You may have heard the term “you never get a second chance to make a first impression?” This is especially true for Marketing and Sales, and for many of your prospects your business card is that first impression. So to help assure that you put your best foot forward, I'm going to share some tips that will help give you a competitive edge in the sales “Shark Tank.”
Have you ever walked into a room and suddenly felt like you took a wrong turn? You try to retrace your steps back to familiar territory to figure out where you went wrong, and what you should do next. At this point you might ask a passer by for directions, or phone a friend to relay the experience and get your bearings.
Did you ever remember to send someone a birthday card — the day AFTER their birthday? Chances are you shrugged your shoulders and thought “too late now.” Perhaps you made a resolution to add their birthday to your Google calendar so you wouldn't forget next time. Then you might've posted birthday wishes on their Facebook timeline along with all their other “friends.” After all, it was probably Facebook that reminded you of their birthday in the first place.
This is a perfect example of how poor timing can dilute the sentiment of your message. Had you remembered to send that birthday card on time, you would have entrenched yourself in the halls of best friends and endearment. Instead, you got “liked” on Facebook.
If you've ever looked very closely at something printed on an commercial offset press, you may have noticed that the images and colors you see on paper are not what they seem. The reds are not really reds, and the blues not blues. Instead they are combinations of dots that, when seen adjacent to one another in tight groupings, give the appearance of solid colors and images. This process is known as halftoning, and it is an essential technique for all modern printing.
If you've worked with a commercial printer for any length of time, it's likely that at some point they've asked you to supply your files in CMYK, or they may have told you that the color of your job shifted because your files had to be converted to CMYK. If you didn't know that meant, and were brave enough to ask, your printer undoubtedly told you that CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.
Unfortunately, you were told wrong.
For all the talk about how creepy and stalker-like marketing personalization has become, the simple fact is that it has been around long enough to establish itself as an expected component in modern marketing communications. Even in an age where social media and government spying has made audiences wary of how their personal data is used by companies and marketers alike, lack of personalization is often viewed as a “snub” and can make a company feel “out of touch.”
Don't believe me? When's the last time you've opened a letter addressed to “Current Resident?”
If you read last week's post about Vectors, you'll see that the two posts are very related. In fact, you might consider Raster the 'Yin' to Vector's 'Yang', or an older brother… or something. Anyway, let's get started.
If you've ever worked with a commercial printer, chances are you've heard them mention paper weights in relation to your job's cost and quality. You can usually get the basic idea that heavier weights amount to higher quality and costs, but it can get really confusing once you start comparing text weights to cover weights, and so forth.
Also, you might wonder why your printer tells you the paper is 26 lbs, but the finished product is considerably lighter — where does that measurement come from, and how do paper weights work anyway?
Let's face it, hashtags are everywhere. What started out as a Twitter trend for those 'in the know' has worked it's way across all the major networks (Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn all use hashtags now) and is making some feel the way they might've felt the first time they saw LOL in a chat room or text message.
Like any other Internet trend, there's a lot of misinformation and misuse going on. So to help our readers look like Social Media pros, I compiled a hashtag cheat sheet for the uninitiated. Enjoy!
