Archive for BrandingReactions To The Silverback Apparel LogoPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet
I have always wanted to know the general public reaction to the Silverback Apparel logo. In person general reactions have been overwhelmingly positive but what does the online crow have to say. A month and a half has gone by now since I chose the Silverback Apparel logo after a competition between 32 designers and earlier this week I found the answer to this question. Writing Emails and Messages: Become Better At Grabing Your Reader’s AttentionPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet Writing To Get Your Readers Attention: Key Points
Important information in writing attention grabbing emails and posts. Spending time developing an email’s subject line and body is vital in getting your message across. If you are like me and get 30 or more emails per day you probably just quickly skimmed over emails unless something grabs your attention. I only make an exception if I am specifically expecting an email, if not I will generally read less than 20% of an email. Another problem is when I receive an email with a one word subject line such as “Hey” or “Hi” I will generally only refer to it once and then usually never visit it again. The reason is because when an email’s subject line is very descriptive of its content I immediately qualify the content either as desirable or not depending on whether I’m currently seeking information on what the subject describes. In a world where humans are getting increasingly efficient at filtering information, if the subject line describing the email is not clear and concise we automatically tune it out as irrelevant. The reason I bring this up is because I was reading the July/August issue of Fast Company and on page 46 I came across an article called “Email Is Dead…”. In one of the case studies this article sites the author talks about how Capital One over the last 3 years has put its employees through workshops in order to “reduce email strain by writing better messages”. What they have found is that by writing “stronger subject lines” a recipient knows why they are receiving an email and in the future it makes it easier to refer back to emails. The little blurb about Capital One further expands on clarity by saying that a sculpted email body helps the reader scan through the main body of the message. I believe that it is vital that companies teach their employees proper email etiquette and that doing so will save the company money and resources in the long run. Doing so will reduce redundancy in email communications and decrease employee stress. Also it should assist the clients in retrieving information efficiently and give them a reason to read entire emails if they pertain to something that they currently need to address. I am reminded of a couple years ago when I sent an email to my university advisor with a weak subject line, and in response she replied: “Remember to send e-mails with identifying headings to get a fast response. That’s how I file them”. Clarity in the Subject line is not the only thing that you should worry about, because if the body is not easily scannable then your readers will end up ignoring the content and your message. What is important as my as one of my friends and associates stated last week is to make the nuggets of valuable information easily found and make your text easily scannable. Doing so will guarantee that readers will end up drilling more deeply into content and retrieve more value from your writings. The final thing I have to say is that the introductory sentence of your body need to captivate your audience and grab its attention right away. You have very little time to peak the readers interest before they tune out. So make sure that the first sentence is your strongest and most captivating, because if it isn’t then you are not giving your reader a reason to keep reading. Marketing and Traffic Driving With FacebookPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet
I have been thinking for a while about the many ways in which I would like to utilize Facebook for marketing and driving traffic to my websites. Driving traffic to this blog is not as big a priority as it is to my Corporate site (silverbackapparel.com) once it is fully operational. So far the two notable options in terms of marketing have to do with the groups and the applications features. I know that with a little effort and with the help of some expertise I should be able to drive a decent amount of traffic to my site. Through Facebook alone I have driven in the last 3 weeks 451 unique individuals (as of yesterday) to my blog solely by posting blog notes on my profile. This shows the potential that Facebook has in driving traffic and I’ll definitely be one of those people doing what he can to pawn his cheap goods. The reason I am mentioning this is because a friend of mine has just emailed me an interesting blog post about just this from John Chow’s blog (a blog I regularly read). He talks about exactly how much potential traffic and revenue a 1,000,000 member group in Facebook can bring. Siverback Apparel’s New Logo OfficialPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet
Well it is official! Silverback Apparel now has an official logo. I decided after the design competition that I would run a split test to see which logo would perform the best and here we have it. This logo did 21% better than the other logos in CTR, although they were all very similar with reference to conversion rate. This is the logo that I personally felt was the best and most pleasing to the eye and I am happy to see that my target market agreed with my tastes. A lot of people who I asked to chose among the variations chose very differently (much like the Silverback name), but I am not going to appease their poor judgment and lack of taste when my target has made it obvious they liked this version the best. Now that the logo has been decided on I can now move on to brand development and start designing my marketing campaigns. I would like to thank Joao Franco (the creative genius behind the logo) for all the hard work and effort he has put into the development of Silverback Apparel’s brand new logo. If you are ever in need of a designer, I strongly suggest you consider Joao due to his devotion to professionalism and creative flair. His portfolio can be found at either Deviantart.com or Coroflot.com under either his own name or his user name (Arpad). Note: The Silverback name will become very clear once I release the first 3 variations of my product and you’ll discover the amazing and unique features that earn the name. Selling Fundamentals: Know and Understand Your Product and Your ConsumerPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet
The Quick and Painless Guide To SellingThe common myth about selling is that selling is difficult. Most people believe this and think that to be successful you need to be an actor change your personality. This is absolutely false and the kinds of people who do are horrible sales people who come across as sleazy, self-serving and fake. The best way to sell is to act naturally as if you were talking to a friend and telling him about the benefits of something that you have. To be successful as a salesperson you need to take on an advisory role and lead your customers through the process of understanding the benefits your product will bring them (needs based selling). Make sure that your role as an expert and adviser is credible by knowing everything about your product and industry and by being honest. Sincerity is vital in being highly successful (discussed in “The Problem With Outsourcing“) therefore it is important that you believe in your product and in most of its features. If your product is mediocre and has no real redeeming qualities compared to your competition’s you are better off cutting your losses and dumping the product before your reputation is tarnished forever. It is hugely important to take a tailored approach to selling and to adopt the mentality that every customer’s needs are different. A scripted approach will only lead to your customer either feeling alienated or annoyed by your sales pitch. What is vital at the beginning of every sales pitch is a Q&A with your customer to find out more about them and to see whether your product can indeed help them out. If it cannot then don’t waist too much time on seeking an impulse purchase, but rather focus this time on qualified buyers who are going to benefit from what you are selling. Once you have enough information about your client from the Q&A, you want to move to your tailored sales pitch that will lead to his understanding of the benefit he will specifically get from your product. A lot of sales people when they sell tend to not gather enough information about who they are selling to and will often promote product features that the consumer is completely uninterested in. This leads to either consumer impatience (sales pitch too mundane) or consumer intimidation (sales pitch too technical) which means the client will walk. The last important step is to ask for the close. Never expect that the client will tell you that he wants X amount of what you are selling. You have to ask the client directly how much he may want so that the sales pitch can move further down the funnel. If you know the amount that will maximize their utility then take the role as an advisor and suggest the amount they should buy and back it up with your reasoning. Note: If you get a rejection when you ask for the close do not walk or run away from your pitch and the time you have invested in you consumer’s education. Instead quickly re-evaluate your consumer and your approach and then start from a different approach. It is important to note that if you have gotten far enough into your pitch that you have asked for the close, it means that you customer is genuinely interested and contemplating the purchase of your product. It is up to you to find out what the barriers to that close are and to address those as quickly as possible. You’ll know if there is a lack of interest in your product if you get a rejection soon after you start your pitch. If manage to get to asking for the close though sometimes you will receive several rejections from your client before you finally succeed in closing them. Make Sure You Know the Answers to the QuestionsPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet
A fundamental necessity in selling yourself, your ideas, your products, or your services is to have answers to all the questions that the recipient of your sales pitch might ask. Especially obvious question!!! Last night I was solicited by a local politician named Kate Holloway of the Ontario Liberals who is running in the upcoming election in my riding (Trinity—Spadina). When I heard the knock on my door the first person to greet me was a gentleman whose job it is to cordially break the ice with the tenants. He is charged with the duty of informing the tenants of the upcoming elections and to keep them engaged in conversation until the time that Mrs. Holloway is done answering the previous tenant’s questions and arrives to engage the new tenant. So last night when the gentleman arrived at my door he quickly answered my question about the ideological stance of the Ontario liberal party (unfortunately unlike British Columbia’s Liberals they are left of center) and my other questions pertaining to the elections. Shortly after Mrs Holloway arrived and asked if I have any questions for her, and I responded by asking what the party’s political platform was. Starting from the moment she opened her mouth to answer, everything she said worked to her disadvantage. She immediate when straight into a scripted response opening with, “Well we are going to be opening up new daycare facilities…” (Wrong answer)! In my mind as soon as she said this I thought to myself, in what way have I given her the impression that I even remotely care about day care spending (At the present time I neither have a wife or kids). She then went on and on and on about various unbudgeted social programs…”$130M of new street cars, $670M for subway expansion, $620M for Highways…$200M there…$1B there…$3.6B there…” The image I had in my mind while she was telling me this was little 18 year old Kate Holloway at the mall with a brand new credit card. “I am sorry”, I responded after a while, “but what are you going to do for business…”? Her reaction to my question completely caught me by surprise. She was completely dumbfounded, at a loss for words, and kept repeating “ah” and “um”. The gentleman with her interjected to give her the time to think, and brought the question completely off topic and into an illogical loop. Finally about a minute and a half later she proceeded to give me an answer about how a few years ago their party (still currently in power) fixed the price of renewable energy alternatives to remove price fluctuations. I felt like telling that price fixing actually hurts the overall business environment but instead I just thanked her for her time and wished her good luck. Now the reason I brought this up is that she made many fundamental mistakes while selling herself to me that led to me not trusting her with my tax dollars. They include not qualifying me through a quick question and answer period (Q&A) to giving me a scripted pitch, to not knowing the details of her service, to not asking for the close. In my next post I have put together a guide that will address all of these fundamental mistakes. I talked a bit to her campaign manager in the elevator about 20 minutes later and told him that they have a lot of work to do. Well at least they now know what they have to work on for the debate. A Must for Most MarketersPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet These 3 videos (at the bottom) explain exactly why Google is so amazing at marketing and what Microsoft need to learn. These are by Eben Pagan, founder of Double Your Dating and getaltitude.com. I suggest you watch all 3 of these videos because they contain a lot of free valuable information. I have made a few notes that follow the key points if you don’t have the time to spend 25 minutes watching them.
Video 1 of 3 Silverback Apparel Sitepoint.com Competition Termination and SuccessPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet
The week long competition for my companies logo and stationary design has just finished and I have to say that the results were far better than I had ever expected they would be. During this 9 day competition, I received 108 design submission, of which 25% were in the quality range that I was looking for. I did receive several submissions that were completely ridiculous, but all in all, I had great designers working in my best interest. I have to say that I gained more than just a great logo and stationary design, I also acquired several design contacts that are going to be willing to work with me in the future whatever I may need. There is something that I notice throughout the competition with reference to the quality and direction of the designer’s work with reference to why one designer in particular easily won. Arpad, the designer above all the other designers listened and asked questions about what I wanted. He was very professional, and I noticed that above all the other designers he was more attentive to and spend more time envisioning what I was looking for. I found that many designers were not trying to put themselves into my shoes and therefor submitted many pieces of work that were completely in the wrong direction. What I want to let anyone planning to create a competition and designers know is that success is in the details. What I mean is that the design brief is the most important thing that the contest holder has to work on, and designers focus on. Too many times did tell the designers, “this is not what I’m looking for, read the brief”. This brief should have created the foundation for every design submitted, but it failed to be so with every designer except with 5. Now come the fun part… I have about 5 designs that I am intending on testing out on my consumers, and what better way to do this than through a good old fashion split test. In the same way I picked my company name, I will pick my logo. I know that whatever logo I do finally end up with will be the best because it will have been chosen through unbiased empirical evidence. I am going to be using Google Analytics, Google Adwords, and probably Shopify to determine the consumers response to my new logo designs and how well they convert into a sale. I am looking forward to the results and I will keep you all posted. Sitepoint Competition Update: 22 of 87 ain’t bad!!!Posted by: Jonathan Ouellet My competition has been running for almost 6 full days and I have to say that I am overwhelmed by the response from the design community. I have about 22 good submissions out of 87, which is astounding. I have been communicating with every designer (through comments and private messages) who has been producing good results in order to steer their designs towards what I want. The designers are very receptive to all my comments and have been very forward about asking me to clarify my objectives. One thing that I have notice in going through other competitions, as well as the public and private comments the designers have left me is that there is definitely a right and wrong way of running one of these competitions. First off for your sake you want to be as clear and descriptive as possible when you are writing up the title of your competition. You want to give people clear reason to click on your post over that of others and I will insure that they know what its about before they get into the nitty gritty details. The evidence is in the clicks…All the surrounding posts except for a few other well written ones have about half the number of click and submissions. The second is that it is important to summarize the project clearly in the sub description so that designers know what to expect. The third and most important in terms of getting exactly what you want is to have a clear, outlined and precise project brief. From the comment that the designers have made, they were pleased with the bit of extra time that I put into the brief. This has also helped me in the sense that I know what I want and if a designer is not giving me what I want I can just refer him to the brief The great thing about competition: Sitepoint.comPosted by: Jonathan Ouellet A day and a half after posting my logo design competition I already have 38 logo submissions. Now I’ll agree that there are a lot of poorly designed submission, but what is important is that there are several promising ideas. Sitepoint lets you critic all the submissions, which in turn allows the designer to progress towards a perfect logo. I am amazed at how powerful the internet is in bringing together talent from around the world to work on a project. What I also love is that not only is this a much more affordable to achieve something great than directly working with a professional, you are also working with many professionals competing at no cost for their time. You only pay for the final design you choose to declare the winner, and you get to choose how much you are willing to offer. By the end of the competition (Sunday, 26th of August) I expect that I will have an array of amazing designs to choose from. |
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