Confused about colour?

We are currently working on an interesting brand refinement exercise for a Norwich organisation and it has highlighted a question about colour matching that I thought might be useful if I explained a little. This client is keen to match the colour on their website with the colour in their printed materials. Not as easy as you may think....!

There are three different ways of making colours that we come across in our graphic design work for Norfolk businesses.

CMYK - This is the process used most commonly in printed documents to make a colour. In essence it involves mixing variable quantities of cyan, yellow, magenta and black ink to produce the final colour.

RGB - This is the process used in screens such as televisions or computer monitors, so it is predominant in web design. It involves mixing red, green and blue pigments to produce the colour. RGB colours tend to look more vibrant because they are projected on a screen rather than a flat piece of paper.

Pantone - This is an alternative way to produce a colour in print and involves using one of a large number of unique, individual inks to ensure an accurate colour match time and again. These inks are referenced in a pantone book which all good graphic designers should refer to - these books alone cost in the region of £200! Using a pantone colour is often referred to as printing in spot colour.

If you are using CMYK then there is still some room for error as one printer may print heavier on colour than another printer. The best way to safeguard against this is to ensure that you always have a high resolution printers proof to cross check colours against before you proceed with a full print run. Pantone is the safest option for ensuring consistent colour which is key to consistent branding, but you will pay a premium for it. Even then, there is scope for the substrate material (eg paper, vinyl etc) to affect the final shade and the addition of a gloss or matt laminate can also impact upon the tone of the colours too.

Top tip for consistent colour: Print as many documents as possible on the same print run to improve colour consistency. If you are having folders produced for example, run some business cards at the same time on the same card so that the colour matches consistently when they are inserted. This will also save on print costs.

10 low cost marketing ideas for independent retailers

As part of a presentation to the Norwich Lanes group of independent retailers, I came up with 10 marketing ideas which any small independent retailer (or other business) can simply implement to improve the marketing of a small business. These are focused on marketing for small independent businesses in Norwich but they could be easily adapted for other locations.

1. Give away free samples
Easy if you are a food outlet – simply stand on the street corner with a tray of bite size samples of the food that you make and start wafting them in the face of passers by. Slightly more complex if your products aren’t edible – talk to your suppliers about sample size packs of their products.
COST: Free - Cost of product only

2. Take a look at your kerb appeal
Poor “curb appeal” can put even the most dedicated customer off entering your shop. Even in Summer, you need to make effective use of good lighting to make sure that your shop looks open and welcoming from the outside. Something as simple as a sticky door can send a perfectly good customer away – get your WD40 out and if weather permits, leave your door open. Pick up a tin of paint and smarten up your exterior or perk up your sign. If you can’t stretch to buying a tin of paint, try Freecycle or your dad’s shed.
COST: Free if you beg, borrow or steal the paint!

3. Work on your window display
Attractive merchandising can make a massive difference to the impact of your window display. Makes sure that you change it regularly, in line with the seasons or to highlight new product ranges for example. Rotate items in the window to avoid sunlight damage and to attract the interest of regular passers by. Keep an eye out for dummies or props in local charity shops or ask your suppliers about professional point of sale display equipment such as racks or banners that they can supply you with.
COST: Free with some creativity!

4. Know your customers
Marketing is all about selling stuff that your customers want to buy – simple! Talk to them! Find out where they come from, why they visit you, what else they would like to buy from you and so on. Go one step further and ask for their contact details (postal or email address) so that you can mail them directly with news about special offers, new products and so on. Use a monthly competition as an incentive (cover) for people to part with their contact details. Use address finding software available online so that you don’t need to get their full address, just a house number and postcode.
COST: Free


5. Build customer loyalty
In simple terms, you can build customer loyalty simply by looking after your customers well and always focusing on excellent customer service. Changing your range of products or just your window display on a regular basis will also encourage regular customers to pop back in. To incentivise customer loyalty, set up a simple loyalty scheme using a basic postcard or business card for them to collect “stamps”. After multiple purchases, reward loyal customers with a free cup of coffee or discount voucher etc.
COST: <£100

6. Shout about your expertise
Expertise and advice is one of the key selling points for independent retailers. Use it to leverage more customers away from larger chain stores who offer little expertise in customer service. Enhance the message by running workshops, speaking to groups or getting involved in special events that further distinguish your offer for example a restaurant could participate in the Norwich Wine Festival to show that they have a real interest in good wines.
COST: FREE

7. Engage with existing customers
Engagement is a key word in modern marketing - get your customers involved in your business so that they feel a part of it. Ask them to help you to choose your new product range by welcoming suggestions for new products. Use a customer newsletter (email or printed) to share expertise and further engage with your customers and their lifestyle. A newsletter might include:
Top tip or fashion trend (with illustrated example from your shop ideally)
Info about events in the Lanes, diary dates
Latest news from the shop – new product ranges with pics
Staff news/updates
Topical national news that can be adapted to your shop eg BBC2 Queen of Shops programme
Seasonal news (eg Christmas products, Summer etc)
Contact information
Discount voucher or special offer
COST: Basic e-newsletter <£50 - more professional options around £150

8. Use social media
Social media provides a wide range of opportunities to promote your message via the internet and is a lot more localised than you might expect so it definitely has value for local businesses. Most of it is free too which is great, though it can be costly in terms of time! Use a Facebook business page to reach your customers – post photos of products, updates from in store and news. Twitter is a popular choice for broadcasting short sales messages and engaging in conversation. This is where a lot of people go to seek advice as well so if you are in on the conversation then you can help people and this helpfulness is a key principle of online brand building.
COST: Free (time only)

9. Get in the news
Look for free publicity opportunities in your target media – local newspapers or BBC Radio Norfolk are a great place to start. Read and listen and look for opportunities to get involved by approaching them about new products or interesting news that you think will interest their readers. This type of publicity is free but again can be time intensive. Use the seasons or national events - a Norwich fish & chip shop might use National Chip Week to hang a story from - and start building relationships with local journalists.
COST: Free

10. Its nice in the niche
Be clear about your unique selling points (USPs) and carve your niche carefully. Too narrow and there may not be enough customers to sustain you but too broad and customers wont understand what you stand for or what they can buy from you. This includes keeping your product range tight and “on topic” – be very ruthless with product ranges and don’t let it all get too vague. By all means be creative and diversify but make sure that there is always some logic behind your product choices. Think carefully about your customers and ensure that they would be interested in most/all of your range.
COST: Free

Making the most of social media

Getting started in social media can seem like a very daunting task - I am often asked for advice or tips on how to make the best use of this valuable marketing tool. Following on from my post translating Twitter terms, here are a few pointers to help you make the best use of your social media activity to raise the profile of your business:

* Watch & listen before you “speak” - you don't have to join the conversation straight away.
* Integrate with your current website - using links to your current website is crucial if you want to use social media to drive sales - www.bit.ly and www.tinyurl.com are great space saving link tools.
* Competitions and offers - use social media to publicise special offers or run a competition for everyone that shares or retweets (RT) your post.
* Encourage and engage conversation – it doesn't cost anything to be helpful but users will remember you for it.
* Market research - social media is a great place to get up to date with your industry and find out what your competitors are up to.
* Select your tone of voice – keep it consistent with your brand. That means you can't use frequent foul language if you work for a very straight corporate company.
* Don’t be too “salesy” – communicate not broadcast. People hate to be sold to on Twitter as much as they hate it elsewhere.
* Time-saving tools – Use applications like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck etc. to save time and schedule your activity

What is marketing?

When I'm delivering my training courses on marketing for small businesses and start ups across Norfolk, we usually start with a fairly simple question - "What is marketing?" I ask everyone to jot some ideas down to try and get a picture of the level of knowledge in the room (and also to give my voice a break from talking all day!) This exercise is also hugely valuable to get people "into the groove" and "thinking marketing". I truly believe that marketing is so much more than just a process like accounting or administration, its a whole way of thinking. Those that srtuggle with the concept will often start by putting advertising down on the blank sheet of paper but marketing is so much more than simply advertising.

Some of the most successful small businesses and start ups are those which think marketing all of the time. By this I mean that they are open-minded to creative ideas - anything from giving some products away to a charity to forming alliances for referrals or collaborating to host an event. So here are a few of the more unusual things that some of my training course delegates think are marketing that you might not have thought of:

1. Giving away free samples of your product - this could be at an event, in the street or even mounted onto the front of a magazine
2. Holding an open day
3. Writing an article in a magazine
4. Writing a blog or using other social media
5. Setting up a customer loyalty scheme - use a simple business card to collect stamps and give loyal customers a free drink etc on their 6th visit.
6. Clever packaging and point of sale (POS) - a dull product can look totally different in a clever box or display stand
7. Incentive schemes - encourage word of mouth from existing customers by rewarding them for referring a friend to you
8. Giving away branded promotional gifts such as pens, stickers or carrier bags

Can anyone suggest any other smart marketing ideas?

Translating Twitter Terms

Twitter seems to have spawned a whole new language, somewhere between text speak and auto-shortening, which can leave us all a bit perplexed at times! Here's a glossary of some of the key terms to help you make head or tail of it all.


Twitter helps people communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent, 140 character messages. Its like a mini blog.

Tweet

A tweet is a Twitter message (140 characters max.)

Tweep

A tweep is a person who uses Twitter. Every tweep has a username and a unique url eg http://www.twitter.com/activemdkate

Following

Following someone on Twitter means getting their updates in your personal timeline. If you follow Tina, you'll get her updates on your homepage when you log in, or on your phone if you've added an app. To start receiving messages from a person, visit their profile page and click "follow" or send a text message to Twitter with the words "follow username" from your phone. You'll get messages from the people you've followed as soon as they update, and you can stop following anyone at anytime. There is a general courtesy to follow people back who follow you, but you don't have to follow everyone who follows you and you can follow and un-follow who ever you want whenever you want.

Followers

Followers are people who receive other peoples' Twitter updates.

RT

RT is short for retweet, and indicates a re-posting of someone else's tweet. This is a key part of Twitter’s viral nature. RT isn't an official Twitter command or feature, but people add RT somewhere in a tweet to indicate that part of their tweet includes something they're re-posting from another person's tweet, sometimes with a comment of their own. It’s a bit like an endorsement or a recommendation and is an important way of “sharing the love” and making friends on Twitter.

@reply and :D direct messages

An @reply is a public message sent regardless of follow-ship that anyone can view. An @reply can be used to ensure that someone specific sees a tweet or to draw someone’s attention to a tweet or retweet of particular interest to them. A :D direct message can only be sent by someone you follow, and is a private message that only the author and recipient can view.

Examples

@activemdkate Enjoyed your tweet about Beckham and branding http://tinyurl.com/kqtu62

:Dactivemdkate What time shall we meet for lunch?

Favourites

The star * is a way for you to mark an update as favourite. People can view your favourites, and you theirs, by clicking on the Favourites link in the profile page.

# hashtags

Twitter hashtags like #followfriday help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organise it. The hashtag is a favourite tool of conferences and event organizers, but it’s also a way for Twitter users to organise themselves: if everyone agrees to append a certain hashtag to tweets about a topic, it becomes easier to find that topic in search, and more likely the topic will appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics. In some situations a hashtag can become part of a brand and may even feature in other marketing environments such as your website.
Lists

Twitter Lists are a relatively new feature which allow Twitter users to group together people they follow or are interested in hearing from under one simple heading. Twitter lists are integrated Twitter streams from a specified selection of users.

Follow Friday

#followfriday (#ff) is a “game” in which people suggest who to follow on Twitter. It helps everyone find interesting Twitter users. You list the users you recommend following and add “#followfriday” anywhere in the Tweet so others can find it. The “#” is very important – don’t forget it!
Example

#followfriday @mashable @adamostrow @sharonfeder @jbruin @adamhirsch @benparr @brett @tamar

#followfriday can be enhanced by giving just one name per tweet and then a brief explanation of why people should follow them

#followfriday @lambdafilms – great local video company and fun fellas too!


Interesting people to follow – Norfolk

@activemdkate
@lambdafilms
@elaine_maslin
@edpmary
@enjoynorwich
@sarajgreenfield
@chris_greenf
@norwich_broker
@brays_cottage
@Breckland
@BBCChrisgoreham
@LCDParkHouse
@redwingsHS
@lucieMD
@thewindowcoffee

Making sponsors feel special

I recently responded to a forum post from someone who was worried about losing her corporate sponsor. Its something that is absolutely critical within public relations activity, not least in the current economic climate where corporate cash is very hard to come by. The example related to a show-jumping rider and her sponsors who run a video company, specialising in stable CCTV but these principles can be applied in other scenarios too.

Here are a few thoughts from my experience of looking after both companies and riders public relations campaigns. You need to think carefully about embedding the sponsor into your business so that the two are inter-linked and therefore they feel more engaged and are much less likely to pull out. It should be quite easy as this sponsor is so closely related to the business. Its far more tricky if your sponsor is in another sector eg insurance!

For starters, the rider should be using their video service and it should be live on both rider and sponsor websites. The rider could also post clips from this free of charge to youtube and other video sharing sites. Have either party got a facebook page? They are free for businesses and you can then post links and video clips etc here promoting both sponsor and rider.

Pitching a news story/feature about using their video service within the rider’s business will also be much more interesting to papers and magazine editors than something overtly commercial like "I'm really grateful to my new sponsor...".

Mention them in your blog. This sounds much more natural and less sales-like so adds value for the sponsor if its in context eg "The stableview video captured Coryn doing something naughty/unusual/snoring etc..."

Send the sponsors a nice framed photo (or a canvas print is cheaper and more trendy) of your top horse with a caption like "Team X sponsored by Stableview" to display in their offices if applicable. Add a lock of the horse's hair to make it really unique.

Can you arrange any hospitality through any shows where you compete etc? If its smaller local events that don't have sponsors areas then consider doing a posh picnic by the lorry or invite them to stay over at a show for a real experience if they are quite practical people. All stuff that money can't really buy but that can make the sponsor feel really important and won't cost the rider a fortune either if you are smart about it.

Kate Elliott is Marketing Director of Active Marketing & Design Ltd which specialises in delivering practical marketing solutions for the rural sector. Kate is also a keen rider and regular contributor to leading equestrian magazines including Horse & Hound.

Examples of work we don't do!

I recently spoke at a networking event whilst feeling a little overwhelmed and frazzled with our current workload. As I sat and waited my turn to speak for 60 seconds I started to anxiously jot down my to do list for the day. This resulted in a slightly humorous pitch in which I detailed all of the things I hadn't done that week to give an illustration of the sort of work we are involved in. I finished the pitch by saying: "My name is Kate Elliott from Active Marketing and Design, but please for this week at least, we don't do marketing and design!" This presentation actually attracted a lot of interest in our work by default and a lot of people seemed to get a better understanding of what we do and started to trust us more.

I suppose its all part of the know - like - trust - buy idea. That is people need to first get to know you, then begin to like you and finally grow to trust you before they will buy from you.

So in a continuation of that theme here are some examples of the work we have done in the last few weeks:

Branding and Postcards for The Business Base












Design and produce spiral hats for Easton College to distribute at Royal Norfolk Show















And here are some of the things on the to do list:

PR plan for animal first aid products
Social media activity for healthy furniture store
Write text for a website of a repair company specialising in emergency vehicles
Design a poster in Polish about onions
Design packaging stickers for pest control products