http://www.design-logix.co.uk/blog/blog-entry en andrew@design-logix.co.uk Copyright 2008 2008-12-02T13:32:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/when_to_send_your_email_marketing_campaign/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/when_to_send_your_email_marketing_campaign/#When:13:32:00Z Once you have your email campaign ready and raring to go, there’s only one more thing to do….. Decide when to send it. Email Campaign’s can see better results: • On certain days • At certain times • In certain seasons It does, as always, depend on your target audience but there are some trends to the above. Once you have your email campaign ready and raring to go, there’s only one more thing to do….. Decide when to send it. Email Campaign’s can see better results: • On certain days • At certain times • In certain seasons It does, as always, depend on your target audience but there are some trends to the above. What Day? Generally speaking Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days for B2B email campaigns as the recipients are over that Monday feeling and in full stride of their work. However for B2C it is Fridays and the weekends that see the best results as this is when consumers are thought to be most active online. What Time? There are few times of day that are considered to increase the effectiveness of B2B campaigns: 9 am – Usually the first thing people do when they get into work is check their email so therefore they are more likely to see and open yours. 2 pm – Feeling fresh after lunch people generally check for correspondence or reply to emails. 4 pm – People tend to check their emails again before they leave for work so this is a good time to catch them. The best time to send a B2C campaign is in the evening and is usually around 9 pm for when people log on to do their internet browsing. Season? Season’s matter, promotional campaigns for retail can be particularly effective at Christmas compared to other times of the year obviously this is because there is more demand but it means the demand comes your way. B2B generally slow down at Christmas but with the correct email campaign it does not have too. The above trends may help in improving your email marketing campaign effectiveness but remember who your target audience is; if they are not likely to follow the trends above then these times probably won’t be as effective. Another factor to consider is when is the recipient most likely to respond to your emails as this will no doubt improve the effectiveness of your campaign not only in open rates but in return too. 2008-12-02T13:32:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/free_christmas_email_marketing_template/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/free_christmas_email_marketing_template/#When:12:21:00Z Merry Christmas Everyone, As its Christmas, the season of giving, we thought that we would give you all a free Christmas email template to download and use for your email marketing campaigns. If you want to download it follow this link. http://www.design-logix.co.uk/email-marketing/special-offers We hope you like it and have a merry merry Christmas. With a Ho Ho Ho and regards, The Design Logix Team. Merry Christmas Everyone, As its Christmas, the season of giving, we thought that we would give you all a free Christmas email template to download and use for your email marketing campaigns. If you want to download it follow this link. http://www.design-logix.co.uk/email-marketing/special-offers We hope you like it and have a merry merry Christmas. With a Ho Ho Ho and regards, The Design Logix Team. 2008-11-28T12:21:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/email_marketing_versus_direct_mail/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/email_marketing_versus_direct_mail/#When:13:02:00Z It’s true that a multi channel approach is often the best way to market your services or products. However there are definite advantages in using email marketing over direct mailing. It’s true that a multi channel approach is often the best way to market your services or products. However there are definite advantages in using email marketing over direct mailing. Here are some that I thought of: Email Marketing is much much cheaper than Direct Mailing. o Cost of 500 letters sent first class estimated £140. o Cost of 500 targeted emails £5.99. Email marketing has a shorter delivery time to direct mail. o First class direct mail 1-2 days. o Email marketing delivery time is a matter of minutes. With email marketing it is easier to monitor and measure. o With direct mail you have know idea if your letter has reached the correct destination, person or whose opened it until or if someone calls you. o A good email marketing system provides full tracking and data capture giving you bounce rates, open rates and click throughs to your website. This means you can follow up any interested recipients. So if you ever had to decide which channel to choose to deliver your message which one would it be? 2008-11-21T13:02:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/avoiding_spam_filters/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/avoiding_spam_filters/#When:12:46:00Z Due to the freedom and simplicity of emailing, high levels of spammers have caused legitimate emails to get blocked. So what could be an amazing profit bound email campaign can be stopped in its tracks and potential sales lost.  Due to the freedom and simplicity of emailing, high levels of spammers have caused legitimate emails to get blocked. So what could be an amazing profit bound email campaign can be stopped in its tracks and potential sales lost.  For this reason we have decided to give a few simple tips and tactics on wording, to reduce the number of emails from your campaign that end up blocked or junked. Certain words can be tagged by spam filters, the higher the density of these words in your email the more likely it is to get blocked. Such words as seen below are all counted as high profile spam words.: o Free o Virus o Sex Your email marketing system should have a spam word checker which will highlight and give you a spam rating for your email. The lower the better. By using this technique to avoid spam filters, open rates can dramatically increase and with them the effectiveness of your campaign. 2008-11-21T12:46:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/outlook_2007_and_email_marketing/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/outlook_2007_and_email_marketing/#When:12:12:00Z Outlook 2007. Most businesses use it every day as part of their communication with clients and the outside world but its effect on email marketing campaigns has been significant. Microsoft’s aim of ignoring web standards and making html almost a foreign language has meant HTML email design is even harder work. Outlook 2007. Most businesses use it every day as part of their communication with clients and the outside world but its effect on email marketing campaigns has been significant. Microsoft’s aim of ignoring web standards and making html almost a foreign language has meant HTML email design is even harder work. So when creating an HTML email template which is cross browser compatible in all email clients including the infamous Outlook 2007, what do you need to be aware of? Well below is a list of some of the key elements that Outlook fails to read, which means you can’t use those elements for template creation: • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: background-attachment • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: background-image • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: background-position • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: background-repeat • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: clip • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: display • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: height • Outlook 2007 doesn’t show the CSS style: position • Outlook 2007 doesn’t support background urls in HTML tags • Outlook 2007 doesn’t support background urls in css • Outlook 2007 doesn’t support background urls in tables, td tags or other html elements • Outlook 2007 doesn’t support alt tags for images 2008-11-21T12:12:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/using_photoshop_to_create_an_online_brand_image_for_your_clients_business/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/using_photoshop_to_create_an_online_brand_image_for_your_clients_business/#When:09:51:00Z One of the things that set big businesses apart from the smaller businesses is brand image. If you were to see the Apple logo on a computer or the AT&T logo on a phone you would know without a doubt who made it. This tutorial will go over how to make a custom logo allowing you the primary basis to build a brand image for any business. One of the things that set big businesses apart from the smaller businesses is brand image. If you were to see the Apple logo on a computer or the AT&T logo on a phone you would know without a doubt who made it. This tutorial will go over how to make a custom logo allowing you the primary basis to build a brand image for any business. 1. First lets look at a couple of well known logos to analyze the things they have in common. Look at the logos below from some internationally recognized companies, notice that they are very simple, often with only a few colors. One of the important things for a logo is that it is still recognizable in black and white or grayscale. Often they are simply a custom font without an image at all. 2. So let’s start with a couple of different fonts for our business name. We want to focus on clarity and size. However don’t underestimate the effect of tilting one letter or replacing it with a small relevant image. If one word is more important in the business name (for example global in global shipping) think about making it slightly larger or an emphasized font instead of plain. 3. After you have a couple of different base options you can decide on colors. Try colors in the same family such as light and dark blue or complimentary colors (dig out that color wheel) such as purple and green to help emphasize words and make it clear they are separate. 4. Now we can look into adding an image. This should be done as a vector using the pen tool or multiple shapes (which are vectors as well). We will use a vector in case we need to change the size so that we don’t lose clarity and have to redraw it. Try the image in a couple places, for example to the left or right of the words, in between two words, in the place of a letter to imitate the word (for instance a tree instead of the letter “t”). 5. After we have selected the logo we are most happy with we will stylize it to make it more Web 2.0. Start by double clicking the text layer in the layer palette and apply the following blending options which should result in the image below. 6. Create a new layer above your text layer. With the new layer selected press Ctrl and click on the text layer which will select the layer’s transparency as shown in the image below. 7. Select white as the background color and press Ctrl + backspace to fill the new layer with white. Then use the rectangular marquee tool to select the lower half and hit delete. 8. Then adjust the opacity of the new layer to 20-30% You will have the following end result. 9. You can make the effect a bit more subtle by applying a gradient instead of just plain white so long as the transition is rather quick. 10. Don’t be afraid to try new things and being creative so long as it’s still obvious what the business is. Having a couple of different logos to present unless the business has provided you with a specific sketch is a good idea. 2008-11-21T09:51:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/designing_for_mobile_interfaces/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/designing_for_mobile_interfaces/#When:13:11:00Z Designing for mobile interfaces can be difficult due to the following: 1) The vast number of mobile devices 2) A broad range of browsers 3) Input / output limits 4) Lack of guidelines and resources 5) A lack of standards Designing for mobile interfaces can be difficult due to the following: 1) The vast number of mobile devices 2) A broad range of browsers 3) Input / output limits 4) Lack of guidelines and resources 5) A lack of standards The common problem for mobile internet browsers is the website loading time, and navigation difficulties. This and the fact that the mobile equivalent of a computer mouse is a finger means that it is difficult to design the navigation or links without someone complaining that the links are either too big or too small. This hang-up makes it difficult to determine which font size to make the links in a way that will please everyone. Although it can be difficult to design a website for mobile devices it is important to cater to the mobile internet browsers needs. Mobile devices are an important part of society as people use it for work and leisure. Mobile interfaces are attached to quite a few devices, such as the I-Phone, PlayStation Portable and of course, cell phones. While these devices rise in popularity so does the demand for mobile-compatible web designs. Mobile web design is up and coming in the web design industry. People are either looking for developers who can make their existing website, ‘mobile compatible’ or creating a copy of the website to be used exclusively by mobile interface browsers. Web designers who are looking to increase their client base are encouraged to take the time to learn how to design for mobile interfaces. The market is rapidly expanding and with the rise in popularity of online browsing such as the media attention with the launch of the i-phone means this market is key for web designers. Mobile web designs are fast becoming the future as shown by the fact that there are three times as many mobile phones as PC’s. Some of your options for making your web designs mobile-accessible are to: 1) Use raw HTML with no styling 2) Use media “handheld” style sheets 3) ‘Mobile structure’ – Developing where your images, content and codes are specifically designed for mobile users. The advantages of just using raw HTML are that it is readily viewable by various mobile devices, usually loads pretty fast and due to the slow pick up of many mobile browsers to stylesheets are viewable to everyone. The disadvantages of using raw HTML is that the file sizes can still be pretty high, and scrolling problems occur due to lots of content. A media “handheld” style sheet has the benefit that, the web developer will only have to deal with one additional style sheet, and make sure it is consistent with the Device Independence principles. However a major problem with this is that CSS support is very inconsistent in different mobile interfaces. The last option mentioned is to restructure the websites images, code, and content specifically for mobile users. Basically creating a ‘mobile-specific website’. Why do this? With this option it means the files are smaller, thus cutting down the users bandwidth expenses. Further, this method will address how content is accessed and then what it looks like. The disadvantages of this option is the fact that the web developer will have to maintain and update two sets of files- desktop and mobile. Generally, alternate web addresses are likely to be required and this method is also inconsistent with the Device Independence principles. Before deciding which method to go with it is important to consider the user goals, business goals, development resources, and the size of the website or application. Web Design and Development 2008-11-17T13:11:00+00:00 http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/how_to_maximise_the_potential_of_your_website/ http://www.design-logix.co.uk/index.php/blog/how_to_maximise_the_potential_of_your_website/#When:13:39:00Z A website should be more than just a gimmick; it should be an integral part of your business and, as such, should be carefully considered and well thought out. Your website is potentially your biggest marketing tool, a permanent advert and a showcase of your business to millions of internet users. Make the most of it. Whether you’re setting up or simply improving your website there are numerous things to consider. Use the following questions to help yourself get a clearer picture of what you want from your site. A website should be more than just a gimmick; it should be an integral part of your business and, as such, should be carefully considered and well thought out. Your website is potentially your biggest marketing tool, a permanent advert and a showcase of your business to millions of internet users. Make the most of it. Whether you’re setting up or simply improving your website there are numerous things to consider. Use the following questions to help yourself get a clearer picture of what you want from your site. What do you want your website to do? Do you want your website just to be a showcase for your business? Do you want to be able to sell your products and services through your site? Do you want to create an online interactive community? Do you want your website to be fun or informative or both? Deciding on the functionality you do and do not want on your website is important. You need to decide what will best serve your business and what features are most applicable. There are many different solutions and features available; it’s just a case of deciding which ones suit you best. Have a look at other websites you like and see what you like about them, this can be colours, layout, features, its user-friendliness or the combination of text and image. If you have time, create a mood board and get all your requirements written down so that when you decide it’s time to create or re-design your site you can approach a design company with a clear idea of what you want from your site. How much are you willing to spend? If you’re a business just starting out or you have a tight budget, it might be tempting to go cheap on your website. Remember the importance of first impressions and with more and more people using the internet as their main source of information your website is an integral part of your business image. It’s worth investing more in the initial set up of your website; it’ll save you money in the long run. It may cost a little more but a bespoke website is custom made to your needs and will endure more successfully than a quick, cheap, generic template website. Whilst the initial outlay might be more you’ll spend less on getting it updated and maintained once the site is up and running. Of course the more sophisticated the website the higher the price but the rewards should be higher too. Think of it as an investment, it’s not just a case of getting your company on the web but ensuring your presence is what you want it to be. A poorly designed website can do more harm than good but a quality website will promote your business and encourage interest and custom. How much time do you have for your website? If you have a website with features that change frequently do you have the time and expertise to make these changes yourself? Many website design companies offer maintenance solutions which means that, for a fee, they will look after and update your website for you to ensure it stays in top shape. If you do want your website maintained professionally how often do you want your site maintained? Monthly, Bi-annually, annually or as and when you feel the need arises? Alternatively if you like a bit more of a hands-on approach, Content Management solutions provide an easier way updating the information on your site yourself. Although implementing a content management solution might cost a little more initially, if you have the time to give to your website it’ll save you money in the long run. How will people find your website? Once you’ve decided what you want from your website you need to consider how you’re going to maximise the potential, and make sure that people can find your site. Firstly, advertise your site in any avenues you’re already got open to you, include the website address on any promotional material your use, stationary, business cards etc. If you’ve had your website re-designed, advertise this fact. Use every opportunity to show your new website off. You also need to make sure that people searching for your services find your website. Most people will use search engines to find websites and this means your site needs to be ‘search engine friendly.’ Even if you have a brilliantly designed site, its potential is limited if nobody can find it. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO for short) is the method for increasing your position in the search engine listings but because results can’t be 100% guaranteed SEO doesn’t have a great reputation. Talk to website design and internet marketing companies and find out exactly what you’d be getting for your money, no one can guarantee you a top position so don’t believe them if they say they can. Find a company who is clear and transparent and won’t make false promises. Alternatively if you’re more hands-on and have the time, SEO is something which you can learn yourself. A few things to Remember: Spending more now will probably save you money later Know what you want your website to do Know how you want your website to look Work out how much time you’ll have for your website Make sure you promote your site and make it easy to find in search engines Web Design and Development 2008-11-05T13:39:00+00:00