branding |

Winner of Best of the Best

For 13+ years we have been voted Best of the Best by the readers of the Auburn Journal, and we couldn’t be more thankful to our community and our fantastic customers.

Since opening the business in 1946 we have striven to be been involved in the community and has enjoyed giving back. In 1984 Brad and Merrill purchased the business and have since continued to be involved and continue the tradition of giving back and supporting many community events. Being a big part of our community, being involved and giving back is what I am passionate about. I do it because I see a great future for our community and all there is to benefit from for me, our company and my kids.

Besides being such a staple of the community we work hard at being a partner to the land trusts and non-profits locally. We give back to many non-profits and work closely with them to find new ways of attracting donors and new revenue. Using print, email, direct mail, signage and promotional products to elevate their clients message in a cohesive, timely and branded manner. Our clients have seen that the value improves exponentially with a multi-touch approach.

I strongly feel that we are a one of a kind shop in this area with all the equipment and up to date technology that we have in our North Auburn location. Feel free to stop by and see all that we have to offer.

Brand consistency. Better than selfies with bears.

There are some things that are annoying when inconsistent, like handwriting, cell phone bills, how hot your oatmeal is in the morning…

But what about the things that actually hurt when they are inconsistent? Brand inconsistency is right up there with things like talking selfies with bears. It works occasionally, but there’s a pretty good chance you will fail hard. OK, maybe you won’t die if you hurt your brand, but your business could die off.

Why is this important? Why do you want to keep your figurative business limbs?

You want people to take your business seriously. Humans tend to trust things that are aesthetically pleasing and don’t change too drastically. It’s hard to build trust if your branding is all over the place in terms of logos, colors, and quality. In fact, a few of the things people look for in emails to determine if the sender is a real company, is whether or not the branding is consistent, logos sharp, English is good. They also use this method against websites and any print material they encounter. If your marketing material is not sharp and consistent, it’s held in suspicion.

Sink your teeth into these helpful tips:

Poor logo quality is the number one problem plaguing marketing materials

1.   Use or make a branding guide. A branding guide is a document that specifies what colors, logos, and fonts can be used with print and digital media. It also sets the look and feel for everything you put out into the world. This gives a consistent representation of your company that people will recognize and learn to trust. Not sure where to start? Ask to see ours next time you come in, or check out this article for some hints: https://venngage.com/blog/brand-guidelines-templates/
   2.   Have a good quality logo. I don’t just mean a logo that is designed well and catches the eye, I mean choose to display the best version of your logo. If all you have are a bunch of jpegs with funny digital “halos” around some of the logo elements, or if you have a fuzzy image, it’s time to ask your designer for a fresh logo file. Make sure you get all available logo formats and file types, so that you can use them for websites or giant posters and not sacrifice quality in the process.
   3.   Make a list of all the digital and print media places that your brand is displayed, and go through those to correct logos, colors, contact information, descriptions, etc. Verbiage and visuals should be consistently branded, but the details can be tailored to fit the audience you are trying to reach in each place.

So, next time you see one of your social media pages and think you’ll get around to fixing it up later, just remember that somewhere out there is a guy trying to take a selfie with a bear. He is taking on a monumental task and will probably fail. You have a small task. All you have to do is take a few minutes to successfully make your business better! I bet you will feel more alive than the other guy when you are done.

Understanding Your Color Space

In grade school, we learned how to mix primary colors (yellow, blue, and red), that yellow + blue = green, blue + red = purple, red + yellow = orange. Guess what? That was your first lesson in color theory. It’s not that simple when you are trying to color match your prints, though. It gets complicated in offset and digital printing vs. what you see on your monitor and smart phone.

Establishing your BRAND color is a great place to start, but it won’t cut it to simply say “We use dark green”. In fact, just knowing your company’s Pantone color values isn’t enough, since those values are generally used for specific printing processes. What about spot colors vs. CMYK vs. RGB?

One of the keys to having a successful brand is consistency. Every company Continue reading Understanding Your Color Space

3 Million chances to convert with direct mail

In 2017, almost 3 million pieces of direct mail passed through our building. That’s a lot of mail! Among them were catalogs, oversized postcards, standard mail, letter sets, etc. That’s three million chances for businesses to get their potential clients to take action. How well will it work? Let’s take a look.

As a business owner, you may have heard that direct mail made a comeback after the recession slump. Well, it never really left as a viable option; the recession just reduced the competition!

Direct mail is doing well today with or without recovery. Check out these stats from the Data and Marketing Association Response Report that we gleaned from Compu-Mail:

Direct mail household response rate is 5.1% (compared to .6% email, .6% paid search, .2 online display, .4% social media). This is the highest response rate the DMA has ever reported, since coming out with the Response Rate Report in 2003.
At 6.6%, oversized envelopes have the greatest household response rates over other mediums (followed by postcards at 5.7% and letter-sized envelopes at 4.3%).
At 37%, oversized envelopes have the greatest household return on investment over other mediums (followed by postcards and letter-sized envelopes at 29%).
The response rate for direct mail among people aged 18-21 years old is 12.4%.
The top response rate tracking methods are online tracking such as PURLs (61%), call center or telephone (53%), and code or coupon (42%).

So, what if you aren’t getting the responses for your direct mail that you see in these stats?

It all comes down to two things: 1. Foot-in-mouth problems 2. Attention to your target market and where they are in the 5 stages of awareness. This dictates copy (words), design, and timing of your mail piece.
Continue reading 3 Million chances to convert with direct mail

Open Type Fonts Have More Fun

Apple and PC dancing — Think of all the great things Mac and PC can accomplish together with Open Type fonts!

For about 12 years now, Windows (PCs) and Apple (Macs) have ended support for Type 1 and True type fonts in favor of Open Type fonts. This doesn’t mean that you can’t still buy a True Type font or that they won’t ever work, but it does mean that you are walking on thin ice. Systems and software are no longer developed with these old fonts in mind, with the exception of Adobe who allows you to put the font in the library of the software using it. Even then, you may still encounter problems. So why switch to Open Type fonts? Why should you give up thousands of dollars worth (if you are an agency) of licenses for fonts?

Continue reading Open Type Fonts Have More Fun

API-Marketing Blog

Tag: branding