Pixelo recently had the pleasure of providing some of the promotional material for the Triple M “Mammoth Milk Brick Footy” Event. Best described as ” It’s a Mammoth Game taking the toughest bits of footy… It challenges players like no other sport. Mammoth Brick Footy is a test of endurance, of sustained energy and all-round toughness”…..and it’s played with a brick.
Promotional Cheque by Pixelo
Promotional Cheque for Triple M 'Mammoth Brick footy' Event
Promotional Goal Post Wraps
Content is King:
Your site can have all the bells and whistles in the world. Flashing lights, spinning buttons and fancy sound effects, but if the content is poor, your visitor won’t stay very long. When preparing the content of your site, take your time. Think about what your viewer will want to read. Are you an expert in your area, write about what you know and the results will speak for themselves. Employing a content writer is always a good idea, as they will litter your content with keywords, which will help you out in terms of SEO. If grammar and the gift of writing are not your strong points, outsource.
Go to the contact page if you are after a quote for copywriting.
Every page of your site needs to be planned out in detail. Write them all out, print them out, show them to workmates, take on board their comments. Visit as many sites as you can that are performing well, what have they got on theirs ? Only after several drafts should you contemplate handing over the content to the designer. Sure you can change it later, but from a cost and SEO point of view, it is better to get it right from the start.
Remember your content is more than just text. Consider what photos, pdf’s, links etc etc you want to include.
Consider your site’s structure:
How is your site going to be laid out ? How will a viewer get from page A to page X, then how easy is it to get back home ? These are all elements to consider when laying out your site. A basic flow chart will help give you a visual as to how things will end up. A flat navigation structure should be aimed for.
How many sites have you clicked on, they looked crappy, so you leave. We are a very fickle creature, and looks mean a lot to us, so it is in your best interest to make your site look as appealing as possible.
Assuming you have your branding in place across your logo and graphics, have your designer apply that theme over the site. You want your site to be consistent with branding, so colours and graphics should all be in line with your current style.
Pay attention to factors such as fonts, both style, size and colour. Not everyone’s vision maybe as good as yours, so you must allow for the various types of users that will be using your site. Try to make the experience as straight forward and intuitive as possible. Check W3 standards if you are a little unsure about how to best lay things out.
Proofreading
How does the site look in a range of browsers, or on your iPhone/iPad. Make sure you check all of this well. In terms of content, make sure you get someone to proof read it for you. Do not proofread your own stuff, by now you have read it so many times you will miss bits, so get someone else with a fresh pair of eyes to do it for you.
Do all the links work, do the images download quickly, how about forms and email links ??? Forms can be a bit of a nightmare, so make sure you test these well.
Launch Tme
Once you have done all this, you are ready to go. Get her uploaded and get the visitors in. You might want to consider employing the services of a SEO company at this stage to help you get a good ranking on the search engines.
You will want to keep an eye on how your site is doing, so some stats might be helpful. Google Analytics is the leader in this field, and it’s free, so get that hooked up. This will tell you all sorts of useful information – what pages are most viewed, who is clicking what etc etc. All pretty useful stuff.
So there you have it, a basic rundown on how to get your site up and running.
Plan it well & goodluck.
Working on a wine label recently my eyes were opened to the vast array of labels out there. I never really noticed before as I snatched a bottle off the shelf in the local bottle shop, but some are quite the little works of art.
Here are a few I found that I think really stand out. Hope you like them.
The large corporations of this world have huge annual budgets to spend on marketing. Massive amount of cash are handed over to advertising firms, designers, tv networks and radio stations all in the name of brand promotion. So how can Joe Soap ever attempt to earn a crust.
With the emergence of search engine optimization (SEO) it has become possible for smaller businesses to market themselves online for a fraction of what the large corporations pay for their promotion. A good placement on Google these days virtually guarantees an increase in profits to your company, but how do you go about getting to the top of the search engines?
There are many SEO options out there and without regurgitating what has been said a thousand times on other sites, it boils down to this.
If you can include all of these elements in your site, you are off to a very good start. The hiring of a competent, experienced SEO company can however be worth it’s weight in gold. Having dealt with several, and researched many on behalf of clients, we recommend SEOValley Australia. They offer excellent service, comprehensive reports and have a client retention rate of over 97%, pretty impressive.
For those of you interested in the fantastic sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you will have seen the evolution of the crests, badges and logos over the years. We started off with the little stick men made famous on the Gracie Humaita patches and have progressed, along with the sport, up to the type of logos shown below. As the sports popularity has exploded and BJJ entered the mainstream, we have seen more and more refined artwork being produced.
Look at the UFC for example. Who remembers UFC 1, with the graphics of the little dude with the 6 pack. Compare that to the slick graphics and showreels being produced by Zuffa now. They are marketing, as are most BJJ clubs, to the section of the market with the largest disposable income, the male 18-35 demographic, so they need to look the part.
If you know nothing about BJJ, go check it out. Here’s a few links to get you started:
BJJ in Sydney : http://www.vt1gym.com
General BJJ info: http://www.grapplearts.com/index.php
BJJ gear : http://www.budofightgear.com.au/
For the majority of small businesses, tight budgets are pretty much part and parcel of the daily grind. Marketing budgets can eat up a lot of revenue, so ideally you want to get as much bang for your buck as possible. We will have a look here at how you can cut a few dollars off your marketing spend without any loss of quality.
1) CMYK V’s Spot Printing
This is one we see again and again. Spot printing is basically printing using specified colours know as spot or pantone colours. These are a standard so that any printer can match the exact colour and your results are consistent. If for example you have a 3 colour logo, then your print job will be 3 colours and you are charged per colour. The printers make up ‘plates’ specifically for your job and often your job will be the only one on the press at that time.
CMYK printing on the other hand uses 4 colours, Cyan, Magenta, yellow and black to mix all the shades and tones you could need. Quality these days, with the high spec print presses around is virtually identical to the spot presses but there is a difference, price ! As mentioned earlier, with spot printing, your job may be the only one running; there are therefore higher costs involved for this exclusive use of the machine. With CMYK printing, your job is placed on the press with many others, all using various shades of the CMYK breakdown. As there are multiple jobs running, and many CMYK printers run 24 hours a day, your costs are lowered.
There are certain cases when spot printing is necessary, for example if a large company like Coke insists on it’s 100% perfect shade of red. This cannot be completely guaranteed with CMYK as there might be slight discrepancies, but overall it’s well worth a look. We would recommend finding yourself a good CMYK printer that is happy to send you out samples of their work. If you like, we can arrange the printing for you through our network of printers we have tried and tested over the years. Drop us a mail with the job particulars and we can rustle up a price for you.
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