This Friday’s PSA for small business owners is a reminder that when it comes to branding and marketing, the KISS principle (pardon the rudeness!) applies every time:
> Is your logo too detailed? Can it be discerned easily, even from a distance or in a small footprint? Can you remove anything that is extraneous and doesn’t contribute to your brand promise? If there is more than one idea or theme you could be confusing your potential audience, and a confused audience is also a disengaged one!
> Is your website too text-heavy? Can someone skim your homepage and easily tell what you are all about? Consider conducting usability testing on your site or install a heat map tool like hotjar to determine what customers are actually doing on your site, or worse, if they are leaving without engaging with your site at all!
> Does your packaging employ the principle of visual hierarchy? Use colour, typeface weight, and scale to create a hierarchy of messaging so that it is clear to the consumer what it is you are trying to say. If all of your messages carry equal visual weight, you are asking the customer to make the decision about what to read first, and a consumer who is asked to figure out for themselves is (you guessed it) a disengaged one!
PSA For Small Business Owners #1: What is DPI?
FRIDAY PSA for small business owners: Have you heard the term "300 dpi" and it's made your head swim? Do you want to avoid blurry images in your printed marketing materials? Then read on!
Read More
Olympics: There's a reason for the season.
Originally Published: Wed, Jul 28, 2021
Although everyone is trying to grab as much "summer" outdoors as we can while it lasts (although let's face it, as food & beverage producers we will be lucky if we can get even one weekend away), these next few weeks also bring us some great TV: the summer Olympics in Tokyo.
So you can probably picture your customers: sitting on their couch in front of their TV, or perched on their cottage patios with their phones, snacks and drinks in hand, catching the events (my favourites are beach volleyball and the new event, 3x3 basketball!). Likely they also have another device where they are keeping up to date on their social media consumption during commercial breaks...
Now might be the perfect time to be reminding them about your products!!
But how?? Here are a few suggestions:
Created an olympic-themed recipe with your products and upload it to Pinterest, the #1 go-to for many people when they are on the lookout for seasonal/themed dishes to share with friends. Don't forget Pinterest's optimal aspect ratio for their images is completely different than most platforms: 1000 x 1500px, or an aspect ratio of 2:3.
Create an series of Instagram stories, each featuring an event and how it can be watched with your product. Don't forget to champion the athletes from your home country!
Giveaways: if you are an Instagram or Facebook user yourself, these might seem overdone, but in reality since we are not back to 100% food sampling in most places, this remains the best way to get your products into the hands of potential new customers. Put together a snack box or meal kit with other local food companies and package it with an nod to the Olympic season
If you used any of these ideas, I'd love to know. Shoot me an email! (mailto:hello@eyecandydesign.ca) I'll be catching as much Olympic coverage as I can over here, and imagining what could have been if I had progressed from that 6th place finish in the 100 m in Grade 5. Lol!!
Print is Not Dead: 5 Independent Print Magazines to read when you're offline
Originally Published online at rgd.ca
“Print is Dead,” they say. But as designers we know nothing can be further from the truth. The reality is how we consume our print has shifted, but it is most definitely not on a ventilator just yet.
It’s true that newspaper empires may be crumbling around us as we shift to getting our news online and books are more easily managed on a digital reader. But if you have a passion for a very specific niche, there is still an audience out there who want as much content as you can give them in a tactile form. Just as in the digital world, there is a subset of the population willing to pay for premium content, minus the ads, within a subscriber model.
Below are 5 independent print magazines worth diving into. In most cases the author also publishes a newsletter that is well worth subscribing to in order to get a taste of their content before fully committing.
Uppercase Magazine
Publisher/Editor/Designer Janine Vangool started Uppercase in 2009. The Canadian publication features all manners of craft and makes it a mission to showcase talented creatives from around the globe. Described as a magazine for the creative and curious, the magazine is printed on a lovely thick matte stock and the photography is bright and airy. Given Vangool’s background as a graphic designer, the magazine has beautiful small design touches throughout its pages. Her publications have expanded to include a very collectable set of books that spark the imagination and inspire creativity.
Offscreen Magazine
Offscreen is an independent print magazine that self-describes as a publication that “examines how we shape technology and how technology shapes us”. The content is put together very consciously, away from the distraction of cluttered ads and easily digestible content. Its aim is to thoughtfully examine technology and its place within humanity. The publication is published in Melbourne, printed in Berlin and ships worldwide. In its quest to find the kinder side of the internet, it showcases multiple contributors, original illustrations and is produced using recycled paper and clean energy.
Standart Magazine
I really, really like coffee. So much so that I was instantly enamoured by the coffee-centric Standart magazine, a visually rich production with original illustrations and often highly tactile covers. Each issue comes with a whole bean sample of coffee from a variety of micro roasters around the world. Even the ads in this publication are beautiful. The stories are varied, from interviews to fiction to travel sections; all geared towards coffee and a wider discussion of how to make the industry sustainable for both growers and the planet.
She Shreds
Being an independent magazine can often mean not being beholden to your advertisers and so your magazine content can be as niche as you’d like. One shining example of this is She Shreds, a magazine (and website) that is the world’s only print publication dedicated to women guitarists and bassists. With 20 issues under its belt, the media outlet’s vision is to change the perception of females in the music industry and to celebrate the immense talent they collectively share. The publication also manages to go beyond gender and transcend boundaries of race and more.
Eye on Design
For those of us who can’t get enough design in our lives, AIGA produces a magazine where each issue is centred around a theme and the place design fits within that theme. Not surprisingly, with a high production value, guest designers and international contributors, the magazine has been shortlisted and won several awards from Stacks, the award for independent magazine publications.
Struggling to cover expenses while creating valuable, original content remains a challenge to these publishers and likely that problem will never go away. However if they can continue to bring ideas across on the printed page to the right audience willing to pay for those ideas, there may just be some longevity in this medium yet.
So if, like me, you still get a thrill from turning pages and the feel of a freshly cracked spine, you can still revel in the printed medium no matter what your interests may be. If I’ve left something off this list that I absolutely need to hear about, I’d love for you to send over the title to me at hello@eyecandydesign.ca.
Vision versus Mission Statements, and how to create them
When growing your business from a one-person shop to having employees, you may find yourself with the need to define and create a workplace “culture”. Some business owners take to this responsibility very seriously; others would rather just make a really good product or service and hope the rest will take care of itself.
Obviously those companies who take the time to create a positive workplace will experience less turnover and greater customer satisfaction. Creating a vision and mission for your company can be one important way to define what your business stands for and why, and also sets expectations for both potential candidates and existing employees. With known expectations, owners can expect increased job satisfaction from their staff and will draw from a pool of job candidates better suited to their culture.
What is the difference between a vision and a mission? Let's contrast the two:
A vision sets the aspirations and goals of a company, versus the mission, which defines the business objective. This means setting core goals (vision) as well as a core purpose (mission).
A vision is meant to define what the future could look like, whereas the mission sets the expectation for how things should be today.
A mission puts down the action/cause, or purpose of the business. A vision defines the intended effect of that action.
While your mission defines what your business stands for, your vision should spell out where you want your business to ultimately go.
The mission should also state what value your business adds; in contrast, your vision defines the “why” of doing what you do.
Lastly, your vision should define your company's direction, whereas your mission should set clear standards.
The examples below are excellent models of these differences between mission and vision statements:
IKEA:
Mission: Offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
Vision: To create a better everyday life for the many people.
TESLA
Mission: To create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles.
Vision: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Mission: To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
Vision: To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
These sentences are deceptively simple, and likely took many iterations to get them perfect. It's worth drafting yours now, knowing that it's a living document and can be revisited as your business scales and evolves.
Amplifying Voices
Unless you've been shutting yourself in, both virtually and physically, you've probably sensed a change in the air. The murder of George Floyd sparked a widespread reaction in the States of which we are still seeing the effects. Whether people had just had enough, coupled with months of isolation, many long overdue conversations are now happening and bringing to light some very real, but sometimes hidden, inequalities.
The term “BIPOC” refers to people who are black, indigenous, or people of colour. Those who fit this description, likely have experienced racism at some point, whether blatantly or in a “mild” form. There's plenty of ways to understand this problem more now – loads of resources are out there for those who wish to educate themselves and confront the elephant in the room. This column isn't really here to comment on culture or society – but there are certainly lessons that can be carried into the business world.
There are many ways that racism and/or stereotypes could be negatively affecting your business. It could be unconscious mistreatment of customers by your service staff. It could be a website that is not accessible by people with physical disabilities. It could be a workplace culture that promotes and celebrates behaviour that is more common in one gender than another. None of these acts are done with malicious intent; rather it is a system that has been set up previously and we tend to just follow what has been laid before us, not seeing the damage or missed opportunities these acts represent.
Some companies have decided very consciously, and not without great effort, to buck the trend. Some do “blind hiring” by removing names from resumes or disguising voices during phone interviews to remove interviewer bias. Microsoft recently redesigned Xbox controls to make the movements and actions more accessible to the physically impaired population. Ultimately these seemingly “social” decisions comes with a cost, and no directly measureable ROI (return on investment).
However, it seems fairly obvious that when you have representation in your staff of your actual customers, and make your product or service more approachable, how can you not win in your space? And in a small city like ours, with an expanding population bringing in new, diverse ways of thinking, the stage is ripe for change.
Tip: Like any new challenge: if the more you learn the more it makes you uncomfortable, you are probably doing it right.
When should you re-brand?
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin August 2020”
Like most established companies, your business likely has a logo and brand personality with which your loyal clientele is very familiar and can easily recognize. Perhaps you already have a strong visual representation of your company that ties strongly with your industry and sends a message as to what service or product you provide and how.
However there are times in the life of a company when that visual identity may need either some small tweaks, or a complete overhaul. To understand when this may be the case for your business, consider the following:
1. YOU WANT TO GROW: Your company may be at an inflection point; poised to grow because you have narrowed your product or service that solves a very specific problem or fills a need. Perhaps your original branding was designed to appeal to a broad audience, but having operated for a number of years you can see that your actual market is a more targeted demographic, and your visual identity needs to speak directly to this group.
2. YOU HAVE A NEW MARKET SECTOR: If you provide a service or have a product which has been around for a while, and are comfortable with the steady growth of that business, this could mean your branding is working well for you. There is enough word-of-mouth and online reviews that you see steady increase in sales quarter after quarter. But if you plan to expand your market by offering something new, you may find yourself back at square one, patiently explaining the benefits of your solution to any new customer who will listen. While an effective tool for getting new business, it doesn't scale very well. This could be the time that you need your product to speak (or more truthfully, scream) what it does and how it does it, all on its own. This can only be done with effective branding.
3. YOU NEED TO EVOLVE: Perhaps your current visual identity doesn't fit the new way of doing business. While shying away from short-term trends, it is still highly important to strive to be relevant. Perhaps your current branding doesn't translate well to the hundreds of ways we now communicate digitally. Does it shrink down effectively to a tiny square on a smartphone? Is it memorable when viewed on a digital ad as well as a billboard?
Any rebrand project should be a thoughtful process, including a review of where the company's roots lie and where the business is headed.
Doing business post Covid-19
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin July 2020”
So it seems as if, at least for now, the threat of the pandemic sweeping Elgin County in a devastating way seems to have abated. We don't know if that means it's gone for good or that we should be bracing for another wave, but in the meantime, life is slowly getting back to normal. And that, for some, means business is back to normal.
Whether or not you have reopened your business, you are probably wondering: should we be preparing for some unknown future event? Should my business be changing the way it interfaces with customers and suppliers? Can it survive another shutdown?
Consider the way you perhaps have changed your own purchasing habits. Did you do any online shopping for your groceries or clothes? Did you try the local online farmers market called “Cultivate Virtual Farmers' Market”? Did you patronize any of the local businesses who quickly adapted to curbside pickup? And if you interacted with lawyers, insurance agents, or other professional services, did you find that signing papers digitally and emailing them back and forth was admittedly pretty convenient?
Okay, so these are a lot of questions! But if you yourself found a small appreciation for being able to order something at 11:30 at night, and then quickly picking up those items when they were ready, or not having to make a phone call to schedule a service appointment, consider that your customers likely feel the same way. Yes, it's a new way of doing business, and yes, it can be a pain to learn and implement a new sales channel, particularly when you've worked for years to create efficiencies in your present model. However, in general the world is moving this way and many of the younger demographic prefer the convenience of an online marketplace.
Moving online doesn't have to require a huge amount of investment to start. It can be as simple as selecting 5-10 of your most in-demand products and putting them up on a Square store. Or it can be implementing an online booking system for your consulting business. I myself am a couple of weeks into working with an online personal trainer and I honestly don't know if I will be motivated to drag myself to a gym in the dead of winter any more!
In almost any case, you will find new customers and new markets by allowing yourself to be open to new ways of doing things.
Stay ready and adaptable!
Should I be marketing right now?
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin June 2020”
The uncertainty of this period of time has changed all the rules of the marketing game. In ordinary circumstances you know how the game is played, and so you act accordingly. But now that there is no clear path forward, do the rules even apply anymore?
The answer is not black and white. Consumers and clients are having trouble navigating their own careers and families, and so beyond their homes, they are looking for others to lead. That means they may be looking to both corporations and local government to guide their behaviour and define what “normal” is.
At a minimum, this could just mean what “normal” means to patronize your business. If you are slowly opening your doors as per the provincial guidelines, you know what you need to do physically in your store. But it would be even more helpful if you could communicate your policies before your customers even get to your front door. In this case, putting a Covid-19 statement on your website, Facebook page, Google Business page, and any other directory/platform where you are listed will go a long way to setting expectations and putting everyone's minds at ease. If there is information out there that is relevant to your industry, sharing those links with your audience could be useful as well.
Going even further, I would venture to say that now is not the best time for a “20% off” sale just to get sales up. People are emotionally sensitive right now, and even though a sale is technically a bonus for your customers, they may not see it that way. Instead of a discount, perhaps you can tie incentives to giving a percentage of the sale to local Covid-19 relief. People might be happy to make a purchase that will also make a change in their community for those less fortunate than themselves. This is a great way to stay top of mind.
And since your social media should always be a mix of information+product & service offerings+community involvement, now is the time to lean more heavily on the latter. Share posts of local community initiatives that offer Covid-19 relief, and if you are doing something as a business, make sure your customers are aware.
If operations have slowed down, this is a great time to get back to that marketing plan you have that's collecting dust. Look at your business from a bird's eye view to see if your brand voice is indeed consistent and if not, where the gaps might be. This can be difficult to do as the business owner yourself, so try and bring in a third-party – someone who doesn't know anything about your product or service. This exercise is always extremely useful but difficult to do during normal operations, but perhaps now is a great time to do a brand audit. In this way when things do ramp up again, you are comfortably in the driver's seat.
Stay safe and healthy!
In the same storm, but not the same boat
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin May 2020”
A recent Facebook post began with the words “I heard that we are all in the same boat, but it’s not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship could be shipwrecked and mine might not be. Or vice versa.”
For some of us, our jobs means we have to go to work every day, constantly under threat of something insidious and invisible. We then have to bring the same threat back home to our family. For others, this is a time where our jobs have moved to a home office and taken on an urgent note, at the same time while we try to homeschool our children. And for still others, it's a pleasant opportunity to spend more time with family and bake bread. We need to understand that for some of us, this situation means merely surviving everyday, and for others this could be an opportunity to create something new.
Since my column deals mainly with how our businesses function with relation to the internet, I'd like to talk about some of the successes I've seen coming out of this period of time.
My favourite local chiropractor Dr. Peggy Malone, has been talking for awhile now of including an online model to her business that would allow her more flexibility and travel. Obviously being a chiropractor is a hands-on profession which requires her to be always physically present, and so setting up a plan that would give her some flexibility into the future. With the forced closure of her clinic, she's spent the last few weeks setting up courses online and building the marketing she needs to bring her services to the wider public. This was always her master plan, but before it was something that was more of a “I'll get to it later”. Now that we are in an extended period of “later”, she's been able to use this time to create what she's always wanted in the first place!
Another client of mine was building a website for his comprehensive service offering. In a weird twist of fate, we launched his site the same week he was laid off. Even though this new entrepreneurial journey was originally intended to be led in conjunction with full-time employment, at least he now has something in place with which to build an audience and income. Without a plan like this, his new circumstances could have been much more dismal.
My last example involves a vegan “cheez” company for whom I created their branding, again merely weeks before its owner was prevented from officially launching the product because of the Covid 19 crisis. Since she was now sitting on a significant amount of product, she decided to drop off samples to local vegan fans who were fairly active on social media. The response was so incredibly positive that she was asked to quickly build an online site so people could order items for delivery. Although this wasn't her original plan as a sales channel, she now has the ability to move product during an unusual time.
In other words, this may be a time to find that silver lining if you are able. And don't forget to take full advantage of the tools we have in our community, which you can always learn more about through our Chamber of Commerce and other channels.
How to stay safe and stay working
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin April 2020”
I'd like to start by saying: for those of you who put yourselves on the front lines daily, we are very thankful and the sacrifices and risks you are taking are not lost on the rest of us. And for those whose livelihood depends on physical interaction and people coming through your doors, I won't state what's already obvious, but this will be a trying time indeed.
Whether you have a brick and mortar business or are a service provider, this just might be the time in your career to consider bringing some (or more) of your business online.
If you have been hemming and hawing over whether to bring your physical products online and start selling, here are some points to consider:
1. Start by considering your top ten best-sellers, and selling only those: These could be a mix of low and high margin products, but essentially what brings people in your doors will also bring them to your site. Make sure they are either 1) a products that competes well on price with your competitors or 2) are unique enough that they are difficult to source elsewhere. Anything that doesn't meet these criteria put you at risk of selling them at a loss, as keeping this inventory and the overhead to ship might not make it worth it.
2. If you want to get up and selling online quickly, with an easy user interface, then Shopify and Squarespace are great options. Although they have high monthly fees, you get a very simple interface that gets you up and running in as little as one day. The alternative would be more comprehensive software with lower monthly fees, but these have higher upfront costs (as you would likely have to hire an expert to develop the site for you). This is only a good idea for an established business who have a compelling reason to sell a large number of products online.
If you are subject matter expert (SME) in your field, now might be a good time to consider monetizing your expertise by creating courses online. But before you do, consider the following:
1. This is a tough gig. It requires enormous effort to market yourself online, in competition with possibly hundreds of other people. Before you begin, determine who is already offering what you intend to sell, and what price. The more unique and valuable your expertise, the higher price point you can look at. But if there are already plenty of other people doing what you do, you will have to do some math to figure out if this will be worth your time and money to build and market. Yes of course, this business model can scale to a world-wide audience, but people still ultimately trust other people. So you will need to build that trust by either promoting to your existing network first and growing from there, or consider offering free snippets of your course as a “try-before-you-buy” model to people who don't know you personally (ideally a mix of both).
2. Again, there are plenty of web-based software options to build out your service. Some practical, easy to use ones are: Udemy, Teachable, Skillshare . Do your research and read about each option carefully. Sign up for the free trials to see how they work. You need to get very comfortable with the software and its features, so that you can build a course offering that is authentic and valuable.
Having software do the work for you
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin March 2020”
If you have a product or service that can easily be sold on-line to an audience that extends beyond geographic boundaries, you should be absolutely taking full advantage of automated marketing tools.
If words like “MailChimp”, “Kajabi” or “ConvertKit” gives you hives, fear not. Spending some effort in learning these tools will give you the ability to tailor and broadcast your message to the people who are most likely to need your product or service.
One online guy I'm a fan of is Paul Jarvis (I mentioned his book Company of One in a previous article). Every Sunday he sends out a comprehensive newsletter on topics that he has researched and that he feels his audience would appreciate. He has been delivering this free content for years. If you find you like his tone of voice, his expertise, and the topics he covers, you'll find yourself looking forward to the next one.
Once you're on his “list”, you are a valuable potential sale. His business model is centred around delivering course materials online and so once in while, he will send a message that a particular course is going to begin, or that he is hosting a live Q&A webinar if you are curious and want to know more. Since you already appreciate the information he has been giving you for free and see him as an expert in his field, you are less likely to bristle when he is in “sales mode”. And if you ever do find yourself wanting to learn the content that his course delivers, of course you are most likely to register for his course versus anyone else offering similar products.
Jarvis exclusively uses MailChimp to create and automatically schedule the messages for his Sunday newsletter list (to deliver the free content); and in the case that you signed up to learn more about a particular course via a webinar, to automate follow up emails that get sent every few days immediately following the webinar; and even to deliver his actual courses. In other words, during his day-to-day he creates all of this content and sets up how it should be automated, but doesn't have to present when the actual content gets sent out. Building this all out naturally takes a great deal of time, but once the process is in place, it is just a matter of maintaining and tweaking it from year to year based on updated information or customer feedback, with minimal manual work on his end!
If you are a creative writer, you might consider sending out a newsletter with excerpts from the novel you are writing. If you are a retail store selling pet products, you might send out seasonal info about pet health. If you are a charity, you might send out stories about the impact you are making on the community.
I mentioned Kajabi, which will do all this and a great deal more, as well as ConvertKit, which is a product similar to MailChimp. All of these tools will not only help you understand who your leads are, but can even process payments and help you deliver messaging that will make a fierce believer out of your customers.
Happy automating!
The value of associations
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin Februrary 2020”
This month's column goes back to a more traditional way to grow your business network. Joining your industry's association, while perhaps not having a direct relationship with how your business grows, can be incredibly beneficial to you in many indirect ways.
A tradesperson's association may offer courses in skill development or safety that you may not otherwise seek out on your own. They may be able to bring in experts in your field from whom you can glean knowledge and ideas that you wouldn't otherwise have access to. Belonging to a certification body in your industry will help distinguish you from your competitors, especially in sectors where there are many professionals offering similar services, such as interior design or photography. Often times with this level of exposure amongst your peers, there is even opportunity to work as a subcontractor to larger players in your field, which is a huge bonus when you are just starting out.
I belong to RGD, the Registered Graphic Designers of Canada. Before even becoming a member, I took full advantage of their free events and online tools that ultimately helped me do my job better. After a test and portfolio review, I am now a member and have been able to take full advantage of their impressive annual conference, enjoy a multitude of webinars and reading materials, as well as extend my network of like-minded peers who share the same daily struggles and challenges of working in this industry. I have also joined their events committee, so that I can contribute my own ideas as to how I see the organization working in the future. In this way, I can shape what the association offers its members and ensure that it will continue to be relevant to myself and other designers.
Whether you are one year or 10 years into your business, getting involved in your industry's association will continue to offer benefits to your own company's growth. While it may initially seem like yet another expense, you may be pleasantly surprised on the return you get on your investment. Some associations even offer a trial membership, or a free pass to an event, in order to “try before you buy”. Of course, no two associations are alike, so it is worth doing some investigating as to how the organization is run and what they offer their members before you commit.
Have fun researching!
Starting small but staying consistent
Originally published in “This Month in Elgin January 2020”
Many people admit that the real key to success is small gains over long periods of time. Of course, that's not what it looks like when we consider the YouTube-famous, or Instagram influencers, but as we all know that kind of success is extremely rare and quite fleeting.
Instead, making small, but consistent, steps toward achieving something great is likely 1) much more attainable for most of us who aren't crazy talented and 2) has a longer payoff.
If you are looking for a great way to help you get on that path to consistency, I have a book, a podcast, and a journal to recommend:
1) The book that basically preaches exactly what I say here is called Atomic Habits by James Clear. He strongly advocates that you can really only get to where you want to be as a happier, more productive person by implementing tiny changes-whether you are looking to take on a new good habit (like drinking more water in the day) or shedding a bad one (like quitting smoking). His writes about four laws of behaviour change 1: make it obvious, 2: make it attractive, 3: make it easy, and 4: make it satisfying that will help guide you to finding the right motivation and the necessary persistence to make the new behaviour stick.
2) I'm going to just go ahead and plug two dear colleagues of mine and their podcast “The Improvement Project”. Recorded right here in St. Thomas, this podcast is about creating better habits and becoming a better human! Dr. Peggy, a local chiropractor and Jenny Couse, a marketing specialist, take on a new habit challenge every 30 days and share their insights as the challenge unfolds. Not surprisingly, Atomic Habits that I mentioned earlier came from their recommended book list. It certainly helps that these super smart ladies are also fun to listen to and have a great rapport. Learn more at https://drpeggymalone.com/podcast/
3) Another great habit that is affecting my overall productivity and outlook also came from Dr. Peggy and Jenny. Last year I started writing in a “Five Minute Gratitude Journal”. Like the title says, I spend about three minutes in the morning and two in the evening slowly changing my perspective and expectations for the day by reflecting on the things for which I'm grateful and what areas I can consciously work on as I go about my day. There are many, many kinds of journals out there; the one I like to use is from intelligentchange.com.
That's it! A few small but positive ways to change you outlook, keep you focused on your goals, and take agency for your life. Please drop me a line and let me know if any of these worked for you!
Happy 2020!
Disappearing content? Why bother?
Back in August 2016, Instagram was a very strong platform for businesses, but there was one trend that its owners noticed: given that the platform is so dependent on visuals, the pressure on users to only post perfect content was very high. This need for the absolutely perfect composition, lighting, etc… make some users less likely to post often, as it was both daunting and time-consuming.
At the same time, SnapChat was the new social media platform du jour, and it’s main differentiator was the ability for users to post content that would disappear after 24 hours. Given that the content wasn’t going to be stuck on one’s feed forever gave people the opportunity to post more spontaneously, and not worry about achieving the perfect photo. SnapChat users felt less constrained within this structure, and hence posted more often. Eventually Instagram took notice.
Enter the “Instagram story”. Instagram stories are a great way to pique your audience’s interest via text, photo or video, without having to commit to that content staying on your feed and forever defining your brand. It’s also a great way to experiment with live video. It sits at the very top of one’s news feed and so new stories are always highlighted for users when they are using the platform.
As a business, you can either rely on Instagram’s funny and particular algorithm to select your regular post to be visible in your audience’s feed, or you can post a story and have your brand highlighted at the top of their screen immediately. You can do this every time you post “regular” content, to bring more eyeballs to that post.
Stories, in many ways, work just like regular posts in that you can tag people, locations, or use hashtags. People wanting to know what happened in St. Thomas in the past 24 hours for example, may choose to watch the stories based on “#stthomasontario”. What a great way to get your company noticed! Like SnapChat, there are also plenty of fun filters and stickers to keep things interesting and fun.
People got so into using stories that, eventually, there was demand to save the stories beyond the 24 hour window. So now you can create “highlights” that can be a succession of archived stories. These get featured right on your main profile page and so again, they are a great way to entice new visitors to your profile with rich content.
With even further tweaking, you can have your stories link directly to products that people can purchase from your e-commerce. In just a few clicks you can increase your audience reach by leaps and bounds.
For older users still getting used to this whole “social media” thing, posting videos and frequent content can be an intimidating task. You can easily eliminate some of the stress while still keeping your content very fresh and relevant using Instagram stories. Your community will love and appreciate the sneak peeks they get into your world, thereby keeping up the hype around your brand, and making your audience part of your tribe for life!
Happy “storying”!
Instagram for business
Perhaps you are already using Facebook for your business and happily find you get a good deal of exposure and are able to increase brand awareness for your company fairly easily through posts, videos, and maybe even Facebook stories or live video. People walk into your store or visit your shop online because of the relevant, engagement content you present them. Why bother with Instagram then?
Instagram has seen rapid growth since its launch way back in October 2010, currently boasting over one billions users! Given that its platform is built primarily on imagery versus any one language, a single Instagram account can easily spread its content to a worldwide multilingual audience.
The premise of the app is extremely simple: post a picture and optionally add a caption. Your business can provide beautiful photos of your products, happy customers, promotions, and examples of corporate responsibility, all in a way that can easily be consumed by your audience. This is arguably even easier than browsing your website, as with a website, the user has to decide how to navigate it, whereas Instagram is just one, continuous scroll of photos. Of course, the fact that the content can be easily digested means that your photos must be highly engaging, otherwise the user has the option to quickly scroll past it. Engaging photos tend to have striking composition, are well-lit, and ideally include a face or person as often as possible.
A smart, well composed photo is just the beginning. The use of hashtags in your caption, similar to Twitter, means that people who are searching for the very thing you are selling can quickly get to what they are looking for. Hashtags are also great if your business is centred on a specific geographic location or category. This means someone looking for ice cream on a hot summer day can easily find a local dairy bar without too much effort. Beyond the hashtags, captions are your opportunity to describe the photo, or talk about the features of your service, and allow you to underline its benefits to your customer in a very direct way.
The ability to make your account a “business” one means you can capture leads by providing your website or a contact number at which you can be reached. With some customization, you can also have your customers purchase directly from the platform with just a few simple clicks. Just because you don’t necessarily shop from your phone yourself doesn’t mean you should discount the >60% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last 6 months!
The richly visual platform is very engaging, particularly with a younger audience, so if your customers are millenials and younger, this social media experience is not one you can ignore.
In my next column I’ll talk about the use of stories and how to advertise your content on Instagram, which are methods to take your business even further with the platform.
Happy posting!
Women in Business
The Numbers Are In: Economies Grow When We Bet on Women
Canadians are most active women entrepreneurs in the world
Female Entrepreneurship Is on the Rise
As Entrepreneurship Thrives, Women Are Starting More Innovative Businesses Than Men
These are the headlines from the last year that came up when I Googled “female entrepreneur”. It was very encouraging to read such optimistic-sounding titles. But it led me to wonder: what are some numbers behind all of this good news?
You may have read the recent headlines about Kylie Jenner, who at only 21 years of age, leveraged her celebrity status to grow her cosmetics business to a value of $900 million in less than 3 years.
Or about the Canadian company Knix, started by Joanna Griffiths, who launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 for her bra design, eventually raising just over $1-million (U.S.) from nearly 14,000 backers. In 2017 Knix surpassed $20 million in sales.
And of course we have our own local success story, Louise Vonk. Louise Vonk grew the family business, Messenger Freight Systems, from earning $1 million to $13 million in annual sales. Back in Aug 2017 she was listed as one of Canada’s 15 Most Influential Female Entrepreneurs according to opstart.ca.
This all sounds very encouraging, and make great role models for those of us with businesses that are in a state of early growth. On the flip side, some of the numbers are still disappointing:
Women own fewer than 16% of all businesses
Only 10% of high-growth firms are owned by women
About 8% of women-owned businesses export
36 percent of men planning to open a business plan to do so to become wealthy, while only 23 percent of women planning to open a business do so for the same reason.
Women-led businesses also face barriers in accessing capital. According to recent data, women entrepreneurs are less likely to seek debt and equity financing and are more likely to be rejected or receive less money. A women business-owner recently told me the story of her personal experience with banks; that their assumption is always that she will be bringing in a husband or father to co-sign her loan!
Obviously we’ve come a very long way, but there is still so much to do. Locally, let’s support our female-owned local businesses (of which there are many!) with our wallets and watch that money get invested right back here in our community.
For further reading, and to find the numbers I cited above, visit: Globe and Mail, Folio.ca, Start Up Canada, Industry Canada, thebalancesmb.com.
Marketing versus Advertising
There’s a saying in the marketing world where the client admits “I know 50% of my marketing dollars is being wasted; the problem is I don’t know which half.”
Lately I’ve had a few meetings with well-established businesses in the area who are unfamiliar with social media and can’t quite clearly see the ROI from such an effort. And so even though I know I’ve touched on this already many times in my column, I figured this topic bears repeating.
Traditional media (print, radio, TV), while beneficial for companies who can afford it, is out of the reach of many smaller, fledgling businesses. The biggest reason why traditional media might be a misuse of marketing dollars for smaller businesses is that there is no way to track how many eyes have viewed, listened to, or watched the ad. Therefore precious money is being wasted on an inattentive audience.
This is where social media marketing might have a huge benefit. With sponsored content within a social media platform, you can clearly define your audience. Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.. already know the behaviours and interests of their users because they asked them right off the bat when they registered for the service! So when you create an ad audience with Facebook, a brick and mortar home décor store can say “Show this ad to people within 50 kms of my store, aged 25-70, who list interior decorating as a personal interest”. Similarly, an online e-commerce site that sells men’s grooming supplies can create an audience of “Males aged 20-70 within Canada and the US”. Of course, you can be even broader than that, but isn’t that terrific that you can narrow your sights on the people who would care about your product or service in the first place?
But that isn’t even the best part. Once you are running your ad, you have access to plenty of data (in Facebook this is called “insights”) which creates instant reports to tell you how effect your ad is. It will tell you your “reach” (how many people saw your ad within their newsfeed), as well as your engagement (how many people liked, commented, or shared your post). This will give you instant feedback as to whether an ad is working or not. If it strikes just the right chord with the right people, you will see plenty of engagement. So you can add even more to the budget and reach even more people with this effective content. Can you get that kind of feedback from a general traditional ad?
I don’t want to discredit traditional advertising altogether as there are certainly still situations where a billboard or trade magazine is extremely effective. But if you think social media is a trend that has no place in your advertising budget, you will very quickly find yourself lagging behind competitors as they capture the attention of smartphone users who now spend as much as 4 hours a day on their device!
Don’t fall behind!
The Psychology of Colour and Your Brand
These are serious considerations when choosing your brand colour palette. Your professional duty is to your brand and company growth, and so your company colours should be chosen not by your favourite niece, or your artistic grandson, but rather by careful study of colour psychology and how it relates to consumer habits in your sector.
At the end of this month I’ll be speak to the topic of “Branding & Marketing” at the Elgin Business Women’s Network’s monthly meeting. I’ll be joined by several great women from the community as we discuss topics related to branding. Two very important themes associated with the design of a brand are typefaces and colours. Since I’ll be delving into more detail about typefaces at the meeting, I’ll save that topic for the audience, so I figured in this column I’d touch on colour.
As you are probably aware but hate to admit, if you are a business owner then whether or not you really, really like green is irrelevant. Your customers associate different colours with different things in a very subconscious way, so your job is to capitalize on this and take advantage of what colour can do for you.
In general, the main colours can be broken down as follows:
RED: Energetic, Youthful. Can also be provoking!
ORANGE: Cheerful, Enthusiastic. Some surveys put it at the least favourite colour but others say it’s yellow…
YELLOW: Optimistic, and Youthful. But also used on hazard warning labels.
GREEN: Peaceful, Natural, Money. Typically used by both “natural” product companies and finance.
BLUE: Trust, Security, Loyalty. Used widely by companies that want to appear traditional and/or reliable. Internationally, it’s the most preferred colour!
PURPLE: Creative, Spiritual. Associated with royalty. Generally not liked by the male gender.
GREY/BLACK: Serious, neutral. Black and white logos can either appear flat and uninteresting or very stylistic and modern.
Obviously there is much more to it than this, and so when putting your branding guidelines together it’s very important to do not take it too lightly, or act impulsively. It’s worth working closely with your designer and relying on their knowledge and any research you’ve done during your business planning stage to determine how your branding should evolve.
What’s a CTA? And why bother?
When sitting down with a potential website designer you may find your head spinning a little as they throw out terms like “SEO”, “CMS” and “CTA”. Today I’ll touch on “CTA” (although you can always contact me for further info on those other troublesome terms).
CTA stands for “Call To Action”…Basically your company has a website because, well, you want more business (duh). So when you have a visitor land on your site, not only do you want to impress them with your product or service and provide more information, but you’d also like them to DO something about their visit. After all, they’ve made a certain level of commitment already by merely visiting your site. This is where a CTA comes in: it can be in the form of a button that leads them to yet another page, or a form that they fill out for more info, join a newsletter list, or a “BUY NOW” or “ADD TO CART” button that clinches an e-commerce deal. Essentially the objective is to provide a compelling reason to finish, rather than defer, the sale
CTAs are an integral part of your site as they encourage the user to go further down the sales funnel than just ending up on your site. Obviously this is highly important and therefore deserves some highlighting on your site. But how?
There are a few common tactics to highlight your CTA. One is repetition: make sure your CTA appears more than once, on more than one page. Each individual is unique and therefore absorbs your content differently. Some people see a graphic in a sidebar somewhere, but others might be attracted a large button, centred on the main page. The idea is provide multiple ways of having the user finish that sale, or least contact you for further information.
If you are asking the consumer to commit to a fairly large purchase, you might precede your large request with a series of smaller requests, that eventually lead them to the main goal. For instance, you might have them upload a photo file that can be used to customize a product you sell, choosing different colours and features, so they can see a possible mockup, before you make the final ask. The idea of “no obligation” to start is an important feature of a CTA.
Another feature of CTAs is that they use the familiar tactic of creating a perceived urgency or exclusivity. You might mention that there are only x number of these items left, or that if they complete the sale they might be entitled to a discount that is only in effect today.
CTAs can not only be introduced on your website: they can be implemented in email campaigns, digital banners, Facebook ads, and any or all manner of digital advertising. What can you offer your customers, today?