What Do We Do?

Graphic design. Commercial and product photography. Branding. Printed marketing materials (flyers, cards, brochures, books, EDDM’s etc.) Web design. Social media and social media training. These are some of the things we proudly handle at 77 Design Co.

In our endless everyday travels, during networking events, or even discussions with friends and family, we often get the question about what we do here at 77. Other than running our asses off and fielding calls/texts/emails most of the time, we actually do do a LOT of work behind the scenes. In addition to finding the best ways to market a particular business and bring it a personality, we go out of our way to actually find referrals for those we work with as well. We challenge any reader to find another marketing agency that is as hands on as we are with our customers and that will go above and beyond to actually refer work to your business as well!

An initial consultation meeting with us would include questions about what you believe differentiates your company from others in the same field, and a whole lot of listening. Marketing a business requires a great deal of understanding on how it is run, who your customers are (or who you may think they are,) what areas you service, how long you have been in business, and other key aspects important to creating the correct marketing campaign. We have to understand what makes your business tick from the inside and out. Below are just some of the services we provide and a brief description of each:

Graphic Design-ever pick up an obviously poorly designed looking flyer that someone hands out? It makes you want to toss it immediately. The message is lost. We take time to create an aesthetic piece that people will want to read and look at…this is key to both standing out and converting potential customers. Any handout should also be branded to look and feel like other parts of your business.

Commercial and Product Photography-Image is everything in advertising! Having a crisp, well focused and creative image can also get your print, web and social media pages to stand out and attract customers. A creative team photo or eye catching shot of your product will get peoples eyes dancing. Ask any graphic or web designer you know, one of the first things they will tell you they need is great imagery.

Branding-Probably one of the most important things you can do for your company is to brand it effectively. Branding is a symbol or an identifiable feel that is cohesive through every feature of your business. A certain logo, color, font, image, or other design is always visible. The website, print materials, social media pages, or signs all have the same or similar look to them. This helps create brand identity. Our “77” is everywhere we can get it!

Printed Marketing Materials-This goes hand in hand with graphic design, photography, and branding. We have created some killer brochures, cards, and booklets for company’s that we are proud of. We also work with suppliers that use some of the finest inks and paper stocks that can really get these to pop. It may be worth a few extra bucks every now and again to print your materials using a textured paper or an intricate ink that will really create a WOW factor. Creative and interactive mailers can also be a superb way to touch customers.

Web Design-The online face of your business. Creating websites is a large portion of what we do and also one of the most time consuming. Add all of the elements above (minus the print) and you can really have a distinct website that looks and feels unlike any others in your industry. It needs to be user friendly also.

Social Media and Social Media Training-A small piece of the marketing pie for some, for others…HUGE! Depending on your industry, social media marketing can either attract the occasional customer or really bring in a large part of your business. We currently have a client that claims 50% of his business comes from the Facebook posts and ads we do for them. That is a significant chunk! If running a full social media campaign is not in the budget for you, we have a training program available to teach your staff how, why, when, and for what reason to consistently post.

So, thats some of the stuff we do on a daily basis. There’s much more and way too much to list here in this blog, but we hope this provides some information about 77 and what we do!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

 

A Blog About Blogs-77 Design Co

Welcome to the 77 Design Co blog once again. This weeks blog is about…blogs!

You may ask, What is a blog? How do blogs help my marketing efforts? What’s the point of a blog? What can spending all that time writing a blog do to help my business? These are all valid questions and questions we’ll answer them here shortly.

Let’s start with the basics. The Dictionary definition of a blog is, “a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.” There you go. A blog is a simple means of communicating something about your business, product, hobby, interest, or any topic of your choice. You may want to write about something relevant in your industry. Perhaps, you may choose the topic of baseball and write a short personal blog about that sport. It can be any topic. It can be any length. Make it yours, just try to make it informative and accurate…especially if you are blogging about a business.

Now let’s get into the nitty gritty a little more. How can it help marketing efforts? Well, a blog can help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization,) it can add credibility to your company, it can be used to market a sale or discount you are offering, or maybe a new product/service. A blog can help in any way you want it to. Promote your blog on social media and see if customers react. Ask customers what they’d like to read about that’s related to your business.

What’s the point of a blog? It can have a very crucial point. Or, no point at all. It can be something that you can direct customers to. It could be about something such as a particular law or legality for a law firm’s blog. Maybe a new product is coming out in the gas well industry. A manufacturer may want to discuss that with their customers through a blog. The point of a blog can be as important or as ridiculous as you want it to be. Again, if you are in business and blogging, make it accurate and informative.

What can spending all that time writing a blog do to help your business? Hmm, let’s see here. You can become an authority in your profession! If you know something and you know it well, share it with others. Write about problems you see and deal with on a daily basis, then give suggestions on the best ways to avoid these problems. If you market your blog properly, customers will thank you for the helpful information. You may also be able to influence a reader into choosing you instead of a competitor. Give insightful information about whatever topic you choose and be the person or business of influence!

Here are a few tips for blogging.

1. Add images, short videos, or a cool design. Not just any old out of focus, uninteresting image or video but damn good looking stuff! The human eye picks up on images 50,000-60,000 times faster than ordinary text. This will keep readers moving along and interested in what you have to say. Keep the blog fresh and the images looking sharp. If you need a hand with this, hire a professional photographer/videographer/graphic designer…or give us a ring!

2. Use terms that are relevant to your industry. Terms or short phrases will immediately attract attention to your blog topic. Plus that will also help with SEO.

3. Be professional and courteous. Write professionally and don’t slander or smear others or your competition in a blog. If you do it better, just say why and leave it at that.

4. Be consistent. Make a schedule of when to blog and stick to it. It takes a while for others to find your blog or gain interest in it, and nothing is better than consistency at helping with this. You should blog to your website AT LEAST monthly, if not daily or even weekly.

Now, get writing and get sharing your blogs with the world! It can be a tremendous help to your business if properly written. For any questions or any help to get started…our numbers and emails are right below.

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

 

Color: What Signals Are You Sending to Customers?

As a marketing firm dedicated to helping business owners succeed, we wanted to create an informative blog based on how the public may perceive what you are putting out to them. This blog article will deal specifically with the marketable color of your business. You may ask yourself, “what does the color of my business have to do with anything, and what is it?”

Well, frankly, it’s the persona you present to the public through the color scheme choices on any of your marketing materials AND it has a LOT to do with your image. Color dictates how potential customers feel, react, and associate with your business upon seeing your logo, website, social media pages, or other materials. There’s a lot of psychological mumbo jumbo to it and plenty of research studies have been done on the topic. Don’t believe us? Google it yourself and see.

Lets take a quick look at some examples of color as well as the positive and negative emotion/image they present:

Red: Red colors often evoke passion, power, love, speed, energy, and if used correctly can create a strong subliminal call to action. The color red can also induce feelings of anger, increased heart rate, anxiety, warning, and aggressiveness. Other things we notice as we march through life and look around us, is that our brains pick up that red is almost always associated with sex, incorrect test answers, and domination.

Blue: Blue is often the favorite choice of color by many people in studies. There are many positives, but also a few negatives with blue. Blue is one of the safest colors to use in business as it represents honesty, relaxation, calmness, spirituality, and peace. On the opposite side of the spectrum, blue can also trigger depression, frigidity, sadness, and superstition. Think of blue skies, the blue sea, winter, water, and openness to better understand how blue works.

Green: What do you immediately relate to the color green? Yep…environment! Green is associated with growth, nature, admiration, vitality, and harmony. The color green if used too much can also lead to feelings of greed (think money here), fear, apprehension, envy, and materialism. Green is a great choice for businesses relating to science and nature, as long as its not overused.

Black: Oh, black, you mysterious classy gentleman of leisure! Black creates a huge range of emotion when used in business. It can create an aura of secrecy,  authority, sophistication, strength, negativity, and protection. Black is across the board on an emotional level of it’s own and should probably be used sparingly so you don’t come off to customers as too controlling or secretive. It is also the main choice of todays youth, probably having something to do with rebellion or ambition. When you think of black, think of tuxedos, darkness, space, fear, classiness, respect…the list goes on.

Yellow: Bright, joyous, serene, optimistic, fun, and warm. Yellow seems to have it all when used as a primary business color. However, as with all of the colors there’s always negatives associated with it too. Yellow can make you feel impatient, cowardly, anxious, and unstable. We relate everyday to yellow through yellow traffic lights, (don’t lie, you want to get through it as fast as you can too) the sun, fast foods, and caution.

Orange: Ah, a supporting color of yours truly, 77 Design Co. Orange is adventurous, valuable, warm, optimistic, creative, and enthusiastic. Too much orange though can leave us feeling cheap, pessimistic, aggressive, and angry with certain shades. Orange is a color associated with food and kitchens for some unknown reason…something we also love at 77!

White: The last color we’ll discuss is white. Now white is all of the colors combined equally, but it stands alone from the others. It represents openness, cleanliness, modernity, purity, and simplicity. White can become boring, empty, distracting, and too sterile if there is too much. Humans associate white with religion (when we think of walking into those pearly bright white gates at the end of life) voids, surgical rooms, and large bright corporate board rooms.

There are many other colors obviously to choose from and of course, all of the above mentioned colors give off different vibes and emotional responses when they are presented in different tones. A light blue will invoke a differing response versus a dark blue, for example. A solid mid red color will leave people with a different impression than a light pinkish-red would. These are all things to seriously consider if you are rebranding, starting up, or making any changes to marketing materials.

If you need any help figuring out what colors to use, or would just like to hear our opinions on what colors to use for what, drop us a line. We are here to help!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

Customer Retention, Loyalty, and Win-Back With Direct Mail

As a business owner, you probably spend a lot of time and effort searching for ways to acquire new customers. But there’s actually more value in focusing on the customers you already have.

Knowing this, it’s vital to focus your marketing efforts on reaching these customers. Direct mail can help you do just that-retain existing customers, inspire their loyalty and even win back the ones you’ve lost.

Direct Mail Campaign for TAG Development franchisee of Subway and Auntie Anne’s in Greensburg, PA.

Retaining Customers with Direct Mail

Retention is a good starting point for a direct mail campaign. Repeat business both drives incremental purchasing and spurs more recommendations to others from these frequent customers. Not to mention, it costs less to retain customers than it does to acquire new ones.

Imagine you own an outdoor-gear store. Your customers like to go on adventures, so use direct mail to remind them of the fun they’ve had while using your products.

35%Targeting customers who have purchased from your business in the past can boost sales up to 35 percent.1

In this case, it might be helpful to appeal to their senses with beautiful outdoor imagery to recapture the sense of accomplishment they might have felt in association with your business.

Chances are, you already have some information about your customer. The key to creating mail that drives your customers to buy again is knowing your audience and providing information about the products or services they care about. If a customer has purchased cycling gear in the past, you probably want to show them the best you have to offer in cycling apparel or bikes, rather than, let’s say, winter jackets and snowboards.

In order to retain customers, make sure your direct mail is targeted, has a time-sensitive offer and a strong call to action. This will strengthen your brand connection and motivate repeat visits.

 

Gaining Loyal Customers with Direct Mail

Direct mail can also help with creating loyalty. Because while returning customers are great, it’s your superfans who purchase frequently and spread the word about your business.

Let’s say you own an apparel store. It would be important for you to showcase the latest styles and create a customer base that comes back each season. These loyal customers are valuable because nearly 80 percent of an organization’s revenue is generated by the top 20 percent of customers.

Mail can be a cost-efficient, effective and measurable way to keep in contact with your customers and grow your base of loyal customers. Create mail that makes them feel appreciated and rewards their loyalty.

Use these three ways to refine your loyalty mail:

  1. Assess available data to create the right messaging.
  2. Choose a motivating reward that targets your most passionate fans and inspires them to act.
  3. Integrate with existing marketing to guide customers to your website or social media to redeem offers, make purchases or sign up for your company’s newsletter.

That’s why building a loyalty program can drive sales and reward your biggest fans. A simple brochure can act as the perfect entry point: part content, part exclusive offer.

Show them what you have to offer and give them an incentive to become a loyal customer.

A URL can lead customers to your website where they can redeem the offer, join your program and-more than likely-make a few more purchases along the way.

Winning Back Customers with Direct Mail 

You know those customers that shopped once and then disappeared? You can win them back with direct mail.

For example, if you own a home decor store, you wouldn’t want to lose a customer’s business after they only purchased one item. Ideally, they would come back when decorating their entire home. Customers leave your business for a reason, so just letting them know about your new stock of picture frames won’t be enough.

Using direct mail to reach lapsed customers can be highly effective in grabbing customer attention, sending specific messages and reaching a highly targeted group of customers. To do this, you need to send a message that grabs customer attention, addresses the reason they left and then makes it easy for them to return.

Personalized messages that show you want to understand why they left can be very effective.

Including a Business Reply Card will motivate customers to respond to a short survey in exchange for a reward.

You can also ask about their shopping experiences and leverage this feedback to improve your business and better identify customer issues in the future. After gaining a better understanding of why your customer didn’t return, you can remind them of what they’re missing and then provide an incentive to win back their business.

In Conclusion

There are many tactics for converting the customers you have with direct mail. You can remind customers of their visits, offer loyalty incentives and gather the information you need to improve their experience. By using direct mail for retention, loyalty and win-back, you can inspire customers to continue coming back, again and again.

 

 

1.“Holiday Marketing Case Study: Boosting Flower Sales with Direct Mail.” USPS Delivers, www.uspsdelivers.com/holiday-marketing-case-study-boosting-flower-sales-with-direct-mail/.

 

Mailers-EDDM’s, What Are They and What Can They Do For Your Business?

Welcome,

Today’s blog will consist of some marketing information about EDDM’s (Every Door Direct Mailers) that could be beneficial in your industry. First off, EDDM’s are a designed and printed piece that is then mailed to an area of either residential homes, commercial businesses, or both. They usually offer a discount, coupon, or simply serve as an informative piece to raise awareness about a new local business or cause. Surely, anyone reading this have received EDDM’s at some point or another within their daily mail.

EDDM’s can be either extremely useful in raising brand awareness and attracting new customers, or they can fall flat and not get the response intended. Some will produce mixed results. The advantage of spending a portion of your marketing budget on EDDM’s is that you are already in the hands of your intended customers once they pick up the mail. It is here that you need to make the biggest impact!

Have you ever grabbed the mail, saw the EDDM  <insert crumbling paper sound here>

then promptly tossed it straight into the garbage like we have? Probably. Let’s think on that for a second. Why did you do that?

Was the offer/discount not up to your standards? Didn’t need the service(s) listed? Hate the “junk mail” in your mailbox? Or is there something more to it than that?

Psychologically speaking, (and admittedly we are not psychologists here at 77, however, we have done tremendous amounts of research on the psychology of marketing) images and the overall visual appeal of the design are what immediately attract the eye. The human eye reacts in certain ways to specific images, colors, and fonts subliminally sending signals of interest to the brain which determines whether or not we’ll scan or read through something. These subconscious reactions pertain to web pages, brochures, social media posts, and almost every single marketing piece of your business. This is also likely one of the main reasons EDDM’s get tossed so quickly. A hastily designed mailer without attractive offers or professionally looking images stands less of a chance of hitting it’s mark than something that is put together creatively. Put all of this together and what many businesses, including some of the larger corporations with the budget to consistently flood homes with mailers, don’t understand is…people want to relate! They need a reason, or at least an identifiable image, to understand the business and the offer that is right in front of them in their hands.

If we see a stock template design (you know it when you see it,) a stock image (example: a photo with dopey white guys that don’t work for you in suits shaking hands in a board room that isn’t yours,) unattractive logo design (multiple color variations and /or a complicated design that is hard to understand,) we are OUT! It’s gone within seconds. This is something often discussed in detail behind closed doors at 77 about a great many marketing techniques. If it looks like the company didn’t take the time to create unique and aesthetic pieces to attract our attention, what are they going to do for us or our business that differentiates?! It’s a valid question, and many consumers feel this way.

EDDM’s need to be simplified, identifiable, yet powerfully visual with a superb offer in order to have the most potent impact on it’s intended customers. An EDDM also needs to match the same branding look and feel as your website, social media pages, or other printed hand outs and business cards. Everything needs to be flush. The offer should be quite visible and leave no room for confusion. Some ideas of identifiability for the images could include:

  • your product viewed from a different perspective others may have never seen
  • your team
  • A “WOW” image, something that will draw the eye to immediately
  • your office space
  • or even the process of production or service you offer

Without giving away anymore of 77’s inside trade secrets  😉 we’ll end this blog with simply saying if you, or a business you know, has any questions about a current direct mail program, or interest in starting one, give us a call. We’ll be happy to put you directly in touch with the customers you are looking for, find the best ways to get the most returns…and make it as attractive as possible!

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

 

 

 

 

 

Why Isn’t My Social Media Working?

When I started out in this business I worked in radio sales. Country radio I might add… Aside from being a rock n roll kind of guy in my early 20’s schlepping country radio wasn’t my cup of tea, yet I learned a lot from my very first boss.

One of the key things he taught me was when things weren’t going as planned look back at when they were going as planned. Look back to when things were going the way you wanted them to. He called it getting back to basics.

So you’ve got this facebook page. You’re posting. You’re not getting any likes, comments, inteactions. No one is seeing your posts. What gives? Well, let’s put on our cowboy hats and boots, sell some spots on country radio, and get back to basics.

 

The goal of social media is to start conversations and create relationships.

 Look over your last few posts. Are you communicating or are you promoting?Consider offering a variety of information relating to your business that could stir up a conversation, create a question or even engage someone who isn’t ready to buy right now and well, create a need for them to buy right now.

Part of establishing relationships is building a loyal fan base

That can only be accomplished through providing the information people are looking for.

If you don’t have a website that offers this information to supplement your social media content, the conversation won’t go far and neither will the relationship.

Your audience needs a place to go to continue building a relationship with you, whether it is a blog or even another social platform, such as YouTube.

If you aren’t properly branding yourself, how will people remember you?

 Creating brand recognition is a key component of social media. To achieve this, everything must be consistent across the board.

All social networks should use the same profile image and cover photo. This makes it much easier for potential clients to recognize you and feel confident that the account they are choosing to follow is authentic.

Social media isn’t your personal show-and-tell, it’s a conversation.

 It’s quite important to share and link to other relevant content and blogs in your content.

Not only does it add value, but it also increases your reach if others in your profession share it to their social media channels.

If you build it, they won’t necessarily come.

 This takes more than just regularly checking your notifications and responding appropriately.

It also means actively following relevant accounts, interacting with individuals on your page, sharing posts by others and starting conversations on other accounts.

In addition to these organic measures, your strategy should include a budget for advertising. In all regards, you have to be consistent, or you can forget the leads.

Worried you don’t have the time to dedicate to social media? Consider hiring a firm that can help. However, be cautious when interviewing potential agencies.

If someone is pitching a cheap solution, whatever you are being promised is likely too good to be true. Enlisting less than stellar help could end up with with you having the same posts as every other competitor in town.