The United States Postal Service (USPS) has a new campaign with incredible postage rates for flat mail pieces. These mail items can be targeted into specific neighborhoods. There is no need to spend hundreds of dollars purchasing a list. Do you want a direct mail campaign in Lansing, DeWitt, Waverly, or Grand Ledge, or a direct mail campaign just in Whitehills? With this program we can target an entire city, rural area, or hit a specific neighborhood. You can choose to run 500 pieces or 350,000 pieces or more, there is no cap.

The postage fee for the Every Door Direct Mail® pieces are a mere 17¢ each! That is a savings of 28¢ per piece compared to a standard first class mail piece. The postage savings as well as the elimination of the mailing list expense offers an opportunity for small businesses to have a more level playing field against companies with larger marketing and advertising budgets. Lansing restaurants can mail menus, local retailers, local service companies, local builders and beauty salons can mail promotions, coupons and even local political campaigns can enjoy the savings.

Connection Graphics recently completed an Every Door Direct Mail® campaign for a local home maintenance company, RFC Home Improvement. We chose to primarily target the area where they are located, where they have an existing clientele and have built brand recognition. We also chose a targeted Lansing neighborhood with similar priced homes that were of an age that may require the specific services RFC was promoting in this mailing.

We worked with our client to determine what services are best to promote for the Spring and Summer season. After establishing the focus, our graphic designers created a custom designed postcard displaying before and after photos of the clients work. The promotion was clearly outlined with a call to action included. Mail quantities were determined and the postcards were printed with the correct indicias and mailing information the USPS requires for the Every Door Direct® mail campaign.

Neighborhoods and routes were then counted and the every door direct mail campaign pieces were bundled in packs of 50 with facing slips attached.  For each post office drop off point an Every Door Direct Mail sheet was included with Connection Graphics unique customer i.d. and the specifics of each route were outlined.

With the large variety of advertising and marketing options available for business – especially with the explosion of social media marketing, internet marketing, SEO and SEM – it can be difficult to know where to commit your marketing budget. Direct mail campaigns can compliment other marketing efforts and continue to expand brand awareness and recognition. Not every marketing component is appropriate for every business, including direct mail. Custom solutions targeted by industry and by market are the best approach.

Connection Graphics specializes in implementing integrated marketing solutions. This means, we can help you determine if the Every Door direct mail campaign is a good fit for your business.

Although the USPS has attempted to make this an easy experience for small businesses to create these campaigns themselves and theoretically save more money by doing everything in house, experience shows this may not be the best choice. As professionals, with over 20 years experience in direct mail, our crash course with our first Every Door Direct Mail campaign found us going in circles on the USPS website. Once the direct mail pieces were ready to mail we spent time sharing what we learned with some of the postal service employees who were not familiar with the program and were able to keep the project moving forward. Using a professional can keep your costs in line and take away a lot of headaches. Of course a professionally designed layout can present your message in an appealing and professional light that recipients will take seriously.

So if you are ready to increase brand exposure in your area, introduce your new business, attract attendees to an event, get votes, share your new product list, service menu, restaurant menu and more, give us a call. We can get your get your foor in every door.

Call us or email us today – 517-645-4387 or info@connectiongraphics.com

Tools include:

website maintenance with content management systems (CMS) including blogging software, website analytics, photo editing resources, email newsletter strategies, online pr tools, social media business profile optimization including Facebook fan pages, direct mail campaign integration.

– Training on content management systems using WordPress

– Creation of business social media profiles and maintenance

– Development of Facebook fan page design

– Training on tools for graphics and photo web optimization

– Press release tips and distribution

– Email marketing campaign creation

– Set-up and translation of web analytics

Associated Term: Spring 2012, Saturday, April 14 and APril, 21, 2012 from 8:30am-5:00pm

Levels: 1 Credit or pass/fail: Register today class size is limited.

Livingston County Center Campus 

Please share with friends who can benefit from this training!

Stay connected!

New Facebook Timeline Features:

1. My favorite – you can now pin a feature story each week. Just hover over your your story and click on the pencil icon to make it a feature at the top of your Page.
2. Profile pictures are now square at 180 x 180 pixels. This image will still be what is seen when you post and what is need in your news feed.
3. You can rearrange the apps on the page. These are listed at the top of your Page no . Change the placement by clicking on the graphic, then tell it to switch with the app you choose to list your most important ones first, such as photos of your products, etc.
4. Your main page or ‘wall’ will be the default landing page – default landing tabs are gone
5. New Admin panel is much more user friendly and insights are right there.
6. Fans can now connect with you privately..

Let’s jump into the rules for the Facebook Timeline cover photo for business fan pages before you waste time creating one that Facebook deems illegal… (like I have included below!)  The image below breaks all the rules – it attempts to take advantage of all the prime real estate the large cover photo offers. No way, says Facebook! You can not include your company marketing and contact information or calls to action.

BAD! No, no! Above is a rejected Facebook Fan Page cover photo.

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo’s for Fan Pages – Do’s & Don’ts

Do

1. Choose a striking and relevant image for your business
2. Use an 851 pixel wide x 315 pixel tall image to make the most of the space.
3. Use your logo as your profile picture in square format.
4. Be consistent with your profile picture – don’t change it on a whim and ignore your brand
5. Pay attention to the ratio of text to imagery – 70% image to 30% text is a good guideline

Don’t

1. Include website, phone number, any contact info that can be found under ‘About’ section
2. Include prices or purchase info. (50% off or ‘download our ebook’…)
3. Include calls to action like: ‘Call today, Get it now…’
4. Include “Like”, “Share”, or an arrow in the photo pointing to any Facebook action, etc.
5. Infringe on others intellectual property.

New Facebook TImeline Fan Page Cover Photo - this one follows the rules

Does anybody else find it frustrating that a business can’t promote their contact information in the most prominent place on the page? It goes against everything I learned in graphic design school. Oh well, as I begin to explain to our customers who hold the same frustration, we dont make the rules, Facebook does.

So, have fun with it! Show off your Facebook Fan Page Timeline photos below. Share your links, we would love to take a look at the beauty  you created, and find us on Facebook.

Stay connected!

Ever wonder what your name means?

In searching ‘what does my name Connie mean’, Google graciously returned 8,280,000 results. Granted I did not go to every website citing the information. I went to four. All had different results. One spoke of the history of the name and how it is derived from Constance (I thank my parents for being kinder than that). Another provided a pretty little graph showing the popularity of the name (seems Connie peaked in the fifties) my third attempt landed me on a page filled with ads and a three word descriptive answer to my inquiry; ‘Connie means knowledge’. I really think I am much more complex and warrant more than one descriptive word! So, I took a chance at one more, which I believe is profoundly more accurate. This website states the meaning of Connie means “Queen of the House – a determined but also an awesome person who can always make you feel good and is a boy magnet.” Absolutely! This is what I am going to tell everyone my name means! So what that the website designers Mom was named Connie and people can enter their own interpretation of the name. I choose to believe.

To all writers, professional assistants, marketers, students, authors, please don’t limit your research to a Google search!

Don’t go to results page 72, click the link you think nobody will ever find and plagerize the content for your next newsletter, term paper, or website. That is stealing AND it could be completely inaccurate information! After reviewing multiple sites and finding similar facts you can then compose an original article or paper. If you are using proprietary information, quotes, statistical research, remember to cite your source and respect those who came before you and did the work.

The internet is getting smaller every day. Once I post this blog entry I can randomly select a sentence from it and do a search. Every website who has used my sentence will be returned in my Google search.

This also goes for Google Images – ugh, don’t get me started! When you search Google Images please note the disclaimer that states “image may be subject to copyright” that does apply to you too. What’s the best solution? Find the original owner and pay them for use, or hire a professional graphic designer or photographer to create an original solution. Appreciate the wonderful web of knowledge we have access to and share your wisdom, don’t steal others and think you will get away with it.

What are the consequences of Copyright Infringement?

If you use a copyrighted work without permission and your usage is not exempt under the law, you are infringing on copyright. If the copyright holder discovers it, they can then sue you for actual damage or loss of profits. The holder/owner may also choose to seek statutory damages up to $150,000 for each infringement. So if you have stolen a logo and used it on your business cards, letterhead, brochure, signage and website, etc. the copyright holder can sue you for statutory damage for each, or $750,000. Here is a list of damages and profits of copyright infringement.

If you use a copyrighted work without permission and your usage is not exempt under copyright law, you are infringing upon the copyright holder’s rights. The copyright holder can sue you for actual damages or loss of profits. The copyright holder may also seek statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringement. See Section 504 for additional detail.

Copyright law is not limited to just United States Citizens. In an effort to address international use concerns as the world wide web expanded.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 signed by President Clinton addressed this issue by implementing two 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties: the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

Depending on if you are citing an entire website or citing a specific article or page within a website following are the MLA (Modern Language Association) Style standards to follow for proper citations:

· If you can’t find all of the information, cite what you can find in the recommended order for each.
· In these examples we have provided them as single spaced; you should double space citations in your list.
· For more information on MLA citation styles, refer to the handbook and the website.

To cite an entire website that you have referenced in your work :

Title of Database. Date of electronic
publication or latest update. Name of
sponsoring institution or
organization. Date the information
is retrieved <URL

Example:  Connection Graphics Web and Design Tips. July, 2011. Connection Graphics. August, 2011, www.connectiongraphics.com

To cite a webpage, cite a blog or cite an online journal article use the following format:

Author. “Article Title.” Journal Title
vol.issue (Year): pages.
Date retrieved information
<URL>.

Example: Sweet, Connie. 10 Baby Steps for Small Business to  Grow in Social Media.
Web and Design Tips, 17 (2012) 1. Retrieved August 25, 2011, from <http://www.connectiongraphics.com/tip-17.html>

Be original! We are ALL connected.

Pung Foundation logo created for mid-Michigan based concrete construction and renovation service company.

Phones have been ringing, emails are flowing in, social media posts are crammed with new business start ups ready to make a difference. New entrepreneurs are emerging with products and services that can change the world – or at least their communities and bank books. Ahhh, the passion of entrepreneurs!

I love when new start ups come to Connection Graphics for a graphic design or marketing consultation. I know when they start here they are serious about their approach and their image. I get to see their eyes light up, hear their story, and feel their drive. New business start ups come to us with a lot of questions, hope and dreams and often very limited budgets. It is our job to understand their goals, their philosophy, their market, their budget, service or product, and provide guidance to them that will assist their business launch without breaking the bank.

McNaughton and Gunn is a 50+ year old book printer headquartered in Michigan

One of the first recommendations I make to business owners is to start with a professional logo. So many software programs and websites out there have stock art that people can place on a business card, throw a phone number and website next to and convince themselves they are the next Apple or HP. Online printers spout 250 free business cards, free icons, free templates. What cash crunched start up can resist’, FREE graphic design, FREE business cards?

We have all been to a networking event where we come back to the office and have two or more identical design business cards or two cards with the same logo or clip art. image. The designs and logos are the same the only difference is the names on them – one is a massage therapist, one is a florist, and another is a dog groomer. One was a contractor who specialized in tile installation, the other does windows. Now which one was the it that I wanted to refer to my mother? None of them. Why? Because they are not unique, they do not stand out from the crowd and chances are that is the way they will run their business. These owners did not take their business or craft seriously enough to invest in their image  – they decided their business was only worth a free set of business cards.

Logo created for WISE, a Michigan based organization comprised of second stage women owned businesses.

So when I have a start up company call or email and say they understand the importance of presenting themselves professionally but don’t know where to start, my question is not, ‘What is your budget?’, my question is, “When can we set up a time to meet?” I love an entrepreneur, I am one, I know small businesses make a difference in their communities and can change the world. I want to help the good ones to succeed.

Stay connected!

Join us on Facebook.com/connectiongraphics

I have a previous blog post covering merging pages also which directs you to the Facebook help page entitled Converting your profile page into a page but it didn’t make it as simple as it can be. Below, I will walk you through merging your Facebook pages and to clearly answer the question: ‘How do I convert a personal profile to a business page in Facebook step by step.’

Words of caution: 

All of the people on your page, plus your profile pic, will be converted into your page but no other content on the old page will be moved over. Remember to save any important information prior to migrating the page. You can download a file that contains all your messages, photos and videos that you have uploaded to Facebook here. If you don’t mind losing previous posts there is no need to go through the download step.

• Step one: Be logged in as the personal profile you want to change with your original email address and password you set up. BE CAREFUL!!! Do not log in as your real person profile (the one you use every day)!
• Step 2: Go to Facebook Profile to Business Page Migration page.
• Step 3: Choose which category your business page is (Company, brand, place, etc.)
• Step 4: Agree to Facebook Page Terms
• Step 5: Choose the page you want to connect to, add content, name the page, etc.

You should now have a complete professional Facebook Business Page for your company instead of a profile page. Please contact us if you need more assistance.

If you need help merging two Facebook business pages or if you have a business page and then suddenly a Places Page has emerged with your same business name and address, Facebook help now allows you to easily merge these pages too. Currently, the Facebook page with the most likes will become the main page, the Facebook Business page with the least amount of fans will merge into the first and then it will disappear. Let me know if you need help with this one!

Stay connected!

Bella-Grande, Charlotte MI

The Small Business Administration (SBA) and credit card company, American Express has been instrumental in creating a groundswell in support of shopping small. Small Business Saturday has become a movement we can all embrace. We are all familiar with the chaos and spending associated with the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Black Friday. Many celebrate the special deals and excitement that is generated each year. This season we can also feel good about our choices when we head out on Saturday, November 26, 2011 to our local shops to find those coveted items we can feel extra special about giving this year.

Small Business Saturday honors those local shops who work hard and give back to their communities throughout the year. So many Lansing and Charlotte local shops come to mind who carry innovative items. Lambs Gate Antiques, with shops in Grand Ledge and Oldtown Lansing carries one-of-a-kind retro collectibles and antiques, Bella’s and Bella Grande shops in Charlotte offer tasteful, quality clothing for small and curvy divas for resale, the Yarn Garden in Charlotte has an amazing variety of yarns for those who are talented enough to make gifts for the holidays! Charlotte’s Silver and Gold Barn has exquisite custom jewelry, Tea & VIntage Treasures boutique is one of those sweet shops you only find in unique shopping districts, quality gift items, loose teas and herbs to light your senses on fire – you are sure to find some spice and beauty here.

When you are all done or need some sustenance between shops stop into Fay’s Evelyn Bay Coffee Shop for a warm beverage and light meal or treat. If you show a receipt from a local merchant shop you will receive 20% off your purchase!

Want to Shop Small in your community but don’t know what shops to go to? Enter your zip code on this page and  get a list of local shops in your area.For more information visit the Facebook page and to join in the twitter fun use #smallbizsat.

Find special deals and support your community. When dollars are spent locally, they can be re-spent locally, raising the economic activity, increasing employment, and building the local tax base. For every $100 dollars you spend with a small business in your city, $73 stays is in your community. Your $100 spent non-local business only $43 stays in the community. Gain more insight on these studies through reports from Capital LocalFirst.

Have fun! Remember to shop small and that I love beautiful, artsy things.. call me for my sizes. Happy Thanksgiving!

Stay connected!

While luxuriating in the recent issue an article by Rick Poynor resonated with my thoughts on the evolution of graphic design.  Although graphic designers have been creating since the 1930s, I remember a mere decade ago having to explain to people what my job was as a graphic designer. While working in the corporate climate my designations were visual communication director, publication specialist, marketing director — under all guises, my tasks in each position were virtually the same – a rose by any other name…

Today graphic design is a burgeoning industry. Everywhere you look, in every media, throughout the world, viewers are influenced by strategic and creative graphic design solutions. From website design, to packaging, print literature, billboards and video, graphic design is in the heart of all brand development and marketing communications.

Our customers and the current work force have steadily raised the bar of expectations of graphic design. In this digital world a graphic designer can’t just excel in logo design, they must have a strong grasp of website design and digital design solutions.  A designer has always been a problem solver and visual magician and now we must also be product developers, typesetters, coders and more. The beauty is, we can and we are. Successful graphic designers welcome the challenge, we know the generations will be even more discerning in their product and service choices because they have been raised on design since day one. Customers will continue to challenge our ability to balance creative visuals with clear messages that hit the mark.

Some may say this evolutions of the industry requires a new name, that graphic design is now an outmoded term. More artistic expression, interdisciplinary skills and reasoning may justify this change but I am one graphic designer who is grateful for the new discerning and savvy clientele. I especially appreciate not having to explain what I really do for a living anymore.

What a great way to live! We would have infinite love and gratitude from hundreds of clients – because once those magic beans are planted for one customer the word will spread and we’d have a full crop of growing companies under our care. What company doesn’t want instant growth through their marketing efforts?

As graphic designers and brand marketers we combine our love of the visual with the experiential and psychological aspects of a brand. As much excitement as a new logo or website design can instill, the often time consuming press releases, consumer research,  blog submissions, and database development required to build a strong foundation for awareness of the brand is like watching a seed take root in the dark. This phase is boring to customers who are only interested in seeing increased sales results.

Sometimes, to our horror, while we are developing roots and studying patterns, some clients will ask us to dig up the seed, maybe try new soil, or plant an entirely new seed to see if it will grow faster. This of course only results in losing ground and burning more daylight. Some marketing companies actually shovel in more fertilizer which appears to increase the yield faster but it doesn’t reap the sweet fruit that buyers return to again and again and tell all their family and friends about.

So for those customers who haven’t allowed time to prepare the soil before seeding and  still expect a bountiful harvest in the first season, the most practical solution I can think of is finding these magic marketing beans. We could celebrate Thanksgiving everyday and bask in the cornucopia of satisfied customers. My bet is though that these magic marketing beans other marketing firms are pushing are loss leaders for them and their top sales product is really the bull fertilizer that’s packaged with them.

Stay connected,

www.connectiongraphics.com