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How a Style Guide Can Boost Your Brand and Save You Money

How a Style Guide Can Boost Your Brand and Save You Money

Can one little document really have such an impact? A well-crafted style guide can absolutely boost your brand, save you money and so much more. Just what is a style guide? Simply put, it is a glossary of your brand's core elements and how they are to be used. Some...

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Create Some Great Marketing Ideas!

Create Some Great Marketing Ideas!

You've just been asked to put together some marketing ideas by the end of the day to increase product sales. It's Tuesday. After a big lunch. It's raining. And that blank document on your screen feels like it's sucking you in to the depths of hell.  Not exactly the...

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The Hidden Branding of Notification Letters

The Hidden Branding of Notification Letters

We often think about credit union branding as the sexy and exciting part of marketing and advertising: logos, corporate culture, retail environments, colors, advertising design and so on. Have you thought about the impact your credit union's notification letters have...

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Is it OK to use that image off the internet?

Is it OK to use that image off the internet?

So you have a new product or service offering and you're anxious to get marketing materials out to your potential customers. Other businesses across the country might be selling it so there are quite a few photos popping up when you do an internet search. Feeling the...

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Marketing United 2016 Takeaways

I’m a true believer in continuous learning, both on a personal and professional level. Shelling out for a conference fee is a big decision though, so I wanted to make sure the time and money would be well worth it. After the high I felt from last year’s Marketing...

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Using imagery to stand out in advertising

Using imagery to stand out in advertising

Go beyond the happy family (and I don't mean chinese take out). Ah the happy family. It's a red-blooded American aspiration to be part of a happy family, which makes the image such a powerful one for advertisers. "You can be this happy if you only use our (insurance,...

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How to engage employees and boost your brand

How to engage employees and boost your brand

Some days it just seems impossible to engage your employees - I don't know, maybe Mondays for instance? But what if you could get them more engaged AND boost your company's brand at the same time? Yes, it can be done. There are all sorts of surveys and studies showing...

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5 Branding Lessons from SEC Football Coaches

5 Branding Lessons from SEC Football Coaches

One of the first items to explore in my new client relationships is the business' brand. It's important to study both what the institution touts as their brand and what the average customer or member sees as the brand. You can imagine - those two perceptions are often...

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Increase your reach across multimedia

Increase your reach across multimedia

I admit it, I'm one of the many consumers who use more than one screen at a time, a true user of multimedia. Heck, I might have three or four devices going, especially while I'm watching sports! Take a look around your own family room this evening and you might find...

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6 tips to stretch your marketing and advertising resources

6 tips to stretch your marketing and advertising resources

Let's face it, companies large and small are always looking for more marketing and advertising efforts. The reasons holding you back are usually centered around a tight budget or a full schedule - or both right?! I've been in both situations. As the creative services...

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Why your small business needs a dynamic website

It's tough for small businesses. You've got tight budgets, a million things to do and no time to do them, so I understand how some marketing efforts could get overlooked. But these days having a dynamic website should be the key element in every small business'...

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How to buy print, TV and radio advertising

More and more small businesses are buying their own advertising or using consultants, realizing some nice cost savings over using traditional advertising agencies. In fact in my local market of Huntsville, Alabama, we've seen the traditional advertising agency fall by...

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Remember the “why” behind the design

Have you ever noticed that as soon as someone presents work they've created, opinions come out of the woodwork? But are those opinions rooted in facts or fancy? The next time you are given the opportunity to review a creative project, whether it be a logo for your...

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Marketing Basics vs Trend-spotting

Many of the small businesses I work with have certainly been trying to keep up with the marketing trends. I hear it in the bits of digital jargon they throw out in our initial meetings and their attempts to test out whatever is hot this year. But underneath the...

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