A website is never really “done.” There are always things to add, remove, refresh, and improve in order to make it more valuable to your organization and your audience. But it’s often hard to know what to change and how to prioritize updates. As you start making plans for the [...]
New Year’s Day is the perfect time to reflect on how last year went and what you’d like to be different next year. For many people, New Year’s resolutions are a helpful way to make commitments to create change. So why shouldn’t they do the same for your organization? We’ve [...]
It's easy to track sales from digital ads. There's no mystery about your return-on-investment (ROI). And if an ad campaign doesn't produce the results you're expecting, there are lots of ways you can optimize it. Print ads don't work like that. You can create unique URLs and special landing pages, [...]
Sometimes having a clear, well-defined brand message makes a bigger impact on sales than the price or even the quality of your products. Donald Miller puts it this way: “People don't buy the best products and services. They buy the ones they can understand the fastest.” With any given ad, [...]
In 1995, Newsweek ran an article claiming that all the hubbub about the Internet was overblown. It’s online communities couldn’t possibly replicate the benefits of face-to-face interactions, so “this trendy and oversold community” would never last. The author claimed online stores were overblown and that “my local mall does more [...]
Instagram Stories are short, temporary videos which appear at the top of people's Instagram feeds, and more subtly in your profile, beside every post you share, and in your direct messages. If a story gains traction and catches on, you can also save it as a permanent “highlight” which remains [...]
So, you’ve got a slot for a print ad in an upcoming magazine. You have a full page spread—maybe even two pages—to communicate a big idea, create positive associations with your brand, and drive results. There are no hard-and-fast rules about what your print ad should look like. You want [...]
Designing print ads can be tricky. They’re often far larger than their digital counterparts, which means you have more space to work with—but it can easily feel like too much space. There’s also more at stake: once they go live, there’s no turning back. You can’t just pull a print [...]
It’s notoriously difficult to measure the full value of print ads. It’s simply impossible to track every conversion or to measure the impact of exposing your audience to your brand. But that doesn’t mean print ads aren’t valuable. In fact, they play a vital role in branding, and psychology teaches [...]
Nearly a century ago, a team of psychologists led by Edward Thorndike discovered that when military officers evaluated soldiers on a variety of qualities, one rating would always affect the others. If a soldier was rated high for their physical appearance, they were also perceived as smarter, better leaders, and [...]