get on LinkedIn

LinkedIn brings a lot of bang for the buck by allowing you to put up a profile and a company page. Free. LinkedIn also has a nifty WordPress App that will show your latest blog posts if you use WordPress as your blogging or website platform. Install and configure the app on LinkedIn, and then simply use “linkedin” as one of your tags when you post.

3. Put Up a Fan Page on Facebook

Depending on the type of business you do, Facebook can be a great way to engage and attract new clients. Avoid the hard-sell and provide interesting, engaging and valuable posts.If you can figure out how to post a graphic or photo, you’ll get noticed in feeds more easily. Even if you don’t believe Facebook is the best fit for your business (and it’s not for many), then consider the fact that it’s free and provides an inbound link to your company website.

4. Google+ For Better SEO

Yes, it’s another social media platform. Yes, it’s a little more time spent. While there are no guarantees that you will get better page ranking by being on Google+, I personally noted a huge jump in my ranking in Google searches within a few months of putting up a personal profile that I optimized for my business. Now that Google+ is open for business pages as well, it makes sense to have one.

5. Double Up For Referrals

How many people do you hand your business card to in the course of a year? Double that number by never handing out less than two cards. An extra card is a referral waiting to happen, and you don’t have to come off as pushy to encourage it. Simply hand over two cards and say, “Here’s an extra card in case you or someone else may need it.” Seed planted. Okay, this one isn’t totally free, but depending on how many business cards you order at a time, you’re creating opportunities for referrals for about 5 cents apiece. Keep in mind that the person who receives your card from someone else doesn’t know anything about you or your business, so make use of the back of your card to describe your business with some effective bullet points.

6. Do Someone a Favor

The world is full of people who only think about themselves and their business. Want to stand out in the crowd? Find a way to connect someone to a colleague, make a referral, write a recommendation or do something free, whether it’s for a charity or a customer. Expect nothing in return. Don’t you like to do business with nice people? So does everyone else.

7. Speak Up

If you want to create buzz about your expertise, look for opportunities to speak: business networking groups, conferences, etc. This isn’t a free commercial for your company; it’s about bringing value by sharing some of your expertise. Give some great insight or advice, and you get to be recognized as an expert, thought leader or resource. Hint: a nice PowerPoint to keep your topic organized and on track is really helpful and easy to create.

There you go! There are a lot of things you can do that don’t cost much or anything, and if you do them effectively and consistently, I promise you will see results!

Lehner Signs Gets First Website!

Karri — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:46:47 +0000

Lehner Signs has been in business for over 25 years, but this is their first website. In an age where franchises dominate the sign industry in many metro areas, Lehner Signs is locally owned and operated by sign professionals in Columbus, Ohio. That lends a depth of experience and service to their customers that the franchise operations can’t match. They’ve been around since signs were largely done by hand, but have kept pace with the latest innovations and technologies.

When asked about the difference they bring to the table, Eric Lehner noted not only their years of experience, but the level and variety of services they offer. Because many of their clients are real estate companies and real estate developers with recurring sign needs, Lehner signs offers total sign management services. They design, install, remove, and refurbish or re-install graphics so that the same signs can be used multiple times, offering a huge savings. “Where our competition offers storage, we offer inside, climate-controlled storage,” says Lehner. “The difference is that the signs require less work to refurbish to like-new condition, saving money, and they also last far longer, which leads to even more savings. We know our customers appreciate that we are trying to save them money.”

The project for Lehner Signs included refreshing their logo, website development on a WordPress platform, professional SEO, social media profiles and integration with their website, and marketing consulting.

Custom Facebook Fan Pages!

Karri — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:54:24 +0000

I am very happy and excited to offer a new service to my clients: Custom Facebook Fan Pages.

Your Facebook fan page can look and feel totally custom, and act just like your website.

You can do something as simple as a a splash welcome screen, to integrating your full website right into your fan page. Anything your website can do, from contact forms, slideshows, b…logs and more, can be integrated into your fan page. Your viewers can even buy from your online store without ever leaving Facebook!

Find out more by clicking through to the Axxis Design fan page, and don’t forget to share the love and “like” the page while you’re there!

How Social Media Affects Search Marketing

Karri — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:03:36 +0000

How Social Media Affects Search Marketing | Social Media Today.
by Steve Olenski

In a very eye-opening article recently posted on the site SEOMoz brought to light the fact that Google search results are now being directly impacted by the social connections of the person doing the searching. As the author of the piece astutely posints out, “This should be giving everyone in search marketing a huge “ah ha” moment.”

The author of the piece, Rand Fishkin, presents this in a very clear format, showing in detail how search results are altered based on 1) if you are logged into Google and 2) whom you follow via social media.

The image below is a screenshot of a search he did while logged in to Google. You’ll see the #3 listing is for someone he follows (Note the Geraldine reference and image):

Now look at the same search results AFTER he logged out of Google:

The difference is quite staggering, is it not?

As the author goes on to say, “…the reach of your social network and the sharing you do to those networks will have a substantive, possibly massive, effect on your search traffic.”

Over at another site, christopherspenn.com, an article written by Mr. Penn, who is a co-founder of PodCamp with Chris Brogan, among many other things, refers to this news as “monumental” saying “If you’re marketing something, there’s now a direct incentive to build your network as large as possible among your prospective customers.”

This is all very compelling stuff here, so much so that I wanted to get one of our own experts’ opinion on all this. So I tracked down Josh Spiegel, one of our Search Marketing Managers at the Star Group for this thoughts and he hit me with this very powerful and emphatic edict, fi you will…

“If you don’t have a presence in social, you’ll lose your presence in search.”

Now… let that sink in for a few minutes.

Sources: seomoz.org, christopherspenn.com, How Social Media Affects Search Marketing, The Star Group

Earth Day Volunteering!

Karri — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:21:35 +0000

Earth Day 2011 Worksite Weekend

A lot of work was done by a dedicated group of enthusiastic volunteers on April 16 & 17.

Our client, On Target Performance Group, sponsored the Helping Hands Community Garden worksite, just north of the OSU campus in Columbus, Ohio. It was a chilly and windy weekend, but thankfully it didn’t rain, and everyone had a great time. We were quite busy clearing garden plots and helping to build compost bins and a couple of very imaginative herb gardens out of reclaimed concrete rubble.

Do it yourself website design.

Karri — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:20:20 +0000

Occasionally I get an inquiry from a prospective client curious about do-it-yourself website design. Often hosting companies will offer a variety of templates and some tools to help their customers design a website for themselves, bypassing the need for a web designer and the costs associated with hiring a designer.

One might think it’s counter-intuitive for someone who offers web development to offer advice to a prospect on ways they can use these tools, but I feel that if a client has severe budget constraints, I really have nothing to lose by giving them a little friendly advice on how to avoid some of the common pitfalls of do-it-yourself website design. Call me crazy, but I think that kind of attitude may just win me a contract for future work, marketing consulting (to make sure that what they’re providing is appropriate), or a referral.

Do-it-yourself website providers can be very tempting because they usually offer either no or minimal up-front costs, and a small monthly fee to keep your website live. However, there are some things you’ll want to watch out for.

Some advice I would offer on any website developed in that manner would be:

Make sure you own the domain name.
Most, if not all of these providers will allow you to register your domain name through their system. Not all of them allow you to keep your domain name if you decide to move your site to another provider or choose to have a custom site done and hosted elsewhere. This is their way of keeping you as a customer, because you’ve built business and traffic to that domain, and will be reluctant to change it mid-stream. Check to see that if you register your domain through them, that you actually OWN the domain, or if you transfer your previously registered domain, that you don’t give up rights to it.

Make sure you own your content.
If you decide to move your site to another host, you’ll usually find that you cannot keep the design. It belongs to the company you have been using—you’ve essentially been renting a website, and you do not own the design or the content you’ve created. If you decide, for whatever reason, that you want to move your site or have a custom site designed and hosted on another provider, you need to make sure that you have a back up of your content, or you’ll be starting from scratch. Take the time to create a document that lists the pages and the written content. Even if you want to update or improve the content, it’s always nice to have your old content to refer to.
Compare the costs.

o Add up the costs to keep your site online. I know it’s compelling to have a small monthly fee rather than a larger up-front development cost, but take the time to add up the monthly fees, as well as any yearly fees. You may find that in a couple of year’s time, you will have spent enough to have your own custom website that you own full rights to.

o Do they charge by the size of the site or number of pages?

o Is the rate guaranteed, is it an introductory rate, subject to change?

Can you get help?
Some companies may offer great customer service, some may not. See if you can find customer reviews. Do a Google search to see what comments you can find from real customers using the system you’re considering.
Make sure your content markets you to your audience.
It might seem like an easy task to tell your audience about your company, but when you’re marketing, you have to think about them, not you. They don’t care about your company as much as they care what you can do for THEM, and what problem or pain you can solve. Writing content for web is a science. It entails creating compelling copy in a way that humans can relate to, but is also Search Engine Friendly.

All in all, do-it-yourself website design can be a blessing for a company with severe budget constraints that wants and needs to have an online presence. If the task seems daunting, don’t despair! I do offer consulting to help your plan your website and your content. I also offer payment plans and ways get you online with a custom website for a minimal cost, with strategies to improve content and functionality as your business grows.

As an outsourced marketing agency, one of the biggest advantages I offer to my clients is the consistency of messaging and brand image across all of their materials. If you’re considering getting online for the first time, or improving an existing website, please shoot me an email for a no obligation quote!

Here’s to your success!
Karri Hill

A New Website for Majestic Building Maintenance

Karri — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:13:32 +0000

Majestic Building Maintenance, Inc. is enjoying the new website just developed for them by Axxis Design Group. Majestic is a commercial cleaning services company that specializes in restaurant cleaning, office cleaning, post construction clean up services, and real estate-owned property maintenance services. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, they are expanding rapidly to other locations in the central/midwest region of the US, as well as Atlanta and Texas.

Axxis Design Group’s services to Majestic include a new website developed on a WordPress platform. This website showcases their services, and features a detailed quote request form for client-use. When fully developed, the website will also contain a job board to recruit new crew members.Their website will be an important part of their customer satisfaction program with the implementation of a client survey. This web-based survey will be emailed to all clients on a regular basis to give them the opportunity to give feedback on the services they’ve received.

Other services provided include: a new logo, uniform shirt design, client proposal design and development, printed sales collateral, and marketing strategy to enhance their business development.

Custom Concrete Plus Gets a New Website

Karri — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:58:34 +0000

Just launched: a website redesign for Custom Concrete Plus. Owner, Art Mynes had this to say:

“The website is PHENOMENAL!!!! Very, very professional. Just what I was looking for. I’m very impressed by your grasp of concrete verbiage, not being in the business. I googled “stamped concrete Columbus Ohio” and we popped up towards top of 1st page. YESSS!!”

This website redevelopment takes their static html website to a content management system. They now have the ability to update their own news section and add new project photos. The combination of some specialized Search Engine Optimization and the content management platform has greatly improved their website traffic.

Custom Concrete Plus is a Columbus, Ohio commercial and residential concrete contractor. They specialize in decorative, stamped concrete for driveways, walkways, patios, pool decks and stacked concrete block walls for outdoor rooms and outdoor kitchens. Check out their new website to see the amazing work they do, and if you need a new patio or driveway, give them a call!

Aspen Staffing 2010 Advertising Design

Karri — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:12:16 +0000