Over recent months, we’ve been working with Country Music Life (Country Songs, News, Merchandise, Downloads, and Concerts) on their identity and first t-shirt design. You can see I am very excited to show off my new threads I can’t keep my feet on the ground! We had a great time working on this project.

Are you a country music fan? Check out the Country Music Life Blog for news on your favorite artists, top country song lists and even a list of favorite country summer songs. Visit: Porch Pickin’ Tee Shirt to purchase a shirt of your own!

Feelin’ lucky?
Country Music Life is holding a t-shirt giveaway where you can win a porch pickin’ shirt for free! All you have to do to enter is subscribe to their emails for the latest country music updates.

Dive Site Photo by permanently scatterbrained

Continuing with the Impact of Design series, I’d like to introduce our new addition with a focus on the travel industry. The travel industry is dependent upon many other industries to stay afloat, including: food, transportation, entertainment, hospitality and more. Many cities wouldn’t have income coming in if we didn’t have the ability to travel. Since this is such a large area of business, I’d like to discuss how design can help make it successful online.

Key Points of Design Focus

Exciting & Engaging Design Elements

When your viewing a travel website, what draws you into it to begin with? The colors, the way the images make you feel, the great prices displayed prominently? These are just to name a few. Whatever your business draw may be, your graphics should follow suit.

Prague Castle photo by mcost

For example, let’s say your travel website is focused on offering luxury castle stays in Prague. Your main focus is luxury and elegance. With your graphics, you want to make the site feel elegant and luxurious, the same way you want your customers to feel when they visit your castle. Show the details of the rooms, what their dining experience might look like, and any other elements that scream luxury. Use rich colors that allow these luxurious elements to take center stage. When listing the pricing, since this is probably a costly stay, be sure not to bring too much attention to it, but making sure it isn’t tough to find either.

You might want to consider using a video that walks the user through a visitor’s experience at the castle. Allowing them an opportunity to see themselves at the castle.

Finding the right balance and what is most and least important can be key when engaging your visitors.

Evaluating the Competition

How does your travel offerings and presentation compare with the competition? Before starting or re-evaluating your travel website, it’s important to see what others are doing first. Then, decide how you can do it better and more effectively and what you can add that they don’t offer.

For example, let’s say Travel Company A has a really cool and engaging Flash application running within their website. It allows their customers to click on a map and highlights the best reasons to visit that particular destination. How can you take this idea and make it one step better? Maybe graphically it isn’t very engaging as it is functional. Maybe you decide to showcase the best things to see in each area by using photographs alone within map pop-ups? Taking one more step to engage and intrigue the customer might make your business more successful.

Websites

Online Booking

Many travel sites have very intuitive booking systems that allow you to quickly book your entire vacation online in the comfort of your own home. With the many options that vacation packages can bring to the table, it’s important to focus on the user’s experience when designing.

UI (User Interface) designers are specifically trained in improving a user’s experience by making the completion of one task as seamless as possible. With travel, there are quite a few options to take into account. If you are running a business, which offers vacation packages with transportation, lodging and activities there are quite a few combinations that could be put together. Making those choices fun, simple and engaging to sort through isn’t always easy.

A great solution would be to group options by the type of travelers you commonly encounter. Such as the budget-savvy traveler, the luxury traveler, the extreme adventurist, the water lover, etc. Intelligently grouping certain options will help guide your users through your website and make booking a vacation just as relaxing as being on it!

Here’s a great example of a website grouping unusual hotels by type:

If your UI and/or web designer is able to test the site within a focus group, take advantage of that. It’s important when planning out a large, complex site with many options to test the usability with those that might be in your target market. This way you’ll find any glaring complexities right away before time and money has been put building a confusing, hard-to-follow travel site.

Here are a few examples of Travel websites that utilize online grouping and booking systems effectively:

Online Booking | Royal Caribbean

Contiki Travel for Ages 18-35

Tablet Hotels | Hotel Search

Photography

Quality & Amount

When we’re talking about travel, most people want as many visuals as possible when they are spending their hard earned money on a vacation. When you haven’t been to a country before, you want to make sure it looks like a place you can see yourself enjoying. Keyword here is “see”. If you can only read about it, it probably won’t be nearly as appealing as a travel website who offers lots of visuals. This could cause your business to move elsewhere.

When you show photography, give a description of where and what is happening in the snapshot. The more information you can give your customers the better. Display photographs of many different parts of the area and even some of the local residential areas. This helps bring the area’s culture to the mix as well.

Food is also a great item to have on display. Many travelers look to try new cuisine and showcasing some of the region’s specialties could be a great crowd pleaser as well.

Up-to-date Photography

When your showcasing photography, make sure the photos are somewhat up-to-date. Many elements can alter an area’s appearances. You want to make sure your photographs are telling a truthful story and what they see is actually what they will get. Dating the photographs in the descriptions/captions might be a good way to be more upfront with your customers.

Email Marketing

Travel Promotions

During tough economic times, many consumers aren’t spending the money on vacations and extra, unnecessary purchases. A great way for your designer to help promote good value in the travel business is to design email promotions. Email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach your customers and promote your services at a discounted rate.

Maybe you have a tough time selling trips to warm destinations during a particular time of year. Email is a great way to promote discounts easily and directly to your customers and design plays a big part in the success of these messages.

When consumers aren’t out searching for a specific destination, photography in emails can be a great way to put these areas on showcase. Make the destination look it’s best and explain why the special offer should be taken advantage of. Just because your customer’s aren’t visiting your site, doesn’t mean they aren’t dreaming of a vacation. Maybe they can’t afford it or aren’t sure where they can go on a few dollars.

Here is an example of a promotional travel email I recently received that I found to be well done.

Intriguing Email Design/Marketing | Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines | Click to View Whole Email

Use design to promote the offer in an exciting manner that is also optimized properly for email. A great tip for your designer is to use both HTML text and images as shown in the above example. This way, if you customer doesn’t have images enabled in their email provider’s inbox view, they will still be able to see the special offer, enticing them to show the images. If you only use images in the email design, the efforts might not be as effective in this situation. For more best email practices and examples check out Email Designs that Will Rock Your Inbox.

Travel Website Resources from Around the Web

10 Best Designed State Travel Sites

37 of the Best Web Designs from the Travel Industry

Top 10 Designed Travel Websites

More from The Impact of Design Series

The Impact of Design: Restaurant Business

The Impact of Design: Online Retail

There is only one key ingredient in any design that will hold it together, make it rise and make it deliver what it is supposed to. Whether the design is for the web, a book cover or a simple business card, there is one piece to the puzzle that must be present for the design to be successful. What is it you ask?

When reading through the many design blogs and books out there today, you’ll find showcases of beautiful designs, tutorials on how to make or use a specific design program, what certain colors mean and where they should be used and many more things. But no matter how much you learn, there is still only one element that truly matters. Designers must ask themselves one question:

Is the design appropriate for the target customer?

The website or brochure may be designed with the most stunning colors, stylish fonts, and newest trends. But this doesn’t mean it’s great design or appropriate for your viewers. There are certain trends that are age, industry and location appropriate. Simply because you are utilizing them doesn’t mean the design will be successful.

What to Consider When Designing for a Specific Target Market

How will the product or service improve the customer’s life?

Whether you’re selling food, a new tie or a trip to Europe you have to showcase the reasons to why the customer would want any of these items. You’re not going to reach the customer by relying on a slick navigation, pretty pictures and an easy to use shopping cart. There needs to be a clear reason why they need or will benefit from the product or service. Design is a great way to guide the customer through the reasons why, in a particular order or way.

Product Example

Photo by Aaron Alexander

Say for example your selling a new tie. Why would someone want to purchase that specific tie over another? Maybe you’re showing imagery of a man wearing the tie on his wedding day. So what? That man looks great in that tie, but so does every other man that happens to be photographed with a fancy tie. What makes this tie any better?

Maybe the tie is made of special material that is meant to feel comfortable and breathable during high-stress occasions like a wedding. A good way to connect with the customer through the design knowing this detail is by increasing the size of the text and overlay it onto the photograph. Not only will the “pretty” photograph pull your customer’s attention into the page, but the large text with the tie’s fabric benefits will give the customer a reason to buy that tie over another. Highlighting specific details can really improve a designs overall success rate. And yes, it can be as simple as pulling out a product detail that already exists.

The key with products are to avoid leaving beneficial details to waste. Bring out the little details, especially when you’re selling something as common as a tie. Once your able to focus in on the benefits, use colors and other design elements to bring the viewers eye even more towards these little details.

Service Example

Photo by Alberto P Veiga

In this example, let’s say a travel company’s website is selling a trip to Europe. The client wants to push the ultimate travel package versus the basic travel package. How will the design help sell more ultimate packages for this client? A solution for this scenario could be to compare each package side-by-side without price involved, graphically. Highlight the ultimate package and the details that would make that choice better than the others. Show a video/written testimonial of a customer who has chosen this package in the past and why they liked it. Customer reviews are proven to be more beneficial and trusted by viewers than company recommendations alone.

Customer Review Focus

Customer reviews are becoming more and more common to online businesses. As a business owner, you should be aware of Google’s SideWiki. It allows customers to write their own reviews on any website and publish it. When another customer visits the website with a SideWiki, they can then see those reviews made by other visitors on the SideWiki. The power is in the customer’s hands. This technology may not be utilized by very many customers today, but it is important to be on the lookout for similar releases & technologies that will give customers the upper-hand on your websites. The last thing you want is a customer complaint shown to all your potential customers.

Checkout this useful article reviewing the SideWiki:

Google’s SideWiki Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites

The target market in this travel example is likely a customer that has a mid to high income level and could afford a premium travel package. If the targeted customer was of a lower income bracket, the design would be entirely different. Maybe the company would be trying to sell travel packages during a non-peak season to Europe. You might highlight the discounted price with a sale burst or a bolded tag-line saying “Now you can visit Europe too, for half the price.” Instead of comparing special vacation packages, you are emphasizing with the design the urgency of traveling now and the benefit of saving money and being able to afford a trip.

The key is to pull out the details that are most important to highlight within the design. This takes both efforts of the designer and the business owner/project manager.

Tip for Designers: Most clients aren’t going to offer up all the details you need to know to target their specific market. Chances are you’re going to have to dig deep and ask! Your clients are the experts of their market. Is the business a start-up? Maybe you can do some research as well to help your client pull out essential details they might be missing. Show them you want the design to help improve their business.

Tip for Business Owners: To end up with a successful design for whatever you happen to be selling or showcasing, it is important to open up communication as much as possible with your designer. Make sure they know your end goals and your target market. Also make sure to give them the details you want to highlight or what is most important about your promoted products and/or services. Not sure what else to prepare? Read ” What to Prepare Before Hiring a Web Designer“.

Share your Expertise…

Designers: In what ways have you used design to successfully target a specific market?

Business Owners: How has design help to improve your business? What reports or analysis have you put in place to track the success of the design on your website? (if applicable)

Photo by lotyloty

What should you prepare prior to contacting a design and/or web developer? Having most if not all of these items listed below will greatly increase the success of you website. There are many areas that should be planned out before setting foot into the design. If you don’t plan ahead, chances are you’ll have trouble down the road when you decide you want to add pages, reach specific business goals, edit content to improve your SEO and much more.

Phase I: The Basics

Marketing Plan
What is your target market? Who are you trying to reach with your new website? Do they even have internet access readily available to them? These are a few of the many questions you should be asking yourself/team before even considering talking to a designer. You’ll want to make sure you can answer everything you possibly can about your potential customer.

Questions to Consider

• Why would your customer want to use your website? How will it aid them with making a purchase or using your services?
• Is your customer web-savvy? Will they understand how to use your site easily and efficiently? Consider interactive elements and hiring a designer that is competent in user interface design to make sure the site is easy to use.
• How do you plan to market your website to your customers? (Consider: Email marketing, PPC  advertising, affiliates, television, print and direct mail pieces, product packaging)

Web Hosting
Is your business able to host the website on your own servers? Will your designer be able to setup hosting for you? This is a great question to ask your potential designer. It’s good to be open to suggestions, as certain hosts provide different things that could be more beneficial to your website.

Site Goals
What goals do you want your website to achieve for your business? Think of goals you can measure. IE: I want to bring “x” number of visitors to my site by the end of 6 months. I hope to bring in “x” amount of dollars from my website after one year.

If you’ve already got a website, re-design goals are also great to have ready for your designer. Solving your current site’s limitations are what designers are here to do for you!

Style, Color & Other Design Elements
You’re probably thinking, “Isn’t it the designer’s job to figure out all of those elements?” Yes and no. It’s good to go into a discussion having some idea of what you’re looking for. Whether you know a few things or a lot about developing a website, you should know what style of design appeals to you and more importantly, your customers.

Not sure where to look? Here are some great web design showcases to help you along

• 35 Beautiful E-Commerce Websites
• Delish! 30 Successfully Designed Food Websites
• Top 20 Illustration & Type-Based Websites
• Checking in Hotel Web Design: 50 Cosy Hotel Websites and Trends

Budget
How much money do you have available to spend on your website? This can be a large factor in what you’re able to have developed on your new site. Always remember, the more functionality to a website, the more time involved and the more it will cost you. A professional developed website can cost thousands of dollars.

What elements are necessary to have? Which ones can you live without? Make sure you know what you are able to put into it without getting too far along and have to cut back on essential elements. Discuss your budget right away with your designer (Even though I’m sure they’ll ask right off the bat).

• Interested in a project quote? Submit your project details on our project quote page.

Phase II: The Content

What ideas do you want to drive home to your customer? Are they essential to your business’s success? Who is going to prepare the content for the website? Do you have a copywriter or should you consider hiring someone to help with this aspect of the site?

SEO Planning & Copywriting
The content of your website deserves plenty of attention. You’ll also want to consider SEO (search engine optimization) when developing the content for your site. An SEO advisor can help you target keywords that will help improve your search ranking when a potential customer searches for you or a keyword (product/service you might offer). These keywords should be found in your site’s content as much as possible. It’s important to think about SEO before building a site as the URL structure can play a large role.  Not everything can be done prior to contacting a designer, but consider having a rough plan for your copywriting and SEO.

SEO & Copywriting Resources

• Beginners Guide to SEO
• Ways to Increase Traffic
• 11 Best Practices for URLs
• Copywriting 101: An introduction to effective copywriting
• How To Improve Your Branding With Your Content

Page Layout
Consider the different pages you’d like to have on your website. How many will you need to have? Can you combine pages to make the navigation as simple as possible? Will you need to add more pages on in the future? These are all great items to think about when planning out the pages of your new site.

Special Features
Do you want to incorporate a shopping cart feature on your website? Do you plan on having a blog section so you can connect with your customers and share knowledge on the topics that affect your business?

There are many special features that you can add to make your site more dynamic and engaging. Many of them can dramatically make a difference on the way your site is built, what technology it uses, and the cost of the site.

• Shopping Carts & Online Stores
• Product Reviews & Customer Testimonials
• Blogs
• Forums & Discussion Boards
• Email Subscriptions
  

Phase III: The Future

CMS (Content Management System)
If you’re going to have an interactive website in which the content is updated regularly, you’ll want to consider a CMS. This will allow you to easily manage your website and make changes to it when necessary. Most websites nowadays have a CMS unless the changes to the site are minimal. This can increase the cost of a website somewhat, but is necessary to improve your user’s experience. The more often you’re changing your content, the more you’re users will want to visit your website.

CMS Examples:

• Magento Ecommerce Platform – A popular CMS option for online retailers
• WordPress – Publishing platform which caters to bloggers. A robust & free CMS option
• Joomla – A popular CMS for websites of all sizes

Goals for the Future
Do you plan on adding pages to your website in the future? Who is going to manage your website’s content? The fastest way to lose your viewer’s interest is by leaving your website by the way-side. Have a plan for the future. Make sure your keeping your site’s content fresh and giving users a reason to visit it on a consistent basis.

Sarah Lynn Design offers website management packages as well as copywriting, SEO, and business marketing to help you get your planning started. Check out everything we can offer you to help you business succeed on the web.

• Sarah Lynn Design Services

Email design is a very important part of any email campaign – if not the most important. Where certain elements are placed, which offers are presented and what imagery is used can all be huge influencing factors in how your email campaign is going to perform. Over the past two months I’ve rounded up a few email designs. Here are a few I’ve found are most successful and why.

Cater to your customer's curiosity.

Cater to your Customer’s Curiosity

The Banana Republic does an excellent job offering up a mystery amount of savings. This idea is a great way to get customers to click on the email and bring them to the website where they can then be enticed by more products and their awaiting offer. What I found somewhat clever as well was the fact that you didn’t see what the offer was until you found your items, proceeded to the checkout and then entered the promotion code in. In theory this idea is great because it gets the consumer to look at the different items and get as far as entering in their billing information. But, it could be frustrating to the customer who isn’t  looking to purchase, but is soley enticed by the awaiting offer.

I also thought it was smart to show the customer what they might be saving on their purchase. A chance at 500 dollars at their favorite retail store is a great way to bring the customer to your website.

Come up with a catchy, clever idea to entice your customers! Everyone loves cupcakes.

Clever Concept

This email made me laugh which in turn got me to send it along to other people. Simply put, a clever concept is going to help your email campaign tremendously. Having a plan before creating an email will show your customers you really do have something special to show them. Give them a reason to sign-up for your emails.

Details are very important to any type of design. I especially love how this marketing team took the name of each panty and turned it into a frosting to bring the whole concept together. Great work! This naming technique not only is cute and playful, but it also gives the product more personality. They are no longer just free lacy underwear.

Always a great idea to remind you customers that there great deals are ending soon

Email Reminders

Borders consistently reminds their customers about sale deadlines that are approaching. With the many things happening in your daily life along with the list of emails that need replies,  chances are, you probably won’t remember that great deal you saw while sipping your morning coffee. We all need reminders, and this is a great way to put some urgency behind the offer as well.

Valuable tips and product details are key.

Content is King

Length isn’t a factor anymore when it comes to email design. Many users are used to scrolling on websites and the same is true for emails. So give your customers something worth reading. Tell them about your products likes Aveda does in the example above. Why should they click through to your website? What can you offer them that can improve their life and make them look forward to hearing from you? Retailers walk a fine-line between spamming and providing valuable information to their customers. Which side of the line are you on? Make sure your putting some thought behind your email campaigns. Customers want to know why your products are better than your competition. Tell them why.

Show examples of sale product, while focusing on percentages off.

Sale Product Focus

When promoting your sale items, prove to your customer that your sale items do in fact offer value.  A good offer drives this example from PetSmart and follows with many different items that might appeal to various pet owners. And even better, they are all on sale. More often than not I see sale emails with the top percentage off and no sale items featured. When you think sale items, what immediately comes to mind? Unwanted items. Products that are overstocked and are not selling as well as you’ve expected them to. The goal is to make these items seem more appealing and to at least showcase products, rather than solely a top percentage off. If your customers don’t see a few of the products offered on sale they won’t feel as much of an urgency to visit your site.

Certain customers who don’t have much money to spend are still going to be looking for items on sale. With this in mind, you will see results when simply using a percentage off. But, to reach a larger customer base, using both products and a percentage (like this example) will boost clicks even more.

Appeal to your customers senses! Yum!

Sensory Tactics

If your business sells food products keep these key elements in mind when emailing your customers. Visuals are key when it comes to food. If it looks good, there’s a good chance it tastes great too! Cold Stone does a great job of highlighting the interior of their fudge brownie ice cream cake which adds to the overall appeal of their product and brand name.

Photography is key when appealing to your customer’s senses. You want your product to look it’s best and highlight it’s tastiest features. Descriptions of the product are also important, especially if the key ingredients aren’t visible. This could include organic and natural products or special ingredients only available from your company for example.

Cold Stone also does a great job of connecting delicious product with their gift cards for the holidays. Do take advantage of holidays. Customers expect promotions and deals during certain times of the year. Give them what they are looking for otherwise your competition is going step-up and give them discounts when you are not. Pay attention to the competition as much as possible. Sign-up for their emails and see what they are doing.

More Great Email Marketing & Design Resources

20 Email Design Best Practices and Resources for Beginners

Useful Web Design E-Mail Newsletters

Photo By Moriza

Design is a crucial part of any growing restaurant. Depending on the goals you have for building a customer base, design can drastically improve the number of customers coming through your doors. Of course you need to have delicious food and stellar customer service first to keep them coming back.

What will you need to help your restaurant’s designs succeed?

Here are a few items to get your restaurant’s design headed in the right direction.

1| Effective Logo

Having a poorly designed identity can hinder your business’ growth.

Restaurants are heavily focused on presentation right? So you want your restaurant to look it’s best, especially when you are not there to vouch for it. Think of a logo as if it were you. Let’s say you were to go out and meet a potential business partner or client. You wouldn’t wear a dirty shirt, torn pants and clown shoes would you? Your business shouldn’t look ridiculous either. A successful logo represents the type, style, class and personality of your restaurant; accurately. You don’t want to look like a rodeo clown and turn away customers before they have a chance to try your food. But why would they want to do that if they were already turned off?

You’re probably thinking, “Many customers come in by word-of-mouth in the restaurant business.” And yes, this is true. But, for instance, let’s say you’re planning a trip somewhere and would like to see what restaurants are available in the area. Design is there to say what you need to say about your restaurant, without words. You want to make sure it is saying what you want it to say.

The logo should also be unique to you and what you have to offer. Simply to have a nice looking logo isn’t enough to make it successful. You want the mark to scream you and nobody else! It shouldn’t remind you of another company or restaurant. The only place your viewers should think about is your restaurant when seeing your logo around town.

2| Website

With more and more focus on the web these days, it is important to at least have a simple website setup to represent your business on the web. New technologies such as the IPhone, allow us to find places to eat on the go. One of the popular apps for the IPhone called UrbanSpoon, allows it’s users to simply shake their phone (after choosing the type of food, price and location they desire) and it recommends a restaurant with reviews and a link to their website. Then all the user needs to do is hit call and make a reservation. Simple. Easy. Effective.

But, many of the great features to this app aren’t available if you don’t have a website.

These technologies aren’t disappearing anytime soon! It’s better to embrace them then to assume word-of-mouth is enough for your business. The easier you make if for your customers to find you online and contact you to make a reservation, the more likely they are going to recommend you to someone else.

I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to find more specialty types of restaurants online to find out what types of dishes they serve and found nothing but an address and phone number. The reason I like to go to websites when checking out a new restaurant is for photos of the food and a menu (with pricing!) Who wants to try something new without having a clue what the prices are and what the food looks like. The more information the better!

Even if your restaurant isn’t located in an urban area, you’ll want your customers to be able to find out more about you. The truth is, there is a large amount of people who don’t use the yellow pages anymore.

3| Menu Design

How can a successful menu design be beneficial to your restaurant?

When you pick-up a menu, what is the first thing you look for? First, the waitress/waiter is going to ask you what you’d like to drink. So, you’re going to scramble to find the beverages. So, on your menu you don’t want the beverages buried in the middle or in an inconvenient spot. Placement is a key component when it comes to menu design.

Are their particular plates you’d like to sell more of? This could be for a few reasons: price, ease of preparation, signature dishes, etc. You want these items to stand out front and foremost! This is another reason having a menu designed professionally can help improve your business.

Folks love photos! It often will entice them to buy a particular meal because it looks delicious. But be careful, make sure your food looks as close to the photo as it will be when served. Often more elite restaurants will choose to leave visuals of the dishes out completely. This is because the presentation of their cuisine is part of the experience and they wouldn’t want to spoil it ahead of time. Take all of these items into consideration when planning out a menu design with your designer.

Pricing within the menu can be done in a variety of ways. Depending on the type of restaurant and your target market, make sure you have a goal in mind when starting!

I’d love to talk to you about menu designs! Contact me

Kids Menu

Another interesting way to get your restaurant seen into the homes of your customers is by having take home kids menus. Many restaurants utilize this by offering crayons and a coloring page as a menu for children. This is a great way to get your name, number and maybe a coupon on your customer’s fridge.

Take Home Menu/Brochure

Depending again, on the type of restaurant you have, a take-home menu is a great asset to leverage. When you’re sitting at home deciding what to order for dinner or where to make a reservation at, having a menu staring you in the face on the fridge can be a big deciding factor. It is also a great way to tell your story to tourists in a larger city. Many times cities have tourist information buildings or booths offering a place for brochures. Consider looking into these options if you’re smack-dab in the middle of a tourist town.

4| Business Card

Another great item to have on hand for your customers. Try placing a business card holder on your counter so customers can grab one on their way out. This is also a great reason to have a website. Make sure and include your url on the card and hand it out when you can!

Related Articles: On Life + Design

Delish! 30 Successfully Designed Food Websites

5 Successfully Designed Restaurant Websites

Related Topics on the Web

The Amateur Gourmet’s Restaurant Reviews

Photo by Grethe Boe

This has been a debatable topic since emailing became more common practice in the advertising/marketing world. But, if you were to decide one over the other, which is more effective? There are many factors that go into figuring this out. What is your target market? Age also comes into play, especially for emailing. If you have a larger amount of older customers they might not have a computer or utilize email as someone in the 18-50 age group. What is the purpose of the piece? Do you want to promote a sale or is your promotion a group of different items such as a web-kit? Here are a few pros and cons to each. Make sure you have your target market in mind when determining what choice you should make.

Advantages of Print

- Directly to customer
- Can take it anywhere
- Can share it with anyone
- No hardware restrictions (IE. Computer/Internet)
- You can hold it and feel it – More memorable

Disadvantages of Print

- More expensive
- Not as easily updated

Advantages of Email

-Easily updated
-Cheap compared to print
-Can send out many emails compared to print pieces (depends on your market)

Disadvantages of Email

-Not everyone has email
-Hard to compete (depending on your target market) with other email senders (a huge amount of retailers utilize email marketing)
-Spam filters and emails bouncing (will the email reach your customer?)
-Can be considered less personal than something a person would hold in their hands

Types of Emails (good reasons to email your customer)

Newsletters – Content focused.
Promotional – Sales & Specials.
New Product & Services – Focused on what new items/services you have to offer your customers.
Survey – Ask your customer how you are doing! (Always good to give them something in return for their time).
Fun & Interactive – Games & Video focused.
Forum/Conversational – Have a forum on your site? Send emails on current discussions to get users involved.
Contests – Giveaways always get customers attention! Request a review of the product for a winning entry if desired.

Remember!
Always give your customers the feeling that they are gaining something by being on your email list. Mix it up a little bit! Try different types of emails or features in your newsletters. Otherwise your viewers are going to get bored and simply delete them!

Have any questions regarding email marketing? Give me a shout I’d be glad to give you suggestions or help you design a email template you can use to keep in touch with your customers.

Interesting Duo

While out in Minneapolis at Cocktails with Creatives Thursday night I met the most interesting duo! The Drifting Creatives from Texas stopped by to checkout the design scene for a few days. They had been traveling a little over a month (on their second tour of the summer) to different cities offering up their design services to any business in need of a proper identity or any sort of design. Their house was either their Honda Element or those willing to let them stay at their place.

I snagged a shot with them while at Jetset

Why their idea intrigued me

+ They are actively informing small businesses about the importance of design and how it will improve their business

+ The duo is doing something unique and fun while giving folks some awesome designs!

+ People can still be trusting. When talking to a co-worker, she remembered the times when even hitchhiking was easy. Nowadays we’ve lost the sense of trust in others from having so much information at our fingertips about the “bad stuff”. I find what they are doing rebuilding a sense of trust in others. Designers are offering up their homes/apartments to these guys which is very trusting and completely awesome! Thanks for showing us this.

Check out their designs!

Here’s a few samples of the work they’ve done. They also have their own individual specialties Gavin Braman’s Work | Martin Hooper’s Work

I really enjoy their use of bright colors and simple designs.

No need to feel overwhelmed or confused!

Many new business owners out there haven’t had the pleasure of working with a freelance designer before. So, I thought I would lay out some things you should expect from a designer.

From start to finish – what you should expect in a nutshell.

Professionalism – Design briefs, contracts, invoices.

When working with a freelance designer, you should, at the very least, expect a high-level of professionalism.

Design Briefs

I find providing a list of questions about your business, project goals, likes and dislikes of other designs, and budget requirements is necessary before beginning any project. This makes quoting a project much easier, as well as getting a feel for what I am getting into before signing off on a new venture.

So, with this in mind, I generally send my potential clients a design brief. I try and look for a certain style you might enjoy by the examples of creative you like. And, the more I know about you and your business, the more the creative will tell the same tale.

Contracts

Not every project absolutely needs to have a contract to go with it, but in many cases it should. Not only does this protect the designer but, it makes sure deadlines are met and items that are requested are completed as discussed in the preliminary steps. Generally a contract would come into play when working on a larger, long-term project or a project with many components and team members working on it.

Invoices

Any invoice from your designer should look professional as well as be accurate. Be sure you are receiving invoices from your designer for each step of the way. It should be detailed, especially if you’re being charged hourly. We all like to know where our money is going! Keep in mind every designer does it differently, but ask questions about the process from the get-go especially If you’d like to know details!

Timeliness

If you are given a time-line, expect to receive your final files/product on that date, no later. The only reason a designer should bypass a deadline, is if there are additions to the project once a timeline is set in place. Then, as a client, you should be flexible as well.
Timeliness also applies to communication. During a normal work week, you should expect no more than 24 hours to hear a response from your designer, unless an absence was already planned and you were notified about it. This also shouldn’t affect your deadline either.
Keep in mind we are only human too and emergencies do happen! But you should be given a heads up ASAP on any unexpected incidences.

Patience

I find designers and programmers to be impatient at times when explaining a design concept to a client or answering questions that to a designer are probably second nature. The truth is, the design business is all about customer service. You should feel taken care of and have all of your questions answered, or at least addressed.

Going through high school and a little time in college, I worked in customer service at a grocery store. I had a few select experiences with difficult customers. In one particular instance, I didn’t have the ability to allow the customer to check out stamps and other items in the same order while working behind the customer service counter. So, as calmly as I could, I explained to them exactly why it wasn’t possible and how sorry I was for the inconvenience. You would think that would have been enough. The customer proceeded to throw the newspaper he wanted to purchase at me and got extremely angry.

In this extreme case, there really wasn’t anything I could do except for stay calm and explain the reasoning behind the inconvenience. When working with a designer, you should always feel assured everything you need is taken care of and if it isn’t, why. Remember to have patience also. The web is vast place. Not every situation is known by every designer. Before working with a designer, have every idea laid out and documented. This way the designer can give you the absolute best prediction on whether or not they are the ideal person for the job.

The more we know about your project and desires, the more patient we can be. Nobody wants a lot of surprises when it comes to their business. Although, surprises can’t always be avoided.

Honesty

Let’s face it, you don’t want to work with a designer who is going to tack on extra time for something that wasn’t necessary or something that wasn’t discussed before-hand. I often get the question, “ Do you charge for emailing, phone calls, and well frankly any type of communication method?” Which is a touchy area with some freelancers. My personal take on this issue is simple. How would I conduct my business if I couldn’t communicate with you?

Communication is part of process and shouldn’t be an extra cost. Make sure you ask questions like this when starting out the design process with any designer and/or developer.

Project Completion

Simply because a project is complete, doesn’t mean the designer’s job is over. A good client is forever. If you have questions after you’ve received your final files or after your website has launched, ask them! We’re here to make sure your needs are met and your creative is working out great for you. Also, if you don’t hear from us first, shoot us an email and let us know how your creative is performing. Personally I love to know that what I’ve done is helping someone else succeed or how I can improve on my skills.

If you have any questions at all about my design process or working with a designer in general, feel free to contact me! I’m available on twitter @shicksdesign

Are you a designer or developer with some thoughts on processes? Share what steps you take when working with a client! I’d love to hear from you.

Fun Tid Bits

15 Exceptionally Useful Resources for Wordpress Theme Designers

101 Design Resources

Unexpected Photography

Original Photograph by IdeOwl | Altered by Sarah Lynn Design | Altered by Sarah Lynn

The word on the street is that you should know-it-all when it comes to being a web designer. This is not entirely true. When looking to hire someone to say remodel your home would you want someone that is so-so at electrical, painting, plumbing, and carpentry? Or a professional who is excellent at one of those skills? Finding a niche’ doesn’t necessarily mean only designing for a particular market, but it does mean putting more of your marketing efforts in a particular direction. Say for instance you really love designing for beauty salons or maybe you’d like to, but haven’t had the chance yet? Here are a few ways to get connected with the correct markets by blogging and networking.

Work your Blogging Magic

Read blogs that focus on the market you desire to design for. Give you two cents and comment on posts and be a regular. Get to know the authors of your favorites and network!

To be most efficient at blogging, start off by targeting smaller blogs that have less attention in the blogging world. This way the author should give more attention to your comments and it will be easier to build a relationship in this manner. The larger the blog, the less likely the writer is going to have time to connect with you.

Attend Events

Interested in designing for the automobile industry? Attend a car show and network yourself in their market. By doing this you are not only inspiring yourself, but you can learn more about the industry from an inside perspective and become more of an expert in the field. Only focusing on design conferences only allows you to see other’s work and not build your own ideas by experiencing an industry in a new perspective.

Online Networking Sites

These are a few sites I use on a daily basis for networking. They not only offer a place for you to show off your work, but also are widely focused on all types of businesses. You can stumble upon different auto websites and twitter your findings to make contact with the company.

Twitter is an easy way to make connections. For example:

This morning I was replying to a comment on my post Top 10 Designed Travel Websites and visited their camping website. After recently designing for North Bay Trading, I thought their camping focused readers might be interested in their products. So I used Twitter to send a long my thoughts. Now we both made a new connection and I helped my past client with a little bit of marketing.

Within a few minutes I had a response and sent along the information. Never hurts to help clients out even once you have finished designing for them. Once a client, always a client! This is a great technique to utilize if you have done a few projects in your niche market and would like to find a few more. Give it a try!

Create Projects

Show your targeted market what you can do, even if you haven’t had the chance yet. If you’re a young designer, like myself, you probably don’t have a lot of projects in the area you’d like to design for, if any. What are you waiting for? Make up a few of your own! There is no reason to have to tell someone “Sorry, I don’t have any examples of that specific business to show you.” Be creative, it’s what you’re supposed to do best. Give your project guidelines and stipulations to keep things interesting. Create a target market and a feeling you’d like to see that specific business portray to the world.

Self Promotion

Try creating a marketing piece specifically geared towards your targeted market. Send out postcards to businesses you know don’t have a web presence telling them about the reasons they should and how you can help them achieve their goals. Remember not everyone is design oriented when promoting yourself. Think about things that might capture their attention and integrate it into the design piece. Make sure you clearly state how to contact you and include a business card if possible to make it easy as possible.

When promoting yourself, try focusing your skills as well. Say for instance you are good at Wordpress, logo, flash and book design. Focus in on what you want to do and what you do the best. Show your customers that you are in fact the expert in that area.

Brand Yourself

When promoting yourself you need to keep your brand consistent. Like your targeted market, you are your own business as well. Show your customers that you practice what you preach.

You are the most difficult client you’ll ever have. Do some soul-searching and learn about yourself and what makes you tick as a design and as a business professional. Currently I am in the process of branding my design business. It has been a tough journey thus far, but things are shaping up. I hope to have my new portfolio/blog up by late October along with all of my other marketing materials. A big goal but an important one to put in place.

I suggest you create the following and brand accordingly:

Online Portfolio
Print Portfolio
Resume (show off your typography skills!)
Business Card
Letterhead
Invoice
Design Contract (Minimal design, perhaps your logo will do)
Design Briefs
Email Signatures (Attach your one-line blurb here – Make it personal)

Marketing Resources & Tid Bits

AIGA for both businesses and designers

Art Bistro for all artists

Taste Spotting Delicious Food Resource